I got the chance to sit down with Barry Privett of Carbon Leaf and discuss their sound, their lyrics, and their experiences with a record label. I even got to nerd out about The Monkees! Check it out below:
Wednesday, April 10, 2024
Friday, March 24, 2023
Album Review: 10,000 gecs by 100 gecs
Someone, somewhere, poses the question: “What if Captain Beefheart had a solid understanding of music?”
Someone else says “Well, duh, that’s not an original thought, many have posited that question. But what if Blink 182 were electro house?”
The third guy is like “What if Kimya Dawson did metal?”
The second guy speaks up again. “That’s just stupid.”
Meanwhile, guy number four slowly turns his attention away from the winow he was staring out of, and with a sigh, pinches the bridge of his nose and prepares to speak. He is exhausted. He has no time for all of these questions. He has just finished running the marathon that is 10,000 gecs.
* * *
Coming in at a cool twenty-six minutes and fifty-three seconds (twenty-seven minutes would have been too slow and for the weak), 10,000 gecs doesn’t get there by walking.
100 gecs are no strangers to moving rapidly against the grain. Their first album clocked in at just over 23 minutes. Dylan Brady and Laura Les have always had an unusual sound. Their music has been described as “hyperpop,” and they are one of the foremost modern groups of the genre. Though much of their early work was accomplished by exchanging Logic Pro files in what Les herself referred to as something of “an exquisite corpse-type thing,” Les moved to Los Angeles prior to the production of 10,000 gecs, meaning she and Brady could work more closely together on the new album.
The sound synonymous with THX kicks off the album, immediately grabbing your attention and letting you know you should be ready to focus on the sound. These aren’t SONGS, they are high-fidelity audio experiences. They are also songs, I would never discount the work done in songwriting by implying that the album is merely a soundscape, but they are not just songs. Well, “One Million Dollars” is a soundscape, but even it pulses with the energy of a human heart on a party drug.
“Dumbest Girl Alive” is a fast-paced poem. There’s no chorus, just the refrain of the title at the end of each verse. The track itself dips into a pizzicato section halfway through that’s incongruent but not unwelcome. It’s almost like being in a cartoon chase scene and suddenly going underwater for a spell.
I tried to go into this review totally blind, but when I got to “Hollywood Baby,” I confess that I did recognize it as a single. It’s the third of four singles released from 10,000 gecs. It might be the most palatable song on the album, but I would personally have a great deal of trouble arguing that it’s the best one. “Hollywood Baby” isn’t nearly as chaotic as the rest of the album, and it suffers for that. It’s a good song, but not the best up for offer, proving this is definitely not a case of the band getting the single to reel everyone in and then providing nothing of substance for the rest.
“Frog on the Floor” is silly, but silly with a suit and tie on, sonically. It sits on the musical couch smoking with ska and anti-folk. Of the songs on the album, “Frog on the Floor” is the most fun, a complete contrast to the later “Billy Knows Jamie.” “Billy Knows Jamie” is the most tonally dark track, dipping musically into nu metal and lyrically into drugs and gun violence.
By the time we arrive at “I Got My Tooth Removed,” the slow, sparsely-instrumented start makes you think you’re going to get a little break- but then the drums kick in, and then the sprint starts back up again, launching us into my favorite song on the album, a polka-riddled, genre-bending love song about the breakup between a person’s tooth and their mouth. And yes, I realize the genre of the majority of the song is, once again, ska, rather than polka, but this song does much to remind me that ska is only the grandkid of polka trying to rebrand himself away from the family name (“Polka was my grandpa’s name, I go by Ska”). “I Got My Tooth Removed” is the longest song on the album, by the way. Three minutes and seventeen seconds, and it holds the title of “longest song.” Just in case you forgot we were RUNNING. Speaking tangentially of running, Ska is a running thread throughout the album. But it’s the kind of ska you hear playing in your head when you see a photo of people in checkerboard prints, Tripp denim, tiny sunglasses, and bucket hats. It’s fun, it’s new, it’s a ghost of what was once called ska (even with Alex Scillag from Save Ferris lending trombone to “I Got My Tooth Removed”). This also, notably, isn’t a ska album. Or a pop-punk album, or an anti-folk album. It’s not nu-metal, it’s not house, it’s 100 gecs.
After “mememe,” the album just…ends. My Youtube Music decided to start playing something it thought was related and I realized and turned it off to digest. It ends…too soon somehow? Like I said, it races to the finish line. You’re running right alongside it the whole time, yet for some reason, the album's end just feels like it abandoned you.
This is a stereo setup kind of album. I can’t even imagine listening to it quietly on a record, and I am a fan of records. Of course, I also don’t imagine it being one to listen to on earbuds…you need chunky headphones or a home stereo system that makes you feel like the guy on the old Maxell Audio logo. Or you can listen to it in your car, which is what I did. Not the best option, but if you do, at least make sure both of the speakers are working. The production is too important to miss. It’s smart, it’s sharp, it’s funny. I can’t think of many other albums on which the production feels comical. I don’t mean comically bad, I mean joyous, giggly, inviting you to come and be part of the in-joke. 10,000 gecs doesn’t explain the in-joke to you- you have to figure it out, but you are absolutely welcome to try.
