Link Fabulous. As you know, I have a very soft spot for Sunshine/Baroque Pop, and this fits the bill quite nicely. Loved it. I've never heard this (or the group) before, and thanks to you I am extremely glad to have made its acquaintance. I may have a bit of trouble getting to your other suggestions this week, because I'm playing this track constantly (four times so far and counting). I'm now going to have to find as much of Grapefruit's discography as possible. By the way, I just found out (here) that Grapefruit was led by George Alexander who is the older brother of AC/DC's Angus and Malcolm Young. There are so many things I don't know about music.
Link Hmm. I'm enjoying this, but it sounds to me like a clash of a few different musical styles. It starts off as Sunshine Pop but then drifts into Psychedelica. Sort of. Because it also sounds like that English style of slightly Vaudevillian, slightly rural, slightly Kinks-ian, majorly Swinging Sixties pop. I have a couple of rhetorical questions (that you don't have to answer)... What's with the banjo and tuba (at 1:41)? And what's with those weird background vocals? It sounds like the Small Faces' Steve Marriott wandered into the studio to shout random things. Update: Wikipedia tells me that it is indeed Steve Marriott yelling whatever it is he's yelling in the background. What an odd song. But I like it. Sort of.
Link I thought I was terribly, terribly, terribly familiar with pretty much all of the Eagles' output*, but the title of this song doesn't look familiar at all. Eek. I'm now listening to it. Coming after the first two tracks (Grapefruit and Billy Nicholls), this sounds horribly slick and soulless. And haven't the Eagles used that same drum beat for every song they've recorded from The Long Run onward? Boy oh boy, this song is smooth. I must admit that it's exceedingly pleasant while it's playing, but I don't know if that's a good thing because it's basically washing over me. It's aural wallpaper. This song has all the trademarks of a reformed Eagles track: the spare instrumentation; the background harmonies in the choruses; the clean, clean guitar sound (it's so clean that it sounds as if antiseptic has been applied to it); the steady drum beat etc. I can't believe that I have so much to say about a track that's doing nothing for me. I guess all I'm trying to say is that this song sounds exactly like a reformed Eagles track, and how you feel about it depends on how you feel about the reformed Eagles. Postscript: According to the tag of the MP3 you sent me, "I Don't Want To Hear Any More" was written by Paul Carrack. I'm mildly dismayed, because Paul Carrack is currently my favourite English male singer (what a voice!), and this song is a big heap of nothing for me. I suppose I prefer Paul Carrack's singing to his writing (although I adore Paul's "Don't Shed A Tear" – I think that's a great song.)
(*For people who loathe the Eagles and all they stand for – e.g., soft rock, being pretend Wild West outlaws, not being The Flying Burrito Brothers etc – I thought I'd use the word "output" instead of "discography", because people who loathe the Eagles would think that what they produced was "output", not music.)
Link I don't know why, but while this country-pop song is playing it's reminding me of Martina McBride's "I Love You" which is probably my favourite country-pop song. I love "I Love You". I think it's a great song – and it's immaculately produced. Everything about it is superb. But you're not interested in my views of a Martina McBride song. Much like that Eagles track, "Don't Waste My Time" doesn't do an awful lot for me. It starts, it plays, and three minutes later it finishes. Apart from that Martina McBride track, this kind of country-pop is not really my scene, baby. It's all very well played, sung, and produced, but I don't feel anything (e.g., joy, horror, elation, disappointment, ecstasy, disbelief etc) when I'm listening to it. Maybe I don't have a country-pop "on" switch in my brain. (I know I don't have one for hip-hop.)
Link Ah, so that's what this track's called. I've known this piece of music for years and years but never knew its name. I don't know how or why, but it's always been a part of my musical subconscious. However, I've only ever been familiar with the first minute. I'm now hearing the rest of it, and I gotta say one thing: groovy! That's some pretty nifty organ playing there. I can't think of a bad thing to say about this track. (Not that I'd want to – it's too groovy for criticism.) Viva Walter Wanderley and his splendid name!
Much obliged, Frank. Despite those Eagles and Little Big Town tracks engendering absolutely no emotional response in me whatsoever, I've thoroughly enjoyed this week's suggestions. Especially Walter Wanderley's instrumental – and his splendid name.
