"Up The Junction" is a sad tale of working class love and loss, set in one of the happiest power pop melodies you could ever hope to hear. It never registered in the states, but made it all the way to number two in the UK.
Chad & Jeremy were a lucky bunch! After releasing their brilliant failure Cabbages & Kings, Columbia Records allowed them to make an equally magnificent bottom seller entitled The Ark! These discs are eons away from "A Summer Song", but they are also two of the best albums you've never heard. Today's track, from the latter, is all about the generation gap. It is told in such dayglow colors that the listener is swept away and never made to feel like they are getting a history lesson. If Panic At the Disco were still the band that made Pretty Odd!, this would have been a perfect cover choice.
Psychedelic Pop at its finest, from the boys who made their careers singing unreleased BeatlesSongs. Peter Asher would go on to record James Taylor, while Gordon Waller released a few 45's and waited for the inevitable reunion tour. For further listening, get the severely out-of-print summer of love flop Hot, Cold& Custard. It's magical!!
Manchester's finest before the Gallaghers had to be Peter Noone and the boys! They released manyaperfectsingle in those invasion days, but this one has always stuck in my head. It expertly shows how love can affect your job, evidenced by the poor milkman who can't make his deliveries because of a broken heart. Get their greatest hits, then branch out into b-sides and album cuts. You'll find some forgottenwonders.
Back in the late 50's/early 60's, Ricky Nelson was ateenidol on the level of the Beebs today. But in 1971, Rick Nelson was booed off the stage for playing his new material at a rock and roll oldies concert in Madison Square Garden. The experience resulted in one of the best songs ever written about growing older in the pop music circus. It's also some fine country rock from one of the genre's unheralded progenitors.
The first time was when Taak, Sigur Ros' fullest statement of beauty through heavenly noise and gibberish, was released. Youtube had just come along and I was so excited by the prospect of seeing the music video from a band outside the mainstream without having to wait for a dvd. (It seems I had already given up on MTV 4 and Vh1"....no really, we only play classic videos" 2 ever happening!). Watching the video embedded below on my parent's computer in 2006 took me to another world of art, commerce and ethereal music. I hadn't cried while watching a music video since Johnny Cash's "Hurt", but I wept openly because of these Icelandic geniuses. No video has made me do so since.
The second time was watching my fiancee's little sister dance to this song in her Spring Recital. It is a song that will forever conjure childhood in my mind because of its visual aide, and watching children passionately involved such a meaningful song in a performance backed by such an outstanding soundscape( played through very good speakers!) broke me down again. I tried my best to hide it from the soon-to-be-wifey's family, but they probably saw. But I assure you I wan't the only one moved to waterworks in that auditorium. Sigur Ros has a way of attacking your emotions head on.
It also contains today's track, the fourth and final single to be taken from the monster. It's one of the only instances I know of where a song was on the Billboard 100, the modern rock, the adult contemporary and the country charts all at the same time.
And in his own way, with this song and the monster disc it appeared on, Bruce Hornsby paved the way for Dave Matthews to put his own spin on the "Virginia Sound" and make it his own.
There really isn't much to say here. Without this legendaryfigure, no one on this list (besides Scott Joplin and Kenny G) ever records a note of music. That may be "It's A Wonderful Life" drastic, but it also is 94.6% correct. Johnson's legacy covers more ground than any other musician of the 20th Century. Today's selection is the antithesis of Milkcows, Hellhounds and Judgements. It is the honesty that is the blues broken down into the analogy of a steam whistle and a broken man's painful cry. The scratchy recording seems to come from another world, but its honesty, influence and power will resonate long after the human race disappears and other sentient beings discover what we as a people accomplished. Robert Johnson might even be revered as an ancient race's god by the creatures who will indelibly feel the music's power as millions of us have. Satanhimselfwouldbeproud.
That was 13 years ago but I still remember what it was like, sitting in a dark movie theater in Richmond, VA , watching Velvet Goldmine for the first time.
Today's track played in the part of the story where everything literally was doing what the title said. Brian Slade (eh hem, David Bowie) had faked his own death and pissed off his fans. Like other moments in this hideously underrated film, the action was described in the vise of a music video.
I don't think any opening line to a song has ever grabbed me the way " Gee, but it's hard/When one lowers one's guard/ To the vultures." did. I sat bolt upright in my chair, my mind's eye recording every rhyming couplet to memory as they spilled from Jonathan Rhys Meyers' lips. I had to have this song in my collection.
