The Atlantic - Latest Comments in Songs That You Loved That May, In Fact, Suck

Re: Songs That You Loved That May, In Fact, Suck

DeMiurge — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:54:09 -0000

That album really works on Eddie.

Re: Songs That You Loved That May, In Fact, Suck

Andre — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 19:22:16 -0000

OMS's a local (i.e. Auckland, New Zealand) act. Pauly Fuemana grew up not far from where my sister now lives with her hubby and kid. It always blew me away that that song ended up getting so much airplay when it felt like such a part of the local soundscape.

The video was such a great piece of period Kiwiana, right down to putting the band in a car (the ultimate NZ music video cliche.)

OMC was originally much less radio friendly, by the way. They used to have big Samoan dudes dancing around on stage with machetes.

Re: Songs That You Loved That May, In Fact, Suck

Andre — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 19:17:34 -0000

I plan on using "The Final Countdown" if/when I ever tie the knot, just to prove that I really am the whitest boy in my family.

Re: Songs That You Loved That May, In Fact, Suck

eric k — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 13:17:27 -0000

Uh for Reggae I listed Exodus, you know the best album by that Marley guy you mentioned:-)

Re: Songs That You Loved That May, In Fact, Suck

zinjanthropus — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 07:17:57 -0000

...adding to your list Eric k

As far as jazz rock fusion you can't leave out Return to Forever, weather report, and Mahavisnu orchestra.

Blues? Blues? BB King, Bobby Blue Bland, Albert King, Bobby Womack, ZZ Hill, Tyrone Davis.

Reggae? Some guy from Jamaica Named Marley.

Funk- Parliament-Funkadelic, Cameo, The Gap band, Confunktion, BT Express, Brass Construction, Mandrill, War,

I could go on and on like this.

Re: Songs That You Loved That May, In Fact, Suck

eric k — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:04:31 -0000

Fair point for the Sex Pistols and others of that ilk, but listen to The Ramones and then listen to the Kinks and you'll see what I mean:-)

Re: Songs That You Loved That May, In Fact, Suck

drumwolf — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 23:37:40 -0000

Eric -

For some reason, the comment you made that I'm replying to doesn't have a "reply" button available.

As far as your comments about punk, replace "the Kinks" with "Iggy and the Stooges" and it will be absolutely spot-on. But the Stooges were active in the early '70s so your broader point still holds up.

Re: Songs That You Loved That May, In Fact, Suck

keith — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 21:04:06 -0000

Damn I also screwed up the great Johnnie Taylor - Bobby Taylor, should have my card pulled for that one. I guess I had old Philly DB's on the brain...geez.

Re: Songs That You Loved That May, In Fact, Suck

Destro Villain — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:41:00 -0000

hahaha.....that song was our prom's theme!

Re: Songs That You Loved That May, In Fact, Suck

eric k — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:54:56 -0000

What is mind blowing is how many Genre's all had their definitive album and/or songs come out sometime between say '67 and '75, a few at random:

R&B & Soul: Talking Book, Songs in the Key of Life, Superfly Soundtrack, What's Going On just to pick a few candidates.

Funk: not sure which album you'd pick, but I'm sure George Clinton released it sometime in the early 70s:-)

Hard Rock: Physical Graffiti, Led Zeppelin IV

Heavy Metal: Black Sabbath forget the album but it had Paranoid, Iron Man and War Pigs, isn't every heavy Metal song since ultimately just a reworking of one of these?

Beach Music: Good Vibrations

Southern White Boys doing blues based rock: Eat a Peach

Blue Collar story telling rock anthems: Born to Run

Pretentious album length Progressive Rock: Jethro Tull, Yes and of course Pink Floyd all released their definitive stuff.

Pretentious Sci-Fi/Ayn Rand inspired libertarian fantasies: 2112

British Invasion: Sgt Pepper, enough said

British blues: Who's Next, Exile on Main St

Rock Operas: Quadropehenia

Folk Rock: Heart of Gold plus all the CSNY stuff, even the cheap imitations like America are better than most of what comes out today.

Female Singer songwriters: Blue and Ladies of the Canyon

Male Singer Songwriters: Paul Simon's best stuff

Soft Rock: Chicago, Roxy Music

Glam Rock: Ziggy Stardust, T-Rex

Outlaw country: Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings basically invented it in this era.

