November 3, 2009
This week, we're listening in on music from Madonna, Monty Python, The RZA, as well as the original artists that Rod Stewart covers on his new album.
You may be a newcomer to Rod Stewart because of his Great American Songbook series, conceiving of him as an apt interpreter of pop and classic rock, but that has really always been the case. Almost from the beginning (around 1969), his first four solo records revealed how great his taste, record collection, and music vocabulary are -- with an early version of the great Irish songwriter Ewan MacColl's "Dirty Old Town" (most of us already familiar with via The Pogues), an early version of Eddie Cochran's "Cut Across Shorty" (back in 1970 when minor '50s rock icons were not so fashionable), great reinterpretations of The Rolling Stones' (actually The Valentinos') "It's All Over Now" and "Street Fighting Man", a terrific cover of The Small Faces' (his Faces' predecessors') "My Way Of Giving", and three of his very best: "Country Comforts" (one of the top early Elton John/Bernie Taupin covers -- possibly even better than Elton's original on Tumbleweed Connection), Tim Hardin's "Reason To Believe" from Every Picture Tells A Story (actually the original A-side of "Maggie May"), and on Never A Dull Moment, his cover of Etta James' "I'd Rather Go Blind." Again, all of these were done before '50s and '60s R&B/rock rediscovery became hip. That these gems were all in the company of such stellar original compositions as "You Wear It Well," "Every Picture Tells A Story," and "Maggie May" make it all the more remarkable.
October 26, 2009
This week, we're listening in on music from The Cramps, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Thalía, Tito El Bambino, Gloria Estefan, Mika, and Michael Bublé.
Where we were extolling the many virtues of this new album "The Boy Who Knew Too Much" we took a shot at describing Mika's sound by referencing Queen, George Michael, Elton John, and ABBA, but we weren't being precise enough. Each of these artists has lengthy careers and the accompanying artistic growth that comes with the territory. So we'll be more specific.
When we mention Queen, we're talking about the early glitter-era Queen (the first four albums) that brought you "Killer Queen" (as opposed to the arena rock Queen of "We Will Rock You").We'll use our George Michael reference as an excuse to talk up the virtues of Wham!, unfairly denigrated as another teen bubblegum band (and what's wrong with that, by the way?) and call attention to their follow-up to "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go": the mid-sized (but mostly forgotten) hit "Freedom," the best song that Holland-Dozier-Holland never wrote that the Four Tops never recorded. Our Elton John reference is meant to point you to his first rush of mass popularity when he was also flirtatious with glitter ala "Bennie And The Jets". Finally, our ABBA reference shouldn't imply the Euro-disco of "Dancing Queen" or the chipper "Take A Chance On Me" but instead point you to their early rock-inspired sides like "Waterloo" or, more specifically, their first single, "Ring Ring."
Put them all together and you have the sound of Mika's first two albums. Well, not exactly. . . He's much more than an amalgamation of his predecessors. But this is something you need to find out for yourselves by catching his current tour in support of The Boy Who Knew Too Much, possibly the best pure/pop celebratory album of the year.
October 19, 2009
This week, we're listening in on music from Blaxploitation films, the Yacht Rock genre, Toby Keith, and Gustafer Yellowgold.
If your eyes started rolling when we referred to Steely Dan as one of the "roots of punk" artists -- in context of the our yacht rock discussion this week of all things-- you're not alone. It was only after hearing an appreciation of their early/mid-'70s work from people as diverse as Elvis Costello and Steve Wynn (of college rock staple The Dream Syndicate) that many of the knowing fans started to feel validated. Not convinced? Still focused on Steely Dan's jazz licks and smooth harmonies that come first and foremost to mind? Start by taking a look at the lyrics to "Kid Charlemagne", a cynical, unforgiving take on a '60s drug dealer who's fallen on hard times. The song itself works as a pretty savage dismissal of the '60s counterculture (or at least the more naive parts of it), which is an underlying theme in most of the early formative punk sides from the late '70s. Then there's "Black Friday", sung from the point of view of a ruined investor sharing his survival-of-the-fittest strategy after being caught in a mid-19th century stock market crash, or the title cut from The Royal Scam, a dark and disappointing story focusing on the disparity between the truth and the reality of the American immigrant experience in the late '50s. If you step away from the smooth grooves and sing-a-long choruses you'll hear that same wonderful disparity in "Black Cow", "Show Biz Kids", "Hey Nineteen", and, well, a large majority of their entire output. Really, how much more subversive can you get than hiding a bitter pill in a radio-friendly, oh-so-mellow package. But then what did you expect from a band that took their name from an object in a William Burroughs novel?
October 13, 2009
This week, we're listening in on music from Rosanne Cash, Ziggy Marley, Sonic Youth, Gary Glitter, Billy Idol, and Blur.
