If music be the food of love, let’s eat it.
Music: What Are You Listening To?
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When Clapton checked out Purple Rain:
Little Richard and James Brown must have been pissed off with that as they were still alive at the time.
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21 of the greatest guitarists of all time
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21 of the greatest guitarists of all time
A very nice and fair list.
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Yeah it’s become a song that’s played a lot at sports events (in particular Euro 2020) for some reason I can’t fathom.
That’s really weird. I can’t see any reason at all.
I mean, “You’ll Never Walk Alone” was never intended as a football anthem, but at least you can get a “team spirit” vibe from the lyrics if you want to. But Sweet Caroline? No, I just don’t see it.
I think it’s a combination of the singalong chorus that everyone knows (the only part they play) with the opportunity for a call-and-response (the gap after “so good” when everyone echoes it three times) that makes it a catchy chant.
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Thanks. It’s a very pretty looking alphabet.
It’s an offshoot of sanskrit.
Thailand or Siam at the time, take great pride in being the only SE Asian country that wasn’t colonised. Hence pretty much all the others converted to Roman characters. So it looks more like South Asian script but has its own little twist. I’ve been there many times as it’s just 2 hours drive away and we get a lot of imported Thai products so I’m quite used to the style now, albeit I couldn’t read a word of it I can recognise it when I see it.
The colonisation thing is also why they look to their royals with more of a level of deification than probably any other country. It’s a golden rule when you go there you never diss the royals or you could see the inside of a cell and it’s a cultural thing more than a despotic ruler decree. Their portraits are everywhere you go in homes and businesses.
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That’s really weird. I can’t see any reason at all.
There is none other than the obvious that it’s an easy sing-a-long.
About 12 years ago at the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens I first heard Sweet Caroline as a ‘terrace anthem’. Sevens has a format where they play a lot of short games back to back. Each is only 7 mins per half with a 1 minute break, so 15 in all and then the next one starts. In any break they belt out music for the crowd who stay there for 10 hours and are invariably drunk and in a party atmosphere. The quick turnaround between games and halves means they just belt out 60 seconds of anything with a hook.
When the crowd latch on to a song and sing along the DJ milks it and repeats. I expect that’s the only reason it has done the same in Euro 2020 (or 2021).
Comedian Elis James was talking the other day about the strange reasons songs stick. Wales fans sing the tune to rave song ‘Zombie Nation’ because in an away European qualifier they won for crowd segregation reasons they were asked to wait 30 minutes before leaving the stadium. In a euphoric mood as they’d won the stadium PA guy played and extended mix of that tune and 6 years on they still chant it.
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You know:
This TikTok and the issues raised that I have discussed here already have surprisingly gotten me back into rap and hip hop songs.
I used to listen to Public Enemy and NWA long ago because they had a social injustice and a militant black political message. I also checked out Eminem, some Third Bass, and other acts too many to mention. When they got to just rapping about how luxurious and ostentatious their lifestyle is I shied away over their excesses of being in a capitalistic society as well as the booty videos oversexualizing women, especially black women.
But now, it is Cardi B, Saweetie, Megan Thee Stallion, and others. They got rapping skills, however their window to make their money is shorter than before. I mean Little Kim, Foxy Brown weren’t as quickly replaced IIRC. Nowadays, it was Nick Minaj and the next day, Cardi B took her place. Nicki still does some rap interludes in some pop songs to give the songs more flair, but she is pretty much in her twilight.
Anyway, that is what I am into these days.
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RIP Biz:
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You have to be very brave and/or stupid to cover a Queen song, but I think this one works:
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You have to be very brave and/or stupid to cover a Queen song, but I think this one works:
That was unexpected and good in equal measures! Thanks!
Regarding good covers of Queen songs, I can only think of two other that pull it off:
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Yasiin Bey Steps Back From Thelonious Monk Biopic After Estate’s Disapproval
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The 25 best rock ‘n’ roll anthems
https://www.yardbarker.com/entertainment/articles/the_25_best_rock_n_roll_anthems/s1__32645717
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The 25 best rock ‘n’ roll anthems
Yeah, no.
Three songs from The Who, but nothing from The Rolling Stones?
REO Speedwagon and Styx, but nothing from Led Zeppelin or U2 or Nirvana?!
Well, I guess the purpose of lists like this is to get people talking, so it has served its purpose.
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There’s 2 songs on that list I’ve never heard of (the Styx, REO Speedwagon). That’s not a great start for all time anthems.
