#339) "Off to the Races" by Lana Del Rey - On the surface, "Off to the Races" is kind of ridiculous, because Lana Del Rey is kind of ridiculous, just not necessarily in a bad way. Throughout its five minutes, the song, about a Lolita-style love affair in which there does not appear to be any winners, teeters on the edge of self-indulgence, always seeming about to collapse under the weight of its own overkill, but it also seems aware of this fact...almost self-aware. There is a cinematic luster at play, as the song phases between a fiercely guarded (and potentially dangerous) emotional mystery and a kind of hedonistic, deliberately "fuck you" exhibitionism, during the chorus especially, which I find immensely stirring, without knowing exactly why.
"You are my one true love / you are my one true love..."
#340) "Only Women Bleed" by Alice Cooper - According to Wikipedia (and as always, take it for what you will), there are people in this world who hear this song and assume it's about menstruation.
No joke. This "fact" (and let's hope the dismissive quotations really are warranted) is not only hilarious, but also kind of depressing. To think that anyone out there reads this uniquely lovely, Beatles-esque ballad, among the first of its kind from a hard rock artist, as nothing more than a 9th grade Health class lecture, rather than a surprisingly sensitive portrayal of a put-upon woman in an abusive relationship/marriage, is something I don't want to dwell on. Only women bleed, indeed.
"Next, kids, we learn about a young man's changing body..."
This is one instance where I pray Wikipedia is as unreliable as people say it is.
"Man makes your hair gray, he's your life's mistake / All you're really looking for is an even break..."
Showing posts with label travel writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel writing. Show all posts
Friday, November 16, 2018
Friday, August 17, 2018
SUMMER PROJECT: Songs That Will Definitely NOT Be Coming Along on 1/48/50
Music, like all things creative, is subjective. I know the list of "road songs" I've been cobbling together on this page for quite a while is not the last word. I'm fully aware everyone has a vastly different list of songs to place on something so heady as a road trip mix. I like to think I have fairly eclectic taste, fed by an open mind. If something moves me, it moves me. I don't get bogged down by age, image, genre or coolness factor and looking back, I'm proud of the fact that my list has been all over the road, so to speak.
But there are some songs I simply cannot get on board with, for any number of reasons. Sometimes they try too hard. Sometimes they don't try hard enough. Sometimes it's a song from a band or an artist I otherwise like, just an odd left turn into a musically bad neighborhood that rubs me the wrong way. Sometimes there's no reason for a certain song to be rubbing me the wrong way, it just does. I can't explain it. Sometimes there's not really anything wrong with a song, as such, it just reminds me of a time in my life I don't wish to remember (don't wish to bring along on a 14,000 mile road trip).
And yes, sometimes it is true that a certain song is just horrible, so lame or poorly or lazily rendered, so insulting to its genre, the artist performing it, and the LISTENER, it makes my skin crawl, even pisses me off a little.
And yes, sometimes it is true that a certain song is just horrible, so lame or poorly or lazily rendered, so insulting to its genre, the artist performing it, and the LISTENER, it makes my skin crawl, even pisses me off a little.
Here are a few of the musical lemons that will not be coming along for the ride on 1/48/50. I won't comment beyond the listing. Readers can take them for what they will, or not take them at all. They may decide I don't know what I'm talking about (if they haven't already), or they may cry out 'Hallelujah!' Either way is fine with me. ;-)
❌
Friday, August 10, 2018
SUMMER PROJECT: Songs That Will Definitely NOT Be Coming Along on 1/48/50
Music, like all things creative, is subjective. I know the list of "road songs" I've been cobbling together on this page for quite a while is not the last word. I'm fully aware everyone has a vastly different list of songs to place on something so heady as a road trip mix. I like to think I have fairly eclectic taste, fed by an open mind. If something moves me, it moves me. I don't get bogged down by age, image, genre or coolness factor and looking back, I'm proud of the fact that my list has been all over the road, so to speak.
But there are some songs I simply cannot get on board with, for any number of reasons. Sometimes they try too hard. Sometimes they don't try hard enough. Sometimes it's a song from a band or an artist I otherwise like, just an odd left turn into a musically bad neighborhood that rubs me the wrong way. Sometimes there's no reason for a certain song to be rubbing me the wrong way, it just does. I can't explain it. Sometimes there's not really anything wrong with a song, as such, it just reminds me of a time in my life I don't wish to remember (don't wish to bring along on a 14,000 mile road trip).
And yes, sometimes it is true that a certain song is just horrible, so lame or poorly or lazily rendered, so insulting to its genre, the artist performing it, and the LISTENER, it makes my skin crawl, even pisses me off a little.
Here are a few of the musical lemons that will not be coming along for the ride on 1/48/50. I won't comment beyond the listing. Readers can take them for what they will, or not take them at all. They may decide I don't know what I'm talking about (if they haven't already), or they may cry out 'Hallelujah!' Either way is fine with me. ;-)
❌
Friday, June 1, 2018
One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50
#318) "(You Shook Me) All Night Long" by AC/DC - One of those songs I discovered at the just right time - age 12 or 13 - just as I was starting to marinate in a fresh batch of my own testosterone and desperately seeking opportunities to flex my new, hormonally charged (challenged?) "manly" muscles and feel like a total "bad ass".
Still works, once in a while, to jam out to loud music like this, gets me (healthily) aggressive, makes things (and me) feel urgent and vital...perhaps because "(You Shook Me) All Night Long" still holds up, that is, doesn't seem as lamely dated as other metal music from the 1980s. This is probably due to the fact that it was released in 1980, was more hard rock (that is, rock and roll being pushed to the limit) than the spandex, bandana and eye liner-wearing "metal" clown show that arose in the Reagan years, which rendered the whole genre kind of inorganic and unrelatable, and by the end of the decade, naturally left us screaming out loud for something like grunge.
"She was a fast machine, she kept her motor clean / She was the best damn woman that I'd ever seen..."
#319) "Hair of the Dog" by Nazareth - See #318, Paragraph 1.
"Now you're messing with a son of a bitch..."
#320) "Round and Round" by Ratt - And again... Although the video for this song does have undeniable elements of the mascara and spandex decadence that defined the scene in the 1980s (and completely put me off), at the same time, it's a pretty solid song. And I notice that among the "oldie" music I play at work (which at this point, includes stuff from the 1990s...even early 2000s), "Round and Round" is usually on the short list of songs Millennials and younger either already know and like, or eventually come to like if they hear it enough.
And come on, how can you not love Milton Berle in the video?
"I knew right from the beginning, that you would end up winning..."
#320) "It's Tricky" by Run-DMC - Question: would the admittedly awkward spectacle of me and two other kids from my middle school years "breakdancing" in our front yards to "It's Tricky", blasting it and others from the golden age of rap on boxes that didn't really sport a lot of boom, be considered cultural appropriation?
Mind you, we weren't just listening to it, we felt we were living it, which by every possible measure could not have been less possible. But young and dumb and eager to feel way more cool than we were, way more "street" than we could ever be, we cobbled together whatever gear and clothing we thought might help us pass - a Sony dual cassette boom box (again, not a lot boom), Adidas or parachute pants, Converse sneakers...(I think I may have thought a beret and a Swatch watch was a good idea too)... - and totally went to town in the summer of 1980-something, gesticulating spastically across the lawn, feeling edgy and defiant and raw. We were white kids who wanted to be black, because the music, the style, the look, was totally cool, totally the opposite of everything we knew, opposite of the town we grew up in, and I can cite those experiences - short lived though they were - as having shaped, in some measure at least, the adult I would one day be.
If that's cultural appropriation, and cultural appropriation is wrong, then lock me up. I wouldn't trade those memories for anything. You bet your ass I appropriated, happily and excitedly merging a variety of elements more laughably disjointed than I realized into a completely artificial (but no less gratifying) "street cred". And no joke, as it was happening, there ceased being skin color and cultural divides lending at worst aversion, at best an inability to communicate; there was just the music, and I was part of it in my northern hinterlands hometown, where there was probably a grand total of five black people growing up. And yet there I was, getting a mouthful of grass trying to do the Worm, feeling crazy cool wind-milling around the sidewalk (after a fresh push-off from my buddies).
Mortifying, kind of...but isn't that what's supposed to happen? Isn't that what happened when Run-DMC covered Aerosmith's "Walk this Way" and Aerosmith was in on it? Didn't everyone get on board, remove the laces from their shoes, and just start grooving?