Laura Les and Dylan Brady are 100 gecs.
* * *
I am reading the book How to Write About Music, an instructional textbook from the makers of the 33 1/3 book series. Eventually, my dream is to write a 33 1/3 book, so I'm trying to take things seriously. My first "assignment" was to write a review for an album I would never normally listen to. I'm not brave enough to dive completely into the deep end musically, but I heard some co-workers discussing this album and decided I would listen to it despite never having listened to the band before. If this review seems a little strange coming from me, that's why. By the way, what a great assignment. I genuinely love this album and I never would have listened on my own.
Thursday, May 26, 2022
One-Mind Tracks: Open Your Golden Gates
2024 UPDATE: Ultimately, this was the last aired episode of One-Mind Tracks due to a dispute with the station it aired on. Maybe One-Mind Tracks will be revived at some point, but for now, all One-Mind Tracks editions will only be in print.
I know it's rude of me to use a line from a song not included on this playlist as the title, but that's the decision I've made.
The Golden Gate Bridge was opened on May 27th, 1937, so this week's One-Mind Tracks is all about San Francisco, the city that would be home to my alma mater had I graduated.
"San Francisco" by Scott McKenzie
San Francisco is still associated with flower children, love, and acceptance. In the '60s, the hippie movement found a home in the city, particularly in the Haight district. John Phillips (The Mamas and the Papas) wrote this song as a celebration of the city and as a means of promoting his performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. With Scott McKenzie on vocals, the song ended up becoming something of an anthem for the counterculture movement in the late '60s.
"St. Dominic's Preview" by Van Morrison
Van Morrison was living in San Francisco in 1972 when he wrote "St. Dominic's Preview" in a stream-of-consciousness writing session. The Troubles had been heavy in Morrison's heart as he had grown up in Belfast, Ireland. In 1972, things had gotten so bad in the conflicts between religious and political factions in the country that 500 citizens, mostly civilians, lost their lives that year. Morrison got homesick in the way that one might, but said he didn't long to go back with the prejudice that had become apparent. Still, while his heart went out to Belfast, his drummer Gary Mallaber longed for his home in Buffalo, New York. These thoughts, and Morrison's memories of his days in Paris as he tried to "make it" all made it into the song, with the overarching theme of prayer at Saint Dominic's. Morrison didn't realize that there was a real church in San Francisco called St. Dominic's, but thought of it more as an imagined church that would pray for peace in Ireland. Oddly enough, there is a St. Dominic's, which Morrison discovered weeks later when he picked up a paper advertising a mass being held there for peace in Belfast.
"I Left My Heart in San Francisco" by Tony Bennett
New York native Tony Bennet made this his signature song. The writers, George Cory and Douglass Cross wrote it from a genuine place of longing for their hometown, as they had moved to New York to further their careers. The song was first offered to Claramae Turner, who sang it as an encore song, but never got around to recording it. She recommended they give it to Tennessee Ernie Ford, who turned it down. In 1961, Tony Bennet debuted his version of the song at the Venetian Room at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco in front of the mayor and future mayor. He has since performed it every time he appears there.
"San Francisco (In Situ)" by They Might Be Giants
In 2004, They Might Be Giants set out to write a song about every venue they performed at on tour (however loosely associated). "San Francisco" features a list of streets in the city (ones I used to frequent as a resident). It ends on the street that also lends its name to the venue at which they were playing; The Fillmore.
"Russian Hill" by Jellyfish
The Russian Hill neighborhood in San Francisco has always been prestigious. Jellyfish frontman Andy Sturmer and keyboardist Roger Joseph Manning Jr. were both born near Los Angeles, but were moved to Pleasanton, California by their families later on. Pleasanton is only about an hour from San Francisco. After the release of Jellyfish's first album, Sturmer got an apartment in Russian Hill- only to find that he had no time to spend there, as the band were so often touring. Still, Sturmer wanted the song to convey the beauty of the neighborhood with a touch of cynicism.
"San Francisco" by The Mowgli's
The song "San Francisco" was one of the first songs written or released by The Mowgli's. It also became their first and most successful single, reaching #2 on the U.S. Adult Alternative Airplay charts. Much like the city itself, the song is full of love. It references the song made famous by Tony Bennett with the line "I lost my head in San Francisco."
"Step" by Vampire Weekend
Are there songs that fit this theme better? Probably, but none of them just so happened to be stuck in my head already when I started developing the theme. Many elements of "Step" are lifted from the demo "Step to My Girl" by Souls of Mischief, a band from Oakland. Vampire Weekend secured rights for the sample and spoke to the group about the song. Souls of Mischief were blown away by the finished product, and expressed desire to work with Vampire Weekend in the future. "Step" name-drops cities in the bay area during one of the verses, and that's good enough in this case to make it onto the playlist.
