First and foremost, I would like to extend a hearty thank you to frequent Popdose reader and commenter King of Grief, who volunteered to take my individual mp3 files for…
White Label Wednesday
David Medsker goes back in time and returns with a retro beat mix this week, featuring songs from a-ha, Wham!, Pet Shop Boys, Go West, and many more.
They’ve mostly been forgotten in the US, but ABC is one of David Medsker’s favorite bands — and their 1985 remixes are perfect for this week’s installment of White Label Wednesday.
While Mr. Dunphy’s upcoming Friday Mixtape is one of the most esoteric tributes to All Hallow’s Eve that you will ever see, I chose a more commercial (read: lazier) path…
A girl on whom I held a massive crush in high school gave me one of her senior year photos, and on the back she wrote, “I will never hear…
This week in White Label Wednesday, David Medsker flashes back to the summer of 1986 with remixes of tracks by Pet Shop Boys, Level 42, and more.
David Medsker is back with another mix of those block rockin’ beats, featuring remixes of tracks by Scritti Politti, Kool Moe Dee, Roxette, and more.
Are you ready to dance? No, seriously — are you ready to dance? Then hit the floor, because David Medsker has pulled some classic white label tracks out of the vault!
David Medsker takes us back to the waning moments of the ’80s this week, with a look at what happened when a bouncy pop hit from Q, Brother Ray, and (Chaka) Chaka Khan got the remix treatment.
People like to joke that if the Rolling Stones were to debut today, they would never be popular because they’re not attractive enough. This is not entirely accurate. I can’t…
David Medsker is kicking up the bass for another beat-heavy installment of White Label Wednesday, and — hey, who let Chico DeBarge in here?
Ladies and gentlemen, meet the rarest of breeds in the music world: the protest remix.
It’s unclear which is more inconceivable today: that a major label would release a stinging protest song aimed at the government of an extremely wealthy country, or that the song would crack the Top 40. But thanks to the overwhelming good will that came from Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” in late 1984 and USA for Africa’s “We Are the World” a few months later, benefit fatigue had thankfully not yet kicked in, and “Sun City,” shepherded by Steven Van Zandt, became a surprise hit in late 1985. Now consider some other curiosities about the track:
– Two of the verses feature rappers, a full six months before Run-DMC and Aerosmith would drop their game-changing collaboration.
– The production was by New York big beat maestro Arthur Baker, who was adored by musicians but not exactly known as a hitmaker.
– The majority of the artists who sang on the record hadn’t scored a Top 40 hit of their own in years, if ever.
Indeed, “Sun City” is about as hipster a benefit/protest record as you’re likely to find. Daryl Hall and John Oates, Pat Benatar and Bruce Springsteen are easily the biggest commercial names at the time to appear on the record, while socially conscious artists like Gabriel, Midnight Oil’s Peter Garrett and, of course, Bono would find mainstream success in the coming years. The rest of the contributors are a who’s who of New York cool. Joey Ramone, Afrika Bambaataa, Kurtis Blow, Run-DMC, Duke Bootee, Grandmaster Melle Mel, Stiv Bators and Lou Reed all make appearances, as do Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, George Clinton, a pre-comeback Bonnie Raitt, Temptations David Ruffin and Eddie Kendrick, Jimmy Cliff, Peter Wolf, and Herbie Hancock. (Jackson Browne contributes as well, though getting him to work on a protest song back then was like shooting fish in a barrel.) Bob Geldof’s name appears on the 12″ single’s back cover, though one wonders if that was the benefit record equivalent to giving Berry Gordy writing credit on a Motown single; whether he contributed to the track or not, you gotta put Bob’s name on it.
Throw together Alan White of Yes, a VW Golf, and a little girl with a chainsaw, and what have you got? Find out as David Medsker goes close (to the edit) with this week’s White Label Wednesday!
Today’s special: pink vapor stew. Yummy yum. To say that Fishbone was exploring uncharted waters when they dropped their eponymous EP in 1985 is a great understatement. They were five…
Who are these men, and why do they care so much? David Medsker finds out in the latest edition of White Label Wednesday.
A la da dat dat dadat, dat dat dat, fuckers! It only took one listen of Ritual de lo Habitual (1990), the much-anticipated sophomore effort by Jane’s Addiction, to know…
If it’s late 1987, and you’re in an alternative club or “danceteria,” odds are you’re hearing “American-Soviets” before last call. You might even hear it twice. This song was positively…
Imagine the exchange that took place when Peter Gabriel brought Us, the long-overdue follow-up to his 1986 critical and commercial smash So (proper follow-up, anyway, with all apologies to 1989’s…
I’ll be honest: I downloaded this mix a few months ago, after searching for it for years (decades, even), but planned to do nothing with it…until I read the comment…
In late 2007, I attempted to launch a weekly mp3 column on Eat Sleep Drink Music, the music blog of my employers at Bullz-Eye. However, the column was killed almost…
Rockwell once said he felt like somebody was watching him. Odds are, it was Animotion. Have you taken a close look at the lyrics to “Obsession” lately? This gives “Every…
The funny thing about music in 1985: they would make an extended mix of anything. Even funnier, people would dance to it. Take this weekÁ¢€™s subject, the UK band Vitamin…
ItÁ¢€â„¢s quite possible that this song is the Á¢€Å“Sliding DoorsÁ¢€ moment that put me on the musical path that I would ultimately follow. This is strange, when you consider that…
Sometimes, itÁ¢€™s not whom you know, but whom you call family. The interwebs are not very forthcoming about the origins and chart history of Boogie Box High, the nom de…
Or, White Label Wednesday, Before They Were Stars Edition Underworld would like you believe that they were immaculately conceived in 1994 as the spooky techno band that Á¢€Å“debutedÁ¢€ with dubnobasswithmyheadman,…
Everyone seemed to have so much fun jumping into the wayback machine with Nicolette Larson Á¢€” and really, who wouldnÁ¢€â„¢t want to jump into a wayback machine with Nicolette Larson?…
I’ve never been a big fan of Neil Young — I’ll just say it, itÁ¢€â„¢s that pinched voice of his — but I will admit to liking several of his…
Á¢€Å“Awwwww, yeah! I see a real woman, I need to grab her, she busts out yodelinÁ¢€â„¢Á¢€¦Á¢€ There is just no better way to open a song than that. In 1988,…
Imagine my surprise when I visited my then-girlfriend Á¢€” anyone who read my ValentineÁ¢€â„¢s Day piece knows her well Á¢€” over Christmas break in 1992, and in her car was…
Hope you’re not wearing anything too fancy, because we’re about to get dirty. Bill Drummond and Jimmy Caulty have about as many aliases as Alain Jourgenson. As the Timelords, they…