This past Monday my ability to come up with future IGMs (Inappropriate Ghetto Moments) was squelched by the po-po. No longer will I be able to drive through the ghetto on the way home with my iPod on Shuffle and watch the horror as crack whores hear Bette Midler’s “The Rose” blasting out my ride. See, yours truly was listening to “Mouth For War” by Pantera really loud and a fine officer in my borough pulled me over for violating the noise ordinance that was passed just a few months earlier. So rather than take the $1000 fine and the 30 days in jail, I’m going to have to turn my music down, which means I’ll pretty much just be turning it off now since music does nothing for me unless it’s loud. As a buddy pointed out, I’m so metal that my town can’t handle it. So horns high for this one, I suppose.
Now, rather than split the letter O up into two small posts, I’ve gone huge and given you the entire letter in one shot. Enjoy close to 30 tracks from the 15th letter of the alphabet as we look at more Bottom Feeders from the Billboard Hot 100 chart during the 1980s.
Oak
“Set the Night on Fire” — 1980, #71 (download)
Sometimes Oak, sometimes Oak & Rick Pinette, sometimes Rick Pinette & Oak and even sometimes Oak & the Rick Pinette Band, this multinamed crew will always have a place in my musical heart. Their #36 hit earlier in 1980, “King of the Hill,” was easily the hardest of the all the top 40 songs to find and the first time I really had to dig to find a track. I searched high and low for that self-titled debut album for years with no luck, until I found not only a copy, but an autographed one at that (surely adding about 63 cents in value to it.) Their second hit, “Set the Night on Fire,” was from the album of the same name, which I still don’t own. I settled for the 45 which was also quite a pain in the ass to acquire. This was back in the day where I was excited to listen to the rarer stuff and almost forced myself to enjoy it based on the amount of work I put in. It was only later on that I realized most of these tough-to-find tracks are rare for good reason. But Oak and now-and-then Rick Pinette, you have avoided my wrath.
Oak Ridge Boys
“So Fine” — 1982, #76 (download)
“American Made” — 1983, #72 (download)
God, I hate the Oak Ridge Boys. “So Fine” is such a poor song. I know it was a cover of a tune by the Fiestas and I’ve never heard that version, but it can’t be any better ‘cause it’s just poorly written to begin with. Obviously, the Oak Ridge Boys didn’t think so and my taste in music is suspect anyway. But that opening two seconds of keyboards sounds exactly like an ‘80s sitcom theme song (someone tell me which one though!) Maybe the biggest problem I have with the Oak Ridge Boys is very evident on “American Made” which is that bass vocalist Richard Sterban just sounds so out of place with the other vocalists on a lot of tracks. The other problem that I have is that every time I run to the record store I have to weed through 10,000 copies of Oak Ridge Boys records and I swear that every time I find ones I’ve never seen before. They put out 16 damn albums in the decade. No one needs 16 albums in 10 years.
Read that headline and weep, folks. In just two more weeks, the summer of ‘09 will be finito. Yeah, I know technically summer has a few more weeks of life but, who are we kidding? Once the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon goes off the air, the season’s deader than Freddie (That’s what I said.)
We have no time for heavy sentiment. Leave that to back-to-school shopping, pool closings and those Summer credit card bills coming back to bite you on the Coppertoned ass. We have two weeks left of fun, fun, fun. Break out the beach towels and crank up the pop music.
You’ll notice an inordinate amount of songs from the International Pop Overthrow collections, and for good reason. In the short time I’ve discovered this ongoing series of releases, I’ve become irrevocably hooked. You might as well, and can find these releases at the site that released them, Not Lame Recordings.
Because I’m in a giving mood (and because no one, and I mean no one, ever comes to our house for candy on Halloween), I thought I would load up the musical candy bowl and liberally hand out the goodies to those who come knocking at the Popdose door.
Well, as an albino who’s also a rocker, Edgar was pretty much made to create a song called “Frankenstein.” I’ve never really been a fan of this group, and know very little about them, but our friends at Wiki had some nice tidbits: 1. Winter loves his Scientology; he’s made no public comments on what he thought of John Travolta’s performance in Battlefield Earth. 2. Dan “I Can Dream About You” Hartman was in the band at one point. 3. This song was featured in Guitar Hero — which I’ve never played. (more…)
Before getting lost in the world of orchestral strings and Tim Burton soundtracks, Danny Elfman was the singularly strange lead singer/songwriter behind guitar/horn section new wave hybrid Oingo Boingo. Big duh. But while the band is known mostly for the “wacky” songs like “Weird Science, “Only A Lad,” and “Little Girls,” the group’s later, more serious work doesn’t seem to get much flashback radio love.
That’s too bad, because later albums like Dead Man’s Party and particularly BOI-NGO are filled with hook-laden, should-have-been hits like “Just Another Day,” “Stay,” “Pain,” and a big personal favorite, “Not My Slave” (download). A tune either celebrating or lamenting a lover’s independence (nice touch on the ambiguity, there), “Not My Slave” takes the classic Boingo ingredients like a skipping beat, catchy synth riffs, and sinister overtones and while not muting them, brings them closer to the mainstream. The remixed single version (download), a superior mix, beefs up the drums even more and adds a slashing guitar riff across the chorus. Sadly, radio shrugged and threw it on the intern promo giveaway pile.