When it comes to race relations in this country, it seems we've lost ground, rather than gained it. That isn't the way the last 40 years were supposed to play out.
"I met this little girlie, her hair was kinda curly..."
Still works, once in a while, to jam out to loud music like this, gets me (healthily) aggressive, makes things (and me) feel urgent and vital...perhaps because "(You Shook Me) All Night Long" still holds up, that is, doesn't seem as lamely dated as other metal music from the 1980s. This is probably due to the fact that it was released in 1980, was more hard rock (that is, rock and roll being pushed to the limit) than the spandex, bandana and eye liner-wearing "metal" clown show that arose in the Reagan years, which rendered the whole genre kind of inorganic and unrelatable, and by the end of the decade, naturally left us screaming out loud for something like grunge.
"She was a fast machine, she kept her motor clean / She was the best damn woman that I'd ever seen..."
#319) "Hair of the Dog" by Nazareth - See #318, Paragraph 1.
"Now you're messing with a son of a bitch..."
#320) "Round and Round" by Ratt - And again... Although the video for this song does have undeniable elements of the mascara and spandex decadence that defined the scene in the 1980s (and completely put me off), at the same time, it's a pretty solid song. And I notice that among the "oldie" music I play at work (which at this point, includes stuff from the 1990s...even early 2000s), "Round and Round" is usually on the short list of songs Millennials and younger either already know and like, or eventually come to like if they hear it enough.
And come on, how can you not love Milton Berle in the video?
"I knew right from the beginning, that you would end up winning..."
#320) "It's Tricky" by Run-DMC - Question: would the admittedly awkward spectacle of me and two other kids from my middle school years "breakdancing" in our front yards to "It's Tricky", blasting it and others from the golden age of rap on boxes that didn't really sport a lot of boom, be considered cultural appropriation?
Mind you, we weren't just listening to it, we felt we were living it, which by every possible measure could not have been less possible. But young and dumb and eager to feel way more cool than we were, way more "street" than we could ever be, we cobbled together whatever gear and clothing we thought might help us pass - a Sony dual cassette boom box (again, not a lot boom), Adidas or parachute pants, Converse sneakers...(I think I may have thought a beret and a Swatch watch was a good idea too)... - and totally went to town in the summer of 1980-something, gesticulating spastically across the lawn, feeling edgy and defiant and raw. We were white kids who wanted to be black, because the music, the style, the look, was totally cool, totally the opposite of everything we knew, opposite of the town we grew up in, and I can cite those experiences - short lived though they were - as having shaped, in some measure at least, the adult I would one day be.
If that's cultural appropriation, and cultural appropriation is wrong, then lock me up. I wouldn't trade those memories for anything. You bet your ass I appropriated, happily and excitedly merging a variety of elements more laughably disjointed than I realized into a completely artificial (but no less gratifying) "street cred". And no joke, as it was happening, there ceased being skin color and cultural divides lending at worst aversion, at best an inability to communicate; there was just the music, and I was part of it in my northern hinterlands hometown, where there was probably a grand total of five black people growing up. And yet there I was, getting a mouthful of grass trying to do the Worm, feeling crazy cool wind-milling around the sidewalk (after a fresh push-off from my buddies).
Mortifying, kind of...but isn't that what's supposed to happen? Isn't that what happened when Run-DMC covered Aerosmith's "Walk this Way" and Aerosmith was in on it? Didn't everyone get on board, remove the laces from their shoes, and just start grooving?
When it comes to race relations in this country, it seems we've lost ground, rather than gained it. That isn't the way the last 40 years were supposed to play out.
"I met this little girlie, her hair was kinda curly..."
Friday, May 25, 2018
One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50
#316) "Brady Bunch Theme" by Frank De Vol - Okay, okay, not the Brady Bunch theme itself! I know that over the last six years, I've taken a lot of liberty in this space with my definition of what qualifies as a "road song". But even I admit it would be one sad stretch of highway on a 14,000-mile road trip across America that I or anyone else spent grooving to the Brady Bunch theme.
But mind you, that's the opening theme. The closing theme is a whole other topic. When I was a kid and a hardcore Brady Bunch fan (which yes, I was...), I never got to hear the closing theme as the end credits rolled because an announcer was always talking over it. YouTube has changed that, changed the very way in which we see/remember our childhoods. There's virtually nothing you can't find there anymore, nothing from television days past that someone hasn't discovered on a 1982-era VHS tape in the attic and taken the initiative to transfer to a digital format and post (or simply rip from a DVD collection), and I've discovered that the closing theme of The Brady Bunch is actually a killer jam, testament to a by-gone age when, 1) quite a bit of thought went into television theme songs, 2) musicianship still ruled.
There are two versions, one from the first season of the show (1969), and one from a few seasons in (Season 4). Both are musical extrapolations of the theme song everyone knows the words to, but with complex hooks and a truly savage bass riff added, which render them (as strange as it feels to be typing this) authentically jam-worthy.
Jam-worthy, that is, if you truly appreciate music, and don't really care whether you look cool while you're listening to it. If you do, you should move on, because there's simply no way to look cool here. But this isn't about something being cool; it is about something just being good, expressive, interpretive. Who knew? (The bass line, especially, is incredible.)
#317) "Sanford and Son Theme" by Quincy Jones - Honestly, it feels a little like sacrilege to talk about this instrumental too much. It's nothing if not - first and foremost - testament to Quincy Jones' genius. This simply wails. Wails like nobody's business. I want to say that it's another example of a TV theme song created in a time when great thought went into how theme songs might enhance the viewing experience, but this music did not start life as a TV theme song. This was actually a single off Jones' 1973 album, You've Got it Bad Girl, called "The Streetbeater".
And may I say, the Streetbeater was the motherfucker.
How can anyone not look cool jamming to this? Not feel cool, at least! ;-)
But mind you, that's the opening theme. The closing theme is a whole other topic. When I was a kid and a hardcore Brady Bunch fan (which yes, I was...), I never got to hear the closing theme as the end credits rolled because an announcer was always talking over it. YouTube has changed that, changed the very way in which we see/remember our childhoods. There's virtually nothing you can't find there anymore, nothing from television days past that someone hasn't discovered on a 1982-era VHS tape in the attic and taken the initiative to transfer to a digital format and post (or simply rip from a DVD collection), and I've discovered that the closing theme of The Brady Bunch is actually a killer jam, testament to a by-gone age when, 1) quite a bit of thought went into television theme songs, 2) musicianship still ruled.
There are two versions, one from the first season of the show (1969), and one from a few seasons in (Season 4). Both are musical extrapolations of the theme song everyone knows the words to, but with complex hooks and a truly savage bass riff added, which render them (as strange as it feels to be typing this) authentically jam-worthy.
Jam-worthy, that is, if you truly appreciate music, and don't really care whether you look cool while you're listening to it. If you do, you should move on, because there's simply no way to look cool here. But this isn't about something being cool; it is about something just being good, expressive, interpretive. Who knew? (The bass line, especially, is incredible.)
And may I say, the Streetbeater was the motherfucker.
How can anyone not look cool jamming to this? Not feel cool, at least! ;-)
Friday, May 18, 2018
One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50
#314) "One Less Set of Footsteps" by Jim Croce - Last week I mentioned that nearly all of the songs Jim Croce recorded in his lamentably short career were "poignant songs of love and longing", but that assertion can really be distilled down to one word: poignant. And not just his slow ballads, but the upbeat tunes as well. His songwriting style had a way of wringing a certain populist exasperation, a pensiveness that never becomes too emotional (and is all the more potent), right out of the air, and "One Less Set of Footsteps" is no exception. It's a break-up song, but takes a different tack: less accusatory fingers pointing out of a deep pool of devastating sorrow and resentment, more the long eye roll into that good night, fueled as much by relief as grief.
"Salty," the kids might say today. ;-)
"You've been talking in silence, well if it's silence you adore..."
#315) "Working at the Carwash Blues" by Jim Croce - Once again, a deceptively simple song that speaks directly to the way we all see ourselves; a recognition of the wasted talent each of us is sure we are, stuck in our unchallenging, dead-end jobs/careers/lives. I have found myself "walking home in soggy old shoes" on more than one occasion through time. And again, Croce spins the song with more poignance - a kind of winsome humor - than anything.
"You know a man of my ability, he should be smoking on a big cigar..."
"Salty," the kids might say today. ;-)
"You've been talking in silence, well if it's silence you adore..."
