Two of my favorite people, ever, are the host of From the Top and the guy who arranges Radiohead songs for concert piano*.
I'm embarrassed that it took me until today to learn that they're the same person.
(KDFC played his version of "No Surprises" during the Island of Sanity, and the DJ mentioned that he also hosts From the Top.)
*- Longtime readers may know (if I ever bothered to post this, and I assume I did) that long before I knew it had already (essentially) been done, I aspired to play all of OK Computer on piano, having already learned "Airbag" through "Karma Police" by ear. (My version of (e.g.) "Exit Music for a Film" is much more faithful to the original, but therefore much less interesting.)
1. Stand near someone who's just booted up a Mac. Then play the opening of "Live and Let Die" (the Guns N' Roses cover, not the original). Am I crazy to hear a resemblance? (It's an honest question because I don't have the latter clip handy as I type this.)
2. We all know the monologue from the bridge of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," right? ("You better start sniffin' your own rank subjugation [...] lucky if you could get out of life alive") But what's the phone number they dial right before that? My ears want to say 323-5568 but I probably have a couple of digits off. If you get really bored you should test it with a clip of the song and a touch-tone phone.
Slate does it today (actually yesterday); Guterman and O'Donnell did it 18 years ago.
[I don't think you'll find it in the Amazon link but if I recall correctly, they ranked Billy Joel as the all-time worst artist, edging out Phil Collins. By contrast, Blender didn't even put him in their bottom 50.]
I think the music of Billy Joel, and the contempt it invites (not to be confused with the contempt it exudes, which is Rosenbaum's point in Slate), is a good example of something analogous to the uncanny valley.
He tries to make good music: He not only attempts well-structured compositions but also takes a stab at emotional depth. On both counts he gets most of the way there (hey, music theory buffs, did you know that "Allentown" is ii-V-I over and over and over again? - have you ever had someone hit you over the head with this factoid, the way the song itself hits one over the head with that repeated progression?) but only just far enough to create something horrifying.
At least two of the radio stations I listen to are saturation-promoting ticket giveaways for an upcoming Fleetwood Mac concert. This reminds me of the worst thing, by far, about the days up to and including the first Clinton inauguration. (I can't write about the inauguration itself because I skipped it - 2009 is the first time I've paid attention to one.) If you want to be thankful for small favors, aren't you glad Obama just has a three-word slogan rather than co-opting an entire song, especially one so mediocre?
For that matter, am I wrong to find the most rabid Obama supporters significantly less annoying today than the most rabid Clinton supporters were 16 years ago? The former are more ubiquitous because social networking web sites didn't exist then (the web as we know it didn't) but they're... there. Maybe I'd feel differently were I a freshman in college right now rather than a 1992-93 freshman.
On the other hand, in hindsight most of the 1992-93 criticisms of Clinton apparatchiks (the low-level officials, not the followers) were just silly: OMFG, they're young and they wear jeans and they work late at night*! Not all of the worst Baby Boomer sentiment came from Democrats. Which leads us to George Stephanopoulos, who has become a superb talking head. He was my most pleasant surprise from among the media coverage; by contrast the nastiest was Katie Couric, who exhibits astonishing hackery. I never expected Dan Rather's replacement to represent a step down.
*- ON FURTHER REVIEW, doing my best to relive the memories, the real problem people had wasn't the youth and the jeans and the late-night work sessions but rather the glowing media profiles that treated those things as virtue in themselves. Every fundamentally awful thing described in this post can be blamed on a particular set of bad journalists (even/especially the Fleetwood Mac song).
How to handle an extramarital affair; how not to handle an extramarital affair.
(Anything other than ending it with class probably involves one or both of the married party stringing the lover along or the lover being delusional about whether the married party would actually ever get a divorce over this.)
I don't think this can be topped.
(Think twice before clicking if you're Jewish, Eurotechnophobic, or both. Why was I so certain this was on the Schindler's List soundtrack? On further review, it's not.)
If ever there were a piece of music that should not be accompanied by "Holland, make some noise!" (1:07 mark)
Enur Feat. Natasja
You've heard the song a million times but if you knew the title or artist you were (until very recently) a step ahead of me.
I had this on as background music, and then for some reason I actually looked at the video.
While we're here, I should watch/listen to this once a year. It's a nice tribute; it holds up well and isn't not over-the-top.
Many of you saw it live; I didn't because the holders of the remote control opted for a special presentation of Fear Factor. (How were we to know the quality of what we'd miss?)
Songs that didn't make this Onion AV Club list include, in no particular order:
1. Guns N' Roses, "November Rain"
2. Exposé, "Seasons Change"
3. Richard Marx, "Endless Summer Nights"
4. Billy Joel, "This is the Time"
5. Simon n' Garfunkel, "Hazy Shade of Winter"
I have a feeling some particular AV Club writers are at least 5-10 years younger than me. (Yes, I could have dated my adolescence with this entire list if I'd happened to choose the Bangles cover for #5.)
My cow orker is listening to a mashup mix, wherein one particular part sums up the '70s quite nicely with just a two-song combo.
Georges Bizet - L'Arlesienne Suite #1
Earlier this afternoon:
Richard Wagner - Tannhauser: Overture
(Victor Borge has a fantastic take on Tannhauser.)
Our household loves Leonard Cohen. But we learned from the documentary that we can sort of do without Nick Cave, and can definitely do without either of the Wainwrights, especially when Rufus tries to cover songs whose lyrics he doesn't actually know by heart.
Cohen is wonderfully understated, something his homage-givers can't quite capture.
(To be devil's advocate about even Cohen how hard would it be to write a Leonard Cohen song lyric generator? We can even make it an exercise for the reader. You don't have to implement it: Just some pseudocode and a list of your seed strings would suffice.)
Is it a bit suspicious that two of John McCain's supposed 10 favorite songs are ABBA songs, just when Mama Mia! is big in theaters?
The top-10 list I would release to Blender, were I a presidential candidate:
1. AC/DC - "For Those About to Rock"
2. Rush - "The Camera Eye"
3. Van Halen - "Jump"
4. Lynyrd Skynyrd - "Freebird"
5. Metallica - "For Whom the Bell Tolls"
6. U2 - "Bad"
7. Ozzy Osbourne - "Flying High Again"
8. Bon Jovi - "Lay Your Hands on Me"
9. Guns N' Roses - "Paradise City"
10. Frank Sinatra - "Summer Wind"
Fountains (of Wayne, NJ).
(It would have been funny to see the band acknowledged on the page, but I'll gladly settle for their being wise enough not to launch a dopey trademark infringement suit.)
To commemorate the news, I'm now 7 minutes and 30 seconds into this.
Going into the bottom of the 10th (11th?) inning Sunday the A's PA system played "Welcome to the Jungle."
Incoming college freshmen were not born yet when "Welcome to the Jungle" became a hit.
(They were also not yet born when Ronald Reagan left the White House. So not even Reagan babies: They're post-Reagan babies!)
Dear Sports Facility PA System Operators,
These AC/DC songs are vastly overplayed (not necessarily a complete list, and in no particular order):
"T.N.T."
"You Shook Me All Night Long"
"Back in Black"
"Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"
These AC/DC songs are vastly underplayed (not necessarily a complete list, and in no particular order):
"For Those About to Rock"
"It's A Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)"
"Thunderstruck"
(Yes, the 5th through 7th Google hits for that phrase are blogs; the other three of the top 10 are of course black-market lyric sites.)
Bay Area radio stations played these songs at the same time 15 minutes ago:
Cake - "Going the Distance"
Love & Rockets - "So Alive"
AC/DC - "It's A Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock N' Roll)"
Half-empty: Wish they'd spaced them out a little more, only caught the tail end of the latter two. Half-full: Great choices!
This weekend we walked around the Park Street Fair in Alameda. One of the booths was a wooden sign marker: "Signs Made in 10 Minutes or Less" was their tag line, as carved into one of their own signs. I was sorely tempted to order a "Signs Made in 9 Minutes or Less" sign just to see if it freaked them out.
This comment may misidentify Pavel Kubina's team (as I saw later in the thread) but the video is if anything even better than the soccer goal that inspired the original Deadspin post.
(Title of my own entry refers to the notes on the goal horn. It's an augmented A-flat chord. I think if I heard all 30(?) NHL goal horns I could identify most or all of the pitches within the chords. A gift and a curse, as Mr. Monk would say.)
Our voice mail system at work is Outlook compatible, and through a happy idiosyncrasy of sort order and incomplete metadata, every time I play a message the immediately following track is from the scherzo of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. (You know the riff: radio shows have used it as bumper music all the time, usually leading into news of the day.)
Every voice mail message is significantly improved if you think of that theme as the closing of the message itself.
Dear Sesame Street,
Please make this happen, if it hasn't already:
"A-B-C-D-E-F-G, H-I-J-K-L-M-N and O!"
"A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H, I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q!"
Greg is probably right: Nothing in this series will measure up to Tarzan Boy.
That said, if dancing Rick Astley needs a mate with a flexible neck, you know where to send him.
Inaugurating a new series, inspired by this article. When someone sent that out at work, I took a stab at finding ten Rickroll successor candidates in two minutes. It was pretty hit or miss.
So the ground rules:
1. Whatever I link to has to have received actual radio airplay (or TV, but it must be a song, or pose as such).
2. I promise it won't be "OK Go" or any existing stupid meme, nor anything NSFW.
Without further ado, here we go.
Part 2 might be tomorrow if I remember to link something.
This Don Williams song and this Kylie Minogue song are completely different musical genres, yet strikingly similar lyric structure.
(Thanks Maribeth, for reminding me of the former. Wow, I hadn't heard that song in decades.)
While we're here (the Kylie Minogue part), what's the Australian counterpart to For Better or For Worse? Of course I don't mean a comic strip, necessarily, just anything that ubiquitous and long-lived (yet oddly pernicious) that has wound up inadvertently representing a nation.
(The other day I saw the YouTube video of Andrew Bogut high-fiving himself, then read about Peter Moylan's injury. It was Oz convergence.)
"Kernkraft 400" is a song by Zombie Nation, not vice versa. (Per Wikipedia, Many people believe the band to be named "Kernkraft 400" and the song to be "Zombie Nation". I had been one of those people.)
This music video makes it out to be an anti-consumer screed. Don't tell all those sports fans (especially both the 2002 Giants and 2002 Angels: the first thousand times I heard this song were by way of either or both venues of that World Series).
Dear YouTube (and/or Universal Music Group),
The "Related Videos" on this page obviously are related; however, the "More From: universalmusicgroup" videos really don't belong in the same discussion.
blink-182 ?!
(And when I type "remix" I just mean "play them all at once, adjust the volume and hope for the best.")
A dash of Len
A twist of Mr. Mister (Live!)
And just a touch of White Zombie
Thanks, Onion AV Club "Videocracy."
Which version do you like better? this one, or this one?
Curse you, Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Not sure how/when this started but now every time I think of Clinton(s) I think of "The Rascal King."
...and it's not even noon yet.
KFOG's 10@10 (for the year 1986) followed up "Manhattan Project" with the Run DMC Feat. Aerosmith version of "Walk this Way."
Then in honor of the 35th anniversary of Dark Side of the Moon I listened to a bunch of Dub on YouTube. And finally as inspired by Cooch, the full-length version of Brass Bonanza.
Go Whalers! I never really knew you, and I'm not sure if I'd ever heard Brass Bonanza before, but as team songs go I highly approve.
I did not know until this morning that Rush (the Canadian prog band, not the talk show guy) had a song about the Manhattan Project.
It would be tempting to claim that this is the most interesting song that I previously didn't know existed; however, I'm sure there are a lot more incredibly good songs about whose existence I'm still ignorant.
May I form a Rush tribute band and do eight-minute songs about mundane tasks like making a peanut butter sandwich?
"RED STRAWBERRY RIVER, FLOWING ON THE BREAD!"
Who do you want answering the phone? KLF!
Start this one first, then this one a second later. Keep replaying the latter as necessary.
Thoughts?
They seem to be the biggest thing in Austin.
(Typed from memory. Pretend we're at open mic night and I take the stage, speaking rather than singing. I firmly believe this is one of the 20 best songs of all-time. 100% serious.)
Girl you're looking fine tonight, and every guy has got you in his sight (EXCEPT ME!*). Whatcha doing with a clown like me? That's surely one of life's little mysteries.
[Chorus]
So tonight I'll ask the stars above: How did I ever win your love? What did I do, what did I say, to turn your angel eyes my way?
I'm the guy who never learned to dance, never even got one second glance. Across the crowded room was close enough; I could look(*) but I could never touch... [chorus]
Don't anybody wake me, if it's just a dream, cuz she's the best thing ever happened to me. All you fellows, you can look all your life, but this girl you see(*) she's leaving here with me tonight.
There's just one more thing I need to know: If this is love why does it scare me so? Must be something only you can see (well I sure can't*), but I can feel it when you look at me.
[chorus]
*- too soon? I honestly didn't realize he was blind until reading his obituary.
UPDATE: From three co-workers' worth of workplace e-mail banter:
"I never knew Jeff Healey was blind until now."
"Then you clearly have never watched Roadhouse (at least not closely enough)"
"The irony of that statement is not lost on me."
This is astonishingly on the mark, aside from my never having heard of #10 before. (I was going to take issue with #5 until I played the video and matched the title to the song.)
Flipping through radio stations this morning I happened across "Rock Your Body."
Despite what people remember now, the most offensive element of the Super Bowl 38 broadcast had nothing to do with the halftime show (I swear I was watching the most notorious moment, yet it even didn't register with me, nor anyone else at that SB party, that anything out of the ordinary had happened); rather, it was arguably the farting horse from a beer commercial.
Since the of course the half-time shows have been sanitized. Have the ads also gotten cleaner? My general impression is yes. What were the most offensive elements (if any) of the 2008 ads? I wish there had been less gratuitous yelling, but that's a personal problem. Really, the only things that stand out are the over-the-top racist caricatures from sales tool ads, plus maybe the crotch smacking inflicted on (ironically) Justin Timberlake.
Sneezing fire is even a rough analogue to farting fire, though distinctly less pushing-it.
(Oh yeah, just thought of this: 38 was also the year of the Brazilian Wax beer ad. The guy thought he was getting free beer, but didn't see the sign on the door and instead [...] "Yeow." This is significantly less appropriate for family viewing than a mammary gland with a pasty on it, if only because you know every seven-year-old watching asked the same question ("What's a Brazilian wax?").)
I couldn't sit through this prank. Are these things supposed to be funny? Am I crazy to be almost violently offended that the world actually enjoys stuff like this? I couldn't care less about violence or pornography, but so help me, this particular genre (everything from wacky morning DJ phone calls to whatever MTV fills its time with these days) is singlehandedly what's bringing down our civilization. There's no good way to convey how serious I am about this.
Oh, and ambient music from Windows.
You know Gogol Bordello from Everything is Illuminated.
Google Bordello is already in use as a blog name.
Who or what told White Lion they could besmirch their legacy (further?) with a lame half-time reprisal of "Wait," on the third disc of the More '80s Hair Metal compilation?
"Wait" is actually a magnificent song, great for aspiring guitar players to learn. It has no business being a studio-watered-down phone-in job.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer set The Great Gate of Kiev to the words "Come forth from love's spire, born in life's fire [etc.]." Bah. Prog-rock at its most over-the-top.
The phrase "Pictures at an Exhibition" fits the main melody of that movement just fine.
In any case the EL&P recording demonstrably lasts at least seven minutes longer than it should.
P.S. For informational purposes only (to be published only in the event of a win). Tough luck if you pre-ordered it.
Come for the classic Genesis, stay for the 1,300+ mostly political comments.
When I want to discuss the issues of the day, the first place I turn is YouTube with its well-informed, sophisticated pundits (the commenters and the Kige Ramsey types in front of the camera).
UPDATE: Oh hey, somebody took the Disturbed cover and made a video mashup with it. Oops, no, that was the Disturbed video. It just looks like a YouTube mashup.
Is it philistine of me not to worship the ground (ha!) Pavement walks on?
Too many vocal tics (especially in "Cut Your Hair"), not enough vocal talent. As compositions the songs are good enough.
Is this an acquired taste I should work harder to acquire?
There are more hit songs than hit song titles, partly because there are only so many meaningful ways to string together a small number of common words.
Sometimes when two hits have the same name (but are otherwise unrelated), the lesser hit is a truly atrocious song.
"Big Girls Don't Cry" is probably the best example (hence the title of this post). If for some reason you despised the Bobby Brown song "Don't Be Cruel" then that too would qualify. (I'm indifferent to it.)
Here's another example (I didn't like the original either but goodness gracious the more recent song is bad.)
Find your own favorite example(s) of this phenomenon.
UPDATE: Through the magic of in-frame volume knobs and tabbed browsing, you can watch one and listen to the other. I think the Bush video plus Good Charlotte audio works better than the other way around. (Is that a surprising result? I can't tell.)
Mix to taste. (For best results, start the former around 0:15 or 0:20. Or just speed that one up a bit.)
And yet one of the first full albums I ever bought on iTunes (possibly the first) still has yet to make a footprint on YouTube.
Every time I'd ever heard bits of this song on the radio, for some reason I thought it was Kelly Clarkson, or if not her then some other Idol.
If Kid Rock were a girl (s)he'd be Fergie.
Update: Did this song kill Kid Rock's buzz? Did this song kill Poison's groove? Are they fundamentally the same song?
What follows is meaningless without full context/criteria, yet the way it's phrased you can get the gist/zen of it and maybe even convince yourself you don't need the full context.
Stadium Arcadium is probably about to surpass American Idiot. Not this week, but maybe next week.
1. Yes. Then again, isn't this actually the hardest of the early questions?
2. Yes. They're not even the same type of thing.
3. Yes, by color and texture.
4. Yes, unless the latter is a metaphor.
5. Not that I know of. (Who's "they"?)
6. Not that I know of.
7. Maybe. Actually it looks pretty foggy.
8. Definitely not.
9. I don't think so, but what do these mean? (By the way we watched Extras, the David Gervais vehicle, last night. It was good, but not as good as the person who recommended it thinks. But isn't that always true?)
10. Since this is a pretty long bridge, a question right back: How appalled are you by the Fred Durst / John Reznik cover?
11. Why thank you.
12. Nope, I don't really feel that way.
13. On the contrary, I keep finding myself up to different things.
14. I'd have to say no.
Matt Loves the '80s begins with the most underrated song of that decade. Think of it as a time capsule. (The pre-song part of the video is every bit as good as I'd remembered.)
The series premiere of Ugly Betty and the music video for Metallica's "One" have almost nothing in common -- except that they're things that in the past 24 hours I couldn't quite make it through.
(Getting the former out of the way: Zany fashion folk! Zanier Latinos! Kind-hearted girl caught in the middle (who apparently doesn't know what constitute work clothes). Oh, will she ever catch a break? The two main demographics for this show should get together and compare their taste in men.)
The video for "One" delayed my acquired taste for Metallica by at least five years. But despite what I'd remembered, the problem wasn't horror/gore/squickiness -- it was an outright political thing for me. I realized this when that hangdog guy with the mustache tells his son ("Dad, what is democracy?") that democracy must be when young men kill each other.
Yes, Lars, et al, that's exactly what democracy is all about. It's precisely why all these people who didn't have the good fortune to be born in one were risking their lives to get (e.g.) past the Berlin Wall.
Who needs freedom anyway? (And most of all, as we learned ten years later, heaven f'n forbid anyone try to steal Metallica's intellectual property.)
My outrage was palpable -- but not so palpable that I didn't thoroughly enjoy finding a live performance of "Master of Puppets."
Continuing the "courtesy of YouTube" theme:
I just listened to a bunch of Arcade Fire, and then sought out a particular Metallica song. Which Metallica song was it, and what's the connection?
(This is gettable as-is, right? I'll add more if nobody gets it (or nobody bothers to guess).)
How does my taste in music compare to Big Daddy Drew? Courtesy of YouTube, my take on his top ten:
1. "I'm Designer," Queens of the Stone Age
I don't think I'd heard this before. Didn't see the big deal. Bailed after 15 seconds.
2. "Reckoner," Radiohead
I have "In Rainbows" (the first disc) and heartily agree. I just listened to the whole thing via YouTube despite having it at my fingertips on iTunes at work.
3. "Misfit Love, "QOTSA
I gave it about 90 seconds (ditto the rest unless otherwise noted), didn't seem to be going anywhere. What am I missing about Queens of the Stone Age that everyone else sees?
4. "Killing the Light," Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Live version seemed fine.
5. "Teddy Picker," Arctic Monkeys
Meh.
6. "The Prayer," Bloc Party
Not bad. "Tonight make me unstoppable." Really picked up.
7. "Era Vulgaris," QOTSA
Better than the other QOTSA on this list.
8. "Come Alive," Foo Fighters
Meh.
9. "Intervention," Arcade Fire
Nice instrumentation.
10. "The Silence Between Us," Bob Mould
(Couldn't find on YouTube.)
I'll give him credit for pointing me to the Arcade Fire track.
I opened Spin (December 2007 issue) to a random page (p. 85) and found this paragraph:
"Touring the Verde Valley in his boxy 4x4, he takes in its expanse of farmland and vineyards and dreams of morphing it into a thriving food-and-wine community -- a future Napa Valley. [...] Even in this pastoral setting, it doesn't take much to trigger a rant about local developers pushing golf course ('What stops these people from being assassinated?') or the FDA's rules regarding wine bottle labeling ('Assholes'). But if Keenan's chi is perpetually cranked to 11, it eases every time he talks about one abiding preoccupation: his goal, in a culture he sees crushed by greed, of building a few modest and self-sustaining businesses."
What stands out more here: The petulance, or the narcissism?
If it weren't for Rage Against the Machine, Tool would be the most overrated band of the 1990s by a wide margin.
(A reminder if you don't feel like scrolling: These are all artists I'd have never heard of if it weren't for where I work. The links below all go to YouTube.)
Sweden: Kent
Lithuania: Andrius Mamontovas (warning: louder than most YouTube clips, and borderline NSFW)
Slovakia: Horkyze Slize
Winner: Slovakia. SHANGHAI COLA!
Venezuela: Guaco
Argentina: Soda Stereo
Italy: Eros Ramazzotti (singing with Anastacia in this clip)
Spain: Heroes del Silencio (found via Guatemala - got a nice hair metal sound going)
Mexico: Cafe Tacuba
Some singers/groups I know about specifically because of where I work (many of whom you can find here):
(By the way, I've meant forever to tell a story about Shockwave files, and True Type fonts that choke on the empty string -- except that I just told the whole thing (it's not much of a story).)
Japan - Mr. Children
China - Eason Chan
Pakistan - Atif Aslam
Those should get you started.
Local radio station has got some Doobie Brothers coming up for you.
If you've never listened to a station whose DJs sound like this, the effect is probably lost. But I suspect most readers have. The humor here is the pitch-perfect capturing of something so banal.
On the other hand (or, "as non sequiturs," I can't decide): Some of those "You Know You're From [X]" lists are pretty lame despite the supposed comedy verite. My friend Corwyn mocks them (or just thinks of them as self-parody) with line that goes something like "You know you live in the Tri-State area if you frequently attend concerts at The Meadowlands."
This list is fatally flawed without Barenaked Ladies' brutal takedown of Halifax.
Rhetorical or not, this question is the dumbest pull-quote I've seen on the first page of a newspaper section in weeks:
"Would Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong have had the drive to become a real rock star if he'd had the chance to simply be a virtual star in his parents' basement?"
Also, the virtual groupies will get you off in ways you can only imagine.
Is anyone else being haunted by Brad Delp from beyond the grave? Does Dennis DeYoung wish he'd thought of composing a song that namechecks Styx's greatest hits?
What if, in the fall of '94, somebody found a Kurt Cobain song built on nostalgia? ("Well we smelled like teen spirit and we came as we were...")
On the other hand I hadn't thought of "You Know You're Right" (the one where the chorus goes "HEY-aaEY-aaEY-aaEY-AY...") in years. Maybe that was almost as bad.
Still, "I grew up in the '60s. 1967 was the summer of love" is lyric gold: It sounds like a senior citizen being interviewed for a documentary, only set to music.
Spoilers (if you're not already familiar with Johnny Cash's life story)...
It was worth watching. We didn't need to have it for two months but better late than never.
"Where were you?"
"I hear angels!"
"I wish it had been you instead of your brother."
--
"I love you."
"But we only went out for one month and you're in the Air Force now."
"Marry me anyway."
--
"Shouldn't you sell things instead of playing music?"
"You can have the audition but don't play any gospel."
--
"You sing well."
"These are my wife and kids."
"I have kids too."
--
"Don't be so lazy when you get home, and don't talk to me about your tour, and [nag nag nag etc.]"
--
"Hello again!"
"How are your kids? Mine are doing well but the marriage didn't work out."
"Sing this song with me."
"But my ex-husband and I sang this song together!"
[kiss] [leaves stage] [next day]
"You're all drunk! I'm leaving the tour."
[at some point in the future they wind up in bed but regret it]
--
"Stay away from my kids!"
--
[wife #1 leaves, lots of pill popping ensues]
--
"Thank you for coming to my new house in North Carolina for Thanksgiving!"
"Son you're still worthless."
[storms out]
"June go take care of him."
--
"I'm going to give a concert at Folsom Prison."
"I disapprove but everyone watching knows you'll get your way."
--
"Marry me."
"For the thousandth time no. And stop asking."
--
"Marry me."
"But we're on stage! Just keep singing."
"Marry me."
[awkward pause]
"Marry me."
"Oh all right."
[All her misgivings about marrying him wash away as they live happily ever after, but we don't actually see that part.]
"If you say you're Italian but you don't know Lucio Battisti then you're not really Italian, you're from Jersey."
--my office roommate, who was born & raised in Verona (yes, he's a gentleman)
Balla Linda (compare to The Grass Roots cover)
Un'avventura (compare to Wilson Pickett's version)
Legend has it Battisti lost his guitar before this live TV performance and had to buy a cheap guitar at a train station.
As alluded to a week ago, every Tuesday my department gets some music appreciation going (unless the meeting is preempted, or unless it's my turn to present and the opening guitar part of Britney Fox's "Long Way to Love" augurs a descent to hair metal).
If forced to choose between an eternity of "Fergalicious" and an eternity of "The Sweet Escape": I'd go with "Fergalicious." Nothing in the former would drive me to homicide the way the repeat hook in the latter threatens to.
The official announcement went out today but the site redesign had been deployed since Wednesday. The Music Map has already gotten a BoingBoing link. If you mouse over "Music Search Tools" you can find your way to the Digital Top 10 and Elite 100.
(In a perfect world, the boilerplate text on those last two would explicitly state that the former is a weeks worth of lookups but the latter is several years' worth.)
If you feel like doing my job for me, feel free to comment (or e-mail me) about any problems with the chart data. (Or with the user interface, though in that case I'd cheerfully relay your feedback down the line.)
(The hot Japanese band right now.)
Google does a pretty good job translating their official web site.
I now believe that "One Word" (Kelly Osbourne) is to "Fade to Grey" (Visage) as "My Sweet Lord" (George Harrison) is to "He's So Fine" (The Chiffons).
I came to believe this while watching (and listening to) a presentation at work, during a section on John McGeoch.
One of the subsequent slides bore the title "Robert Smith: Pop Svengali of Doot" and had a brilliant assembly of clips to make that particular point.
It's not that I love my job so much as that I love the specific department I'm in.
Saturday I read at a high school tournament where the buzzers in my room made those high-pitched squeals. I got to hear that same sound about 200 times, but I got used to it.
Today I'm listening to Game 4 on WRKO (via archives on MLB Gameday Audio). The Rockies' PA system has played a particular snippet of "The Sweet Escape" at least twice, which is at least two more times than I can take it.
This Onion AV Club article did not include my favorite police-themed song, but at least two commenters did mention it.
Until three weeks ago, the word "Rocktober" always made me think of Led Zeppelin, not Matt Holliday. This filing should result in limited protection at best.
It's been way too long since I came across a mash-up this excellent.
There's a car commercial in heavy rotation on post-season radio that uses background music obviously meant to evoke a particular Coldplay hit without actually being that hit. I wonder whether the background music in question has an official title.
You already know how I feel about Pink Floyd, right? Not to reference-check Johnny Ramone's favorite t-shirt or anything.
Meanwhile I really, really, really, really like Radiohead. I haven't decided how much to pay for In Rainbows yet but it will be more than zero despite my already having access to the music. The new album has nearly everything loved about OK Computer, without any of what I hated about that album.
I work with someone who would donate money to induce Radiohead to stop making music, who (like me) also has a Pink Floyd rant. Another co-worker introduced me to Easystar All-Stars, an ad hoc reggae band that's paid track-for-track tribute to both Dark Side of the Moon and OK Computer.
Should the difference between my opinion of Radiohead and my opinion of Pink Floyd be the source of cognitive dissonance? Maybe not: I claim that Radiohead understand beautiful chord progressions in a way that Pink Floyd just doesn't (aside from a couple outliers like "Brain Damage").
"Cleanup urged for gunkiest creeks"
--headline in today's SF Chronicle (print edition)
Meanwhile, I work with some of the [...].
At some point Yahoo! Music revamped their subscription service so that if you "Play Top Songs" you get arbitrarily many, not just 10. We're up to #23, a version of "Xanadu" that clocks in at 12:36.
Remind me to try pot at least once before I die. If I could do my undergraduate experience over again, the three biggest changes I'd make, in order:
1. Don't cut class.
2. Go to the gym regularly.
3. Freshman year, that time in February when two roommates wanted to smoke up and offered to share with me and our other roommate, join them instead of playing Pictionary across the hall.
Fortunately, Urinetown transcends that kind of silly pigeonhole. (I don't know who first drew that connection, which I found apt for the first half hour but spurious thereafter, but it's specifically why I'd planned never to see this.)
We saw a community theater production of Urinetown last night. Very well executed. The musical itself feels like a Saturday Night Live parody of Les Miserables, with a teaspoon of what somebody who'd heard about (but never seen) South Park might falsely take to be the essence of Trey Parker & Matt Stone.
Speaking of urine, stay classy, Townie girls.
[Title just barely no longer true as of when I started typing this.]
I wish I could remember who came up with the rule of thumb that the bigger a band's geographic namesake, the harder the band sucked.
(e.g. Asia > Europe > Kansas > Chicago > Boston)
"Heat of the Moment" was one thing. "Sole Survivor," etc. But I stuck with it (by default, busy writing) through a 10-song set that included a cover of "Roundabout" and a prog monstrosity called "Wildest Dreams." I can only say WTF?
Middle of the ninth, home team down by a run. Help me understand how somebody looking around for rally music would alight on "Even Flow."
Julia wasn't even born yet. (I was just barely alive myself.) According to Yahoo! Music Jukebox one of the artists most similar to Linda Ronstadt is Seals & Crofts.
This is reasonably good music, and I was the one who actually clicked on it. If I protested too much that the Linda Ronstadt (and by extension the S&C) comes from my wife's request, you'd either vastly overstate or vastly understate my opinion of it, which is somewhere in the middle.
(continuing with the Best of Cracked theme from two posts below)
...isn't how seriously they take themselves so much as how seriously their fans take them (see comments in the link).
I wonder how long it's been since the last time I heard the live version of "Musta Got Lost" (J. Geils Band). My wife had never heard it at all.
Meanwhile, you can probably guess what song Yahoo! ranks at #1 on a list of Loverboy songs sorted by popularity. #3 is "Almost Paradise" (even though that should be attributed to Ann Wilson and Mike Reno). For a quick 10 points can you name any other Loverboy song in the top 10?
(Yes, I listen to Southern rock when I'm typing out blog posts that might come off as homophobic. Doesn't everybody?)
When Molly Hatchet sings that the "the wine and the women are free," what exactly does that mean? Are there places in {Jacksonville, Gainesville, Tallahassee} where you can just show up with a chalice and a condom and [...]?
NOTE: According to Yahoo! Music Jukebox, bands similar to Molly Hatchet include Atlanta Rhythm Section ("So Into You" et al -- I just don't see it) and Montrose. Their list of the most popular Montrose songs begins with "Rock Candy" and "Bad Motor Scooter." Montrose fans don't even need on-line music streaming: They can just listen to stations like this.
Oh, and The James Gang. You've heard "Funk #49" a million times but I bet you didn't realize that's what it was called.
You can get from this wildlife encounter to this fatal pitch in as few as three intermediary adults. (For 10 points each...)
According to Yahoo! Music Jukebox, "Similar Artists" to Crash Test Dummies include:
Spin Doctors
Soul Asylum
The Presidents of the United States of America
Toad the Wet Sprocket
Lit
Quick: without looking it up, can you name at least two songs apiece by each of those bands?
(Before signing on just now I could have named three PotUS (I actually own two of their albums on cassette!); none of Lit (will I feel stupid?); and one each of CTD, Spin Doctors, Soul Asylum, and Toad.)
This began with my craving for Crash Test Dummies' most famous song but come to think of it, I bet Julia will really enjoy Toad the Wet Sprocket.
(I meant to blog this 10 days ago, i.e. shortly after it happened, but didn't get around to it.)
The wedding reception Julia and I went to had some fantastic music. Almost none of it was trite; even the trite songs ("Love Shack", "Shout") were good enough to survive their inevitability with one exception.
The worst song on the playlist (in my opinion) was also the one song that literally cleared the dance floor. The DJ noticed this and, 20 seconds into it, moved on to the next song. For 10 points--name that shunned song!
(Hints: Up-tempo ballad love song, white male Northern Irish (I did not know that!) singer-songwriter, 1967.)
Since there's no way to comment on this post anymore (after it fell off the main page: Maribeth is right, I did once write a theme pack based on that song. I was especially proud that this included a tossup on Donna Shalala. I think I was indifferent to the song then; not sure how I developed such an intense dislike for it subsequently.
1. The years have not treated you well.
2. That dead-air delay to set up the portable keyboard was unacceptable.
3. If I remember right your hit(s) were flagrantly overrated to begin with.
Besides which The Captain wouldn't be caught dead backing up Barry Manilow.
Meh.
This ain't a band, it's a poor man's Maroon 5.
(IoH is clearly the second best of the three albums I've listened to today, light years ahead of The Best Damn Thing but behind (the still-underrated) Let Go. If future musicologists think of Avril Lavigne and Fall Out Boy in a similar pigeonhole then neither of the two can feel all that slighted.)
She dumbed herself down. (I could swear I read an album review a few weeks ago that made the exact opposite claim about the subject matter of her new songs. If so, whoever wrote that is just goofy.)
Every song is about a boy-girl-girl triangle in the style of 14-year-olds. It's almost enough to make someone sympathize with this guy.
The same artist that brought us "He was a boy, she was a girl, can I make it more obvious?" has had a new album out for awhile. Thanks to Yahoo! Music Unlimited, I can listen to it whenever I want (for the next year or so).
My favorite(?) lines from the new album, in no particular order.
"'I wish you were her.' You left out the 'e'. You left without me."
"She's, like, so whatever. You could do so much better."
"I want to put your hand in my pocket* because because you're allowed."
"I hate it when a guy doesn't get the tab and I have to pull my money out and that looks bad."
["And the other one's hailing a taxi cab"? -MLB]
Quick bonus observation: I wonder if the same people who've referred to Avril as "punk" would use that same label for (e.g.) Jimmy Eat World. They probably would.
An interesting drinking game for any given album listen would be to call out influences. Any given stretch that reminds you of some other act, shout out the name and if the people around you agree then sips all around. Doing this sitting by myself defeats the purpose but so far I've had moments of:
Gwen Stefani (duh)
Alanis Morissette
Jimmy Eat World (as mentioned above)
The Spice Girls
Kelly Clarkson
The Police suck live?!? WHO KNEW?!?
I could have saved a lot of people their money.
Question for anyone better at parsing 1960s lyrics than I am (especially if you lived through that decade):
What really happened up on Choctaw Ridge? I get the impression that the heroine may have thrown B.J. MacAllister off the Tallahatchie Bridge, but why? Or was it just a horrific accident?
Is it all basically an allegory for "if you live in Mississippi in the long run you're screwed" (also the central point of most Faulkner novels)?
...in a roundabout fashion...
(The real news here is "KFRC is back," though I first heard about this through a cryptic promo given on the A's radio broadcast.)
I'll make a bold prediction: This probably means Woody, Tony & Ravey are out at Live-105. (Would you rather listen to them or to Adam Carolla? Would CBS rather pay all three of them or syndicate Carolla? I think Free FM is dead in San Francisco -- thanks indirectly to Don Imus -- as it would be silly of them just to change frequencies.)
UPDATE: Or rather, Free FM just moves to AM. I guess people weren't giving enough free podcasts to the old version of 1550 AM.
"Rock-based music": Is that more like pasteurized process cheese spread, or pasteurized process cheese food?
