For much of his solo career, it was Paul McCartney’s peculiar fate to seem perpetually in need of a creative comeback. Chafing against the impossibly high standard he set for himself with his Beatles work, Macca required three years of wilderness-wandering and band-building to make his first Important Album, 1973’s Band on the Run. After that, he forced fans to suffer through nine years of steadily diminishing qualitative returns before finally (if only briefly) winning a Tug of Warwith mediocrity in 1982.
And so on, and so on …
By 1989 McCartney faced a new and unexpected challenge: restoring his commercial viability. Even such moribund albums as Wild Life and London Townhad Top-Tenned during the 1970s despite critical drubbings, but the disastrous film and soundtrack Give My Regards to Broad Streetin 1984 seemed to mark a tipping point in the public’s willingness to consume products of patchy quality just because they had the Macca seal of approval. In 1986 McCartney released the Hugh Padgham-produced, thoroughly modern (and not-half-bad) album Press to Play, only to watch it stall at Number 30 on the Billboard album chart and become his first long-player to fall short of gold-record status.
To his credit, McCartney responded with a retrenchment, getting back to his roots and recording the Choba B CCCPalbum of rock ‘n’ roll standards for release only in the Soviet Union in 1988. Even as that record (initially released only on vinyl) became a sought-after item in the West as an import, word began circulating that McCartney was in the studio with Elvis Costello, and the prospect of their collaboration goosed interest in both men’s forthcoming albums.
The first fruits of their combined labor appeared on Costello’s Spikealbum in early 1989, which featured the most delightful Top-20 single ever written about Alzheimer’s, “Veronica,” as well as the rockabilly throwaway “Pads, Paws and Claws.” Meanwhile, McCartney announced that he would embark in the fall on the biggest tour of his solo career – and his first since his 1979 arrest at the Tokyo airport, on marijuana-possession charges, led to the final breakup of Wings. (more…)
If you’re a guitar guy, then all I have to do is write the name “Phil Keaggy” and you’re probably already prepared to offer up praise for his abilities. The man’s prowess with the guitar is legendary, so much so that he can’t turn around without someone bringing up the longstanding urban legend that no less an authority than Jimi Hendrix once declared him to be the best guitarist of all time. It’s been pretty well decided that such words never came forth from Hendrix’s lips…or, at least, Keaggy’s pretty sure of it, anyway…but God knows that plenty of other axe men have offered compliments along those lines.
The reference to the almighty is an intentional one. Although Keaggy started in the more traditional rock world as a member of the band Glass Harp, he’s been a staple of the Contemporary Christian music industry since the early 1970s. But, c’mon, don’t freak out, okay? I’ve always been mystified about how music fans can be totally psyched to hear about an album, only to dismiss it because there were lyrical references to religious beliefs. It’s music, people. No-one’s saying you have to embrace the lyrical content as the truth…but you can certainly enjoy the tunes.
My buddy Chris Commander is the person who was responsible for introducing me to the music of Phil Keaggy. This was in the early ’90s, when the members of my circle of friends were…you’ll forgive the expression…worshiping at the altar of Jellyfish and Crowded House. Chris said, “Dude, you’ve got to check out the album,” and he handed me a copy of Phil Keaggy and Sunday’s Child. I’m sure he mentioned that Keaggy was a Christian recording artist, but that’s not the sort of thing that would’ve turned me off, anyway, and, besides, I knew Chris’s tastes and he knew mine, so if he thought I’d like it, he didn’t have to tell me twice. And, of course, he was absolutely on the money. From the Beatles homage on the cover art to the plethora of pop hooks, this was very much my kind of album.
Oh, some things just write themselves, don’t they?
I kid, I kid. “So Bad” is an overlooked little gem from the Paul catalog, released in the States as the follow-up to “Say Say Say,” his megahit duet with Michael Jackson. (Sorry to put that one in your head. Let’s get back to today’s subject, shall we?)
“So Bad” (download) was taken from Paul’s Pipes of Peace LP (1983), which was mostly made up of leftover tracks from his previous effort, Tug of War (1982). As a result, it shares many traits with Tug, such as producer George Martin and some studio drummer named Ringo, of all things. Oh yeah, and Linda’s on it. Surprise!
Okay, sorry again. That’s two cheap shots in one post about a song I actually quite like. I must be grumpy. The video for “So Bad” is sort of melancholy in light of Linda’s passing. She did the photography for all the posed shots surrounding the band, and that little freeze-frame of Mrs. McCartney winking and smiling near the end of the clip is heartbreaking.