#315) "Working at the Carwash Blues" by Jim Croce - Once again, a deceptively simple song that speaks directly to the way we all see ourselves; a recognition of the wasted talent each of us is sure we are, stuck in our unchallenging, dead-end jobs/careers/lives. I have found myself "walking home in soggy old shoes" on more than one occasion through time. And again, Croce spins the song with more poignance - a kind of winsome humor - than anything.
"You know a man of my ability, he should be smoking on a big cigar..."
Friday, April 6, 2018
One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50
#301) "Nightshift" by The Commodores - I was twelve when this song was released, and before I knew what it was about, before I knew anything about Marvin Gaye or Jackie Wilson, before I could wrap my head around what a truly touching ode to the two performers and their untimely deaths it really is, its quiet, contemplative mood appealed to me. I remember listening to it on the radio after I'd gone to bed, and associating it with the static glare of the streetlight outside, which would lay itself across the wall over my bed when I turned out the light, making it impossible to go to sleep. Not because it was keeping me awake, but because it was making me restless. More than three decades later, I think this interpretation is still very apt. For all its "quiet, contemplative mood", "Nightshift" is a very restless song. It's good restlessness. The kind that spurs anticipation, rather than longing.
"Gonna be a long night, it's gonna be all right, on the nightshirt..."
#302) "Drinking My Baby Goodbye" by Charlie Daniels - One thing that can be said about Charlie Daniels is that he and his band have always been, first and foremost, consummate musicians. Over the last 50 years, they've brought a sound to country music that is exceptionally airtight, sometimes downright innovative, and most notably, uniquely their own. (Daniels himself has said he never thought of himself as an "outlaw" country artist so much as an "outcast".) It's a sound that guarantees his status as a (living) legend will continue, and flourish, long after his passing.
"Drinking My Baby Goodbye" has all the elements for the quintessential Charlie Daniels song: rhythm meshing seamlessly with vocals and instruments, particularly (of course) the fiddle, an instrument which Daniels has at certain moments in his career managed to break the sound barrier with. It's all stitched up right nice into a song you simply cannot help tapping your foot to, and again, a song that couldn't be anyone else but Charlie Daniels.
"Pour me another one, I'm finished with the other one..."
"Gonna be a long night, it's gonna be all right, on the nightshirt..."
#302) "Drinking My Baby Goodbye" by Charlie Daniels - One thing that can be said about Charlie Daniels is that he and his band have always been, first and foremost, consummate musicians. Over the last 50 years, they've brought a sound to country music that is exceptionally airtight, sometimes downright innovative, and most notably, uniquely their own. (Daniels himself has said he never thought of himself as an "outlaw" country artist so much as an "outcast".) It's a sound that guarantees his status as a (living) legend will continue, and flourish, long after his passing.
"Drinking My Baby Goodbye" has all the elements for the quintessential Charlie Daniels song: rhythm meshing seamlessly with vocals and instruments, particularly (of course) the fiddle, an instrument which Daniels has at certain moments in his career managed to break the sound barrier with. It's all stitched up right nice into a song you simply cannot help tapping your foot to, and again, a song that couldn't be anyone else but Charlie Daniels.
"Pour me another one, I'm finished with the other one..."
Friday, February 9, 2018
Yet ANOTHER Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50
#293) "The Lucky One" by Alison Krauss and Union Station - My oh my, what Midwestern white boy with any poetic sensibilities whatsoever hasn't wished he was, or strove to imagine himself, or tried desperately to be, the guy in this song, the "lucky one"...who comes and goes as he pleases, with "not a care in the world, not a worry in sight", always smiling, friendly with everyone, friends with no one, the complete and total player, but not so much that you hate him for it.
I did, anyway...spent a lot of time in high school dreaming of drifting around, making my goodbyes as dramatic and satisfying as my hellos. I became a father at seventeen, however, so those years in my twenties that might otherwise have allowed for - and been devoted to - a carefully crafted and picture perfect indifference to the petty hassles, leaden realities and inconvenient truths of personal relationships and life in general, were influenced greatly by what ended up a quick and seismic shift in my priorities. There was plenty of "worry in sight" by the time I graduated high school...the myriad concerns of parenthood, bills that could not be paid, bills that had to be paid, etc.
Not that I feel I missed out on too much. First of all, I've had my moments. If I drop tomorrow, I won't be able to say I feel I've been cheated out of anything (other than perhaps more time). And secondly, like so many other songs, "The Lucky One", a radio hit for Krauss in 2001, idealizes something that in reality is fraught with the same complexity and unpredictability of human emotion as any other situation we find ourselves in as life goes on. Nobody just drifts around, free as a bird, contentedly keeping everyone at arm's length. Resentment, possessiveness and competitiveness, loneliness, desire and regret...they all rear their ugly heads at some point, sometimes all at once. Not to mention you have to work, make money, maintain a certain stabilization...unless you just live off the grid, which though the concept has always intrigued me, I've never seriously thought about. And to be honest, no woman I have ever known has (or would have) been so philosophical, and so plaintively chill, about "the lucky one" drifting in and out of her life as Krauss would have us believe she is here. The song is pretty, as are Krauss's vocals (as always), but it's all a bit too tepid, actually, for what's purported to be going on. ;-)
"For you, the next best thing to playing and winning is playing and losing..."
#294) "Oh Atlanta" by Alison Krauss and Union Station - "Oh Atlanta" is, to me, the perfect driving song. It doesn't mean anything in particular, evokes no memories, stirrings or impulses, it's just great to listen to. Even better if you're on the road with many miles to go. Interestingly, Krauss' voice doesn't sound right for the song, and yet she makes it work.
If nothing else, I'm a Braves fan, so yeah, oh Atlanta, indeed.
"Oh Atlanta, I hear you callin' / I'm coming back to you one fine day..."
I did, anyway...spent a lot of time in high school dreaming of drifting around, making my goodbyes as dramatic and satisfying as my hellos. I became a father at seventeen, however, so those years in my twenties that might otherwise have allowed for - and been devoted to - a carefully crafted and picture perfect indifference to the petty hassles, leaden realities and inconvenient truths of personal relationships and life in general, were influenced greatly by what ended up a quick and seismic shift in my priorities. There was plenty of "worry in sight" by the time I graduated high school...the myriad concerns of parenthood, bills that could not be paid, bills that had to be paid, etc.
Not that I feel I missed out on too much. First of all, I've had my moments. If I drop tomorrow, I won't be able to say I feel I've been cheated out of anything (other than perhaps more time). And secondly, like so many other songs, "The Lucky One", a radio hit for Krauss in 2001, idealizes something that in reality is fraught with the same complexity and unpredictability of human emotion as any other situation we find ourselves in as life goes on. Nobody just drifts around, free as a bird, contentedly keeping everyone at arm's length. Resentment, possessiveness and competitiveness, loneliness, desire and regret...they all rear their ugly heads at some point, sometimes all at once. Not to mention you have to work, make money, maintain a certain stabilization...unless you just live off the grid, which though the concept has always intrigued me, I've never seriously thought about. And to be honest, no woman I have ever known has (or would have) been so philosophical, and so plaintively chill, about "the lucky one" drifting in and out of her life as Krauss would have us believe she is here. The song is pretty, as are Krauss's vocals (as always), but it's all a bit too tepid, actually, for what's purported to be going on. ;-)
"For you, the next best thing to playing and winning is playing and losing..."
#294) "Oh Atlanta" by Alison Krauss and Union Station - "Oh Atlanta" is, to me, the perfect driving song. It doesn't mean anything in particular, evokes no memories, stirrings or impulses, it's just great to listen to. Even better if you're on the road with many miles to go. Interestingly, Krauss' voice doesn't sound right for the song, and yet she makes it work.
If nothing else, I'm a Braves fan, so yeah, oh Atlanta, indeed.
"Oh Atlanta, I hear you callin' / I'm coming back to you one fine day..."
Friday, February 2, 2018
Yet ANOTHER Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50
#292) "Faithfully" by Journey - This is definitely a song I didn't appreciate growing up. I never disliked it, but never really noticed it either. (Heard it, but didn't listen, if you will.) It was just another flick-your-lighter-and-wave-it-back-and-forth stadium anthem populating the airwaves around the time I was in Little League and my brother got his driver's license. Later, for a short while, it was the "Oh Sherrie" guy's other song...because Journey never really made an impression on me either, although I do remember playing the Journey video game on my Atari 2600 (where the groupies were giant hearts with legs...lol), just didn't really know who the band was.