Alt Country: All the current hip alt country bands are really just doing what Townes Van Zandt and Gram Parsons most notably were doing.

Punk: all the punk bands are really doing is The Kinks with less ability to play instruments.

Grunge: Pearl Jam et al will be the first to admit they were just doing something Neil Young had already done better on Tonights the Night.

Overhyped SuperGroups that had some great songs but no future: Blind Faith

Jazz Rock fusion: Traffic

Reggae: Exodus I suppose, I forgot the year though did that just miss the cut?

Disco: The first Bee Gees disco stuff (which came before Saturday Night Fever by the way, they co-opted the music for the movie)

And I could go on and on making up narrower and narrower definitions. Really other than Rap and Hip Hop it is hard to find any music past say '78 that isn't just a rehash of something from that era. I'm not saying there isn't good stuff still being released, the great thing about music is that nearly infinite numbers of great songs in the same style can still be written, but I am saying if someone came and offered you say a million dollars to never again listen to something recorded after 1978 you could take the deal in a heart beat and be just fine for music for the rest of your life:-)

Re: Songs That You Loved That May, In Fact, Suck

eric k — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:53:24 -0000

Yeah Page and Plant gave them the others but not sure what happened with Stairway if there was someone else who had rights as well or if they simply thought it was too much.

A funny story I heard Cameron Crowe tell is when he showed them the movie to get the rights and the scene comes on where Cudrup says I never said I was a Gold God, Plant laughed and said no that was me.

If you read the actual articles Crowe wrote in that era (all included on the bonus disc in this version by the way!) it is pretty clear that most of the material came from his tours with CSNY, Zeppelin and the Allman Brothers.

Re: Songs That You Loved That May, In Fact, Suck

keith — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:00:57 -0000

Yeah I screwed that one up, for some reason I always thought of "Down In Mexico" as being early 70's. To be fair they re-recorded it in the 70's, but I'll be damned if it wasn't their first hit in 1956! That song sounds to me like it was dripping with 70's soul, I was wrong.

Re: Songs That You Loved That May, In Fact, Suck

cdg — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:00:20 -0000

You're right of course, but that's kinda the point! We'd need the whole blog to list all the quality from that decade. And how they still hold up. And how new guys don't write ish because they just steal 70s stuff.

Don't get me started....

Re: Songs That You Loved That May, In Fact, Suck

rassia — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:53:55 -0000

Good list, keith. Also: Gill Scott-Heron, Donny Hathaway, Roy Ayers....

Re: Songs That You Loved That May, In Fact, Suck

Sweet Jones — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:34:59 -0000

The Coasters? You mean the doo wop group from the Fifties?

Re: Songs That You Loved That May, In Fact, Suck

keith — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:14:35 -0000

Yeah thats not even fair to bring up the 70's. Especially since you didn't even mention guys like The Isley Brothers, Bobby Taylor, Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, Bootsy Collins, The Coasters, The Dramatics(What Ya See, is What Ya Get-one of the all time great bass grooves), etc...

Re: Songs That You Loved That May, In Fact, Suck

zinjanthropus — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:10:28 -0000

Synth?? Bernie Worrell of Funkadelic Playing on Aquaboogie is simply one of the greatest keyboard performances on a pop -non Jazz or Classical- song EVER. The whole track is Drums, Guitar and the rest is him. Synth bass, Synth lead, and some monstrous Acoustic Piano. Just superb. Worrell was always one of the greatest and in concert he would add in a dash of Beethoven, circus music, jazz.

90s singing?

Sorry but if R Kelly had written I believe I can fly and perhaps 2 other songs he would've been ok, made a little money. But as it is R-Kelly sucks even if he wasn't a statutory rapist.

It's shameful to even THINK about the Spinners and Boyz2men in the same thought bubble.

Not much great R&B music comes out of the major labels and the main reason is that, as the Rap A&R guys and executives gained more power, their influence branched over to the R&B offices. The Corporate heads- in typical fashion- made no differentiation. They thought of it all as urban(Black) music and since the rap guys were making more money for the majors than any other genre, their power grew as well. As powerful label guys, P-Diddy and Andre Harrell did more to screw up R& B than anyone. Sure Jodeci, and Silk, were cool but the lack of decent R&B producers and songwriters who actually knew about pitch, projection, enunciation and arrangement were a dying breed. Jojo's singing was always pitchy out of control. He was like Michael Jordan, but without the college basketball training and coaching.