Step off, Heather Mills. You never stood (ha!) a chance. “So Bad” is a cute, if lightweight, ballad (from Paul? Ya don’t say!) that put McCartney’s falsetto to good use. Unfortunately, despite its decent charting, it always seems to get the short shrift when it comes time to package those greatest-hits compilations or retrospectives. Heck, it didn’t even make it onto Wingspan (2001), for Linda’s sake — an unfair snub for a legitimate McCartney hit. You never seem to hear this one on AC or ’80s radio stations either, but boy, you’ll certainly hear “Say Say Say.” Ugh. Which was worse — “Say Say Say” or “The Girl Is Mine”? It’s a Sophie’s Choice of crap!
God, I am grumpy.
“So Bad” peaked at #23 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1984.
I was getting wistful for 45s the other day and went hunting through my old Grundorf cases that I used to lug from DJ gig to DJ gig back in the day. While flipping through those “back stacks of wax” it was somewhat shocking to see the vast amount of crappy singles I bought for God knows what reason. Some of the singles aren’t danceable, and some are so badly scratched and cue burned that I wonder why I didn’t toss the singles out years ago. But there they were: relics of an era in the music industry long since past, but also historical markers of the ’80s, when my brother and I trudged off to gig after gig with cases of 45s and LPs on the weekends.
Oh, and regarding the, um, preponderance of crappy 45s in my collection, I offer this defense: My brother had a 10-watt pirate radio station in his bedroom in the mid to late ’80s, and during the week we’d broadcast shows in the evening to mostly middle school kids listening at home. They would call, we would put them on the air, and often times they would request the most god-awful songs. The next day, one of us would drive down to Tower Records, plunk down a few dollars and bring home singles that would, more often than not, be stiffs on the charts. But for a brief moment, the pirate station sounded very current. It was all in good fun, and the FCC never came knocking on our door (probably because we broadcast so infrequently).
So, let me cue up the 45s and let’s have a listen to the good, the bad, and the ugly of it all.
My junior year of high school was the first time I had ever heard of the Scorpions. To me, they were a stoner band — only because the stoners at my school listened to them — but if there was such a category as “stoner pop” back in 1982, I think the Scorps, Def Leppard and bands of that ilk would fit that bill. With their infectious hooks in the chorus, the melodic guitars and Klaus Meine’s theatrical voice, it’s a recipe for a kind of hard rock that avoids a lot of dissonant chords. Plus, the lyrics in this tune are standard issue cock rock, or as Eddie Van Halen once explained it: “Boy meets girl. Boy inserts penis.” (more…)
Welcome back to CHART ATTACK!, all new for 2009! This year we’ll be doing much like we’ve done in the past: ripping apart Billboard Top 10 charts for years ranging from the early ’70s to the early ’90s. You know the drill: some of ‘em are going to be great; some will be abysmal; some will feature way too many appearances by stupid Andy Gibb. (Not this week — just his brothers.)
This week, we’re looking at early 1983, a fairly diverse week featuring punk, pop, R&B, adult contemporary and whatever category you want to stick “Dirty Laundry” into. Also, here are a few of the odd words you’ll find in this week’s chart: Sharif, Serengeti, she-cat, and Vegemite. We’re also featuring three songs that, in some way or another, essentially were given a second chance on the charts this week. Which ones? Stay tuned as we attack January 15, 1983!
“Africa” holds my spot for the best song on this relatively solid Top 10, but “Heartbreaker” is in second place. It has very little to do with Dionne Warwick; while her vocal is fine, I think I’d also be okay with a number of other female vocalists singing. It’s more about the chorus, which is not only unmistakably catchy but contains just the right amount of Bee Gees — the fantastic backing vocals with none of the ridiculous falsetto wailing that Barry prefers to use at every turn. And once again we have to give credit to Mr. Gibb for wisely handing out his songs to other vocalists at a time when the Bee Gees were certainly less welcome on the charts. This one wasn’t initially his idea, though: in ‘82, Barry had planned on collaborating with a few different female vocalists for an album he was working on, but Clive Davis asked him if he’d write an album of material for Warwick. He did so, and though Warwick didn’t really care for “Heartbreaker,” she recorded it anyway — and it wound up being her biggest solo hit of the decade. I can’t believe I love “Heartbreaker” more than Dionne Warwick. Anyway, the Bee Gees eventually recorded their own version in 2002:
The original demo can also be found on YouTube (or on iTunes). Beware, though: Barry sings the whole thing utilizing the aforementioned falsetto wailing.
9. Rock the Casbah — The Clash
One can only imagine what Joe Strummer thought about spending time in the Top 10 next to Dionne Warwick. Even worse, only a few weeks later he’d wind up stuck next to Eddie Rabbitt and Crystal Gayle. The Clash’s Top 40 singles were far and few between — we’re talking this one and “Train in Vain (Stand By Me).” (”Should I Stay or Should I Go” reached #45.)
