So there it is, really. Two decades encapsulated in two indelible pieces of ephemera: the red-swimsuit Farrah Fawcett poster, a field of blast-white teeth framed by feathered blonde hair — a mainstay of the 1970s — and Michael Jackson’s Thriller album, a disc housing songs you know by heart.
With Farrah, we knew it was coming. She made her living less as an actress than a professional provocateur, first with her sole season on Charlie’s Angels, then with the poster, then with her bid for serious acting acclaim once she’d been relegated to pure cheesecake status. In the ’90s she posed nude in Playboy to show that sexiness was more than an accessory for girls under 25.
Then in recent years it was her struggle with cancer, a fact she didn’t try to hide, culminating with a candid special on NBC last month that documented her ups and downs. The public held out hope, said a prayer, kept their fingers crossed. But in the end we knew the grim reality that lay ahead. For an industry that prides itself on looking its best, Farrah Fawcett’s invitation to the world to walk that dark road with her will stand as perhaps her most provocative — and most courageous — act.
With Michael Jackson … well, nobody expected this.
It’s amazing, the things a guy can learn even at my advanced age. The real treat for me, in slapping together this (too)-long-running series – which already has examined hits from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s that ran out of gas just one block short of the Texaco – has been the opportunity to put into context some of the music-geek trivia that’s been crowding out more important information in my head for the last 30 years.
I’m embarrassed to say I was able to sit down at my laptop and reel off the names of about three dozen #2 hits from the grand and glorious ’80s without even cracking open my ever-present Joel Whitburn or Fred Bronson singles bibles. (The fact that I could do that, but can’t tie a Windsor knot, may explain why my career on Wall Street never took off. It also made narrowing down to 10 songs for this list a painful experience.) But it’s one thing to keep song titles and chart placements in your memory; it’s another to marvel at the tricks of fate, poor taste, or record-biz manipulation that launch one single over another on the way to Top 40 glory. Take this first juxtaposition, for example:
11. “Hazy Shade of Winter,” the Bangles. Here’s the hit that slaps some sense into those who mistake the Bangles for a novelty act, or stubbornly cling to the notion that Susanna, Vicki, Debbi and Michael didn’t really rock. They took a 20-year-old, twee-as-all-get-out Simon & Garfunkel tune and turned it into a fuzz-guitar anthem of ’80s excess, the perfect theme for what should have been a much better movie based on Bret Easton Ellis’ Hollywood-druggies novel Less than Zero. (Funny how the movie biz managed to mangle both Ellis’ book and Jay McInerney’s New York equivalent, Bright Lights, Big City. Of course, casting pretty boys Andrew McCarthy and Michael J. Fox as jaded protagonists didn’t help.) Anyway, how were the Bangles rewarded for their maturity and brilliance in transforming “Hazy Shade of Winter”? They were left in the dust by the god-awful ballad “Could’ve Been,” which might have been less terrible had it not been butchered by that caterwauling, flavor-of-the-month, shopping-mall princess Tiffany. A slightly interesting fact about “Could’ve Been”: Its composer, Lois Blaisch, was “discovered” while singing for her supper at a recently-shuttered restaurant a few miles from my house, called the Hungry Hunter. I knew there had to be a reason why I never considered going into that place … besides, of course, the goofiness of its name, particularly considering that it sat in the middle of a SoCal strip mall… (more…)
Many thanks to Reader Jeff (an old pal from my Rutgers days) for reminding me about the time Uncle Donnie was invited up on stage at a D’Angelo show to play tambourine. Well, he wasn’t really invited; he just kinda wandered up there. But according to Jeff, Donnie had some mad percussion skills, so much so that D’Angelo didn’t notice him until the encore. Jeff also mentioned the air in the arena was thick with the scent of the stuff we used to smell coming out of “Boner” Bonaski’s room on the weekends. Anyway, Uncle Donnie recently had some words for D’Angelo, and I faithfully reprint them here. – RS
TO: D’Angelo
FROM: Don Skwatzenschitz
RE: Career advice
Nine years? Could it really be nine years since you dropped Voodooon us, made everyone who heard you a fan, wowed everyone who saw you live with one of the great soul tours of the last two or three decades, excited all the women who thought they were seeing you naked in that video (including Mitzi, my wife—you remember her, don’t you? Five-three, pink and blue floral housecoat, loves cooking with G-13)? Nine years? Halley’s Comet might not come around as often as you release records, but at least we know when we’ll see it again.
