Category: Music

Now that I’ve written up my thoughts on the year in television, it’s time to turn my attention to the year in music. 2010 wasn’t nearly as good for me as 2009 or 2008, years in which I found bumper crops of new bands to enjoy. In fact, compared to last year, 2010 looks like pretty slim pickin’s. But there’s still enough stuff to make a Top 10 list, so here goes.

Keep one thing in mind: while the shows in my  Top 10 TV list were listed in order, the following albums are not. Music is such a subjective thing. Some albums are good for when you wanna be mellow, while others are good for cranking up and driving around. In my mind, it just doesn’t seem fair to “rank” them.

Brian Eno – Small Craft on a Milk Sea – Aside from his early work with Roxy Music, I’ve never been a fan of Eno’s “pop” music. I had one listen to 2008’s Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (a collaboration with David Byrne) and promptly deleted it off my computer. But Milk Sea is more like his ambient albums, and a good one at that. Like the rest of Eno’s ambient work, though, you have to be in the mood for it.

Duran Duran – All You Need is Now – The Fab Five (or, I guess, the Fab Four) finally got smart and decided to stop trying to appeal to teenagers with this disc, which is a callback to the circa 1983 Duran Duran we all know and love. Producer Mark Ronson said that he was trying to create a “follow-up to Rio” with this disc, and while I’m not sure it hits that high mark, it’s one of their best albums in years.

Stars – The Five Ghosts – “Wasted Daylight” is one of my favorite songs of the year, so this album probably gets more props than it should. Especially since the singing duties in Stars are shared between (male) Torquil Campbell and (female) Amy Millan. Remember when you’d listen to a Dead Can Dance album and you’d fast forward over the Brendan Perry songs? Yeah, Stars is like that too. But when Millian sings, it’s pretty indie pop. That said, their cover of “A Fairytale of New York” is a crime against humanity; it’s “came in 18 to 1”, not “10 to 1”, you douchebag!

Vampire Weekend – Contra – College music hasn’t had this much fun with nerd rock since They Might Be Giants hit the scene. Vampire Weekend might not be the best band ever, but they’re an awful lot of fun, and this is a great album.

Continue reading “My 10 Favorite Albums of 2010”

Since I’m in a musical mood this week, how about this:

She & Him are an indie band consisting of actress Zooey Deschanel (sister of Bones star Emily Deschanel) and Matthew Stephen Ward (who goes under the stage name M. Ward). I wasn’t all that impressed with their first album, Volume 1, but I’m really digging their new disc, Volume 2. Have a gander of the video for the song “Thieves”, from the new album:

Zooey doesn’t have a great voice, but it’s quirky, like her personality. The first album was kind of boring… but the new one is much more interesting.

Sure, lots of folks remember Bryan Ferry’s 1985 hit “Slave to Love”. But how many remember the sweet music video that came with it:

And yes, that’s supposed to be his daughter at the end of the video, you pervs!

The Police first played “Message in a Bottle” in public on a BBC TV show called Rock Goes To College on February 21, 1979. Here they are, live from Hatfield Polytechnic:

If you get a chance, check out other Rock Goes To College clips on YouTube. It was an interesting concept for a show: the BBC would find an up-and-coming band and arrange for them to play at a university, usually giving tickets away free to students. They’d then air the show live on TV and radio simultaneously, which allowed people to watch the show on their TVs and use their home stereos to provide a big, booming sound that televisions lacked on those days.

Other bands featured on the show include: The Boomtown Rats, AC\DC, Rich Kids, Cheap Trick, Ian Dury & the Blockheads, George Thorogood, The Cars, Average White Band, Joe Jackson, The Specials, Tom Petty, UB40, The Motels, U2, Stiff Little Fingers, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and The Stranglers… whose set was only 5 songs long; the band walked off the stage after the BBC refused to give tickets to local non-students. The band played whatever minimum number of songs that were required in the contract and refused to play any more for “elitist audiences”.

A little while back, I was surfing my favorite Internet message board when I found an interesting thread. The author proposed a thought experiment: imagine that it’s the late 80s or early 90s. You have a car with a tape deck, and you’re going on a road trip. Which 15 tapes would you bring with you?

He only proposed two big rules: the album had to be released in cassette format, and the cut off date was the year 2000. Aside from that, anything was fair game.

I made my own list, which you can see below. But keep a few of my “rules” in mind:

1) I got my first CD player for Christmas in 1985, and stopped buying pre-recorded cassettes shortly thereafter. So, in my mind, the “Age of Cassettes” is 1980 – 1986.

2) I was the “King of Mix Tapes” in my day. I bought a lot of cassettes in the 80s, but I mostly bought LPs or CDs and dumped them to blank tapes, and later took the best songs and mixed them in with tracks from other albums. So, when I think of cassettes, I tend to not think of “albums”.

Continue reading “The Road Trip List”

You ever hear a song, think “that’s nice”, and file it away in your memory… and then hear the song years later and think “wow, that’s pretty cool!”

Such is the case with me and the song “Once I Had A Love” by Blondie. The song was the basis of the later megahit “Heart of Glass”. But whereas “Glass” was much influenced by the Disco movement, “Once I Had A Love” is more of a rock and roll song, with a nifty reggae\ska beat. Many of the sounds that would by made by synthesizers in “Glass” were made by guitars in “Love”. And, most interestingly of all, the words “heart of glass” do not appear in the original at all. Where Debbie Harry would later sing “had a heart of glass”, in this version it’s “was a thing of the past”.

Have a listen:

Also, I had no idea the line “soon turned out, to be a pain in the ass” (heard in both songs) was such a big deal back in the day. Apparently the song was banned from Australian radio completely. In the UK, the BBC demanded an edited version of the song, and when the music video was played on Top of the Pops it faded out before the last verse.

Here’s a few of my favorite cover tunes!

We’ll start with Eve Plum’s version of Duran Duran’s “Save a Prayer” (stick with it to the very end, that’s my favorite part):

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIQIL-KUG-E

I also like 10,000 Maniacs covers of “Sally Ann” (The Horse Flies) and “Everyday is Like Sunday” (Morrissey) and “(Don’t Go Back to) Rockville” (R.E.M.), but can only find “Rockville” on YouTube at the moment. Amazingly, all three covers are from the same Candy Everybody Wants EP:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpIxOPUxIt4

Something funny: Most everyone knows that 10,000 Maniacs also covered the Patti Smith Group’s “Because the Night”. Many fans also know they covered David Bowie’s “Starman”, and the post-Merchant Maniacs an OK job covering Roxy Music’s “More Than This”. But the Maniacs are also responsible for one of the worst cover songs ever, of Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart”. The recording I heard was live, and Natalie Merchant sang something like “When routine gets hard, and la-la-la is low… la-la-la-la-laaaaa and la-la-la don’t grow… and la-la- our ways… take a different approach”. Whoever sang backup then took over, and Merchant would only join in the chorus. It was pitiful!

Continue reading “FRIDAY FUN: A Cavalcade of Cover Songs!”