I think it's safe to say "Faithfully" has taken its place among the greatest power ballads ever, but it's also proven to be like good wine. Time passes, and in the new burgeoning historical context of songs that once were just radio friendly hits, it ripens, deepens and opens up. There's a richness to it that has claimed real estate in my mind beyond just a power ballad. Elegant and eloquent, at times musically stunning, it speaks to everyone's longing and devotion, for whatever or whomever, that must bear the onslaught of not just physical distance, but years becoming decades, decades becoming a lifetime.
"Through space and time..." indeed.
"Two strangers learn to fall in love again / I get the joy of rediscovering you..."
#293) "Long, Long Time" by Linda Ronstadt - I like the song too, one of those early 70s ditties that drizzled out of my parents radio in their bookstore when I was four, but it's really all about the voice. Here you have a lovely woman singing a lovely song with a perfectly blended command of control, pitch and power. Ronstadt's voice was an instrument, as opposed to a weapon, which is an approach too many otherwise talented female singers get distracted by these days - the need to bellow and explode. Ronstadt just sang. Pitch perfect.
"And I think it's gonna hurt me for a long, long time..."
I think it's safe to say "Faithfully" has taken its place among the greatest power ballads ever, but it's also proven to be like good wine. Time passes, and in the new burgeoning historical context of songs that once were just radio friendly hits, it ripens, deepens and opens up. There's a richness to it that has claimed real estate in my mind beyond just a power ballad. Elegant and eloquent, at times musically stunning, it speaks to everyone's longing and devotion, for whatever or whomever, that must bear the onslaught of not just physical distance, but years becoming decades, decades becoming a lifetime.
"Through space and time..." indeed.
"Two strangers learn to fall in love again / I get the joy of rediscovering you..."
#293) "Long, Long Time" by Linda Ronstadt - I like the song too, one of those early 70s ditties that drizzled out of my parents radio in their bookstore when I was four, but it's really all about the voice. Here you have a lovely woman singing a lovely song with a perfectly blended command of control, pitch and power. Ronstadt's voice was an instrument, as opposed to a weapon, which is an approach too many otherwise talented female singers get distracted by these days - the need to bellow and explode. Ronstadt just sang. Pitch perfect.
"And I think it's gonna hurt me for a long, long time..."
Friday, January 19, 2018
Yet ANOTHER Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50
#288) "Mi Mi Mi" by Serebro - A few months back, I admitted publicly (er, so to speak) to really liking the song "Mama Luba", suggested, even, that there was more to Serebro - at least in certain musical instances - than mere off-the-hook sex appeal. At the time, I wondered if I'd discover another song by the Russian girl group that I could listen to and a) not be bored by (which is the worst offense of all), and b) totally not care whether they were attractive or not. A song that could truly stand on its own, without being dependent on the group's ridiculously over-the-top sexual image.
I found it, ironically enough, in "Mi Mi Mi", a song that on the surface seems little more than a pop throwaway extolling the grotesque trappings of the artistically barren, image-obsessed, materialistic age we live in.
But whoa, Nelly...easy girl...unless you're one of those individuals completely bogged down by taking your music (and yourself) too seriously, there's really nothing not to like about this song. Fatally infectious, confident, sassy, bratty...almost a little sinister (as in, this just may be the music playing in Hell's waiting room)...I like its funky, freak show vibe. It's considered Europop (ish), but there are subtle musical shades of the girls' Russian heritage found embedded in its rhythm, moments when it sounds less like a pop song of any kind, more like the bed music to Tetris. And really, what could be wrong with that? Definitely nothing here to get bored by. The song is, in a word, bewitching.
It's largely the construction of the song itself, but also partly the women of Serebro. I like the fact that the singers - Elena Temnikova and Olga Seryabkina (who also has a writing credit) - seem to have a tenuous grasp of English at best, or none at all. Maybe I'm wrong, but they sound like I might sound singing a song in Russian, merely saying the memorized words without being able to convince people that I fully understand them, and in some strange way, for some strange reason, it totally works. And no, we're not talking strong vocals here, but that's okay. For what the song is, and what the song isn't, neither woman needs to be bellowing in three dimensional color like Adele. Their combined nasal attack works just fine.
And yes, they are astonishingly attractive women in my opinion. Not just "hot", which makes appearances throughout the world every day, but truly fucking stunning, all three of them (with Anastasia Karpova) totally rocking their cossacks with carefully crafted moves that for better or worse have become what the group's known for.
But it wouldn't matter if they weren't attractive, and that's the point here, that's why this song will come along on 1/48/50. Serebro could consist of three old Russian woman, their wizened faces peering out from underneath kerchiefs as they huddle in the sun, waiting for their cream to curdle, and all else being equal, musically speaking, "Mi Mi Mi" would still be a fantastic jam. Very super pupper drupper. ;-)
#289) "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" by The Walker Brothers - I was not surprised at all to discover the creators of the movie "Seeking a Friend For the End of the World" used this song to help illustrate their end times tableau. It has been getting me thinking heavy, long thoughts ever since I first heard it dribbling out of the AM radio in my parents' bookstore when I was a little kid. Similar to "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying", it's actually the perfect road song because it always sounds like it's broadcasting from somewhere very far away, someplace you might want to get to, or get back to...or perhaps stay away from.
"The tears are always clouding your eyes, when you're without love, baby..."
I found it, ironically enough, in "Mi Mi Mi", a song that on the surface seems little more than a pop throwaway extolling the grotesque trappings of the artistically barren, image-obsessed, materialistic age we live in.
But whoa, Nelly...easy girl...unless you're one of those individuals completely bogged down by taking your music (and yourself) too seriously, there's really nothing not to like about this song. Fatally infectious, confident, sassy, bratty...almost a little sinister (as in, this just may be the music playing in Hell's waiting room)...I like its funky, freak show vibe. It's considered Europop (ish), but there are subtle musical shades of the girls' Russian heritage found embedded in its rhythm, moments when it sounds less like a pop song of any kind, more like the bed music to Tetris. And really, what could be wrong with that? Definitely nothing here to get bored by. The song is, in a word, bewitching.
It's largely the construction of the song itself, but also partly the women of Serebro. I like the fact that the singers - Elena Temnikova and Olga Seryabkina (who also has a writing credit) - seem to have a tenuous grasp of English at best, or none at all. Maybe I'm wrong, but they sound like I might sound singing a song in Russian, merely saying the memorized words without being able to convince people that I fully understand them, and in some strange way, for some strange reason, it totally works. And no, we're not talking strong vocals here, but that's okay. For what the song is, and what the song isn't, neither woman needs to be bellowing in three dimensional color like Adele. Their combined nasal attack works just fine.
And yes, they are astonishingly attractive women in my opinion. Not just "hot", which makes appearances throughout the world every day, but truly fucking stunning, all three of them (with Anastasia Karpova) totally rocking their cossacks with carefully crafted moves that for better or worse have become what the group's known for.
But it wouldn't matter if they weren't attractive, and that's the point here, that's why this song will come along on 1/48/50. Serebro could consist of three old Russian woman, their wizened faces peering out from underneath kerchiefs as they huddle in the sun, waiting for their cream to curdle, and all else being equal, musically speaking, "Mi Mi Mi" would still be a fantastic jam. Very super pupper drupper. ;-)
"I am so cool with my awesome big tits on the ground..."
"The tears are always clouding your eyes, when you're without love, baby..."
Friday, December 15, 2017
On Bridges and the Importance of Infrastructure...and How it Relates to my Love of Driving Over Bridges
August 1, 2007 was a memorable day in my life, for all the wrong reasons. It was the day when the I-35W bridge spanning the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota collapsed during rush hour traffic, killing 13 and injuring over a hundred. I was nowhere near the Twin Cities when it happened, but the tragedy affected me emotionally nevertheless.
In my youth, there were two main go-to destinations. One was Duluth, Minnesota, just an hour away from where I grew up. I reserve a special place in my heart for Duluth to this day. Among the most physically beautiful cities I've ever been to, she was in my youth keeper of all the "big city" shopping mall action I could handle - Aladdin's Castle, Musicland, Orange Julius, Barnes and Noble, et cetera. Duluth had everything my hometown didn't have. The trick was finding a way there.
The other was Minneapolis. Any trip there meant something truly awesome was happening. I'm very familiar with I-35, which runs from the Twin Ports to the Twin Cities, where it splits into 35W, which runs through Minneapolis, and 35E, which wends its way through St. Paul. I rarely had any reason to go to St. Paul. Minneapolis was where it was at. I had crossed that 35W bridge countless times on my way to the airport, or Valley Fair, or the Mall of America, or the Metrodome or numerous points around or south of the Cities.