While creating a most urgent and powerful genre of their own, they basically killed the parent. Even now, it's almost a guarantee that Rap executives and producers will still ruin R&B singers worse than Crack and Pneumonia.

Compare the carreers of Alicia Keys and Ashanti.

The difference is that ONE of them was on a rap label. the other was with Clive davis.

There's still great R&B but there's only what? Four or five different radio stations in the Country. Hotwhatever, Zwhatever, Powerwhatever, Kisswhatever, and Clearwhatever. Most of the Djs have no power to play anything off list and no knowledge of good music if they could . Hell VH1 soul has better stuff in a day than most black radio will play in a year.

Re: Songs That You Loved That May, In Fact, Suck

eric k — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:04:53 -0000

While were on the music topic, thanks to Bill Simmons I learned that Almost Famous has a directors cut that is 30 minutes longer and even better. How did I miss out on that, anyone who loves music must love Almost Famous!

Re: Songs That You Loved That May, In Fact, Suck

eric k — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:02:17 -0000

Yeah this 40 something really regrets missing out on that stuff when I was young. The old if I could be 17 again knowing what I know now, think how much you could have impressed 16 year old girls with Curtis Mayfield or Marvin Gaye while everyone else thought Peter Cetera era Chicago and Air Supply was the most romantic thing ever!

Re: Songs That You Loved That May, In Fact, Suck

eric k — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:58:14 -0000

Guns and Roses has some pretty good stuff, no shame in that, yeah some of it is over the top, but Sweet Child of Mine and Welcome to the Jungle are kick ass. And the early Def Leppard isn't bad either, but once you get to the Pour some Sugar on me era, yeah there just as bad as Motley Crue and the other hair bands, really just soundtracks for Strippers at best:-)

Re: Songs That You Loved That May, In Fact, Suck

nawimean — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:56:53 -0000

I saw TROOP last summer on a 90"s R&B revival tour along with, Ready for the World, BBD and Mint Condition (which one of these does not belong?). Anyway, TROOP in their late 30's early 40's splendor rocked baggy jeans, white button-ups and sneaks and did the same 1989 moves. It was both sad and strangely entertaining.

Re: Songs That You Loved That May, In Fact, Suck

Jingo Killah — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:46:44 -0000

womack into teh pandora.

Re: Songs That You Loved That May, In Fact, Suck

cdg — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:42:36 -0000

Really though, what era stands up to the 70s for black music? People actually played instruments. Slow jams were legendary (I Want You/Marvin Gaye?, Easy/Commodores?, any Willie Hutch?). Funk was everywhere (Brothers Johnson?, Lakeside?, The Commodores?, Parliament?, EWF?). Isaac Hayes???

Though I'm too young (36) to remember all of that era first run, I'm making up for lost time now. Listening to Bobby Womack as we speak. And trust, after 30 years, it definitely holds up.

-c

Re: Songs That You Loved That May, In Fact, Suck

keith — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:34:22 -0000

R&B is dead. Sad. But the mousic of back in the day still reigns. Boys II Men has not aged well, nut there is plenty that has (imo). Troop was mentioned above, you already posted on New Edition, Tony Terry is still the shit. Anything that Gerald Levert sang on is great, even that one song by The Rude Boys. How good would the Carter takeover in New Jack City have been if not for Levert and Troop not singing on the street. Al B's "Nite and Day" is great.

Which brings me to my personal favorite, which to me sums up soul and R&B of that time is Secret Garden. Al B, James "Slept On" Ingram, El Debarge, and of course the immortal Barry White.

This is just a badd ass song, in any era - enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ri8X6D-4k-E&feature=related

Re: Songs That You Loved That May, In Fact, Suck

keith — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:19:19 -0000

Ok, I'll grant you "Tender Lover". But I draw the line in the sand at "Whip Appeal". That is a classic, and anytime you(or I) hear the song now, how can you not sing it. Also, lets not forget the great Deele, if not for Babyface there would be no "Two Occasions".

While were at it, if not for Babyface there would be no After & and no "Can't Stop", "Reday or Not", and "Nights like This".