I mean all these things are subjective but if you are going to narrow down to 25 songs ever you’d expect them to ones everyone knows from Tampa to Timbuktu. Anthems are by definition tunes that play and everyone sings (or air guitars) along to.
Satisfaction, Paint it Black and Start Me Up are in that category, so is Smells Like Teen Spirit, Enter Sandman, The Boys are Back in Town or he left off Ace of Fucking Spades!
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There’s 2 songs on that list I’ve never heard of (the Styx, REO Speedwagon). That’s not a great start for all time anthems.
It’s a very American list, though. Several songs on the list are much bigger over there than they ever were here, and from the other way around, Thin Lizzy barely ever charted in the US (take a straw poll and I’d bet most Americans thought Metallica wrote Whiskey in the Jar
) (Yes, I’m aware that Thin Lizzy didn’t write it either.)And I’m not sure that Ace of Spades falls under any definition of “anthem”.
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Come on David, that’s exactly what people do in pubs and clubs the world over.
“wrr wrrr wrr wrrr wrrr wrrr ACE OF SPADES ACE OF SPADES wrr wrrr wrr wrrr wrrr wrrr”
…and everyone loves it. I have no idea what Albarn is on about in Song 2, something about ‘a jamojey’ but everyone knows ‘woo hoo’ and that’s good enough. It’s also zero difference to Highway to Hell where everyone does the same thing and just sings that bit (and I put in a caveat for air guitar on all of them).
In this case too I’m not really buying the transatlantic difference bit. I get that but to be in the top 25 of ALL TIME out of every rock song you can’t have any element of niche or regional appeal. Jerry’s American and he’s saying WTF to the same songs as I am.
Also if American Pie is ‘rock and roll’ and not really a ballad then they may as well include Celine Dion or some shit like that.
So fuck the author and you for defending this nonsense. 😂
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I have no idea what Albarn is on about in Song 2, something about ‘a jamojey’ but everyone knows ‘woo hoo’ and that’s good enough.
I actually do know this (as it was featured in Never Mind The Buzzcocks’ indecipherable lyrics round years ago.)
It’s “I got my head checked/by a jumbo jet”.
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I think Born to Run is the better song.
We don’t speak of Glitter, he never happened.
Seven Nation Army though, massive anthem. Here’s proof from the sporting stands:
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I think Born to Run is the better song.
But is it more anthemic?
I’m trying to find a definition of what makes an anthem, and Merriam-Webster gives me this:
a usually rousing popular song that typifies or is identified with a particular subculture, movement, or point of view
So we’re not really talking about singability or air-guitarability, but purely how people “identify” with the song. On those grounds, I’d include Smells Like Teen Spirit as it pretty much defined an entire decade, but I’d also allow American Pie. I don’t think I’d include Springsteen at all (but maybe Americans think differently) but I’d certainly include Anarchy in the UK, and I’d also have to include an Oasis song or two.
We’d need to agree a proper definition of “rock and roll” before we could argue American Pie, but I’d be tempted to argue circularly and say American Pie is rock and roll *because* it’s anthemic, while no Celine Dion song could ever be considered anthemic and therefore she can only ever be pop, not rock.
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Why are you following some half-arsed, sorry “half-assed” American dictionary?
Who kidnapped the real David?
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Because in the context we’re discussing, the term is an American perversion of the correct meaning, coined by a marketing department somewhere at a major record label, so I had to resort to an American dictionary. My OED only gives the proper British meanings, and while they are obviously the better definitions they are not helpful to the current discussion:
1 In traditional Western Christian liturgy, a short sentence sung or recited before or after a psalm or canticle
2 A composition in non-metrical prose set to music for sacred use
3 Any song of praise or gladnessYour move, Mr. Jones
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Your move, Mr. Jones
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Exactly. If Ace of Spades isn’t an anthem nothing in music is.
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Question for Motorhead fans: did Lemmy ever stop singing in the middle of Ace of Spades so the audience could sign the chorus for him?
I think a Motörhead concert is a bit to rowdy and rocking to allow the entire crowd a foray into sign language.
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I was of course thinking that a Motorhead audience is mostly deaf, so sign language is the only way they can communicate
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(Genuine question. I’ve never heard Motorhead in concert so I don’t know what the vibe was like.)
I wouldn’t call myself a fan, but I’ve seen them live, and when Lemmy comes onto the stages he says “We’re Motörhead and we play Rock’n’Roll” (which is how he starts every concert) and then they just played the songs very straight.
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and then they just played the songs very straight.