In my youth, there were two main go-to destinations. One was Duluth, Minnesota, just an hour away from where I grew up. I reserve a special place in my heart for Duluth to this day. Among the most physically beautiful cities I've ever been to, she was in my youth keeper of all the "big city" shopping mall action I could handle - Aladdin's Castle, Musicland, Orange Julius, Barnes and Noble, et cetera. Duluth had everything my hometown didn't have. The trick was finding a way there.
The other was Minneapolis. Any trip there meant something truly awesome was happening. I'm very familiar with I-35, which runs from the Twin Ports to the Twin Cities, where it splits into 35W, which runs through Minneapolis, and 35E, which wends its way through St. Paul. I rarely had any reason to go to St. Paul. Minneapolis was where it was at. I had crossed that 35W bridge countless times on my way to the airport, or Valley Fair, or the Mall of America, or the Metrodome or numerous points around or south of the Cities.
That fact alone isn't significant, of course. In theory, we're all a hair's breadth away from tragedy at any given moment, so the number of times I drove over that bridge prior to its collapse doesn't mean anything. But there was something about crossing that particular span that always sent an anxious trill through my bones.
I don't mean in a clairvoyant way. I don't claim ever to have thought something would happen, no visions of the future, but I can in good conscience say something about it unnerved me. It was high, for starters, arching more than a hundred feet above a stretch of the Mississippi that seemed like a gaping maw, surrounded by a visually severe landscape - the big beautiful Minneapolis skyline on one side, and a lot of rough industry - with a power plant, and a dam - on the other. It was more exciting than intimidating I guess, but every time I crossed that bridge, I thought about it collapsing out from underneath me. Again, to be clear, I never thought it actually would, but the hypothetical notion would float through my mind, and so when it did, when I realized it was that bridge's demise being covered on the national news, I was left momentarily floored.
I don't mean in a clairvoyant way. I don't claim ever to have thought something would happen, no visions of the future, but I can in good conscience say something about it unnerved me. It was high, for starters, arching more than a hundred feet above a stretch of the Mississippi that seemed like a gaping maw, surrounded by a visually severe landscape - the big beautiful Minneapolis skyline on one side, and a lot of rough industry - with a power plant, and a dam - on the other. It was more exciting than intimidating I guess, but every time I crossed that bridge, I thought about it collapsing out from underneath me. Again, to be clear, I never thought it actually would, but the hypothetical notion would float through my mind, and so when it did, when I realized it was that bridge's demise being covered on the national news, I was left momentarily floored.
The other reason the tragedy affected me, is because I've always considered infrastructure to be a big deal. Our bridges should no more be collapsing out from under us - ever - than our drinking water should be tainted with lead or other poisons, and yet we are reminded time and time again when some unexpected-and-yet-really-no-surprise tragedy occurs that not nearly enough time or attention is being given to shoring it up. If it were, perhaps things like the I-35 bridge collapse, or the entirely outrageous Flint, Michigan water scandal (not to mention countless places across the country where people's tap water comes out flammable) might be avoided. Clear roadways to get around, potable water and electric power should in 2017 be considered basic human rights the world over.
A report earlier this year by the American Road and Transportation Builders Association found that over 50,000 bridges - many of them part of major roadways bearing huge traffic loads on a daily basis - are structurally deficient. The report stressed that "structurally deficient" doesn't mean collapse is imminent, only that problems have been detected that need or will eventually need repair, but it's unnerving just the same to think about that number: 50,000-plus bridges in this country all trembling - however slightly (and who knows how many are more than slightly) - under the weight of our need to get from one place to another on a daily basis, our reliance on big rigs moving product, our love of driving, of motion, of freedom, needing some kind of repair work. In the case of the I-35 Bridge, the sheer volume of
traffic it endured on a daily basis was staggering, and as early as 1990
(just 23 years after it was constructed) it had been labeled
"structurally deficient", and would again receive this
designation in 2005, two years before it came down.
How many of the 50,000 bridges noted in the ARTBA report currently have a cloudy history like that? One would be far too many.
It's especially frightening, considering I love driving over bridges. I have on numerous occasions driven out of my way just to be able to drive over a bridge, and the specific route I take on 1/48/50 will almost certainly be determined (partially, at least) by whether there's a bridge I can drive over.
Indulging this little driving kink should not be a matter of tempting fate.
How many of the 50,000 bridges noted in the ARTBA report currently have a cloudy history like that? One would be far too many.
It's especially frightening, considering I love driving over bridges. I have on numerous occasions driven out of my way just to be able to drive over a bridge, and the specific route I take on 1/48/50 will almost certainly be determined (partially, at least) by whether there's a bridge I can drive over.
Indulging this little driving kink should not be a matter of tempting fate.
Friday, December 8, 2017
Yet ANOTHER Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50
#279) "Rocker" by AC/DC - Before the untimely death of lead singer Bon Scott, AC/DC was considered hard rock. The loud, aggressive style of music they helped pioneer in the 1970s didn't become the caricature I knew as "heavy metal" until the 80s, with, I'd venture, the release of the monumental album, Back in Black, a tribute to Scott with new front man, Brian Johnson.
That album is great, groundbreaking in its way (forging new paths in musical metallurgy), but as a whole, the genre got lamer and lamer as the decade progressed, more about image in the video age than anything real or relatable. By the time I entered high school, it had been watered down to a little thing called hair metal, which didn't provide or produce much good in the world, outside of the ratted hair look (on women). That noise wasn't silenced until 1991, with a band called Nirvana and a music (-al movement) called "grunge", which, when you think about it, also wound up becoming a caricature.
The album Dirty Deeds Done Dirty Cheap has always struck me as a solid emissary from that moment just before hard rock became metal. And "Rocker", the best example of rock and roll that may have been hard, but had not yet lost its more organic, bluesier roots in the dervish of spandex, eye liner and ratted out hair...on men...that for better or worse, informed my youth.
This is nothing less than rock and roll history:
"Got little red socks, blue suede shows / V-8 car and tattoos..."
#280) "Ride On" by AC/DC - From the same album, and nothing if not "bluesy", there are two things I love about this song: 1) the message. It's how everyone should approach life, really the only option everyone has, and at certain moments in my own life it's actually served as a beacon. Ride on. 2) Angus Young's guitar solo, which, for my money, is among the best ever, in "rock and roll", "hard rock", "metal" or whatever else you want to put quotes around.
"Bought myself a one-way ticket, going the wrong way..."
#281) "Big Balls" - On the surface a throw-away, but listen, and consider it was the mid-1970s when this was recorded. It was actually kind of funny, and daring (dare I say: ballsy), for its day.
Whether it holds up today, either as a piece of art, a piece of comedy, or a piece of music, I'm not so sure. But there was a time, man, 7th or 8th grade, when "Big Balls" was pretty shocking and hilarious and cool, and I felt pretty shocking and hilarious and cool jamming out to it. That alone makes it worth taking along on my road trip.
"It's my belief that my big balls should be held every night..."
That album is great, groundbreaking in its way (forging new paths in musical metallurgy), but as a whole, the genre got lamer and lamer as the decade progressed, more about image in the video age than anything real or relatable. By the time I entered high school, it had been watered down to a little thing called hair metal, which didn't provide or produce much good in the world, outside of the ratted hair look (on women). That noise wasn't silenced until 1991, with a band called Nirvana and a music (-al movement) called "grunge", which, when you think about it, also wound up becoming a caricature.
The album Dirty Deeds Done Dirty Cheap has always struck me as a solid emissary from that moment just before hard rock became metal. And "Rocker", the best example of rock and roll that may have been hard, but had not yet lost its more organic, bluesier roots in the dervish of spandex, eye liner and ratted out hair...on men...that for better or worse, informed my youth.
This is nothing less than rock and roll history:
"Got little red socks, blue suede shows / V-8 car and tattoos..."
#280) "Ride On" by AC/DC - From the same album, and nothing if not "bluesy", there are two things I love about this song: 1) the message. It's how everyone should approach life, really the only option everyone has, and at certain moments in my own life it's actually served as a beacon. Ride on. 2) Angus Young's guitar solo, which, for my money, is among the best ever, in "rock and roll", "hard rock", "metal" or whatever else you want to put quotes around.
"Bought myself a one-way ticket, going the wrong way..."
#281) "Big Balls" - On the surface a throw-away, but listen, and consider it was the mid-1970s when this was recorded. It was actually kind of funny, and daring (dare I say: ballsy), for its day.
