Posts Tagged ‘Smokey Robinson’

  
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

Bottom Feeders: The Ass End of the ’80s, Part 74

by Dave Steed

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See, here’s what I like about writing this column. Some weeks I give you a song you haven’t heard or a factoid about a band that you didn’t know. Other weeks you guys give me information I don’t know and turn me on to music that’s missing from my life. Of course that happened last week with the Replacements chatter in the comments.

So far I’ve been able to get to two of their albums. I know you guys recommended I start with Tim (1985), but I haven’t been able to hit that one yet. I have, however, listened to Let It Be (’84) and Pleased to Meet Me (’87), with pleasing results.

I went with Let It Be first and thought it was decent, but it doesn’t flow very well at all. I dug “Favorite Thing” and the cover of Kiss’s “Black Diamond” the most.

Then I moved to Pleased to Meet Me, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The first three tracks — “I.O.U.,” “Alex Chilton,” and “I Don’t Know” — are killer, with the latter being my favorite of the three. Pleased certainly feels more like an album than Let It Be, and based on just those two records I can pretty much tell I’m going to like the major-label-era Replacements the most.

Either way, both records were very much worth my time, and I will listen to Tim soon, so thanks to everyone for the recommendations and for turning me on to a band I never would’ve listened to otherwise. That’s part of what this series is all about.

Here’s our third week of artists whose names begin with the letter R, as we continue to look at songs that charted no higher than #41 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the 1980s.

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Friday, October 2nd, 2009

The Popdose Podcast: Episode 1

by Jason Hare

This is something we’ve been talking about doing for a long time — in fact, we really thought we’d be debuting the Popdose Podcast over a year ago. It wasn’t until we were finally able to trick our friend Dave Lifton into shuttering his long-running and wildly popular Wings for Wheels series that our plans came together — with the technical savvy necessary to edit our nonsensical jabbering into pure audio entertainment, and a strong enough personality to keep the entire podcast from dissolving into a giggling fit of mom jokes, Dave was the crucial final ingredient we were waiting for all along.

So open up your pod, baby, and let us in — and remember, this is only our debut. Even television classics like According to Jim didn’t enjoy their finest moments until they’d had a little time to hit their stride, and you have no idea what we have in store for you during the coming months. (Note: neither do we.) Like what you hear? Hate it? Drop us a line in the comments and let us know. And now, without further ado…

The Popdose Podcast, Episode 1: Donkey Eatin’ a Pony (1:09:49, 64.9 MB), featuring Jeff Giles, Jason Hare, and Dave Lifton.
You can also subscribe to the podcast’s RSS feed.

Show Notes

0:00 Intro, including digressions into the end of Guiding Light, and Jason’s ass.

5:05 Jeff Giles discusses ASCAP and BMI demanding fees for 30-second samples on iTunes, plus, how Popdose may be affected.

18:53 Dave Lifton discusses hipsters ironically nostalgic for the ’80s, which leads to digressions into Lionel Richie, J-Stache, his taint and Richard Marx sniffing it, the Michael McDonald/Grizzly Bear collaboration, Jason Lytle covering Billy Joel, Daryl Hall’s expensive house, and Smokey Robinson & George Michael singing “Careless Whisper.”

38:20 Jason Hare credits Terje Fjelde’s awesome Popdose podcast contributions, then discusses Mariah Carey appearing on Oprah and covering Foreigner. Digressions continue into Mariah’s “All I Want for Christmas is You,” Journey, The Saw Lady, and Wing.

54:31 Popdose Endorsements (official title yet to be determined; offer your suggestions in the comments!): Jeff endorses fun. (song clip: “Benson Hedges”)

57:06 Popdose Endorsements: Dave endorses Robbie Fulks (song clip: “Papa Was A Steel-Headed Man”)

58:51 Popdose Endorsements: Jason endorses the Damnwells and Tragedy: An All-Metal Tribute to the Bee Gees (song clip: “Stayin’ Alive)

1:02:00 Outro: Jeff highlights his interview with Zach Curd of Desktop (song: “My Boo,” a Popdose exclusive track)

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Posted in Featured, Featured - Frontpage, Music, Podcast, Popdose | Comments

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

One Day in Your Life: September 16, 1987

by J.A. Bartlett

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September 16, 1987, is a Wednesday. A front-page story in the New York Times details the growing plagiarism scandal surrounding Delaware Senator Joseph Biden, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Commitee. Biden’s committee is holding confirmation hearings for Supreme Court appointee Robert Bork. Schools across the country celebrate the bicentennial of the Constitution. Pope John Paul II continues a visit to the United States; today, he’s in Los Angeles, where he celebrates mass at Dodger Stadium and stresses the need for religious communities to draw together “in a common concern for man’s earthly welfare, especially world peace.” President Reagan speaks on the steps of the Capitol at “A Celebration of Citizenship,” as school children across the country celebrate the bicentennial of the Constitution. The mayors of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and Hsin Tien, Taiwan, sign a sister-city proclamation. National Football League players and owners are eyeball-to-eyeball in a labor dispute; in six days, the players will go on strike, resulting in the cancellation of one week’s games and the playing of three others with replacement players. Bob Boone of the California Angels appears in his 1,919th game at catcher, which is a major league record. (more…)

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Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

CD Review: Human Nature, “Reach Out”

by Robert Cass

“In the style of the boy-band vocal bands of the time, Human Nature became Australia’s most successful pop group of the ’90s and beyond,” according to their Allmusic.com biography, “outselling their international contemporaries Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, and Boyzone.”