Luckily the much missed music chain Tower Records was located right beside the cinema and the film's soundtrack was promptly purchased on the money my parents placed into my bank account every other week. After getting the disc home, I saw that the track was written by one Steve Harley, who I promptly searched for on allmusic.com. His greatest hits was also purchased on the money my parents gave me for food from the now defunct CDNOW (Amazon just sold books back then.) In the excitement of the discovery of such a great song I failed to realize Mr. Harley had two more songs on the soundtrack. "Make Me Smile" made the album but "Sebastian" would be only truly heard when the Cockney Rebel's greatest hits platter arrived in the mail. Both are flawless, as are mostofHarley'sworkfromthe70's.
But "Tumbling Down" can still give me chills with its effortless fantastical poetry, especially in the harrowing ending section's pain of seeing what they've done with the blues, blues, blues.
There's a lot of music I discovered when I was 18 that I've kept with me, but none like this.
The fact that a woman was the coolest thing in hip-hop for half a decade should not be lost on anybody. It's a misogynistic game, and Missy broke through strong and hard.
Come back Misdemeanor. The game needs your voice. You and Nicki Minaj could do some sick work together!
"Jackie Brown" is one of those songs that instantly attach itself to the artist who created it. It may not be his biggest hit, and he has definitely continued to improve in his journey towardsbeingoneofthebestrootsartistsintheworld. But "Jackie Brown" showed us what was to come. In its simple story of a downtrodden American, John showed us his humanity. It wasn't just focused on select groups like farmers anymore. Jackie Brown was all of us. Its concept of struggle is universal and still reverberates ever so strongly in these times.
I was a latecomer to the MMJ cult. I slept on their firstthreediscs and didn't quite get their fourth, Z, when I purchased it so I didn't spin it too much.
Just enjoy the song that brought her to national attention through two perfectplacements in film, and realize what we people who read music magazines and blogs already knew from two years before: M.I.A. is sick!!
On first listen to this gem, I thought I was hearing "Rhiannon" re-written by America with electric guitars. Then, I remembered I had clicked on a link for the band Midlake, so that thought quickly left my brain.
But it kept coming back while listening to their peerless sophomore album TheTrialsOfVanOccupanther. This is a band who studied their 70's rock. They even moved into prog and folk metal on their third disc!
Still, "Roscoe" gets me whenever it shows up on my ipod, or when I seek it out. Maybe its the stonecutter's reference in the first line. Maybe it reminds me of how stylisticallydifferent the boys have been on theirthreereleases. Or maybe they are just the kind of band I'd like to be in when I grow up.....
The options are limitless.
UK sensation Ellie Goulding does a wonderful singer/songwriter take on the song here.
No one has really deserved the "New Dylan" tag like Mr. Ritter. His career has legitimately been an audiblehighlightreel of folk rock majesty that has pleased his listeners to no end. His masterpiece is featured here today, for those who missed its post 9/11 apocalyptic power when it was released on his "King Among Kings" disc TheAnimalYears. This song will move you more than you may be prepared for, but that's what great music does for you when you allow it in.
You can always cry about its beauty on my shoulder.
All modern country (....shudder.....) should aspire to be as good as the work Brad Paisley has released. You don't get much more mainstream than this guy, and he has the gall to write a wonderful tribute to our favorite poison as well as marry the girl from Father Of the Bride and put out a semi-instrumental album that showcases how good of a guitar player he is! Get his greatest hits, then branch out into his albums, which display so much less filler than the normal "Nashville machine" records that it's almost jarring.
No other album released in the last 5 years ( Besides Decemberists' releases) has excited me more than Punch. Named after a fantastic Mark Twain short story, this is bluegrass in instrumentation only. It is jazz, it is pop, it is cathartic cocktail hour music for intelligent listeners. If you haven't heard this disc, I can't tell you a better place to start than this first section of the fourpieceBlindsaga. Capturing the feelings of Thile's recent divorce with simply staggering dexterity from its players, the thirteen minutes it takes to hear it fly by in a noxious breeze of tonality and skill. Unless you've only been reading this blog as an act of kindness, I truly believe this will leave you wanting more. Thankfully, it seems the restless spirit that is Chris Thile seems happy with his new band of brothers, as last year's equallyengagingAntifogmatic can attest to.
PS Don't forget to check out the group'sfirstdisc, back when they were known only as The How To Grow A Band!