Elvis Presley - Love Me Tender
Based on a civil war-era ballad called Aura Lee, Love Me Tender was the soundtrack song for the first of Elvis's 31 movies. It was one of Elvis's first steps on the road to becoming the global mega-ultra-Michael-freaking-Jackson-star that he became before he died trying to take a dump, obese, amphetamine-fueled and all about the underaged girls. Hell of a life.
The song's pretty much just the big guy (Elvis, not God) - southern crooning, soft focus acoustic guitar and harmonised backing vocals. That's all. Big production clearly wasn't hip in those days. It's all very sweet and romantic, in a late 50s boy-meets-girl-and-pledges-eternal-love kind of way, but it really doesn't do much for me. I'm not really the type to pledge eternal love so I think this one is lost on me. Maybe his later work will strike a chord but, seeing as he's about as far from being a rock nutter as can be in this song, we'll hold off on reviewing his career with the Rock Nutter Scale (tm) for a while.
All in all, a disappointing start from Mr Sequined Jumpsuits - where's the sneering, hip-thrusting god of rock and roll? This song is the musical equivalent of herbal tea with honey - I want caffeine, dammit, caffeine and bourbon.
Verdict: Try a little less tenderness
Tomorrow: Love - Alone Again Or
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
The End of Happiness
The Stooges - I Wanna Be Your Dog
From the self-titled 1969 album, this is the song that Danny Fields, who knows a thing or two about punk, described as the greatest punk song of all time. This, of course, means that in 40 years, punk hasn't moved forward at all, because I Wanna Be Your Dog also happens to be one of the first real punk songs ever recorded. That's no bad thing, of course, as the song is magnificent - it's the scalding, apocalyptic clarion call for the end of the love generation.
The hippies and their fatuous ideals died with Iggy screaming "Come ownnnnnnnnnnnnnn" and the contingent ugliness of the 1970s was ushered in - heroin, depression and the death of hope and innocence. And how better to express it than the via the howls, grunts, thumps and rattles of the ultimate misanthrope and his cadre of barely-literate, violence-obsessed thugs? This song has everything. Well, everything except sophistication. Built on a simple 3 chord guitar riff, bass playing courtesy of what sounds like a tempo-incapable drunk and simple, violent percussion, Velvet Underground guitarist John Cale's production touches, such as sleigh bells and single-note piano lines, augment the simplicity of the song to a degree that shouldn't be possible. The result is a wall of noise over which Mr Pop can vent all of the rage and frustration and fury and deviance that he had built up over the previous 22 years. And vent he does, in one of the purest, most visceral songs ever made.
This is a song that couldn't be made by anyone other than true, thuggish believers - the effect would seem watered down if it wasn't entirely honest and nihilistic. This is the music that the Manson family would have made if they had had any talent and were better able to skilfully manipulate their audience. As out of control as Iggy may have been, he knew what he was doing, and through a sense of performance heavily modelled on Jim Morrison and early blues singers, he simply took it to the next level through utter fearlessness and a willingness to inflict pain, both on his audience and himself.
It's a magnificent statement of nihilistic frustration and angst. Is it as good as Search and Destroy? It feels more adolescent and less artful, so I'd pick Search and Destroy as the Stooges song I would listen to for the rest of my life, but it's still better than almost anything I've ever heard.
Verdict: God-like
Tomorrow: Elvis Presley - Love Me Tender
From the self-titled 1969 album, this is the song that Danny Fields, who knows a thing or two about punk, described as the greatest punk song of all time. This, of course, means that in 40 years, punk hasn't moved forward at all, because I Wanna Be Your Dog also happens to be one of the first real punk songs ever recorded. That's no bad thing, of course, as the song is magnificent - it's the scalding, apocalyptic clarion call for the end of the love generation.