I used to think I didn't but now the evidence is unclear.
The only musicals I distinctly remember disliking are Annie and Damn Yankees. But somewhere along the line I got the impression... well, at the very least I'm not nearly as enamored of Busby Berkeley numbers as some people seem to be.
I thought I would actively despise the Disney movie High School Musical, yet I loved it. I thought I would at best find Dreamgirls moderately entertaining, yet I was completely captivated by it. (Oddly my wife -- who has directed a bit of musical theater -- found the songs in Dreamgirls too long and thus the movie too long. I completely disagreed.)
Oh, and I completely enjoy all the Family Guy references to musicals.
NP: Bullet Boys
That is all.
(Wrigley Field aside nobody in baseball plays Friday day games. Fridays and Tuesdays both have this morning void.)
(No, not Tom Shimura.)
Searches on Yahoo! Music now return lyrics. Go look for your favorite song as I hope and pray nothing is messed up.
On my neck, as always (though I must admit that sometimes when it isn't there, I find your song there instead).
Thank you for your continued concern, and indeed I will not let the walls cave in on me.
If I'm not mistaken, Creedence Clearwater Revival already asked that same question.
Are you just following up for lack of a satisfying answer?
This is from an iTunes mix I have at work. I presume you're all familiar with the shuffle meme.
1. 1000 Homo DJs - "Hey Asshole!". Eight minutes of a 20-something punk impersonating a stereotypical 40-something Chicago cop. Oh, and it namechecks Erma Bombeck for no apparent reason (as part of the cop's futile attempt to refer to "that bitch that whines all the time").
2. The Pogues - "If I Should Fall From Grace of God". My freshman year in college I had a roommate who loved The Pogues. Thank goodness I met him.
3. Sarah McLachlan - "Drawn To the Rhythm".
4. Eminem - "Stan"
5. The Who - "Baba O'Riley"
6. The Rolling Stones - "Jumpin' Jack Flash"
7. The Juliana Hatfield Three - "Spin the Bottle" (from the earlier blog entry what assumptions might you make about the length of my playlist?)
8. Jeff Buckley - "Last Goodbye". This was Barry Zito's warm-up song until Mark Mulder was traded and Zito took over Daft Punk's "Harder Faster Stronger" from him.
9. Tears For Fears - "Shout"
10. Gretchen Wilson - "Redneck Woman"
(Oh, I still own John my address for the CD mix of his favorite female artists.)
I've had "Spin the Bottle" by The Juliana Hatfield Three stuck in my head for several days now. I can't remember the last time one song stayed there so long on end without being superseded.
As long as you can master the 5/4 time this seems like it should be easy to play by ear on the piano. Oh, and the chord change on "Five minutes in a closet with you": If I'm not mistaken it's: C#m - A - C#m - G.
Needed a break from the baseball audio. Needed someone to Dig Me Out, so to speak.
There's no ideal occasion for Sleater-Kinney. Depending on what you really want, you're probably either better off with Veruca Salt or better off with The Donnas.
(Re the former, both Nina and Louise sing better than any S-K member, though S-K's best songs are better composed. Ironically, S-K vocal stylings would be perfect for most tracks of Live Through This (C. Love).)
"Why is Nickelback covering Tori Amos?"
Well, they're not: According to Wikipedia (and confirmed elsewhere), Kroeger wrote "If Everyone Cared" himself.
I still wouldn't mind hearing Nickelback cover some Tori. They'd be surprisingly good at it.
While we're here, everyone realizes "Rockstar" owes a lot to "Life's Been Good" (Eagles), right?
Coming full circle, one way to make "If Everyone Cared" even better would be to dub in that "So how you gonna do it?" voiceover line at every pregnant pause.
That's this blog's Nickelback quota for 2007.
M.S. understands me well! (See comment on post below this one.)
I came across Alanis Morissette's "My Humps" parody via Fark last night, right before I left work, and almost posted a link here but didn't feel like spending the time.
Despite the lack of a link, that video rocked my world.
"What's bothering me... Is why the hell they care, or assume people need to know, if he's gay to enjoy his music."
--first comment on this Onion AV Club post about Mika
I understand claiming that elements of a singer's personal life are irrelevant to his music. But in the case of Mika, IT'S THE MUSIC ITSELF that... something something "Three Dollar Bill."
If you told me Mika was straight, I'd be... surprised. I'd need time to wrap my head around it. But it would be okay. And it still wouldn't change the fact that his music is over-the-top Freddie Mercury.
(Hint to the clueless: If this were really about the man rather than the music, there would have been gratuitous references to Harvey Fierstein or Nathan Lane or the like.)
(If you don't know what Holly Dolly is, trust me, you don't want to. All you need to know is that this is the next project from the people who inflicted Crazy Frog on the world.)
I'm told it's #5 in France. Don't blame me, I'm just the messenger. It's probably not too late for us to spend summer 2007 hiding in a bunker until this too shall pass.
(When I was in high school, a trip to Germany was enough to spare me the summer of M.C. Hammer and Jeffrey Dahmer.)
On my way to work this morning I heard both "Irreplaceable" (Beyonce: the 'to the left, to the left' song) and "Brand New Lover" (Dead Or Alive, circa 1987) on different stations.
What is your favorite "I dump you" song? (Note the obvious distinction between this and a typical breakup song.)
At my discretion, "Hit the Road Jack" does fit the category even though it's Ray's backup singers dumping him in the chorus and Ray begging not to be dumped in the verses.
Julia and I have both taken to the same play list that I had created ad hoc for a Purm party. Going alphabetically by artist, it's hard to tell the theme until you got to some of the full albums' worth. (Also, several songs don't really fit at all other than adding to the festivity.) But on balance it's klezmerrific.
The Andrews Sisters - "Rum And Coca-Cola"
Anthony Newman - "Beethoven: Symphony No. 9: Ode to Joy"
The Bangles - "Walk Like An Egyptian" [sic: Persia != Egypt]
The Beatles - "A Hard Day's Night"
Cake - "Sheep Go To Heaven"
Chumbawamba - "Tubthumping"
David Cassidy - "I Think I Love You"
Ella Fitzgerald - "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea"
Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons - "Big Girls Don't Cry"
Gloria Gaynor - "I Will Survive"
Itzhak Perlman - "Williams: Schindler's List - Theme"
Judy Holliday, et al - "I'm Going Back" (from Bells Are Ringing)
Julie Andrews, et al - "I Could've Danced All Night" (from My Fair Lady)
The Klezmer Conservatory - all 19 tracks from Dance Me to the End of Love
Kylie Minogue - "I Believe In You"
Lena Horne - "Come on Strong"
Mandoline Orchestra - "O Sole Mio" and "Neapolitan Song"
Nicola Piovani - "Buon Giorno Principessa" (from La Vita e Bella)
Pesni Nashego Veka - "Brigantina"
Ray Coniff - "Moscow Nights"
Riccardo Muti; Philadelphia Orchestra - "Moussorgsky: Pictures At An Exhibition - The Great Gate Of Kiev"
Robert Preston, et al - "Ya Got Trouble" (from The Music Man)
Scott McKenzie - "San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)"
Shania Twain - "Man! I Feel Like A Woman!"
Smash Mouth - "I'm A Believer"
Sunny Hodge - "Hell's Bells" (from Backed In Black: An AC/DC Tribute)
Three Dog Night - "Joy To The World"
Toby Keith & Willie Nelson - "Beer For My Horses"
U2 - "City Of Blinding Lights"
The Verve - "Bittersweet Symphony"
Vince Guaraldi Trio - "Oh Good Grief"
Vladimir Visotsky - "Zhiraf" (and five other tracks)
The White Stripes - "My Doorbell"
Alla Pugacheva (name displayed in Cyrillic) - all 17 tracks from Golden Songs
I hate to say this but I've come around to appreciate "Chasing Cars" (Snow Patrol). Should have seen this coming, since the last time I had that particular form of dislike for a song, it was "Beautiful" (Christina Aguilera), which I ended up thoroughly enjoying.
(I can't say "last time I despised a song so much" because songs I violently dislike tend to be either great after all or soul-crushingly bad, and it turns out to be easy to distinguish them. The canonical current examples of soul-crushingly bad songs are "Fergalicious" and "SexyBack.")
Anyhow, one of my least favorite things about "Chasing Cars" as a composition actually works out well for it as a potential karaoke song: Just the same melodic riff over and over again. The range is less than half an octave (a perfect fourth to be exact): from the A below middle C to the D above it. But since it's so distinctive as a tune, you can actually sing it and, when you're on key, be confident that you sound great and members of the appropriate sex will swoon. In short, FANTASTIC karaoke song.
Two other songs illustrate this point by being the exact opposite: First, "Not Ready to Make Nice" needs to be banned from karaoke bars before those weird intervals kill someone. "Evergreen" used to be the quintessential 'hard' song but I think NRtMN is even worse. The only way around it is to sort of speak (instead of singing) the verses until the chorus is some semblance of easy melody.
Oh, and the aforementioned "SexyBack": Not really a one-note song so much as a zero-note song. You could stay on any pitch at all (technically it's all two notes a half-step apart but who would actually notice?) and do reasonable well, yet still sound bad because the song just isn't music. (But if you can get your drunk friend to yell out "YEAH!" every other measure, you have the production values nailed.)
By the way, I'd never seen Fergie until some picture someone posted to Fark. She is FUGLY. Now that I know that, her musical popularity baffles me even more.
...will apparently be a Coldplay song.
An internal (work) e-mail thread about this announcement somehow devolved into (of all things) Fight Club references. Well, not just "somehow": really it was my fault.
Google the name "Holly Dolly." Your top several results will be videos. Watch/listen to one as long as you can stand it.
My office mate claims that "Holly Dolly" will be the next big cultural thing. The last time he made that claim, he was basically right (Gnarls Barkley, some time last spring).
I can see the next Numa Numa guy (I suppose it already is), maybe the next Crazy Frog if someone up above hates us all.
(People who read Spin are ineligible.)
"Kids were gonna kill themselves. Then they heard our music." The speaker of that quote comes from which band? (Quote is from the February 2007 issue.)
(or, "BINGO!" - and yes, I realize that one of the two elements below would be out of range for either reference, but play along anyway)
Who would win a beef between the groups B5 and D12?
(Gnarls Barkley is an exercise for the reader.)
All is well with the world. (See the Mellon Collie post just below this.)
"Rock rock, rockaway beach..."
Between playlists and shuffles I rarely listen to full albums anymore. Revisiting an album now as I type this (and do other computer stuff):
"Thru The Eyes Of Ruby" is so underrated. They could have gotten away with making this a 16- or 17-track CD with better editing. Fully story after the jump.
1. Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. I'm surprised more double-albums don't have a mood-setting instrumental first track. I love this one. Some day I'll learn exactly how to play it on the piano instead of just sort of.
2. Tonight, Tonight. Still the best track the first disc. At some point I caused myself to be sick of this song but that was long enough ago that revisiting it is nice.
3. Jellybelly. Kind of a necessary evil, to make the transition from the sappy first two tracks to harder rocking. Otherwise doesn't bring much.
4. Zero. "Emptiness is loneliness and loneliness is cleanliness and cleanliness is godliness and god is empty..." I'm so familiar with this song that it didn't register much this time (was focused on going through e-mail).
5. Here Is No Why. Underrated track that I never think much about.
6. Bullet With Butterfly Wings. "Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage..." Why was this the second radio single off the album? That's almost as inexplicable as the first radio single (several tracks from now). [N.B. I'm probably wrong about the order of the radio singles.]
7. To Forgive. Huh. I'd misremembered this track as being on the other disc. This is the funeral-dirge tempo, lose your will to live, everything that's wrong with Mellon Collie as an album. But I'm resisting the urge to skip. "Holding back the fool again..." Blech.
8. An Ode to No One. The random garbled curse-laden rant is three minutes away and already I'm looking forward to it. Why couldn't this have been a radio single instead of (say) Zero? I suppose the fact that the coda sounds like a homeless man is part of it. Given what did make radio airplay, this is a redundant track, if fun.
9. Love. Most Smashing Pumpkins songs with that kind of guitar opening are happier, or at least less distorted. Reasonable filler track.
10. Cupid De Locke. I like it. I don't care how corny it is, I like it.
11. Galapagos. Slower and lusher. This is a reasonable facsimile of a generic non-rage-infused SP song.
12. Muzzle. Check that. THIS is the quintessential generic SP song. "It's for the girl I loved all along. Can a taste of love be so wrong?" Incidentally, there's a ad in heavy local TV/radio play urging us Bay Area people to drive Fords to some ski resort (not sure if the ad is for Ford, the resort, or both), and the background music for that ad is just different enough from whatever SP song it ripped off to avoid infringement, but just similar enough that the inspiration is obvious.
13. Porcelina of Vast Oceans. I turned the volume all the way up for the fade-in. Will I turn it back down in time to avoid scaring the cat? Nine minutes of this... hmm... So at home games, how long do Major League starting pitchers get for warm-up music before the first inning? I wonder if you could time this so that the "Ladies and gentlemen, your [team name]!" synced with the blaring guitars around the 2:13 mark.
8:55 into Porcelina it occurs to me, I could really use some Ramones as antidote.
14. Take Me Down. See above comment about Ramones. This should be a torch song. And so ends "Dawn to Dusk."
15. Where Boys Fear to Tread. Oh great, blaring distorted guitars, almost like overcompensating for the previous song. "Twilight to Starlight," we're on our way...
16. Bodies "Love is suicide..." I'd forgotten that "Twilight to Starlight" began by sounding a lot like previous SP albums. Did I mention love is suicide?
17. Thirty-Three. What a weird transition between songs. I still have sentimental attachment to this song because of a coincidence about what was getting heavy radio airplay at a given point in my life. Never noticed this before but of all songs on Mellon Collie thus far, this would easily make the best Me First cover.
18. In The Arms Of Sleep. I actually like the trilogy here even though it's three completely unlike songs. "Bodies" is like a manic delirium, then "Thirty-Three" is a rhapsodic fantasy, and then this is when you come back to reality, head on the pillow, in bed alone.
This whole album is about unrequited love, right? I'm not just projecting that? "I'll do anything to keep her here tonight." Except that she actually isn't there and never was. "Suffer my desire..."
19. 1979. What a waste of album space, much less radio play. This adds nothing to the album and adds nothing, period. I will resist temptation and not skip. But I've NEVER understood why this was the song that got SP breakthrough airplay.
20. Tales Of A Scorched Earth. Horrible song.
21. Thru The Eyes Of Ruby. On the other hand this is the most underrated track in the whole album. I love everything about "Tales Of Ruby." Best song composition on the album. (Written by Billy Corgan I presume? Or Corgan and [bandmate(s)]?)
While we're here: Is My Chemical Romance this decade's answer to the Pumpkins of Mellon Collie onward?
22. Stumbleine. Filler.
23. X.Y.U. Okay fine, I'll skip.
24. We Only Come Out At Night ...and skip again, even though this song doesn't deserve such short shrift. It didn't need to make the cut, but of the 10+ songs that didn't need to be on the album, this is one of the least unworthy.
25. Beautiful. Made it through one minute. Skipping is so empowering.
26. Lily (My One And Only). This song I actually appreciate much more in isolation than after hearing the previous 24 songs on the double-album. But now that I'm in skipping mode... made it through almost a minute.
27. By Starlight. Worthy of being on the album and worthy of not skipping. Man, I'd forgotten why I never listen to Mellon Collie the whole way through. "Dead eyes, dead eyes..."
28. Farewell And Goodnight. Sweet ending to the whole shebang. Again, this release has about 10 more tracks than it really needs but hey.
Alphabetically next (as sorted by artist) on my personalized playlist is a song by Squarepusher, from the Lost in Translation soundtrack. Then a bunch of Staind. Evaluate my taste in music accordingly.
(No more to come.)
When one speaks no Spanish, it's not a matter of hearing or mishearing a lyric so much as clinging to a syllable for dear life.
Anyhow, I think the song that piqued my interest is "Cogela Que Va Sin Jockey" (by Daddy Yankee) but I'm not certain (would need to listen to a free 30 seconds of it somewhere). All I know is the repeated reference to "candela."
The song I'm looking for begins with a sample of the same horn part heard at the start of "Jump Around" (House of Pain). Or at least some remix of it does.
The first two reflect carelessness more than mistaken assumptions, though all three are embarrassing (given where I work). Just to set the record straight:
1. Gnarls Barkley is not British.
2. Neither is Fergie. (For awhile my mental images of Fergie and Lady Sovereign were somehow of the same performer.)
3. Mika is not female, despite his best efforts.
Earlier tonight Alice* radio segued from My Chemical Romance ("Welcome to the Black Parade") to The Talking Heads ("Once in a Lifetime").
When the former came on I had the Backyardigans theme song stuck in my head. When the latter came on I still had the Backyardigans theme song stuck in my head. My Chemical Romance would do a great job covering that: Talking Heads, I'm not so sure.
I will also arrange "Welcome to the Black Parade" for piano, where by 'arrange' I really mean learn to play it by ear (the opening bars are very easy) and gradually improve my rendition of it.
Now it's time for us to have a snack!
(Alternately: Is "the savior of the broken, the beaten, and the damned" Pablo, Tyrone, or Uniqua?)
*- Despite the name, Alice is NOT a "Jack" format. That would be Max FM.
The "quiz" really isn't the point, so much as the associated snark.
"I don't know what color your eyes are baby,
but your hair is long and brown.
Your legs are strong and they're so so long and you don't come from this town.
My head is full of magic baby and I've got to share this with you.
I feel I'm on a cross again lately but it's nothing to do with you."
5. "Pride (in the Name of Love)". Honorable mention to "Red Hill Mining Town," "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," and several others. The gap between #4 and #5 is bigger than the gap between #1 and #4.
4. "Where the Streets Have No Name". Like the song at #3 on this list, the problem is as much as I love the first minute or two, the rest of the song isn't strictly necessary.
3. "Bad". "Wide awake... wide awake... wide awake, oh, I'm not sleeping... oh no. If I could, you know I would, if I could I would. So let it go..." If the lyrics brought ANYTHING to this song, and if it were half as long, it could easily be my favorite U2 song.
2. "City of Blinding Lights". Give me a few years, not only for it to grow on me but also for me to forget its use in The Devil Wears Prada. The more I listen to this, the more I realize how much this song owes to Coldplay (specifically "Clocks"). Funny, since I claim I don't even like Coldplay (but do like "Clocks").
1. "Gloria". Still the one.
It's theoretically possible that so-called "conceptual artist" Jonathan Keats recorded a live performance of 4'33" and preserved that performance as a ringtone. This would be suboptimal, since you'd always just heard the same coughs and foot shuffles and light fixtures at the same intervals, instead of hearing similar sounds spontaneously.
But it would be a great deal closer to Cage's vision than just timing an amount of "silence" and farting out a press release with the facetious claim that Cage "failed."
If you thought that the point of 4'33" was a specific duration of silence (rather than of the ambient noise resulting from a concert hall's mostly successful attempt at silence), shame on you.
Over the weekend the NY Times had a column about a format change at a NYC radio station that now rebroadcasts Mexican (not Caribbean) music from a Los Angeles station, mentioning in passing that the stream includes even the L.A. traffic reports.
Since reggaeton, salsa, bachata, and merengue are all mainly Caribbean (as much Dominican as anything else) it's a bit odd that the first Spanish-language station I added to my dial would be reggaeton rather than something that people who came from Mexico to California would listen to.
With that in mind I flipped over to La Preciosa. Language (and specific song familiarity) aside these are essentially the "oldies" that have otherwise disappeared from the Bay Area radio dial (now that KABL is no more and KFRC flipped over to that "Movin'" dance format).
For a split second I thought it was funny that Spanish speaking Mexican-Californians were doing more to preserve this era of music heritage than English speaking Gringo-Californians. Then I realized that the best way to get English language oldies and "standards" on your radio around here was just to get satellite radio, and that the Anglos who want to are spending the money to do so.
Oh, obligatory Spanish language music commentary: If "Labios Compartidos" is the song I think it is then Maná es muy Nickelbacko.
(Yes, I saw "Canadian Idiot" coming. Didn't everyone? I used to hum along to the main line of the Green Day song as "Don't wanna be a Canadian idiot" but had no sense of what the other lyrics would be.)
Anyhow, "1984": The story of Winston Smith, to the tune of (and one digit off from) a certain Bowling for Soup song.
(From Richard Mason, 10th comment in this thread).
Follow-up bonus challenge:
11. "He could have smashed through any bank in the United States, he had the strength, but he would not"
12. "Let your warm hands break right through me"
13. "I don't believe in Peter Pan, Frankenstein or Superman"
If you ever find yourself with both these questions at once:
1. "Why is Star 101.3 playing country music?"
2. "Why do I recognize her voice?"
The two questions answer each other.
*- or Boston's Mix 98, or whatever your local market's middle-of-the-road station may be.
By the way the most anal thing I've done in the past few weeks is rearrange my wife's presets so that stations we have in common are on the same buttons in either car. Our AM lineups now match completely, as do 10 of our FM's. We each have two FM stations the other one doesn't.
I see no reason why anyone would bother to take the time to do this, but name both of "my" unique stations and both of "hers." One of hers should be obvious from context; the other three probably have ridiculous male-female demographic skews.
(I don't think she actively chose "her" other station. I know I unilaterally banished KOIT from her dial for going all-Christmas several weeks too soon but we're back in that ten-month period where it's moot.)
You know the drill: Song name and artist name, don't post anything you already looked up, etc.
1. "If you go a million miles away I'll track you down."
2. "I may be disturbed, but won't you concede even heroes have the right to dream"
3. "Put anthrax on a Tampax and slap you till you can't stand."
4. "Any trick in the book now, baby, all that I can find."
5. "If I'm alive and well will you be there holding my hand?"
6. "Forget about your ex, he don't know what love is, he just failed the test."
7. "It's a struggle man but we taking it one bullet at a time."
8. "I'll hold on to the wings of the eagles, watch as we all fly away."
9. "You smell of corduroy and lemon drops, and reds pulled from a can."
10. "Gimme the electric chair for all my future crimes."
At least twice in the last 24 hours our local reggaeton station has played "Hypnotize' by Notorious B.I.G. Any ideas why this would enter a radio station's January 2007 rotation?
Biggie is a pitch role model for tenors everywhere, just like myself, Humpty Hump, Akon, and (I'm told, though have never heard first-hand) Bill Simmons.
This requires a really good ear, familiarity with recent music (of the 2000s) and probably access to a guitar or a piano. One band, two songs, chord sequences as I hear them listening to the songs in question. (I do have perfect pitch but I make no guarantees of 100% accuracy.)
("m" means minor, "#" means sharp, "b" means flat, A thru G are self-explanatory)
Post band and songs in the comments. I'd urge you not to look this up but I'd be very surprised if this were searchable anyway.
Hint(?): I'm 99% sure "Weird Al" Yankovic has never parodied this band. If he ever did, it would be immediately obvious who he was aping and I'd be deeply impressed with him on several levels. Your jaw would drop if "Weird Al" ever parodied this band successfully. It also isn't The Pussycat Dolls, though if this band ever decided to cover a PCD song various heads would explode.
I.
Em, C, Em, Eb, G, Eb, G, Cm, G
Em [several measures], C, B
Em, C, Em, Eb, G, Eb, G, Cm, G
Em [several measures], C, B
Em, C, Em, Eb, G, Eb, G, Cm, G
C, Eb, G [the titular lyrics extend over those last two chords]
C, Eb, G
Am, D, Em, C, B, Em
Am, D, Em, C, B
Em, C, Em, Eb, G, Eb, C, G
II.
(four-measure instrumental intro:)
A, C#m, A, C#m,
(vocals start here (verse):)
A, C#m, A, C#m, A, C#m, A, C#m,
F#m, C#m, F#m, C#m, F#m, C#m, E
(chorus:)
F#m, D, E, C#m,
F#m, D, E, C#m,
F#m, D, E, C#m,
F#m, D, E
[same chord sequence again for four-measure instrumental, second verse, and chorus]
D, F#m, E, F#m, Bm, C#m, D, E,
(instrumental interlude:)
F#m, D, E, C#m, F#m, D, E, C#m,
F#m, D, E, C#m,
F#m, D, E, C#m,
F#m, D, E, C#m,
F#m, D, E
A, C#m, A, C#m, A, C#m, A, C#m, A [fade out]
At one point the gold standard for radio edits came from "Creep" by Radiohead, with a line sanitized to "you're so very special."
Then there was The Slim Shady LP, in which (among other things) "killing lesbians" somehow became "in a spaceship."
It just now dawned on me that Akon only has one song named like "I Wanna [Verb] You," just clean and unclean versions with different titles.
(So help me the only time I've heard that song it was a reggaetone remix featuring Tego Calderon. I think all the best rap songs should be dubbed into Spanish by a guy who sounds like he might have just been some day laborer picked up off the street, hanging out in the studio to smoke and drink and laugh it up.)
Wolfmother, covered track for track by Veruca Salt.
Next time you hear the lyrics "I had a vision of festive days, she's like an eagle in the misted haze" just pretend it's Louise Post singing.
(N.B. There is not in fact a track called "Wolfmother" on American Thighs. That song is just "Wolf.")
(Yes, I realize that the song is about his musical genre rather than his person.)
Mass hysteria. This is techno.
My house is not my home, it rocks though.
Checked up on the late J.B.
His death is said on national T.V.
How, when and why? These are the main things
That I heard when I stroll down the lake
Now memory man, are you with that?
JAMES BROWN IS DEAD
Allyson knew "Wishing Well" (Terence Trent D'Arby) from the first measure of the opening drum riff.
I thought of that this morning when that very same drum riff gave me the shock of insufficiently precise recognition. (Insufficiently precise recognition is when you know you know something it, yet can't immediately come up with the right association.)
For a split second I convinced myself the song was about to be "Nasty Boys," which is just embarrassingly wrong.
Do you think Stephen Hawking ever gets tired of pop culture exploiting the sound of his voice box?
My least favorite track (by a wide margin) on the original OK Computer inspired my favorite track (by a slim margin) on Radiodread. Apparently the same aphorisms that are chalk on a blackboard through a voice box, become hilarious in a Jamaican accent.
Easy Star All-Stars: They're on tour now to support Radiodread. Go see them if they're near you. And then some day after the hype dies down I'll release my own track-for-track cover of OK Computer on lounge-style piano.
(You think I'm kidding, but I have a straight shot of "Airbag" through "Karma Police" almost ready for prime time. The most frivolous reason I hate "Fitter Happier" is that there's no good way to capture it as an instrumental.)
Sorted alpha by album, my personal iTunes playlist runs from Radiodread to Recurring Dream - The Best of Crowded House. The only song I have from the latter is "Don't Dream It's Over." On so many levels that turns out to be the only song that could make a smooth transition to generic music from a reggae tribute to Radiohead. It's never sounded so good.
I've never done illegal drugs in my life, yet this would be the perfect occasion to be high as a kite. (Playing with a cat must be even more fun high.)
Oh, after Recurring Dream I get Reflections: The Best of Carly Simon (CD ripped from Julia). "Coming Around Again." I know nothing stays the same, but if you're willing to play the game... so if Easy Star All-Stars are looking for new source material, I think "You're So Vain" would especially kick it reggae style.
I could only make it through about half of "Fergilicious." Tone-deaf melody, nonsense lyrics. Unless there's any Spanish in the part after I couldn't listen further, this might be the only all-English song played by La Calle.
Even "Telefono" (Hector El Father) is less annoying and more lyrically fulfilling. It's entirely in Spanish (a language I don't speak) but as far as I can tell he loves her, she loves him, her parents won't let her see him, so they have to settle for phone calls.
This rock station has a house ad with a battle-of-the-sexes theme. It uses Sarah McLachlan's "Building A Mystery" as an example of what women (and henpecked men) listen to.
I've heard that ad twice now. The most recent time it led into "Better Man" by Pearl Jam. Now there's a macho song. "She lies and says she's in love with him..." Even if it's Pearl Jam, I don't think dudes are the target audience.
(Then again, I suppose a lot of Pearl Jam songs have lyrics that skew girly. Usually the riffs balance that, except that "Better Man" sounds as though it should be part of the same station format as "Building A Mystery," aside from the obvious happy-versus-sad thing.)
Speaking of so-called Bone music, Disturbed's cover of "Land of Confusion" reminded me how great that song was. The song is so good that even the band being Disturbed can't ruin it.
(Actually it's an image's title text, since ESPN.com is just that slow to load at the moment.)
"Did Ali invent rap?"
(Hint: There is some prior art.)
My most recent: Wolverine Destroyer (it is indeed on iTunes)
Before that: Straight Outta Lynwood (also iTunes)
Next: Radiodread (if it's on iTunes -- I'll find out tonight -- and if not then I'll add it to my (severely out of date at the moment) Amazon wishlist).
There are about four good songs on Wolverine Destroyer; from memory, two of them are "Bomb Ann Arbor Now" and "(Ay, Oh,) F'k Bo." If I were a better punk listener then I'd recognize more of the original songs that the Schembechlers use as their template. I don't regret spending $9.99 (instead of 99 cents for a track), but it's close.
Along those lines (but please don't assume I'm comparing the Schembechlers to The Shaggs, as it's apples and oranges): Everyone should listen to the free 30 seconds of "My Pal Foot Foot." Once you've done that, 99 cents for the track might or might not be worthwhile; $9.99 for Philosophy of the World was money wasted, though I've certainly made worse album purchases.
My three most recent brick-and-mortar purchases:
The Lost in Translation soundtrack was completely worth it (Julia disagrees). Before that, in the same transaction, 200 km/H in the Wrong Lane and St. Anger. The t.A.t.U. album is actually the less bad of the two, but it's a very close race to the bottom.
One song in heavy rotation on Radio Disney (as of November, possibly still) is Bowling For Soup's "1985." I don't think Radio Disney's core audience is the target audience for that song.
Over the summer AOL ran a filler article with 111 arbitrarily chosen songs, then I added 17 more to make a bracket, and got through most of the first round before just getting too busy/lazy/flaky to continue. At least, "too busy/lazy/flaky" is the boring true story.
For posterity I plan to claim that Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" came out of nowhere to win by acclamation. "If I lay here... if I just lay here..."
(Remember: The only known cure for having a terrible song stuck in your head is to concentrate very hard on a Paula Abdul song. Paula will flush out the previous song but won't stick in your head either.)
Very neat resource found via the intro to this YouTube video.
Mind, I'd already been playing by ear a half-decent facsimile of all this. I can also do a passable version of Blades of Steel (and am not holding my breath for anyone to annotate that).
Watch this update of the Quincy theme song (via Mike Burger exactly one month ago).
Some day I'll do more with "The Great Gate of Kiev" than just "Piiiiiic-tures at an ex-hi-bi-shun, at an ex-hi-bi-shun..." Some day.
The world needs more Cuban-American rap. You may not know who Armando Christian Pérez is but he'll be astoundingly popular soon, as if out of nowhere.
Meanwhile, Google Language Tools translate lengua afuera a bit too literally (as "language outside").
(The following is not a test, DJ.)
Even though their music has almost nothing in common (aside from the "rap" pigeonhole), Pitbull reminds me of very early Eminem in that the songs are just that obscene.
(His songs also remind me of Poison's "Sexual Thing", again despite being a totally different genre.)
One of the greatest thing about Pitbull is that compared to him Justin Timberlake is just pathetic. Listen to a Pitbull song, then Justin "I'll let you whip me if I misbehave," then back.
Some of my favorite things about this radio station, in no particular order:
It's owned by Univision and its offiical site is on the Univision domain.
Despite knowing Spanish phonetics, I could not have correctly spelled its nickname after hearing it. ("lah KYE-uh").
The DJs speak Spanish but use English phrases about every other sentence. It's like listening to Julia talk to her parents only with a different base language.
Reggaeton is on the cusp of completely ruling the world. Before long it'll be everywhere and you'll wonder, "where did THIS come from?!" Just like rap metal 5-6 years ago.
This query was all I needed to find these lyrics. (WARNING: "Ay Chico" is as unsafe for work as text can get.) I guess this is an "unfavorite" thing, since lack of family-friendliness will limit a genre.
Oh, last but not least, I only even found this station through playing a prank on my wife involving radio pre-sets. (San Francisco does have at least six Spanish-language FM stations.)
Good career move here. Just do what it takes to sell those albums.
(For what it's worth, I've already mentioned here a long time ago how unlistenably horrendous his original hit was. I thought his heart was in the right place but my goodness, the song was just beyond crappy. So now he's marketing excrement on the flip side of the excrement he marketed before. He's like the David Brock of country music.)
You know how sometimes an old TV show won't come out on DVD because they can't go back and get the music rights? Or the show will simply be reedited to use different music (e.g. Beverly Hillbillies compilations without the famous theme song, or worse yet those butchered Northern Exposure episodes).
Meanwhile, I get songs in my head. You probably do too. Various situations around the end of 1997 (see the post a few down from here) always made me think, at the time, of "Jane Says" by Jane's Addiction. Yet when I think back to them in hindsight, from the present time of several years later, the song that most often comes to mind is "My Friends" by Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Thematically they're almost the same song; musically they're quite different. The Chili Peppers song is several orders of magnitude better. I'm annoyed at myself in hindsight that I'd pollute my brain with "Jane Says" given that it's such a repetitive, unimaginative, uncompelling composition. (The song itself is a bit imaginative because of the lyrics and instrumentation: See, not all calypso themes are happy and carefree. But melodically and harmonically... blah.)
UPDATE: The third Google hit for "Jane Says" is this reprint of an August 2001 Washington Post article. Summarizing the article: "How did a song so bad get such a good reputation?"
Every song mentioned by name in this free publicity disguised as a Reuters news release.
I saw this article, thought about blogging it, decided not to, then heard the Deathcab For Cutie song "I'll Follow You Into the Dark" on the radio. Astonishingly, that song is worse than every song in the link. (I already sort of knew this from hearing it before, yet for a song I hear very infrequently, my hatred of it grows each time I do hear it.)
Sort of on-topic but not really: Would you be offended if the PA system in Philadelphia played "Fly to the Angels" (Slaughter) at this Sunday's Cowboys-Eagles game? Would you be amused? Would you be ambivalent/indifferent mainly because the reference meant nothing to you?
Should I be worried when the original version of a song parodied by "Weird Al" Yankovic is (unintentionally) funnier than the parody?
"Damn, I done spilled my drink..."
Should I be worried when listening to "Weird Al" induces me to spend 99 cents on a rap song that I'd never heard before* and would otherwise have never thought to buy?
*- Given how massively popular it is I'm sure I've heard bits and pieces, plus the hook is familiar.
pWn3d in the song-specific parody tracks: Chamillionaire, Green Day, Usher, R. Kelly, Taylor Hicks
pWn3d in the band-specific parody tracks: The Beach Boys, Rage Against the Machine, Queen, The Walt Disney Company, Cake (especially Cake: you'd think that the Best Cake Song Ever would actually be by Cake by definition, and yet that's no longer true), and the MPAA.
According to Wikipedia, famous people born in Lynwood include Kevin Costner and NFL wide receiver Steve Smith.
KFRC was San Francisco's oldies station when I moved out here. They freshened up a bit almost exactly a year ago, but then last week they moved in a completely different direction.
I have no attachment to them at all (beyond the brain cells wasted recognizing their names and -- from a promo that regularly ran at A's home games -- their faces), but it seems odd that "Cammie and Dean" are suddenly no more. I wonder whether some other Bay Area station will pick them up.
Maybe some diehard radio geek would say KFRC really died when it sold its original frequency (610-AM) to the new Christian station. That was a fun few months when it was A's baseball four hours a day, Christian music/sermons the other 20. Hence the most recent change of Oakland A's flagship station.
Speaking of baseball teams' flagship stations, this is the end of an era.
Have I told you how much I love Wolfmother? It only gets better with each listen. I can only imagine what it would (I would?) be like if I weren't lifetime drug-free.
Ah, randomness:
1. Linkin Park - "By Myself"
Didn't feel like listening to it, so I hit next. Onto:
2. Michael Bolton - "That's What Love Is All About"
Suggest a song title that meets each of these criteria:
1. Only one artist has ever released an album that includes a song with that title.
2. Based on the title, you'd expect the song to fit a particular musical genre.
3. But neither the song itself nor the band fit that genre, nor are they attempting to spoof that genre.
For example, "You're The Only Hell Your Mama Ever Raised." (Google it.)
As inspired by a throwaway piece compiled by AOL of all people, this 128-song tournament rolls on, with pools 5 thru 8 all open for your votes if you haven't already.
I forget why I chose to host it on blogspot and not here. Might have been having connection issues with blogging here.
"Murder on the dancefloor: DJ, you'd better not kill the groom [sic]."