This may appear to be double-dipping, but I've already played you today's song (shhh – don't tell anyone). However, it wasn't Song of the day in that post (that's my rationalisation, and I'm sticking to it), so today I'd like to bring it front and centre, and highlight it in as big a way as I can (like making it Song of the day).
Here's my second-favourite Australian power pop band with a riff-tastic track that demands to be played loudly as possible:
"Hit Me Again" appears on Neon's 2005 self-titled album, a long-player I've gone on and on about in the past. I guess that I don't need to go on and on about it anymore. (Unless you're a masochist and want to hear me rave about a particular album ad nauseum.)
Speaking of volume, I believe that the entire album benefits from being played as loudly as humanly possible. (And it might sound better if you can play it louder than that.) It's one of those albums that, for me, can't be played loud enough. You probably have one of those kinds of albums sitting at home, too.
Solipsism is an album that I've been liking a lot since I first heard it a couple of weeks ago. You might not like it as much as I do (that would be because you're not me), but you never know – you might like it even more. (Then again, you might like it a whole lot less. Chacun son goût.)
Actually, I like the album so much that I'm in the mood to play you another track from it:
If you're thinking that I may have chosen only the two best songs on the album, I'm happy to say that they're not. You can hear for yourself over at Bandcamp. Or here:
I have absolutely no idea why, but DivShare has decided to be a bit flakey today (and was yesterday, too), which means that links on this here blog aren't terribly available at the moment.
I can't tell you when DivShare will make all their links usable again, but I'm guessing that someone, somewhere is working feverishly to correct the problem. In the meantime, may I suggest you:
a) read a book b) spend time with the family c) feed some porpoises d) climb the tallest bush you can find e) paint your lawn
I'm afraid that today I'm going to engage in a bit of shameless name-dropping.
When I was growing up, I lived on the same street two houses away from a member of The Tarney/Spencer Band – The Alan Tarney part to be precise.
Alan and his family had emigrated from England to South Australia when he was kiddy and moved in to the same street as us. As he was (and still is, presumably) 16 years older than me, we never played together. Compounding the I-didn't-get-to-play-with-Alan situation was his decision to move back to England in 1969 to follow his dream of making it in the music industry there. A couple of years earlier, Alan had met fellow South Australian Trevor Spencer in a local band called Johnny Broome and The Handels (and I thought that my puns were groan-worthy). After playing around town and eventually not getting very very far, Alan and Trevor both decided on the move to England. When they got there, they formed a band, recorded a couple of things that did nothing on the charts, and ended up as session musicians. They did some session work for The Shadows, and Alan joined that band as their bass player in 1973. (He stayed with them until 1977.) In 1975 Alan and Trevor formed a duo called Tarney and Spencer which became The Tarney/Spencer Band (when they signed with A&M).
The Tarney/Spencer Band (don't worry – you will get to hear a song today) recorded three albums, none of which set the charts ablaze, so the band/partnership sort of just fizzled out. When the band went pffft, Alan and Trevor went their separate ways, with Trevor becoming a producer. Alan stayed in England as a session dude, playing guitar and/or bass, and ended up doing session work for a gaggle of English artists (which makes sense, considering that's where he was). The most well-known is Cliff Richard, and Alan was a rather large contributing factor in resurrecting Cliff's ailing career in the late 1970's. Alan wrote (and played on) Cliff's comeback single "We Don't Talk Anymore" (1979). Incidentally, ex-next-door-neighbour Alan also co-wrote, arranged, produced, and played on Cliff's "Wired For Sound" (1981), a song I adore.
I don't know how interested you are in any of this. (You may just want to hear today's song and don't care about the people who made it.)
As far as I know, Alan's still playing and producing English musicians.
Oh, by the way: in addition to English musicians, Alan has also produced the occasional international artiste. The ex-next-door-neighbour-I-never-played-with produced a-ha's "Take On Me". (Yes, really.) And Alan produced a-ha's other big hit, "The Sun Always Shines On T.V." as well.
So, with all of that information out of way, here's today's song:
Loyal* reader of this blog, pb669 (Hi, pb669!), commented on a Song of the day from last year. The song was "Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again" by Australian band The Angels.
