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name that tune again again
Posted on May 9th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs, Elsewhere.
My weekly Name That Tune game is up at Popdose. It's fun! It's challenging! It's educational! It's free! And it's 98.4% guaranteed!
hey that sounds kinda like (with digressions)
Posted on April 1st, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs.
Our piano-bar-playing friend Greg Schlotthauer is fluent in Spanish, and loves Latin American pop music. He turned us on to Soda Stereo/Gustavo Cerati and Los Tres; in return we turned him on to Cafe Tacuba and Babasonicos. He's playing tonight at the Duplex and he has a bunch of Soda Stereo on his song list, so I've been listening to some with an ear toward making a specific request, and I settled on "De Música Ligera" from 1990's superb Canción Animal. It turns out to be possibly their best-known song, and is the song they chose to end their 1997 farewell concert.
"De Música Ligera" on YouTube.
Pretty excellent power pop, eh? The lyrics aren't hard to find online, but damned if I can find an English translation. AltaVista tries valiantly:
She slept, to the heat of the masses, and I woke up, wanting to dream it. Some time back I thought about writing to him that I never drew for the traps of the love. Of that love of slight music nothing frees nothing to us but it is. I will not send ashes to him of roses nor I think to avoid secret rubbing. Of that love of slight music nothing frees nothing to us but it is. . . . Of that love of slight music nothing frees nothing to us but it is left nothing but nothing but is left nothing but it is left nothing but it is left nothing but it is
That first sentence is great and I hope it's accurate. "Avoid secret rubbing," on the other hand, sounds like the small type that might have resulted if Dr Bronner had branched out into hand creams.
Anyway, I'd never noticed till today that "De Música Ligera" bears some resemblance to "Smells Like Teen Spirit". But more than that, I swear it sounds like some classic power pop song that I can't put my finger on. It's going to make me crazy till I figure it out.
not really, but
Posted on March 10th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs.
Is "Time Has Come Today" by the Chambers Brothers (1966) the first dub song? I mean, obviously not in the historical sense, but in the sense that people will call the Stooges (or the Sonics, or the MC5, etc etc) the first punk band. Here's a one-minute example. Is there any earlier hit single fooling around with dub-type studio effects like this? (Probably.) Examples solicited.
hey that sounds like
Posted on February 12th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs.
The chord progressions for
"25 or 6 to 4" by Chicago,
and
"Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" by Led Zeppelin.
two more missing seventies songs
Posted on January 10th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs, 70s Survival.
Two more songs missing from these Billboard Hot 100 sets that should certainly be there: The Spinners' "I'll Be Around" (peaked at #3, 1972) and "Games People Play" (peaked at 5, 1975).
name that tune game at popdose
Posted on January 4th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs.
I'm doing a new Name That Tune game, the first of what is planned to be a weekly series, over at Jeff Giles and Jason Hare's new website Popdose. I've added a puzzle to this one.
I'll be reviving and moving the Song Project over there as well, again as a weekly item. (I'm going to continue writing here also.)
A lot of writers are doing interesting columns for Popdose, and Jason and Jeff are continuing the terrific series they'd been doing on their own sites. Check it out.
hey that sounds like
Posted on January 3rd, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs.
I'd never noticed this till today, but the main theme of "Brazil" -- at least as played by Antonio Carlos Jobim on Stone Flower -- seems to me reminiscent of "Caravan".
hey that sounds (kinda) like
Posted on December 31st, 2007 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs.
two more short clips:
"Spooky" by the Classics IV, and "I'm Her Daddy" by Bill Withers.
slough of despond - a list in progress
Posted on December 4th, 2007 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs, Lists.
Months ago I promised our friend Joy the bartender a mix of bleak, dark, depressing songs, and finally got round to recording it a couple days back. It's far from perfect; in its eventual final form I wouldn't be surprised if I replace half of these:
hey that (kinda) sounds like
Posted on November 28th, 2007 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs.
The opening of the Captain and Tennille version of "Shop Around" and the opening of XTC's "Me and the Wind".
cafe tacuba, the repost
Posted on November 26th, 2007 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs, Musicians.
(This is a combined version of the two posts I made on Cafe Tacuba at the beginning of the holiday weekend, just in case anyone who normally reads this didn't see them. I apologize to those of you seeing this twice, especially Martin.)