My company had a lyrics quiz (all '80s) at our picnic a couple weeks ago. With the results at long last tabulated, Julia and I won. I'm mildly surprised I was eligible to compete, for reasons best left as an exercise for the reader.
This was going to be a recurring feature, then I let it slip through the cracks. Remember, you can listen to a 30-second preview on iTunes without buying. Many of these you might consider buying (or not):
1. Erasure - "Can't Help Falling In Love" (Other People's Songs)
My revisionist love affair with Erasure began with "Solsbury Hill," from this same album. Mind, I never liked Peter Gabriel nearly as much as other readers are known to like him, so I get an odd Schadenfreude when songs I never respected to begin with are taken in a new direction. But "Can't Help Falling in Love" is a true classic, and Erasure's version of it brought my love of Erasure to a screeching half.
In fact take on "Can't Help Falling in Love" is almost as monstrous as their take on "True Love Ways."
But it's still light years better than how UB-40 butchered the same song, and I'm sure most of you would (incorrectly) prefer the Erasure version to the Corey Hart version.
2. William Shatner - "Common People" (Has Been)
I actually bought this one awhile back. It's as funny as any other Shatner cover but in an odd way this one actually has some quality to it.
3. Warrant - "We Will Rock You" (The Gladiator)
I'm resisting the urge to buy this one. It sounds exactly how you'd expect a Warrant cover of "We Will Rock You" to sound. That's actually pretty hilarious, just as it's hilarious that Willie Nelson's version of "Moon River" sounds exactly how you'd expect his version of "Moon River" to sound. It's still not worth 99 cents in the long run. (This is irrational but in the long run the fact that I once spent 99 cents to hear Willie Nelson sing "Moon River" keeps feeling marginally more unpleasant.)
4. The Tool Tribute String Quartet - "Stinkfist" (The String Quartet Tribute to Tool's Aenima)
You can buy this tribute to Radiohead on Amazon but not on iTunes. On iTunes you have to settle for Tool (or Fall Out Boy of all bands).
More voting opportunities await you. In theory these will run four "Days" a week.
(By the way, I don't know how Craig et al have the self-discipline to post new installments regularly. Obviously I used to given the enthusiasm for that old Simpsons thing. Maybe I've gotten old.)
Don't look now (actually do look now) but a tournament rears its ugly head.
A.Hearing on the radio a song that sounds, as no other song in the universe sounds, like music for a skanky-looking stripper to dance to?
B. Discovering at work that this was a Justin Timberlake song?
"This Is Us" (Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris)
"Promiscuous" (Nelly Furtado feat. Timbaland)
I had a very minor epiphany this morning, with two previously unconnected (and in hindsight stupid) questions answered at the same time:
1. What's that dance song that I keep catching mid-song where the guy imagines her wearing his shirt and the gal imagines him wearing nothing at all?
2. This Nelly Furtado song, "Promiscuous," it may be #1 in the country but have I actually heard it?
Meanwhile yesterday (Wednesday?), heard "This Is Us." The male vocalist was obviously Knopfler, though I couldn't place the woman. (Best guess was Alison Krauss - not quite.)
This is obviously Knopfler's most recent hit. If anything happened and it turned out to be his last, I'd say he went out in style, not like other musical icons who descended into pabulum. (You'd think the subject matter of "This Is Us" would risk pabulum, but I found it quite well done. Maybe as someone married just over a month I'm the wrong person to ask.)
Will "Don't Stop" turn out to have been The Rolling Stones' last hit? What about Aerosmith and "Just Push Play" "Jaded"? Can you think of other megastar acts that went out with a whimper?
(Best thing by far about American Idiot is that a world in which Green Day's final hit was "Warning" would just be wrong.)
Oh yeah, the whole reason I posted this: If your ears and imagination are keen enough you can mentally replace the Timbaland vocals with how Mark Knopfler would sound with that same material. I burst out laughing on the highway this morning.
If you can find free snippets then Finnish death metal group Lordi (breakthrough album: The Arockalypse) is worth a minute or two of your time (probably not any of your money though) if only for the hilarity. Even if all you can find are on-line bios, you won't be disappointed.
I assume he licks his finger and sticks it in the air.
That said, I suppose it's all about whose ox is gored, given that I actually claimed to like "Let's Roll" a few years back, never mind the signs that Young was washed up as early as "Harvest Moon" a few years before that.
The things I didn't know about...
I never did get into the Magnetic Fields (for lack of attempt to) but had friends in college who were gaga over "69 Love Songs" et al.
It's sad that there are so many Professional Victims out there who for lack of anything real to contribute themselves will instead make their mark by finding spurious reasons to drag down someone else.
Old and busted: 10 great songs from one great year. The new hotness: commercial-free midday mix tape.
So here's your chance to put together a list of songs that an "alternative" station (owned by CBS/Infinity) would plausibly play (they'll break genre once in awhile: one gal had "Welcome to the Jungle" on her playlist). They ask for 20, of which they'd play "13-14." They give no restrictions like repeating a band or such, but if you comment with a list then bear Live 105's audience in mind and just use common sense.
With no pretense that my list is anything special, I submitted:
The Cure - "Plainsong"
Daft Punk - "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger"
Tears For Fears - "Head Over Heels"
Cake - "Sheep Go To Heaven"
The White Stripes - "The Hardest Button to Button"
A Flock of Seagulls - "I Ran"
Bloodhound Gang - "The Bad Touch"
Green Day - "She"
Nirvana - "All Apologies"
POTUSA - "Peaches"
Hole - "Asking For It"
Smashing Pumpkins - "Cherub Rock"
Darude - "Sandstorm"
Public Enemy - "He Got Game"
Alice In Chains - "No Excuses"
Filter - "Take A Picture"
R.E.M. - "Radio Song"
U2 - "Bad"
The Cure - "Untitled"
Radiohead - "Exit Music for a Film"
Doorball-rama.
(Like most of my mashup ideas this probably wouldn't actually work, it just sounds as though it should, with the Futurama theme sharpened a bit and "Doorbell" flattened a bit.)
Truly atrocious radio listening on my way to work this morning, exarcebated by KFOG seeming to find the worst choices of salsa music imaginable. I know Mexicans are capable of producing, and indeed have produced, orders of magnitude better music than what Dave Morey et al picked to mark the day.
Anyhow, as I pulled into the parking lot I heard the opening strains of a song I couldn't precisely identify right away, except that it was clearly Pink Floyd and just as clearly one of their true stinkers. Finally it clicked with me and I thought, "if this is really 'Dirty Woman' then I'll listen through to 'I am just a little boy...' before sparing myself the agony."
It was and I did. Right before that inflection point of course they drone on about "How can I build the wall..." For some reason this reminded me of my high school quiz teammate's dead-on impression of how "Satisfaction" might be performed by Elmer Fudd.
("I'm dwivin' in my cah, and a man comes on the wadio...")
Same premise as the post below this one.
[bunch of clocks chime, then that guy does that tongue thing]
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
Drowning deep in my sea of loathing
You fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way
Broken your servant I kneel
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
(Will you give in to me?)
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
It seems what's left of my human side is slowly changing in me
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
Looking at my own reflection
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
When suddenly it changes, violently it changes
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
There is no turning back now
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
You've woken up the demon in me
Home, home a-down with the sickness
I like to be here when I-down with the sickness
[etc.]
I may have spoken too soon at the end of this entry. I'll stand by what I said -- barely -- but man, sometimes all it takes is a disturbingly popular comeback release to remind you of what ought to have lain dead and buried.
Anyway, I think the dialogue below fairly reflects how two bands could leave the musical world that much worse off.
(By the way, that linked-to entry did have one glaring omission, as I'd repressed Disturbed's "Down With the Sickness" until I was in the act of posting this entry.)
"It's coming back around again."
"I know the pieces fit."
"It's coming back around again."
"I know the pieces fit."
"It's coming back around again."
"I know the pieces fit."
"It's coming back around again."
"I know the pieces fit."
"It's coming back around again."
"I know the pieces fit."
"It's coming back around again."
"I know the pieces fit."
"It's coming back around again."
"I know the pieces fit."
"It's coming back around again."
"I know the pieces fit."
(etc.)
By the way, within a 10-minute span this morning, 107.7 The Bone played a new Green Day song* and Live 105 played an old Guns N' Roses song**.
Who needs format niches or Program Directors?
*- "Holiday," so not new chartwise but American Idiot era rather than Dookie era.
**- Attention, Mr. Axl Rose: We Did Not Feel Welcome in the Jungle.
Thing of a song that you absolutely hate. Not a song whose reputation for annoyance exceeds its reputation for quality (so "I Will Always Love You" and its ilk are right out); rather, this should be something that the rest of the world seems to like, yet something that so profoundly grates on you personally that in theory you could go on a killing spree triggered specifically by hearing this song one too many times.
Anyhow, I realize I have that "Hits From Hell" recurring theme that I should revisit, but I'm too lazy to look up what I've already covered. So, from a blank slate:
Pink Floyd - "Time". Every time I hear those stupid chimes I declare a fatwa against an entire industry of classic rock program directors. Dear God what did innocent radio listeners do to deserve this (aside from patronizing classic rock to begin with?). This song better than any other encapsulates all that's annoying and pretentious about Pink Floyd.
R.E.M. - "Losing My Religion". Wah, wah, wah, I'm agnostic and depressed and I want to depress you as well. Shut up already.
Faith No More - "Epic". Totally independent of what the song is reputedly about, it's just too anti-quality to be listenable.
Phil Collins - "Another Day in Paradise". An aggravating circumstance is the bait-and-switch involved in the live version, with the fanfare and crowd swelling that lead a listener to believe they're about to hear some kicking arena rock.
And last but not least, a band from who I couldn't settle on any one particular song, partly because their songs all sound alike. This Onion column covers pretty much everything about The Crappiest Band That Ever Recorded Together.
And where are you, Tom, Tim, and Brad? You bravely stood up for the dispossessed of the Third World, but in the current political climate, we are dispossessed in our own country. The erosion of our rights and liberties makes captives of us all. Do you no longer care? Did the machine defeat you?
Yesterday I had the Pink Floyd song "Time" stuck in my head. At the exact moment when this was stuck in my head I happened upon several teen (pre-teen?) girls singing along to some upbeat bubblegum pop song with a thumping beat and puppy-love type lyrics.
So now the combined image in my head is happy girls bopping their heads to an upbeat tempo and singing along with "Hanging on in a quiet desperation is the English way The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say."
Yes, this territory has been covered already, but my opinion of Pink Floyd is such that the more we can do to deface the legacy in as hilarious as fashion as possible, the happier I become.
(By the way, throwaway blogpost I meant to make days ago yet never did:
Bovine Automotive Karaoke
It's very easy to add an artistic interpretation to a given song just by mooing at particular intervals. Most songs aren't worth the effort but apparently one exception is "We Will Rock You" by Queen. Dunno why, on that particular song I just like the effect.)
(Augie March is very big in their native Australia.)
(On Energy 92.7, "The Beat of the Bay")
Gwen Stefani's "Crash" is easily the worst song getting heavy airplay today, possibly the worst song in radio history. It's as if they took "Get The Party Started" and dumbed it down even further, or as if a Bloodhound Gang (the alternaband, not the kids' detectives) song were performed at face value without the ironic detachment.
Just for double-reverse irony, a straight-up Gwen Stefani version of "The Bad Touch" might achieve so-bad-it's-good status, depending on how seriously she seemed to take it.
This s't is bananas...
Oh yeah, and right after that the DJ made a big deal about how rare it is to hear the words "here's AC/DC" on his station. Never mind that dance remixes of "You Shook Me All Night Long" have overtaken the original and that as far as I know that specific song is a mainstay of every bad frat kegger and/or strip club you can think of.
P.S. Does the fact that Avril Lavigne's "Sk8er Boi" accompanied this post (thank you iTunes) cheapen it in any way?
Julia and I ordered our wedding bands yesterday. Songs that came on the radio as we were in the store:
Puddle of Mudd - "Take It All Away"
The Cure - "Friday I'm in Love"
Nickelback - [???] (from their breakthrough album but not "How You Remind Me")
Dave Matthews Band - "The Space Between"
Nothing makes me think wedding jewelry like Puddle of Mudd.
The verse go different ways but the choruses are same key, similar chord sequence:
Kelly Clarkson, "Behind these Hazel Eyes"
Toto, "Africa"
"I bless the rains down in [thought you were the one]"
"How'd you manage to go from Violent Femmes to Pink Floyd?"
--Julia's cousin absolutely made my post-Seder evening by recognizing songs I'd been playing by ear on the piano. (Before that a whole bunch of Barenaked Ladies, a whole bunch of The Cure, and "How Soon Is Now," either unrecognizable or not worth commenting upon.)
Later in the evening, "Why'd you go straight from CHiPs to Hill Street Blues?" Well, the former was a request and I couldn't remember the rest of how it goes, but everyone remembers Hill Street Blues. Finished the night on Law & Order by request.
Meaning no disrespect to mathematical concepts or spreadsheet tricks or trivia (or capacity to play strategy games, card games, etc.), if I had to give up every unusual God-given ability except one, of all those I'm lucky enough to possess, so help me the "hear any song and pick it up well enough to play it by ear on a piano" would be what I held onto. It's just that neat.
For the nth year in a row Julia was the youngest person in her family (basically every Seder in her lifetime). (She has a niece and nephew and her other cousin has children, but Easter/Passover doesn't inspire holiday travel the way Christmas/Chanukah does.)
(Canonical example of a fake fight song: "On Wisconsin, on Wisconsin, plunge into that line: Run the ball for three straight plays, punt on fourth and nine." Most fake fight songs are less clean than that.)
(Canonical example #2, also clean: "High above Cayuga's waters there's a fountain of knowledge; some say it's Cayuga's waters, I say it's Ithaca College.")
I don't think the "Bulldogs" version I know counts, as the only changed lyrics relate to feces consumption. Similarly "to hell, to hell with Pennsylvania" is borderline at best.
But Princeton definitely counts ("get your hands out from there, oh don't you know that's not polite! So get off of your knees oh you blonde silly tease, it's my roommate's turn tonight"), as does Dartmouth ("when the wool goes in and out you can hear the frat boys shout 'They are better than the shmen!'").
And Columbia ("fight, fight for Knickerbocker beer; roll those sons of bitches down the alleys of Columbia (what?) Fallundia [sic] (oh!), if it has hair we'll eat it...").
And yes, "nine thousand are [blah blah] eight hundred are asexual, the rest won't last a year. Because to be a Cantabridgian you have to like to take it [etc.]."
Much more amusingly (though to a less universally known fight song - ah, to go to a school that has about a dozen fight songs, only one of which Tom Lehrer bothered with (and this isn't the one)): "Resistless the cream seeps holeward, and the fur is flying fast. We'll bite the vestigial [etc.]"
By "recite" I mean "type." And yes, high school. I think I'm behind the times on my college alma mater because they gender-neutralized it after I left.
Here goes nothing, and only because Mr. Kubicek prompted me and out of nowhere I really did happen to remember.
(And if old classmates find this page because they googled lyrics, all the better.)
Meaning no disrespect to the original author, lines like You stand as a beacon in Tulsa almost remind me of Vogon poetry.
Dear Booker T. Washington High School,
the pride of the great Southwest,
you're a symbol of light for many a youth,
by pointing the way to life's best.
You stand as a beacon in Tulsa,
by teaching the ideals of truth.
You inspire us with all that is worthy
and gird us for life's greatest test.
Oh God* help us ever grow stalwart**,
in body and soul and in mind,
that the light of dear Booker T. high school,
might grow brighter and always shine.
*- I'd be surprised if it's actually "God" but that's how I remember it. On the one hand, public school; on the other hand, Bible Belt. Decide for yourself.
**- and not "stronger" as I previously misremembered it.
New running feature, made easy by both the iTunes Power Seach feature and the fact that you can listen to a 30-second clip rather than spending 99 cents on an ephemeral amusement.
Let's kick this off with "When A Man Loves A Woman," where I give top honors to...
...Bette Midler, who gives it pretty much the same mood and delivery as she gives to "Otto Titsling."
(See comment thread on R.E.M. post.)
I'm disappointed to see from the wikipedia entry that apparently R.E.M. itself intensely dislikes "Shiny Happy People" in hindsight.
The musical arrangement is fantastic. Even the lyrics (which were completely opaque to me all this time that I've had the song in my head) should be best understood ironically, so I claim.
(Lyrically, even at face value how could "Shiny Happy People" be significantly more annoying than (say) "Stand." Now face west...)
(So I finally got around to buying "Radio Song" on iTunes, hence both this post and the one below it.)
In theory I dislike R.E.M., which is unfortunate given just how many of their songs are incredibly well-done, both the ones I enjoy and the ones I don't enjoy. The problem is that the ones I don't enjoy, I really don't enjoy. Not that they're not good songs, just unlistenable.
The "I despise it" portion of R.E.M's catalog includes but isn't limited to "Losing My Religion" (with a vengeance! - though admittedly the mashup of it with Basement Jaxx is fantastic), "Man on the Moon," and "Everybody Hurts."
Highlights from the "I love it" portion of their catalog are "Radio Song" and "Pop Song '89." And, yeah, "Stand" and "It's the End of the World" even if the latter is overplayed.
Then there are the songs I can't make up my mind on, like "Nightswimming."
I'd probably deeply enjoy an R.E.M. concert if I picked the right places to sneak off to the men's room.
(So why is it, I wonder, that I so hate the sad R.E.M. songs yet so enjoy certain sad Metallica songs? Maybe the anger in the latter is a good balance to the self-pity.)
A list in no particular order of songs whose common element is that I routinely play them by ear. (Note: I have a rare, somewhat useful talent that lets me play nearly any song by ear if I've heard it at least once and remember hearing it. These are just the ones that I've enjoyed enough to play over and over and over again. Julia and her family will immediately recognize the tunes in question even if they can't put a name to them. Actually the first two I'm dead certain they can name.)
"Bohemian Rhapsody" - Queen
"Clocks" - Coldplay (every piano student should learn the main theme)
"Radio Song" - R.E.M.
"Wake Me Up When September Ends" - Green Day
"Lose Yourself" - Eminem (the instrumental intro)
"Bridge Over Troubled Water" - Simon & Garfunkel
"November Rain" - Guns N' Roses
"Hero of the Day" - Metallica
"Never Gonna Let You Go" - Michael McDonald Sergio Mendes
and many more, but those are the ones that came to mind first.
I probably play "Radio Song" more than anything else. "Never Gonna Let You Go" has the greatest difference between how well I can play it and how well I'd like to, other than maybe finally some day getting the complete start-to-finish on "Bohemian Rhapsody."
That and I can make a passable attempt at the entire Side One of Radiohead's OK Computer, though I'm sure I skip a verse or truncate a bridge here and there. Really it becomes more of a medley, though at least the bits are in order from "Airbag" thru "Karma Police."
Hey, if you were at the Chattanooga Trashionals (2004?), what songs did I play in that dead time before the post-round robin announcements? I remember "Who Could Care Less" but that's it. Did I take a request for "Copacabana"? Biggest regret from that whole moment is not having the presence of mind to do the Fox baseball theme when Dinan gave the Yankee-Red Sox score.
As overheard on the radio about an hour ago (whether the hilarity/absurdity is intentional is for you to decided):
"When someone turns 60, we make 'em Bone Artist of the Week. That means Green Day will have to wait awhile."
In other Bay Area airwave news Live 105 is running spots that claim in passing that the Alternative radio format is an endangered species, that e.g. cities like NYC, PHI, DC, et al, no longer have stations that identify as playing that format. I claim that there's the key: They no longer identify themselves as that format, which is just as well since the whole notion of "Alternative" music (as it came to be known in the 1990s) is based on faulty premises.
Not that "Classic Rock" as such is any less bogus, but seeing those labels die out makes me happy.
See the two posts below this one for context.
"Walk Like An Egyptian" - The Bangles. Why was this such a massive hit? It just was.
"Shake You Down" - Gregory Abbott. I remember this song well, yet I'm stunned that it hit #1. It conveys "we're about to have sexual intercouse," no more and no less.
"At This Moment" - Billy Vera and the Beaters. Poor Alex P. Keaton, why did Courteney Cox have to dump him?
"Open Your Heart" - Madonna. I'd have thought this was #1 for more than one week, but it got swamped by...
"Livin' On A Prayer" - Bon Jovi. "Johnny used to work on the docks..."
"Jacob's Ladder" - Huey Lewis & the News. Easily the best Huey Lewis hit.
"Lean On Me" - Club Nouveau. "We be jammin', we be jammin' (hey!)" To borrow a phrase from The Onion AV Club, one of the least essential artists of the 1980s (though I didn't realize this was a spinoff of Timex Social Club until reading the Wikipedia entry).
"Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" - Starship. One of the three songs that to me symbolized first love as of 7th grade. (The other two are an exercise for the reader.)
"I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)" - Aretha Franklin and George Michael. "When the valley was low..."
"(I Just) Died In Your Arms" - Cutting Crew. Lyrics always confused me.
"With Or Without You" - U2. 1987: Year of The Joshua Tree.
"You Keep Me Hangin' On" - Kim Wilde. What every remake needs relative to its original is bombast.
"Always" - Atlantic Starr. "And weeeeee both know that our looooove will grow, and foreeeeeever it will beeeeee you and meeee... (he-e-e-ey)"
"Head to Toe" - Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam. "Today started with a crazy kiss on the way home. We were in for surprise, who would have known?"
"I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)" - Whitney Houston. This qualifies as good Whitney.
"Alone" - Heart. "And the night goes by so very slow - ah but I hope that it won't end though."
"Shakedown" - Bob Seger. Lame song, lame movie.
"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" - U2.
"Who's That Girl?" - Madonna. Meh.
"La Bamba" - Los Lobos. When all is said and done, who will be more well-known, Los Lobos or Los Lonely Boys?
"I Just Can't Stop Loving You" - Michael Jackson with Siedah Garrett. Within Jacko's catalog this is quite underrated.
"Didn't We Almost Have It All" - Whitney Houston. Good Whitney? I could go either way.
"Here I Go Again" - Whitesnake. Wow, with luck I will never again in my life identify with this song. Finding the love of your life is awesome!
"Lost in Emotion" - Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam. Compare and contrast Cult Jam with No Doubt (as they sounded around Rock Steady). No particular reason.
"Bad" - Michael Jackson. "Your butt is white, well mine is you. So watch your mouth or I'll sit on you." Oh, wait...
"I Think We're Alone Now" - Tiffany.
"Mony Mony" - Billy Idol. Oh my goodness, did you realize Joan Jett covered "Crimson & Clover"? No easily-found covers of "Crystal Blue Persuasion."
"(I've Had) The Time Of My Life" - Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes. Nobody puts Baby in the corner!
"Heaven is a Place on Earth" - Belinda Carlisle. Should've been #1 longer.
"Faith" - George Michael. Least memorable hit single from that album, so I claim. Apparently the world disagrees with me.
See the post below this one for context.
Unlike the case with 1985, none of the 1986 #1's scream out "all-time classic" to me. I'm not even sure what song best signifies 1986 (please let it not be "Rock Me Amadeus" - if this is true life becomes slightly worse, but what else could it be?). "Walk Like an Egyptian" would be the perfect Zeitgeist song, though its retrospective popularity (in list-driven pigeonhole contexts) is diluted by its straddle of two calendar years.
"Say You Say Me" - Lionel Richie
"That's What Friends Are For" - Dionne and Friends. I seem to be one of the few people on Earth who recognizes this song as just wretched.
"How Will I Know" - Whitney Houston. I like this a lot. Can't stand whatever recent dance hit liberally samples it but stops short of covering it.
"Kyrie" - Mr. Mister. I like that Mr. Mister isn't a one-hit wonder. This one's cheesy but worthwhile.
"Sara" - Starship. "Loved me like no one had ever loved me before. Hurt me - no one has ever hurt me more."
"These Dreams" - Heart. This was a hit a year earlier than I'd thought.
"Rock Me Amadeus"- Falco. I somehow missed this fad completely.
"Kiss" - Prince and the Revolution. I'd never heard this until the Tom Jones cover became a hit.
"Addicted to Love" - Robert Palmer. I've never seen the appeal of Robert Palmer. Personal problem.
"West End Girls" - Pet Shop Boys. Whatever it is I don't like about this song seriously delayed my coming to appreciate Pet Shop Boys as a band.
"Greatest Love of All" - Whitney Houston. Just when you think you can gain a revisionist appreciate of Whitney, you remember why... She'd be an elite singer if neither this song nor the one from The Bodyguard existed. On the other hand, how can I dislike this song and yet so thoroughly appreciate "One Moment In Time"? They both have that same inspirational vibe. Apparently too many Star Search wannabes ruined "Greatest Love" for me.
"Live to Tell" - Madonna. A very underrated Madonna song. (Is there any other song to which that sentence applies?)
"On My Own" - Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald. Some day I'll karaoke this with someone.
"There'll Be Sad Songs (to Make You Cry)" - Billy Ocean. With one exception all Billy Ocean songs sound alike. (But that's a good thing.) I hope that one exception is now stuck in your head.
"Holding Back the Years" - Simply Red
"Invisible Touch" - Genesis. Part of the overrated portion of the Phil Collins collection (which is most of his work).
"Sledgehammer" - Peter Gabriel. Chances are I don't like Peter Gabriel as much as you do. What can convince me to like him more?
"Glory of Love" - Peter Cetera. "We'll live forever, knowing together that we..."
"Papa Don't Preach" - Madonna. Damn that Osborne kid.
"Higher Love" - Steve Winwood
"Venus" - Bananarama
"Take My Breath Away" - Berlin. Both this and "Venus" I'd have thought were more like 1983 or so. Julia had never heard Berlin's "Sex" before it came on my iTunes last night.
"Stuck With You" - Huey Lewis & the News. I think we're (my generation) going to have trouble explaining to our children the appeal of Huey Lewis.
"When I Think Of You" - Janet Jackson. Just like 1985 had one, apparently 1986 also had a #1 song that I can't think of how it goes to save my life (if I've even... oh wait, now I think I know what this is).
"True Colors" - Cyndi Lauper.
"Amanda" - Boston. Wow, this was closer to when I gained top 40 awareness than I would have thought.
"Human" - Human League. A story song with a twist!
"You Give Love A Bad Name" - Bon Jovi. "Very first kiss was your first kiss goodbye..."
"Next Time I Fall" - Peter Cetera and Amy Grant. Underrated, just like most of the Chicago ballads around this time period. Much, much better than "Glory of Love."
"The Way It Is" - Bruce Hornsby & The Range. Deeply, egregiously overrated. Namedrops social issues without saying anything useful about them or having any particular musical merit. My least favorite Bruce Hornsby hit.
"Walk Like An Egyptian" - The Bangles. First #1 hit of which I had real-time awareness.
See below (including the extended entry, which plows through every song that hit #1 in 1985) and note that some of those #1's ("Can't Fight This Feeling," "Crazy For You"...) were already on my top 500 list. Hmm, Wikipedia does Song-Artist rather than Artist-Song. Life is hard.
Foreigner - "I Want To Know What Love Is"
Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin - "Separate Lives"
Paul Young - "Every Time You Go Away"
John Parr - "St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)"
Starship - "We Built This City"
M.S. raised an interesting topic in the "#1 when you were born" comments. When did you first become aware of current top hits?
My breakthrough happened in January 1987 when I started listening to the top 40 station whose airchecks I still owe Dave, instead of the easy listening station my parents had defaulted to when music was bad. (Or KRMG. Tulsa had many AM radio stations, of which one was relevant. I suppose for historical pedigree KVOO was relevant. Because of the vintageness of the country it played I always thought of the "V" as an "M".)
Despite 1987 being the breakthrough I'll start in 1985 because those songs are all familiar enough, though I couldn't have begun to construct a timeline from them. (The ones on the 1984 list aren't quite as familiar, with enough of a disparity to make a good cutoff.)
"Like A Virgin" - Madonna. This was #1 when I was still nine years old. (But then so many people weren't even born yet.) By two years later Tulsa stations almost never played it. I couldn't tell you when I first heard it. (For a quick 10 points, which Madonna single most closely coincided with my hitting puberty?)
"I Want to Know What Love Is" - Foreigner. Ah, so maudlin. I love this song.
"Careless Whisper" - Wham!. "Though it's easy to pretend, I know you're not a fool. Should've known better than to cheat a friend, the wasted chance that I'd been given." Just saturation.
"Can't Fight This Feeling" - REO Speedwagon. Classic. Remind me to dig up my in-progress-forever top 500 and add this if it's not already there.
"One More Night" - Phil Collins. I don't like Phil Collins but I like this song.
"We Are the World" - USA for Africa.
"Crazy for You" - Madonna. If I had to rate Madonna songs by personal preference this would be at or near the top.
"Don't You (Forget About Me)" - Simple Minds
"Everything She Wants" - Wham!. Actually I have no idea how this goes. The rest I can all hear in my head.
"Everybody Wants to Rule the World" - Tears for Fears. "Fight for freedom and for pleasure..."
"Heaven" - Bryan Adams. "Baby you're all that I want..." Of all the songs that hit #1 in 1985, this one has arguably the best dance remix cover (though "I Want To Know What Love Is" is in the running there).
"Sussudio" - Phil Collins. Evidence of how overrated he is.
"A View to A Kill" - Duran Duran. Not one of their finest efforts but props for the James Bond tie-in I suppose.
"Every Time You Go Away" - Paul Young. Very underrated.
"Shout" - Tears for Fears
"The Power of Love" - Huey Lewis & The News. For a quick 10 points name the movie.
"St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)" - John Parr. For a quick 1 point...
"Money for Nothing" - Dire Straits. I claim this is the signature song of 1985, yet it was only #1 for three weeks? Chart parity in the 1980s was a lot like standings/championship parity in baseball (and football?) in the 1980s.
"Oh Sheila" - Ready for the World. Never heard this until "Love You Down" was already a hit.
"Take On Me" - a-ha. 1985's other signature song, and it was only #1 for one week?
"Saving All My Love For You" - Whitney Houston. I'm on the verge of gaining a whole lot of revisionist appreciation for Whitney, even though at the time I could have taken or left her.
"Part-Time Lover" - Stevie Wonder. I wonder how many people my age utterly fail to appreciate Stevie Wonder because of the degree to which his mid-1980s hits were inferior to his early work
"Miami Vice Theme" - Jan Hammer.
"We Built This City" - Starship. I like this song. I get the impression Jefferson Airplane fans loathe it.
"Separate Lives" - Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin. Hmm, maybe I like (some) Phil Collins after all.
"Broken Wings" - Mr. Mister. Wow, I'd have placed this much earlier in the 1980s. Shows what I know.
"Say You, Say Me" - Lionel Richie, whose daughter is a ho. (But was a toddler then?)
To the extent that Wikipedia is trustworthy, now you can find out.
(I take it "week ending" means that if you care about a specific date then you should grab the first chart after that date.)
My Birth: Doobie Brothers - "Black Water". Ugh - can't stand that song.
5th Birthday: Queen - "Crazy Little Thing Called Love"
10th: REO Speedwagon - "Can't Fight This Feeling". They don't make ballads like they used to.
15th: Janet Jackson - "Escapade". I'd have guessed "Black Velvet" but that was a week later.
20th: Madonna - "Take A Bow". At least the REO Speedwagon song was nice.
25th: Lonestar - "Amazed". Nice.
30th: 50 Cent feat. Olivia - "Candy Shop". Hmm.
On the radio last night, a dance remix of "Jesse's Girl."
On someone else's boombox outdoors this afternoon, a male band covering Berlin's "Metro."
Did I mention that The Subways are a cheap ripoff of Veruca Salt?
...literally.
"Heaven sent but baby you're not the one..."
Anglophiles, stand up and be counted. (Or cringe with the shock of recognizion, go ashen-faced, and stammer an apology to the world, your call.)
UPDATE #1: Within the first eight hours all but two were gotten. Still at large below are #5 (I predict Cooch will get) and #15 (no idea who will get, maybe Mrs. Coen?). The latter group is partial namesake of a minor holiday.
UPDATE #2: After Cooch's comment I'm calling time on both #5 and #15. The former is Blur - "She's So High." The latter is All Saints - "Never Ever." That one peaked at #4 on U.S. charts in 1998. Apparently "She's So High" never charted, which explains why I so often hear Blur called a one-hit wonder, though either WBCN or WFNX or both played it on the radio many times.
As always we want title and artist, please don't post any answer you already researched.
1. "Late at night when you call my name, the only sound you'll hear is the sound of your voice calling, calling out to me." (Dave)
2. "Love was just a four-letter word, never heard how absurd it could be. Now I can't believe this is real, how I feel, how you steal my heart away from me." (Dave)
3. "We've known each other for so long. Your heart is aching but you're too shy to say it." (Greg)
4. "Out of me, into you (yeah). You could hide, it's just a one-way street." (Joshua)
5. "I think of her every day. I think of her -- it doesn't help me."
6. "At school they taught me how to be so pure in thought and word and deed. They didn't quite succeed." (Brian W.)
7. "Laughing like children, living like lovers, rolling like thunder under the covers." (Greg)
8. "Last time we had this conversation I decided we should be friends, but now we're going around in circles. Tell me, will this deja vu never end?" (Allyson)
9. "I'm a model, you know what I mean, and I do my little turn on the catwalk." (Greg) (and yes this was the low-hanging fruit)
10. "You've got to pay your dues if you wanna sing the blues, and you know..." (Allyson)
11. "Acting on your best behavior, turn your back on mother nature." (Brian W.)
12. "I know you think that I shouldn't still love you, or tell you that." (Allyson)
13. "Shoot it in the right direction, make making it your intention. Live those dreams, scheme those schemes, hit me with those laser beams." (Greg)
14. "She calls out to the man on the street. He can see she's been crying. She's got blisters on the soles of her feet: Can't walk, but she's trying." (Dave)
15. "Was it that I never paid enough attention? Or did I not give enough affection? Not only will your answers keep me sane, but I'll know never to make the same mistake again."
16. "Mood is right, spirits up, we're here tonight, and that's enough." (Dave, and this was indeed solo IIRC, though I'd previously mistakenly thought the same of #1)
17. "Then one day she came back. I was so happy that I didn't ask. Morning came into my room, caught me dreaming like a fool." (Greg)
18. "Under the ruins of a walled city, crumbling towers and beams of yellow light." (Dave)
19. "We're no strangers to love. You know the rules and so do I. A full commitment's what I'm thinking of." (Greg)
20. "Got a picture of you beside me, got your lipstick mark still on your coffee cup, got a fist of pure emotion, got a head of shattered dreams." (Allyson)
Most frequently maligned: Men Without Hats (everyone forgets about "Pop Goes the World")
Most bizarrely maligned: Apparently someone called Live 105 yesterday (during a midday spotlight on one-hit wonders) who thought that Everlast fit the category.
Nominations for either category are welcome, though for the latter there must actually exist someone who had that misapprehension.
(Most incorrect music industry prediction I ever made was that Eminem ("My Name Is") would become a one-hit wonder.)
(The 1971 Chase song, that is, and absolutely positively not the inane T-Rex song with the same title.)
It's physically impossible to produce ten great songs from the year 1971 (as 2 thru 10 on the list here amply demonstrate) but that first song was one fantastic way to begin a day. Those of you who like your music horn-heavy (Make Corn, et al), this song should be your end-all be-all.
"Get It On" was also part of our high school jazz band playlist, as I instantly recognized from the lead-in. Now that I've heard the original I realize that we just didn't have the chops to play it as it was meant to be played. We'd blaze through it but to a fan of the original ours had to sound like a funeral dirge. My mouth hurt just listening along.
Other 10@10 thoughts: Two Black Crowes songs in the span of a week was a nice touch. I could take or leave "Jealous Again" but I deeply admire the chord sequence on "Remedy." Would you like a rocking little ditty in B-flat major? Or did you actually want C major? How about both? How about rolling along nicely through the verse in that bluesy C while everyone who's already familiar with the song gets more and more eager for that sudden B-flat minor chord kicking off the bridge? b-flat, D-flat, A-flat, E-flat(7) (repeat a few times). E-flat, F(13), B-flat [pretend you're wrapping the song up even though everyone knows better] -- F, G(13), C [really ham it up now and the good DJs will let it play all the way through the distortion at the end].
Meanwhile 3.2 frequency units further to the right on the dial, I heard Metallica's "Enter Sandman" this morning. The same "Enter Sandman" that is officially part of 10@10 1991 lore and must be played every time the year is 1991, even though aside from that I don't think KFOG plays any Metallica ever.
1. "Bittersweet Symphony" is not appropriate team entrance music.
2. The Star-Spangled Banner was written in 3/4 time, and with no disrespect meant to Whitney Houston 15 years ago or Aaron Neville today, 3/4 is where it belongs. Please not to oompah-marchify my national anthem.