"Piazza, New York Catcher" by Belle and Sebastian
In 2009, when I first moved to San Francisco, Belle and Sebastian were seeing a resurgence thanks primarily to the film Juno. "Piazza, New York Catcher" is partly about New York Mets catcher Mike Piazza, whose sexuality saw rumors swirl around it (Stuart Murdoch, frontman for Belle and Sebastian saw Piazza in a game and was himself drawn to the mystique of the man). The other part of the song, however, demands its inclusion on the playlist, as it tells the tale of Murdoch romancing his future wife in San Francisco. The tale of new, young romance is adorable, with lines like "I love you, my responsibility has found a place." While I still lived there (though it may have been 2010 or 2011), one of the free San Francisco newspapers featured Belle and Sebastian on the cover, and an interview with Murdoch in which all I can remember is that he talked about the impact the band's success in San Francisco had on them.
"San Francisco" by Foxygen
I thought at first that I was hearing another Belle and Sebastian song when I first listened to this one. But that's offensive to The Kinks, who you can also hear the influence of in the song, and to the band Foxygen themselves. There does appear to be one more influence though, as the female voice pops in about halfway through the song with what I hear as an interpolation of a line from The Beatles' "Northern Song." Actually, there's yet another thing: a reference the aforementioned Tony Bennett song, this time manipulating the line to "I left my love in San Francisco." Don't let all this deter you- it's a great song that benefits rather than suffers from its influences.
"San Francisco" by Vanessa Carlton
Vanessa Carlton may have had a couple of smash hits, but I've always felt she still deserved more than that out of her career. "San Francisco" hails from Carlton's second album, Harmonium, much of which she wrote with her then-boyfriend Stephan Jenkins, lead singer of Third Eye Blind, a band formed in the titular San Francisco. Though Jenkins had the connection to the city, "San Francisco" is one of the songs on the album that Carlton wrote alone. It ended up as the only love song on an album otherwise filled with dark, introspective songs from what Carlton called her "diary" phase of songwriting.
"We Built This City" by Starship
Jefferson Airplane was formed in San Francisco during the '60s. From there, the band became Jefferson Starship and then simply Starship. The three bands saw varying levels of success, but out of anything post-1970 (possibly even before that, I'm growing out of touch with what people remember of classic rock anymore), most people would be most likely to recognize "We Built This City." "We Built This City" was penned in part by band member Peter Wolf, along with Dennis Lambert, Martin Page, and none other than Elton John lyricist Bernie Taupin. Taupin stated that the song was about the disappearing live music scene in Los Angeles. The song is formed as something of an open letter to corporate interests who were shutting down live performance clubs left and right. Since Starship and their predecessor bands were all based in San Francisco, the references to Los Angeles were changed to San Francisco. The music scene in San Francisco has always been strong, so it's fair to say that they also built their city on rock and roll.
"Grace Cathedral Hill" by The Decemberists
Very like "Russian Hill" in presentation, "Grace Cathedral Hill" captures the atmosphere of the places in San Francisco that it mentions, yet it still holds the typical storytelling and mystery of a Decemberists song.
Catch these songs on the One-Mind Tracks radio show this week! The show starts at 7PM EST on Thursday. You can catch it streaming over at 985winf.com. Or you can listen in for an episode of One-Mind Tracks any Thursday at 7pm!
Wednesday, May 25, 2022
A Brief History: The Sony BMG Copy Protection Scandal
During what some (certainly I) call the Napster era, high-speed internet access had entered nearly every home in the U.S.A. File-sharing became not only widespread, but a source of utter terror for record companies. CD burners were also standard equipment, which meant you didn't have to own even a digital copy of a file to share it. In fact, record companies were realizing that no one ever needed to pay for music again. And to be fair, the consumers had been realizing it first.
In 2000, Sony vice-president Steve Heckler spoke at the Americas Conference on Information Systems, saying: "The industry will take whatever steps it needs to protect itself and protect its revenue streams [...] It will not lose that revenue stream, no matter what [...] Sony is going to take aggressive steps to stop this. We will develop technology that transcends the individual user. We will firewall Napster at source – we will block it at your cable company. We will block it at your phone company. We will block it at your ISP. We will firewall it at your PC [...] These strategies are being aggressively pursued because there is simply too much at stake." In 2001, Sony made their first faux pas in the copy protection field, releasing copies of Natalie Imbruglia's second album White Lilies Island with copy protection not warned of.
Copy protection was not uncommon by 2005: many record companies had started to encode the CDs to be more difficult to rip to your computer; partly to prevent sharing, and partly in the hopes of gaining both physical and digital sales. Artists such as Weird Al fired back at this sort of greediness by actually adding extra content for those who inserted the disc in their computers. And still, for every copy protection measure, someone created a new plugin or application that was smart enough to get around the protection.