Whether it holds up today, either as a piece of art, a piece of comedy, or a piece of music, I'm not so sure. But there was a time, man, 7th or 8th grade, when "Big Balls" was pretty shocking and hilarious and cool, and I felt pretty shocking and hilarious and cool jamming out to it. That alone makes it worth taking along on my road trip.
"It's my belief that my big balls should be held every night..."
Friday, November 24, 2017
Yet ANOTHER Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50
#274) "Tin Man" by America - When I was younger, I didn't like "Tin Man", primarily because I didn't get it. I should have, maybe. Being the writer dude/self styled intellectual I worked oh so hard to convince the world (and myself) I was, I should have totally been down with the stream-of-consciousness headiness of the vibe, and up to the challenge of its poetically inscrutable lyrics.
But alas, it was all too much for me to wrap my head around...because - I think - it was just so fucking awesome...actual poetry, as opposed to merely overwrought and heavily cliched imagery. Or maybe it's just complete nonsense. Honestly, that would be okay too.
And I definitely wasn't mature enough then to appreciate the artistry of America's collective musicianship. Dewey Bunnell wrote "Tin Man", but like many of America's songs, it's the other two members, Dan Peek and Gerry Beckley, joining in that helps create the unforgettable sound that, as I've said in the past, is on one hand helplessly dated to the 1970s, yet beautifully timeless at the same time.
Now as a full-fledged adult, I still don't know what the hell the song is saying, I just love it. Love me some America, man. I feel like there's important stuff - heady and just a little horrifying - going on in their music, both lyrically and melodically, and yet, nothing at all at the same time. Maybe more than any other band or artist, America should be brought along on a cross-country road trip.
"But Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man that he didn't, didn't already have..."
#275) "A Horse With No Name" by America - See above.
"The ocean is a desert with its life underground and a perfect disguise above..."
#276) "Lonely People" by America - And again. Although the lyrics are more straightforward in this one, it's still just pleasant to listen to.
"Don't give up until you drink from the silver cup / you never know until you try..."
But alas, it was all too much for me to wrap my head around...because - I think - it was just so fucking awesome...actual poetry, as opposed to merely overwrought and heavily cliched imagery. Or maybe it's just complete nonsense. Honestly, that would be okay too.
And I definitely wasn't mature enough then to appreciate the artistry of America's collective musicianship. Dewey Bunnell wrote "Tin Man", but like many of America's songs, it's the other two members, Dan Peek and Gerry Beckley, joining in that helps create the unforgettable sound that, as I've said in the past, is on one hand helplessly dated to the 1970s, yet beautifully timeless at the same time.
Now as a full-fledged adult, I still don't know what the hell the song is saying, I just love it. Love me some America, man. I feel like there's important stuff - heady and just a little horrifying - going on in their music, both lyrically and melodically, and yet, nothing at all at the same time. Maybe more than any other band or artist, America should be brought along on a cross-country road trip.
"But Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man that he didn't, didn't already have..."
#275) "A Horse With No Name" by America - See above.
"The ocean is a desert with its life underground and a perfect disguise above..."
#276) "Lonely People" by America - And again. Although the lyrics are more straightforward in this one, it's still just pleasant to listen to.
"Don't give up until you drink from the silver cup / you never know until you try..."
Friday, November 17, 2017
Yet ANOTHER Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50
#271) "If I Can Dream" by Elvis Presley - Sometime in the 1990s, we thought fit to put Elvis Presley on a postage stamp, and got into a national debate about which Elvis it should be - young, sexy, boundary-pushing "Elvis the Pelvis" of the 1950s, or fat, bloated, drug-addled Elvis, who through most of the 70s lumbered onto stage in a purple cape suit, breathing heavily and sweating up a storm, but whose magnificent voice and method of attack never failed him even when it was clear his body had. The U.S. Postal Service actually let people vote for their favorite stamp, and in the end, young Elvis won out. Not too surprising, I guess.
Young Elvis may very well have been the best looking dude of the 20th century (his aesthetic surely remains a gold standard for many women today), but the King's best music came during the fat years, when he simply stopped giving a shit, started singing the music he wanted to sing, which for Elvis was a lot of different types of songs, most of them arranged in a specific gospel-based style that gave him a platform to showcase his voice and stage presence.
This musical trend began in 1968, with the televised live concert known as the "Comeback Special", which aired on NBC on December 3. Elvis wasn't out of shape yet, still looked the part, still looked pretty good, actually, maybe the best he ever had (certainly the best he ever would). He performed some of his classics and some new music, and he closed the show with "If I Can Dream", a powerful song worthy of his talents that also echoed the hopeful and idealized sentiment of the era, signaling to the American public (a public quite different from that which was only allowed to watch him from the waist up thirteen years earlier) that the King of Rock and Roll hadn't gone anywhere, just grown up a bit, and was now paying attention to things going on, along with everyone else.
Great song. Great performance. Pity that "hopeful and idealized sentiment" went largely ignored.
"There must be peace and understanding sometime, strong winds of promise that will blow away the doubt and fear..."
#272) "Memories" by Elvis Presley - Another song that debuted on the '68 Comeback Special and was eventually released as a single, as love ballads go - by the King, or anyone else - this is about as good as it gets.
"Sweet memories, of holding hands and red bouquets, and twilight trimmed in purple haze / And laughing eyes and simple ways, and quiet nights and gentle days with you..."
#273) "Unchained Melody (Live)" by Elvis Presley - Performed weeks before his death in 1977, this is, for a variety of reasons, one of the worst live performances of any song, by anyone, ever.
It's also one of the very greatest, for all the same reasons, and maybe a few others.
"Are you still mine...?"
Young Elvis may very well have been the best looking dude of the 20th century (his aesthetic surely remains a gold standard for many women today), but the King's best music came during the fat years, when he simply stopped giving a shit, started singing the music he wanted to sing, which for Elvis was a lot of different types of songs, most of them arranged in a specific gospel-based style that gave him a platform to showcase his voice and stage presence.
This musical trend began in 1968, with the televised live concert known as the "Comeback Special", which aired on NBC on December 3. Elvis wasn't out of shape yet, still looked the part, still looked pretty good, actually, maybe the best he ever had (certainly the best he ever would). He performed some of his classics and some new music, and he closed the show with "If I Can Dream", a powerful song worthy of his talents that also echoed the hopeful and idealized sentiment of the era, signaling to the American public (a public quite different from that which was only allowed to watch him from the waist up thirteen years earlier) that the King of Rock and Roll hadn't gone anywhere, just grown up a bit, and was now paying attention to things going on, along with everyone else.
Great song. Great performance. Pity that "hopeful and idealized sentiment" went largely ignored.
"There must be peace and understanding sometime, strong winds of promise that will blow away the doubt and fear..."
#272) "Memories" by Elvis Presley - Another song that debuted on the '68 Comeback Special and was eventually released as a single, as love ballads go - by the King, or anyone else - this is about as good as it gets.
"Sweet memories, of holding hands and red bouquets, and twilight trimmed in purple haze / And laughing eyes and simple ways, and quiet nights and gentle days with you..."
#273) "Unchained Melody (Live)" by Elvis Presley - Performed weeks before his death in 1977, this is, for a variety of reasons, one of the worst live performances of any song, by anyone, ever.
It's also one of the very greatest, for all the same reasons, and maybe a few others.
"Are you still mine...?"
Friday, November 10, 2017
Yet ANOTHER Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50
#269) "Mama Luba" by Serebro - With the potent sex appeal of the three members of Serebro to contend with (seeming to confirm everything I've ever heard about the exceptional beauty of Russian women), it would be easy to dismiss "Mama Luba" as mere pop tripe performed by women who better be good-looking, because they're certainly not Joni Mitchell.
But "Mama Luba" is beyond catchy. The combination of driving rhythm, urgent melody (and vocals) and a synthesized horn jam end run that itself could teach a course in sexiness scratches deep enough to become a legitimate groove, the kind that gets into your blood as well as your ear. And honestly, that it's sung in Russian doesn't hurt...(although I don't know why I just typed that).