The hippies and their fatuous ideals died with Iggy screaming "Come ownnnnnnnnnnnnnn" and the contingent ugliness of the 1970s was ushered in - heroin, depression and the death of hope and innocence. And how better to express it than the via the howls, grunts, thumps and rattles of the ultimate misanthrope and his cadre of barely-literate, violence-obsessed thugs? This song has everything. Well, everything except sophistication. Built on a simple 3 chord guitar riff, bass playing courtesy of what sounds like a tempo-incapable drunk and simple, violent percussion, Velvet Underground guitarist John Cale's production touches, such as sleigh bells and single-note piano lines, augment the simplicity of the song to a degree that shouldn't be possible. The result is a wall of noise over which Mr Pop can vent all of the rage and frustration and fury and deviance that he had built up over the previous 22 years. And vent he does, in one of the purest, most visceral songs ever made.
This is a song that couldn't be made by anyone other than true, thuggish believers - the effect would seem watered down if it wasn't entirely honest and nihilistic. This is the music that the Manson family would have made if they had had any talent and were better able to skilfully manipulate their audience. As out of control as Iggy may have been, he knew what he was doing, and through a sense of performance heavily modelled on Jim Morrison and early blues singers, he simply took it to the next level through utter fearlessness and a willingness to inflict pain, both on his audience and himself.
It's a magnificent statement of nihilistic frustration and angst. Is it as good as Search and Destroy? It feels more adolescent and less artful, so I'd pick Search and Destroy as the Stooges song I would listen to for the rest of my life, but it's still better than almost anything I've ever heard.
Verdict: God-like
Tomorrow: Elvis Presley - Love Me Tender
Monday, August 17, 2009
John Mellencamp - Pink Houses
video
I'm not sure exactly why, but John a.k.a "Cougar" a.k.a "Mr Righteously Indignant Leftist" Mellencamp seems like a bit of a douchebag. Which is not to say that I have anything against righteously indignant leftists - hell, I dated/lived with one for almost two years. The difference between her and Cougar is that she didn't have any money and was thus entitled to be a righteously indignant leftist (RIL). I don't think you're allowed to be a RIL when you're married to a supermodel, have sold 40-odd million records and the big decisions in your life are "Porsche/Ferrari/both?". RILs are supposed to marry lumpen communists with bad teeth and body odour and live in community of poverty with an ill-shod, ringworm-ridden brood. Think Billy Bragg, not Bruce Springsteen.
Douche.
Nonetheless, the drug-free, teetotalling Cougar (*cough* loser *cough*) did take a bit of a stand against John McCain about the use of his songs on the campaign trail, so we should give some credit to him. Except that what was McCain doing using his songs anyway? You can't really see David Cameron using Billy Bragg songs, now can you?
OK, the music. Well, imagine that small part of the American midwest that thinks that Springsteen is a little aspirational and complex. This is just the music for them. It's cod-philosophy set to the music from a beer advert. It's all perfect middle American charm - clean acoustic guitar, a little electric guitar twang, tobacco-enhanced lead vocals and honey-voiced backing. It's about as offensive as an American tourist. I can live without ever hearing it again - it's not that it's offensively bad, it's just completely and utterly middle of the road. Billy Bragg would be ashamed.
Verdict: Rather stay at home
Tomorrow: The Stooges - I Wanna Be Your Dog
video
I'm not sure exactly why, but John a.k.a "Cougar" a.k.a "Mr Righteously Indignant Leftist" Mellencamp seems like a bit of a douchebag. Which is not to say that I have anything against righteously indignant leftists - hell, I dated/lived with one for almost two years. The difference between her and Cougar is that she didn't have any money and was thus entitled to be a righteously indignant leftist (RIL). I don't think you're allowed to be a RIL when you're married to a supermodel, have sold 40-odd million records and the big decisions in your life are "Porsche/Ferrari/both?". RILs are supposed to marry lumpen communists with bad teeth and body odour and live in community of poverty with an ill-shod, ringworm-ridden brood. Think Billy Bragg, not Bruce Springsteen.
Douche.