“Rock the Casbah” was born out of a piano part composed by drummer Topper Headon, and it’s Headon who plays bass, drums and piano on the track. The origins of the lyrics have been disputed, but the story I’ve heard the most is that Strummer was inspired by a news report of Iranians being flogged for owning disco music. I don’t see why that’s so wrong.
Whether you were a child of the ’60s or (like me) of the ’70s, the Beatles’ perpetual presence on the radio seemed something of a birthright. Every “official” Beatles single between “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “The Long and Winding Road” reached the Billboard Top 40, and for five years after the band’s 1970 breakup all four members were reliable fixtures on AM radio. That omnipresence began to fade in 1975 as John Lennon went into retirement, George Harrison’s hitmaking became hit-or-miss, and Ringo … well, Ringo seemed to lose his mojo right around the time he found producer Arif Mardin.
But Paul McCartney found a way to remain radio-relevant straight through the ’70s, making the Top 40 even with drivel like “Letting Go,” “Girls’ School,” “London Town” and the singles from Wings’ last album, the brutal 1979 Back to the Egg. (His chartmaking prowess survived a lot of lousy singles, to be sure; it’s not for nothin’ that McCartney-written “classics” made my lists of the Worst Number One hits of the ’60s, ’70sand ’80s.)
A couple of funny things happened to Macca on the way to the ’80s, however. Sixteen days into the new decade, he was handcuffed at Tokyo International Airport while trying to smuggle a rather large quantity of weed into the country, and instead of giving him a slap on the hand and looking the other way, Japanese authorities locked him up for nine days and threatened to throw away the key (before eventually relenting). He returned home to find erstwhile bandmate Denny Laine exploiting the event with a single called “Japanese Tears,” and suddenly Paul found himself without a band once again.
He retreated to a home studio, much as he had as the Beatles were splitting, and emerged with a solo album that was even more idiosyncratic than his first one had been a decade earlier. But then, after the first single from that McCartney II album (“Coming Up”) topped the charts in customary fashion, he released another one – and it didn’t even make the Hot 100, much less the Top 40.
That single was “Waterfalls” (download), a lovely ballad whose quality is hard to deny, but whose utter pop-chart failure is easy to understand. Its lethargic pace and bare-bones production values hardly fit on the radio during the summer of 1980 alongside “Funkytown,” “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me” and “Upside Down” – Christopher Cross’ “Sailing” was about as slow as programmers were willing to go. (more…)
Like many Saturday afternoons, we found ourselves straightening up the house, the children and I.It was June 2007, it was hot, and they were beginning to bicker.What can you expect?The last thing kids want to do on a weekend is clean up after themselves.While I did my best to make sense of the one thousand toys scattered around the playroom, Sophie and Jacob had the simple task of picking up their toys, shoes and movies in the living room.I’m sure at the time I thought we would surprise Julie, who was at work.However, my two darlings began to argue and my nerves were beginning to fray.Instead of erupting and unleashing anger, I decided to alleviate the growing tension with music.
Our house is always filled with music, whether it’s coming from the stereo, the television, Sophie’s room, the kitchen, or through the voices of my loved ones.Julie can sing like an angel and Sophie appears to have inherited this wonderful trait.It’s still too early to tell what kind of singing voice Jake will have, but like his sister, he has a natural talent for keeping the beat (something from the old man, I suppose).I sprang into action and threw in Paul McCartney’s Memory Almost Full, which had recently been released, skipping the first track and going right to my favorite song, “Ever Present Past.”
The driving rhythm of the song’s opening immediately captured the kids’ attention, especially when their father decided to revisit the high stepping of his high school and college marching band days. Jacob cracked up, his cheeks full and eyes squinting, while Sophie broke into a gorgeous wide open grin that lit up her deep blue eyes. “Follow me!” I commanded and we created our own parade, weaving down the hallway, through the kitchen, around the playroom and back into the living room. At the song’s bridge, I shouted, “Crazy dance!” The three of us twisted and turned, jumped and wiggled like loons. When the instruments suddenly stopped just before the final verse, we froze until the music restarted. Our parade picked up once again moving through the house.
And then it was over. Two minutes and fifty-six seconds of pure bliss created a memory that will stay with me a lifetime. (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?
On March 8, 2008, the Rutland Times reported the breathtaking news that the world and elsewhere would soon be privy to something quite remarkable: “Rutlemania! The Tribute Concert.” Even more impressive to fans of the Prefab Four, however, was the announcement that the famed Mods & Rockers Film Festival would be handling the official 30th-anniversary celebration of the Rutles on March 17, with Dirk (Eric Idle), Nasty (Neil Innes), Ricky Fataar (Stig), and John Halsey (Barry) all in attendance for a screening of the original 1978 version of The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash, the 1975 British TV skit that inspired the film, Rutles-related footage from Saturday Night Live, and highlights from the 2003 film The Rutles 2: Can’t Buy Me Lunch.