Pb669 mentioned that Andy Scott's Sweet also recorded a version of "Am I Ever...". That piqued my interest (I didn't know that anybody had recorded a cover version of it), so I went a-lookin' for – and found – the Andy Scott's Sweet version. I had a listen but didn't like it very much.
However, whilst looking for that version I came across another one. It's by Pastel Vespa, a musical concept from Australia. It's fronted by Melbourne chanteuseFiona Thorn, and the concept is similar to Australian singer Frank Bennett or American group Big Daddy, whereby popular songs are given a "makeover" and turned into something they were never intended to be. With Frank Bennett, they're given the Swing treatment (there's an example in one of my previous posts), and with Big Daddy they become 50's ditties (there's an example over at the PowerPop blog). In the case of Pastel Vespa it's continental Lounge music. Yummy.
Before I play you Pastel Vespa's version of "Am I Ever...", I'd like to refresh your memory with the original:
The Angels - "Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again" (1976):
By the way, that song appears on Pastel Vespa's second album, Takin' The Back Roads (2004). In addition to "Am I Ever...", the album also features Easy-Listening modifications of tracks such as Prince's "When Doves Cry", New Order's "Blue Monday", Billy Idol's "White Wedding", and Metallica's "Enter Sandman". Mighty good. And mighty smoooooth. You can preview the album here.
(*That may not actually be true. It's entirely possible that pb669, after reading that post about The Angels song, had a quick look around the rest of the blog and thought "Yuck. These other posts are awful. Right, I've had enough of this" and zoomed away from the blog as fast as possible. If that's the case, then I say "Fair enough. You can't please everyone.")
I must warn you, Frank, that I feel the need to listen to The Merrymakers'Bubblegun(1996) before I dive into your suggestions for this week. I don't know how much that's going to colour my responses to what you have on offer, but I have a slight suspicion that I'll be looking for melody, melody, melody after The Merrymakers' super-melodic power pop.
Right, I've listened to Bubblegun (and thoroughly enjoyed it for the ninth time), now on to your suggestions...
Link Now, this is a nice version of Tim Hardin's folk song*. It's just occurred to me that song may or may not be an allegory about something. (The Vietnam War?) Or it could be a parable. (About the Vietnam War?) Or maybe it's a metaphor. (Is it about the Vietnam War?) But whether or not it's about anything other than wanting to be a carpenter**, I really liked Bobby Darin's version. Admittedly, I've only heard a few of the apparently squillions of version of this song, but Bobby's interpretation probably puts it up at the top of my (incredibly small) list of "If I Were A Carpenter" interpretations. By the way, Bobby's singing in this video is absolutely magnificent:
(*Although it may appear that I'm terribly knowledgeable by mentioning who wrote the song, I only just found that out. Thank you, Internet.)
(**I'm very glad that I didn't resort to making a joke about Bobby Darin wondering what it would be like if he was one of The Carpenters.)
Link Despite the derision with which Phil Collins is awarded nowadays, I think this is a nice song. I've certainly heard it plenty of times. From the melodies to the playing to the production, everything about this song is very well made – and I can't think of anything snarky to say about it. (That's mainly because I'm not a very snarky person, and can't really see the point in criticising someone for the sake of it.) It's nice.
Johnny Rivers - "Swayin' To The Music (Slow Dancin')" (1977)
Oh, man. I haven't heard this song in years. I'm surprised that it didn't end up on the 25-disc Super Hits Of The '70s: Have A Nice Day set. I think it's a soft rock classic and would have fit right in with all the other cheesy songs on that compilation. (Maybe there were licensing problems. Or maybe Johnny didn't want his song to be associated with 300 one-hit wonders.) I'm pleased to say that Johnny's song is exactly as I remember it. And it's as enjoyable as I remember it, too.