A fascinating conversation takes place behind me among colleagues, one of whom seems to be exactly right to me. (Neither I nor anyone actually involved in the discussion speaks for anyone other than themselves.)
In short, musical labels do indeed change over time (what we now think of as "Early Rock" we'd have been in no position to think of as "Early" anything when it was contemporary) and the process of organizaing metadata should be more about reflecting the distinctions that music listeners make (which may even change greatly over time), as opposed to promulgating those distinctions from on high.
A side note is to attempt to compare and contrast this musicology discussion with an analogous discussion of constitutional law. Ceteris paribis, my position on musicology would make me pretty liberal as a constitutional scholar. It's intuitively obvious (to me) why the different realms call for 100% different approaches, yet difficult to put into words.
Poison - "Ride the Wind"
Late January, 1991: I rode my bike about 0.8 miles to the nearest Hallmark (corner strip mall anchored by a Target: SW corner of 71st & Memorial for those who actually care about Tulsa geography) and left my bike unlocked unattended while purchasing a Valentine for my favorite classmate. Nobody took the bike, thank goodness.
Cinderella - "Shelter Me"
I forget what or why but it was a rough day at school and the aforementioned favorite classmate gave me a hug.
No particular song is tied to this memory, but when I wasn't quite old enough to drive myself to school, my sister and I often caught a ride from a nice guy who lived near us (who'd ridden our bus until he himself could drive). He seems to have gotten an MBA and become an eBay power seller. If you click the "Images" link, the picture that comes up first is definitely him.
Our radio station of choice was KMYZ, back when it was a "Z". In the many many years since I last saw (heard) Tulsa, they seem to have flip-flopped between "Z" and "Edge" (and degree of claiming to be alternative) without any appreciable change to their playlist other than the usual passage of time.
Admittedly much later than anyone else, certainly compared to the people wise enough to avoid liking Warrant (or avoid admitting liking Warrant):
"And I'm not sure that I deserve a woman so truuuuuuuuuueeeee.... but I love that you think I do."
If you can hear the falsetto in your head, hold onto it as long as you can and then puncture it with the opening chords of "In Bloom." The grunge revolution needed to happen.
See here and here for inspiration. Of KFOG's own list, I think that for the purposes of that specific set "Night Moves" was easily best of set, though of course "Freebird" is the best song of the ten. Anyhow...
1990 was a good time for my first trip out of the country, as that meant I missed the tail end of the NKOTB craze, most of the Hammer craze, the Souter confirmation hearings, and Jeffrey Dahmer. What's left? (On principle "Unskinny Bop" fails to make this list, though as I brainstormed the list I remember thinking Please let there be enough better options than "Unskinny Bop" -- it's unclear whether there are.)
Songs that reflect {March 1990 - March 1991} in my own world:
Michael Penn - "No Myth"
Britney Fox - "Dream On" (no relation to the Aerosmith song)
Alannah Myles - "Black Velvet" (though it's gotten beyond cliche that KFOG itself does "Black Velvet" every time it does 1990 - that and the Saddam posturing; oh, while I'm here, a week ago Saturday morning Julia and I were at a meeting where our host, who wants to sell us his product/service, had radio playing in the background and "Epic" by Faith No More came on; really threw me for a loop until I realized that of course it was just the 10@10 replay)
Tesla - "Love Song"
Jon Bon Jovi - "Blaze of Glory"
Warrant - "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (Yes, the title track from that album was a much bigger hit, but I never associate it with the specific time period.)
Slaughter - "Fly to the Angels"
Motley Crue - "Without You"
Faster Pussycat - "House of Pain"
Songs that against my will reflect that period in my world (that is, they take me back, but I don't have to like them):
Don Henley - "The Heart of the Matter"
Aerosmith - "What It Takes"
Sinead - "Nothing Compares 2 U"
Luther Vandross - "Here and Now"
Roxette - "It Must Have Been Love"
This is probably a sign that the mash-up craze has gone too far (and it's also vaporware, unless/until I put myself in a position of actually ever mixing anything ever), but isn't "Fascinated By Your Love Supreme" at least somewhat tenable?
You'd need some tempo-tweaking artifices but as long as both of them stay based in F, it'll work at least as well as flipping between stations every two measures did for me in the car just now. Special thanks to KCSM ("The Bay Area's jazz station") and Energy 92.7 ("The Beat of the Bay") for inadvertently inspiring this.
(At least for a moratorium that should last a long time now.)
Brain dump. Thought of him out of nowhere just now. Suddenly the random DJ memories are just shudder-inducing.
(So I could never quite condemn his persona. He had several hilarious bits. But if I'd heard that stupid sound effect of his just one more time...)
Heh. with more than one solid hour of Ravel's "Bolero," - I like it! (Obviously I wasn't still around for that.)
Special thanks to my sister for sending me a list of lists, with 1313 songs in all, the top 101 songs (based on the radio station's own airplay frequency) per year in the 13-year history of Q-101 (in Chicago) as an alternative station.
That's the e-mail that inspired my "Mr. Brightside" post (two below here). As for the other 1,312 songs, this just begs to be strung out into a cutesy running series. Ideas?
(Obligatory Chicago radio observation that will make no sense if you don't live there and only a tiny bit of sense even if you do: In the late 1990s there was an awesome station at the 103 frequency that played hair metal at night. This may have been Mancow's station, but maybe not. I remember the visit home where I found it, and the visit after that, but then the next time I was home 103 had changed format.)
Thanks to Party Ben, every time I hear "Dare" (Gorillaz) on the car radio, I start belting out "Do You Want To" (Franz Ferdinand) and of course it always works perfectly. (Bow down to the G7 chord.)
Mind, I've had "Do You Want To" stuck in my head this entire calendar year.
Today's writing assignment: Tell a story about a sequence of events in a really, really ordinary day. Your prose must fit the meter and melody of the verse portion of "Mr. Brightside." (Don't worry about the meter change around "She takes off her dress now." You can use the same six-syllable, two-note riff ad infinitum.)
Brief example: "...then I went to the store, and I bought me some ham..."
Bonus points if it's really bad, really funny, or both.
OPTION #2: Predict the direction Weird Al Yankovic takes with "Mr. Brightside" when he inevitably covers it. (Example: McDonald's' "Fry Guys.") Bonus points if you can craft plausible Weird Al lyrics for that theme. (Must be at least as good as The Onion's faux Weird Al "Livin' la vida mocha.")
By the way, my quick take on Live 105's new morning team (not David Lee Roth, nor Adam Carolla (he got slotted onto a local talk station): They sound way too much like a generic morning team. Two clownish dudes and a chirpy female sidekick. Listening to them, I could as easily be driving through Omaha.
The running theme for the first week of their show was last-letter/first-letter song titles, where the last letter of the name of one song would be the first letter of the next song they played, all by listener request. Fair enough, except that they explained the concept into the ground, even though it's really easy to understand. Note that Steven Seaweed was already doing this on 107.7's midday show. If it's easily understood by the construction workers and air conditioner repairmen who call up The Bone for their AC/DC fix, then alternatypes listening to Howard Stern's Replacement shouldn't need to be handheld through it.
Come to think of it, Woody et al are like an even less cutting-edge version of The Mikey Show -- and there's a reason ClearChannel shunted Mikey et al to San Diego long before KSJO itself died off. (Maybe not a good reason: In the last vestiges of KSJO, mornings were a synidcated broadcast of those painfully unfunny guys whose name I can't even think of... gimme a sec... not Mark & Brian, not Don & Mike... Bob & Tom, based out of Indianapolis, and the worst thing I've ever heard on the radio (admittedly, my entire life both I and every radio market I've lived in have successfully avoided "Bubba the Love Sponge").)
Sticking with the Boston airwaves, but a random Tulsa reference: I now recognize 0% of the local WBCN talent (I know of David Lee Roth of course). At WFNX, only Julie Kramer remains from the circa 1999 lineup.
Some consistency at WZLX, where the midday, afternoon drive time, and overnight guys are still who I remembered them to be. No idea who Kenny Young is or whatever happened to Patrick (obviously it's hard to Google anyone whose DJ alias was first-name only).
But hey Dave (et al) - recognize the morning team? (Think K-107, late 1980s.) When I was in Boston they were on... some station I didn't listen to, but I saw TV ads for them and remembered them from Tulsa. They weren't any good in Tulsa; no idea whether they improved as they moved up in market size.
Back to Boston mainstays, even though I never did listen to him I'd be remiss in not noting the apparent 25th anniversary of my namesake.
I'd never actually listened to KFOX before stumbling across it on the dial a few days ago. You can never get enough classic rock as your nth choice station, at least I can't.
Tim Jeffreys is back in the Bay Area. He's at least as old as the picture makes him look. I was going to compare him to old WBCN drive time jock Mark Parenteau, except for the longest time I couldn't think of Parenteau's name. (Googling the text strick "replaced by Nik Carter" yields 0 results.) Then I finally pulled his name out of thin air, Googled it for kicks, and, um...
Oh my. (Scroll to "April 3, 2004.") Nobody told me this.
Channel 104.9 is no more.
I'd forgotten about that station when I moved to the East Bay. The signal is passable while driving in San Francisco, and obviously stronger southward, but nonexistent around Alameda/Oakland/Berkeley, much less greater Walnut Creek.
Hmm, now I couldn't even tell you what replaced it on my pre-sets. Possibly 95.7 when it was classic rock's "The Drive" (before it was country music's "The Bear", which itself preceded the Jack-style "Max-FM": one station, three formats, and it's been my nth choice through it al).
Going Spanish seems to be the right market move, though: [I]n San Jose, Clear Channel's KSJO, which had a 1.8 share of that age group listening to its rock format last October, now is the No. 1 station in the market for 25- to 54-year-olds, with a 7.0 share. It handily beats even the popular English-language KGO-AM, which had only a 4.9 share of San Jose listeners in that age group.
I sort of miss KSJO. If nothing else, back when KSJO existed, 107.7 would have never felt the need to play Nickelback or invite Disturbed into its studios. But La Preciosa is on the sides of buses all over town.
Here's a term I never heard before:
KCNL, which played alternative music, was strongest with listeners under 24. Bryant and her staff were planning to move it to an older demographic on New Year's Day, playing classic alternative songs, like San Francisco's heritage alternative station, KITS-FM (105.3) does. (emphasis added) Should I feel old?
When I first moved out here, back when Star 101 was K-101 (before KIOI's brief all-80s phase), Channel itself was full of true "heritage alternative," heavy on the Depeche Mode and so on. "Channel cheese," it was called.
Maybe as a transplant I don't understand how important the event in question was to the very fiber of this region's being, but I wish just once KFOG's 10@10 could do 1989 without drenching the nostalgia bumpers in Loma Prieta news.
Years from now, when rock stations look back, will it even be possible to do a 2001 without saturation coverage of [you know which event]?
Then again, are there in fact ten great songs from the year 2001?
("Never made it as a wise man....")
("CRAW-ling through my skin...")
Hmm.
Most are in the comments section here. The two ungotten:
10. "They're made of lipstick, plastic and paint, a touch of sable in their eyes."
--Bon Jovi, "Runaway"
13. "I've been down the streets of desire, sometimes I was so uninspired. You found what was locked up inside of me."
--Loverboy, "This Could Be the Night"
I wish I were capable of thinking about him without thinking of those Garfield TV specials.
All of these are probably lame. None of these exist in real life that I know of.
U2 vs. Killers: "I Still Haven't Found Mr. Brightside"
John Mellancamp vs. Tracy Chapman: "Jack and Diane Drive a Fast Car"
Bulletboys vs. Billy Squier vs. Fleetwood Mac: "Smooth Up in the Stroked Tusk"
I noticed the other day Barker had revived the iTunes lyric meme. If this is January...
Anyhow the lyrics below come courtesy of the Hal Leonard publishing company. (Except for anything I mistyped.) You know the drill; post answers (song and act) in the comments but please, no on-line searches. Once you've looked up a given lyric, you're estopped from posting its identity.
Twelve hours later: #10 and #13 are still at large.
1. "After all the violence and double-talk, there's just a song in all the trouble and the strife." [Greg]
2. "You said 'be patient, just wait a little longer,' but that's just an old fantasy." [Dave]
3. "Being apart ain't easy on this love affair - two strangers learn to fall in love again." [Greg]
4. "I made it through the wilderness, somehow I made it through. Didn't know how lost I was until I found you." [Dave]
5. "I loved you then but now I intend to open up and love you even more." [Brian W.]
6. "You don't know how long I have wanted to touch your lips and hold you tight. You don't know how long I have waited - and I was gonna tell you tonight." [Brian W.]
7. "Janey was lovely, she was the queen of my nights, there in the darkness with the radio playing low." [Greg]
8. "We'll take it to a motel room and take 'em off in private." [Dave]
9. "I am a man who would fight for your honor; I'll be the hero you're dreaming of." (Bonus question: This is the theme from which movie? Exact answer please.) [Brian R., plus the bonus]
10. "They're made of lipstick, plastic and paint, a touch of sable in their eyes."
11. "May the good Lord be with you down every road you roam, and may sunshine and happiness surround you when you're far from home." [Brian R.]
12. "Get a shoe thrown at me by a mean old man, get my dinner from a garbage can." [Brian R.]
13. "I've been down the street of desire, sometimes I was so uninspired. You found what was locked up inside of me."
14. "I have never seen that dress you're wearing, or the highlights in your hair that catch your eyes." [song by Brian, singer by Dave]
15. "You played dead, but you never bled, instead you laid still in the grass, all coiled up and hissing." [Greg]
So part of the idea behind a program like iTunes is that you can assemble all the songs you like most and therefore be able to avoid songs you hate, right?
In other words, I shouldn't have songs like "Hotel California" on my own iTunes, right?
Ah, but sharing life with other people makings things like this not so simple.
Long story short the track that inspired this entry is "Tusk" by Fleetwood Mac. If I felt any stronger about my dislike of Fleetwood Mac (at least Stevie Nicks era Mac) then it would be worth elaborating on, but I don't so it isn't. But I can indeed elaborate on how the USC marching band is a uniquely appropriate choice of marching band to back this track, given that "Tusk" is every bit as mindlessly repetitive as the USC fight song itself.
If you're getting married soon and are into country music, I highly recommend "We Danced" by Brad Paisley.
The fiancee and I have picked our song (we're not telling though) and my lobbying for "We Danced" was in vain, mainly since neither she nor I is much into country. That said, it's so perfect for the occasion that it really needs more exposure in that context.
None of these will be our first dance; all, however, make my personal pantheon.
Kenny Loggins - "Forever"
Stryper - "Honestly". (From To Hell With the Devil.) Chorus, from memory: "Call on me and I will be there for you. I'm a friend who always will be true. And I love you, can't you see? That I love you honestly, and I will never betray your trust in me."
Olivia Newton John - "I Honestly Love You". Julia points out that this song is about an extramarital flirtation, hence the forbiddenness of the romance involved.
Stevie Wonder - "I Was Made To Love Her"
Dead or Alive - "Brand New Lover". "Your sweet nature darling was too hard to swallow. I've got the solution: I'm leaving tomorrow." One of the best "other" hits from the set of bands that are frequently yet quite incorrectly labeled as one-hit wonders. Certainly better than that one better-known Dead or Alive song (whose lyrics are vapid).
KFRC has a bumper spot about how their "uplifting" songs will "make you feel good at work" (their subtle but still deeply regrettable shift from oldies to AC). They played that spot at some point midday to day to lead into Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle."
How uplifting.
Then they had a spot about "music for your life" where some actual listener was blathering on and on and on about how she liked dancing and gardening and loved Cher [pause] Crosby, Stills, and Nash [pause]. Entertainment quality would be so much higher if we could just round up all Baby Boomers and decimate them.
(Not that my generation is without its faults. I think people my age are the driving force behind the Jack format.)
Flipping away from the Cher-loving dancing gardener in disgust, I tuned to Alice midway through an extended guitar bridge of very happy, very predictably sequenced chords in E-flat major. Didn't recognize the song at all but from a split-second's impression I was absolutely certain it was Coldplay. The next vocals I heard weren't Mr. Paltrow, but he came back on soon enough to confirm my impression.
My deep approval of the guitar bridge is ironic given how much I wanted to rant about this very song ("Fix You") a few weeks ago, the first (and only other?) time I heard it. That time I didn't make it past the first chorus, as appalled as I am by the whole genre of songs about dysfunctional people who supposedly need their lover to put the pieces together. (Most egregiously "Hero" by Enrique Iglesias; most amusingly cornball "Broken Wings" by Mr. Mister.)
Julia has a Chicago anthology that I just recently ripped to iTunes. I think everyone knows "25 or 6 to 4" and some of the superb yet over-the-top cheesy ballads from the Chicago 18 era, but I hadn't fully appreciated their earlier work until now.
I can also now understand a bit better, of all things, those megafans of the Dave Matthews Band. Both DMB and Chicago have a disconnect between some of their mainstream radio songs (mostly ballady) and their jam session type concert stuff.
So I'll recommend some of their longer earlier tracks to the hardcore DMB fans, and of course Chicago 18 itself to the top 40 types who get all melty over songs like "The Space Between."
Archetypical Chicago track that's a sappy ballad and lays the horn section on thick: "The Only One."
The first seven times I heard "Behind These Hazel Eyes" it was on a dance station. I thought I could probably do cardio to it, while laughing cruelly at the fate of the vapid, clingy heroine. I didn't realize just how atrocious this song was until hearing the non-remixed version on an estrogen heavy quasi-alternative station.
The dance treatment doesn't work for every song, though: The re-mix I heard of "Mr. Brightside" this morning was unbearable. The song is plenty peppy and driven in its unadulterated form. That said, the other day I heard "Mr. Brightside" on one station and "The Rascal King" on another station 15 minutes later. Despite a difference of 10 years and several shades of genre (what's become of ska, anyway?), they're quite similar: Same key, similar tempo, similar chord structure and so on.
As I type this, I imagine any given Mighty Bosstone is rich, happy, idle, and raising a small child somewhere.
Last night at the SF Symphony (V. Ashkenazy guest conducting):
Mendelssohn - "Violin Concerto in E Minor" (soloist Janine Jansen)
(intermission)
Shostakovich - "Symphony #4"
One of those is more dissonant than the other. I'm sure I have multiple acquaintainces convinced of the genius of Shostakovich's Fourth, and I appreciate rebelling against the Soviet Union as much as the next guy, but my goodness. Pravda might have had a point.
I do like both themes of the climax of the last movement, though: Both the C-Eb, C-Eb (two octaves up) Eb-G Eb-G bell theme and the G-C-F#, Ab-Db-G pattern in the horn (all over C minor).
Missed segue opportunities: At one point in the third(?) movement, a direct transition to the end of the Simpsons theme music would have worked perfectly. In the staccato first theme, you can go straight into "Bulldogs, bulldogs, bow-wow-wow [etc.]."
(Incidentally, I dreamt last night that I punched out some random Yalie at a bar. There is indeed a football game on today, though I hadn't realized this until Nate mentioned it by e-mail yesterday.)
As professional classical musicians go, Janine Jansen is quite the looker. Unfortunate shade of green on her dress last night though.
Note that Gordon Lightfoot's "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" was already in an earlier quintet. Be sure to mark the anniversary as you see fit.
Simon & Garfunkel - "For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her". I first became a Simon & Garfunkel fan around age 8, when my favorite was of course "Scarborough Fair." (Or maybe "The Sound of Silence.") Some of their songs appeal to all ages, some don't. That's okay. I now think "For Emily..." is the best of theirs, though I doubt it gets much radio airplay.
Simon & Garfunkel - "America". "She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy..."
Simon & Garfunkel - "The Sound of Silence"
Billy Joel - "She's Always A Woman". Once day recently I'd heard a lot of Simon & Garfunkel via iTunes and then heard this song via our local Jack-formatted radio station. This would be a great song for Paul Simon vocals (Art Garfunkel vocals not so much.)
Janis Joplin - "Me & Bobby McGee"
Having just now slandered this fine station in the comments to Craig's blog, I must set the record straight:
If they're planning any especially early all-Christmas format, they're at least not publicizing it much. Their most recent song (as I type this) was indeed by Kelly Clarkson, but their "last 10" playlist is eclectic and pleasant:
Clarkson - "Because of You"
Los Lonely Boys - "Heaven"
Prince - "When Doves Cry"
No Doubt - "Hella Good"
Alanis - "Hand in my Pocket"
Green Day - "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"
Pat Benatar - "Hit Me With Your Best Shot"
Goo Goo Dolls - "Give A Little Bit"
Santana feat. Michelle Branch - "Game of Love"
Maroon 5 - "She Will Be Loved"
Other than the Pat Benatar cut, this is actually pretty representative. I can live with a set like that.
All the same, this man's stage name still bugs my to no end. (If it's his real name, my sympathies to his entire family.)
Kind of a loose category; aside from the obvious these are all songs that I was surprised not to have gotten around to adding yet.
The Cranberries - "Dreams"
The Cranberries - "Linger"
Alanis Morissette - "You Oughtta Know"
L7 - "Pretend That We're Dead"
The Breeders - "Cannonball"
Various Alanis songs were already on the list, as are some Veruca Salt.
(We did each of these in high school.)
Stevie Wonder - "I Wish"
A.C. Jobim - "Look to the Sky"
Johnny Mercer - "Blues in the Night"
Count Basie - "April in Paris"
Miles Davis - "Freddie the Freeloader"
Other staples of our h.s. jazz band already on my list include "There Will Never Be Another You" and "Secret Love."
Poison - "Talk Dirty To Me". I especially like the haunting a capella version performed on a Scrubs episode.
Poison - "I Won't Forget You"
Poison - "Mamma's Fallen Angel"
Poison - "Ride the Wind"
Poison - "Life Goes On"
"Nothin' But A Good Time" made a previous quintet.
Among possible future inclusions: "I Want Action"; "Look What the Cat Dragged In"; "Look But Don't Touch"; "Your Mamma Don't Dance"; "Flesh & Blood (Sacrifice)".
Among songs that won't even come within sniffing distance: "Every Rose Has Its Thorn"; "Unskinny Bop"; "Something To Believe In."
Is the song I'm thinking of really called "Fuck Wit Dre Day"?
(Bass-heavy sustained D major chord, repeated low montone "bow wow wow yippee-yo, yippee-yay", repeated mid-register singsong "Snoop Doggy Dogg".)
I hear it all the time (mainly at the ballpark after a home run) but never really thought about it until now and realized I had no idea what it was called (or perhaps who it's by - you'd think Snoop Dogg, though the song "Fuck Wit Dre Day" is attributed to Dr. Dre).
I'm so white.
ZZ Top - "Legs"
ZZ Top - "Gimme All Your Lovin'"
Yes - "Love Will Find A Way" (Aside from that Yes doesn't even come within sniffing distance of my 500.)
Warren Zevon - "Lawyers, Guns, and Money" (I was never much of a "Werewolves of London" guy)
White Lion - "Tell Me"
See also Part 64 (scroll down).
Velvet Underground - "Sweet Jane"
The Monkees - "I'm A Believer"
Willie Nelson - "Always On My Mind". Yes I know it dates back to Elvis. As a reviewer here puts it, "[A]s soon as you start to listen you realize that once Willie sings something it belongs to him. Nothing proves this more than listening to him steal Always On My Mind away from the King." I don't agree with the general statement but it's true in this specific case.
Simon & Garfunkel - "Hazy Shade of Winter"
Martha Reeves & the Vandellas - "Dancing in the Street"
(honorable mention: Dusty Springfield - "I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself")
Special thanks to this Telegraph article for some brainstorming and KFOG's 10@10 for leading off yesterday's set (1974) with some great live Lou Reed to set me down this path.
Until reading that Telegraph article I had no idea Scissor Sisters covered "Comfortably Numb." That makes my day. "Only divine inspiration could explain how, or why, New York's bendiest band came to pop Pink Floyd's balloon of pretension by re-recording their most horribly self-regarding song in the style of the Saturday Night Fever-era Bee Gees." I couldn't agree more about the original (which nonetheless was already on my top 500 - apparently there's a love-hate thing going).
See also Part 65 (scroll up).
Cowboy Junkies - "Sweet Jane"
Smash Mouth - "I'm A Believer"
Pet Shop Boys - "Always On My Mind"
The Bangles - "Hazy Shade of Winter"
Van Halen - "Dancing in the Street"
(honorable mention: The White Stripes - "I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself")
Special thanks to this Telegraph article for some brainstorming and KFOG's 10@10 for leading off yesterday's set (1974) with some great live Lou Reed to set me down this path.
It was bad enough that I'd never in his lifetime appreciate the historic significance of Bill King as a broadcaster -- but now, just now, I come to learn that the affable 70-year-old morning drive-time guy really was that Jim Lange, of Dating Game fame.
Decades later, there he was, heading up the "Lange Gang" with sidekick Dino Donikian (I challenge you to find a better Rat Pack ambiance anywhere on the post-2000 airwaves), and now it's off the air. Lange himself is of course alive and well, enjoying retirement with his wife. And the station even lives on via webcasts ("Streaming is brought to you by Sunrise Senior Living").
UPDATE: Jim Lange's wikipedia page is now much more extensive than it had been when I got to it, though someone did a good job assembling his game show pedigree. (The "Dating Game" wiki page egregiously referred to him as "a Los Angeles disc jockey." Technically true but highly misleading, as he only spent about five years in LA, in the 1980s.)
I should have made the mental association a long time ago, though. I can hear Lange (in my head) from his later KABL years and I can also hear (in my head) snippets from "Name that Tune," and granting that this sort of thing is highly suggestive, if my audio memory is at all sound it's clearly the same guy.
Of all the stations mentioned here that currently carry Howard Stern, I think Live 105 gets by far the best replacement programming.
That said, Adam Carolla probably makes a fine morning host (David Lee Roth, not so much) and I'm glad he'll be at least somewhere in SF.
On the link, I wouldn't have minded a more substantive definition of "Free-FM." From this article, though, apparently it's just talk. Blah.
In other radio news, if your newly-adopted mission statement is to make me happy, a good way to fail miserably is to replace the best of the '60s and '70s with fair-to-middling post-1980 pop. It was a subtle format change (no on-air personality turnover), but San Francisco's flagship oldies station did indeed turn its back on oldies. Now there's no dedicated oldies station here and (with the quiet demise of KABL awhile back, the FM experiment having fizzled) no Frank Sinatra type adult standards. The Bay Area airwaves are poorer for it.
We have at most one classic rock station, and I say "at most" because once you add Nickelback to your playlist, you're both too recent and too crappy to pass "classic" muster.
(KFOG masters the "classic" part and "rocks" to a respectable degree, but World Class Rock is a different animal. Somewhere in between the KFOG and KSAN formats is a happy medium, but their common parent company doesn't seem interested in providing a station that has what I want and lacks what I don't want.)
Alice lost its (her?) youthful appeal and cutting-edgeness awhile ago; now she's a clone of the middle-aged, mainstream, and non-descript.
So after all the complaining, we still have Live 105. In fact we have even more of what makes it great as soon as Howard Stern goes away (and if Adam Carolla's morning foray kills off Loveline, all the moreso). We have one of the nation's best classical music stations and one of its best public jazz stations. We have a Jack (ours goes by "Max"). And we have "The Beat of the Bay" (official web site is a flash monstrosity but this piece captures the flavor of the station remarkably well (and, right below that, captures the flavor of the dearly departed KABL remarkably well).
(Despite not being at all in the demographic, I'd argue that "Energy" is more quintessentially San Francisco than even KFOG.)
...thinly disguised as ironic music appreciation.
Just a small town girl, livin' in a lonely world
She took the midnight train goin' anywhere
Just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit
He took the midnight train goin' anywhere
A singer in a smokey room
A smell of wine and cheap perfume
For a smile they can share the night
It goes on and on and on and on
Strangers waiting, up and down the boulevard
Their shadows searching in the night
Streetlight people, living just to find emotion
Hiding, somewhere in the night
Working hard to get my fill,
everybody wants a thrill
Payin' anything to roll the dice,
just one more time
Some will win, some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues
Oh, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on
Don't stop believin'
Hold on to the feelin'
Streetlight people
Smashing Pumpkins - "Rocket"
Smashing Pumpkins - "To Sheila"
Smashing Pumpkins - "For Martha"
...and that brings us to nine SP songs on the list, which is actually plenty. Sticking with the Windy City to fill out a quintet:
Nina Gordon - "New Year's Eve"
Nina Gordon - "Number One Camera"
Expansive definition of "hair," as you'll see...
Motley Crue - "Without You"
Bonnie Tyler - "Total Eclipse of the Heart"
Heart - "Alone"
Pat Benatar - "We Belong"
Bon Jovi - "I'll Be There For You"
The Bon Jovi ballad bears no relation whatsoever to the Rembrandts song of the same name. You'd think Cinderella's "Don't Know What You Got Til It's Gone" would be a shoe-in here but I'm not convinced it makes my list. Three Cinderella songs already have (for a quick 10 points each, name them) and maybe others will later.
That particular Cinderella ballad does make nearly every other blogger's "best power ballads" list, and yet not nearly enough of those same bloggers give "Without You" its due.
AC/DC - "You Shook Me All Night Long"
AC/DC - "Thunderstruck"
Nirvana - "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
Nirvana - "Lithium"
Nirvana - "Jesus Don't Want Me For a Sunbeam"
Nirvana songs already on the list:
In Bloom
All Apologies
Come As You Are
AC/DC songs already on the list:
For Those About To Rock
Hell's Bells
Highway to Hell
Back in Black
On a second pass through the Rolling Stone mid-tier, I should have cherry-picked these songs but for some reason didn't.
The Four Tops - "Reach Out I'll Be There"
The B-52s - "Love Shack"
The Spencer Davis Group - "Gimme Some Lovin'
Dusty Springfield - "Son of a Preacher Man"
The Clash - "Should I Stay Or Should I Go"
300 down, at least 200 to go.
Inspired by seeing the first two songs below in close proximity on the RS 151-200.
R.E.M. - "Losing My Religion". Thanks to the "Losing My Head At" mash-up, this song kinda sorta makes both extremes.
Tracy Chapman - "Fast Car". Mash-up that doesn't exist (that I know of) but ought to: John Cougar Mellancap vs. Tracy Chapman - "Jack and Diane Drive a Fast Car."
Black Sabbath - "Sweet Leaf"
Bee Gees - "How Deep Is Your Love" (inspired by seeing "Stayin' Alive" on the RS list)
Joan Osborne - "What If God Was One of Us". The more closely you listen to the lyrics, the more facile you'll realize they are.
Booker T. & the MGs - "Green Onions" (RS #181)
Joy Division - "Love Will Tear Us Apart" (RS #179)
Tom Petty - "Free Fallin' (RS #177)
The Sex Pistols - "God Save the Queen" (RS #173)
Sinead O'Connor - "Nothing Compares 2 U" (RS #162)
Beach Boys are heavily represented on RS's list. I'm punting on them for now, may revisit. Ditto CCR.
Ah, that's more like it.
Jimi Hendrix - "Hey Joe". "Angel" and "The Wind Cries Mary" were already on my list. That probably caps my Jimi. Neither "Foxey Lady" nor "Fire" nor "Are You Experienced?" nor "Crosstown Traffic" will make it. Maybe "Watchtower," we'll see.
Cheap Trick - "Don't Be Cruel". Of course RS went with the Elvis original for their #197.
Glen Campbell - "Wichita Lineman". I wish I knew why I liked this. It goes back long before Homer Simpson's sidesplitting rendition.
Guns N' Roses - "Knockin' on Heaven's Door". RS put Dylan's version at #190. "November Rain," "Sweet Child" and "Paradise City" already made my set. That might cap my GNR.
AC/DC - "Back in Black". Maybe I should have just dedicated an AC/DC quintet. This joins FTATR and the two "Hell" songs, with both "You Shook Me All Night Long" and "Thunderstruck" almost dead cinches for future lists.
Near miss: Beck's "Loser."
Confirmation of something I didn't know about my own tastes: I dislike "Peggy Sue" almost as much as "Everyday." Apparently I truly don't like Buddy Holly.
Random observation that should go somewhere: Maybe this is an upset of sorts, but I don't think "Iron Man" will make my list. "Paranoia" certainly won't. Not that they're horrible. Actually "Sweet Leaf" might make a future 'hell' list if I haven't put it somewhere already.
Remember, these I can't stand, "500..." are the ones I like. Haven't used the "bad" meme since this post.
Neil Young - "Heart of Gold"
The Rolling Stones - "Wild Horses". This and "Heart of Gold" are atrocious in almost the exact same way.
Van Morrison - "Moondance". This song probably produces the most extreme possible disagreement between myself and otherwise intelligent listeners.
Buddy Holly - "Everyday". I had no idea how much this song was fingernails on a blackboard to me until I saw it on the list. And I like... well, maybe I don't like Buddy Holly, since every time I try to think of a Buddy Holly song I like instead I think of the Everly Brothers.
Elvis Costello - "Alison"
Come to think of it there's a whiny male vocal style that these songs all have in common. For reference, James Taylor's "Fire and Rain" also almost made this particular quintet, though I think I love/hate that recording rather than flat hating it.
Surprisingly few of the mid-tier Rolling Stone choices do much for me.
Norman Greenbaum - "Spirit in the Sky"
AC/DC - "Highway to Hell" (joining "Hells' Bells" and "For Those About to Rock" already on the list)
? and the Mysterians - "96 Tears"
Sly and the Family Stone - "Dance to the Music"
The Animals - "We Gotta Get Out of this Place"
Inspired by 301-350 of the RS 500...
Tina Turner - "What's Love Got to Do With It?", and while we're at it...
Tina Turner - "We Don't Need Another Hero"
Pink Floyd - "Comfortably Numb", and while we're at it...
Pink Floyd - "Mother", and of course...
Pink Floyd - "Brain Damage"
I'd be surprised if any other TT or PF made it. Sorry, no "Private Dancer," not "Another Brick in the Wall," certainly no "Wish You Were Here" or any of the I absolutely despise these overblown songs portion of their discography.
(As for Pink Floyd that I like, "Learning to Fly" and "On the Turning Away" were already included.)
The Ike & Tina version of "Proud Mary" might make a future list.
(Somehow the original disappeared instead of posting. This is just pasted from my spreadsheet.)
Aerosmith - Back in the Saddle 51
Aerosmith - Home Sweet Home 51
Aerosmith - Sweet Emotion 51
Aerosmith - Walk This Way 51
Run-DMC - Walk This Way 51
Might as well include these. With two exceptions I originally heard all these here. Attributions as best I can find them via Party Ben's site.
Lynyrd Skynyrd vs. Nelly - "Sweet Home Country Grammar" (DJ Mei-Lyun)
REM vs. Basement Jaxx - "Where's Your Head At / Losing My Religion"
50 Inch Nails - "Closer to Da Club"
Nena vs. Jay-Z - "99 Luft Problems" (Jay-Zeezer)
Jay-Z vs. Billy Joel - "Big Shot Pimpin'" (Da Brat)
Fatboy Slim vs. Beatles vs. U2 - "Vertigo Tripper" (DJ Reno)
Stevie Wonder vs. Rolling Stones vs. Killers - "Uptight Killer" (Go Home Productions)
Jet vs. The Muppets - "Are You Gonna Be My Animal" (a better title would be "Mahna Mahna Be My Girl")
Led Snoopelin - "Drop it Like It's Hot / Whole Lotta Love" (a Party Ben original)
Green Day vs. Oasis vs. Aerosmith - "Boulevard of Broken Songs" (also a Party Ben original, no matter what your own local DJ tells you)
Radiohead - "Fake Plastic Trees". The most underrated of Radiohead's hit singles.
U2 - "Pride (In the Name of Love)
Cream - "White Room"
Depeche Mode - "Personal Jesus"
Depeche Mode - "Enjoy the Silence". Not on that particular Rolling Stone page but I might as well throw it in here and (as far as I can think of) be done with Depeche Mode.
Jimi's "The Wind Cries Mary" was already on the list. Freda Payne's "Band of Gold" was sorely tempting but my enjoyment isn't at face value.
Bobbie Gentry - "Ode to Billie Joe". So did she push him off the Tallahatchee Bridge or just watch him jump?
Don Henley - "The Boys of Summer"
Deep Purple - "Smoke on the Water"
Nirvana - "Come As You Are". You know a lot of Nirvana will wind up on my list. Even so I've been reluctant to give them a whole quintet, so the trickle continues.
Wilson Pickett - "Mustang Sally"
By popular request, albeit several days after the request was made, let's dust off this meme.
Prince - "Purple Rain". The best part is if you catch this on the radio in mid-song, during the extended instrumental bridge.
Prince - "Let's Go Crazy". So when you call up that shrink in Beverly Hills, you know the one, Dr. Everything-Will-Be-All-Right, don't ask him how much of your time is left, ask him how much of your mind is left.
