Let’s hop right into the music this week and stray all over the map within the borders of the letter J, looking at songs that charted no higher than #41 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart during the 1980s.
Garland Jeffreys had been putting out music since 1969 with little success, though he had a non-charting yet popular song in 1973 called “Wild in the Streets.” His 1980 album Escape Artist yielded “96 Tears”, his only charting song.
John “Jellybean” Benitez had three songs on the Hot 100, the most well known being ’85s “Sidewalk Talk” written by and featuring Madonna on the chorus. Jellybean’s solo career consisted of using other artists as vocalists and apparently on quite a few occasions, “using” should be in quotes. On the cover of the “Sidewalk Talk” single he made prominent mention of Madonna writing it though didn’t bother to credit the main female singer, Catherine Buchannan. He’s also sold the rights to some of his songs without the knowledge of the singer on the track, most famously with his track “Love’s Gonna Get You” which featured Jocelyn Brown singing “It’s getting kind of heavy” which would be the prominent line in Snap’s song, “The Power” in 1990. “The Real Thing” is the most generic of his three solo hits, this one featuring singer Steven Dante.
Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson
“Just to Satisfy You” — 1982, #52 (download)
Billed as Waylon & Willie on the single, this is a nice modern remake of a track Waylon released back in 1969 on his album of the same name. I’m no Willie Nelson fan, but I think this is one of his best in the decade.
So I had a great idea. An entire post about fake rock bands — groups made up for your cinematic pleasure that, in spite of not actually being real bands, managed to put out a couple decent tunes for the soundtrack. The definitions of real and fake in this super-sub-category are wishy-washy. Some of these actors actually play their music, others don’t and are lip-synching to studio performers. Some of the groups represented are meant as serious depictions, while others are strictly satirical. Some aren’t getting represented at all here (inferring that if the key member of the band is named something like Mark or Marky, your crappy movie didn’t make the cut.) Yes, a great idea, and an original idea! No one on the Internet has dared to do anything like this, not even my colleague Jon Cummings on this very site!
Nuts. Ah, ta’ hell with it — let’s keep going.
If we’re starting with the obvious, then we’re obviously starting with Spinal Tap, the metal band consisting of David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean,) Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) and Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer.) In the now ubiquitous mockumentary, the actors actually recorded their own tunes, which is a rarity. Then again, the songs weren’t meant to be taken all that seriously, but to be the foil for generational musical satire. Ranging from hippy-dippy psyche-folk with “Listen to the Flower People,” to Yardbirdsian skiffle rock with “Gimme Some Money” all the way to the heavy-handed metal misogyny of “Big Bottom,” the point was part comedy, part tribute, and all listenable. Still,This Is Spinal Tap was meant to be a joke. (A point of irony — “Gimme Some Money” was actually used in an American Express commercial, before the credit market was revealed to be as bogus as some of these bands…)
That was until, in the 1990s, the band returned with a ‘for real’ album in Break Like the Wind. Sure, there was plenty of help from special guest musicians like Dweezil Zappa, Joe Satriani and Slash, but it was still Tap at its core, and still satirical. It would be hard to hear “The Sun Never Sweats” in any other context. Now, in good old 2009, news of a proposed third Tap CD is making the rounds. Harry Shearer told BBC News it is a probability, naming a proposed track: “Gimme Some More Money.” I can’t wait. (more…)
Great news, everybody! Adventures Through the Mines of Mellow Gold is back!
Or, alternately:
Awful news, everybody! Adventures Through the Mines of Mellow Gold is back!
The point is: like it or not, we’re back and planning on bringing you more of the lamest, pansy-assiest music from that magical period in the ’70s and ’80s when everybody seemed to misplace their nutsacks. My hope is to do this once a month (after doing weekly MG postings in ‘07, I found I could no longer sustain an erection), and now that I’ve written it on the Internet, it must be true, right?
Anyway, so away we go! Let’s see. I have a nice big Mellow Gold playlist here on iTunes. I’ll just close my eye and point my mouse at a track, and…
Aw, shit. Nigel Olsson? What the hell is he doing on here? Isn’t he just the guy who plays drums in Elton John’s band with the headphones and white gloves and looks like the spawn of David Cassidy and the Cryptkeeper?