Damn. I really wish I could’ve been there for that.
Fortunately, David Haber from WhatGoesOn.com was there, and provided two separate reports over at his website, one a general summary and the other focusing specifically on the Rutles’ first full reunion performance ever. Better you should go there yourself rather than allow me to cannibalize all the good stuff here, but let’s just say that any event that can draw an audience that includes Andy Summers, Jeff Lynne, Aimee Mann, Michael Penn, Stephen Bishop, Howard Kaylan of the Turtles, producer extraordinaire Peter Asher (who was also half of Peter & Gordon), Emo Phillips, Marcia Strassman, and Dan Castellaneta was clearly the place to be that night.
If you’re a Beatles fan who’s never heard the genius parody that is the Rutles, you’re really missing out. It’s a fair assessment to suggest that 90 percent of all power pop is unabashedly derivative of the works of John, Paul, George, and Ringo, and plenty of comedians have taken the world’s most famous Liverpudlians and had a laugh at their expense, but few have done such an exquisite job of it and gotten the blessing of the members themselves to boot — well, three-quarters of them, anyway. George actually made a cameo in the original film; as for the others (if we can trust Wikipedia’s word on the matter), Ringo liked the happier scenes but felt the ones that mimicked the sadder times in the band’s career hit too close to home, while John loved the film so much that he refused to return the videotape and soundtrack he was given for his approval, warning Neil Innes that “Get Up and Go” was too close to “Get Back” and to be careful so as not to be sued by Paul. This might explain why Macca always said “no comment” when asked of the film at the time of its release, as well as Innes’s remark that Sir Paul “had a dinner at some awards thing at the same table as Eric one night, and Eric said it was a little frosty.”
Well, fair enough, you can kind of understand that. It’s fine and well for us to have a laugh at it all, but then, we didn’t live it. George was around for much of the planning of the original film, but according to producer Gary Weis, even the Quiet One got a bit testy at one point, snapping, “We were the Beatles, you know!” Moments later, however, he shook his head and said, “Aw, never mind.”
Yeah, yeah, we know what you’re thinking: “The Hooters? Are they even still together?” Well, actually, if you’d asked that question between 1995 and 2001, the answer would’ve been a resounding “No.” After the tremendous success of the band’s 1985 breakthrough, Nervous Night, their commercial success in the States began a gradual descent; simultaneously, however, their stock was rising overseas. When the band took a break in 1995, singer-guitarist Eric Bazilian proceeded to keep very busy as a songwriter, working with everyone from Midge Ure to Jon Bon Jovi, but when the gang got back together in 2001 he was right there with them. The Hooters did a fair amount of touring in Germany, Switzerland, and Sweden, but it wasn’t ’til 2006 that the band finally started doing some shows in the U.S. The next thing you know, the band was back in the studio to record Time Stand Still, their first album in 14 years. Popdose had the good fortune to speak with Eric about the history of the band as well as his solo career, touching on subjects like the Hooters’ omission from the Live Aid DVD, what it’s like to meet three out of four Beatles, and what a glorious gift it was to have Joan Osborne record “One of Us.”
By 1989 McCartney faced a new and unexpected challenge: restoring his commercial viability. Even such moribund albums as Wild Life and London Town had Top-Tenned during the 1970s despite critical drubbings, but the disastrous film and soundtrack Give My Regards to Broad Street in 1984 seemed to mark a tipping point in the public’s willingness to consume products of patchy quality just because they had the Macca seal of approval. In 1986 McCartney released the Hugh Padgham-produced, thoroughly modern (and not-half-bad) album Press to Play, only to watch it stall at Number 30 on the Billboard album chart and become his first long-player to fall short of gold-record status.
Oh, some things just write themselves, don’t they?
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Whether you were a child of the ’60s or (like me) of the ’70s, the Beatles’ perpetual presence on the radio seemed something of a birthright. Every “official” Beatles single between “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “The Long and Winding Road” reached the Billboard Top 40, and for five years after the band’s 1970 breakup all four members were reliable fixtures on AM radio. That omnipresence began to fade in 1975 as John Lennon went into retirement, George Harrison’s hitmaking became hit-or-miss, and Ringo … well, Ringo seemed to lose his mojo right around the time he found producer Arif Mardin.
A couple of funny things happened to Macca on the way to the ’80s, however. Sixteen days into the new decade, he was handcuffed at Tokyo International Airport while trying to smuggle a rather large quantity of weed into the country, and instead of giving him a slap on the hand and looking the other way, Japanese authorities locked him up for nine days and threatened to throw away the key (before eventually relenting). He returned home to find erstwhile bandmate Denny Laine exploiting the event with a single called “Japanese Tears,” and suddenly Paul found himself without a band once again.
Like many Saturday afternoons, we found ourselves straightening up the house, the children and I.
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?