Prince - "Batdance". The best thing the Batman movie series left us was the incidental music. Not as good as the James Bond songs but the gap is less than you think, and has narrowed with each of the past few Bond films (biggest offender being Madonna).
Queen - "We Are the Champions". Obligatory.
Queen - "We Will Rock You". Also obligatory. But I don't think Bohemian Rhapsody will make my list. We'll see.
The idea is to examine, in glorious detail, the Depths of Suckitude of the music that was popular when you got out of High School. Philosophy being, I suppose, that the music that was popular during the time you made that high school-to-college transition is the music that shaped your Sonic Consciousness. [...] Post the list on your [weblog], striking through the songs you hated (or still hate) and boldfacing the ones you liked (or still like). Bold and underline your favorite song. No opinion? Leave it as-is.
--here via here, with this raw material.
I really don't remember any of these.
1. End Of The Road, Boyz II Men
2. Baby Got Back, Sir Mix A-lot
3. Jump, Kris Kross
4. Save The Best For Last, Vanessa Williams
5. Baby-Baby-Baby, TLC
6. Tears In Heaven, Eric Clapton
7. My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It), En Vogue
8. Under The Bridge, Red Hot Chili Peppers
9. All 4 Love, Color Me Badd
10. Just Another Day, Jon Secada
11. I Love Your Smile, Shanice
12. To Be With You, Mr. Big
13. I'm Too Sexy, Right Said Fred
14. Black Or White, Michael Jackson
15. Achy Breaky Heart, Billy Ray Cyrus
16. I'll Be There, Mariah Carey
17. November Rain, Guns N' Roses
18. Life Is A Highway, Tom Cochrane
19. Remember The Time, Michael Jackson
20. Finally, CeCe Peniston
21. This Used To Be My Playground, Madonna
22. Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough, Patty Smyth
23. Can't Let Go, Mariah Carey
24. Jump Around, House Of Pain
25. Diamonds and Pearls, Prince and The N.P.G.
26. Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me, George Michael and Elton John
27. Masterpiece, Atlantic Starr
28. If You Asked Me To, Celine Dion
29. Giving Him Something He Can Feel, En Vogue
30. Live and Learn, Joe Public
31. Come and Talk To Me, Jodeci
32. Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana
33. Humpin' Around, Bobby Brown
34. Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover, Sophie B. Hawkins
35. Tell Me What You Want Me To Do, Teven Campbell
36. Ain't 2 Proud 2 Beg, TLC
37. It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday, Boyz II Men
38. Move This, Technotronic
39. Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen
40. Tennessee, Arrested Development
41. The Best Things In Life Are Free, Luther Vandross and Janet Jackson
42. Make It Happen, Mariah Carey
43. The One, Elton John
44. Set Adrift On Memory Bliss, P.M. Dawn
45. Stay, Shakespear's Sister
46. 2 Legit 2 Quit, Hammer
47. Please Don't Go, K.W.S.
48. Breakin' My Heart (Pretty Brown Eyes), Mint Condition
49. Wishing On A Star, Cover Girls
50. She's Playing Hard To Get, Hi-Five
51. I'd Die Without You, P.M. Dawn
52. Good For Me, Amy Grant
53. All I Want, Toad The Wet Sprocket
54. When A Man Loves A Woman, Michael Bolton
55. I Can't Dance, Genesis
56. Hazard, Richard Marx
57. Mysterious Ways, U2
58. Too Funky, George Michael
59. How Do You Talk To An Angel, Heights
60. One, U2
61. Keep On Walkin', CeCe Peniston
62. Hold On My Heart, Genesis
63. The Way I Feel About You, Karyn White
64. Beauty and The Beast, Calms Dion and Peabo Bryson
65. Warm It Up, Kris Kross
66. In The Closet, Michael Jackson
67. People Everyday, Arrested Development
68. No Son Of Nine, Genesis
69. Wildside, Marky Mark and The Funky Bunch
70. Do I Have To Say The Words?, Bryan Adams
71. Friday I'm In Love, Cure
72. Everything About You, Ugly Kid Joe
73. Blowing Kisses In The Wind, Paula Abdul
74. Thought I'd Died and Gone To Heaven, Bryan Adams
75. Rhythm Is A Dancer, Snap
76. Addams Groove, Hammer
77. Missing You Now, Michael Bolton
78. Back To The Hotel, N2Deep
79. Everything Changes, Kathy Troccoli
80. Have You Ever Needed Somone So Bad, Def Leppard
81. Take This Heart, Richard Marx
82. When I Look Into Your Eyes, Firehouse
83. I Wanna Love You, Jade
84. Uhh Ahh, Boyz II Men
85. Real Love, Mary J. Blige
86. Justified and Ancient, The KLF
87. Slow Motion, Color Me Badd
88. What About Your Friends, TLC
89. Thinkin' Back, Color Me Badd
90. Would I Lie To You?, Charles and Eddie
91. That's What Love Is For, Amy Grant
92. Keep Coming Back, Richard Marx
93. Free Your Mind, En Vogue
94. Keep It Comin', Keith Sweat
95. Just Take My Heart, Mr. Big
96. I Will Remember You, Amy Grant
97. We Got A Love Thang, CeCe Peniston
98. Let's Get Rocked, Def Leppard
99. They Want EFX, Das EFX
100. I Can't Make You Love Me, Bonnie Raitt
Our building is having A/C problems. This after I drove out to Concord today (where I bought my car, back when I lived out there) to get my car looked at (funny noise, so I suppose really to get my car listened to).
Think back to 2002 and everything that was trendy then. Which trends are harmless in hindsight and which would you want to go back in time and nip in the bud?
Nelly doesn't seem to be all over the charts these days. He made his money and then got eased aside for whoever this year's flavors are. I'll let him stand.
Sharon Osborne, on the other hand... I saw this story over the shoulder of a newspaper-reading BART-riding guy. Classless all around. Why did we find that show charming and/or unintentionally funny? He (Ozzy) was good for a few shows of being a drug-addled vegetable trying to hold down the father role, then the rest of his clan let it get to their heads.
Haven't made up my mind about the Atkins diet. Bad in hindsight but not bad enough to be worth a time machine. Enough people learned enough lessons.
My category archive, my spreadsheet, and a site-specific Google search all agree that Jack and Meg had been inexplicably shut out of this meme until now.
The White Stripes - "The Hardest Button to Button". If you can get over the uncanny similarity between this song and "Stay Up Late" by The Talking Heads, it's got a fine riff.
The White Stripes - "Fell In Love With A Girl".
The White Stripes - "We're Going To Be Friends".
The White Stripes - "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground". Obviously the list would include this, though it's at best my fourth favorite White Stripes song (yes, the five included here are in rough order of preference).
The White Stripes - "My Doorbell". Based on one radio listen. Maybe if I owned Get Behind Me Satan I'd have other favorites from that album.
Memes never die, they just quietly go into hiatus and suddenly reappear.
Gigi D'Agostino - "L'Amour Toujour (I'll Fly With You)" I have yet to find a lyrics site that attempts fully to transcribe this song. As far as I can tell they include the actual lyrics but punt on the unintelligble syllables.
Lyrics Born - "I'm Just Raw" ("...Nell Carter vs. Karen Carpenter, topless...")
The Streets - "The Irony of It All" ("...Gran Turismo on the hardest setting...")
The Killers - "Somebody Told Me" You'd think this would have been a prime burnout candidate, that saturation airplay would make me loathe this song by now and wrinkle my nose at it two years later (c.f. various Linkin Park singles). But no, it's still catchy.
Coldplay - "Clocks" Obligatory. I did wince at the saturation factor of this song but now I'm over that and the song's still good. Unclear whether the dance beat on the remix enhances it, butchers it, or a little of both. For our purposes we'll avoid distinguishing the two versions. (Note, though, the club mix of Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful" is an act of vandalism.)
I think Jack White came up with "My Doorbell" (from Get Behind Me Satan) off the top of his head.
The lyrics sound like an improv performance where the MC suggested a household item and someone yelled out "doorbell!" They work, though, especially with a tune and instrumentation that combine the best elements of Motown and Fat Boy Slim. The piano riffage does indeed sound doorbell-like.
If the songs in Part 46 seemed a little downbeat, these probably also will. No particular reason to think of songs like that - maybe just tired/sleepy on a Friday afternoon.
Pink Floyd - "On the Turning Away".
Red Hot Chili Peppers - "The Zephyr Song".
Carly Simon - "Coming Around Again".
Morrissey - "Alma Maters".
Cinderella - "Winds of Change". This is not to be confused with the Scorpions song of the same name.
Barenaked Ladies - "Celebrity". My favorite of their more recent material.
Alanis Morissette - "Forgiven". When this list started I meant to eschew deep album tracks for some reason. This is as deep as they come. Given that I don't particular object to my own religous upbringing, certainly haven't rejected it (that I know of), and more importantly can't really speak pro or anti about Canadian Catholicism, this is a weird track to resonate with me. Then again, "Perfect" from the same album also resonates with me despite not having anything resembling pushy parents.
Rush - "The Trees". I'm a bit self-conscious about liking "The Trees." In political allegory, it approaches the line of hamhandedness, though I'd like to think it doesn't quite cross that line.
Sarah McLachlan - "Possession". I didn't realize she was Canadian until I hit a blank on this entry.
The Crash Test Dummies - "Mmm, Mmm, Mmm, Mmm". Ditto, and I've been waiting weeks to add this song to a particular quintet.
(Or Best Buy, whichever big-box store misuses the subject of this post.)
Wasting all my time.*
The perfume that you wear.
The ribbons in your hair.
Talking in your sleep.
Wearing it well.
Looking so fancy.
Someone to feed.
Someone to bleed.
*- Actually, "wasting all my time" fits.
As long as The Cars were paid handsomely for it...
(Title obscured to preempt obnoxious ad placement.)
Its reputation preceded it for months but I finally heard this earlier this week when it actually got radio airplay. Not as irksome as I'd have feared but still pretty craptacular.
Thank goodness I don't know anyone whose phone has it.
In this installment, two from Siamese Dream and three more from Mellon Collie ("Tonight Tonight" having already made this running feature); some tracks from Pisces Iscariot, Gish, Adore, and even the aforementioned two albums might make a future list.
Smashing Pumpkins - "Cherub Rock"
Smashing Pumpkins - "Today"
Smashing Pumpkins - "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" (instrumental opening to the album of the same name, of course)
Smashing Pumpkins - "33"
Smashing Pumpkins - "Porcelina of the Vast Oceans"
White Zombie - "More Human Than Human"
Rob Zombie - "Dragula"
Had a moment of near-panic yesterday when I couldn't think of the song "Living Dead Girl." Could hear in my head the faintest outline of it, and knew of it as "that follow-up to Dragula"...
Nine Inch Nails - "Closer". My old college friend Arthur parodized this as I wanna dress you in Garanimals...
Nine Inch Nails - "Something I Can Never Have". "You make this all go away..."
(And now for something completely different - at least comparing the one right above to this next one....)
Basement Jaxx - "Where's Your Head At?" At first I loathed this song, then it grew on me. Don't let the walls cave in on you...
A needed antidote to the posts below this one.
Ramones - "Blitzkrieg Bop"
Ramones - "The KKK Took My Baby Away"
Ramones - "I Wanna Be Sedated"
Ramones - "Rockaway Beach"
Ramones - "Sheena is a Punkrocker"
Kind of an arbitrary snapshot of the Ramones tunes I could think of offhand in roughly the order I like them; I wonder what I've egregoiusly omitted.
If you're skimming, remember "200 [...] Hell" means bad stuff, "500 [...]" means good stuff.
Third-Eye Blind, "Semicharmed Life". Just as Paula Cole and Shawn Colvin are the same singer, Third-Eye Blind and Matchbox 20 are the same band.
Hanson, "MMMBop". Obligatory, yet I don't despise this nearly as much as the others in this entry and the one below it.
Verve Pipe - "The Freshmen".
Celine Dion - "All By Myself". We may or may not revisit Ms. Dion in this running feature.
Bob Carlisle - "Butterfly Kisses". Arguably the worst of any of these 10.
If you were wondering, I actually liked "Wannabe" and continue to tolerate it. Ditto "Tubthumping." "Barbie Girl" might have made the list but it was over-the-top novelty enough.
1997 was around the peak of my being sad and awkward (at age 22 and in law school - so what at least should be a more balanced and mature time than 17 and in high school). You'd think I'd have anthems for this sadness and awkwardness, though looking at charts from that year the songs I despised are far more easily recognizable.
Paula Cole - "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?"
Shawn Colvin - "Sunny Came Home"
Essentially the same song, this 1-2 punch is what made radio unlistenable circa 1997.
Elton John - "Candle in the Wind" (Diana Tribute)
Jewel - "Foolish Games"
R. Kelly - "I Believe I Can Fly"
Good gracious, 1997 needs another entry.
Inspired by MJL's memories of "Freak on a Leash" from a distant past as an awkward 17-year-old, some songs that happened to chart around when I was 17 and awkward actually very happy, come to think of it; 1992 was a good year for me, though no particular piece of music captures that.
(And even though grunge was at its height, angst-metal for the sake of being angst-ridden wasn't really on the radar).
Bonnie Raitt - "I Can't Make You Love Me"
Patty Smyth feat. Don Henley - "Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough".
Two easily confused songs in the same vein.
The Cure - "Friday I'm In Love"
Grunge aside, 1992 music turns out to be strikingly forgettable. Not hit-from-hell fodder but just regrettable. (The three megahits that best exemplify this are an exercise for the reader.)
"November Rain" was added to my list a long time ago; "Under the Bridge" would never make it in a million years. (It may or may not achieve "hit from hell" status as that list expands.)
So, while I'm thinking about The Cure:
The Cure - "Pictures of You"
The Cure - "Untitled" ("... never quite managed the words to
explain to you, never quite knew how to make them believable...)
When did Disintegration come out, 1989? Sad to say I had no idea it existed until years later.
From the same link as quoted in the post below this:
Low ratings at a classic rock station I occasionally listened to years ago. Never heard of the guy who got fired, but the "Man on the Street" used to be their evening DJ and the "former sports guy" (whose name is pronounced like "Abbott" though you'd never know it in print) I remember from first WBCN middays and then his role in New England Patriots coverage.
This knowledge serves me no purpose, as the Boston radio market has zero impact on my life now.
Zager & Evans - "In the Year 2525". Duuuuuuuuuude. The future, like, sucks, man. Heavy.
The Fifth Dimension - "Age of Aquarius". Arguably the worst song actually in my iTunes collection (ripped from one of Julia's movie soundtrack CDs). Between this and the above, it's a wonder there weren't more hippies randomly beaten.
The Fifth Dimension - "Stoned Soul Picnic". I didn't plan a Fifth Dimension theme but this song unwittingly reminded me of my personal bad oldie's rule: Every '60s song I despise (with the obvious exception of 2525 above) turns out to be by The Fifth Dimension.
The Fifth Dimension - "One Less Bell to Answer". Googling reveals an impressive array of divas with questionable enough taste to cover this.
The Fifth Dimension - "Up, Up and Away". I can't emphasize enough how awful The Fifth Dimension's entire catalogue is.
The absolute worst (in my completely subjective opinion) music out there, at least to get nontrivial radio airplay. A lot of sickly-sweet ballads and moldy oldies will fit this category but the songs most likely to assault me via my radio are bad alt-rock, so here we begin:
Disturbed - "Down With the Sickness". Arguably the worst song ever to chart. I don't exaggerate. Gratuitously poseur-angst lyrics, annoying jungle-style drumbeat, and that sound effect.
Fat Boy Slim - "Because We Can". When bad songs happen to good DJs... in this case blame either the beer commercial or the movie.
Sublime - "Wrong Way". Did I miss a level of irony?
Papa Roach - "Last Resort". American teenage boys circa 2000 had life so hard, you know. Between the mass starvation and the forced labor camps...
Korn - "Freak on a Leash". Maybe I did miss a level of irony on Sublime's "Wrong Way," the cheerful happy song about a girl's horrible life, mixed in with three over-the-top temper tantrums about how awful normal life supposedly is.
Mickey Kaus doesn't like KCRW. I've never heard [of] that station but if you're in an urban[e] area then chances are there's at least one DJ (if not an entire station) that resembles Kaus's description.
Vengaboys - "We Like To Party". It gets no cheesier. The Vengabus is coming...
Elvis Costello - "Pump it Up". Does it blow my music taste cred completely that Elvis Costello wasn't already here somewhere? Will I blow it even further if this is the only Elvis Costello song to make it?
2 Unlimited - "Get Ready for This". (But only if this is the song I think it is.)
Fatboy Slim - "Going Out of My Head". If you could choose one song to aniihilate, changing history so that the world was almost completely the same except the song in question ever existed, what would you burninate? "Because We Can" is way high on my list if only to remove that blemish from Fatboy Slim's legacy. It's not quite "My Ding-a-Ling" (Chuck Berry) but you get the idea.
Maybe it'd be simpler just to burninate everything related to Moulin Rouge (the movie): Accomplish so many things at once between "Because We Can," that "Voulez Vous" song, Baz Luhrmann, and on down the list.
The Alan Parsons Project - "Sirius": I'll pretend this hasn't been misappropriated into radio ads for various "gentleman's clubs," though if Bill Simmons is to believed then apparently "Sweet Child O' Mine" is a strip joint performance staple.
200 down, (at least) 300 to go. Full list (thus far) in the extended entry.
Each of the three men featured in this quintet are responsible for a different song in the "egregiously overrated by drunken idiots who insist on singing along" trifecta. Politely passing over those particular songs, let's get to some quality:
Billy Joel - "This is the Time". I doubt my favorite Billy Joel song even cracks a true Billy Joel fan's top 10. Worth noting here that I'm anything but a true Billy Joel fan; for most of my adult live I've ostentatiously disparaged his work. It's at least partly a pose and at least partly spoon-fed from this book (it helps that Joe Queenan agrees with that book's assessment), and of course there's that infernal song.
A few weeks ago I discovered I can play "Piano Man" by ear surprisingly well (on piano of course). Surprisingly many Billy Joel songs come out fantastic played by ear on piano (just as surprisingly many Rolling Stones songs come out like redundant crap if played by ear on piano); now's as good a time as any to make peace with him.
Billy Joel - "For the Longest Time". The best of his "overrated" songs.
For what it's worth the first contemporary Billy Joel hit whose chartage I "lived through" was "Keeping the Faith." His mega-hits were before my time, though not by much, and I'll sheepishly admit to liking "We Didn't Start the Fire" at the time enough to buy the cassette single. Guterman and O'Donnell are right that he is not a rocker by any stretch, but as a pop artist he's fine.
Barry Manilow - "I Write the Songs". Egotistical lyrics but beautiful and masterfully written.
Me First & The Gimme Gimmes - "Mandy". I meant to put Manilow's version here of course but the cover just blows it out of the water and the lack of Me First up to this point is a glaring omission. There's also, of course, The Last Temptation of Homer.
Neil Diamond - "America". I actually "blogged" almost this entire entry in my head a good 10 days or so ago, planning to put "September Morn" here but unsure whether it was already included before (it was).
A Flock Of Seagulls - I Ran 5
Aaron Lewis - Black 32
ABBA - Dancing Queen 14
AC/DC - For Those About To Rock 4
AC/DC - Hell's Bells 18
Aerosmith - Angel 3
Alanis Morissette - Uninvited 30
Alanis Morissette - Everything 30
Alice in Chains - No Excuses 12
Avril Lavigne - I'm With You 2
Barbra Streisand - Evergreen 14
Barenaked Ladies - Enid 30
Barenaked Ladies - Grade Nine 30
Barry Manilow - I Write the Songs 40
Benny Mardones - Into the Night 14
Big Country - In A Big Country 5
Billy Joel - This is the Time 40
Billy Joel - For the Longest Time 40
Billy Ocean - Suddenly 10
Blondie - Call Me 39
Bloodhound Gang - The Bad Touch 28
Bon Jovi - Lay Your Hands On Me 28
Boston - Hitch A Ride 6
Boston - More Than A Feeling 38
Brad Paisley - We Danced 8
Britney Fox - Long Way To Love 1
Britney Fox - Girlschool 31
Brook Benton - Rainy Night in Georgia 38
Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run 36
Bruce Springsteen - My Hometown 36
Bruce Springsteen - Born in the U.S.A. 36
Bruce Springsteen - Tunnel of Love 36
Bruce Springsteen - Glory Days 36
Cake - Sheep Go To Heaven 28
Cake - I Will Survive 38
Carly Simon - The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of 2
Cheap Trick - The Flame 34
Chicago - Will You Still Love Me 10
Chicago - You're The Inspiration 10
Chris Cornell - Sunshower 32
Christina Aguilera - Beautiful 2
Cinderella - Coming Home 28
Cinderella - Gypsy Road 31
Corey Hart - Can't Help Falling In Love 30
Cream - Tales of Brave Ulysses 37
Cream - Sunshine of Your Love 37
Creed - Higher 1
Crowded House - Don't Dream It's Over 18
Cyndi Lauper - She Bop 5
Daft Punk - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger 16
Darude - Sandstorm 16
Debbie Gibson - Foolish Beat 34
Deep Purple - Smoke on the Water 37
Def Leppard - Pour Some Sugar On Me 35
Def Leppard - Animal 35
Def Leppard - Hysteria 35
Def Leppard - Gods of War 35
Def Leppard - Love Bites 35
Dickie Lee - Laurie (Strange Things Happen) 25
DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince - Nightmare On My Street 13
Dokken - Heaven Sent 31
Dr. Dre - The Next Episode 16
Eminem - Lose Yourself 13
Expose - Seasons Change 34
Filter - Take A Picture 1
Frank Sinatra - Summer Wind 11
Freiheit - Keeping The Dream Alive 17
Garth Brooks - Friends in Low Places 8
Gordon Lightfoot - The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald 24
Green Day - She 19
Green Day - Welcome to Paradise 19
Green Day - Longview 19
Green Day - Redundant 19
Green Day - J.A.R. 19
Guns N' Roses - November Rain 3
Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine 29
Guns N' Roses - Paradise City 29
Hole - Asking For It 26
Hole - Miss World 26
Hole - Violet 26
Hole - Doll Parts 26
Hole - Softer, Softest 26
Icehouse - Crazy 18
INXS - New Sensation 18
INXS - Never Tear Us Apart 18
Jan and Dean - Dead Man's Curve 25
Jeff Buckley - Last Goodbye 16
Jimi Hendrix - Angel 12
Jimi Hendrix - The Wind Cries Mary 12
John Fogerty - Center Field 17
Journey - Open Arms 10
Kernkraft - Zombie Nation 16
Kiss - I Wanna Rock N' Roll All Nite 17
Kylie Minogue - I Believe In You 2
L.A. Guns - The Ballad of Jane 24
Led Zeppelin - Ramble On 6
Led Zeppelin - Over the Hills and Far Away 37
Lionel Richie & Diana Ross - Endless Love 10
Lita Ford & Ozzy Osbourne - Close Your Eyes Forever 22
Lonestar - Amazed 39
Loverboy - Working for the Weekend 27
Lynyrd Skynyrd - Freebird 6
Madonna - Crazy For You 39
Mark Dinning - Teen Angel 25
Me First & The Gimme Gimmes - Mandy 40
Metallica - For Whom The Bell Tolls 23
Metallica - Harvester of Sorrow 23
Metallica - Master of Puppets 23
Metallica - The Unforgiven 23
Metallica - Low Man's Lyric 23
Nat King Cole - There Will Never Be Another You 11
Neil Diamond - September Morn 11
Neil Diamond - America 40
Nina Gordon - Now I Can Die 33
Nirvana - In Bloom 12
Nirvana - All Apologies 28
No Doubt - Hella Good 29
Ozzy Osbourne - Flying High Again 22
Ozzy Osbourne - You Can't Kill Rock and Roll 22
Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears 22
Ozzy Osbourne - Time After Time 22
Pearl Jam - Alive 32
Pearl Jam - Yellow Ledbetter 32
Percy Faith - Theme From A Summer Place 7
Petula Clark - Don't Sleep in the Subway 21
Pink Floyd - Learning To Fly 6
Poison - Nothin' But A Good Time 29
R.E.O. Speedwagon - Can't Fight This Feeling 27
R.E.O. Speedwagon - In My Dreams 27
R.E.O. Speedwagon - Keep On Loving You 27
Radiohead - Creep 14
Radiohead - Paranoid Android 15
Radiohead - Subterranean Homesick Alien 15
Radiohead - Exit Music (for a Film) 15
Radiohead - Letdown 15
Radiohead - No Surprises 15
Ray Peterson - Tell Laura I Love Her 25
Reba McEntire - Fancy 8
Richard Marx - Endless Summer Nights 34
Robert Goulet - The Impossible Dream 11
Ronnie Milsap - Smoky Mountain Rain 8
Run DMC - Mary, Mary 13
Rush - Red Barchetta 1
Sam Kinison - Wild Thing 9
Sammy Fain & Paul F. Webster - Secret Love 11
Skid Row - I Remember You 3
Slaughter - Fly To The Angels 24
Smashing Pumpkins - Tonight Tonight 4
Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun 32
Steelheart - I'll Never Let You Go 3
Stevie Ray Vaughan - Texas Flood 12
Survivor - I Can't Hold Back 27
Tears For Fears - Head Over Heels 29
Tesla - Love Song 39
The Allman Brothers - Melissa 6
The Beach Boys - Wouldn't It Be Nice? 7
The Beastie Boys - Sabotage 13
The Beastie Boys - No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn 13
The Beatles - L.S.D. 20
The Beatles - Strawberry Fields 20
The Beatles - Ticket to Ride 20
The Beatles - A Day in the Life 20
The Beatles - Glass Onion 20
The Beatles - I Want To Tell You 21
The Commodores - Night Shift 24
The Cure - Plainsong 1
The Eagles - Desperado 38
The Grass Roots - Midnight Confessions 7
The McCoys - Hang On Sloopy 7
The Offspring - Gone Away 24
The Psychadelic Furs - Pretty in Pink 5
The Rolling Stones - Jumpin' Jack Flash 21
The Rolling Stones - Brown Sugar 21
The Shangri-Las - Leader of the Pack 25
The Smiths - How Soon Is Now? 38
The Standells - Dirty Water 17
The Supremes - Love Child 7
The Who - Love Reign O'er Me 21
The Who - Baba O'Riley 37
The Wonderful World of Joey - What Sweet Child of Mine is This 9
Tiffany - Could've Been 2
Toby Keith - Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue 8
Tom Lehrer - Clementine 9
Tom Lehrer - In Old Mexico 9
Tony Bennett - I Left My Heart In San Francisco 17
U2 - Bad 4
U2 - Gloria 4
U2 - Where The Streets Have No Name 4
U2 - Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me 39
Van Halen - Jump 5
Veruca Salt - 25 33
Veruca Salt - Sleeping Where I Want 33
Veruca Salt - Shutterbug 33
Veruca Salt - Earthcrosser 33
Warrant - Heaven 3
Warrant - Sometimes She Cries 31
Weird Al Yankovic - All About the Pentiums 9
White Lion - Wait 34
Winger - Headed for a Heartbreak 14
Winger - Madalaine 31
Lonestar - "Amazed". Nothing says 2000 like this song, other than maybe "Who Let the Dogs Out" (which obviously won't come near my list).
U2 - "Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me". Thanks to Jon Couture for bringing this up in a Batman post. It's the only song from the top of the 1995 charts that'd come near my 500.
Tesla - "Love Song".
Madonna - "Crazy For You". That's two lists in a row where the same Foreigner song would've fit the theme but I couldn't pull the trigger. By the way, 1985 blows {1990, 1995, 2000} out of the water.
Blondie - "Call Me". Very nearly went with "Lady" (Kenny Rogers) here. "Call Me" has been so badly overexposed, yet it withstands the exposure.
Since this whole running feature exists only because of that list, might as well scrape from it directly. Working upward from here:
Boston - "More Than A Feeling".
TV commercials ruined the Thin Lizzy song for me, though it may not have qualified anyway.
Brook Benton - "Rainy Night in Georgia".
If "Buddy Holly" is even one of the five best Weezer songs then Weezer is deeply overrated as a band. "Miss You" probably isn't one of the 20 best Rolling Stones songs. Neither would come near my list.
The Eagles - "Desperado". It kills me to have an Eagles song on this list. You'd be surprised at my disdain for the band. But... "Desperado" merits inclusion.
I'll punt on both The Crystals and that particular Smoky Robinson song for now, flat-out reject Jackson Browne, and ponder "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me" before punting it too. "Brown Sugar" was already here, Part #21, and I'm shocked that RS editors wouldn't even know the Rolling Stones catalogue well enough to put two songs with as vast a quality difference as "Brown Sugar" and "Miss You" in such close proximity.
Cake - "I Will Survive". The Gloria Gaynor version is irredeemably cliched.
A resounding Hell No to "Rhiannon" and a Maybe Later to "Under the Boardwalk."
The Smiths - "How Soon Is Now?". Cliched, but it withstands the overexposure. The t.A.t.U. cover is hilarious.
Of the rest of 451 thru 500, three are already covered in past parts ("Paradise City"; "All Apologies"; "Sabotage"). You might see "Welcome to the Jungle" or the Foreigner song on a subsequent list. Nothing else stands out.
Has it really been two weeks?
Deep Purple - "Smoke on the Water". Does Robb Nen belong in the Hall of Fame? I assume not, though he'll have a superficially plausible case for awhile until people out save #'s into perspective. Anyhow, "Smoke on the Water" was his longtime entrance music.
Cream - "Sunshine of Your Love". Of course this was Eric Clapton's final encore when I saw Clapton in concert several years ago.
Cream - "Tales of Brave Ulysses". Shouldn't this genre be at least as much a guilty pleasure as hair metal? I couldn't tell you anything noteworthy about the compositional quality of at least these first three, yet they're fun to listen to.
Led Zeppelin - "Over the Hills and Far Away". Isn't it remarkable that Robert Plant is writing archetypical Led Zeppelin songs to this day? His vocals are still passable but he should really consider the Woody Allen route; just as Allen gave "his own" role to Jason Biggs, perhaps Plant should give his compositions to... and here's the problem. No current band can do the Led Zeppelin sound justice. The White Stripes maybe?!?
The Who - "Baba O'Riley". So good it's cliched, but good enough to overcome being cliched.
For (at least) the second year in a row Live 105 rechristened itself as "KGAY" for Pride Parade weekend. Last year that weekend coincided with a gaming social at my friend Stephen's place in SF; it's funny to think of a full year passing since that get-together.
Apparently the arguably gayest radio station in SF has had its current format for less than a year. It was interesting to flip between Live 105 KGAY and Energy to see which one actually had the gayer content that moment. For example, focusing on KGAY, as we drove back from the A's game, "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" clearly qualifies as gay, but just as clearly a remix of "Hollaback Girl" didn't belong. (Maybe it was just a mashup and I failed to recognize the instrumental half?)
Hard to say what SF's least gay radio station is.
Bachelor #1 - probably the least gay music station, the DJ animation atop their current web site nonwithstanding.
Bachelor #2, if you buy the premise that sports are ungay, though I know way too many gay sports junkies to buy into that.
Bachelor #3 seemed like a clear winner until I remembered the news reflected in the last sentence of this link:
"In April 2005, [KFRC AM 610 - the A's flagship and previously a simulcast of KFRC 99.7 FM] was sold to Family Stations and began broadcasting Christian-oriented programming."
Freakiest thing if you'd had an A's game on in your car and then come back the next day...
The Andrew Sisters - Cuanto Le Gusta
Blame Julia for owning it or blame me for ripping it?
Bruce Springsteen - "Born to Run". One nice thing about the iTunes preview feature: Had I realized it was there, I wouldn't have wasted 99 cents on his subsequent acoustic version.
Speaking of dodgy acoustic versions, those of you who go to Starbucks a lot, have you been at all tempted to plunk down $17 (or whatever) for the 10th anniversary Jagged Little Pill acoustic homage? I was tempted for maybe a half-second before decidedly coming to my senses.
Bruce Springsteen - "Tunnel of Love".
Bruce Springsteen - "Glory Days".
Bruce Springsteen - "My Hometown".
Bruce Springsteen - "Born in the U.S.A.".
I really didn't want to include that last one, partly because it's trite, partly because I'm not at all proud of the Reagan campaign for simultaneously co-opting it while failing to appreciate its true message, but mainly because I'm sure there's some egregious omission above.
But on the merits, "Born in the U.S.A." is a strong enough top 500 candidate for me (the other four are no-brainers) to put it in; whatever I'm leaving out, remind me and it might make a future list.
Can't believe "Pour Some Sugar On Me" wasn't already on my slowly-growing list. Obviously doesn't fit the theme of the entry right below this.
Def Leppard - "Pour Some Sugar On Me".
Def Leppard - "Animal"
Def Leppard - "Gods of War"
Def Leppard - "Hysteria"
Def Leppard - "Love and Affection"
Def Leppard - "Love Bites"
I gave brief thought to "Pyromania," "Rock of Ages," "Photograph," "High and Dry," even "Let's Get Rocked," but nothing on any other Def Leppard album would be more than the sixth best song on Hysteria, nor a plausible top 500 candidate.
"Love and Affection" probably won't stay in my top 500 once we hit Part 101 and above, but it's plausible for now. "Woman" and "Rocket" were both reasonable choices for that last spot; "Love Bites," "Armageddon," and whatever Side B filler I've forgotten clearly weren't reasonable choices for that spot.
Heh. Of the five above, Side B holds a 3:2 edge over Side A. That said, All but one of the unincluded Side B's are atrocious, whereas three of the four two of the three unincluded Side A's are near misses. (Despite the disparaging comments in two posts in a row, the more I think about it the more I like "Love Bites," horrific radio overexposure aside.)
Obviously I changed my mind about "Love Bites." I don't wanna be there when you decide to fake it....
The theme became obvious about halfway through. Cutting and pasting what was originally my comment on the Cheap Trick song: Yeah, I was one of those melodramatic kids who let one little breakup ruin 8th grade. From the cheat sheet I'm astonished at how many heartbreakers charted in '88; are other years like that?
White Lion - "Wait". Of all the rock songs of the 1980s, it'd be hard to find one that more closely resembles an etude. Some nifty chord progressions here:
D - A - C - G - Bb - F - A
A - A7 - D - Dm
Bm - Em - A
Bm - Em - F#
And so on (excuse this if you're one of the many people to whom those notations mean nothing, though if you are I feel sorry for you; learn to read music, you'll never regret it).
You'd think I could comine this with Extreme's "More Than Words" for an etude themed quintet. The obvious problem here is that "More Than Words" probably wouldn't crack my top 10,000, much less top 500.
Cheap Trick - "The Flame".
Expose - "Seasons Change". I sometimes cheat on these lists and jog my memory with a reference. I swear I had this song in mind as it was, even before catching that this site claims "Seasons Change" was the #2 song of 1988.
Debbie Gibson - "Foolish Beat". ("And when we said goodbye, oh the look in your eyes, it left me beside myself...")
Richard Marx - "Endless Summer Nights". Not a sad moment-of-parting song but rather a wistful recent-memory song.
Of songs from 1988's supposed top 100 that didn't make this list:
Tiffany's "Could've Been" was already covered (list #2)
Chicago's "Look Away" and George Michael's One More Try" are both intriguing near misses. So's "I Can't Stay Away From You" though it's unclear whether I'd even put that in my top five Miami Sound Machine.
"Every Rose Has Its Thorn" is probably my least favorite Poison song.
"Love Bites" is below average for a Def Leppard song.
I'd successfully repressed Whitney's "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" but "Shattered Dreams" (if that's what Johnny calls music, then jazz hates Johnny at least as much as Johnny hates Jazz) still gives me hives.
"She's Like the Wind" is smirk-worthy, not for the identity of the singer so much as how he butchers it.
I think Foreigner was just going through the motions on "I Don't Want To Live Without You." Very emotionless delivery, almost deadpan.
Unanswered:
16. "Give me your coldest shoulder to cry on. You're never anywhere I find you, you're never anything I rely upon." Longpigs - "On and On"
22. "Making mad love on the heath, tearing off tights with my teeth." Faithless - "Insomnia"
23. "I dreamt that the bogeyman went down on Mr. Spock." Moloko - "Fun for Me"
Veruca Salt - "25" One of my all-time favorite single drumbeats is on the fourth beat of the measure as "25" is slowing and softening to a halt. Just a crack out of nowhere leading into the return of the wall-of-sound guitars.
Veruca Salt - "Sleeping Where I Want"
Veruca Salt - "Earthcrosser". I used to marvel at the degree of pent-up rage VS could express/release in their album finales. But that was when I had cassette tapes and didn't realize that the CD version of American Thighs ends with "Sleeping Where I Want," a nice low-key denouement with funky harmonization.
Veruca Salt - Shutterbug" ("You monkey you left me...")