Nonetheless, the drug-free, teetotalling Cougar (*cough* loser *cough*) did take a bit of a stand against John McCain about the use of his songs on the campaign trail, so we should give some credit to him. Except that what was McCain doing using his songs anyway? You can't really see David Cameron using Billy Bragg songs, now can you?
OK, the music. Well, imagine that small part of the American midwest that thinks that Springsteen is a little aspirational and complex. This is just the music for them. It's cod-philosophy set to the music from a beer advert. It's all perfect middle American charm - clean acoustic guitar, a little electric guitar twang, tobacco-enhanced lead vocals and honey-voiced backing. It's about as offensive as an American tourist. I can live without ever hearing it again - it's not that it's offensively bad, it's just completely and utterly middle of the road. Billy Bragg would be ashamed.
Verdict: Rather stay at home
Tomorrow: The Stooges - I Wanna Be Your Dog
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Don't Push Me, Man
Salt-N-Pepa - Push It
I'm a big hip-hop fan. I'm often willing to overlook the relatively common misogyny, violence and other stereotypes to find the gems of the ouevre. That relatively few hip-hop songs have made the top 500 songs list is a little disappointing to me. That this song, apparently about pushing it on the dance floor, made the list is mystifying.
I'm not sure I believe that this song's about dancing. It all sounds like it was intended to be a little sexual. It's also completely bloody awful. It has no redeeming features whatsoever. I'd rather 'push' pins into my eyeballs than 'push it' to this song. It's like a TV show caricature of a bad 80s rap song, or the theme song to an early 80s Eddie Murphy movie.
Verdict: Push off
Tomorrow: John Mellencamp - Pink Houses
I'm a big hip-hop fan. I'm often willing to overlook the relatively common misogyny, violence and other stereotypes to find the gems of the ouevre. That relatively few hip-hop songs have made the top 500 songs list is a little disappointing to me. That this song, apparently about pushing it on the dance floor, made the list is mystifying.
I'm not sure I believe that this song's about dancing. It all sounds like it was intended to be a little sexual. It's also completely bloody awful. It has no redeeming features whatsoever. I'd rather 'push' pins into my eyeballs than 'push it' to this song. It's like a TV show caricature of a bad 80s rap song, or the theme song to an early 80s Eddie Murphy movie.
Verdict: Push off
Tomorrow: John Mellencamp - Pink Houses
Monday, July 27, 2009
The Del-Vikings - Come Go With Me
Oh hell yes, there is nothing that this red-blooded male loves more than some Del-Viking acapella-style vocal harmonising. Even cold beer, fast cars and wild women are mere distractions on the road to the shining temple of the Del-Vikings. And why not? Everyone knows that nothing is cooler than vikings, not even pirates or ninjas (ninja-pirates may have a slight edge on them, but that's just semantic frippery).
That said, I'm getting the impression that these rather honey-voiced, shiny-faced, smartly-attired young men didn't know much about rape, pillage or drinking the blood of their vanquished foes. In fact, I'm feeling a little cheated. I bet they don't even believe in Valhalla. I can't see them singing this crap while they row their longboat to a faraway shore for a relaxing spot of massacre. Frauds. See image comparison below:
Viking.
Del-Viking.
The song sucks. I was lying, I hate acapella-style vocal harmonising. These guys make Celine Deon look like a marauding beserker. The song is so saccharine sweet it made my teeth ache. If they were singing about decapitation, or even the aerodynamic properties of battleaxes, I'd be more inclined to listen to it, but as far as I can work out, there's not even a mention of Thor.
These guys are vikings like I'm a real music reviewer.
Verdict: This is one of those times I wish for a real horde of vikings.
Tomorrow: Salt-N-Pepa - Push It
Oh hell yes, there is nothing that this red-blooded male loves more than some Del-Viking acapella-style vocal harmonising. Even cold beer, fast cars and wild women are mere distractions on the road to the shining temple of the Del-Vikings. And why not? Everyone knows that nothing is cooler than vikings, not even pirates or ninjas (ninja-pirates may have a slight edge on them, but that's just semantic frippery).