Sadly, the rest of Serebro's music is what you might expect from any manufactured girl group, Russian, American or otherwise: cloying, overtly sexual (that is, to the point of being annoyingly so...), sassy and salty for the sake of being "sassy and salty"...but "Mama Luba" more than makes up for the other fails simply by not trying too hard. Yes, the women of Serebro are purrrrdy (okay, astonishingly hot), but truly, it wouldn't matter if they weren't (and agreed, it shouldn't). I'd still be jamming out...;-)
Sorry, the lyrics are in a Russian...;-)
#270) "Silence on the Line" by Chris LeDoux - On the surface, just another country ballad about cowboys and rodeos, hard falls and painted canyon walls...and whatnot and shit...but not really. If you sit and listen to this song, a richly textured (and kind of devastating) story is revealed, a story that touches on some universally known themes: the death of dreams, what we wish mattered in life compared to what ends up mattering, how we see ourselves as opposed to how others see us, the relationship between men and women, what's expected of men as time passes...
A former rodeo rider, LeDoux passed away in 2005 at the age of 56. Taken way too early, he left behind a musical legacy worthy of remembrance, with "Silence on the Line" worthy of analysis.
Truthfully, no other song has ever moved me quite the same way.
"Well there's silence on the line, and now I hear her saying / 'Babe, I only need a man for the things a man is good for...'"
But "Mama Luba" is beyond catchy. The combination of driving rhythm, urgent melody (and vocals) and a synthesized horn jam end run that itself could teach a course in sexiness scratches deep enough to become a legitimate groove, the kind that gets into your blood as well as your ear. And honestly, that it's sung in Russian doesn't hurt...(although I don't know why I just typed that).
Sadly, the rest of Serebro's music is what you might expect from any manufactured girl group, Russian, American or otherwise: cloying, overtly sexual (that is, to the point of being annoyingly so...), sassy and salty for the sake of being "sassy and salty"...but "Mama Luba" more than makes up for the other fails simply by not trying too hard. Yes, the women of Serebro are purrrrdy (okay, astonishingly hot), but truly, it wouldn't matter if they weren't (and agreed, it shouldn't). I'd still be jamming out...;-)
Sorry, the lyrics are in a Russian...;-)
#270) "Silence on the Line" by Chris LeDoux - On the surface, just another country ballad about cowboys and rodeos, hard falls and painted canyon walls...and whatnot and shit...but not really. If you sit and listen to this song, a richly textured (and kind of devastating) story is revealed, a story that touches on some universally known themes: the death of dreams, what we wish mattered in life compared to what ends up mattering, how we see ourselves as opposed to how others see us, the relationship between men and women, what's expected of men as time passes...
A former rodeo rider, LeDoux passed away in 2005 at the age of 56. Taken way too early, he left behind a musical legacy worthy of remembrance, with "Silence on the Line" worthy of analysis.
Truthfully, no other song has ever moved me quite the same way.
"Well there's silence on the line, and now I hear her saying / 'Babe, I only need a man for the things a man is good for...'"
Friday, October 13, 2017
Yet ANOTHER Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50
#260) Wake Me Up When September Ends" by Green Day - One of Green Day's best was written for front man Billy Joe Armstrong's father, who passed away when he was ten, but the song is so good at collecting emotional fragments and assembling a larger sense of loss, it oddly makes the whole worth more than the sum of its parts. If that's not an apt description of art, I don't know what is. The poetic lyrics do a nice job of intriguing rather than explaining, almost as if they're holding something back, not revealing everything they know. At least not right away.
The video, which draws heavily from the anxious, war-torn 2000s, is a bit over-wrought at moments, but there lies a dreaminess within it that lends itself to the "art", doing the music and lyrics justice. It's in the way it's shot, and the way it's acted.
To that end, I love the look of the kids in the video; I always have. Actors Jamie Bell and Evan Rachel Wood were excellent choices to represent average kids, looking and acting (and speaking) exactly as average kids would if they found themselves torn apart by the sense of duty and equally potent sense of futility that war evokes.
No doubt plenty of "average kids" actually did find themselves torn apart back in 2005, just as they did in 1968.
And 1952. And 1943. And 1917....
"Summer has come and passed / The innocent can never last / Wake me up when September ends..."
#261)"Uneasy Rider" by The Charlie Daniels Band - Charlie Daniels is one of the greatest country musicians - greatest musicians of any genre - of all time. "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", his most famous song, with its tight (as in circulation restricting) sound was innovative (as in Earth shattering) for the time, and it's actually only the beginning. Some of the greatest country songs of all time are CDB deep tracks.
That being said, Charlie Daniels is not the same person he was when he started out. Over his long, illustrious career he has undergone a dramatic sea change, the once "long haired country boy" becoming (like a lot of "elder statesman" country singers) a staunchly right-wing conservative, driven by his faith and a balls-to-the-wall (and for this, unavoidably self-righteous) brand of patriotism. He's entitled to his opinions of course, and he's certainly never failed to use his music to express them (in other words, it shouldn't be all that surprising), and mind you, I do not have a problem with patriotism or ALL right-wing thinking.
But I don't know, man...I've been going through a kind of divorce from country music the last few years, as it's become more aligned with the far right in this country. Not the right, not normal conservative/Republican, but the ideology that gave us President Trump. I just can't get there the same way anymore.
Perhaps that's because I too have gone through a sea change over time. As I've aged, I've gotten less conservative. Not MORE liberal, exactly, just less conservative. I support the military (certainly the vets), I support cops, I'm for law and order, and ultimately I just want it to be fucking quiet in my neighborhood and my midst at any given hour of the day. I support gun ownership, but do I think those rights should be left unrestricted? No. I'm a mid-western, middle-aged heterosexual male, but do I care if gays get married? Nope. Do I think pot should be legal? Yup. Do I think we should gut out every last bit of green space to, as Joni Mitchell sang, "put up a parking lot"? Nope. We have enough parking lots. Enough opportunities to consume.
I'm a middle-of-the-roader on just about everything. I refuse to take a cartoonish stance on one side or another of the brewing culture war in this country.
At the end of the day, it should only ever be about the music, and to that end, everyone should be able to groove to whatever they want - together, ideally. Music really should be, to quote Longfellow, the "universal language of mankind".
It's just that Charlie makes it about much more than the music. A song like "Uneasy Rider", which in 1973 satirized (if not mocked) the south, southern culture, and the very type of "redneck" people that he now identifies so staunchly with, would never, ever be recorded by 2017's CDB. And that's too bad.
Charlie must have realized his sea change early on, because there is a 1988 "update" to "Uneasy Rider" (on the album Hometown Heroes) in which Charlie and a buddy find their way into a gay bar...in this incarnation, he's the redneck, laughing with a predictable roll of his eyes at all the funny queens and the "orange haired feller" on the stage "singing about suicide". It's meant to be funny...but it isn't. It tries way too hard, its premise makes HIM the one with the issues, and in the current agitated political climate, it's even less funny than it was 30 years ago.
I still enjoy the original "Uneasy Rider" though. Not because it's "liberal" or "Democrat", because honestly it wasn't actually those things in 1973 either (Charlie Daniels was never those things entirely...he was always a maverick, hard to figure out...good for him), but because it is funny...it's clever. It tells the story of a situation you'd never want to find yourself in, but also depicts the exact way you fantasize that you would handle it.
"I couldn't resist the fun of chasing them just once around the parking lot..."
The video, which draws heavily from the anxious, war-torn 2000s, is a bit over-wrought at moments, but there lies a dreaminess within it that lends itself to the "art", doing the music and lyrics justice. It's in the way it's shot, and the way it's acted.
To that end, I love the look of the kids in the video; I always have. Actors Jamie Bell and Evan Rachel Wood were excellent choices to represent average kids, looking and acting (and speaking) exactly as average kids would if they found themselves torn apart by the sense of duty and equally potent sense of futility that war evokes.
No doubt plenty of "average kids" actually did find themselves torn apart back in 2005, just as they did in 1968.
And 1952. And 1943. And 1917....
"Summer has come and passed / The innocent can never last / Wake me up when September ends..."
#261)"Uneasy Rider" by The Charlie Daniels Band - Charlie Daniels is one of the greatest country musicians - greatest musicians of any genre - of all time. "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", his most famous song, with its tight (as in circulation restricting) sound was innovative (as in Earth shattering) for the time, and it's actually only the beginning. Some of the greatest country songs of all time are CDB deep tracks.
That being said, Charlie Daniels is not the same person he was when he started out. Over his long, illustrious career he has undergone a dramatic sea change, the once "long haired country boy" becoming (like a lot of "elder statesman" country singers) a staunchly right-wing conservative, driven by his faith and a balls-to-the-wall (and for this, unavoidably self-righteous) brand of patriotism. He's entitled to his opinions of course, and he's certainly never failed to use his music to express them (in other words, it shouldn't be all that surprising), and mind you, I do not have a problem with patriotism or ALL right-wing thinking.