Nina Gordon - "Now I Can Die". Tonight and the Rest of My Life has almost the opposite sound of Eight Arms to Hold You, yet Bob Rock produced both. Go figure.
The best thing about this mock epistle is the name at the end.
Just because. (Actually, inspired by hearing #1 on the radio earlier today.) Unlike that old winter meme, I don't know if I have any of these on iTunes (nor necessarily want to). The '90s are like a ten-year earwig.
Really lame clue for the three remainders as of 1 p.m. PDT Wednesday: Pork, milk, and a lack of religious adherence. (Hey, milk and pork aren't kosher anyway.)
Title and artist please. Comment away but if you look something up, don't comment on it. Although the post title refers to an entire decade most of these were from when I was at Boston University.
1. "You cut off my legs, now I'm an amputee, god damn you." (Paul)
2. "Cinammon and sugary and softly spoken lies." (Paul)
3. "She went in the back to get high. I sat down on my couch and cried." (Brian)
4. "That blue-eyed girl became blue-eyed whore." (Greg)
5. "I'm not a coward, I've just never been tested. I'd like to think that if I was I would pass." (Greg)
6. "Nature's candy in my hand or a can or a pie." (Greg)
7. "The sun has gone down and the moon has come up, and long ago somebody left with the cup." (Paul)
8. "Now that your rose is in bloom a light hits the gloom on the grave." (Brian)
9. "I'm gonna tell my son to keep his money in his mattress and his watch on any hand between his thighs." (John)
10. "She had the greatest band, she had the greatest guy, she's good at everything and she doesn't even try." (Allyson)
11. "Parody of yourself in color, giving it to everybody but your mother." (ZD)
12. "For millions of years mankind lived just like the animals. Them something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination." (John)
13. "Well I guess what they say is true, I could never be the right kind of girl for you." (Paul)
14. "There she was in platform double suede, yeah there she was in disco lemonade." (Paul)
15. "He screamed, 'She lies, that little slut!' The judge knew that he was full of shit and he gave him 25 years." (Paul)
16. "Give me your coldest shoulder to cry on. You're never anywhere I find you, you're never anything I rely upon."
17. "Tell me all of your secrets. I know I should have listened when I was told." (ZD)
18. "I think you like to be the victim. I think you like to be in pain." (ZD)
19. "There's always another wound to discover." (Allyson)
20. "I'm a million different people from one day to the next." (Paul)
21. "For the life of me I cannot believe we would ever die for these sins." (ZD)
22. "Making mad love on the heath, tearing off tights with my teeth."
23. "I dreamt that the bogeyman went down on Mr. Spock."
24. "If you're under 18 you won't be doing any time." (Paul)
25. "Once my lover, now my friend, what a cruel thing to pretend, what a cunning way to condescend." (Maribeth)
Pearl Jam - "Yellow Ledbetter"
Pearl Jam - "Alive"
Chris Cornell - "Sunshower"
Soundgarden - "Black Hole Sun"
"Sunshower" blows the doors off any song or band Chris Cornell has been involved with before or since. If you've never heard it, I insist that you track it down. "Black Hole Sun" marks the extent of Soundgarden's incursion into my 500, and I doubt Audioslave will crack the list at all.
Other Pearl Jam songs are probably coming to future lists, as are (perhaps) a Staind song or two, but I'd be remiss without citing:
Aaron Lewis - "Black"
Even though I can't hear this cover without cracking up laughing, in some sick sense it's good stuff.
Winger - "Madalaine" ("Saving your soul for that one last kiss, living your wish upon a star...")
Dokken - "Heaven Sent" ("There seems no justice when you fall in love, it gives you blindness when you are the one.")
Cinderella - "Gypsy Road" ("Drive all night just to end up in the same old place")
Britney Fox - "Girlschool" ("Where my baby broke all the rules")
Warrant - "Sometimes She Cries" ("In a lonely night, out in the pouring rain, you can count on me")
Alanis Morissette - "Uninvited"
Alanis Morissette - "Everything"
Barenaked Ladies - "Enid"
Barenaked Ladies - "Grade Nine"
Corey Hart - "Can't Help Falling In Love"
We'll revisit this part of North American pop music soon.
Guns N' Roses - "Sweet Child O' Mine"
Guns N' Roses - "Paradise City"
The two "obvious" songs from Appetite For Destruction (no disrespect to closer Eric Gagne or Dodger fans, but "Welcome to the Jungle" is overrated). I hate smarmy rock DJs who refer to them only as "Guns," every bit as much as I hate the phrase "made a funny" or the people who drop the first syllable on the word "computer." If you can't bother with all three syllables, call it a "box" or a "machine," don't call it something retarded.
Poison - "Nothing' But A Good Time". So was the supposed rivalry between Axl Rose and Bret Michaels real or hype? On some earlier list I cited Kiss's "Rock N' Roll All Nite" for its brief appearance in a hair metal music video. Of course this is the song with that video. Bret as a dishwasher is listening to that song on an old tinny radio when the jerk manager comes by, snaps the radio off, and chews him out. "So either get your butt in gear or you're out of here." Bret glares at the guy's back, then kicks open the kitchen door and is suddenly on a concert stage as the opening riff kicks in.
Tears For Fears - "Head Over Heels"
No Doubt - "Hella Good"
From the iTunes "My Top Rated" tab, songs that figure to make my top 500 but might not have come up in a categorical spotlight.
Bon Jovi - "Lay Your Hands On Me". If I were in a Major League starting rotation, the home PA system would play this whenever I warmed up for the first inning.
Bloodhound Gang - "The Bad Touch". ("You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals...") No disrespect meant to "Fire Water Burn" but the existence of this song makes all other Bloodhound Gang songs obselete. Well, maybe not "I Wish I Was Queer (So I Could Get Chicks)" but I don't see that making my 500.
Cake - "Sheep Go To Heaven". Poor goats! Best Cake song in my opinion; idly curious where Paul ranks it among their other tunes.
Cinderella - "Coming Home". ("I took a walk down the road, it's the road I was meant to stay. I see the fire in your eyes but a man's got to make his way. [go up an octave into falsetto] So are you tough enough for my love?")
Nirvana - "All Apologies". I put "In Bloom" into this feature (Part 12) before "All Apologies"? Wow. Surprising.
...the kind music purists rail against.
R.E.O. Speedwagon - "Can't Fight This Feeling"
R.E.O. Speedwagon - "In My Dreams"
R.E.O. Speedwagon - "Keep on Loving You"
Survivor - "I Can't Hold Back" ("I can feel you tremble when we touch, and I feel the hand of fate reaching out to both of us...")
Loveboy - "Working for the Weekend". Somebody, maybe James Lileks, called this "the perfect '80s song" once. He had a point. Fine riff.
Why do all these sites classify Boston of all bands as "corporate"? By musical content they belong in the same genre as the others, yet Tom Scholz was always at loggerheads with the label(s).
Is my R.E.O. fandom more embarrassing or less embarrasing than the taste for hair metal? The world's most famous fictional R.E.O. fan is probably Onion columnist Jim Anchower, yet our specific tastes are totally differen't - I go for the ballads, he goes for "Roll With the Changes" type songs.
I'd planned to put a Styx song or two here but the last two above demanded inclusion, while no particular Styx song catches my fancy the way these do. Maybe "Lady" will show up on some future list.
Back-to-back-to-back songs heard on this station earlier this week:
Warrant - "Heaven"
Gary Wright - "Dream Weaver"
Alanis Morissette - "You Oughtta Know"
You know I loved it all though.
I think exactly five Hole songs are worthy of my top 500, and I thought of the album while brainstorming tributes and eulogies. Not that anything on the album is necessarily about the lead singer's late husband (though rumor has it all the compositional skill came from him in his lifetime, at least as a strong influence, with Celebrity Skin showing equal "influence" from subsequent love interest Billy Corgan).
Lyrics included so you readily identify the song, not necessarily to single out that lyric for praise.
Hole - "Asking For It" ("If you live through this for me I swear that I will die for you")
Hole - "Miss World" ("I am the girl you know can't look you in the eye.")
Hole - "Violet" ("Go on take everything, take everything I want you to.") This song pops into my head during chess games a lot, or used to when I played chess more. Goes great with a piece sacrifice, or even just with stupidly hanging something.
Hole - "Doll Parts" ("Someday you will ache like I ache.")
Hole - "Softer, Softest" ("I've got a blister from touching everything I see.")
The Shangri-Las - "Leader of the Pack"
Ray Peterson - "Tell Laura I Love Her"
Mark Dinning - "Teen Angel"
Dickie Lee - "Laurie (Strange Things Happen)" ("I saw my sweater lying there upon her grave")
Jan and Dean - "Dead Man's Curve". I don't honestly expect this one to last on my top 500 list but the other four actually might and the theme, you can't go wrong with the theme.
If I hadn't already included it earlier, "J.A.R." by Green Day would fit this quintet perfectly.
Gordon Lightfoot - "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"
The Commodores - "Nightshift"
Slaughter - "Fly to the Angels"
L.A. Guns - "The Ballad of Jane"
The Offspring - "Gone Away"
This entry actually sat for awhile, with writer's block following the first two choices. Then one right after the other I thought of the metalheads. Of the last three above, was it suicide, suicide, natural causes, respectively?
Songs played on 95.7 "The Max" (previously 95.7 "The Bear" as a country station, before that 95.7 "The Drive" as album-oriented classic rock) around noon today:
KC & The Sunshine Band, "Get Down Tonight"
Corey Hart, "Never Surrender"
REO Speedwagon, "Roll With the Changes"
Eric Carmen, "Hungry Eyes"
They claim now to play "70s... 80s... whatever we feel like." Time will tell whether this is a variant on that trendy "Jack" format (update: duh - it's "Max" as in the guy's name, so obviously yes, a "Jack" clone) or just a suckup to Gen X as it enters (we enter) middle age. Either way, stations like this that change formats every two years trying to stay alive will be made obsolete by satellite radio.
More about my radio dial than you'd have really cared about, after the jump:
My newest car radio thing is public-sponsored jazz. Julia got into this station when she got fed up with the weak signal on the FM incarnation of KABL (which got booted off its AM frequency to make room for Air America).
FM1 (left to right):
KCSM "Jazz 91" (Jazz of course)
Energy 92.7 (dance - and Blogspot! that's when you know you've got a big marketing budget)
95.7 (70s/80s, was country until today)
KFOG ("World Class Rock")
Live 105 (alternative rock)
107.7 "The Bone" (rock)
FM2 (left to right):
KFRC (oldies)
98.1 Kiss FM ("old-school and today's R&B")
Alice (was alternative once, now more Hot AC)
KOIT ("lite rock, less talk")
KABL (adult standards, piss-poor FM signal)
Classical 102
AM
610 AM (KFRC sister station, A's games)
680 KNBR (Giants)
1050 (KNBR sister station) - random Westwood One sporting events
740 (KCBS all-news)
560 and 960 (KSFO and "The Quake": Rush et al and Air America, both sides of SF's political flamewar, not that I ever listen to either these days)
Not listed above: Star 101.3. When I went to add the jazz station, something had to go, and of the 12 I already had, this was the only one that brought nothing unique to the table. Maybe if I had any tolerance whatsoever for cheesy fossilized iconic-yet-overrated morning guys...
Metallica - "For Whom The Bell Tolls"
Metallica - "Harvester of Sorrow"
Metallica - "Master of Puppets". As of two years ago apparently I found the "[verb-based noun] of [noun]" parallel amusing enough to name two baseball teams (in AL and NL scoresheet) after it. No longer quite so amused but the team names still stay, at least for continuity.
I think of the three above as "the obvious ones," and yet there are "obvious" ones that won't make this quintet, where I should separate "got crowded out" from "wouldn't have made it."
Metallica - "The Unforgiven". I think most Metallica fans like Metallica ("the black album") more than I do. "Enter Sandman" in particular stands out as overrated, though "Wherever I May Roam" comes close to making this list.
Metallica - "Low Man's Lyric." Woo hurdy-gurdy. Best song on Reload (don't press me on an opinion of Reload either; I'll say "better than St. Anger" and leave it at that), though "The Memory Remains" is worthy of honorable mention.
I'm still torn about Garage Inc. It's certainly better than St. Anger and might be better than S&M. The world is probably a better place for both these albums (Garage and S&M) existing. Once you've already done Ride the Lightning and ...And Justice for All, another album just like those could make the world a little bit better but could also make it a lot worse.
From that album "Tuesday's Gone" was going to make the list above but it got crowded out. The Bob Seger cover got way too much radioplay, but then so did the original. ("Turn the Page," that is.) The Irish ballad also got too much radioplay but I kind of miss it.
"No Leaf Clover" isn't awful but wouldn't make my top 500, and while I'm happy to have the orchestral versions of all these songs, there's no orchestral version that itself needs special mention here. Nothing on St. Anger (have I beaten this dead horse enough yet? - how many times have I mentioned on this weblog that the day I bought both St. Anger and 200 km./Hr in the Wrong Direction (t.A.t.U.), the latter was the less sucky?) even sniffs this list.
Anyway, back to the top 500 in general: You might see "One" or "Hero of the Day" (or as mentioned, "The Memory Remains") on a future list. In theory you could see "Sanitarium" or "Fade to Black" or even "Call of Ktulu" (how big a number is 500 again?) though I wouldn't hold my breath for those.
You get a rare three-fer today.
Ozzy Osbourne - "Flying High Again": There I go again with the drug anthem. (On the other hand there are quality drug anthems and craptacular drug anthems. Every time a classic rock program director falls back on Black Sabbath's "Sweet Leaf," the world gets a little worse.)
Ozzy Osbourne - "You Can't Kill Rock and Roll": Another good track from Diary of a Madman.
Lita Ford & Ozzy Osbourne - "Close My Eyes Forever": The ultimate power ballad duet.
Ozzy Osbourne - "Time After Time": Best of the late-Ozzy sappy songs, edging out "Mama I'm Coming Home." Sounds fantastic on piano.
Ozzy Osbourne - "No More Tears": Edges out "Mr. Tinker-Train" amongst songs implying extreme child abuse. Y'know, for all the grief he took over "Suicide Solution," I'm surprised nobody moralistic objected to either of these. I suppose the moralistic objectors tend to look only on the surface of a song, and so if something is veiled - even thinly veiled... But c'mon: "Maybe a kiss before I leave you this way / Your lips are so cold I don't know what else to say." Yeah, that's consenting adults there.
Elsewhere in the Ozzy discography... I'd like to be true to the roots of any given music movement. I wanted to appreciate Black Sabbath, but "Iron Man" is one of the most overrated heavy metal songs ever. Is it that nobody sounded like that before "Iron Man" and so we broke new ground now taken for granted? No other explanation makes sense.
I also don't get the exaltation of "Crazy Train," which is inferior to at least two out of three randomly chosen Ozzy songs.
The Beatles - "I Want To Tell You": Forget the sitar stuff, this is the best song on Revolver if not the best Beatles song period, and a glaring omission from Part 20.
The Rolling Stones - "Jumping Jack Flash"
The Rolling Stones - "Brown Sugar": As good a time as any to break out the best Stones songs, and these two tower over the rest (in my opinion).
Petula Clark - "Don't Sleep in the Subway": The subtlety and sarcasm of this song is easily missed; it's actually a really clever break-up song, in a "don't let the door hit you on the way out" vein.
The Who - "Love Reign O'er Me": Brings Quadrophenia to a dramatic, flagrantly oversung end. Surprised I didn't think to include this amongst the over-the-top quintet with Benny Mardones et al.
"Who are the Beatles?"
"No, I'm asking you, who are the Beatles, I've never heard of them."
--(not really) Catherine Zeta-Jones
The Beatles - "L.S.D."
The Beatles - "Strawberry Fields": The two drug anthems seemed like the obvious choices to me, where "obvious" always makes me wary of cliche. But on further review there are enough other "obvious" Beatles songs, most of which wouldn't make my list.
The Beatles - "Ticket To Ride": Their best early work.
The Beatles - "A Day in the Life": "I saw a film today, oh boy..." It looks as though this list will shut out Revolver, which is kind of a shame. I'll give a shout-out here to (of all things) "Tomorrow Never Knows," which - like "A Day In the Life" - closes out an album.
The Beatles - "Glass Onion": "Eggman" is overrated, but this is the song that tells us the walrus is Paul.
Green Day - "She"
Green Day - "Welcome to Paradise"
Green Day - "Longview"
Green Day - "Redundant"
Green Day - "J.A.R."
Why devote an entire quintet to the same band? Best reason is if the band has a lot of superlative songs from among which you have trouble singling one out. (A detractor might attribute it to the band's songs all sounding somewhat alike, but it's all a matter of degree.)
Above are my three favorite tracks from Dookie (great workout music, actually), a standout from Nimrod that grabbed my by the collar (figuratively) the first time I played it on iTunes (Nimrod was actually Julia's CD), and the song with my all-time favorite use of a guitar note instead of a syllable.
Honorable mention to "Warning." Nothing from American Idiot came close, though I've heard only the title track and "Boulevard of Broken Dreams."
Notable exclusions from Dookie: To nitpick, "Basketcase" doesn't quite have the "Canon in D" chord sequence. It's like "Canon in D" but with the next-to-last chord omitted. There was a time in the 1990s when radio stations so overplayed "When I Come Around" as a single that I got sick of it.
If you expected "Good Riddance" to make this list then you need your head examined. As vortices of suck go, that song and the Seinfeld finale deserve each other.
Scandalously violating the "only do one a day" but I'd neglected this feature for awhile.
Icehouse - "Crazy": Nice chord progression.
Crowded House - "Don't Dream It's Over": Good mellow sound.
INXS - "New Sensation": Have I mentioned how much I like upbeat block chords?
INXS - "Never Tear Us Apart": Admittedly cheesy.
AC/DC - "Hell's Bells": With apologies to Men at Work, Midnight Oil, Silverchair, etc., no other Oz song came immediately to mind that I'd think of for this list. There's enough AC/DC in the queue that before long I might have an all-AC/DC list (all-Metallica is also a strong possibility).
The Standells - "Dirty Water": Played after home team victories at Fenway Park at least since 1999 (before I moved west). I loved this song even as a kid, despite the lyrics probably going over my head.
Kiss - "Rock N' Roll All Night": A's post-victory music for a couple years earlier this decade. Also featured in the music video of a song that will make this meme sooner or later.
Tony Bennett - "I Left My Heart In San Francisco": Giants' post-victory music, but not immediate post-victory. As the last out is recorded, the upbeat dance music kicks in. Tony sings only after Renel repeats the totals from the game (with win, loss, save, etc.) and urges us to drive safely.
John Fogerty - "Center Field": Self-explanatory.
Freiheit - "Keeping the Dream Alive": Probably never played at a ballpark but used by WGN in a 1989 after-the-fact montage of Cub highlights.
Darude - "Sandstorm": You've heard this even if you couldn't name this. Smash hit for a Finnish DJ. Oakland A's pre-game music for a couple years around 2000.
Kernkraft - "Zombie Nation": To PA systems circa 2002 what "Who Let The Dogs Out?" was to 2000, though far higher quality (and, like "Sandstorm," instrumental).
Daft Punk - "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger": Longtime Mark Mulder pre-game mound warmup music, great for his name because "Mulder" itself sounds comparative.
Jeff Buckley - "Last Goodbye": Occasionally used for Zito (though he changed things up a lot). You'd think these songs are here simply for reference to (A)thletic moments, though I claim to like them on the merits. Note the absence of "Can't Stop" (RHCP/Tim Hudson), which I can't see making my 500.
Dr. Dre - "The Next Episode": Mentioned in an earlier run-through but not formally added at that point. Barry Bonds first-inning batting music.
They could easily write and perform the best pop songs ever done - think of "Creep" as their essentially nailing the genre, though "High and Dry" also deserves recognition there. It'd be so easy for them to do that, though, that they end up all avant garde just to challenge themselves (and their listeners).
My gushing over Radiohead would mean more if I didn't forget about them for months at a time. (That said, I do continue to aspire to learn the entire OK Computer album by ear for impromptu piano performance. I've got side 1 down pretty much, but my cassette tape of the album broke two years ago and I haven't replaced it in any medium.)
How many rules can we break here? Let's do a second quintent in one day, overemphasize the same band, and go with obscure(?) album tracks. Sound good?
Radiohead - "Paranoid Android" ("...kick and scream and goose you little piggy" - that's quoting from memory; a real lyrics page might have something completely different. Oh, and "God loves his children")
Radiohead - "Subterranean Homesick Alien" (with achingly beautiful lyrics that'd be cheapened by a soundbite quote)
Radiohead - "Exit Music (for a Film)" ("dream, keep dreaming -- I can't do this, oh no")
Radiohead - "Letdown" (best Amaj7 chord ever, evidence that maj7 can be vastly superior to dom7)
Radiohead - "No Surprises" (first four on this list were obvious to me; "No Surprises" edges out "Airbag" for the other spot in the quintet)
If you noticed the lack of "Karma Police" above, you noticed correctly. Funny how great albums consistently get one of their weakest songs as the most successful single.
If "torch song" didn't have a sexual identity connotation, some of these might qualify. I loathe what I used to think of as "Star Search" singing (perhaps now "American Idol" singing?) where someone in love with his or her own voice oversings every note just to milk it. Sometimes that style works in spite of itself.
Benny Mardones - "Into the Night": Best fulmination against age of consent laws ever. Plus he really, really really gets into the song.
Barbra Streisand - "Evergreen": Greg is right, it's surprising I didn't put this with the cheesy ballads a couple quintets ago.
Winger - "Headed for a Heartbreak": Speaking of age of consent, there was an obvious choice of Winger song to share a quintent with Benny Mardones, except that I don't really that one cracking my 500. This power ballad, on the other hand... Kip Winger, ballet-trained metalhead, at his finest.
ABBA - "Dancing Queen": Yeah, would've made a fine "age of consent" set. Aw, hell with it...
No, I can't do it. "Seventeen" is NOT one of the 500 best songs ever, despite how this post looked the first two minutes it was up.
Radiohead - "Creep": Contary to what some people remember, I never sang this karaoke. I sang it a capella to a group who heard that I was considering it for karaoke and wanted a laugh.
Live 105 has a great early-evening feature, "five minutes of Radiohead." I might devote a quintet entirely to tracks from OK Computer, blatantly violating the no-deep-album-cut spirit of a list like this, just because they're all reasonable choices. For now, at the very least "Creep" has to make it in.
...or this man has literally the worst taste in music I've ever seen.
Of English-language music popular somewhere in the U.S., rap might be my area of least competence. I'd have trouble identifying any Snoop Dogg song other than "Gin and Juice," any Nelly song other than "Country Grammar" or his duet with Tim McGraw, or any Tupac (or Biggie Smalls) song period. I'm more familiar with the Dynamite Hack cover of "Boyz N The Hood" than with the original. Cutting to the chase, I'm painfully white, and the list below reflects that experience. That said...
Eminem - "Lose Yourself." I like hearing a song, thinking "this is a surefire future stadium anthem," and eventually seeing it become one.
DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince - "Nightmare on My Street." Another of those songs most of us have on our playlist but wouldn't have realized how common it was until seeing it on everyone else's lyrics quiz.
Run DMC - "Mary, Mary": Dating myself to the exact summer that I watched too much of Adam Curry's MTV countdown (which led into "Remote Control" - launching pad for Colin Quinn, Adam Sandler, Kari Wuhrer, et al).
The Beastie Boys - "Sabotage": For me this works great as letting off steam after a big loss or setback. Your mileage may vary.
The Beastie Boys - "No Sleep Til Brooklyn": Of course that's partly because of her gushing PA introductions of him during his brief peak (checking those stats, can you spot the fluke season?). Along similar lines, honorable mention (i.e. possible future inclusion) to Dr. Dre's "The Next Episode" (his batting music for a few seasons).
Ways I Exhaust You
Things I Don't Want
Personal Contradictions
Location of Other Hand
Today's Sixx Mixx taught us that "Uptight," "Jumpin' Jack Flash," and "Somebody Told Me" go surprisingly well together if you pick and time the right elements to blend in.
That first one is in D-flat major (but B-flat is the relative minor); second one B-flat, with missing thirds often enough that the parallel minor is fine; last one of course B-flat minor straight out.
A good mashup can really tickle the brain well.
Jimi Hendrix - "Angel": I love the guitar-driven exuberance at the end.
Jimi Hendrix - "The Wind Cries Mary": I have no doubt that this and "Angel" are my two favorite Hendrix, even if others ("Watchtower" et al) get more hype.
Alice in Chains - "No Excuses": You wouldn't think holding an E-flat note over a B-flat chord would provide that much harmonic richness, but this song really makes it work.
Nirvana - "In Bloom": Not at all clear how best to rank the Nirvana songs. You could make a "top 500" that included a half-dozen Nirvana, or none at all, or some but not others with no logical way to explain what made the cut and what didn't. Of all Nirvana songs, this has my favorite chord sequence. Never mind that the chord sequence is basically the entire song.
Stevie Ray Vaughan - "Texas Flood": Same problem as with Nirvana. This is as good a choice as any to get Stevie a foothold on the list. Sometime if or when the well runs dry, we may have an all-Nirvana or all-Vaughan list. Maybe.
(via Joe)
For the best example search on the page for the entry titled "This is a dangerous level of fun." Apparently the quality of a parody is inversely proportional to the quality of the subject material.
Ah heck, I'll just paste it here and save you the link (but Peddles is the source, giving credit where due):
Contents of desert (initial):
*Plants
*Birds
*Rocks
*Things
*Sand
*Hills
*Rings
Observations - Day 1:
*Fly (w/ buzz)
*Sky (w/o clouds)
Name of Horse:
*(unknown)
Advantages of desert:
*Out of rain
*Can remember name
*No pain
Observations - Day 2:
*Skin discolouration (red)
Observations - Day 3:
*Riverbed (dry) (dead?)
Observations - Day 9:
*Reached border desert/sea
*Released horse
*Presence of +Plants
+Birds
+Rocks
+Things
+Sand
+Hills
+Rings confirmed
*Correlation of desert/sea noted (subterranean population of latter)
*Cities contain: +Heart of ground
+No love
For Bay Area listeners, think of these five as "songs you'd hear on KABL." Elsewhere, you might or might not have a station like this in your market. Chances are it's somewhere on the AM dial (even though KABL itself moved to FM back when Air America made its SF debut).
Frank Sinatra - "The Summer Wind": The best individual song of decades worth of impressive work.
Robert Goulet - "The Impossible Dream": Partly Julia rubbing off on me, but her judgment here is impeccable.
Neil Diamond - "September Morn": The best individual song of decades worth of... well, either you like Neil or you don't, and I'm unashamed to like him.
Nat King Cole - "There Will Never Be Another You": Does anyone mind if I attribute jazz standards to their composer rather than citing a specific recorded performance? I realize that differs from everything else to this point.
Sammy Fain & Paul Francis Webster - "Secret Love": See above. Check some future installment of this meme for the superlative Cole Porter.
The extended entry includes all 55 songs listed to date. At least 445 to go...
A Flock Of Seagulls - I Ran
AC/DC - For Those About To Rock
Aerosmith - Angel
Avril Lavigne - I'm With You
Big Country - In A Big Country
Billy Ocean - Suddenly
Boston - Hitch A Ride
Brad Paisley - We Danced
Britney Fox - Long Way To Love
Carly Simon - The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of
Chicago - Will You Still Love Me
Chicago - You're The Inspiration
Christina Aguilera - Beautiful
Creed - Higher
Cyndi Lauper - She Bop
Filter - Take A Picture
Frank Sinatra - Summer Wind
Garth Brooks - Friends in Low Places
Guns N' Roses - November Rain
Journey - Open Arms
Kylie Minogue - I Believe In You
Led Zeppelin - Ramble On
Lionel Richie & Diana Ross - Endless Love
Lynyrd Skynyrd - Freebird
Nat King Cole - There Will Never Be Another You
Neil Diamond - September Morn
Percy Faith - Theme From A Summer Place
Pink Floyd - Learning To Fly
Reba McEntire - Fancy
Robert Goulet - The Impossible Dream
Ronnie Milsap - Smoky Mountain Rain
Rush - Red Barchetta
Sam Kinison - Wild Thing
Sammy Fain & Paul F. Webster - Secret Love
Skid Row - I Remember You
Smashing Pumpkins - Tonight Tonight
Steelheart - I'll Never Let You Go
The Allman Brothers - Melissa
The Beach Boys - Wouldn't It Be Nice?
The Cure - Plainsong
The Grass Roots - Midnight Confessions
The McCoys - Hang On Sloopy
The Psychadelic Furs - Pretty in Pink
The Supremes - Love Child
The Wonderful World of Joey - What Sweet Child of Mine is This
Tiffany - Could've Been
Toby Keith - Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue
Tom Lehrer - Clementine
Tom Lehrer - In Old Mexico
U2 - Bad
U2 - Gloria
U2 - Where The Streets Have No Name
Van Halen - Jump
Warrant - Heaven
Weird Al Yankovic - All About the Pentiums
Chicago - "Will You Still Love Me": How many songs do you know that would, in their entirety, serve as a plausible marriage proposal? Maybe Carly Simon's "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be," but that's a totally different mood.
Chicago - "You're the Inspiration": Given the defined genre of this post, these both have to make it. And I put both on my overall top 500 without regret.
Journey - "Open Arms": Everything from the opening riff to the chord sequence to the sustained A-above-middle-C in the chorus.
Billy Ocean - "Suddenly": Along those lines, so many other Billy Ocean songs are worth considering.
Lionel Ritchie Richie & Diana Ross - "Endless Love": I've been told not to expect this at my wedding reception, if only because every other wedding reception has reduced this to cliche. You can see why they keep going to the well, though.
Sam Kinison - "Wild Thing": I wonder how many 20-somethings have any idea even who Sam Kinison was?
"Weird Al" Yankovic - "All About The Pentiums": Given the genre of the day, of course "Weird Al" makes the list, and this is by far my favorite of his.
Tom Lehrer - "Clementine": Of which my favorite is the Cole Porter verse. "Clementine, can't you tell from the howls of me, this love of mine calls to you from the bowels of me?"
Tom Lehrer - "In Old Mexico": It did my heart good to see during the lyrics quiz fad how many of you like this one as well. No offense to pigeon poisoners or fellow Harvard alums (two frequently confused groups), but I'd be mildly surprised if more than two Lehrer made my top 500. Still time though.
The Wonderful World of Joey - "What Sweet Child of Mine Is This": Most of you have no idea what this is. That's a shame; find it somewhere. If you use iTunes, it's 99 cents well spent.
Brad Paisley - "We Danced": One of the best ballads ever, of any genre. Who Needs Pictures is also noteworthy as a great start-to-finish album.
Ronnie Milsap - "Smoky Mountain Rain": One of country's all-time best sad songs.
Garth Brooks - "Friends in Low Places": Embarrassingly trite, but a song has to be good to become that popular in the first place and stay popular enough to be trite. For comparison: "Friends in Low Places" came up at every show on the cruise ship's dueling pianos, and guess how many times "Achy Breaky Heart" came up?
Toby Keith - "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue": You knew it was coming.
Reba McEntire - "Fancy": Who knows, maybe I'd like the original Bobbie Gentry better. Either way, it's too cheesy for words.
It's rare that one song could singlehandedly not just tell you everything you need to know about a given band, but also remind its own fans why there's a certain measure of guilty pleasure (if not outright shame) to admitting you like 'em.
Every time I've heard this song, I've boggled at its cheesiness quotient. There's the line, there's crossing the line, and there's over it by a thousand miles. It's train-wreck transfixing. Anyhow, enough commentary, onto the actual lyrics... even if you've never heard this song yourself, I claim the band is guessable.
(6/8 time, D-flat major key, for your aural enhancement. Not sure if that adds to or detracts from the cheesiness)
I've spent my life waiting
For that famous final scene
I believe you know the one--
When she falls in love with me
As for you, you've been fakin' your smile
Fillin' your time
on small talk
And cheap wine
Know'n' in your heart there was someplace
That you'd rather be
So right or wrong,
I wrote you this song
To tell you how I feel
Don't put up no fight
You just turn off the lights
Walk over here to me
Chorus:
And lay your body down on me
Down on me tonight, oh yeah
Oh, let your tears fall down on me
Down on me tonight, oh yeah
As for me I've lied to, denied to
fight with, and tried to
apologize for all my ways
To all the women who were fool enough to fall
in love with me
You played your role
like a movie
Got your lines for who is,
who was, who would be
Somehow you lost track
While real love slipped away, yeah
So for tonight, just turn off the lights
And let those real feelings show
There's no wrong or right
but until you try
you're never gonna know
Chorus
Before you was mine
I was so lonely
Ain't it a shame
Your heart must feel pain
before you get back on your feet again
Solo
So let's draw the blinds
Forget wasted time
And let them old demons die
Take ahold of my hand
Then you'd understand
Why love's worth one more try
Not too often I beat DEK to zany Pittsburgh-area news.
(If you click the second link, any songs that stick in your head aren't my fault.)
(Quick reminder: The goal here is to build up to my 500 favorite songs, five at a time. Even after 100 of these entries, I'll continue until I feel as though I've successfully recalled my true 500, though after 100 entries, every time one song enters, one song must leave. As a side game, commenters have taken to ranking the five songs in a given post. And why not?)
The Supremes - "Love Child". Very sophisticated premise for a song (she grew up both illegitimate and dirt-poor, and doesn't want to inflict the same stigma on her own potential offspring), but moreso I'm impressed at how they pull off the A-major verses with a-minor chorus.
The Beach Boys - "Wouldn't It Be Nice?". All of Pet Sounds is a fantastic album. With the rise of iTunes we should note the passing of album-oriented rock. That said, before Pet Sounds most albums were a good hit or two along with filler. Even after that, how many start-to-finish good albums are there?
Two songs in a row with arguably a socially conservative theme. Which reminds me of something that came up at the end of last month's cruise: If you are unmarried but live with your significant other, for customs declaration purposes are you both in the same household? Apparently yes. I imagine this applies regardless of whether you're the opposite sex or the same sex. It's unclear whether this would also apply to 2-to-N roommates cruising together but not romancing each other.
The Grass Roots - "Midnight Confessions": Surprisingly upbeat song given the premise. I love the chord sequences.
Percy Faith and His Orchestra - "Theme From A Summer Place": Best "easy listening" instrumental song ever. Great recent pop cultural connotations also, from Jasper's audition (where he gives it words) to the Olympic volleyball TV ad.
The McCoys - "Hang On Sloopy": It couldn't be the '60s without a I-IV-V-IV party song, of which I claim this one is the best. (A controversial claim to be sure, given "Louie Louie" and "Wild Thing" as other contenders.) I imagine 90% of Big Ten sports fans despise the pep band version of this song though.
Conspicuous in their absence are the Beatles and Stones. Great bands but no particular song came to mind for my own top-500. Maybe some other time. (Actually, two very similar Beatles songs came to mind but I sat on them both and then already had the full list above.) This reminds me of what I see as the two fatal flaws of the latest music-based blog meme:
1. Do you really know for sure what your favorite individual song is of each of N particular bands you like? For my own part, I have trouble with this.
2. Suppose I really did have favorite songs for each of N particular bands. Would you honestly care enough to guess?
Boston - "Hitch A Ride". I especially like the intro.
Pink Floyd - "Learning To Fly". Many PF songs are way too pretentious for my taste but this is straightforward enough that it works really well.
Lynyrd Skynyrd - "Freebird". Me and everybody else, even though it's the sort of song that when a classic rock station does a three-day weekend "top 500" countdown, you brace yourself for the anti-climax when it comes out on top. Actually I don't mind this on top, it's when "Stairway" comes out on top that I cringe at the cliche.
Led Zeppelin - "Ramble On". If at least one LZ song makes my own top 500, then this one does.
The Allman Brothers - "Melissa". The one with words, not to be confused with "Jessica" (the one without words). Some car company completely ruined "Jessica" for me by using it as music in an ad featuring an insufferable yuppie family.
Many other stereotypical 1980s songs might make my all-time top 500, some of which are clearly better than these, but these were what I thought of first.
A Flock of Seagulls - "I Ran": Even Grand Theft Auto can't ruin this. Maybe I should be glad that GTA introduced this song to a new generation.
Big Country - "In A Big Country": No relation to Bryant Reeves, whom Dick Vitale pegged as a "diaper dandy" his freshman year at Oklahoma State, who in turn is no relation to former Vitale "diaper dandy" LSU freshman Shaquille O'Neal from long before the truncated nickname.
The Psychadelic Furs - "Pretty in Pink": These first three all sort of sound alike but so be it.
Cyndi Lauper - "She Bop": I bop, you bop, he bops, we bop, they bop... you get the idea. Definitely a regular verb, song title nonwithstanding.