Okay, I looked back, and it seems like we can blame a reader named John Anselmo for today’s post, as he suggested Olsson’s one song that cracked the Top 20. Let me see if I can find his address and we can torch his house. Kidding, kidding. Actually, I will defend John’s suggestion, because the song in question fits quite well into the Mellow Gold genre (did we decide if Mellow Gold was a genre?). It fits so well, actually, that I often hear it, think “this is perfect for Mellow Gold,” promptly forget about it, and then repeat the process. Wussy, yet utterly forgettable? I don’t think it could be any more appropriate for this series.
A funny thing happened in the middle of the 1990s: Record labels looked into their vaults and found that most of their best selling titles had been in circulation for awhile on CD and, as one would expect, weren’t as exciting to the buying public anymore. Remember that in the initial run of the compact disc labels were suddenly flush with cash, old assets were getting new sales life and all was right with the world. Once they had reached the tipping point where most consumers had CDs of Rumours, Dark Side of the Moon, Sgt. Pepper’s, etc., they had a crucial decision to make. Shall we now go out into the great, wide world of new music acts and fill our rosters with exciting, up and coming talent?
Nah, too much work. Let’s reissue those old CDs again, only this time, we’ll stuff the back nine with B-sides, unreleased tracks and live cuts. It sounds crass, but don’t knock it. It works. The labels did get a kick-up of interest through this process of “double-dipping,” and sometimes it was for the best. Labels like Rykodisc and Rhino took a lot of care in representing classic albums, often bringing them back with better, remastered sound to make the package more palatable to those who had tinny, digitally fraught originals. Other labels took notice and, as you’d expect, the business of the deluxe reissue started booming. CDs wound up with extra tracks best left on the cutting room floor, songs pared with awful guide vocals, blooper reels, inclusions of little to no interest to the average music fan. The Elvis Costello fan has felt the impact the hardest, as Mr. MacManus’ output has rotated from the original Sony Music auspices to the Ryko reissues, then to the Rhino reissues, then to his current home at Universal Music. You could own four separate versions of My Aim Is True, each with its own plusses and minuses, none rising above the rest to definitive status.
Look, I’m a fan and a collector. I’ve been skunked more than once by the “special edition” label. I know what it’s like to buy something only to have it supplanted only a year later by the bigger, better, badder version. To prove my point, I have dedicated this week’s post to some of my favorite special edition extras. These are things the labels would rather we left alone. After all, some of these tracks are the only reason why you ought to repurchase these things, and I’m going all renegade by just plopping them here for your perusal. I’m a rebel and I’ll never, ever be any good. Ready to receive your bonuses? Oh la Saleema! (more…)
It’s not necessarily a bad thing to be at times, mind you, but a good smart-ass pulls it off with a modicum of grace and might give you a chuckle for it. In the music world, there are relatively few of the latter. Instead of a wink and a nod, they just about knock you unconscious and then ask if “you saw that.” You can tell one from the other by their choices in the realm of cover songs.
A word of note to anyone who is not a music nerd accidentally finding themselves at this site: a cover song is when an artist records another artist’s song, hence covering it. The term ‘remake’ fits as well. The term ’smart-ass’, at least relative to this article, refers to those who decide to go all hipster and record something that bears no relevance, charm or wit toward their own sensibility. I’m thinking of Madonna’s cover of “American Pie” or that godawful A Perfect Circle CD where the songs weren’t just reworked, they were worked over, until all that was left was roadkill disguised as tribute. Then there’s the Bluegrass Tribute to Pink Floyd’s The Wall. More notoriously, I’m thinking of the late-’50s pop songs from black artists covered by teen idol white artists because, you know, if it comes from a white guy in a sweater, the subtext can’t be about sex. Right? Pat Boone? Tutti Frutti?
Instincts run hot and cold, depending on who is relying on them. Some artists go against the grain and it works out fantastically for them. Some make last-minute choices that, while not haunting them forever, certainly don’t help them a hell of a lot. Ben Folds runs somewhere in the middle.