That Spin magazine article from last year got us all worried about your apparent drinking problem, but it also gave us hope. Half an album nearly done, maybe even a little more, and progress being made toward completing it? It reminded us you were out there, somewhere, working through your problems, yes, but also creating again. It whetted the appetite, but that’s all. And hell, Maxwell is even back with a new single, a tour, and (allegedly) an album on the way. He also looks like he’s taken to wearing a Mario Van Peebles mask around all day, every day.
Nine years? Time to get back in the game, buddy. But if you don’t want to, I understand. I have some alternatives for you, though. What do you think about the following? (more…)
Love her or hate her, Madonna defined popular music – screw that, she defined popular culture – like no one else during the 1980s. Her 16 straight Top-5 singles (from “Lucky Star” to “Cherish”) are unmatched by any act in history; her clothing choices defined tween fashion for much of the decade; and her penchant for simultaneously generating controversy and commerce has served as a template for spotlight-hogging celebs ever since. And let’s not get started on her film career …
Anyway, with her last album of the decade Madonna took it all to a new level, and cemented her status as the biggest star of the ’80s. After all, how many artists can piss off Pepsi and the pope in one fell swoop?
The Material Girl actually had gone sorta quiet in 1988, leaving the pop charts to George Michael and Michael Jackson while she tried her hand at theater in David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow. Even as her not-too-badly received Broadway run continued from May through December, Madonna went into the studio in the fall with her usual compatriots, Patrick Leonard and Stephen Bray – along with a certain diminutive purple-clad figure with whom she would record one song publicly, and who would contribute to a couple others in secret.
The early buzz around the making of Like a Prayer was overshadowed during late 1988 and early ‘89 by a cultural controversy that had been brewing – make that bubbling – for a few years. The nation’s leading soft-drink companies had made pop stars an important part of their competition for market share, a development that (figuratively speaking) set many rock purists’ hair on fire. They accused artists like Michael, Whitney Houston and Jackson (whose hair had proved quite literally flammable) of selling out the music in pursuit of the almighty dollar; they howled once more when Madonna was given the then-enormous sum of $5 million to debut the “Like a Prayer” single in a commercial for Pepsi, which also bought sponsorship rights to her 1990 tour. (more…)
Happy Friday, everyone, and welcome back to CHART ATTACK! This is a pretty solid, diverse week on the charts: six out of our ten artists are black, and the other four are, like, the whitest artists in the world. They’re all a part of April 22, 1972!
10. Doctor My Eyes — Jackson BrowneAmazoniTunes 9. A Cowboy’s Work is Never Done — Sonny & CherAmazoniTunes 8. Heart of Gold — Neil YoungAmazoniTunes 7. Day Dreaming — Aretha FranklinAmazoniTunes 6. Betcha By Golly, Wow — The StylisticsAmazoniTunes 5. In the Rain — The DramaticsAmazoniTunes 4. A Horse With No Name — AmericaAmazoniTunes 3. I Gotcha — Joe TexAmazoniTunes 2. Rockin’ Robin — Michael JacksonAmazoniTunes 1. The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face — Roberta FlackAmazoniTunes
10. Doctor My Eyes — Jackson Browne
I’ve never really paid much attention to Jackson Browne, but I really, really like this song. I love the piano with the stuck key at the beginning. I love David Crosby’s backing vocals (and I didn’t know until now that Nash was on there as well). I love the percussion, and I love the guitar work. And of course I love the bass playing — it’s frickin’ Lee Sklar! Who doesn’t love Lee Sklar?
This was Browne’s debut single from his debut album, and his only entry in the Top 10 until 1982’s “Somebody’s Baby” (which was his last). The song was covered — and this totally baffles me — by the Jackson 5 almost instantly, appearing on their 1972 album Lookin’ Through the Windows. The “baby, baby” opening kind of sucks, but Michael sounds great.