Van Halen - "Jump": So the one time I went to a Van Halen concert (in the extremely short-lived Gary Cherone era; one of the few platforms to unite Dave people and Sammy people was common hatred of Cherone) featured the least surprising encore ever.
(Not that I've been to a ton of concerts in my life, but still. Eric Clapton - no way of knowing unless/until you were keeping track and realized he hadn't done either "Cocaine" or "Sunshine of Your Love" yet. Veruca Salt - I saw them right after American Thighs came out. That tripleheader with Great White (long before they killed 100 Rhode Islanders), Tesla, and Ted Nugent? Couldn't tell you Nugent's finale but I do know Tesla never played "Love Song." But yeah, Van Halen... there's only one song with which Van Halen could possibly end a concert.)
See previous entries for explanation. Feel free to rank these (I do find those comments very interesting) but there's no tournament-based reason to do so.
U2, "Bad". Is there much consensus on the best U2 song? There seems not to be even though in my opinion it's obvious.
U2, "Gloria". Flouting my unannounced "no more than one song per artist until you run out of ideas" restriction in that I'm almost dead certain at least three particular U2 songs are in my top 500. Then again, maybe I'm wrong. I don't imagine this early one's that well-known or popular but if I ranked all U2 songs from best or worst, I'd have an obvious top two and then a gap.
U2, "Where the Streets Have No Name". Tempted to add the other two "beginning of The Joshua Tree" songs for an all-U2 quintent but I'm not convinced they make my top 500, at least not yet. There's a pretty good chance they would though. With no disrespect meant to the new material, I'm also dead certain that the three listed and two alluded-to are my five favorite U2.
Smashing Pumpkins, "Tonight Tonight". Pretentious and overdone? Well of course, it's Mellon Collie (you could argue, "well of course, it's Smashing Pumpkins" and really piss off someone who liked only their early stuff). As epic melodrama goes, this actually works extremely well. Remember when Fox used it in promos for the 2001 baseball playoffs? Two other SP songs (one old-school, one from Mellon Collie) are obvious candidates but will have to wait for a future quintet.
AC/DC, "For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)". Speaking of the 2001 playoffs... as soon as the D'back PA system started playing this into the bottom of the ninth of Game 7, I knew they'd pull it out, just as Emimem's "Lose Yourself" was exactly what the ALCS Game 4 Red Sox needed to stay alive another couple innings until David Ortiz became godlike.
Aerosmith - "Angel": The guitar intro alone is classic. It goes downhill a bit as soon as Steven Tyler opens his mouth but not enough to detract from the song's greatness.
Steelheart - "I'll Never Let You Go": Falsetto vocals don't get more falsetto than this. They're actually appropriate to the mood of this song though.
Warrant - "Heaven": Not quite a power-ballad, in that it's so laid-back, but one of those "sigh of happiness" sort of upbeat songs.
Guns N' Roses - "November Rain": The last good GNR song?
Skid Row - "I Remember You": "Woke up to the sound of pouring rain. Wind would whisper, and I'd think of you..."
(See this post for an explanation.)
Kylie Minogue, "I Believe In You": Upbeat in the sense that a satisfied sigh is upbeat. You can dance to it (read: work out to it). Shows off her pipes well without falling into the Starsearch/Idol trap.
Avril Lavigne, "I'm With You": A song of loneliness and despair, much moreso wistfulness. Also very challenging to sing (which is exactly why I want to karaoke it, with less ironic camp motivation than you'd think). Doesn't resonate with me nearly as much as it did long before getting into a serious relationship, of course.
Christina Aguilera, "Beautiful": As mentioned many times, the first time I heard this I was transfixed the way one would be by a train wreck. It's so over-the-top... yet somehow it works. (Though I must emphatically disclaim that this does not apply to the wretched dance remix.)
Tiffany, "Could've Been": As also mentioned before, this one I have done as karaoke.
Carly Simon, "The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of": This might surprise you but I could see Carly making my top 500 more than once. Nearly all her songs are deceptively well-written and harmonically rich. Every counterpoint class should study her chord progressions. Ironically, by far her least interesting hit (in my opinion) is also by far the most widely recognized. I blame all the people who tried to speculate about whether the vain guy was Warren Beatty, James Taylor, or Richard Nixon. (Okay, not Nixon.)
Enough about music I don't like. Long ago there was a "500 favorite songs" meme, probably related to that one dubious Rolling Stone feature.
I will mention five songs at a time that I really like. No more than five at once, no more than one set per day. When I get to 500 I'll keep going, except that for every song I add I'll have to throw one back. When I get sick of that I'll have my 500 list, though it's unlikely I'll have any interest in ranking within the 500.
In today's installment, the first three are the three songs in a row that come up just before the one-hour mark if I play my "Top Rated Songs" playlist alpha by artist.
Creed, "Higher": It's hard to think of a happier, more upbeat song that's basically about what happens when we all die and go to heaven...
The Cure, "Plainsong": Except maybe this deceptively upbeat, bombastic apocalypse-themed song, Track 1 from Disintegration. Both of these first two remind me of the end of the Chronicles of Narnia series as the kids go "onward and upward."
Filter, "Take A Picture": Mildly ironic in that on Disintegration, "Plainsong" leads into "Pictures of You." What's funny is that each of the first three has a chord sequence repeating over and over and over and over again; in most cases that'd quickly make a song unlistenable to me, but these tickle my head just the right way. Unlike the other four songs in this group, "Take A Picture" strikes me as low-key (the overdone "Hey Dad, what do you think about your son now?" bridge aside), like what you'd warm up to rather than what you'd have in your head at peak adrenaline.
Rush, "Red Barchetta": This is probably Rush's most upbeat song, and actually does have really interesting progression from one part of the song to another.
Britney Fox, "Long Way To Love": The perfect hair metal power-ballad, happy-song version.
I call shenanigans on this. From the comments on the link, apparently so does Warren.
I almost completely agree with Jesse Walker's comment; the Eagles do have exactly one listenable song, though it isn't "Hotel California" either.
Matt Welch's background comment on "Hotel California" is fascinating (and plausible), though he's gripe about their non-novel harmony isn't entirely true: "Desperado" does have a II (A major chord in G major song) for good measure.
Hmm, wait: Two listenable songs ("Desperado" and "Tequila Sunrise").
This goes a long way towards explaining a recent Boondocks storyline.
I've had the riff from "In Da Club" stuck in my head all morning. The only way to cure this seems to be to think of the "Closer to the Club" mashup from summer before last. (Was that a breakthrough in the mashup world or just the first one I happened to hear?)
I've still never seen any of "American Idol" (though, oddly, I caught an episode of "30 Seconds of Fame" once), but Coen has the rundown of it and other reality shows.
Mom is slightly behind the times, as she knew that Ozzie's son had been booted but didn't know he'd get to come back (does Idol air on Monday nights? - if so, one aired while she was flying home). She points out that Simon (who she really likes - despite never having seen him on Idol and loathing his Simpsons ep I have to agree based on second-hand reports) often classifies candidates as "a great karaoke singer, but..." or "good enough to sing on a cruise ship, but...". We of course saw putative examples of both talent levels over the weekend.
(Did I ever mention that I'm a fantastic karaoke singer? Paul or David can confirm or deny this w.r.t. the 2002 "Could've Been" rendition, though the hordes of screaming ladies and the unsarcastic approval of a wonderfully bitchy/queeny MC suggest how good I was. One time for several minutes on end I really really wanted to go out for Idol, though it's not something I'd ever wait in line eight hours to do, and I have no illusions about my actual skill level: Great at karaoke but unlikely to be even cruise ship caliber.)
Lifetime:
Guns N' Roses - "Paradise City" (1998 - group)
Tiffany - "Could've Been" (2002)
Neil Diamond - "September Morn" (March 11, 2005)
Avril Lavigne - "Sk8er Boi" (March 11, 2005)
Frank Sinatra - "High Hopes" (March 13, 2005 - duet)
Def Leppard - "Pour Some Sugar On Me" (March 13, 2005)
To-do / Wish list (in no particular order):
Warrant - "Heaven" (not available this weekend)
Avril Lavigne - "I'm With You" (emphatically vetoed by Julia)
Guns N' Roses - "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" (I went with "Pour Some Sugar On Me" over this; coincidentally the last Sunday karaoke act turned out to be six guys doing this)
Gretchen Wilson - "Redneck Woman" (not available this weekend, probably too recent)
Christina Aguilera - "Beautiful"
Staind - "Outside"
U2 - "Bad"
I don't know if anyone keeps stats on this but if I had to guess the most frequently performed karaoke song I'd go with "Summer Nights."
Best choice by anyone all weekend:
The over-the-top quasi-Hispanic guy who did Bobbie Gentry's (and Reba McEntire's) " Fancy". (The karaoke songbook attributed it to Reba McEntire, at least, and I was familiar with the song from hearing it once on a country station a few weeks ago; either my mom or Julia incorrectly attributed it to Cher. Not sure whether the book also listed it under Bobbie Gentry.)
Honorable mention to the "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" group.
Worst choice all weekend:
Some lady did Pat Benatar's "Hell is For Children." There's buzz, there's buzzkill, and then there's bludgeoning the buzz out of the room and dismembering the buzz's corpse. Several seconds of awkward silence between the end of her song and the MC figuring out how to segue.
Honorable mention to the same woman who did Pink's "Get This Party Started" both nights I was there, and didn't do it very well either time.
The ungotten lyric from two weeks ago was "Crystal Blue Persuasion" by Tommy James and the Shondells.
Poker content: Played some today for just the second time in a month or so. Was 12th of 70 at a NL hold em tournament a couple weeks ago, 70 being a far larger field than I'd been in before. 11th thru 15th places all broke even. Tournament details are interesting enough but the hands were pretty straightforward. When I went out, my AJ suited got no help against 88.
Today's was crap. One dollar buy-in (no rebuy) NL hold em among eight friends, chaotic assortment of ad hoc chips, blinds starting at 2-4 (100 chip count). I was BB on the second hand and got two limpers (neither of whom was SB). With KJ offsuit, raised to 15 and both limpers called, the former a very strong player (though I don't remember ever seeing him play in a tournament), the latter someone I took to be very bad based on demeanor.
AKx rainbow flop. Playing the first limper-caller for consecutive suited or a middling pair (sure, he might reraise me pre-flop with any decent pair, unless he was also playing our colleague to be very bad) and the second limper-caller for heaven knows what, I went all in on the flop. (None of the three of us were in the first hand, so 47 in the pot and 85 apiece in our stacks.) First opponent immediately called, second folded, he revealed AQ offsuit. Turn and river were a queen and a jack (in that order, so no drama).
UPDATE: Slightly more analysis.
Ignoring any value judgment you might make about one dollar buy-in among friends and assuming that the stakes don't affect the strategy (which I believe you should assume), more thoughts on the craptacular hand mentioned above:
AKx is a great flop if you have something made, poor if you're drawing to something. My first opponent would know his odds enough not to chase something. I can drive him off an inside straight draw or a set draw (if he had, say, JJ) betting less than all in. My second opponent might have stayed in for an unwise draw, but if I actually want that person still in then I should have bet less than all-in.
If you had Ax, how big would the x have to be for you to call my all-in bet? (Of course it depends on how you assessed my play and what you saw of my in-person demeanor at the time.) Though I didn't mention it on posting last night, Ax was an important reason why I bet all in instead of something smaller. That said, a good player is unlikely to limp-and-call pre-flop with Ax, while a bad player could well call the all-in bet, hoping for kicker luck.
KQ is another plausible hand that obviously dominates me but that might be folded after my all-in bet if I sell A{high kicker} well enough.
Of course I might have AA or KK. So could one of the limper-callers, though it's very unlikely.
The other day I was at home and got caught up in ranking all my iTunes songs. (I'd been ranking them intermittently after finally deciding that the "ranking" feature was worthwhile after all, with the obvious caveat that even something that gets just one star is better than something I pull from my playlist completely.)
Anyhow, I have 894 songs, of which 170 get four stars or higher, including (by serendipity) exactly 40 five-star selections. Guess what's after the jump?
"Sabotage" - Beastie Boys
"The Bad Touch" - Bloodhound Gang
"Lay Your Hands On Me" - Bon Jovi
"More Than A Feeling" - Boston
"Long Way To Love" - Britny Fox
"Dream On" - Britny Fox
"Sheep Go To Heaven" - Cake
"Coming Home" - Cinderella
"Nightshift" - The Commodores
"Higher" - Creed
"Plainsong" - The Cure
"Take A Picture" - Filter
"She" - Green Day
"Paradise City" - Guns N' Roses
"Sweet Child O' Mine" - Guns N' Roses
"Angel Eyes" - The Jeff Healey Band
"Angel" - Jimi Hendrix
"I Believe In You" - Kylie Minogue
"Close My Eyes Forever" - Lita Ford & Ozzy Osbourne
"For Whom The Bell Tolls" - Metallica
"All Apologies" - Nirvana
"Hella Good" - No Doubt
"Nothin' But A Good Time" - Poison
"Red Barchetta" - Rush
"I Remember You" - Skid Row
"I'll Never Let You Go" - Steelheart
"Head Over Heels" - Tears For Fears
"Courtesy Of The Red, White, And Blue" - Toby Keith
"Clementine" - Tom Lehrer
"Gloria" - U2
"Where The Streets Have No Name" - U2
"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" - U2
"Bad" - U2
"Jump" - Van Halen
"25" - Veruca Salt
"Sleeping Where I Want" - Veruca Salt
"Bittersweet Symphony" - The Verve
"Christmas Wrapping" - Waitresses
"Heaven" - Warrant
"The Hardest Button To Button" - The White Stripes
On further review, two that should be on the list above that weren't (but I'll add a fifth star as soon as I post this) are Boston's "Hitch A Ride" and Tom Lehrer's "In Old Mexico."
Artists exceedingly well-represented on the four-star plateau:
Barenaked Ladies (3, all from Gordon)
The Beach Boys (3, all from Pet Sounds)
Def Leppard (4, all from Hysteria)
Hole (4, all from Live Through This)
Metallica (3)
Poison (5)
REO Speedwagon (4 - yes, corporate rock is entirely my fault!)
Smashing Pumpkins (6, all from Mellon Collie)
Vince Guaraldi Trio (3, all from A Boy Named Charlie Brown)
Although you can't tell from the outdated web page (only shows through two Fridays ago as I type this), incidental music from the original Super Mario Brothers was part of last week's "Sixx Mixx" on Live 105.
Meanwhile there's this engineering project.
The Cure, Disintegration. One of the three things I bought with a Rasputin gift card my boss gave me for Christmas, it might be my favorite album from among the set of music I'd previously never legally owned.
(Several years ago a co-worker put his music collection on a local network and for a few months I could hear any track from Disintegration or any of hundreds of other albums whenever I wanted to, at least at work.)
Earlier today I bought The Very Best of Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons on iTunes (also singles of several of the songs in the lyrics quiz below). It would've never occurred to me to buy this at a record store, yet enough great songs are here that at $9.99 for songs I can play on my computer, it's money well spent.
That said, two of the disco-era tracks are abominations. (Not "December 1963," which is okay, but two others you've probably never heard.)
Julia just headed out to accompany some of her Pooh kids to the Heffalump movie (ironically timed release! - unless the timing of the choice to stage Pooh was itself opportunistic).
As she left, the switch from my iTunes "Julia mix" (about six hours worth of songs) to "Party Shuffle" mode (entire playlist, over 48 hours worth). Exit Billy Ocean's "Love is Forever," enter Nirvana's "In Bloom."
UPDATE: as of 2/19 3:46 PST, you have all but one song, with a few bands AWOL. Rearranged to put the ungotten on top.
This breaks the meme in that none are from a music player (all are as they occur to me) but I just wanted to see if my mom's still reading this and also see how old-school the rest of you are. As usual, title and artist please (for all I know there may be covers - just take the artist that made it most famous); don't comment on a song if you needed a web-search to get the answer.
5. "Don't you give up now, so easy to find. Just look to your soul, and open your mind."
1. "'I'll be over at 10," you told me time and again, but you're late." (song by Joshua)
3. "Come with me, don't say no. Hold me close, [...] never ever ever let me go." (song by Joe)
4. "When you turn and walk away, that's when I wanna say, c'mon over give me a whirl." (song by Joe)
19. "A little gold ring you wear on your hand makes me understand: You'll never be mine, there's someone before me, I'm wasting my time." (song by my mom)
2. "When the sun comes up, I'll be on top. You'll be right down there, looking up." (my mom)
6. "Ain't nothing in the world like a big-eyed girl, make me act so funny, make me spend my money." (Joshua)
7. "Man has never found the words that could make you want me, that have the right letters, just the right sound, that could make you hear, make you see." (my mom)
8. "And we live a life of ease, everyone one of us has all we need." (Joshua)
9. "I see the white puff of smoke from the rifle, I feel the bullet go deep in my chest." (Joe)
10. "You've been many things, but most of all a good secretary to me. It's times like this I feel, you've always been close to me." (Joshua)
11. "She likes to travel around, she'll love you and she'll put you down. People let me put you wise." (Joshua)
12. "Come out with your red dress on, mm you look so fine, move it nice and easy." (Joe)
13. "You're my reason for laughing, for crying, for living, and for dying." (my mom)
14. "What was it you were looking for that took your life that night? They say they found my high school ring clutched in your fingers tight." (Maribeth)
15. "Listen to the rhythm of a gentle bassa nova. You'll be dancing with 'em too before the night is over." (Joshua)
16. "You'll be sorry that you ever were born, cause he's kind of big and he's awful strong." (Joshua)
17. "A black leotard and her feet are bare. I'm gonna drink a lot of coffee, spend a little cash." (Maribeth, though the lead singer's last name begins with a "G")
18. "Beneath your perfume and makeup, you're just a baby in disguise." (my mom)
20. "She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy. I said his bowtie is really a camera." (Joshua)
21. "A crowd gathers 'round an angry young man face down in the street with a gun in his hand." (my mom)
22. "I started school in a worn, torn dress that somebody threw out." (Joshua)
23. "If you should ever leave me, though life would go on, believe me, the world could show nothing to me." (Joshua)
24. "It hurt me so to see them dance together, I felt like making a scene. Then my tears fell like raindrops." (my mom)
25. "If she finds that I've been 'round to see her, tell her that I'm well and feeling fine." (my mom)
Was my comment to this post inappropriate?
Anyhow, running with Craig's meme but completely subverting it: Think of the most embarrassing (by whatever definition) artist or band with whose full discography you're at least a bit familiar. Then do the same thing, one song per album.
Last night our local classical music station played a popular-vote driven top 20 list of the most romantic classical pieces ever. I could have gone on an extended riff in the Abbott & Costello vein if the distinction between Classical (Mozart et al) and Romantic (Schubert etl al) music were more widely known and more relevant to everyday life.
Anyhow, through an absurd travesty of justice Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini No. 18 got fewer votes than Bolero. Quick question: If you didn't know the cultural associations, would you independently find this piece erotic? Have I missed out on a Pavlovian response by never seeing the movie 10?
Completely unrelated: my newest radio-driven guilty pleasure. Songs like this are why everyone should have an all-dance station on their presets. Either this is so-bad-it's-good, or I really truly like it on the merits. Probably a little of both; it would go on the same playlist as "Beautiful" and heaven only knows what else.
You probably don't want to play this song in my presence. ("And I--I--I--believe in....")
Y'all got most of them right; see comments to this post and this post.
The three that stumped the field:
6. "When my heart starts to crumble and the tears start to fall, you hold me close with tender loving, give me strength to carry on." - Steelheart, "I'll Never Let You Go," Steelheart (1990)
13. "I talk to you like children, though I don't know how I feel, but I know I'll do the right thing if the right thing is revealed." - Staind, "Epiphany, "Break the Cycle (2001 album release, 2002 single)
16. "I am on my hands and knees. I can only pray, take my sun away." - Veruca Salt, "#1 Blind," American Thighs (1994 album release, 1995 EP)
Barring popular demand, lyrics go on hiatus now, the fad having passed.
By the way, Matt L. has a lyrics quiz (as I just noticed in linking to him in the post right below this). Looks like I have a goose egg on this.
Let's go with auditory hints this time:
6. "When my heart starts to crumble and the tears start to fall, you hold me close with tender loving, give me strength to carry on." (power ballad in D-flat, sung falsetto; the excerpt begins on the D-flat an octave above middle C (G-flat chord) and ends on the F above that (D-flat chord))
9. "I'm a sucker for a pretty face. I don't care if she's leather or lace, cuz I'm just looking for a little kiss." (ZD)
13. "I talk to you like children, though I don't know how I feel, but I know I'll do the right thing if the right thing is revealed." (very slow song in D-flat, sung by dudes; the excerpt melody ranges from A-flat below middle C to the G-flat above it, with chord alternation between D-flat and G-flat)
16. "I am on my hands and knees. I can only pray, take my sun away." (whimsical song sung by women in F-sharp/G-flat, let's say F-sharp. Excerpt begins on A-sharp below middle C, peaking at F-sharp above, B/C-sharp/F-sharp chord repeated chord sequence)
17. "Hard to go on - it's like waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'll never stop believing in you; it's just we never had to struggle. It all came so easy." (Joshua)
By now you know the drill; titles and artists please.
From last time, let's put "Gloria" by U2 to bed already. I'll assume that everyone who would have gotten it looked it up.
Covers:
#11 is a cover by a folk singer named Jessica Will; gimme the original performer. #15 is a cover; gimme both the original (as far as I know) and the cover I happen to own. #14 is a cover; any artist who recorded it is fine.
Repeats:
One singer and one band featured twice each. Another singer appears as both a soloist (for the version of #14 that I own) and a member of a particular band.
1. "Nightfall covers me but you know the plans I'm making. Still over sea could it be the whole Earth opening wide?" (Richard)
2. "He was a friend of mine and he could sing a song, his heart in every line." (Joshua)
3. "Somebody blew up a building, somebody stole a car, somebody got away, somebody didn't get too far." (song by Maribeth, duet participants by Maribeth and Greg)
4. "Tomorrow's just an excuse away, so I pull my collar up and face the cold on my own." (Miguel)
5. "He's the one who likes all our pretty songs and he likes to sing along and he likes to shoot his gun." (Miguel)
6. "When my heart starts to crumble and the tears start to fall, you hold me close with tender loving, give me strength to carry on."
7. "I remember how beautiful it was to fall asleep on your couch and cry in front of you for the first time. You were the best platform from which to jump beyond myself. What was wrong with me?" (Sarah C.)
8. "Maybe it's a lack of inspiration that makes me stoop, or maybe a lack of remuneration: I can't recoup." (band by Mark, song by Greg)
9. "I'm a sucker for a pretty face. I don't care if she's leather or lace, cuz I'm just looking for a little kiss."
10. "Seventeen and strung out on confusion, trapped inside a roll of disillusion, I found out what it takes to be a man." (Paul)
11. "We are the dealers, gonna give you everything you need. Hail hail to the good times, cause rock has got the right of way." (Miguel)
12. "You own the money, you control the witness. I hear you're lonely; don't monkey with my business." (Dave)
13. "I talk to you like children, though I don't know how I feel, but I know I'll do the right thing if the right thing is revealed."
14. "Why does the sun keep go on shining? Why does the sea rush to the shore? Don't they know it's [...] if you don't love me anymore?" (song by my mom, artist by Joshua)
15. "I'm writing a song all about you, a true song as real as my tears, but you've no need to fear it, cause no one will hear it." (Paul)
16. "I am on my hands and knees. I can only pray, take my sun away."
17. "Hard to go on - it's like waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'll never stop believing in you; it's just we never had to struggle. It all came so easy."
18. "They call us problem child, we spend our lives on trial, we walk an endless mile." (Sarah B., assist to Dr. Minus)
19. "Churning my direction, quench my thirst for gasoline." (Miguel)
20. "Every time that I sell myself to you, I feel a little bit cheaper than I need to." (Matt L.)
Three leftovers from this quiz. Release years added for your solving benefit.
Y9. "I try to stand up but I can't find my feet. I try to speak up but only in you I'm complete." (band solved by Joshua, song still at large) (1981)
5. "It's quiet now and what it brings is everything. Comes calling back a brilliant night I'm still awake." (JQ)
8. "You ask how much I need you; must I explain? I need you oh my darling like roses need rain." (my mother's first answer)
Why? Because I can...
By now you know the drill. Title and artist. Don't cheat, etc.
Answers to the twice-ungotten (see below):
X16. Dokken, "Heaven Sent"
X17. Linkin Park, "Runaway"
X25. Veruca Salt, "25" (Joshua did indeed have the band there at the end)
New clues on the once-ungotten:
Y2. "Hold me now. I'm six feet from the edge and I'm thinking, maybe six feet ain't so far down." (ZD)
Y9. "I try to stand up but I can't find my feet. I try to speak up but only in you I'm complete." (band solved by Joshua, song still at large) New Clue: Album is October.
Y13. "On a dry and dusty road, the nights we spent apart alone, I need to get back home, to cool cool rain. I can't sleep and I lay and I think, the night is hot and black as ink, hoo God I need a drink." (Juliana)
Y20. "Something quite peculiar, something that's shimmering and white, leads you here despite your destination." (JQ)
Covers below: #9 and #10 are covers recorded the same decade. I'll need you to read my mind and name the band whose version is on my playlist. 1-8 are originals as far as I know.
1. "See them walking hand and hand across the bridge at midnight." (Greg)
2. "I looked out this morning and the sun was gone. Turned on some music to start my day and lost myself in a familiar song." (Joshua)
3. "Her hair reminds me of a warm safe place where as a child I'd hide." (Joe)
4. "Watching boys and girls and their sex appeal with a stranger in my face who says he knows my mom and went to my high school." (Miguel)
5. "It's quiet now and what it brings is everything. Comes calling back a brilliant night I'm still awake."
6. "I don't know what color your eyes are baby but your hair is long and brown." (Joshua)
7. "I have climbed highest mountain, I have run through the fields, only to be with you." (Joe)
8. "You ask how much I need you; must I explain? I need you oh my darling like roses need rain."
9. "Like a river flows surely to the sea, darling so it goes, some things are meant to be." (Joe first with the artist, Joshua with the singer)
10. "The old folks say you've gotta end your date by ten. If you're out on a date, don't you bring her home late, that's a sin." (song by Greg, band by Dave)
You know how this works. This time we have five old and 20 new. Titles and artists in the comments. Don't post anything you needed to look up to get right.
New UI: Borrowing from the Masons, already-guessed lyrics will be marked in blue.
Covers: 18 is definitely a cover; the rest are originals as far as I know.
Remainders with Hints
Yeah, some of you've probably disqualified yourself from some of these by looking them up. (That's what I did on the hard ones on other quizzes.) Fingers crossed that they're still unspoiled enough...
X10. "Stuttering, cold and damp, steal the warm and tired friend. Times are gone for honest men and sometimes far too long for snakes." (Post-Cobain grunge. You've probably seen the music video. Note the accented syllables.) (Sarah)
X16. "There seems no justice when you fall in love. It gives you blindness when you are the one, the one that's hurting cause they've got the gun." (Hair metal from a band on the original Monsters of Rock tour. Bonus lyrics from the same song: "Take my feelings, leave me in pain, I will forget you one of these days.")
X17. "A constant wave of tension on top of broken trust. The lessons that you taught me, I learned were never true." (21st century angst. By sheer coincidence, same band as #1 below.)
X22. "When we sleep, would you shelter me in your warm and dark embrace?" (A power-ballad duet; I've argued before that this is the best duet ever.) (Joshua)
X25. "When I was five I took a dive. When I was ten I walked again. When I was 15 I kept my motor clean." (Most obscure song on the last quiz. Final track on a mid-1990s grrl album; the name of the album is also an AC/DC lyric.)
New Stuff
1. "I've put my trust in you, pushed as far as I can go. For all this there's only one thing you should know." (Maribeth)
2. "Hold me now. I'm six feet from the edge and I'm thinking, maybe six feet ain't so far down."
3. "Listen to the girl as she takes on half the world, moving up and so alive." (Victoria)
4. "Girl we were meant for this since we were born. No problems now, the coast is clear, it's just the calm before the storm." (song by Joshua; iTunes lists this as a solo hit rather than a band, but it might be wrong, if it were a band then it'd be the band Joshua gave)
5. "[...] the place where where would kiss, and the room where I held you tight. Tonight I must [...]" (Paul)
6. "Found my locker and I found my classes. Lost my lunch and I broke my glasses." (Richard)
7. "Caroline talks to you softly sometimes. She says 'I love you' and 'too much.' She doesn't have anything you want to steal - well, nothing you can touch." (Greg)
8. "Morning came and I was on my way when you reminded me. I had too soon forgotten it was you who set me free. Yeah, you were here when I came, and you'll be here when I'm gone." (Dave)
9. "I try to stand up but I can't find my feet. I try to speak up but only in you I'm complete."
10. "She stepped off the bus out into the city streets, just a small-town girl with her whole life packed in a suitcase by her feet." (Maribeth)
11. "If you're ready, I'm willing and able. Let me lay my cards out on the table. You're mine, and I'm yours for the taking. And the rules, they were meant for breaking." (Sarah)
12. "Who knows what tomorrow brings in a world few hearts survive? All I know is the way I feel, when it's real, I keep my prayer alive." (Joshua, assist Maribeth)
13. "On a dry and dusty road, the nights we spent apart alone, I need to get back home, to cool cool rain. I can't sleep and I lay and I think, the night is hot and black as ink, hoo God I need a drink."
14. "Best believe somebody's paying the pied piper, all the pain inside amplified by the fact that I can't get by on my 9 to 5 and I can't provide the right type of life for my family cause these goddamn food stamps don't buy diapers." (Maribeth)
15. "Coming over the airwaves, the man says I'm overdue. Sing along, save some money, join the chosen few. Mister I'm not in a hurry, and I don't wanna be like you." (band by Maribeth, title by Joshua)
16. "I'm worst at what I do best and for this gift I feel blessed. Our little group has always been and always will be to the end." (David)
17. "Are you locked up in a world that's been planned out for you? Are you feeling like a social tool without a use? Scream at me until my ears bleed." (Paul)
18. "The needle tears a hole, the old familiar sting. Try to kill it all away, but I remember everything. What I have become, my sweetest friend?" (John)
19. "Been saved again by the garbage truck. I got something to say you know but nothing comes. Yes I know what you think of me; you never shut up." (Maribeth)
20. "Something quite peculiar, something that's shimmering and white, leads you here despite your destination."
Here's what's left of this quiz. I'm reposting the ungotten lyrics because you guys have a shot at running the table. Comment here or on the original post. As always, don't comment on anything that you had to do a web search to get.
The only truly obscure one is "25." Think late '80s for 8 and 16, and 22. 17 is the most recent (but still a couple years old).
(ZD got #8)
10. "Stuttering, cold and damp, steal the warm and tired friend. Times are gone for honest men and sometimes far too long for snakes."
(Corwyn got #15)
16. "There seems no justice when you fall in love. It gives you blindness when you are the one, the one that's hurting cause they've got the gun."
17. "A constant wave of tension on top of broken trust. The lessons that you taught me, I learned were never true."
(ZD got #21)
22. "When we sleep, would you shelter me in your warm and dark embrace?"
25. "When I was five I took a dive. When I was ten I walked again. When I was 15 I kept my motor clean."
(You should also try David's quiz. And Richard and Maribeth's. And Mark's.)
Okay, I lied. Here are 25 more. Presented to you in iTunes "Party Shuffle" order, with instrumentals, obscure album tracks (except 25), and dupes removed at my discretion. As usual, if you websearch anything, don't bother commenting on it.
On covers:
#1 is the original (as far as I know). #15 is a cover by an industrial band; since you'd never get the band (nor would I), let's pretend it's the original. #20 is a cover, with a track length of about 90 seconds.
1. "He'll spend his very last dime trying to hold on to what he needs. He'd give up all his comforts, sleep out in the rain." (Allyson)
2. "You should've been gone knowing how I made you feel and I should've been gone after all your words of steel." (Greg)
3. "What else should I say? Everyone is gay. What else should I write? I don't have the right." (Greg)
4. "I'm pulling your strings, twisting your mind and smashing your dreams. Blinded by me, you can't see a thing." (John)
5. "She said it's lonely here tonight. She's always sad when she's alone. She said I need you here tonight; she couldn't wait til I get home." (band by Joshua, song by Maribeth)
6. "Summer came and left without a warning. All at once I looked you were gone. Now you're looking back at me searching for a way that we can be like we were before." (Allyson)
7. "The same people, the same tricks and the same music, the same quicksand. I think this harbor town is wasted and sinking fast." (Mark)
8. "I saw sparks fly from the corner of my eye, and when I turned it was love at first sight." (ZD)
9. "I closed my eyes, began to pray, then tears of joy streamed down my face." (Cooch)
10. "Stuttering, cold and damp, steal the warm and tired friend. Times are gone for honest men and sometimes far too long for snakes."
11. "I know we're just like old friends, we just can't pretend that lovers make amends." (David)
12. "The first mate he got drunk, broke in the captain's trunk. The constable had to come take him away." (Miggy)
13. "Yes I'm Siskel, yes I'm Ebert, and you're getting two thumbs up." (Miggy)
14. "We are the children, the last generation. We are the ones they left behind, and I wonder when we are ever gonna change, living under the fear til nothing else remains." (Greg)
15. "I got black sensations rolling down my spine. When you're into evil you're a friend of mine." (Corwyn)
16. "There seems no justice when you fall in love. It gives you blindness when you are the one, the one that's hurting cause they've got the gun."
17. "A constant wave of tension on top of broken trust. The lessons that you taught me, I learned were never true."
18. "When I look into your eyes I can see a love restrained, but darling when I hold you, don't you know I feel the same." (Allyson)
19. "No navigator to find my way home; unladen, empty, turn to stone." (Richard)
20. "Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone. Suzanne the plans they made put an end to you." (Greg)
21. "Wake up in the morning and I raise my weary head. Got an old coat for a pillow and the Earth was last night's bed." (band by Corwyn, song by ZD)
22. "When we sleep, would you shelter me in your warm and dark embrace?"
23. "My name's Tim and I'm a criminal. In the eyes of society I need to be in jail for the herbs I inhale." (Miggy)
24. "Love, soft as an easy chair; love, fresh as the morning air." (Greg)
25. "When I was five I took a dive. When I was ten I walked again. When I was 15 I kept my motor clean."
(By the way, Craig has a new list. I doubt I'll have time to post one any time soon but you never know. One recurring meme is probably plenty.)
SPOILER SPACE: Last chance to look at the old post and test yourself.
(first right answer in parentheses)
1. Hole, "Plump" (John)
2. Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, "Nobody Does It Better" (song by Maribeth)
3. Tom Lehrer, "Fight Fiercely Harvard" (Joshua)
4. Winger, "Purple Haze" (song by David)
5. Green Day, "Redundant" (band by Maribeth; the song is from Nimrod)
6. Poison, "Flesh and Blood (Sacrifice)" (nobody - title track from Flesh and Blood (1990))
7. Motorhead, "Traitor" (nobody, and probably the most obscure one here; I couldn't even tell you the album offhand, except it's a CD I ripped)
8. Cinderella, "Sick For The Cure" (nobody; deep album track from Heartbreak Station (1991?))
9. Avril Lavigne, "I'm With You" (Maribeth)
10. Ted Nugent, "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang" (nobody)
11. Tiffany, "Could've Been" (Joshua)
12. Mike Reno & Ann Wilson, "Almost Paradise" (Joshua)
13. Bruce Springsteen, "Tunnel of Love" (Joshua)
14. Britney Fox, "Dream On" (nobody; totally unrelated to the Aerosmith song of the same name, it was a minor hit in 1991)
15. Def Leppard, "Hysteria" (Joshua)
16. Creed, "Beautiful" (nobody; from Human Clay)
17. Heart, "Alone" (Joshua)
18. U2, "One Tree Hill" (nobody?!?)
19. White Lion, "Wait" (Maribeth)
20. The Beach Boys, "Wouldn't It Be Nice" (Joshua)
21. Ozzy Osbourne, "Mama I'm Coming Home" (nobody; from No More Tears, though also a hit single in... 1991?)
22. Tom Lehrer, "In Old Mexico" (Richard)
23. Stryper, "Honestly" (nobody; from To Hell With The Devil, made the Billboard singles chart in 1987 I think)
24. White Stripes, "Fell In Love With A Girl" (John)
25. Slaughter, "Fly To The Angels" (ZD)
If you didn't see it when posted (i.e. if it got buried below all the other posts like this one), I did the playlist random shuffle lyrics quiz meme.
Of the songs still at large, y'all really should know 4 and 18.
I doubt anyone will get 6, 7, 8, 14, or 23.
Maybe someone will know 10, 16, or 21. Maybe.