So, enter Sony BMG, a merger formed in 2004, who in 2005 were ready to make good on the promise Heckler made in 2000. Without a word to consumers or artists, Sony BMG launched a copy protection measure on 22 million CDs that they released. That alone wasn't the issue: as stated, many companies were enacting similar measures. What was different this time, however, was that their protection didn't just make the CD harder to encrypt. No, this protection went so far as to download software immediately onto the user's computer that invited in malware.Desktop computers in the '00s were in nearly every household. By then, the majority of folks had high-speed internet, a set of decent desk speakers, and no reason at all not to make the computer one of their primary household entertainment devices. There were plenty of completely innocent reasons to insert CDs and even DVDs into your disc drive. I myself had a desktop computer before I had a CD player with speakers. My primary way of listening to music was through headphones or a powerful set of desktop speakers, either one connected to my computer. So if I got a new CD, it was immediately going into my disc drive.
You were really in trouble if you inserted these Sony BMG discs into your computer. The first thing that would happen was that you were offered a new music player. That "music player" would then install one of two programs onto your computer that would modify your operating system to interfere with your computer's ability to copy CDs in general. The program would be installed on Windows operating systems even if you declined it, and it could not be uninstalled. While it was surely a pain to be unable to copy CDs, that's not the worst this software had to offer. The next thing to happen was that with one of the programs would come a "feature" that sent private listening data back to Sony BMG. One of the two protection software programs explained what it was doing in the end-user license agreement, while the other program did the exact same thing, but without even telling you what it was up to in the end-user license agreement.
These programs created vulnerabilities in the systems of those who inadvertently downloaded them. The programs have been classified since their initial time of release as "rootkits." Usually, a rootkit is intended to be malicious (not in the way Sony BMG intended to be malicious). A rootkit enables access to a computer or an area of that computer's software that is not typically allowed. Sony was using this rootkit to disable a user's ability to copy the CD. But if you put a cat flap in your front door, nothing is stopping other animals from coming through. Hackers were able to exploit the newfound vulnerabilities. Malware was now able to attack the computers of those "infected" without having to jump through the normal hoops, because the cat flap for gaining unauthorized access to a person's computer was already there.
Creator of the program RootKit Revealer, Mark Russinovich discovered the rootkit Sony installed on one of his computers. He posted about it on his blog on October 31st, 2005, stating that digital rights management had gone "too far." He found numerous problems with the XCP software, from what I've already mentioned to the fact that the program would constantly run in the background, slowing down a user's computer whether or not a CD was being played. The XCP rootkit also stopped and started using unsafe means that could cause the computer to crash. Attempts to remove the rootkit could even cause the computer to stop recognizing existing drives. Following the blog post, more worms and viruses were created to exploit the newly discovered vulnerabilities.
Sony BMG initially denied that their software was a rootkit, but suddenly, there was a public knowledge of rootkits, and a scandal surrounding Sony BMG's use of such software. Sony released patches in an attempt to help users uninstall the rootkits, but somehow, those patches opened computers up to even more vulnerabilities. The patch made the rootkit files visible, but installed even more files that couldn't be removed and this time, collected the user's email address also.
The public was absolutely outraged by Sony's behavior. Many of the affected CDs were recalled with the promise of being replaced by CDs without the software. Sony BMG continued to deny allegations that their anti-piracy software was dangerous, even after more reports about the malware and viruses it opened the door for. Retailers who were asked to pull the CDs and ship them back for credit were in many cases not doing so. Being that it was after Thanksgiving by that time, the issue raged on as shopping increased for the Christmas season. Only about 10% of the recalled CDs ever made it back.
Class-action lawsuits were filed throughout the United States and around the world. Making matters even worse for Sony BMG: they had failed to follow licensing laws themselves when using the open-source software in the program. LAME MP3 encoder was the primary software, and its developers stated that they hoped Sony BMG would take appropriate action.
By 2007, Sony BMG decided to completely get out of the copyright protection game. But the damage was done for many.
A great number of artists' works were wrapped up in this scandal. Natasha Bedingfield's Unwritten was among those affected, and it sold over one-million copies in her home country of the United Kingdom, and saw plenty of sales in the U.S. also. Though the U.K. version of the CD was released through an RCA subsidiary, the U.S. version was released through Epic, one of Sony's subsidiaries. The album sold 34,000 copies in the U.S. during its' first week of release. Many compilation albums were also released with this rootkit software, including some by older artists like Burt Bacharach, Pete Seeger, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, and Billie Holiday, with some by slightly newer artists like Cyndi Lauper also affected. Neil Diamond's 26th studio album Twelve Songs, Rosanne Cash's King's Record Shop, Ricky Martin's Life, and George Jones' duet album My Very Special Guests were all affected albums. To me, these titles show that a wide range of age groups and musical tastes were all hit with this. There are almost too many affected albums to name, but of course we can't forget one of the bands who became most vocal about the situation: Switchfoot.
