If music be the food of love, let’s eat it.
Music: What Are You Listening To?
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They can’t let them win though, having Ukraine host next year might be difficult what with Putin being King of Ukraine by that time and everything.
Hey, Arab Strap are back with a new album. Man, I’ve missed those guys.
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I was listening to the Chart Music podcast and discovered that Top of the Pops actually had an American version on CBS in 1987. There was a TOTP USA.
It aired on Friday nights so they used some of the performances from the British one that aired every Thursday and added extra ones from their studio in LA. That was then reciprocated as the episode they are reviewing on the podcast uses a Belinda Carlyle clip from the US show.
Obviously it didn’t last and is now pretty much forgotten but I did find a short clip on Youtube. They use the same theme music and style with a US presenter. A lot like stuff like ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’ which is virtually identical in either version apart from the accent of the presenter.
I think they probably made it at the wrong time, the UK and US charts were starting to diverge at that point, if they’d have done it in 1983 with Duran Duran and Culture Club at the height of their fame and both charts looking very similar it could maybe have had some traction.
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I was listening to the Chart Music podcast and discovered that Top of the Pops actually had an American version on CBS in 1987. There was a TOTP USA.
I remember that show coming out, but it would only have appealed to households that didn’t have cable television and thus did not have access to MTV or VH1.
The real American equivalent to Top of the Pops was probably American Bandstand, which began airing in 1952 (pre-rock&roll) and lasted until 1989 with Dick Clark as the host for most of those years. It basically had a bunch of teens dancing to Top 40 pop songs, but usually had one artist appearing each week to lip-sync to their latest release. There was also Soul Train, a similar format but focusing on R&B and soul music.
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Yeah I’m aware of and seen clips of American Bandstand and Soul Train. We also used to get Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 show appear on ITV in Saturday morning.
One of the key points with TOTP is they tried as much as they could not to show videos or have dancers to a track but have the act perform in the studio. With 40 singers or bands in the charts they could usually get enough acts in to perform (and performing on it usually pushed sales a lot so they were happy enough to do it). Even though it was mostly lip-synched it created more of a gig feel.
It now works very well as a time capsule of what people were actually listening to (in singles anyway) because it picked based on chart position and availability of the acts it has no genre bias. You lurch from reggae to disco to pub rock to synth act to novelty record. It was also prime time at 7.30pm while the report on the US version said it went out very late at night, probably too late for the kids who were a big part of the UK audience.
It eventually died as weekly prime time show itself in 2006 probably due to the spread of genre specific music channels but they still put it out at Christmas and New Year – review of the year type episodes.
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there is a reason why guitarists like Prince, Jimi, Santana, the group Living Color in their time, aren’t ranked higher.
I understand what you’re saying, Al; but in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of 100 best guitarists, you should know that Jimi Hendrix was #1. Also, B.B. King was #6 and Chuck Berry #7.
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Another month down and another blog post. This month we have Noise rock dance music, Slowcore Shoegaze, dance acts and a post rock act who sound like the end of the world and make that sound pretty amazing.
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Interesting article…One of truths was that Plant hated Stairway: In 1988, he said he considered it a “nice, pleasant, well-meaning, naive little song” that wouldn’t be nearly as popular if its lyrics weren’t so vague and ambiguous. He’s apparently barely played it at all since Zeppelin’s 1980 break-up, saying, “I’d break out in hives if I had to sing ‘Stairway to Heaven’ in every show.”
I guess it didn’t help that it became their signature song and the most requested rock song of all time on radio and #1 in all rock song countdown shows.
No performer wants to play the same song all the time. Prince, for example, was tired of his song and album “Purple Rain” and changed his whole sound several times.
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I know it’s a cliche to hate on a popular song, but the truth is that Stairway isn’t anywhere near their best.
The point is, it IS a popular song and one of the songs that Zeppelin fans continue to want to hear in concert. I think it’s a bit disingenuous and cynical for any performer (whether it’s Plant or Prince or any other music artist) to downplay their biggest hits just because the success of that song overshadows all other songs in their repertoire. Doing so is basically insulting the tastes of your fans who happen to think it’s a great song. I don’t begrudge Plant having a solo career and expanding his catalog to include an album like RAISING SAND (which I own and love), but it’s Stairway To Heaven that bought him the opportunity to explore other musical avenues without fear of commercial failure.
Besides, everyone knows that Kashmir is the greatest Led Zeppelin song ever written.
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Not bad for an 80 year old geezer
His voice is incredible, he’s one of the ‘coaches’ on The Voice in the UK and they get them all to do a song every now and again. For 80 years old there’s very little fall off in his voice from when he sang in the 1960s.
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I don’t understand how it got the god-like reputation that it did. Maybe Plant is right and it’s just because the lyrics are so vague
The slow build helps, getting to that awesome “As we wind on down the road…” bit.
His voice is incredible
I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that my dad is not just a Tom Jones superfan but earned money on the side for a time as a Tom Jones tribute/impersonator, doing (small) live shows. I grew up with Sir Tom’s music blaring through the house while I tried to sleep in on the weekends, and he’d be belting the songs out for the whole street to hear while mowing the lawn.
