I have to admit that I am not one of the people who jumped on the bandwagon for Regina Spektor’s last album, the 2006 breakthrough Begin to Hope. I’ve still never heard most of it, and what I did hear didn’t knock me out. Now Spektor is back with a new album, far (Sire Records), and I’m still on the fence.
I recognize her talent. I appreciate the exquisite wordplay with which she builds her songs. I’m aware of the fact that repeated listening to the album can reveal some previously hidden treasures. It’s all very accessible, musically accomplished, and lyrically interesting. What it’s missing, at least for me, is an emotional connection. Maybe this music is just not for me.
It’s a good idea to be wary of any album that has multiple producers, in the same way that it’s advisable to carefully approach films with more than one director. This album has four producers, each of them notable in his own right. Mike Elizondo has worked with Dr. Dre and Eminem, and he has produced four of this album’s 13 tracks. His work appeals as the most forward looking of the distinguished quartet. Check out his production on the inventive and imaginative “Machine.”(more…)
So it’s been at least nine months, if not more, since I stopped buying ’80s albums. I made a conscious effort to stop spending the cash on records once my son was born last September. But I was recently writing up a future track by a group called Millions Like Us when I realized I knew nothing about them, and my lone 45 didn’t tell me anything either. So I ended up purchasing the CD for a simple penny over at Amazon. Let me tell you how good it feels to not only get “new” music but to get it for a measly little cent. Of course, my ears perk up as I hear cheap CDs calling me, so I end up purchasing like 40 CDs to help me complete my rock and R&B collections. In reality I don’t know how many people would get excited over this mailbox full of CDs I opened on Friday: Joe Cocker’s Unchain My Heart, David Crosby’s Oh Yes I Can, Michael Anderson’s Sound Alarm, .38 Special’s Strength in Numbers, Extreme’s Extreme, and Pete Bardens’ Speed of Light, but damn if it doesn’t get me tingly inside. Ah, the geek in me.
This week we finish up the letter L with another half post to make a clean break. Enjoy these tracks from the ass end of the Billboard Hot 100 chart during the ’80s.
Love and Money
“Halleluiah Man” — 1989, #75 (download)
Love and Money were this funky and soulful Scottish band that was only able to manage this one hit in the US. This was the lead track off their second album Strange Kind of Love. If it wasn’t for the little rap-like breakdown in the middle of the song, it would be easy to mistake this for a Tears for Fears song.
Love and Rockets
“No Big Deal” — 1989, #82 (download)
“No Big Deal” comes from the self-titled 4th album from Love and Rockets, which is all the members of Bauhaus minus Peter Murphy. As opposed to the first three Love and Rockets records, this one is a bit of a mess as Daniel Ash wrote the more poppy songs and David J had more experimental tracks. The mish-mash of sounds makes for a pretty uneven listen and it seems that Love and Rockets understood this as well, as they broke off for solo careers after touring for the album.
Loverboy
“The Kid Is Hot Tonite” — 1981, #55 (download)
“Dangerous” — 1985, #65 (download)
“Lead a Double Life” — 1986, #68 (download)
“Too Hot” — 1989, #84 (download)
Loverboy provided me with one of my favorite moments in TV history when they appeared on the 2005 show Hit Me Baby One More Time and the host announced them repeatedly as “Louverboy!” To this day, anytime we hear Loverboy my wife and I both turn to each other and say “Loooooooverboy!” It’s much funnier than it seems on paper.
Loverboy’s entire hit making career managed to stay in this decade as they had 13 Hot 100 hits starting with “Turn Me Loose” in 1981 and ending with “Too Hot” in 1989. The weird thing for me is that I think they made some pretty excellent albums, but I can really only remember their major hits. I couldn’t have identified the artist of “Dangerous” or the strangely new-wave “Lead a Double Life” if you put a gun to my head. I’ve listened to all of their albums numerous times, but there’s just something about them that doesn’t stick in my head. I do however recognize “Too Hot” which was their final single from the 1989 Greatest Hits record called Big Ones.
While on a routine errand to buy a baseball mitt, Tom Petty pulled up to a stoplight and glanced over at the car waiting next to him. The other driver was uber producer Jeff Lynne. It was 1987 and Petty had been listening to George Harrison’s triumphant Cloud Nine, which Lynne had produced. So impressed was he by the sound and the songwriting of Harrison’s record that Petty had the former ELO frontman pull over in order to compliment him. Then he uttered the words that would change Petty’s life and kickstart the second phase of his career: “How’d you like to work on some songs together?”