That said, I'm getting the impression that these rather honey-voiced, shiny-faced, smartly-attired young men didn't know much about rape, pillage or drinking the blood of their vanquished foes. In fact, I'm feeling a little cheated. I bet they don't even believe in Valhalla. I can't see them singing this crap while they row their longboat to a faraway shore for a relaxing spot of massacre. Frauds. See image comparison below:
Viking.
Del-Viking.
The song sucks. I was lying, I hate acapella-style vocal harmonising. These guys make Celine Deon look like a marauding beserker. The song is so saccharine sweet it made my teeth ache. If they were singing about decapitation, or even the aerodynamic properties of battleaxes, I'd be more inclined to listen to it, but as far as I can work out, there's not even a mention of Thor.
These guys are vikings like I'm a real music reviewer.
Verdict: This is one of those times I wish for a real horde of vikings.
Tomorrow: Salt-N-Pepa - Push It
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Knocking on the door of history
Little Richard - Keep a Knockin'
Talking about rock nutters, here comes a man who knows a thing or two about being a lunatic: Little Richard. Despite managing to (roughly) sustain a career that started in 1945, he's done pretty well for being an ordained minister, most notably in terms of the rather liberal sprinklings of drugs and homosexuality that have peppered his career. All that and he still manages to look like Prince's bulldyke birth mother.
And the song? It's raucous, bouncy and nowhere near as camp as something made by Little Richard should be. It's based on an 8 bar blues but, to be honest, that would be like saying that an atomic bomb is based on a firecracker. The drumming is fantastic, all driving and frantic and copied a million times by everyone from Led Zeppelin to Eddie Cochran. The sax is just dirty and Little's voice is straining and multidimensional, while still managing to be louder than the rest of the band put together. You get the feeling that he would consider not having a microphone only a very minor inconvenience. His trademark hoots sound like an owl on crack, having a DH Lawrencian 'crisis', at earth shattering volumes.
Horrific similes aside, this is, along with Muddy Waters' Rollin' Stone, one of the cornerstones of everything that is good and holy in the name of rock and roll. This is a man who gave a young Jimi Hendrix a spot in his band and of whose voice Hendrix stated that he wanted his guitar playing to sound like. How can I review something like this without taking into account its immeasurable importance? I could be churlish and point out that the production is pretty rubbish (they weren't very good with things like levels in those days) and the sound's quite muddy, but that would be disregarding all of the characteristcs that make this one of the first documents of a sound that would sweep the world, leaving so much dead and burned in its wake and ushering in rock and roll, the sound of debauchery and delinquency and all manner of good things.
Verdict: Incomparable
Tomorrow: The Dell-Vikings - Come Go With Me
Talking about rock nutters, here comes a man who knows a thing or two about being a lunatic: Little Richard. Despite managing to (roughly) sustain a career that started in 1945, he's done pretty well for being an ordained minister, most notably in terms of the rather liberal sprinklings of drugs and homosexuality that have peppered his career. All that and he still manages to look like Prince's bulldyke birth mother.
And the song? It's raucous, bouncy and nowhere near as camp as something made by Little Richard should be. It's based on an 8 bar blues but, to be honest, that would be like saying that an atomic bomb is based on a firecracker. The drumming is fantastic, all driving and frantic and copied a million times by everyone from Led Zeppelin to Eddie Cochran. The sax is just dirty and Little's voice is straining and multidimensional, while still managing to be louder than the rest of the band put together. You get the feeling that he would consider not having a microphone only a very minor inconvenience. His trademark hoots sound like an owl on crack, having a DH Lawrencian 'crisis', at earth shattering volumes.