Switchfoot's fifth studio album Nothing is Sound sold half a million copies in the first month of its release. It debuted at number three on the Billboard albums chart, and was their first release after the monstrously successful The Beautiful Letdown. It was only their second studio album with Sony. As soon as the problem was discovered, the band were upset on behalf of their fans. Bassist Tim Foreman posted on the group's forums with a way to get around the protection, but the post soon disappeared mysteriously, with many believing Sony had threatened legal action against Foreman or the band. Strangely, many British copies of the album under EMI suffered from a similar copy protection problem, although that situation was handled much more gracefully. The scandal left such a bad taste in the mouths of the band that they were only too happy to get out of their contract with Sony, which they were able to do after Oh! Gravity, the third in their contractually obligated three albums on the label. They then formed their own label, "lowercase people," which was distributed by Atlantic. Lead singer and songwriter Jon Foreman felt as though the situation tainted their album, which was already considered to be one of their darkest works.I have a copy of Nothing is Sound that I purchased used not too long ago. Updates to computers between 2005 and the present day have since made the type of vulnerability that the CDs initially created much more difficult to end up with accidentally. Aside from that, my copy doesn't seem to have the correct barcode on it to make it one of those affected (the barcode ends in XCP on affected CDs). Yet still, when I tried to rip the CD to my digital music library for use in my radio shows, I couldn't touch the tracks. Obviously I'm not making an effort to find a way around the copy protection but whatever they put on those CDs was certainly effective.
I think by this point, most artists are just happy to have their music out there. Royalties are gained from streams and Youtube views. But I don't know if record companies will ever fully be over the new technology that the internet beckoned in so many years ago. It took a lot of time and situations such as this scandal to get them even close to over it.
Thursday, May 19, 2022
One-Mind Tracks: May Flowers
Catch these songs on the One-Mind Tracks radio show this week! The show starts at 7PM EST on Thursday. You can catch it streaming over at 985winf.com. Or you can listen in for an episode of One-Mind Tracks any Thursday at 7pm!
Feel free to let me know in the comments if you have a song that fits the theme!
Friday, May 13, 2022
Headcanon: David Bowie's Toy Story
I just got back from a work trip to Vegas and I have a cold. So my brain is just addled enough to finally explain this idea I've had for 10+ years. I've been ranting and raving about this to anyone who will listen for so long, I don't even remember how I thought of it.
So here goes: Randy Newman did a fine job with the soundtrack to Toy Story. His songs are iconic and deep-seated in the minds of anyone who grew up in the '90s. But what if he didn't write the songs for the soundtrack? What if Disney and Pixar decided instead to go with the back-catalogue of legendary singer-songwriter David Bowie? I'm here to show you what an easy swap it could have been.
"You've Got a Friend in Me" becomes "Golden Years"
"Golden Years" acts as a perfect tonal match for the opening scene of Toy Story. Woody is living in the "golden years" in which he is Andy's favorite toy by far. Sure, there's no replacement for "You've Got a Friend in Me" but if there were, it would be "Golden Years." Start the Toy Story video and then immediately "Golden Years" for full effect. Don't forget to mute the Toy Story video. And of course, it would fade down as Woody lays on the bed.
"I Will Go Sailing No More" becomes "Space Oddity"
Buzz is a spaceman (or at least thinks he is), why would he "go sailing"? He wouldn't! "Space Oddity" captures his feelings of hopelessness as he discovers that he is a toy, while still calling back to his belief in genuine space roots. Start this one with the sound on for both videos. "Space Oddity" first, then the Toy Story scene. Mute the Toy Story video when the Al's Toy Barn logo appears on-screen.
Thursday, May 5, 2022
One-Mind Tracks: Mother's Day
Paul Simon recorded this song in Muscle Shoals with backing vocals from gospel group The Dixie Hummingbirds. Though not outwardly a gospel song, The Dixie Hummingbirds were proud to be on the song and even released their own version of it. The song is about a mother's love transcending all kinds of things, including being the president when congress calls his name. This has been interpreted to be a reference to Nixon during the Watergate trials. Simon also states "she loves me like a rock of ages," which pushes the song closer to a gospel track. "The rock" is often used to describe God's strength and dependability in The Book of Psalms. God is also referred to as the "rock of our salvation." Jesus is the subject of a hymn called "Rock of Ages." Simon, however, was Jewish, so he may have been inspired by the title of the song or by a Hebrew poem "Ma'oz Tzur," which refers to God as "my refuge, my rock of salvation." Either way, Simon is comparing a mother's love to that of God.
That's our playlist for mothers! Catch these songs on the One-Mind Tracks radio show this week! The show starts at 7PM EST on Thursday. You can catch it streaming over at 985winf.com. Or you can listen in for an episode of One-Mind Tracks any Thursday at 7pm!