Let me just play you something. Here’s the opening of “A Cowboy’s Work is Never Done.”
Got it? Okay, now listen to this.
Am I crazy?
Peaking at #8, this incredibly stupid song was (thankfully) the last Top 10 hit for Sonny & Cher. And you know what sucks more than this song? This song’s video. Watch Sonny Bono play air guitar. It’s terrible.
8. Heart of Gold — Neil Young
Neil Young has only had one #1 single in his career. This is it. And it’s his only song to crack the Top 30 as well. I think it’s safe to say that Neil Young is a failure. I’m sure he’d agree.
Hi, everybody! This week’s CHART ATTACK! takes us back a whopping 22 years, and wow, do I feel old, considering I remember hearing just about every single one of these songs on the radio when they first came out. The songs this week aren’t that bad, actually, but as you’ll soon see, almost all of them are linked together in…well…just about the worst way possible. Stay tuned as we review the Top 10 from April 11, 1987!
“The Finer Things” is just one of the many collaborations between Winwood and his writing partner for most of the ’80s, Will Jennings. Jennings co-wrote almost all of Winwood’s hits, including “While You See a Chance,” which clearly inspired the opening of this song — all synths, baby! I’m usually anti-synth, but if it’s Steve Winwood, I’m okay with it. “The Finer Things” was the second biggest hit from Back in the High Life, peaking at #8.
Jennings, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, is quite the accomplished songwriter: in addition to his work with Winwood, he wrote/co-wrote songs such as “Tears in Heaven,” “Up Where We Belong” and “My Heart Will Go On.” There’s a nice interview with him over at Songfacts.
I had no idea I had ever heard this song before until I reached the chorus, although to be fair, it’s not like I can really remember the verses of “Everybody Have Fun Tonight,” either. While this song did make it to the Top 10 (peaking here at #9), it wasn’t a strong enough hit to make the overall Hot 100 for 1987. I do like this mention of the song over at Wikipedia, though (emphasis mine): “The single was a hit for Wang Chung in the United States, and it provided the band with their second (and so far, last) top-10 hit.” Isn’t that cute? Who knows, everybody — Wang Chung may be making a comeback! Simple Minds, you’re on deck!
Not much to say about “Let’s Go!” — It follows the same format as their previous hit: stupid lyrics, catchy chorus. But, uh, hey: if you liked Kids Incorporated, this should be a happy day for you. They covered it!
8. Midnight Blue — Lou Gramm
I remember what my father said. He said, “Son, life is simple. It’s either cherry red, or midnight blue.”
What the hell does that mean? Is that really the best advice you got from your father? ‘Cause that’s shitty advice. Really shitty advice. It’s just unhelpful. Is there some double entendre I’m missing here?
Every now and then there are songs that come down the pike that people just love, love, love. But you know what? The songs are actually kind of stupid and annoying. For every power house song by a group like say U2 on the charts, there’s a “Karma Chameleon” right up there, too. Why these songs are so popular is one of those mysteries that I don’t think we’ll ever solve.
Don’t get me wrong, just because I mentioned U2 or a Culture Club song doesn’t mean I’m going to focus on the ’80s — I’ll leave that to Dave Steed and John Hughes. Rather, I thought I would feature popular, but ultimately annoying songs that aren’t that old.
Oh for Christ’s sake, this is just embarrassingly bad. Wait! Is there such a thing as “embarrassingly good?” Probably not. You know, it’s not just the yodeling, but the whole production. First off, did Gwen lose her way and give in to producers telling her that she needed another “Hollaback Girl?” And secondly…oh, just forget it. I don’t have the energy for this. (more…)
Big Daddy is a musical group with a rather unusual back story. I’ll let the liner notes explain:
While on a USO tour of Southeast Asia in 1959, Big Daddy was captured by Communist forces and held captive until the mid 80’s at which time they were rescued by CIA forces and subsequently returned to the United States. While being held at Camp David for de-briefing, they were given sheet music of contemporary hit songs so that they could re-build their repertoire and get back to the only work they knew…making music. Of course, not having heard the evolution of Rock music during the quarter century they spent imprisoned in the jungles of Laos, they arranged and performed these songs the only way they knew how…in the classic styles of the 1950’s.