Horrific similes aside, this is, along with Muddy Waters' Rollin' Stone, one of the cornerstones of everything that is good and holy in the name of rock and roll. This is a man who gave a young Jimi Hendrix a spot in his band and of whose voice Hendrix stated that he wanted his guitar playing to sound like. How can I review something like this without taking into account its immeasurable importance? I could be churlish and point out that the production is pretty rubbish (they weren't very good with things like levels in those days) and the sound's quite muddy, but that would be disregarding all of the characteristcs that make this one of the first documents of a sound that would sweep the world, leaving so much dead and burned in its wake and ushering in rock and roll, the sound of debauchery and delinquency and all manner of good things.
Verdict: Incomparable
Tomorrow: The Dell-Vikings - Come Go With Me
Just Shoot Me
Bob Marley - I Shot The Sheriff
I really do love the Wailers. I promise, I do. I'm not about to disavow Robert Nesta Marley's importance to music, socio-politics and the war against racism and colonialism &c &c. But don't make me listen to this song again. Please. Hell, I'll listen to the live versions of Lively Up Yourself or No Woman, No Cry from 1975's Live album a million times over and never get tired of them, but this song just doesn't capture the essence of Marley's or the Wailers' talent. It's not raw enough. Great reggae should, like the blues, be raw as hell, not sanitised and overproduced. This is a song about killing a policeman over drugs - it's not meant to be an out-and-out pop song.
The only time you really hear Marley singing is at about 3:28 in the song, when he's belting it out with all the conviction of a man who shot the sheriff and realises that this may not have been the smartest career move. The rest of the song is just far too clean and poppy for me, which is a shame, because had it been a bit darker and rawer (like the live version), it would have made for a better song, in my opinion. But then again, what do I know?
That said, how did Marley fare on the Rock Nutter Scale (tm)? Pretty well, really. Needless to say, he has the drugs aspect covered, what with being the figurehead of stoned Trustafarians everywhere. He managed to piss off enough people to get shot, probably due to his political views, and was arrested and convicted in the UK for possession of marijuana (what a suprise?). He was also an alleged womaniser of note who managed to father a brood who seem pretty keen on destroying the Marley name in music. OK, so his real name was actually Robert Nesta Marley but, apart from that, most of the boxes are checked. He may not be Keith Richards, but he's done himself proud.
Verdict: Maybe he should have shot the deputy too?
Tomorrow: Little Richard - Keep a Knockin'
I really do love the Wailers. I promise, I do. I'm not about to disavow Robert Nesta Marley's importance to music, socio-politics and the war against racism and colonialism &c &c. But don't make me listen to this song again. Please. Hell, I'll listen to the live versions of Lively Up Yourself or No Woman, No Cry from 1975's Live album a million times over and never get tired of them, but this song just doesn't capture the essence of Marley's or the Wailers' talent. It's not raw enough. Great reggae should, like the blues, be raw as hell, not sanitised and overproduced. This is a song about killing a policeman over drugs - it's not meant to be an out-and-out pop song.
The only time you really hear Marley singing is at about 3:28 in the song, when he's belting it out with all the conviction of a man who shot the sheriff and realises that this may not have been the smartest career move. The rest of the song is just far too clean and poppy for me, which is a shame, because had it been a bit darker and rawer (like the live version), it would have made for a better song, in my opinion. But then again, what do I know?
That said, how did Marley fare on the Rock Nutter Scale (tm)? Pretty well, really. Needless to say, he has the drugs aspect covered, what with being the figurehead of stoned Trustafarians everywhere. He managed to piss off enough people to get shot, probably due to his political views, and was arrested and convicted in the UK for possession of marijuana (what a suprise?). He was also an alleged womaniser of note who managed to father a brood who seem pretty keen on destroying the Marley name in music. OK, so his real name was actually Robert Nesta Marley but, apart from that, most of the boxes are checked. He may not be Keith Richards, but he's done himself proud.
Verdict: Maybe he should have shot the deputy too?
Tomorrow: Little Richard - Keep a Knockin'
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