Feel free to let me know in the comments if you have a song that fits the theme!
Wednesday, May 4, 2022
State of the Music Address: May 2022
-Florence + the Machine have been releasing videos for a great many songs off of the upcoming album, all of them directed by Autumn de Wilde. They're all stunning and of course the songs are great too. While I think "King" is among the strongest, there's something about "Free" that really draws you in (and I don't mean Bill Nighy).
Thursday, April 28, 2022
One-Mind Tracks: April Showers
This year's spring has been cold and rainy (with a few sunny, warm days sprinkled in). This week looks like it's going to stay warm and sunny but we do have to celebrate all that rain with a rainy playlist (that will hopefully lead to May Flowers...and like...crops...).
"Rainy Days and Mondays" by The Carpenters
Paul Williams and Roger Nichols wrote this rainy day sad song which came from a very personal place for Williams. He was hoping to have his Hollywood career take off so he could take care of his mother, but he continued to struggle. Luckily, 1971 saw this song reach #2 for The Carpenters and his acting career began soon after. Another song you might know that Williams co-wrote?: "Rainbow Connection!" It just goes to show you that rainbows really do come after the rain.
"Africa" by Toto
David Paich had never been to Africa when he wrote the song. He based the depictions of Africa on National Geographic articles. Yet somehow he was able to capture "the rains down in Africa" with such poetic language that we can all almost imagine ourselves being there. "Africa" became Toto's only #1 in the U.S.
"It's Raining Men" by The Weather Girls
A novelty track with lasting impact, "It's Raining Men" was written by Paul Jabara and Paul Schaffer. It was originally intended for Donna Summer, who turned it down because she felt in conflicted with her faith. Diana Ross, Cher, and Barbara Streisand were also offered the song, but declined it. Several years later, in 1982, the song was offered to the duo Two Tons, who were also skeptical. Jabara's persistence with Two Tons finally resulted in a recording. After the song was successful, the duo even changed their name to The Weather Girls to make it less confusing for listeners who thought they were introducing the band name at the beginning of the song.
"Riders on the Storm" by The Doors
I don't know if I can honestly think of a better song to represent a dark, rainy night. The Doors came up with "Riders on the Storm" during a jam session in which the springboard was "Ghost Riders in the Sky." Morrison put many elements of his personal life into the song, including his experience hitchhiking as a teen. "Riders on the Storm" was the final song recorded by Jim Morrison before his death.
"Fool in the Rain" by Led Zeppelin
"Fool in the Rain" was Led Zeppelin's last official U.S. single before they split up in 1980. Robert Plant and John Paul Jones were inspired by the samba beats they heard during the 1978 FIFA World Cup in Argentina. Led Zeppelin never performed the song live, but Plant later performed it with Pearl Jam in 2005 for a Hurricane Katrina benefit concert. I don't know if it was in the best taste to sing about a "fool in the rain" during a destructive tropical storm, but at least his heart was in the right place.
The One-Mind Tracks Single of the Week: "Ballet for a Rainy Day" and "1000 Umbrellas" by XTC
One-Mind Tracks on the air does a weekly "single," where we take two related songs and group them together. It's not a real single, but please pretend with us. This week, both songs on the single come from Skylarking, a 1986 album produced by Todd Rundgren. "Ballet for a Rainy Day" leads seamlessly into "1000 Umbrellas" on the album. Since they're both about rain, it only seemed right to keep them together for the single.
"The Shadow Proves the Sunshine" by Switchfoot
If you're hating the rain, don't forget that it just makes sunnier days all the more beautiful. That's what Jon Foreman sings about in "The Shadow Proves the Sunshine." The album it comes from, Nothing is Sound, was often perceived to be a darker album. The band has always felt that it's more of a hopeful album, with Foreman saying, "I may write about how everything is meaningless, but it’s a very hopeful thing for me to be proven wrong."
"November Rain" by Guns N'Roses
For that one person who was going to tell me I forgot this one: here it is. At almost nine minutes, Guns N'Roses held the record for the longest song to enter the Billboard Top 10 until Taylor Swift broke the record with her #1 single, "All Too Well (Taylor's Version)." According to Slash though, the band even recorded an 18-minute version before the final recording. Anyway, it's a classic song about rain. As Regina Spektor says, "the solo's awful long//but it's a good refrain."
"Rain" by The Beatles
An under-rated Beatles track for certain, "Rain" was the first pop song ever released with reversed vocals. Ringo Starr considers "Rain" to be his greatest recorded work as a drummer. John Lennon said the song was about "People moaning because [...] they don't like the weather." Lennon has claimed to have written the song alone but Paul McCartney remembers it differently. His perspective on the song was that people shouldn't have such a negative perception of something that can be wonderful, saying: "Songs have traditionally treated rain as a bad thing and what we got on to was that it's no bad thing. There's no greater feeling than the rain dripping down your back."