His biggest successes came early on as the namesake of the Ben Folds Five trio. That first eponymous disc was eminently buzz-worthy, whipping indie kids into a frenzy much as we’ve seen with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Arctic Monkeys and, more recently, Vampire Weekend. The second disc, Whatever And Ever Amen, made a strong case for the resurgence of piano pop, and indeed we hadn’t heard something so pretty (and at the same time vitriolic) since Joe Jackson’s punk period. It didn’t hurt that “Brick” suddenly became an unexpected hit. After one more studio disc and a b-sides/live cuts compilation, though, the three in the Five were reduced to one. (more…)
John “Jellybean” Benitez had three songs on the Hot 100, the most well known being ’85s “Sidewalk Talk” written by and featuring Madonna on the chorus. Jellybean’s solo career consisted of using other artists as vocalists and apparently on quite a few occasions, “using” should be in quotes. On the cover of the “Sidewalk Talk” single he made prominent mention of Madonna writing it though didn’t bother to credit the main female singer, Catherine Buchannan. He’s also sold the rights to some of his songs without the knowledge of the singer on the track, most famously with his track “Love’s Gonna Get You” which featured Jocelyn Brown singing “It’s getting kind of heavy” which would be the prominent line in Snap’s song, “The Power” in 1990. “The Real Thing” is the most generic of his three solo hits, this one featuring singer Steven Dante.
So I had a great idea. An entire post about fake rock bands — groups made up for your cinematic pleasure that, in spite of not actually being real bands, managed to put out a couple decent tunes for the soundtrack. The definitions of real and fake in this super-sub-category are wishy-washy. Some of these actors actually play their music, others don’t and are lip-synching to studio performers. Some of the groups represented are meant as serious depictions, while others are strictly satirical. Some aren’t getting represented at all here (inferring that if the key member of the band is named something like 
, your crappy movie didn’t make the cut.) Yes, a great idea, and an original idea! No one on the Internet has dared to do anything like this, not even my colleague 
If we’re starting with the obvious, then we’re obviously starting with Spinal Tap, the metal band consisting of David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean,) Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) and Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer.) In the now ubiquitous mockumentary, the actors actually recorded their own tunes, which is a rarity. Then again, the songs weren’t meant to be taken all that seriously, but to be the foil for generational musical satire. Ranging from hippy-dippy psyche-folk with “Listen to the Flower People,” to Yardbirdsian skiffle rock with “
was meant to be a joke. (A point of irony — “Gimme Some Money” was actually used in an American Express commercial, before the credit market was revealed to be as bogus as some of these bands…)
. Sure, there was plenty of help from special guest musicians like Dweezil Zappa, Joe Satriani and Slash, but it was still Tap at its core, and still satirical. It would be hard to hear “
A funny thing happened in the middle of the 1990s: Record labels looked into their vaults and found that most of their best selling titles had been in circulation for awhile on CD and, as one would expect, weren’t as exciting to the buying public anymore. Remember that in the initial run of the compact disc labels were suddenly flush with cash, old assets were getting new sales life and all was right with the world. Once they had reached the tipping point where most consumers had CDs of Rumours, Dark Side of the Moon, Sgt. Pepper’s, etc., they had a crucial decision to make. Shall we now go out into the great, wide world of new music acts and fill our rosters with exciting, up and coming talent?
A word of note to anyone who is not a music nerd accidentally finding themselves at this site: a cover song is when an artist records another artist’s song, hence covering it. The term ‘remake’ fits as well. The term ’smart-ass’, at least relative to this article, refers to those who decide to go all hipster and record something that bears no relevance, charm or wit toward their own sensibility. I’m thinking of Madonna’s cover of “American Pie” or that godawful A Perfect Circle CD where the songs weren’t just reworked, they were worked over, until all that was left was roadkill disguised as tribute. Then there’s the Bluegrass Tribute to Pink Floyd’s The Wall. More notoriously, I’m thinking of the late-’50s pop songs from black artists covered by teen idol white artists because, you know, if it comes from a white guy in a sweater, the subtext can’t be about sex. Right? Pat Boone? Tutti Frutti?
Instincts run hot and cold, depending on who is relying on them. Some artists go against the grain and it works out fantastically for them. Some make last-minute choices that, while not haunting them forever, certainly don’t help them a hell of a lot. Ben Folds runs somewhere in the middle.