Link I was only familiar with two other versions of this song: the one by Thelma Houston (I love her singing); and the one by The Communards (I'd rather not talk about that one if you don't mind). I didn't know that this was the original (I'd always thought that Thelma's version was the original), or had ever heard it before. Apart from Teddy Pendergrass' mighty good singing in Harold's version (why wasn't Harold singing it? And why am I too lazy to find out?), I didn't like this an awful lot. I prefer Thelma's version. I must admit that it was a bit of a chore to listen to it three times in a row, but now that I have I can say that my perception of it didn't change at all. (At least I didn't dislike it more than I did to begin with.) It is what it is: a song with a steady disco beat. But I liked the singing – it saved me from groaning "Oh, no" every time I played it.
Ah, so that's what this piece of music is. I've never seen any of the Austin Powers movies, so I had no idea who wrote it, who performed it etc etc. Now that I know that "Soul Bossa Nova" is by the unnaturally talented Quincy Jones, I'm not surprised. As far as I'm concerned, Quincy is The Man. I won't prattle on about Quincy or this track because I don't want to spend the next five hours praising UTQ (Unnaturally Talented Quincy) to the skies. (And I don't think you want to spend the next five hours reading it.) According to Wikipedia, "Soul Bossa Nova" has been used plenty of times, mostly in movies. I can't say much about it, because I adore every single thing about it. I'll just say that I find it irresistible. Non-interesting sidenote: Before finding out that it was by Quincy Jones, if anyone was ever going to ask me who composed it (I know, I know: that was exceedingly unlikely), I would have said Henry Mancini. It has the instant familiarity usually associated with Henry's music. (Even if you've never heard it before, as soon as you hear Henry Mancini's indelible music you'd swear you've heard it before.) But I'm glad it's Quincy. The Man.
I wanted to play you this song ages ago, but got caught up trying to keep this blog exclusively Australian. As you can probably tell by now, that didn't work out at all (i.e., I failed dismally).
Anyway, I then forgot about it, then remembered it. So I want to play it to you before I forget it again.
Here's 10cc, one of my favourite bands from the 70's, "rocking out"* so to speak (well, as much as a group of four intellectual musicians from England could):
10cc - "The Second Sitting For The Last Supper" (1975)
Oops. It's just occurred to me, given the week it currently is, that choosing the above song may have been a tad insensitive of me. Many apologies if you're a person of Christian tendencies and don't appreciate the impertinence of 10cc at this time of year. But for everyone else, for all you heathens out there: "Yeah! Stick it to The Man!"
(*I really don't like that phrase "rocking out". It's almost as bad as the phrase that was made popular by a few celebrities some time ago: "You guys rock!" Ugh. What on Earth does that mean?)
The Stonester had recently posted a rather maudlin affair called "Katy Jane" by a Sixties* Australian pop dude, Ronnie Charles, and a part of it caught my ear – to be precise, this part:
That bit was just one of the many bits in the multi-bit collaboration between Richard Harris and the song's composer Jimmy Webb. (Or, as it says on the picture sleeve of the single: "Richard Harris sings it. Jimmy Webb wrote, arranged, and produced it.")
Aargh. Now I have that rhythm stuck in my head.
Doo-doo, doo, DOO, doo, DOO, doo, DOO, doo-doo, doo-doo-doo etc.
Quick, play the full versions so I can get that rhythm out of my head:
Today's coincidence isn't so much a musical one as a purely visual one.
I was at one of my favourite music emporiums* the other day and was stunned when I saw the cover for Plastic Jewels, the 1995 debut album by British band Flamingoes. (No, I've never heard of them either.)
Their album cover looks a little like this:
I was stunned because I'd seen that very photo somewhere else – specifically here:
The Flamingoes' debut, Plastic Jewels, is probably forever going to be known as "the other record that uses the cover photo from the first Fountains of Wayne album." That picture, a Nick Waplington photo of a young boy wearing a towel cape and clutching a white rabbit while striking a superhero pose, coincidentally showed up on both albums, which were released within weeks of each other in the U.S. in the fall of 1996. (For the record, Waplington had licensed the photo to the Flamingoes first, and it graced the original 1995 U.K. release of this album.) It's a shame that Plastic Jewels didn't make the splash that Fountains of Wayne did, because it's every bit as good an album. Solid guitar-based Brit-pop in the style of Supergrass, the immediately catchy songs on Plastic Jewels are memorably hooky, with plenty of cool guitar riffs and chirpy background vocals that help to make up for the fact that neither Jude nor James Cook, the identical twin brothers (with nearly identical voices) who lead the trio, is much of a lyricist. However, lyrics aren't particularly important in this style of glam-influenced guitar pop -- not many complained about how dopey the Sweet's lyrics were -- and the trio's brash, rocking pop is instantly enjoyable regardless. Plastic Jewels is what Oasis always wanted to sound like but never quite managed.