But I don't know, man...I've been going through a kind of divorce from country music the last few years, as it's become more aligned with the far right in this country. Not the right, not normal conservative/Republican, but the ideology that gave us President Trump. I just can't get there the same way anymore.
Perhaps that's because I too have gone through a sea change over time. As I've aged, I've gotten less conservative. Not MORE liberal, exactly, just less conservative. I support the military (certainly the vets), I support cops, I'm for law and order, and ultimately I just want it to be fucking quiet in my neighborhood and my midst at any given hour of the day. I support gun ownership, but do I think those rights should be left unrestricted? No. I'm a mid-western, middle-aged heterosexual male, but do I care if gays get married? Nope. Do I think pot should be legal? Yup. Do I think we should gut out every last bit of green space to, as Joni Mitchell sang, "put up a parking lot"? Nope. We have enough parking lots. Enough opportunities to consume.
I'm a middle-of-the-roader on just about everything. I refuse to take a cartoonish stance on one side or another of the brewing culture war in this country.
At the end of the day, it should only ever be about the music, and to that end, everyone should be able to groove to whatever they want - together, ideally. Music really should be, to quote Longfellow, the "universal language of mankind".
It's just that Charlie makes it about much more than the music. A song like "Uneasy Rider", which in 1973 satirized (if not mocked) the south, southern culture, and the very type of "redneck" people that he now identifies so staunchly with, would never, ever be recorded by 2017's CDB. And that's too bad.
Charlie must have realized his sea change early on, because there is a 1988 "update" to "Uneasy Rider" (on the album Hometown Heroes) in which Charlie and a buddy find their way into a gay bar...in this incarnation, he's the redneck, laughing with a predictable roll of his eyes at all the funny queens and the "orange haired feller" on the stage "singing about suicide". It's meant to be funny...but it isn't. It tries way too hard, its premise makes HIM the one with the issues, and in the current agitated political climate, it's even less funny than it was 30 years ago.
I still enjoy the original "Uneasy Rider" though. Not because it's "liberal" or "Democrat", because honestly it wasn't actually those things in 1973 either (Charlie Daniels was never those things entirely...he was always a maverick, hard to figure out...good for him), but because it is funny...it's clever. It tells the story of a situation you'd never want to find yourself in, but also depicts the exact way you fantasize that you would handle it.
"I couldn't resist the fun of chasing them just once around the parking lot..."
Friday, October 6, 2017
Yet ANOTHER Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50
#258) "The Stroke" by Billy Squier - I remember being eight or nine years old, hanging out with my grubby-fingered friends somewhere, hearing this song on the radio and thinking it was so raunchy, so dirty, sooo something we, as kids, were not supposed to be listening to. Not that I didn't want to listen. I definitely wanted to, and I definitely did. There seemed something compellingly sexual about "The Stroke." It might have been what I saw as the gender-busting slide of Squier's vocals, maybe a little bit the hip-swinging rhythm, and partially the lyrics...although we weren't really listening to the lyrics then, other than the words, "...stroke me...", which we would chant over and over, kicking up playground dust.
If we had been listening to the lyrics, we probably still would not have realized that they're actually about politics, about the government giving us all the stroke. And not in a good way.
At least that's what I've chosen to believe throughout my adult life. Billy Squier has been quoted as saying the song is actually about the music business, which is sort of a bubble popper for me because the lyrics work so well applied to the political realm, really word for word. They could be about any industry I guess, any industry marinating in duplicity and insincerity....but they describe blandness as well, a certain ineffectual lameness that in my eyes is no better represented than by American politics....on both sides of the aisle.
In any case, there are songs that you just enjoy listening to, no matter what they're about, and no matter how much time passes. For me, "The Stroke" is one of them.
"Spread your ear pollution both far and wide / Keep your contributions by your side..."
#259) "Radar Love" by Golden Earring - "Radar Love" is so much a road song - the road song - it's more or less a stereotype at this point (guaranteed to start playing in any movie or video game where someone plants their ass behind a steering wheel), but like "The Stroke", it's also a pretty durable jam, sounding just as fresh, just as urgent, just as "of the moment", as it did in 1973, without sounding all that much like it's from 1973. Golden Earring are a Dutch band with a long history going back to the early 1960s, and until...like...five minutes ago, I had no idea that they also sing "Twilight Zone" (1982). Now that I know it, it makes perfect sense.
I like "Twilight Zone" too, but it doesn't sound as fresh all these years later. Not like "Radar Love", anyway. I know I've named more than a few "ultimate road songs" on this list, but "Radar Love" might just be the Mother of them all. Its infectious rhythm turns airborne coming in contact with the confident, sometimes blistering vocals, creating a strange combination of Kiss-style sexual tension and earnest highway restlessness that would make Bruce Springsteen proud.
And the lyrics...well, they're not especially poetic, or daring, or political in any way...they're just pretty cool. They themselves might be the Mother of all road lyrics.
"The radio's playing some forgotten song / Brenda Lee's "Coming on Strong"....
If we had been listening to the lyrics, we probably still would not have realized that they're actually about politics, about the government giving us all the stroke. And not in a good way.
At least that's what I've chosen to believe throughout my adult life. Billy Squier has been quoted as saying the song is actually about the music business, which is sort of a bubble popper for me because the lyrics work so well applied to the political realm, really word for word. They could be about any industry I guess, any industry marinating in duplicity and insincerity....but they describe blandness as well, a certain ineffectual lameness that in my eyes is no better represented than by American politics....on both sides of the aisle.
In any case, there are songs that you just enjoy listening to, no matter what they're about, and no matter how much time passes. For me, "The Stroke" is one of them.
"Spread your ear pollution both far and wide / Keep your contributions by your side..."
#259) "Radar Love" by Golden Earring - "Radar Love" is so much a road song - the road song - it's more or less a stereotype at this point (guaranteed to start playing in any movie or video game where someone plants their ass behind a steering wheel), but like "The Stroke", it's also a pretty durable jam, sounding just as fresh, just as urgent, just as "of the moment", as it did in 1973, without sounding all that much like it's from 1973. Golden Earring are a Dutch band with a long history going back to the early 1960s, and until...like...five minutes ago, I had no idea that they also sing "Twilight Zone" (1982). Now that I know it, it makes perfect sense.
I like "Twilight Zone" too, but it doesn't sound as fresh all these years later. Not like "Radar Love", anyway. I know I've named more than a few "ultimate road songs" on this list, but "Radar Love" might just be the Mother of them all. Its infectious rhythm turns airborne coming in contact with the confident, sometimes blistering vocals, creating a strange combination of Kiss-style sexual tension and earnest highway restlessness that would make Bruce Springsteen proud.
And the lyrics...well, they're not especially poetic, or daring, or political in any way...they're just pretty cool. They themselves might be the Mother of all road lyrics.
"The radio's playing some forgotten song / Brenda Lee's "Coming on Strong"....
Friday, September 15, 2017
AS SUMMER WINDS DOWN: Whole Albums to Travel By
Those rare musical treasures that require no song-to-song cherry picking, no fast forwarding (for those 35-plus who know what that is...), no selective exclusion from playlists. They are their OWN playlists...each a greatest hits package of brand new material, still fresh even decades on from their release. You know...desert island albums.
In the case of 1/48/50, whole urban areas, entire counties, fully one half of any state even, may be traversed on the power of a single inspired album playing all the way through.
So good, in fact, they require no two cents thrown in by the likes of me. Just listen. ;-)
 |
| "Plastic Ono Band" / John Lennon |
 |
| "Blue" by Joni Mitchell |
Friday, September 1, 2017
AS SUMMER WINDS DOWN: Whole Albums To Travel By
Those rare musical treasures that require no song-to-song cherry picking, no fast forwarding (for those 35-plus who know what that is...), no selective exclusion from playlists. They are their OWN playlists...each a greatest hits package of brand new material, still fresh even decades on from their release. You know...desert island albums.
In the case of 1/48/50, whole urban areas, entire counties, fully one half of any state even, may be traversed on the power of a single inspired album playing all the way through.
So good, in fact, they require no two cents thrown in by the likes of me. Just listen. ;-)
In the case of 1/48/50, whole urban areas, entire counties, fully one half of any state even, may be traversed on the power of a single inspired album playing all the way through.
So good, in fact, they require no two cents thrown in by the likes of me. Just listen. ;-)
 |
| "The Joshua Tree" by U2 |
 |
| "Revolver" by The Beatles |
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