Up until a few weeks ago, I’d never heard of these guys. Then again, what I don’t know could fill a warehouse.

And after listening to Reach Out (Sony/RED), I could swear that the vocal group’s introduction to American audiences will be filling warehouses for months to come, but Human Nature are multiplatinum artists Down Under — they transitioned from boys to men in the past decade by ditching dance-pop and embracing, well, dance-pop from an earlier era. In 2005 they released Reach Out: The Motown Album, followed by Dancing in the Street: The Songs of Motown II in ‘06, and by the time of 2007’s Get Ready, they were enlisting guest appearances by the Temptations, the Supremes’ Mary Wilson, and Smokey Robinson, who’s “presenting” their current “Ultimate Celebration of Motown” stage show at the Imperial Palace in Las Vegas. The back cover of the Reach Out CD booklet even advertises the show, which I have to assume, based on the contents of the album, is the main event.

The American version of Reach Out takes songs from all three of Human Nature’s Motown albums and erases any telltale copyright dates from the liner notes. In other words, “it’s new to you!” And if you’ve never heard the originals that are being covered by the Aussie quartet (brothers Michael and Andrew Tierney, Toby Allen, and Phil Burton, all of whom have been singing together since high school in the ’80s, when Motown nostalgia was first becoming a booming business), you might think the melodies are pretty catchy, with a good beat you can dance to. In other words, if you’re under ten years old, this is a serviceable introduction to Motown, but if you’re in double digits, Reach Out comes across as professional karaoke — the only acknowledgment of any Fauxtown backing band is “the gifted musicians who helped create this record.” Might one of those musicians be named Mac, and is it possible another one goes by the initials “PC”? (Allmusic.com does in fact list the musicians who worked on the three Australian releases, but their instruments still sound canned either way.)

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Monday, May 18th, 2009

Jesus of Cool: We Wuz Robbed! Great #2 Hits of the ’60s

by Jon Cummings

Welcome to the second installment of an ongoing series celebrating songs that fell excruciatingly short of ascending to the top of Billboard’s pop singles chart. In the course of compiling and monitoring responses to the series’ first column a couple weeks ago, I learned a number of things, the most important of which were:

1. Unbeknownst to me as I wrote about the #2 hits of the ’50s – and in the process wrote the snappy sentence, “You don’t see Fred Bronson compiling five editions of The Billboard Book of #2 Hits, do you?” – it turns out that a Billboard Book of Number 2 Hits was indeed published in 2000. I have chosen to invoke the Pelosi defense: I was misled by the book’s obscurity into thinking it didn’t exist. My case is bolstered by the facts that Bronson had nothing to do with it (some fella named Christopher Feldman wrote it), and that the book went out of print without ever reaching a second edition. So, ha! You may read much of it on Google Books or buy a copy at Amazon Marketplace, or you may purchase a digital copy for the Amazon Kindle. (Don’t everybody run out all at once to blow $359 on a Kindle.) Needless to say, I didn’t use Feldman’s book as a reference in the first column; I make no such promises from here on out.

2. As I slog through six decades’ worth of fodder for future editions of this column, I’m going to have to dig deep for euphemisms that put some pizzazz behind the idea of a song being kept out of the #1 slot by another song. I believe that my low point in the last column came in the teaser for this one, when I left the distinct impression that Smokey Robinson might once have been “cock-blocked” by Lawrence Welk (see #4 below). Whoever the object of Smokey’s thwarted affections might have been in such a scenario, I am now convinced that at no time was Welk ever involved in blocking Smokey’s cock, and I apologize for the inference.

As a reminder, we’re giving extra weight to hits by artists who never reached #1, to songs that were far superior to the rivals that overtook them on the charts, and to plain old great songs that deserved the extra glory that the top of the Hot 100 brings. I’ll follow my choices with a list of other #2 hits of the decade, and we can debate their merits in the comments section. Now, on with the countdown!

