Category: Music

Songs and bands I love!

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REVIEW: New Order’s Waiting For The Siren’s Call

What: A review of New Order’s newest album
Where: Stores everywhere, April or May 2005
How Much: Around $15

I wish more of the members of my musical generation would die early. Seriously! Think about those tired, old 60s “heroes”… Would Jim Morrison still be revered as an “American Poet” if he was playing in Branson, Missouri today? Would Jimi Hendrix still be granted God-like status if he were pimpin’ his new albums via late night infomercial? Would people still get all misty-eyed about Janis Joplin if she was telling us to “get more” from T-Mobile?

Instead of our rock gods dying early, it seems that far too many of them are pumping out album after album of dreck that ends up in the $1.99 bin faster than William Hung’s newest crapbomb. Lord knows I loved The Cure back in the day, but to see Robert Smith still trying to fly his freak flag at age 45 is saddening. Watching Sting trying to remain “cool” while putting out disc after disc of elevator music is saddening. Even though Motley Crue and Guns and Roses are not my type of music, watching Vince Neil and Axl Rose still trying to be relevant is saddening. Even though Duran Duran’s new album is pretty damn good, it easily could have been a train wreck of the first order. It’s all depressing and it’s senseless, and that’s where this New Order disc comes in.

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Has The Music Industry Lost Its Mind?? (Part 2)

In part two of a two-part rant, Jim Cofer discusses the Sony DRM fiasco and its long-term implications for DRM within the music industry in general. Hopefully, this article will be far more coherent than part one, which was just some assorted rambling.

Karma’s a bitch, ain’t it? It seems the bad news just won’t stop for Sony Music these days – and given their almost maniacal hated and distrust of their own customers, it’s not hard to see why karma’s so busy dumping on them lately. Just about every website on the planet – including this one; see my news for 11/01 – covered the initial news about the “rootkit” that Sony included on 20-50 audio CDs for sale in the United States. Here’s a brief recap in case you missed some of the finer points of the story:

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The Cure or Mr Rogers?

Do you remember MTV’s Remote Control??? It was a game show hosted by Ken Ober (with occasional guest Adam Sandler!) that featured categories like “Dead or Canadian” – where contestants were given a list of celebrities and had to guess whether each was… well, dead or Canadian.

In the spirit of Remote Control, I’m pleased to announce my very own version! Below are several lyrics to songs by either the British band The Cure or from Public Television’s favorite “man in the neighborhood”. See if you can guess which artist wrote which lyrics. The answers are after the jump – NO PEEKING!!

 

#1

I think you’re a special person
And I like your ins and outsides.
Everybody’s fancy.
Everybody’s fine.
Your body’s fancy and so is mine.

#2

You know those things I said
All those things that made you cry
I didn’t really mean that stuff
I didn’t really mean that stuff
All I ever really mean
When I scream and shout the way I do
Is I don’t know
I really don’t
I’m just the same as you.

#3

I love it all
These games we play
I close my eyes
You run away
I’m sure I asked you to stay
But now you’re gone.

#4

I can stop when I want to
Can stop when I wish.
I can stop, stop, stop any time.
And what a good feeling to feel like this
And know that the feeling is really mine.
Know that there’s something deep inside
That helps us become what we can.
For a girl can be someday a woman
And a boy can be someday a man.

#5

I can go far away, or dream anything,
Or wear a scary costume or act like a king.
I can change all my names
And find a place to hide.
I can do almost anything, but
I’m still myself,
I’m still myself,
I’m still myself inside.

#6

Nothing ever puts me out
Nothing ever pulls me in
Nothing ever makes me want to jump
And nothing makes me want to begin
Nothing ever gets me down
Nothing ever gets me uptight
And nothing ever makes me run around
And nothing makes me feel I might

#7

It’s you I like,
It’s not the things you wear,
It’s not the way you do your hair–
But it’s you I like
The way you are right now,
The way down deep inside you–
Not the things that hide you,
Not your toys–
They’re just beside you.

#8

I never felt like this with anyone before
You only have to smile and I’m dizzy
You make the world go round
A thousand times an hour
Just touch my head
And send me spinning.