If Lemmy was alive during the ongoing woke-epidemic, I’m sure he would have played them at least a little bit gay.
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and then they just played the songs very straight.
If Lemmy was alive during the ongoing woke-epidemic, I’m sure he would have played them at least a little bit gay.
No, you’re confusing them with Judas Priest.
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So somehow I managed to order the limited edition 32-disc box set of Yes’s Union Tour recordings:
I think I need to take a week off work to find time to listen to them.
I’ve listened to the first concert (2 discs) so far. It seems to be from an audience recording and the sound quality is decent enough but the main thing that strikes me is that American audiences are bloody noisy. For God’s sake, yanks, stop screaming and whooping and listen to the band!
. Hopefully this won’t be a problem when I get to the European gigs later in the tour, and obviously it won’t be when I get to Japan at the end. -
I’ve listened to the first concert (2 discs) so far. It seems to be from an audience recording and the sound quality is decent enough but the main thing that strikes me is that American audiences are bloody noisy. For God’s sake, yanks, stop screaming and whooping and listen to the band!
Maybe it would have been a better listen if they had got the band to go into a studio, record their parts perfectly and have it mixed professionally.
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Maybe it would have been a better listen if they had got the band to go into a studio, record their parts perfectly and have it mixed professionally.
In all seriousness, if they had recorded 10 different takes of each album in the studio and released them as a box set, I’d be buying it.
I mean, I bought the box set of every studio rehearsal and out-take for In the Court of the Crimson King:
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But on the subject of crowd noise, I’m fine with making noise after a song, but to scream all the way through while the band is playing just makes me wonder… what are you, 40-year-old men at a progressive rock concert or 13-year-old girls at a Justin Bieber concert?
Seriously, I go to a gig to listen to the music not the people around me.
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I mean, Otto is the best role model in the Simpsons.
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I mean, Otto is the best role model in the Simpsons.
He likes good music, does the nice drugs and brings all the kids to school. Good man.
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I bet they were delighted when this headline fell in their lap.
Why don’t you get a jab? Offspring drummer ousted after refusing Covid vaccine
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It’s something all long-term artists face, and I admire Prince if he was able to ignore the masses and play what he wants.
Whenever hard-core Deep Purple fans talk about set lists (by hard-core I mean, fans obsessed enough to go on a web forum and argue about it
) we’ll almost always moan that the band never plays any new material. Band members have explained that it’s quite simple: we are only 1% of the concert audience, and everybody else there only wants to hear the “hits”. The band, rightly or wrongly, decide to please the majority.One of the best Deep Purple concerts I went to was 2006 at the London Astoria, a tiny club (by their standards), advertised as a new album launch gig, where word had “leaked” out early to fans so basically all the tickets went to people interested enough to want the new material. Sure, there were some old favourites, but more than half the set was… Wait, let me quote my own review:
…straight into the second song without a pause for breath, and it’s a song so new that even I don’t know it. Oh my God, it’s a Deep Purple song I don’t know and we’re only two songs in. Can it get any better than this?
Over the course of the tour, the new songs quickly dropped out until when I next saw them 12 months later (in an arena) only two songs in the set were more recent than literally 1973.
And while I’m never going to complain about hearing Smoke on the Water, I’ve heard it 41 times already, you know?
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As long as bands (or solo performers) are still creating/releasing new music, I understand and accept that when they go on tour they want to play that new material. As long as there is an equitable mix of the new album and their older catalog, I’m fine with that. Even better is when they play a “deep cut” that they rarely play live; that kind of thing is often worth the price of the concert ticket.
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Some good news for UK musicians who want to tour in Europe.
UK musicians to be able to tour visa-free in 19 EU countries
UK government says talks with other countries ongoing, after fears artists would incur huge fees post-Brexit
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The biggest one-hit wonders from the ’90s
Something is wrong here: how can Possum Kingdom (by the Toadies) possibly be “bigger” than Primitive Radio Gods’ Standing Outside a Broken Payphone With Money in My Hand? I’ve never heard of the first one, but I love the second one!!
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I saw Prince live 3 times.
He did always fit in the ‘big hits’ with a mix of new stuff and sometimes different treatments of older things. In the last couple of years of his performing he played ‘Let’s go Crazy’ at half speed as a grinding 70s style guitar track, the ‘very 1984’ keyboard sections removed. As David suggests it’s one way to keep the artist(s) and the 1% hardcore fans engaged while also ‘playing the hits’.