"Who'll Stop the Rain" by Creedence Clearwater Revival
Creedence Clearwater Revival could have had the single this week with "Have You Ever Seen the Rain" but I decided to go with two that ran together better. "Who'll Stop the Rain" has been interpreted as a protest song and a song about Woodstock, with John Fogerty even stating as much, saying he went home and finished the song after he was at Woodstock.
"Purple Rain" by Prince
Another long rain song, "Purple Rain" is one of Prince's apocalyptical narratives, this one disguised by his favorite color raining down from the sky. In 2007, Prince performed at the Super Bowl halftime show. He closed his set with "Purple Rain" just as real rain began to fall from the sky.
Feel free to let me know in the comments if you have a song that fits the theme!
Thursday, April 21, 2022
A Brief History: The Lasting Legacy of the "Addicted to Love" Music Video
"Addicted to Love" was originally released in 1985 as part of Robert Palmer's Riptide album. It was issued as a single the following year and was a game changer for Palmer. "Addicted to Love" became Palmer's first #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and on the Mainstream Rock charts, as well as giving him a #1 in Australia and his most successful single in many other countries. But we're here to talk about the video.
Commemorative #14 by Patrick Nagel |
The original video included five models: Julie Pankhurst as the keyboard player, Patty Kelly and Julie Bolino as the guitarists, Mak Gilchrist as the bassist, and Kathy Davies as the drummer. Gilchrist spoke on her experience with Q Magazine, saying: "I was 21 and got the part on the strength of my modelling book. We were meant to look and 'act' like showroom mannequins." Gilchrist had previously been in commercials in addition to modeling work. Bolino and Davies had played parts in other music videos. Pankhurst and Elias were fresh to the scene. Supposedly, a real-life musician was meant to teach the models to look like they were playing, but according to according the VH1's Pop-Up Video: "gave up after about an hour and left."
The video premise is incredibly simple, yet because of all of the seemingly small decisions, it became an instant classic. Palmer used the concept again in three more videos, meaning it became something of a signature look for him.
His next music video was for the song "I Didn't Mean to Turn You On," a cover of a Cherrelle song written by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. The video featured even more models, some representing the camera crew, some dancing in formal attire, and of course the "backing band" of models. This time, the models in the pseudo band have a much more choreographed (or at least in-sync) dance routine. Donovan returned as the director. The song peaked at #2 behind Boston's "Amanda," definitely assisted by the music video. The intervening single, "Hyperactive" failed to make it into the top 30. Of course, in the mid to late '80s, much of an artist's success could be linked to having a music video in rotation and a great video could be pivotal in causing a single to take off.
The success of the songs based on the quality or existence of a video could be considered put to the test over Palmer's next two single releases. A reissue of his 1985 single, "Discipline of Love" failed to chart anywhere other than Australia (where the song did move from #95 to #68 upon reissue). The following single was "Sweet Lies," a song from the forthcoming film of the same name. Even with a music video and an entire movie linked to the song, it only made it to #94 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Oh...Yikes! |
"Simply Irresistible" would be the final collaboration between Palmer and Donovan, as well as Palmer's last Billboard Hot 100 top ten hit. The final video Palmer did in this style was "Change His Ways," a comical take on the other videos in which Palmer is accompanied by a backing band of sexy duck women in plain black dresses.
VH1 ranked the video for "Addicted to Love" at #3 on their list of the top videos of the '80s and it immediately began to be visually referenced in other artists' music videos and sometimes parodied. Let's go through a few examples.
Weird Al Yankovic - "Addicted to Spuds" and "UHF"
Yankovic has always been great at spotting trends, which is the only explanation I can think of as to how he was the first in line to emulate the look of these iconic videos. In 1986, Yankovic parodied "Addicted to Love" with "Addicted to Spuds," a spot-on parody as always. For MTV's New Year's Eve celebration in 1987, he performed the song live with a backing band of sexy Mr. Potato Heads (they had legs with dark tights on like in the original video, I'm not attracted to potatoes). The potatoes stared blankly ahead like the women in the original video, and mimed playing instruments whilst swaying in place just as the women had in the original video. Honestly, it's pretty funny now, thirty-five years removed from the event. I imagine it would have been even funnier at the time.
Two years later when he wrote an original song for his movie UHF, Yankovic continued to recognize the video's importance in popular culture of the '80s. The music video for the song "UHF" features visual references to many iconic videos including "Subterranean Homesick Blues" by Bob Dylan and of course, "Addicted to Love." The twist Yankovic puts on the look this time is that all of the models in his "band" sport Yankovic-style moustaches and glasses. If you've never seen the video for "UHF" but are a fan of '80s music videos, it's definitely worth a watch.