At the time, Petty was in rebuilding mode. He and his storied band, the Heartbreakers, had just completed a world tour behind their album, Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough).The Florida native was worn out from the constant battles with MCA, his record company, the tension within the band (in particular between Petty and drummer Stan Lynch), and just the grind of being on the road for most of the ’80s. Making matters worse, just before the tour an arsonist had burned Petty’s home to the ground. Literally, he was at a crossroads. The chance meeting with Lynne led to Petty co-writing Roy Orbison’s comeback single, “You Got It,” as well as the formation of the Traveling Wilburys, a laid back supergroup that included Petty, Harrison, Orbison, Lynne, and Petty’s old touring mate, Bob Dylan. Soon thereafter Petty and Lynne commenced on the landmark record, Full Moon Fever, Petty’s first solo recording without the Heartbreakers. (more…)
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…)
As a musician, singer, and songwriter, I am often surprised by the similarities between myself and Tom Petty. We’ve both been supremely blessed with the love of good women, the musical input and support of first-rate musicians, and the unceasing ability to stick to our guns – against almost insurmountable odds. Yep, ol’ Tom Petty and I have an awful lot in common, I like to think. He, of course, lives in a palatial estate in sunny California and, well, I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico.
See, as much as I like to think that the head Heartbreaker and I are cut from the same cloth, share the same undying dedication to rock & roll (no matter how uncool that may be at the time), and walk with the same tenuous swagger that comes from having seen it all and done it all, the truth is that when they made Tom Petty, they broke the mold. And burned the cloth.
How I came to know of Tom Petty is a story I’ve told friends and will now tell you:
When I was a kid, I was already neck-deep in my love for rock & roll. As my twelfth birthday approached, I began dropping a series of not-so-subtle hints that I wanted the new Pretenders album as a gift. Over and over, I mentioned the Pretenders. When they appeared on television, I made sure to turn up the volume and yell, “Oh cool, the Pretenders!” within earshot of my parents. The last thing I wanted was for them to buy me the wrong album.
Finally, my birthday arrives and I rip into the album-shaped present that sits before me. I throw the wrapping paper on the floor and gaze at the – wait a second, this isn’t the Pretenders album. It’s Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Damn the Torpedoes. Not wanting to hurt my parents’ feelings, I feign excitement and, once my birthday dinner is over, carry the album to my room with all the enthusiasm of a pack of Fruit of The Loom briefs.
From the moment I touched needle to wax, though, I was in love. (more…)
If you’ve been dreading the return of this column ever since Popdose ended its holiday hiatus, then allow me to tell you who you have to blame for my decision to come out of hiding: the one and only Dw. Dunphy. There had been precious little in the way of concern about the absence of “Hooks ‘N’ You” from the Popdose landscape, and fair enough to that, given how much fantastic stuff is already filling the site on a daily basis, but Mr. Dunphy called me out on Facebook for the column’s absence, and I felt obliged to rise to the challenge and prove that, yes, I’m still around. And what better way to prove this than by spotlighting the soundtrack to a film with a title that handily describes my ongoing level of sanity?
There are plenty of great rock-themed flicks out there, and, indeed, many of them have some phenomenal soundtracks to accompany them. I have found, however, that not nearly enough fans of this genre are aware of “Still Crazy.” The film chronicles a ’70s stadium rock band called Strange Fruit, which ended its existence rather badly after first suffering through the unexpected death of their original lead singer and then replacing him, only to have their stage set-up struck by lightning during the 1977 Wisbech Rock Festival, an event which led to the break-up of the group. In 1998, the Fruits – as they are prone to call themselves – attempt to perform a resurrection of sorts and not only bring the band back together but rewrite history and be remembered for their music rather than their misfortunes.
It’s a blending of bits and pieces from several real-life tales, but “Still Crazy” is also a film that achieves a remarkable degree of realism in the way it portrays the majority of the former band members not as a bunch of guys living posh off their royalties but, rather, real people who have spent the interim years since their original success having to struggle to make ends meet. Plus, it has a great cast, including Bill Nighy, Billy Connolly, Timothy Spall, Hans Matheson, Stephen Rea, and Juliet Aubrey, currently best known as the villainous Helen Cutter on BBC America’s “Primeval.” Most importantly, though, it’s full of more musical references than you can shake a stick at. My personal favorite has always been when Connolly’s character, Strange Fruit’s longtime roadie, drives up in the band’s new tour bus and boasts that it offers “tinted windows, air conditioning, and twin portaloos, not to mention an extensive library of pornography, courtesy of the Psychedelic Furs!”