If you're as enamored of Rosanne Cash's new album as we are (and why wouldn't you be), we'd like to point you in the direction of the original versions. On the podcast we talked/raved about Lefty Frizzell's version of "Long Black Veil", Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash's duet on "Girl From The North Country", and Merle Haggard's "Silver Wings". We also mentioned our sadness at the passing of Mary Travers, forgetting that her "500 Miles" with Peter, Paul And Mary was yet another wisely chosen song by both Cashes. Because we don't want to leave you hanging or pass up the opportunity to expose you to more music while we've got your attention, here's our version of The List (The Original Versions):
1. "Miss The Mississippi And You" - Jimmie Rodgers
2. "Motherless Children" - Son House
3. "Sea Of Heartbreak" - Don Gibson
4. "Take These Chains From My Heart" - Ray Charles
5. "I'm Movin' On" - Hank Snow
6. "She's Got You" - Patsy Cline
7. "Heartaches By The Number" - Ray Price
8. "500 Miles" - Peter, Paul And Mary
9. "Long Black Veil" - Lefty Frizzell
10. "Silver Wings" - Merle Haggard
11. "Girl From The North Country" - Bob Dylan With Johnny Cash
12. "Bury Me Under The Weeping Willow" - The Carter Family
October 6, 2009
This week, we're listening in on music from Jefferson Airplane, Rodrigo y Gabriela, and Noisettes.
While we've got your attention for the Jefferson Airplane thanks to the Coen Brothers prominent use of "Somebody To Love" (and three other Airplane songs) used to great effect in their terrific new film "A Serious Man" let's take a break from pushing our JA Essentials and instead extol the virtues of their first album, The Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, made before Grace Slick joined the band for their acknowledged masterpiece, Surrealistic Pillow.
While original singer Signe Anderson wasn't the icon Grace was, she was every bit the singer. Signe also brought a different, almost folk-inspired quality to the band, who were just finding their psychedelic bearings at the time. Although it could be heretical, it's also arguable that Takes Off is on a par with Pillow and a minor folk-rock masterpiece in a league with classic albums by The Mamas & The Papas and The Lovin' Spoonful.
Comprising the album's core are its first single, "It's No Secret," one of Marty Balin's best vocals ever, and the gorgeous "Come Up The Years," which also shows how well the Balin/Anderson/Kantner harmonies worked from the beginning. Even more revelatory are the album's bonus tracks (usually the source of more interesting than great material) that equal and in some cases exceed the best songs on the original album -- the rock-inspired-Grace-Slick-predicting "Go To Her" and three more folk-rock gems from the long deleted Early Flight rarities set: "That's Alright," "High Flyin' Bird," and "Runnin' 'Round This World-all of it adds up to one of the best debut albums becoming one of the very best.
September 28, 2009
This week, we're listening in on music from U2, Monsters of Folk, LL Cool J, and Fame.
George Harrison was often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", and while he earned that moniker due to his subdued and low-key style, it seems to have unfairly extended to the majority of his post-Beatles solo work -- beyond a handful of hits. But that's all starting to change with the release this year of Let It Roll: Songs By George Harrison, the first comprehensive collection focused on his solo career, and Yim Yames' Tribute To EP (a spare recording of six of his favorite Harrison songs). Both releases show that there's much more to George than "My Sweet Lord", "What Is Life", and "Give Me Love"; both sets go beyond the obvious hits.
But there's even more A-level material that's not covered on either of these titles. Harrison's triple-length debut, All Things Must Pass, gave us the foreboding (but never heavy-handed) "Beware Of Darkness", arguably the centerpiece of his Concert for Bangladesh; the song's been successfully covered by artists as diverse as Concrete Blonde, Joe Coker, Eric Clapton, and Harrison's friend and sometime bandmate Leon Russell. And "Wah-Wah" now feels like a great power pop song just waiting to be rediscovered -- and remade.
His second album, Living In The Material World, showed no drop in quality, featuring the stellar "Sue Me, Sue You Blues" (one of the great anti-music industry songs) and the Spector-influenced (and produced) "Try Some Buy Some", which, not surprisingly, was also recorded by Ronnie Spector. And that's just from the first two albums! Two of his later albums Cloud Nine("Got My Mind Set On You" ) and Thirty Three And 1/3 ("This Song") are well worth checking out and both demonstrate some of his best work in came well in the 80s.
September 22, 2009
AOL's Spinner.com, recently posted a list called "Back To School Songs: A Classroom Survival Guide in 20 Tracks" featuring such selections as The Beach Boys' "Be True To Your School" and Twisted Sisters' "Be Chrool To Your Scuel" alongside tunes by a diverse group of artists consisting of the Ramones, Nada Surf, and Rufus Wainwright, among others. The list is also interesting because the number of songs that express excitement over being back in school is definitely less than the number of songs despondent about it!