I should move 5 over from green to italic: Even if the song title's still at large, it's one of those bands where you know all their songs but never think of what the things are called. (One-word title that isn't in the lyrics anyway, at least not the version of the lyrics running through my head right now.)
Full answers some time later this week; collectively you already have 60% without even looking things up.
Today's December 31, so guess which blogging meme I'll steal from Craig?
Yes, that's right, it's time for you to guess (NO CHEATING - if you decide to websearch, either don't even bother to comment or comment only *before* you look 'em up) the lyrics of the first 25 songs that came up on my iPod "Party Shuffle" after I saw the meme myself.
(Note: I didn't count instrumentals (classical/soundtrack) for obvious reasons, and made the editorial judgment to skip over (and "remove from playlist") two album tracks that I'd never listen to on purpose, plus one I really like that's way too obscure and by a band that comes up elsewhere in the list anyway.)
Exactly one performer is repeated on this list, but I like both entries so much I let it stand. Oh, and if you feel strongly about performers: #2 and #4 are covers. The rest are originals as far as I know off-hand. Without further ado...
(I'll go back and mark the ones that've been gotten, with credit to the first correct guess, but you won't see answers until the comments.)
1. "They say I'm plump, but I throw up all the time." (John)
2. "I wasn't looking, but somehow you found me. I tried to hide from your love light." (Maribeth first, cover band still at large if you care)
3. "Albeit they possess the might, nonetheless we have the will. How we will celebrate our victory, we shall invite the whole team out for tea!" (Joshua)
4. "Am I happy or in misery? Whatever it is, that girl put a spell on me." (title by David, cover band still at large if you care)
5. "Now the routine is turning into contention, like a production line going over and over and over." (band by Maribeth, title still at large)
6. "There's no more time, don't think about. The flame will die if you doubt. It's a game of love and hate, to lose it all's a chance we'll take."
7. "The ones you hope to sell will send you straight to hell. As we dismember you, we shall remember you."
8. "Maybe I'll head down south to New Orleans, wouldn't have no taxes 'cause I wouldn't have no means."
9. "I'm standing on the bridge, I'm waiting in the dark, I thought that you'd be here by now." (Maribeth)
10. "She's so sweet when she yanks on my meat. Down on the street you know she can't be beat."
11. "The sweet words you whispered didn't mean a thing, I guess our song is over as began to sing." (Joshua)
12. "I thought that dreams belonged to other men, 'cause each time I got close they'd fall apart again." (Joshua)
13. "Hands me two tickets smiles and whispers good luck. Cuddle up angel, cuddle up my little dove."(Joshua)
14. "Sometimes we need to make our dreams. Things may glow bright at the start."
15. "I gotta know tonight if you're alone tonight. Can't stop this feeling, can't stop this fight."(Joshua)
16. "She wears a coat of color, loved by some, feared by others. She's immortalized in a young man's eyes."
17. "I hear the ticking of the clock. I'm lying here, the room's pitch dark. I wonder where you are tonight, no answer on the telephone." (Joshua)
18. "The sun's so bright it leaves no shadows, only scars carved into the face of it." (I'm surprised this is still at large. Craig will know it once he sees this. -MLB)
19. "If you go away, you know that I will follow, 'cause there's a place inside my heart that tells me 'Hold out.'" (Maribeth)
20. "You know it's gonna make it that much better when we can say goodnight and stay together."(Joshua)
21. "Time's gone by, it seems to me you could've been a better friend to me."
22. "For there is surely nothing more beautiful in this world than a lone man singlehandedly facing half a ton of angry pot roast." (Richard)
23. "Call on me and I'll be there for you. I'm a friend who always will be true. And I love you - can you see?"
24. "She's just looking for something new, yeah, I said it once before but it bears repeating." (John)
25. "Now it rains, it seems the sun never shines. And I drive down this lonely lonely road, ooh I got this feeling now I gotta let you go. (ZD)
At least two people commented here after the big comment-spam last night but before Bogg's auto-purge.
ZD got #25 (Slaughter, "Fly To The Angels")
Maribeth got Avril Lavigne's "I'm With You" and "Nobody Does It Better".
If you're neither ZD nor Maribeth and your comment's not here, I apologize for the inconvenience.
WTF?
In addition to sucking, this movie is a fraud. When they had that pretentious meta-narrative, I was under the impression that the elderly guy was really him. Why else would you bother to add that layer?
But no... it says here and here he died 40 years ago.
Given when he was born and when he made it big, maybe I was stupid to ever believe otherwise.
"Don't you bring me down -- today," Christina crooned to me as I walked my fingers through the "FM2" presets. On the morning of Monday, December 27, Ms. Aguilera's torch song could only mean one thing: The station that had been playing nothing but Christmas carols since the beginning of November, was finally back to its saccharine but harmless middle-of-the-road format. A bumper jingle later, we were treated to "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" (regrettable Doobie Brothers Hall & Oates (brainfart - thanks, Allyson!) cover).
In other radio news, the local country station played a Tim McGraw song into a Garth Brooks song. Over on The Bone, the last strains of an AC/DC song were mixed in with a really whiny, stressed-out female voice. No clue what that was about until I realized that the original song was T.N.T. and suddenly the nature of the parody was obvious.
The "Mozart Block at 9:00" was never so appealing.
(Not a lyrics quiz. I don't know titles/artists on most of these anyway. But if you feel like it, knock yourself out.)
1. "I'm a different person."
2. "I like it when you go to extremes."
3. (synthesized horns) F-major chord, A on top; Eb-major, Bb on top; F chord, Eb chord, F chord.[1]
4. "Can you keep up? (Baby boy!) Make me lose my breath..."[2]
5. "Shake it down, shake it down, shake it down now."
6. "Surrender, surrender to you.... (GO!!?!)"
7. "Hey DJ!! - I'm seeing stars..."
8. "Wh-Wh-WHOA! (You're so unbelievable)"
[1] "I was dreaming when I wrote this..."
[2] Who decided to write a song so obviously about copulation, then put in a line like "Didn't mama teach you how to give affection?" That's really not where you learn how to have sex, at least I hope.
Julia was 11 years old when Barenaked Ladies released Gordon. Granted I was only 16.
I never heard any songs from Gordon until a Harvard quiz-trip where our driver was a Canadian grad student. Even at that, feeling as though I was the last person to hear "$1,000,000," I turned out to be years ahead of the curve on BNL, at least by the standards of people who think their big breakthrough was whatever album had that "One Week" song.
Okay: Jay-Z and Linkin Park. Genius? Insanity? Cheap marketing gimmick? Is it total coincidence that their songs dovetail like that (in the freaky "Dark Side Of The Moon"/"Wizard Of Oz" sense of timing)? Was one of them ripping off the other all this time?
I'm moonlighting again. The content of that post almost became something questiony, but really, when will I ever get to submit an audio bonus anywhere? Maybe roll my own recognition thing once the iTunes / rippage gets big enough?
Another fantastic mashup from our friends at Live 105, this time combining "Calling Out" (which you may still not have ever heard or heard of, though it's arguably the best hip-hop single ever recorded by an Asian-American artist) with "Bloody Sunday."
The secret to a good mashup seems to be matching the key and getting a fortunate confluence of tempo and chord change. Today's mashup brought to you by various incarnations of B-flat minor.
(And for what it's worth, I did not write the mashup tossup for 2003 (a year ago) Trashmasters, though it was in the pack that was itself a massup of sorts between my questions and Dan Passner's.)
She certainly rides Everclear into the ground, though (based solely on CTRL-F'ing the article, which I'll readily admit not bothering to read).
Link via Reason Express, article itself probably accurate yet several years outdated. Worth posting only from my shock of recognition of the author's name: Mary Eberstadt, known to political meta-junkies as the same gal who made Andrew Sullivan go ballistic by writing an asinine Weekly Standard article blaming gay people for pedophilia.
(By the way, Julia is conducting auditions for Winnie the Pooh (children's theater) as I type this.)
Among other computer-related tasks for my afternoon is to rip a few more of my CDs. The CDs I own fall into three categories for me: Relatively new purchases (which naturally I'd get on CD; the last three cassettes I ever bought were Brad Paisley and a pair of AC/DC, for in-car listening in my previous car), things so essential that I couldn't wait for backward-compatible technology, and things so inessential that for any given artist/band, I'd own the superior album on tape (from all the way back when I bought it) and the inferior one on CD.
That leaves a lot of tapes of stuff I'd really like to recover, with no obvious way to do it. The iTunes interface makes ripping CDs the easiest thing in the world, but tapes? Lost cause yet?
The first five times I heard "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," what I actually heard was a smush of it with "Wonderwall." By the time I finally heard it on its own, the imprinting had already stuck. Now I can't listen to the original without singing my own "today is gonna be the day that they're gonna throw it back to you."
Surprised Cooch hasn't weighed in on this yet; maybe he either hasn't heard the Green Day song or hasn't heard the smush.
Yet Another useless trivia question: The phrase "boulevard of broken dreams" had already appeared in the lyrics to a song on a 1980s cassette tape I owned. You're not gonna get the song, but you can at least get the artist. (Hint: Not Joan Jett.)
"Broken Dreams" by Lita Ford.
Twice in the past 18 months or so I've dined at Marie Callender's. (The most recent time was about a month ago.) Both times they've played the same Nina Gordon song, or at least different tracks from the same Nina Gordon album.
Anyhow, among the many reasons I want Veruca Salt to get back together is that they owe it to us to cover "I Want It Now" in homage to the source of their name. Nina even has the perfect vocal range for it. "I want the world, I want the whole world..."
This radio station is licensed to a retirement community. I think this is fantastic! Now that I think of it, our local Adult Standards station (as run by ClearChannel rather than by actual old people, though the DJs themselves may well be pushing it) plays music that if anything is too recent. In particular I could go for a more Artie Shaw and less Steve and Eydie.
KABL (formerly at 960 AM, hence the domain name, squatters having grabbed the more obvious choice) actually played a role in my hitting it off well with Julia, though baseball and quizbowl tie-ins are also involved. In 2000 and 2001, KABL was the flagship station for Oakland A's baseball radio broadcasts. Naturally, this meant I'd tune a radio there, and then have it still there the next morning and accidentally catch some great old-fashioned tunes. (Contrast to when Don Imus was still on WEEI in Boston, and the morning after a Red Sox radio broadcast was a horrible time to discover your radio dial's inertia. Never did understand the appeal of Imus, and I even rather like Howard Stern.)
Anyhow, enough golden oldie osmosis happened (and I liked the stuff anyway, though not enough to choose it regularly over heavy metal) that when I learned of Julia's own cultural tastes I could easily relate. There's a distinct chance in hindsight that I overplayed my familiarity and/or affinity for the music of Goulet, Streisand, et al - but when you do quiz-bowl you get used to feigning thorough knowledge of subject areas with which you actually only have passing familiarity.
(Then again, how many times have Chad and I discussed some sports team or game or issue where he assumed I knew what he was talking about but really I was just faking it well enough to have a useful conversation and catching the gist on the fly?)
"I was confused and surprised," said Portigal, 36, of Montara. "I could almost always press that button and an AC/DC song would be playing."
--It's long since old new but here's the human interest feature side of KSJO converting from hard rock to Mexican oldies.
"Here I am in silence, looking round without a clue. I find myself alone again, all alone with you. I can see behind your eyes the things that I don't know. If you hide away from me, how can our love grow?"
--Information Society
San Francisco radio has an all-new dance station (don't bother clicking through: there's a splash intro and then literally nothing) that I've listened to a lot lately in spite of myself. (Hence the post right below this one.) I liked it a lot better when they were playing 5,000 songs in a row. Now they have actual DJs (of the radio on-air kind, not the club turntable kind), which ruins the whole experience.
Based on this Google search, apparently a lot of similarly formatted stations have happened to land on the 92.7 frequency.
UPDATE: Want to join their Street Team?
As annoying songs go, you might have a more distressing all-time worst, but for right this moment, I think I have you beat.
Until about a week ago, I'd never actually heard this song. Heard about it, of course, but never actually heard it. Haven't heard it since then but apparently that one listening was enough.
Even hearing it the one time, I had the what the hell is this?!? listening experience that has probably only happened to me a half-dozen times in my life, only two of which I can actually remember. On this one, midway through the first verse I'd settled on assuming it was skank-era Christina Aguilera. Ironically, for the other what the hell?!? experience I can actually remember, a song I briefly thought might be Whitney Houston of all people, turned out to be Christina.
As appalled as I was the first time I heard "Beautiful," something happened that led me to rate it extremely highly. I have no idea how this happened, but I can only assume/home not to have a similar experience with "Slave 4U."
So there've been at least four bands in music history that I despise more than Train. Quick web searches to make sure that two of them are the bands I think they are... okay, yep.
Apparently the rest of the world hates Matchbox 20 too (aside from radio program directors). Good call, rest of the world...
I have no good sense of when Howard Stern's show ends each morning (maybe he doesn't either), usually not as soon as it must have ended today. In the immedate post-Stern morning hours, Live 105 fills in with some 1990s retro stuff. Today, they went through their own top five most-played songs from this week in 1996. I missed #5, but...
#4. Cake, "The Distance." Very consistent with what I remember of that time period. This was almost exactly the end of my devoting my full academic attention to law school (bad timing given that this was 1L fall and finals were around the corner). In fact, today being Friday, November 12, 2004, I can tell you that Tuesday, November 12, 1996, was the day before about a week's worth of autobiographical plot twists that I remember all too well yet won't bore you with.
I did have a medium-sized crush on my 1L seatmate. Well, not quite true, we only sat next to each other for two classes. I sat in the front row (bottom semicircle), I think literally the seat closest to the door. I can picture the three women to my left and the guy behind me; that's about it. Anyhow, come to think of it, this seatmate was a lot like a cross between Julia and Julia's best friend, shrink-wrapped to... well, if she topped five feet, it wasn't by much. The resemblance here is mainly a particular sense of humor. Longstory short, the week's worth of plot twists made this crush very moot (convenient since I don't think it was requited).
Here the DJ started talking about a band whose breakthrough album was so successful that a backlash came up of people who asked whether it was too manufactured a sound. So they got Steve Albini to produce a follow-up album, Razorblade Suitcase... [bunch of other clues that, in a tossup, might have helped someone else, but I was nowhere near it; certainly no mention of Gavin]
#3. Bush, "Swallowed." Even though I don't like this band at all, any non-personal 1990s compilation needs to include Bush to be fully representative. Just now I actually considered adding Bush to a revised hypothetical "Matt" 1990s compilation. If I did, not sure between "Swallowed" and "Glycerine." Actually I don't think Bush will make the revised cut after all, but (don't ask how this tangent happened) Alice In Chains probably will with "No Excuses."
The lead singer of this next band died six months earlier...
[My immediate horrified reaction: "Not [expletive] Sublime!" Blah blah, Brad Noel, and sure enough...]
#2. Sublime, "What I Got." As long as I can remember I've claimed that The Fifth Dimension was the worst band ever (except some point in the 1990s when I would have equally fervently claimed this honor for Sublime). It's really a tossup between the two, with Train a distant third (aside from bands I intensely hate but just am not thinking of).
How best to describe the sheer awfulness that is (the ironically named) Sublime? Best place to start is, I think, the lyrics:
"I don't cry when my dog runs away. I don't get angry at the bills I have to pay..."
"Annie's 12 years old, in two more she'll be a whore..." (Until Googling just now I'd always misheard this as "tomorrow she'll be a whore.")
"I can't take pity on men of his kind, even though he now takes it from behind..." (Actually "Date Rape" was a pretty clever song; mitigation points...)
They also managed to release an "I love to smoke up" song that was braindead even by "I love to smoke up" song standards. Well, they had a lot of those songs (including a cover of "Smoke Two Joints," which is actually a fine song), but the one in particular... all I can remember is the guitar riff and the bong sound effect.
Anyhow, aside from the lyrics, their music is mindless repetition played with total apathy. I'm sure that describes a lot of bands but none to quite the extent of Sublime.
#1. Garbage, "#1 Crush." When great bands release clunker songs (and ironically the crap does better on the charts than their good stuff)...
Also at this time KFOG was doing its daily 10@10, 1970 this time, with Simon & Garfunkel's "The Boxer" matched up against part of Subime and part of Garbage. Now that's quality nostalgia. (More quality than nostalgia since as of 1970 I wouldn't be born for another five years.)
There's so much cringeworthy embarrassment here that a white commentator probably can't touch.
Seriously, though, what's the saddest passage in that article (about the feud between Jay-Z and R. Kelly)?
Two obvious candidates:
Emphasis on young. Not to mince words, but this station is a wee bit geriatric. I do feel for this guy - wouldn't wish prostate cancer on anyone - but it's just an odd coincidence that I was already going to riff on the creaking bones at "The Bone" even before seeing this.
KSJO used to have not one, not two, but three viable Bay Area frequencies. Depending on where you were, you could punch up either 92.3 (near San Jose), 92.1 (near Walnut Creek), or 92.7 (SF proper) for your "Mandatory Metallica" and so on.
Then 92.7 became a dance station, then a hip-hop station, and most recently once again a dance station ("Energy 92.7" claims to be commercial-free, with "5,000 songs in a row." I get a kick out of this.)
You already read here about the shift of KABL ("Adult Standards" - Sinatra, Nat King Cole, etc.) from 960 AM to 92.1 FM to accomodate Air America.
And now most importantly, KSJO is no more. The "rumors" repeated here (among other places) turned out to be true today.
I'm not sure how long it's gone on (apparently no more than 24 hours given how often I'd station-surf in my car) but now 92.3 is Spanish-language music. Thought maybe I was getting interference (or a return of Berkeley pirates), except for the guy enunciating "kay-ess-jay-oh" in a distinct Hispanic accent at the top of the hour. No hair metal for me. No access to this web site for anyone, probably until Monday morning when they get their act together. No more KSJO...
On further research: The changeover happened Thursday night. You'll love the irony of what the last English-language song broadcast on that frequency was.
And hey, wow, talk about a market niche: This turns out to be a Mexican oldies station!
("It's an emotional format that brings back memories from the listener's homeland," says Kim Bryant, the station's general manager. "People will hear a song they haven't heard since they were in Mexico watching their mothers make tamales." Hmm...)
Still more here (you'll have to excuse me: for no good reason whatsoever I'm a radio geek, the same way some in my immediately family are local news personality geeks, regardless of where they lived at the time). Random tidbits:
KSJO began as a rocker in San Jose in 1968. (This I knew, since they were celebrating "35 years of rock" last year.) It had started in 1947 as the only station in the county with an all-female staff; thus the female symbol on its stickers that remained for years after.
For years, KSJO was in [San Jose's] Top Ten before losing its morning hosts Lamont and Tonelli to San Francisco competitor KSAN-FM (107.7) two years ago. For much of this past year, the Clear Channel station picked up the syndicated Bob and Tom' show from Indianapolis, a cost-cutting move that was never welcomed by local listeners.
I can tell you from 30 seconds of listening that Bob and Tom are terrible. That said, I'm dismayed at my fellow listeners that the morning jocks would mean so much to them, especially that a godawful "shock" format would mean so much to the ratings.
(For those who aren't from around here, it's basically: Sexual innuendo, more sexual innuendo, jokes about the English comprehension and/or sexuality of their producer who hails from an unnamed Muslim country - I'd guess Pakistan Algeria (just saw his pic on-line), more sexual innuendo, etc.)
Courtesy of Fark, Snoop Dogg to massacre a Doors song.
I want him to do "Knights in White Satin" m'self.
1. Conference call via cellphone while my lovely and talented companion drove us to her BART station.
2. Listened to some sports talk radio, made up some in-car a capella as a "God Bless Scott Stapp" munge: "...through the mountains, and the prairies, and the oceans, white with f-/CAN YOU TAKE ME HIGHER?"
3. Flipped over to a classic rock station with AC/DC's "It's A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock N' Roll)": best guitar-and-bagpipe call-and-response ever.
Why does this page still treat Saturday, October 23, 2004, in future tense? I listened to snippets of the countdown and was inspired enough almost to revisit Craig's mix-tape challenge. But no on-line posting of what the folks at Alice called the top 90 songs of the 1990s.
Plenty of charts here attempt to answer a similar question, of which I found this one singularly disspiritng for all the crap on it and all the quality left off.
Time permitting, I may soon have a "mix" gleaned from using this chart as a cheat-sheet. I presume you want only songs I actually like, rather than the obvious earwigs (i.e. Lou Bega need not apply)?
And here it is. Simple algorithm here: Going down the list on my "cheat sheet", for each song:
1. Does this song belong on my mix?
YES: Does some other 1990s song by the same artist/band have a greater claim? (Only among widely-known singles, no "digging into the vault.") If so, then add that song, if not then add this song. Move on.
NO: Does some other 1990s song by the same artist/band belong on my mix instead? If so, add that song, if not then just move on.
Matt's 1990s Mix (no particular order yet)
All Apologies - Nirvana
Bitter Sweet Symphony - The Verve
Where It's At - Beck
Champagne Supernova - Oasis
Creep - Radiohead
Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me - U2
Cannonball - The Breeders
Remote Control - Beastie Boys
Stan - Eminem
Alive - Pearl Jam
Black Hole Sun - Soundgarden
The Memory Remains - Metallica
Gangsta's Paradise - Coolio
Tonight Tonight - Smashing Pumpkins
Uninvited - Alanis Morissette
Setting Sun - The Chemical Brothers
She - Green Day
Seether - Veruca Salt
Pepper - Butthole Surfers
All I Wanna Do - Sheryl Crow
Something I Can Never Have - Nine Inch Nails
What's The Frequency, Kenneth - R.E.M.
Birdhouse In Your Soul - They Might Be Giants
Friends In Low Places - Garth Brooks
Wicked Game - Chris Isaak
Down By The Water - PJ Harvey
Live Through This - Hole
Linger - Cranberries
Here's Where The Story Ends Summertime - Sundays (I'll change my mind among these two songs at least six more times today)
The Distance - Cake
That's 30 songs (the last three by bands that didn't make the cheat sheet at all, bands whose omission just shocked me; I'm open to the idea that there are six other artists/songs that similarly fell through the cracks, to make this a triple-CD, 12-per-CD situation).
I'd explain further some particular choices of which song per band, or which song period, but instead might as well see what the feedback is and take it from there.
(Only caveat is that unlike seemingly every other decade-based compiler out there, I claim that the appropriate decade unit began January 1, 1991 and ended December 31, 2000. Working against this of course is what the handle "1990s" literally means. Also I guess we have a can of worms where I should look up the top N songs of 2000 and swap out as necessary, but why become that anal? Bottom line, songs from years ending in zero get hosed either way in compilations like this, so whatever. Only effect this had here was that I insisted on "Stan" being the Eminem song even though that came off an album released in 2000. I don't think any of the above songs are 1990 but what do I know?)
Apparently Yankee Stadium's unofficial "please don't riot" music is "Jessica" by The Allman Brothers. That and the instrumental that I recognize but can't place.
From two games ago, Boston's "we need a run in the ninth or we'll be swept" music is "Lose Yourself" by Eminem. Glad to see it worked better for them than it did for the Oakland A's last month when they played it just as the game that eliminated them was about to start. I remember hearing it on the Game 4 broadcast and somewhat highly approving. It's not quite "Those About To Rock (We Salute You)," which - before being coopted for an NFL playoffs ad campaign - singlehandedly won Arizona a World Series in 2001 by enabling the rally in Game 7.
And of course the Red Sox and Yankees have victory music; in each case the song's been in use since at least when I was on the East Coast. iTunes does have Frank Sinatra's "New York New York" but does not have "Dirty Water" by the Standells.
I think if I ever did make a mix like this, I'd be so emotionally drained after the end that I'd never listen to it but I'd feel better for having made it. Actually, I suspect I wouldn't feel better, which is why I wouldn't bother. But typing all this - and making you read it all - da nada.
Blame Morrissey's "Alma Maters" song for being the tipping point that made me post this. Blame this guy who works for me for being a Morrissey fan.
1991: Poison, "Ride The Wind." Biked to the corner shopping center nearest where I grew up, to buy a Valentine's card from the Hallmark next to the Target. In hindsight what's most stunning is that nobody stole my unlocked, unattended bike. Craig instituted a no-band-more-than-once rule, which is merciful here. I actually hated the singles from Flesh & Blood: "Unskinny Bop" was right when I got home from Germany in 1990 and reminded me of how provincial life was. "Something To Believe In"... the less said, the better.
1991: EMF, "Unbelievable." For anything bad that happened to me that summer.
1995: Alanis, "You Oughtta Know." Driving back from a chess tournament in Toronto, Thanksgiving weekend, leaving there at 8 p.m. and getting to Harvard Yard at 4:30 a.m., this was a song I heard over and over and over again on various radio stations. Mildly problematic wrinkle: By including this, I can't include "Uninvited." But "Iris" covers that ground already. (No, I actually never even saw "City of Angels," why do you ask?)
1996: Los Del Rio, "Macarena." Actually there's a 1997 inside joke here that if I hadn't cited this, people would call me out on. And anyway, try to think of a song from the 1990s. How can the first thing that comes to mind not be the "Macarena"? Anyhow when I went to visit Poland, this was on Euro MTV over and over and over again before it was even big in the U.S. that I knew of. (And if I hadn't mentioned this association, you could truthfully say to me, "You forgot Poland." Ha.)
1996: Cake, "Going the Distance." One of the few songs on this list that would be here even if I removed all songs I don't like and/or songs with negative connotations. No real event, just a good song, a start-of-1L theme.
1996: Smashing Pumpkins, "33." Walking home from a study break, thinking about an upcoming quiz tournament. More to it than that, of course, but it's a long story. I think the "33" connection is something really mundane; maybe it happened to be on the radio when I got back in. Clearly "Tonight Tonight" is a much better song, just less "mine."
1997: Chemical Brothers, "Setting Sun." Primarily for the Denver Broncos' upset playoff loss to Jacksonville, but also for a breakup later that January.
1997: Morrissey, "Alma Maters." Riding my bike home from work in the summer, when I worked nights on baseball statistics. Riding down Newberry Street at 4 a.m. with the gaslamps on, thinking about unrequited love.
1997: Jane's Addiction, "Jane Says." It didn't come out in 1997, but... well, see below.
1997: Chumbawamba, "Tubthumping." I'm meta-ashamed to include this even on anti-songage, but I guess there's this one party this reminds me of.
1998: Goo Goo Dolls, "Iris." Hey benevolent Sysadmin, did I ever apologize for dropping by unannounced the day you and Jen had the big Elton John and Billy Joel (do I remember this part right?) concert, for dropping by for the greater good of being a basketcase?
(?): Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Breaking the Girl." Solely because the Red Sox radio broadcasts used it as bumper music. (Still do? Who knows?)
(?): Longpigs, "On and On," also Red Sox radio bumper music from the era.
1995: Veruca Salt, "25." This breaks the chronology, but the last (non-hidden) track on American Thighs would also have to be the last track on my burn. This is my catharsis song. I claim that any time I get beyond-the-threshold pissed off at life, I can play this, and my anger will be completely dissolved by the time that one crack of a drumbeat hits the fourth beat of the measure right before the closing guitar bridge.
Honorable mention: Did I ever mention here Craig Barker's challenge to his readers to come up with a 1990s mix tape that reflected some combination of their favorite songs and the songs that reminded them of what they lived through?
Ever since he posted that - over a month ago now? - I've been at wit's end. I lived through that decade, and I've got nothing. Three kinds of song come to mind:
1. Songs that got played a lot then but weren't relevant to my life and, rather, were kind of annoying (e.g. "I Don't Wanna Wait")
2. Songs that reminde me of extremely bitter[sweet] memories from that decade (e.g. Radiohead's "Let Down")
3. Songs for which I have positive associations, but which weren't actually released in the 1990s (I listened to a lot of classic rock at Harvard...).
So nothing remotely approaching a mix tape. Maybe some day I'll be more specific. It's odd that neither of the two posts below this have many associates with particular songs. Or... come to think of it...
"Jane Says" by Jane's Addiction always reminded me of the heroine of the 1997 stuff. And a Smashing Pumpkins song or two are relevant to '96. But, blah.
Sorry Craig: In hindsight that was an ugly decade for me.
Spending 99 cents on "My Pal Foot-Foot" saved me 19 bucks on the rest of that godforsaken Philosophy of the World album. All this time, my curiosity about the Shaggs was entirey from never hearing any of their songs. Their reputation is well deserved, sort of: They're not even interestingly bad the way William Hung is. I probably ought to delete that track, mercifully.
On the flip side, I finally own a recording of the highest-register hair-metal power ballad ever to be a hit single, Steelheart's "I'll Never Let You Go."
And my last full-album purchase, Original Pirated Material from The Streets.
The Mulder pre-game music is, of course, Daft Punk's "Harder Better Faster Stronger." Every now and then a pair of syllables in that song is distorted enough to sound like "Mulder" - maybe it's just me.
Alas, no Daft Punk on iTunes, otherwise I'd consider buying it and "Can't Stop" and "Last Goodbye" for a special Big Three Aces mix.
On the upside, thanks to the iTunes format, you can own every Britny Fox song worth owning for less than three bucks. ("Girlschool", "Long Way To Love", "Dream On" (no relation at all to the namesake Aerosmith song))
Wasn't someone compiling these at some point? Got a fresh example right here, scroll down to "In reading some of the reviews, I was reminded of Thanksgiving in Cincinnati, 1999."
Incidentally, iTunes seems to have no genuine original AC/DC, though it does have both the Hayseed Dixie album referenced above (from which I'll probably buy a song, maybe two) and this tribute featuring female acoustic singers, of which I'm ashamed to admit I bought the whole album before I thought better of it.
(Compare and contrast it with the industrial covers of AC/DC songs on this CD, which I inexplicably bought at Tower Records a couple years ago. Even more inexplicably, this was the primary purchase - that "lost" Nirvana album was an upsell.)
My god my musical collection is a monstrosity - my musical tastes are a monstrosity. Do I need a support group yet?
Shockingly I did not make my personal iTunes debut until tonight, a quiet evening when Julia is helping out at a play and I am supposedly writing trivia questions.
Disappointment #1: Nothing by Men Without Hats is available for purchase.
Meta-Disappointment #1: I have a pretty well-formed set of musical preferences, and yet on the spur of the moment the first thing that occurred to me was Men Without Hats?!? (In my defense I didn't even want the "Safe-T Dance" first, I wanted "Pop Goes The World"...)
Success #1: Boston, "Hitch A Ride"
Success #2: Rush, "Red Barchetta"
Success #3: Bon Jovi, "Lay Your Hands On Me"
Disappointment #2: Nothing by Creed (rights issues again?)
UPDATE: As that techno song is to Mark Mulder (so help me I had artist and title once, and I will again), as "Can't Stop" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers is to Tim Hudson, as Jeff Buckley's "Last Goodbye" is to Barry Zito, so help me if I were a starting pitcher I'd take the field to "Lay Your Hands On Me."
UPDATE 2: First album purchase, exactly the same as the first album I ever bought in real life (cassette tape version, one of two tapes I specifically set aside in my move from Boston to San Francisco to make sure I didn't lose them - so of course they're the only two tapes I can't find): So help me God, it's White Lion - Pride. Yeah, just "Wait" would have been 99 cents, but how can you pass up "All You Need Is Rock N' Roll", much less "Sweet Little Lovin'"?!?
UPDATE 3: Take a random deep album track from White Lion and try to convince a heavy metal newbie that it's a Scorpion's song. (For some reason "Lady Of the Valley" made me think of this.) Disturbingly, you'd probably pull it off. Or maybe White Lion is more of a cross between the Scorpions and Queensryche. Wow, talk about ruining an entire band for myself.
"I'm gonna start telling people I don't like the Beatles because of that 'Wonderwall' song."
"People just can't believe that Maroon Five is more popular than the Rolling Stones."
(Apparently one particular album of theirs has tremendous world popularity despite being two years old.)
I discovered by accident Sunday that there was adult standards music on one of my rock/metal frequencies (it's like chocolate in your peanut butter, only different).
Then on the car radio this morning Julia and I heard straight from the horse's mouth that KABL was officially relocating from 960 AM to 92.1 FM, effective noon today, with the 92.1 FM simulcast already under way. Given that the 92.1 signal originates from Walnut Creek, this is bad news for shut-ins and nostalgic people throughout the San Francisco peninsula.
On the other hand it's a chance for me to be a dork. Don't ask me why but I love radio format changes. Something about the transition has always intrigued me, how they do the segue, where the new audience comes from, where the old audience goes, whether anyone just hangs on to the frequency by inertia.
Ten years ago one of Tulsa's half-dozen country stations became an all-1970s(!) station effective January 1. Tulsa had just gotten its first self-described "classic rock" station a couple years earlier, but now this '70s thing... who on Earth thought of that? Nowadays are there many specifically-targeted '70s stations? '80s stations? Anyhow, I stayed up all night (because it was New Year's Eve, of course, but also...) specifically to see how they did the format change. The country station had a special countdown of the top 100 songs of the old year, then some Garth Brooks song cut off at 6 a.m. sharp for The Who's "Who Are You?" and then the new station's jingle.
Last year, barely a year ago, "The Drive" (local classic rock station) abruptly became a country station, restoring San Francisco from zero country stations to one. The classic rock station was on my car pre-sets; I kept the frequency for the country because... why not?
I could do that with the pre-sets again this year, except that I'm trying to keep the hard rock and the Julia-friendly stations separate, and right now 92.1 and 92.3 share my "KSJO - depending on where in the Bay Area I am" button. As it happens this knocks KSJO all the way down from three frequencies way back when (92.3 San Jose, 92.1 Walnut Creek, 92.7 SF/Monterey) to apparently just the one. Some ClearChannel monopoly that is.
And now an even more crowded dial in the 92's for San Francisco. The Sinatra/swing-band goodness of KABL was really staticky through downtown Oakland, with interference from all over. Hard rock (actually commercials between a lame syndicated morning show) just a tweak of the "Tuning" dial away. And as I already knew, hip-hop/dance just two more Tuning tweaks.
With that in mind, throwing game and making love is how I rocked the Mandela Parkway, except by the time I hit Emeryville I was telling the woman I loved that a girl I barely knew was having my baby. There's Zeitgeist here, especially juxtaposing the two songs in a row, but Chris Rock will have to finish this paragraph, since some things I'm just not in a position to say.
Then a quick flip back to the last remaining bastion of KSJO, and the lamest power ballad ever. It's a painful enough song as-is, without having flipped straight from the thumping rhythms of hip-hop over to the Scorpions' dirge tempo.
Anyhow, what replaces KABL at 960 AM? My top-of-the-head guess, without any research, is Air America. With research... am I good or am I good?
(See the post below this one for context.)
No real surprises...
Gloria Gaynor, "I Will Survive"
Christina Aguilera, "Beautiful"
Nellie Furtado, "I'm Like A Bird"
Natalie Merchant, "Kind And Generous"
Dido, "Thank You"
Yesterday this DVD inspired my bad impression of Liam Gallagher singing the first verse of "Wonderwall."
("Noel, I 'ate yer bloody guts.")
Today, inspiration unknown has led to my colleague's bad Dylan impression; two or three steps of mental association later I now have stuck in my head "Wonderwall" as covered by Apu in his best "Who needs the Kwik-E-Mart?" stylings.
The worst part of any trip to a typical dentist's office is, of course, the background music, courtesy of your local "safe to listen to at work" station.
As I sat captive in the chair this morning, each of these songs played, in no particular order:
Celine Dion, "Natural Woman"
Phil Collins, "Against All Odds"
The Eagles, "Hotel California"
Nellie Furtado, "I'm Like A Bird"
Journey, "Faithfully"
Backstreet Boys, "As Long As You Love Me"
Madonna, "Borderline"
Five For Fighting, "100 Years"
Billy Vera and the Beaters, "At This Moment" (extended live cadenza)
Each song in turn actually deeply impressed me (perversely) in just how mainstream and how sucky it was. I'm even 4-for-9 in actually liking at least the songs I specifically remember, fully aware in all four cases that it's a guilty pleasure.
(Which four is an exercise for the reader, as is my least favorite. Hint: Either Spy or some similar magazine once described it as having the most predictable individual lyric ever.)
Almost mechanically reconstructing my "categories" (but note that any post I make tonight will be something I'd been sitting on anyway)...
This doesn't exist, so far as I know, but really it should:
OK Conductor
Michael Tilson Thomas conducts the San Francisco Symphony in a note-for-note orchestral homage to Radiohead's 1996 1997 (which I distinctly remember since "Let Down" played a role in some self-pity I indulged in that summer; funny I'd mess this up) breakthrough album.
I'd pay a small fortune for this; I can already hear in my head roughly how it would sound. For now I'll stick to gradually honing my ability to play snippets of this entire album on the piano by ear. My "Paranoid Android" is especially notable. (Also "No Surprises," but any 5-year-old kid could play the riff for that.)