The original for comparison for those who may not know it:
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He did always fit in the ‘big hits’ with a mix of new stuff and sometimes different treatments of older things. In the last couple of years of his performing he played ‘Let’s go Crazy’ at half speed as a grinding 70s style guitar track, the ‘very 1984’ keyboard sections removed.
Bruce Springsteen did something similar with his hit song “Born in the USA”, which he retooled as a mostly acoustic dirge in live performances; almost a completely different song. I actually believe this live version is preferable to the Top 40 studio version he originally recorded.
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Live versions of “Electric Avenue”:
vs the studio version:
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Some good news for UK musicians who want to tour in Europe.
UK musicians to be able to tour visa-free in 19 EU countries
UK government says talks with other countries ongoing, after fears artists would incur huge fees post-Brexit
In fact, it looks like this isn’t quite as big a change as it was presented to be.
Well, that’s disappointing. Though not at all surprising for this government. Our musicians don’t know it yet but their next job could be down the dole office.
The other big obstacle to small-scale musicians is the difficulty in shipping products to the EU now that we are a “third country” for purposes of levying VAT and other duties. I’ve had European friends tell me that they have recently paid charges at point of receipt that were greater than the initial cost of the CD they ordered from the UK. Big companies like Amazon have the infrastructure and agreements in place to side-step the costs, but a band packing and posting their own merch can’t do a damn thing other than apologise to their European fans.
I’ve known several bands say they will not sell to the EU at the moment because they feel bad about ripping off their fans. And one singer told me she’s going to visit friends in the Netherlands and smuggle a suitcase of CDs so she can post them from there. Creative solutions!
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I saw Prince live 3 times.
He did always fit in the ‘big hits’ with a mix of new stuff and sometimes different treatments of older things. In the last couple of years of his performing he played ‘Let’s go Crazy’ at half speed as a grinding 70s style guitar track, the ‘very 1984’ keyboard sections removed. As David suggests it’s one way to keep the artist(s) and the 1% hardcore fans engaged while also ‘playing the hits’.
I admit that I still listen to his Purple Rain album. Almost 40 years and it never gets old and dated to me. Imho, it is up there as a complete album with albums like Thriller, Sgt. Pepper, Pet Sounds, Nevermind, and others. But, as the lyric says “It’s time we all reach out for something new that means you too” I had to pull away and force myself into his later albums, some Florence and the Machine, 90’s alternative, and some rap/hip hop record acts like Cardi B, Saweetie, and Megan Thee Stallion.
I feel compelled to say a few words of philosophy that we must all grow and expand from our shell/rut… So I just did 😊
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I only looked at the first page and I already reject their list.
The objective truth is, the 32 greatest singing voices of all time will all be opera singers, and none of us will have even heard of more than three or four of them.
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Christ that MSN website is fucking awful.
They had Elton John on the list:
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The objective truth is, the 32 greatest singing voices of all time will all be opera singers, and none of us will have even heard of more than three or four of them.
Yeah, they should have clarified that the list for rock/pop/R&B singers only — otherwise you’ve got to include Jenny Lind, Marian Anderson, John McCormack, and Luciano Pavarotti, among others.
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They had Elton John on the list:
What the shit, is he recovering from a bender while having the flu or something?
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Well, the list does include Pavarotti, as well as Maria Callas.
Oops; I didn’t go further than #9 on the list.
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They had Elton John on the list:
What the shit, is he recovering from a bender while having the flu or something?
I think you’ll find that’s known as singing in the Club Style.
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I think you’ll find that’s known as singing in the Club Style.
Still not as good as Vic Reeves.
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Called three of the names on that list.
Did they pick up? Restraining order?
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A list @davidm should appreciate:
The biggest one-hit wonders from the 70s
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The biggest one-hit wonders from the 70s
It’s frightening how many of those songs I have in my iTunes library.
Obviously now I need to buy the ones I’m missing.
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Not all of them are winners
Chevy van- best you could say is this is dated. “Love me in my Chevy van” has a distinctly different vibe these days. so does “afternoon delight”
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Not all of them are winners
Very true, but almost all of them are fun for one reason or another. The 1970s is the last decade when songs like SPIRIT IN THE SKY (with its heavily Christian overtones) could be a fixture on Top 40 radio and reach as high as #3 on the charts.
On the other hand, I cringe every time I hear THE RAPPER by The Jaggerz; a truly awful song, but it reached #2 in the Billboard charts in 1970 (thankfully, Simon & Garfunkel’s BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATERS prevented it from reaching #1).
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“afternoon delight”
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