Given this information, it will likely not surprise you that is a film very much beloved by quite a few musicians, including the members of the Fratellis, who not only named their first album after Stephen Rea’s character, Tony Costello, but, indeed, made time during the acceptance of their award for British Breakthrough Act at the 2007 BRIT Awards to thank the members of Strange Fruit. Furthermore, those who have seen and fallen in love with “Still Crazy” are almost certain to run out and purchase its soundtrack…and this is where we transition from talking about an unheralded film to discussing an unheralded album.
Remember when the Hustle swept through discos everywhere? People were taking Hustle classes, the nightly news reported on the fad, there were instructional records and books. Hey, remember when everyone did the bump to, say, “Lady Bump?” How about in 1977, when everyone was doing the latest dance, the “Crazy Thing,” to Jeff Lynne’s “Doin’ That Crazy Thing?”
No? Oh, sorry.
Creating a new dance craze was definitely on someone’s mind when Jeff Lynne took a short break from leading the Electric Light Orchestra to release this forgotten single. “Doin’ That Crazy Thing” (download) was released with the mugshot picture sleeve overseas, but here in the States the 12″ version can with a sleeve complete with step-by-step instructions on how to do the “Crazy Thing,” the new moves that were destined to sweep the nation. Except, like, they didn’t. The copy I found was sadly saddled with a generic Jet Records sleeve, damn it.
“Doin’ That Crazy Thing” was a strange detour for Lynne, a downtempo, straight-ahead disco tune slipped out under his own name rather than ELO’s, even though the group would flirt with and nearly fully embrace disco a short two years later. You don’t hear about the one-off solo single, it’s never been released on CD (to my knowlege) and along with its almost identical B-side, “Goin’ Down To Rio,” (download) it’s been written off in Lynne/ELO history. (more…)
“I been in the right place, but it must have been the wrong time.” —Dr. John
Boy, if that doesn’t sum up the self-titled debut/swan song of Bounce the Ocean, I don’t know what does. Picture it: Washington, 1991. Hawk Bjorn and John Utter are surrounded by the burgeoning world of grunge, but choosing to follow their muse rather than the trends of the day, they produce an album of glossy, harmony-laden pop music that would’ve sounded more at home on the radio in 1981. They still managed to score a decent-sized radio hit, though, thanks to the album’s opening track, “Throw It All Away,” and another song —“Wasting My Time”— earned them at least a little bit of airplay, though it admittedly did so without ever actually charting.
You’d like to think that it was a testament to the quality of their work (because, wow, those harmonies are fucking incredible), but really, when was the last time quality had anything to do with a song becoming a hit?
In truth, the band had been working their way up through the ranks for a while, first getting some exposure by getting their music placed in the Patrick Dempsey flick Some Girls (1988), then by getting signed to Private Music, a label that had previously been known solely for its new-age artists (Yanni, Suzanne Ciani) but in ‘91 was getting ink in the music trades for securing Ringo Starr for their roster. It was probably the Private Music connection that did the most for their profile, but a high profile can only do so much when the music you’re making isn’t anything remotely like what “the kids” are listening to. In fact, looking back, it’s somewhat ironic that the band’s big-nosed labelmate was actually playing more to current musical trends than the members of Bounce the Ocean were, since Starr’s album featured a cover of the Posies’ “Golden Blunders” and had Andy Sturmer and Roger Manning from Jellyfish providing harmonies.
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…)
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I have to admit that I am not one of the people who jumped on the bandwagon for Regina Spektor’s last album, the 2006 breakthrough 
Loverboy
While on a routine errand to buy a baseball mitt, Tom Petty pulled up to a stoplight and glanced over at the car waiting next to him. The other driver was uber producer Jeff Lynne. It was 1987 and Petty had been listening to George Harrison’s triumphant 
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 “
As a musician, singer, and songwriter, I am often surprised by the similarities between myself and Tom Petty. We’ve both been supremely blessed with the love of good women, the musical input and support of first-rate musicians, and the unceasing ability to stick to our guns – against almost insurmountable odds. Yep, ol’ Tom Petty and I have an awful lot in common, I like to think. He, of course, lives in a palatial estate in sunny California and, well, I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico.
Remember when the Hustle swept through discos everywhere? People were taking Hustle classes, the nightly news reported on the fad, there were instructional records and books. Hey, remember when everyone did the bump to, say, “Lady Bump?” How about in 1977, when everyone was doing the latest dance, the “Crazy Thing,” to Jeff Lynne’s “Doin’ That Crazy Thing?”
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.