After last night's show at Hammerstein, I am as confirmed in my opinion as I can be: Café Tacuba (aka Café Tacvba) are the greatest rock band in the world: the most exhilarating combination of energy, invention, and breadth of style currently going. I can't imagine that the language difference is that big a barrier to their being better known in the states, but apparently it is. That and the fact that, for all their variety of form, they aren't trying to break or deconstruct any forms, which makes them of less interest to the indie press than weirder foreign-language stuff.
If you remain interested in where rock and roll is going, not just the underground stuff but the bands that play arenas, I urge you to try Café Tacuba. Robert L, you especially. Try Re first if you can, but try anything. Maybe it won't move you, but you should find out.
A few songs, chosen to represent Cafe Tacuba's entire career, and some of their breadth of style. Not all my favorites -- I like some of their styles more than others -- but all songs I love.
from Cafe Tacuba (1992)
Las Persianas
Rarotonga
three consecutive songs from Re (1994)
El Ciclon
El Borrego
Esa Noche
from Avalancha de Exitos (1996)
No Controles
from Yo Soy (1999)
Guerra
from Reves (1999)
3
from Cuatro Caminos (2003)
Eo
from SiNo (2007)
Volver a Comenzar
tacuba! - some evidence
Posted on November 22nd, 2007 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs, Musicians.
A few songs, chosen to represent Cafe Tacuba's entire career, and some of their breadth of style. Not all my favorites -- I like some of their styles more than others -- but all songs I love.
from Cafe Tacuba (1992)
Las Persianas
Rarotonga
three consecutive songs from Re (1994)
El Ciclon
El Borrego
Esa Noche
from Avalancha de Exitos (1996)
No Controles
from Yo Soy (1999)
Guerra
from Reves (1999)
3
from Cuatro Caminos (2003)
Eo
from SiNo (2007)
Volver a Comenzar
hey that sounds like (a continuing series)
Posted on October 24th, 2007 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs.
"Sweet Love" by the Commodores (1976) and "Best of My Love" by the Eagles (1975).
musing between floods of work
Posted on October 23rd, 2007 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs, Musicians.
I wonder how Rufus Wainwright feels about being the baby-subject of his father's "Rufus Is a Tit Man".
hey that sounds like (a continuing series)
Posted on October 22nd, 2007 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs.
The piano in Herb Alpert's "Rise" (1979) and Billy Preston's "Will It Go Round in Circles" (1973).
seventies survival, update twelve
Posted on October 12th, 2007 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs, 70s Survival.
Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway, The Closer I Get to You
These sappy part-switching duets never seem to go away, or change. This one gets more than a little incoherent: "Sweeter and sweeter love grows," Donny sings, "and heaven's there for those who fool the tricks of time, but the hearts of love define true love in a special way." I think the key to singing lines like that is to not think about them at all. Roberta Flack only gets to sing the chorus, which barely changes and that's probably just as well. They only sing one line together, at the very end: "Pulling closer, sweet as the gravity". O-kay.
"The Closer I Get to You" is awash in long synth notes that are gated or pitch-shifted or something -- vocabulary help requested -- to produce a changing effect in the background that is weird for a pop song, and is one of those things that becomes very noticeable once a record gets a little warped, or on almost any cassette recording, which will give it an unignorable warble.
Eddie Kendricks, Boogie Down
Perfectly pleasant disposable bouncy pop-funk. One solid groove (with its eight beats divided into a nice 1-2 1-2-3 1-2-3 pattern), no especially interesting structural changes (though a lot of decorative changes in the arrangement), completely pointless repetitve lyrics. There's some buried horn that sounds like it's trying to burst out into a KC & the Sunshine Band song, and some strings that escaped from Silver Convention. It does have a nice extended transition from the chorus back to the verse, albeit with synthesizer farts.
I'm curious about the history of the word "boogie". In pop music it's associated both with funky disco and with danceable southern guitar rock (e.g., Little Feat). How did that happen?
hey that sounds like
Posted on October 10th, 2007 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs.
Four variations on a melody (each of these examples is just a clip of the melody, not the whole song):
- Brian Eno, Taking Tiger Mountain, 1974
- the Go-Betweens, Dive for Your Memory, 1988
- Jens Lekman, If You Ever Need a Stranger (to Sing at Your Wedding), 2004
- Andrew Bird, Spare-Ohs, 2007
I'll bet there are many more, probably predating the Eno song.
seventies survival, update eleven
Posted on October 8th, 2007 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs, 70s Survival.