11. “She’s Not There,” the Zombies. Keyboardist/songwriter Rod Argent made the Top 10 four times between 1964 and ’72 – three as leader of the Zombies, before he got greedy and named his next band after himself. Colin Blumstone sang lead for the Zombies, and just as his vocals offered more nuance than most of his early-British Invasion counterparts, “She’s Not There” was an awfully sophisticated single for an era when even the Beatles were still cranking out “I Feel Fine” and “Eight Days a Week.” Sadly, “She’s Not There” was left knocking on #1’s door while Bobby Vinton came through the window with “Mr. Lonely.” Even more annoying, Vinton’s hit version used the exact same backing track as Buddy Greco’s #64 smash of two years before! That’s just not right. (more…)

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Monday, January 12th, 2009

Motown at 50

by Ken Shane

The TemptationsToday is a very important day in the history of popular music. It was on this day in 1959 that Motown was born. An auto worker by the name of Berry Gordy borrowed $800 from his father to start the company, and to create a headquarters at 2648 West Grand Boulevard in Detroit. The sign over the door said “Hitsville USA,” and that was no idle boast. The building is a museum today. Motown left Detroit in 1972, leaving behind a city that is still struggling economically.

You’ve no doubt heard the story many times, but here are some of the names; The Temptation, The Supremes, The Four Tops, Martha and the Vandellas, The Marvelettes, Smokey and the Miracles, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Mary Wells. The producers were equally legendary, including the team of Holland, Dozier and Holland, and Norman Whitfield.

The musicians who played on the records were known as the Funk Brothers. They were largely forgotten until the wonderful documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown was released a few years back, giving wonderful musicians like James Jamerson, Benny Benjamin, Joe Hunter, Earl Van Dyke, and Richard “Pistol” Allen, the recognition that they have deserved for so long.

So if you’ve ever danced to a Motown song, or if hearing one of the songs on the radio takes you back to another time in your life, today is a day to celebrate this great American institution.

It’s impossible to choose one song to represent the incredible heritage of Motown Records. So I decided to choose something that I like, that you might not have heard recently. Enjoy:

The Temptations and The Four Tops Medley (live)

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Monday, August 18th, 2008

Popdose Interview: Martin Fry of ABC

by Will Harris

When music journalist Martin Fry popped ’round a practice by the band Vice Versa in Sheffield, England, in 1980, it’s unlikely that he had any idea that he was embarking upon a journey that would, in 28 years time, find him playing dates alongside Belinda Carlisle, The Human League, Naked Eyes, and A Flock of Seagulls on an endeavor known as the Regeneration Tour. And, yet, that’s what’s keeping Fry’s band, ABC, hopping around the USA this summer. For the first time in many moons, ABC even has a new album to promote: Traffic, a record which harks back to…well, pretty much every single stage of the band’s musical evolution, really. Popdose had the opportunity to speak to Fry about the tour, and we took the opportunity to quiz him about not only the new record but also his entire back catalog, stopping along the way to have him explain a lyric, reflect on his VH-1 appearances, and discuss working with Trevor Horn.

Martin Fry: Hello! I was expecting your call. How are you doing?

Popdose: I’m doing well! We actually talked about two years ago…

MF: Oh, yeah?

PD: Yep. So it’s nice to have the opportunity to speak with you again.

MF: I’m still at it! We’re still out there touring!

PD: So you are! In fact, you’re going to be in my area in just under two weeks. So let’s start by talking about the new record, Traffic. How shocked were you when the first single, “The Very First Time,” was added to Radio 2’s “A” playlist?

MF: It was a good feeling. It was nice to walk back into the BBC. I walked back in, and I saw Doctor Who! Are you familiar with Doctor Who?

PD: Absolutely. I’m a big fan.

MF: He’s a big part of the BBC franchise. And Jonathan Ross, he’s another guy there. But it was nice to be welcomed back, yeah, and it was great hearing a brand new ABC tune on the radio.

PD: Were you pleasantly surprised?

MF: Yeah, I was, really. I’ve been touring a great deal, and I get associated with the 1980s, and I’m proud of that, but it’s good to be able to pepper the set with some new songs, yeah.

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PD: Now, reports of the impending release of Traffic were exaggerated, to say the least. By, uh, years.

MF: Oh, yeah! I wrote a new song ten years ago, and I’ve been itching to make a new record for a long time, but what can you do? (Laughs) But having said that, with Traffic, in a way, it’s opened a lot of doors for me, so I’m hoping the next ABC album won’t take ten years to arrive. I don’t want it to be like a lunar eclipse; I’d rather it be a welcome friend you’ve not seen for a little while.

PD: You and David Palmer wrote most, if not all, of the album…

MF: Yeah, pretty much all of it, with Chuck Kentis.

PD: How quickly did you fall back into writing together? Because it had been quite a while.

MF: Well, we wrote in quick bursts. He’s playing drums with Rod Stewart…and still is. He’s in Cincinnati right now, I think. But I went over to L.A., Pacific Palisades, and we started just writing songs in his garage, and it took us right back to when we first started in the early ‘80s. It was just good to get back to doing it for the love of the music. We wrote “The Very First Time” and “Sixteen Seconds to Choose” and “Ride” and “One Way Traffic” together, and it just felt good again. In the meantime, I’ve been playing live with ABC on the circuit a lot, and, in a way, making a new record and 12 new songs just felt like a sort of added bonus.

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