Tone Lōc - "Wild Thing"
As early as 1988, Tone Lōc released "Wild Thing," the video for which was reportedly filmed for around $500. That budget was evidently enough to pay a group of girls to impersonate the Robert Palmer models. The girls in the "Wild Thing" video act as the "band" and sway slightly out of rhythm with one another just as in the original "Addicted to Love" video. Being only two years later than the inspiration and not outwardly comedic, it seems like a strange homage but I can only assume that director Tamra Davis was already aware that "Addicted to Love" featured a look to be reckoned with.
Paula Abdul - "Forever Your Girl"
In 1989, more mainstream artists were ready to make reference to Palmer's videos, as Paula Abdul did in the video for "Forever Your Girl." Directed by David Fincher of all people, the video sees Abdul coaching children in a variety of dance routines. Three of the young ladies are being shown moves from "Simply Irresistible" and are dressed in attire similar to "Addicted to Love." They are eventually able to perform in a color segment vs. the black and white the video is primarily shot in, presumably meaning it's the final version of the performance for the video.
Die Prinzen - "Alles nur geklaut"
German pop-rock band Die Prinzen (The Princes) went to #4 in their home country and #3 in Austria with this 1993 single. The video is another that zips through a series of references to '80s videos, so of course they include a parody of the "Addicted to Love" video.
Mr. Blobby - "Mr. Blobby"
The disturbing children's television juggernaut that is Mr. Blobby had a Christmas #1 in the U.K. with this self-titled track (the song replaced Meatloaf's "I Would Do Anything For Love" at #1. That song is far from being my favorite song, but it didn't deserve that). The video (apart from being a fever dream) references at least four music videos, including "Addicted to Love" of course.
Stardust - "Music Sounds Better with You"
In 1998, French house music band, Stardust released the video for their song "Music Sounds Better with You." Michel Gondry directed the video, which follows a boy as he builds a model airplane. The TV in the background of the video plays a top five countdown of music videos, including the guys from Stardust singing the "Music Sounds Better with You." Along with the other four fully-fictional videos, one of them is for a song called "Hotlipz" by "Dave Stavros." The video for "Hotlipz" is an obvious visual reference to "Addicted to Love."
Shania Twain - "Man! I Feel Like a Woman"
Shania Twain was really the first artist to put her own spin on "Addicted to Love" for her 1999 single "Man! I Feel Like a Woman." Paul Boyd directed the video which features the iconic cloudy background- but this time, male models miming the instruments for her "backing band." The men are dressed in black as with the original female models, but with mesh shirts in place of short skirts with hosiery. The men stare blankly ahead while Twain rocks out in front in a stunning outfit far more memorable than Palmer's shirt-and-tie look. The video won video of the year in the MuchMusic Video Awards in 2000. It's also Twain's highest-viewed video on YouTube.
Bowling For Soup - "1985"
2004 saw SR-71 release a song called "1985." Most people know the song better from the cover by Bowling For Soup which was also released in 2004. The video is another that pays homage to many '80s videos (although as far as I can tell, none of them are as early as 1985). What's interesting about this video is that the actual band dress up as the models, down to the dresses and smoky eyes.
Ingrid Michaelson - "Girls Chase Boys"
Like Shania Twain, Ingrid Michaelson's video puts a new spin on the concept of the Palmer/Donovan videos. Michaelson openly pays tribute with a video inspired by "Simply Irresistible" specifically. "Girls Chase Boys" is a song about how "no matter who or how we love, we are all the same." Michaelson stated "The video takes that idea one step further, and attempts to turn stereotypical gender roles on their head. Girls don't exclusively chase boys. We all know this. We all chase each other and in the end we are all chasing after the same thing: love." Her 2014 video includes both men and women emulating the dance moves from "Simply Irresistible," as well as perfect adaptations of the costumes. Michaelson herself stands in front in a suit, carrying herself much like Palmer, using his hand motions when possible.
Luca Carboni - "Luca Lo Stesso
In 2015, Luca Carboni wrote a song about the contradictions of the world. Cosimo Alemà was brought in to direct the video, which features an all-female backing band with smoky eyes and matching dresses. Carboni told his YouTube audience: "I liked the idea of having a band that was only symbolic. It is no coincidence that the 80s are mentioned with the video of my first single. There the roots of my music and my history lie. They are the roots of this new album, which reach up to here, to look to the future" (translated from Spanish).
The impact of these videos doesn't end there: from covers like "Addicted to Love" by Black Heart Saints that also pays tribute to the video, to the music video being filmed in Love Actually with a band of model Santas for the band, to the many parodies of "Addicted to Love" that have sprung up over the years, even to the present day. Even in the early days of MTV when videos were somewhat scarce, there were winners and losers. It's clear that to this day the collaboration between director Terence Donovan and Robert Palmer has a lasting impact on the music video scene. Donovan suffered from depression and committed suicide in 1996 and Palmer died of heart failure in 2003, but people have still been referencing the videos. Their legacy outlived them.