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I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that my dad is not just a Tom Jones superfan but earned money on the side for a time as a Tom Jones tribute/impersonator, doing (small) live shows. I grew up with Sir Tom’s music blaring through the house while I tried to sleep in on the weekends, and he’d be belting the songs out for the whole street to hear while mowing the lawn.
It’s not unusual.
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he’d be belting the songs out for the whole street to hear while mowing the lawn.
The green green grass of home?
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I don’t understand how it got the god-like reputation that it did.
From what I’ve heard It got its popularity because of its length. DJs played it when they wanted a smoke, had to go to the bathroom, did not want to be bothered, etc.
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Chrissie Hynde to Release Bob Dylan Covers Album
https://www.spin.com/2021/05/pretenders-chrissie-hynde-bob-dylan-covers-album/
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I don’t understand how it got the god-like reputation that it did.
From what I’ve heard It got its popularity because of its length. DJs played it when they wanted a smoke, had to go to the bathroom, did not want to be bothered, etc.
That’s the other thing that always amuses me. That it’s considered a long song.
I think a song doesn’t even start getting longish until it passes 10 minutes
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Depeche Mode have had 44 Top 40 chart singles in the UK without ever getting one in the top 3.
I wonder if that’s some kind of record.
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Did I just step into an episode of Police Squad?
I think this is still the music thread, but let me check my instruments.
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That’s a completely different movie altogether.
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Surely you can’t be serious.
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Surely you can’t be serious.
Oh, he is.
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That’s a completely different movie altogether.
I KNOW! the creators of Police Squad should be insulted being compared to Airplane!
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Oh, he is.
And don’t call him Shirley.
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Dear lord I was waiting to see how long it would take for someone to respond with that. 😂
I thought that set up was so irresistible too.
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I thanked Andrew’s post because he was able to resist the urge.
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https://www.buzzfeed.com/briangalindo/people-are-sharing-their-most-unpopular-music-opinions
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I probably agree with half of those.
I might agree with the other half if I knew who they were talking about
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very familiar with Flying High
I never knew that Airplane! had that alternative title.
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I probably agree with half of those.
I might agree with the other half if I knew who they were talking about
Yes.. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but you have to wonder about someone who for example puts down the Beatles in favor of the Monkees, or in comics puts down Batman in the original DKR in favor of the Adam West Batman.
I have seen some who didn’t like the original Star Wars trilogy (“I slept halfway through the first movie” etc.) and they actually snub their nose at the rest of the world who did like it, thinking they have one over on everybody else. STFU & GTFOOH
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It has to be said there are a lot of people that like to be contrarian for the sake of it and the attention it brings. I listen to a podcast with old music journalists and they admit a certain part of what they wrote was performative, saying something is just ‘ok’ isn’t very interesting. Now they listen back a lot of it does actually fit in the ‘ok’ bracket rather than being incredible or terrible.
Saying that though everything is subjective. I think people definitely can genuinely not like Star Wars.
Time can change things too. There are classic songs I hate when they come on, not because they are bad, but I’m just fed up of them. Stairway to Heaven or American Pie are examples off the top of my head that would fit into that category. Familiarity has bred contempt and I don’t want to listen to them again. Even as a Prince fan I’m not overly fond of Purple Rain because it gets played to death, I’d rather listen to just about any other track of his.
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Song number 15 is from Switzerland, “Chaconne” by Stephan Thelen
Performed by the Al Pari Quartet, who are from Poland, but the composer is Swiss and that’s what I’m counting. Also I am aware it’s not a song, but it’s my contest and I make the rules.
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(Hint: the music isn’t all that important.)
I think that’s why it’s important to have an alternative where it is
As a (female) singer on another forum where I cross-posted this told me, “At least none of them are in sparkly dresses”.
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Was talking to my brother who is going to see Primus perform Rush’s album A Farewell To Kings live in it’s entirety. Having listened to the original album for the first time last night I can see how it would work, perticularly the final track.
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I remember around 1990 reading a music magazine (probably Select or Sky) and they had a section with pop stars picking their favourite tracks.
Boy George picked The Beautiful Ones by Prince
With the copy below that it was a very backhanded compliment that it was surprising such a pure song came from such an odious person.
It made me think about what we see externally. Let’s not beat around the bush, Prince had a heightened sexual image, in his concerts he followed band members around on all fours like a horny dog. In his Dirty Mind period he used to appear in briefs and a flasher’s mac and sing about oral sex and incest.
We’re around 5 years on from his death none of the many women in his bands have anything negative to say and while Boy George told the press he’d rather have a cup of tea than sex he’s been charged and convicted of chaining up a young man as a slave.
Time reveals a lot.
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An interesting thing I saw today. Nobody much takes notice of the charts any more since music went mainly digital. Part of that is nothing ever gets deleted now and is always on sale.
That leads to the little fact that Mr. Brightside by the Killers has been in the UK top 100 every week since 2014. Even though it was first released in 2003 it has been in the chart every week for the last 7 years.