#9

Let’s think of something to do while we’re waiting
While we’re waiting for something new to do.
Let’s try to think up a song while we’re waiting
That’s liberating and will be true to you.

#10

If you’ve got an hour,
Now’s the time to share it.
If you’ve got a flower,
Wear it.
This is just the day.

#11

Oh you know how it is
Wake up feeling blue
And everything that could be wrong is
Including you.
Black clouds and rain and pain in your head
And all you want to do is stay in bed.

#12

Please don’t think it’s funny
When you want an extra kiss.
There are lots and lots of people
Who sometimes feel like this.

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What You Didn’t Know About… “I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck”

“I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech” is the official fight song of the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech for short). You probably knew that already, but you might not know that:

  • Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev sang the song together during a summit in Moscow in 1958. The mood was quite tense, so Nixon suggested doing something to lighten the mood. For some reason, they chose to sing a song together. “I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck” was picked because Khrushchev had heard it on an Ed Sullivan sing-a-long during a previous trip to the United States, and Nixon knew no Russian songs.
  • “I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck” has been featured in movies: Gregory Peck sang it while strumming a ukulele in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, John Wayne whistled it in The High and the Mighty and Tim Holt’s character sings a few bars of it in His Kind of Woman.
  • “I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck” was the first school song played in space.
  • Because of the song’s many references to drinking, a student group backed by MADD often petitions the student government to change the song to something more sober. These petitions are heavily defeated each time they are proposed.

ADDITIONAL TRIVIA: There are only five FBS schools that do not have the word “University” in their official name. Georgia Tech is one, as is ACC rival Boston College. The others are the service academies: the United States Military Academy (Army), the United States Naval Academy (Navy) and the United States Air Force Academy (Air Force).

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RANT: Ashlee Simpson Lipsynching

It looks like lil’ ol’ Ashlee Simpson was actually booed (quite vocally) at the end of her halftime performance at the Orange Bowl.

Let me tell you, that was DAMN REFRESHING to see! Now, I’m not being naive here. I know that I’m far past the age of being in MTV’s target demographic. I know that record stores and radio stations no longer care what I think about music. I know that teenagers these days refer to my 80s music as “oldies”. But I’m also not stupid enough to believe (as some frustrated musicians apparently do) that the single yardstick by which musicians should be measured is musical ability. If that were the case, teenage girls all over the world would have posters of Andrés Segovia or Anne-Sophie Mutter on their walls.

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One-Hit Wonders

Like pornography, “one-hit wonders” are hard to define, yet people know them when they see them.

A “one-hit wonder” is technically defined as “a band that has a single hit song in a nation’s official music charts, then fades into obscurity forever”. But, in reality, it’s a bit more complicated than that.

For example, it’s often implied that the “one hit” is huge, like Los del Rio’s “Macarena”, Baha Men’s “Who Let the Dogs Out?” or Chumbawumba’s “Tubthumping”. This is to differentiate it from a long-running, well-respected indie band who just happened to have one song peak at #39 in the mainstream charts. I call this the “Pixies Clause”, because although the Pixies had a long career and several hits on the US Alternative charts, most mainstream music fans only remember them for “Where Is My Mind?” (a song, incidentally, that was never a single).

But even this is open to interpretation. The Swedish band a-ha landed at #8 on VH1’s “100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders” list of 2002, not to mention countless “One-Hit Wonders of the 80s” lists. But the band actually had two Top 20 singles in 1985: “Take On Me” reached #1 while the arguably better “The Sun Always Shines on TV” reached #20. Similarly, Great White are often considered one-hit wonders for their #5 hit “Once Bitten Twice Shy”, even though “The Angel Song” also made it to Billboard’s Top 40.

Geography is integral with one-hit wonders. A band can be hugely successful in one country but still be considered a one-hit wonder in another. Sweden’s The Cardigans had ten Top 40 singles in the UK, yet are thought of as “one-hit wonders” in the US for their hit “Lovefool”, which became popular after being featured in Leonardo DiCaprio’s version of Romeo + Juliet. Other geographically-hindered bands in the US include Nena, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Dexy’s Midnight Runners and Crash Test Dummies. Flipping it around, Brownsville Station and Alphaville are considered one-hit wonders in the UK, even though both had more than one hit single in the US.

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