Chuck Mangione, Feels So Good
I'd forgotten that this has a funky Santana-like intro. This song was so ubiquitous in Lite Muzak contexts for a while that it was impossible to like. Even now the main sax riff makes me snarl, and the wacka wacka funk lite guitar behind it doesn't help, either. But I really like the guitar break (played by Grant Geissman) that starts at 1:39; this whole section sounds like it could be from a 1980s Carla Bley album. "Feels So Good", as was discussed in the comments at Jason Hare's weblog recently, is one of the last instrumentals to make the top five. The seventies were the last good decade for hit instrumentals.
Natalie Cole, Our Love
Typical sappy seventies ballad. Hackneyed strings: yes. Harp glissandos: oh yes. Cole has a great voice, and makes a dumb song bearable, especially on the extended, lightly bouncy bridge near the end of the song. Almost all of Cole's 1970s hits were written by the production team of Chuck Jackson and Marvin Yancy (and almost all Jackson and Yancy's hits were sung by Cole). Yancy came out of gospel music; he and Cole married, divorced, Yancy returned to gospel, and died at 34 of a heart attack.
The piano opening of "Our Love" reminds me strongly of something else, but damned if I can figure out what. At first I thought it was "Isn't It Time" by the Babys, but that isn't quite it.
Santa Esmeralda, Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
Not the worst weird disco cover. Santa Esmeralda made spanish-flavored disco, though they were actually French studio musicians fronted by a saxophonist/singer named Leroy Gomez. "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" takes up an entire side of their Casablanca LP debut. The album actually has passionate advocates among disco revivalists. The followup album was called House of the Rising Sun, I'm afraid. I feel compelled to share the cover with you:
And that's all for today!
another curious omission
Posted on October 8th, 2007 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs, 70s Survival.
Seals & Crofts' "Summer Breeze", which peaked at #6 in 1972 and is unquestionably one of the top 100 songs of 1972 (it should rank around #66) is not in the top 100 of 1972 set. Hmm. (The number 100 song in the set I was given is the Isley Brothers' "Pop That Thang", which peaked at #24.)
"Summer Breeze" would probably have made my top 500, but it's not one of my favorites. I can't help wondering what else is missing, though. The game's still fun, anyway.
seventies survival, update ten
Posted on October 7th, 2007 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs, 70s Survival.
The Commodores, Three Times a Lady
I can no longer hear this song without hearing Eddie Murphy singing "Fee Times a Mady". There's nothing objectively wrong with this song -- nothing outstandingly mockable, apart from perfectly ordinary cliche-mongering like "the moments I cherish with every beat of my heart" -- and the arrangement is inoffensive, spare, with relatively light use of the mandatory strings, and I like the trembly effect on the -- guitar? I'm not sure -- after "nothing to keep us apart". I just can't stand Lionel Richie's treacly singing -- I'm sorry, Jason -- and the way he puts extra-sincere emphasis on "twice" drives me crazy. Why is "twice" important? What does it mean, damnit? How was she a lady the first time? Does "three times a lady" mean anything at all? Bah.
Fancy, Wild Thing
I despise the neanderthal original, but this leering remake is worse. Features an unconvincing moaning Penthous Pet. One of the low points of the 1970s, unredeemed by, well, anything. Okay, the watery sound of the bass is kinda interesting. Has an electronic keyboard solo and a bridge for no good reason. Fancy were a studio creation, and had one more hit, "Touch Me".
Major Harris, Love Won't Let Me Wait
More female moaning! Well, this is a much better song, at any rate. Awfully hard to take seriously though, as the moaning gets pretty silly -- and this is the five and a half minute extended-moan mix -- while Harris sings a long string of gems like "take my hand / we will take a flight / and spend the night / in a wonderland", and "I need your love so desperately / and only you can set me free / when I make love to you / we will explode in ecstasy". The whole song is a beg for sex, not withstanding that she's already moaning up a storm. Anyway, it's a tasteful, restrained arrangement in the Philly style -- Harris had been a member of the Delfonics -- played by MFSB, and has a non-obvious chord change the first time through the chorus. "Love Won't Let Me Wait" was Harris's only top 40 hit, and he eventually returned to the Delfonics.