Ohio's had some issues this century. But as songwriter Ian Hunter said, "the inspiration for 'Cleveland Rocks' goes back to the old days when people used to make fun of Cleveland. Cleveland was 'uncool' and LA and NYC were 'cool'. I didn't see it that way. Lotta heart in Cleveland."
Damn skippy.
Just earlier today I was thinking about how little I care for harmony. It's not that I dislike it—I often love it—but I care less about it than I do about timbre and texture and rhythm and, most of all, melody. In fact, when it comes to multiple vocals in popular music, I greatly prefer to have entirely separate vocal lines which perhaps sometimes interlock and perhaps sometimes don't than to have richly layered harmonies.
Which is why I was shocked by just how much I love this cover of the great Replacements song. I assume it's mainly due to director Ione Skye. (I'm a big proponent of the auteur theory.)
It's such a strange thing when someone mentions a song you've never even heard of, much less heard, and then it starts and you realize, oh, I heard that maybe a dozen times back when I was about 13 and not since and yet it's been rattling around in there all this time.