So basically you have a mashup of songs from the ’80s and ’90s done in ’50s style, and these guys pull it off pretty well. Sometimes the newer song is in the style of a specific older song, and sometimes it would just be in an older style (or I wouldn’t recognize a specific older song when I heard it). Here are some examples:
Here’s the classic Ryu Sakamoto song “Sukiyaki” done in the style of The Beach Boys’ “Don’t Worry Baby”:
One reason I included this next one is that there seem to be rather strong feelings among the Popdose staff regarding the movie Titanic and Celine Dion. Well, guys, maybe you’ll enjoy this version of “My Heart Will Go On” a little better! (You’re dead, Redman. Dead. –Ed.)
These three songs were exclusive to this album, and the main reason I chose them (aside from them being good songs) is because of something that always used to bother the heck out of me. I always hated it when a recording artist or group would put out a Greatest Hits or Best Of album with new songs added in. Guys, we’re your fans. The reason you have hits at all (great or otherwise) is because we bought them when they came out. I always felt that making us buy an album that we already own most of just to get the new stuff was a pretty lousy way to treat the people that made them their money. Now I’m treating Big Daddy as a kind of scapegoat here, and I don’t mean to, especially since in their case their first two albums were never released on CD and only one of the others is still available at all. And admittedly this is a lot less of a problem now that you can usually buy songs individually through iTunes or elsewhere online. But it still drives me crazy when I see it. OK, I’ll get off my soapbox now…
I’m reluctantly including this fourth song because I think it deserved to be on the album, although it is available to purchase from their album Cutting Their Own Groove (which is highly recommended by me, of course). This takes the George Michael classic “I Want Your Sex” and turns it into a romantic stroll. I really like this one, not only because of the somewhat silly mashup of styles here, but of a really neat thing that (with my limited musical knowledge) I’ve never heard done in a song. Around the 2:00 mark, right as the singer sings the line “A man’s got his patience, here’s where mine ends,” he pops the last note up an octave and holds it and it cross fades into the saxophone holding the same note as it starts the instrumental break. It’s just a really cool effect that gives me goosebumps every time I hear it.
It’s the curse of the debut album: the artist, unsure of who he/she is or what he/she ought to sound like strikes out in all directions — a power ballad here, a blues grinder there, a piano pop-tune way over yonder. The artist can be forgiven for their somewhat schizoid aim since the label has put all the weight of the company, as well as one’s own career path, down on their freshman shoulders. With that in mind, W. Axl Rose is the oldest freshman in the history of music, as his magnum opus Chinese Democracy has finally seen the light of day. The good news is that it isn’t the unmitigated failure we expected, yet it is far from the triumphant return from exodus his handlers would like you to believe.
It is the equivalent of time travel wrapped in aluminum, or vinyl if you so desire, as songs that gestated through the 15-year span in between it and the previous covers album The Spaghetti Incident? (1993) have not been updated to any semblance of modernity. Rose’s flirtation with industrial rock in the early nineties, plainly NIN-fluenced, are left intact and instantly dated as are the tracks that are NU-fluenced. Korn should be proud to hear the presence of down-tuning, hip-hop loop beats and scream chants on a GNR album, but even Linkin Park jumped that train and caught a taxi to emo-town. I suppose we dodged a Rose-colored, mascaraed bullet on that.
But there are a couple songs that I didn’t mind listening to. In fact, if “Better” came on the radio, I might not turn the dial. It has a semblance of the old attitude the band once had, and not too much of the stylistic shout-outs that bog down the rest of the album. “Shackler’s Revenge” survives a disheartening opening to reveal itself as one of the stronger tracks, and because I do have a soft spot for proggish bombast and consider “November Rain” my favorite GNR tune, “There Was A Time” survives the time trials. But where I finished Metallica’s Death Magnetic and thought, “I’ll still listen to Justice and the black album more, but I’ll revisit this occasionally too,” I can only bring myself to clicking off my favorites in Chinese Democracy’s jumble and dumping them into a hard-rock mixtape. The rest of the album is skip-fodder and, considering the majority of my music listening happens in my car, I’d rather play a different CD and keep my eyes on the road. (more…)
Hey everybody! Just think: one week from now, you’ll probably be feeling full and somewhat nauseous from all the food you’ve ingested. I say, why wait a week? Get that nauseous feeling right now as we tackle the Billboard Top 10 from November 24, 1984!