MCA’s faith in the single showed by their commissioning an extended dance mix (download), but here the remixing fails, as it strips the song down to almost nothing but the originally thin beat, keys and vocals. Not the most danceable dance remix and its non-chart showing wasn’t a big surprise.
Hey, how about Oingo Boingo performing the BOI-NGO era singles on the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon, with an intro from Jerry himself, no less (”Oyyynnngoooo Boyyyynnngooooo, LAAYYYY DEEEE”)? (more…)
I always get a little thrill when Danny Elfman decides to step back in front of the microphone or, more bluntly, when Tim Burton decides to let Danny Elfman step back in front of the microphone. His last actual studio recording with a band was 1994’s ill-fated Boingo, an attempt to drag wacky and macabre party rockers Oingo Boingo into the ’90s, yet the dire and very pointed rock sound of the album accomplished two unwanted things: it alienated the original fans who wanted the music to be more fun and less funereal, and it failed to attract new fans thanks to its alignment with the moody, grungy times. After a live farewell concert, documented on a final band release, Elfman and longtime collaborator Steve Bartek went back to the scoring stage.
It makes perfect sense. Elfman had carved out a wildly successful and respected niche in film scoring, and his signature polkas from hell and minor-key romanticism have become immediate signals to an appreciative audience. Still, whenever there’s a reason to sing and Elfman accepts the challenge, it gets me charged up. That it takes Tim Burton’s strange visions to do it ensures that such occurrences aren’t altogether frequent. Remember that Burton’s last musical partner was some dude named Stephen Sondheim, whoever the heck that is; when it’s Elfman’s turn I start to get those old heebie-jeebies back. His music for The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) leaned heavily on his film-music sensibilities, but his tracks for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) as well as a jazz number from Corpse Bride (2005) drew from his more contemporary side.
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?
Sometimes Oak, sometimes Oak & Rick Pinette, sometimes Rick Pinette & Oak and even sometimes Oak & the Rick Pinette Band, this multinamed crew will always have a place in my musical heart. Their #36 hit earlier in 1980, “King of the Hill,” was easily the hardest of the all the top 40 songs to find and the first time I really had to dig to find a track. I searched high and low for that self-titled debut album for years with no luck, until I found not only a copy, but an autographed one at that (surely adding about 63 cents in value to it.) Their second hit, “Set the Night on Fire,” was from the album of the same name, which I still don’t own. I settled for the 45 which was also quite a pain in the ass to acquire. This was back in the day where I was excited to listen to the rarer stuff and almost forced myself to enjoy it based on the amount of work I put in. It was only later on that I realized most of these tough-to-find tracks are rare for good reason. But Oak and now-and-then Rick Pinette, you have avoided my wrath.
God, I hate the Oak Ridge Boys. “So Fine” is such a poor song. I know it was a cover of a tune by the Fiestas and I’ve never heard that version, but it can’t be any better ‘cause it’s just poorly written to begin with. Obviously, the Oak Ridge Boys didn’t think so and my taste in music is suspect anyway. But that opening two seconds of keyboards sounds exactly like an ‘80s sitcom theme song (someone tell me which one though!) Maybe the biggest problem I have with the Oak Ridge Boys is very evident on “American Made” which is that bass vocalist Richard Sterban just sounds so out of place with the other vocalists on a lot of tracks. The other problem that I have is that every time I run to the record store I have to weed through 10,000 copies of Oak Ridge Boys records and I swear that every time I find ones I’ve never seen before. They put out 16 damn albums in the decade. No one needs 16 albums in 10 years.
(2001)
(1997)
(1980)
(1979)
Vol. 1 (1998)
(1987)
(2007)
(1982)
(2002)
(2009)
(1979)
(2005)
(2008)
(1993)
Before getting lost in the world of orchestral strings and Tim Burton soundtracks, Danny Elfman was the singularly strange lead singer/songwriter behind guitar/horn section new wave hybrid Oingo Boingo. Big duh. But while the band is known mostly for the “wacky” songs like “Weird Science, “Only A Lad,” and “Little Girls,” the group’s later, more serious work doesn’t seem to get much flashback radio love.
I always get a little thrill when Danny Elfman decides to step back in front of the microphone or, more bluntly, when Tim Burton decides to let Danny Elfman step back in front of the microphone. His last actual studio recording with a band was 1994’s ill-fated Boingo, an attempt to drag wacky and macabre party rockers Oingo Boingo into the ’90s, yet the dire and very pointed rock sound of the album accomplished two unwanted things: it alienated the original fans who wanted the music to be more fun and less funereal, and it failed to attract new fans thanks to its alignment with the moody, grungy times. After a live farewell concert, documented on a final band release, Elfman and longtime collaborator Steve Bartek went back to the scoring stage.
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?