Thanks for clearing up that mystery, AMG.
Oh, and here's a 1996 article from the Los Angeles Times informing the reader that neither band were happy about the photographer Nick Waplington giving them both "exclusive rights" to use the photo:
It's a very cute picture – a young boy in a makeshift Superman outfit, thrusting his left hand in the air as if flying, with a "rescued" bunny under his arm. It's the kind of striking image – found in a book by photographer Nick Waplington chronicling two English families – that would make a great album cover.
That's exactly what the New York band Fountains of Wayne thought. And the English band Flamingoes thought so too. And now there are two new albums with the same photo on the cover, and neither act is very happy about it.
"The deal made it exclusive to us, but the Flamingoes also had an exclusive deal," says Bobbi Gale, spokeswoman for the Atlantic Records-distributed Tag label, which released the Fountains of Wayne album.
The English group had it first, releasing the album on an indie U.K. label two years ago. It was only coincidence that it got picked up for U.S. release by Pennsylvania-based Big Pop Records at the same time the Fountains of Wayne album was coming out. Peeved, both Atlantic and Big Pop executives contacted Waplington with threats of legal action, though they seem to have dissipated.
"I have nothing anyway," says Waplington, who claims that he told Atlantic about the other album, though he had no idea it was to be released in the U.S. "They can come and take my 12-year-old Nissan if they want it. . . . There was no malicious intent on my part. . . . For me, if two bands come to this picture independently and want to use it, this just shows that from my point of view they have good taste."
– Copyright, The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times, 1996.
By the way, I've now heard Plastic Jewels, and I agree with the Guide about it being "solid guitar-based Britpop in the style of Supergrass".
Before I finish this post, I want to show you the cover of my copy of the Fountains Of Wayne album. My copy was made in Germany, and its cover looks like this:
I guess somebody somewhere noticed the "oops" factor of the FoW / Flamingoes covers and decided to change the FoW cover for other markets (such as Germany). I've also found out (stop me if this gets boring) that the cover used for the German pressing was also used for The Netherlands release of the album. So maybe that white cover was used just for the European market. Who knows? (Somebody, somewhere – that's who.)
Anyway, to make this post a musical one (well, it is supposed to be a music blog) here's a track from each of those coincidental albums:
Around this time last year I started playing you a whole heap o' Christmas songs. This year, however, I thought I'd make the blog a Christmas-song-free zone because there's a veritable avalanche of Christmas songs out there in blogland at the moment (most notably at Popdose, Powerpopaholic, and Absolute Powerpop), and you may not want yet another blog (i.e., this one) bombarding you with a whole heap o' musical Yule-ness.
So, unless you want me to play you some Christmas ditties over the next few days (which I'll gladly do), I'm happy to leave the musical aspect of Noël alone for the time being.
Now, I don't want to give you the impression that I'm a "Ba! Humbug!" kind of guy. Far from it. I love Christmas. My two favourite aspects of it are the music (I adore Christmas carols) and all the colours. (The colours! The colours!) But there's more than enough Christmas power pop to go 'round, I reckon. (Plus it saves me trying to find Christmas power pop songs for the blog.)
However, I would like to sneak in some relatively unusual – and utterly charming – Christmas music before I forgo the Yuletide tunes. Here are a couple of carols from little-known Baroque composer Edmund Pascha (1714-1772):
Pascha - "Oh, Shepherds, Get Up" (a carol from Prosae Pastorales) [Marián Plavec (wind instruments); Iuventus Paedagogica (Women's Choir), conducted by Jirí Kolár; and Musica Bohemica, conducted by Jaroslav Krček]
Pascha - "Get Up, Shepherds" (a carol from Prosae Pastorales) [Iuventus Paedagogica (Women's Choir), conducted by Jirí Kolár; and Musica Bohemica, conducted by Jaroslav Krček]