Also mentioned on the Spinner list is "School Days" by The Runaways, which is worth noting for several reasons -- first, because it's a great record and connects more directly to the high school experience than many of the other songs on the list (makes sense since all four Runaways had just barely reached graduation age); second, because The Runaways are the subject of an upcoming feature film due out next year starring Twilight's Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning; and third, because they were the first all-female rock group to make any kind of real impression in the predominantly male-dominated market. Formed in the pre-punk nascent Hollywood club scene of the mid-'70s, The Runaways never got credit for being one of the first punk bands, even though they stood beside the Blondies, Ramones, and Damneds of the world, not to mention gave us a very young Joan Jett, and -- in addition to "School Days" -- some of the best glitter-meets-punk songs of the era, especially "I Love Playing With Fire" and "Cherry Bomb." Treated at times like novelty, they have slowly been gaining the respect they deserved in the first place. While you're waiting for the media onslaught that will surely accompany the band's biopic, check out their Best Of.
September 14, 2009
This week, we're listening in on music from the Fox TV show Glee, Brendan Benson, Danny Elfman, and the songs that celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month.
We casually mention the term power pop in referencing our Genius Pick of the Week, which combines an old and a new track by Brendan Benson: "Cold Hands (Warm Heart)" (off of 2005's The Alternative To Love) and "Eyes On The Horizon" (off of this year's My Old, Familiar Friend). Probably best known as partner to Jack White in the Raconteurs, Benson's the one who supplies the catchier pop confections to White's harder blues riffs, who also has four solo albums to call his own.
To us power pop is best defined as a mixture of the melodic elements of the early Beatles and mid-period Beach Boys, combined with some of the aggression heard in early records by the Who, Kinks, Small Faces, and some of the catchier punk records by the likes of the Ramones, the Buzzcocks, and the Jam. Though the term is now tossed around with casual abandon, it was birthed by critics in the early '70s in reference to the first great power pop band, the Raspberries. Fronted by Eric Carmen of "All By Myself" fame, the Raspberries were groomed (by of all people, Capitol Records) to be the next Beatles -- a full seven years before the Knack would surface (on the same label). This was during a time when hit music from the previous decade seemed to lack any credibility. And in response a small band of critics, mostly falling outside the Rolling Stone/FM underground, who were suspicious (if not outright contemptuous) of the Woodstock counterculture, took up the cause of the Raspberries' early hits "Go All The Way," "Tonight," "Ecstasy," and their near-Spectorian masterpiece, "Overnight Sensation," as a shot at rock's first great renaissance.
Some other great practitioners of power pop are the now-revered Big Star (almost in league with the Velvet Underground for great cult band status), Nick Lowe, early Cheap Trick, Marshall Crenshaw (who added a healthy dose of late '50s and early '60s role models like Dion and Buddy Holly), the Smithereens, and Fountains Of Wayne (probably the most recent example and well worth a listen beyond "Stacy's Mom").
For a quick tour of how durable this format is, check out our Power Pop Essentials and let the songs absorb into your catchy-tune-ready bloodstream like so many simple sugar-y treats.
September 8, 2009
This week, we're listening in on music from Oasis, Jay-Z, John Fogerty, and The Black Crowes
While we're contemplating the breakup of Oasis and America missing out on the whole Brit pop movement, consider a radical question that might be almost as outrageous as the whole Oasis as the next Beatles thing: Blur, as good or better than Oasis?
A quick sampling of our Blur Essentials, namely "Song 2" and "She's So High," will help newcomers with an easy answer, but value seekers might want to spring for Midlife: A Beginner's Guide To Blur, a single-album-priced 31-song retrospective that makes the case for them being ignored by us an even greater sin of omission than us missing the Jam in the '70s. If you're hooked or even intrigued, we'd love to make a pitch for two more of the country's more melodic practitioners from vaguely the same era by pushing greatest hits compilations by bands that didn't have any (not here in the U.S. at least): Supergrass' Supergrass Is 10 and Pulp's Hits, which will give you a taste of what we passed on in favor of louder, more groove-oriented sounds and image-oriented pleasers in the '90s.
Let's try and make it up to them retroactively, shall we?
August 31, 2009
This week, we're listening in on music from Bonnie Raitt, Rosie Flores, PJ Harvey, Bon Jovi, Rod Stewart, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Muse, and Mastodon
Ellie Greenwich wrote songs for teenagers with an extreme sense of
fantasy and wish fulfillment that characterized the best of the Brill
Building recordings. "Chapel Of Love" may be the ultimate wedding song,
if only because it's written from the point of view of someone who's
sure that she's marrying the love of her life and that nothing will
ever go wrong. "Be My Baby", the definitive Phil Spector "Wall of Sound"
record, has even more of a wish fulfillment approach. And still more dramatic
is "River Deep Mountain High" and unsuccessfully (commercially but
not artistically) revive the career of Ike and Tina Turner using the
lyrical device of extreme expression juxtaposed against childhood memories and desires.
If this outpouring of good feelings is too much for you then check out the other side of her songwriting, specifically the mini-dramas she wrote with then-husband Jeff Barry for the Shangri-Las. "Leader Of The Pack," "Give Us Your Blessings," and "Out In The
Streets" (found on a terrific 20th Century Masters Collection)
all tell tales of tragedy, alienation, and regret and show off a dark
side that one wouldn't think possible in the early 1960s.