I remember in the 90s when people would moan that singles flew into the chart at top 5 one week and then disappear the next, that they had no lasting power, I trust they are happy with the new status quo.
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I was listening to a singer’s live stream last week, and before one song she said, “Does anyone know the band Blackmore’s Night? My parents listened to them when I was little…”
I suddenly felt very old. I think of Blackmore’s Night as a *new* band, but the song she played was from an album they released in 1999
There’s a weird thing where you think that everything new you discover as an adult is more recent than it really was. Or is that just me?
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There’s songs I’ll hear and when I look them up, they’re older than I realize. I then realize how old I am.
“Fade into You” by Mazzy Star is 27 years old. (Released April 12, 1994)
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There’s a weird thing where you think that everything new you discover as an adult is more recent than it really was. Or is that just me?
No, I have this issue too. The other day I was telling my kids about a movie that came out “fairly recently” but it turned out to be 2002, almost a decade before either of them were born.
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Yes there’s a dissonance that the time you lived through is not as far back as times before.
Facts occasionally appear like it’s a longer time since Nirvana’s Nevermind was released to now than it was to The Beatles breaking America. Beyonce is older than Bowie was when he played Live Aid.
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It must be a new month!
We have Gary Numan, HEALTH X NIN and a bunch of other stuff.
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It must be a new month!
We have Gary Numan, HEALTH X NIN and a bunch of other stuff.
Been listening to the Nu Newman pretty constantly since it came out and while I’m enjoying it, nothing has quite grabbed me the way Love Hurt Bleed did on Splinter or My Name is Ruin and Pray for the Pain did on Shatter. It’s a solid entry but I feel like he’s drifting into KMFDM’s two great, one decent album pattern.
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There’s a weird thing where you think that everything new you discover as an adult is more recent than it really was. Or is that just me?
Yeah… There is a meme out on the Back to the Future premise that if Marty went back 30 years today, he would be in the grunge era.
Weird isn’t it?
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Wait…. you mean Gary Numan does other music besides CARS and ARE FRIENDS ELECTRIC? I never knew!!…
There’s also Down in the Park, of course.
(he’s been having a steady comeback since the late 90s when a bunch of industrial acts bigged him up and he embraced the industrial rock sound. His last couple of albums have done really well)
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he’s been having a steady comeback since the late 90s when a bunch of industrial acts bigged him up and he embraced the industrial rock sound
Yeah, I remember Fear Factory doing a decent cover of Cars on one of their albums (Obsolete?).
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he’s been having a steady comeback since the late 90s when a bunch of industrial acts bigged him up and he embraced the industrial rock sound
Yeah, I remember Fear Factory doing a decent cover of Cars on one of their albums (Obsolete?).
Yeah, they got Numan to sing on that, and to do a voiceover on the album as well. When he plays Cars live now, it’s close to the Fear Factory version in terms of arrangement. Within a couple of years of that Marilyn Manson had covered Down in the Park, and Nine inch Nails did Metal, the Sugababes sampled Are “Friends” Electric for their Freak Like Me cover… he kinda bubbled out of obscurity and then stuck around
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As they mention on Chart Music, with many of the performed top 10 songs dropping out of the top half of the chart the following week, and then out of the top 40 altogether.
Yeah and they surprised me in not really knowing the reason why, as music journalists.
What changed in the 90s is record companies increasingly gave radio stations longer and longer advance access to the latest songs before their release in the shops. I remember Pete Tong on Radio 1 getting a world exclusive of ‘Gett Off” by Prince around a month before it came out (I taped it off the radio), which then went straight on the playlist for several weeks. They did lots of other similar ones, I remember with U2 and Madonna they’d trail these world exclusives as Radio 1 has massive reach for a radio station. They could have 20% of the population listen on a given day, 10m listeners wasn’t unknown for the commuter slots in the morning and afternoon. In the end it became the norm for every record company to give them tunes weeks in advance of being released.
So if people liked a song they already knew a while in advance they bought it first week of release and they flew into the charts, often as high as number 1. That contrasted with the 70s and 80s where they got the records on the day of release so they crept up the charts as they played them more.
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for a game like this.
How so? The game IS all about the music and the rythm… so I’d say it’s entirely appropriate for a game like that, no?
Speaking of which, I almost bought it precisely because of the music, but I’m not a huge fan of rythmic games… looks pretty dope though.
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How so? The game IS all about the music and the rythm… so I’d say it’s entirely appropriate for a game like that, no?
While that is true, the game is an old school pixel rogue-like (or rogue-lite, I keep messing those up) and I’m just surprised it’s so good and enjoyable outside the game. It’s not a schism in the game or anything, as you say it’s a perfect fit, it’s just… unusal.
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have you seen Purple Rain? It’s pretty forgettable but it gave us Morris Day and the Time.
Purple Rain (the film) is basically a vehicle for the stage performances by Prince and The Time. The story is pretty rudimentary but it’s pretty well made and one of the better rock musical movies out there.
His best film isn’t a narrative one for me though, it’s the Sign O The Times concert movie which just has little inserts between some of the songs.
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