10. I Just Called to Say I Love You — Stevie WonderAmazoniTunes 9. Penny Lover — Lionel RichieAmazoniTunes 8. All Through the Night — Cyndi LauperAmazoniTunes 7. Strut — Sheena EastonAmazoniTunes 6. Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run) — Billy OceanAmazoniTunes 5. Better Be Good to Me — Tina TurnerAmazoniTunes 4. Out of Touch — Daryl Hall and John OatesAmazoniTunes 3. I Feel For You — Chaka KhanAmazoniTunes 2. Purple Rain — Prince and the RevolutionAmazoniTunes 1. Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go — Wham!AmazoniTunes
10. I Just Called to Say I Love You — Stevie Wonder
It’s funny ’cause it’s true! There are, sadly, a lot of people out there who think of this song when they think of Stevie Wonder, and seriously, that pains me. You know who I’m talking about. You probably work with them.
Barry asks another important question here: “Is it, in fact, unfair to criticize a formerly great artist for his latter day sins?” No, it’s not. Stevie Wonder may be a musical genius, but it doesn’t mean I have to love everything he’s ever released. “I Just Called to Say I Love You” is actually a well-written song. It’s poppy, it’s catchy, and the sentiment is simple, yet original. However, none of this changes the fact that this is song comes nowhere near the caliber of his work from the ’70s. And I’m still on the fence as to whether I give him credit or points off for the cha-cha-cha ending.
When I hear this song today (and I try not to), this is what I usually think about:
When you’re on fire like Lionel Richie in 1984, you can do whatever the hell you want. You can write a song called “Penny Lover,” which is not actually about somebody who loves pennies, or even about someone who loves girls named Penny. And you can sit back and watch your song reach the Top 10, without batting an eye. That being said, “Penny Lover” peaked at #8 and thus became Richie’s lowest-charting solo single to date. This doesn’t seem so bad until you realize that he co-wrote the song with his wife, Brenda, and you just know that Lionel got the shit kicked out of him for that one. “You write a song with ‘Tam bo li de say de moi ya” and it goes to #1, but my song stalls at #8? Go outside and find me a switch!”
With Farrah, we knew it was coming. She made her living less as an actress than a professional provocateur, first with her sole season on Charlie’s Angels, then with the poster, then with her bid for serious acting acclaim once she’d been relegated to pure cheesecake status. In the ’90s she posed nude in Playboy to show that sexiness was more than an accessory for girls under 25.
It’s amazing, the things a guy can learn even at my advanced age. The real treat for me, in slapping together this (too)-long-running series – which already has examined hits from the 
TO: D’Angelo
The Material Girl actually had gone sorta quiet in 1988, leaving the pop charts to George Michael and Michael Jackson while she tried her hand at theater in David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow. Even as her not-too-badly received Broadway run continued from May through December, Madonna went into the studio in the fall with her usual compatriots, Patrick Leonard and Stephen Bray – along with a certain diminutive purple-clad figure with whom she would record one song publicly, and who would contribute to a couple others in secret.
I always hated it when a recording artist or group would put out a 
(which is highly recommended by me, of course). This takes the ![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=dd96ae72-b7c5-432a-85a5-b35d6482fa00)
It’s the curse of the debut album: the artist, unsure of who he/she is or what he/she ought to sound like strikes out in all directions — a power ballad here, a blues grinder there, a piano pop-tune way over yonder. The artist can be forgiven for their somewhat schizoid aim since the label has put all the weight of the company, as well as one’s own career path, down on their freshman shoulders. With that in mind, W. Axl Rose is the oldest freshman in the history of music, as his magnum opus Chinese Democracy has finally seen the light of day. The good news is that it isn’t the unmitigated failure we expected, yet it is far from the triumphant return from exodus his handlers would like you to believe.