What About Me

 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. 

Manic Monday

In which we learn that punks can grow old gracefully. (With luck and if they so choose.)

Owner of a Lonely Heart

I am amazed by this video. Amazed that it took me nearly 40 years to witness its majestic awfulness. Amazed that this was made by the same band at roughly the same time as the other video they did for the same song—a video that would be (justifiably) played to death by MTV. Amazed that they decided to cut away from Trevor Rabin just as he's about to sing the echo to the title in the chorus. Amazed by the comments it's engendered:

That looks like something a junior-high school band did for their drummer's aunt's public access cable TV show.

"MOVE YOURSELF."
Hardly moves

The ratio of awesome music to awkward visuals is staggering

No parrot has been harmed in the making of this video, several stylists and visual artists died during production though.

The setting sucks. Was the whole budget spent on the parrots?

Mom! Dad's singing in the living room again.

The singer even looks like he rushed from his summer job at the Thrifty Drug ice cream counter and forgot to take his nametag off.

If you mute it, the singer appears to be a daytime kids TV presenter talking over educational concepts for the kids who were too ill to go to school.

When every contestant in the "world's least cool man" competition wins!

Holy shit this is bad. They must have felt amazing in the studio: "look Trevor Horn is making us sound like the future". And then they made this.

Good god that’s awful. I couldn’t get through the whole thing but assume the sand worm from Beetlejuice came along and ate all of them.

Now I know why so many serial killers like prog rock

I mean...just look at this thing. Are any of those comments wrong? Or even unfair?

(Okay, this one may be a little unfair. But funny!)

I feel sorry for their lonely hut. Someone should move in.

Give Blood

The Crickets. The Beatles. Creedence Clearwater Revival. Led Zeppelin. The Ramones. P-Funk. The Smiths. R.E.M. Nirvana. Radiohead. There have been an awful lot of great bands.

This is not one of them. But only because it wasn't a real band—it was a solo artist with as good a backing band as has ever existed. If had been a real band? The core of Pete Townshend on vocals and rhythm guitar, Dave Gilmour on lead, Pino Palladino on bass and Simon Phillips on drums...well, the mind reels at what they could have created.

Incidentally, in case you were wondering, yes, this is maybe the most perfect drum performance ever, when it comes to the combination of staggering technique, brilliant inventiveness, off-the-chart energy and yet remarkable taste and restraint, including (at 3:44) the single greatest use of the double bass drums ever.

Terrible editing, of course. Hey, it was the 80s.

[ETA: ...huh. Turns out I wrote about this four years ago, and said pretty much the same thing, although I used a different version of what I think is the exact same performance.]

Goodbye To You

We've done a lot of writing on this blog about the 1980s, that whirring blur of pastel, excess and rationalization. We talked a lot about the good, not too much about the bad and quite a bit about the cheesy. And you know what? Just as the 1970s weren't all about shag carpeting, bell bottoms, leisure suits and whatever the hell this is, the 1980s were so much more than just a sockless Don Johnson or a feckless Oliver North. Or cocaine.

For God's sake both decades had some music...tons of music, really...that ranks as some of the greatest ever made. The 70s has all of those legendary Stevie Wonder records, the very best of the Who and maybe even the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen's two greatest records, Bob Dylan's second greatest, plus this. And this. And this!!!

Meanwhile, the 80s has not just Prince and Michael Jackson (and BTW also...PRINCE AND MICHAEL JACKSON!!!), but how about Madonna? And U2 and R.E.M? And the Replacements and the Pixies and Dinosaur Jr. and Living Colour and, come to think about it, the very very best of the Police? Yeah, the 1980s had it going on with its musics.

Which brings me to this one-hit...er...I guess two-hit wonder that most anyone who existed as a sentient human being over the age of 12 in 1983 became pretty familiar with. This song. The video of which, yes, has all that goofy and grandiose 1980s plastic mayhem and kitsch for which so many of us still remember the decade:



There's so much to love here. Let's start with the song. This is a terrific song that Scandal and Patty Smyth have created. Scott and I have spent much time in this space praising the glory of the well-executed pop song, and all of those elements that go into good pop. The catchiness, first and foremost. The hooks that make you say, "Yes!" Striking just the right balance of being not too heavy yet memorable and lasting enough to remain fresh after multiple listenings. I think those are the key ingredients, right? Catchiness, the right hooks and staying power? Isn't that what separated something like this from something like (ugh!) this?

Anyway, "Goodbye To You" has that pop essence, and it has the chops to leave behind a pop song that while it might sound a little dated 37 years later, it still makes a great listen. That classic 4/4 drum/bass beat that opens it (not unlike plenty of other terrific pop tunes, like "We Got The Beat" or "Dancing in the Dark.") A melody that never waivers and delivers both memorable verses and then one whallop of a chorus. And then, when we're not even expecting it, we get another indelible hook on the bridge ("And my heart...and my heart...and my heart...and my heart can't stand the strain.") "Goodbye To You" never dives too deep, but it also never lets up from start to finish. And I love that.

And then there is Patty Smyth, who kinda bounces into the frame a few seconds in (and seriously, I love how it takes her 15 seconds to show up. For whatever reason) and then just takes ahold of your collar and really doesn't let go. Her voice is not exactly classic female pop. Very little vibrato and no tricks at all, rather she has a touch of gravel and growl as she belts it out with all she's got. She lends just the right amount of emotion and fire where she needs to (the way she spits out the word "YOU!" on each chorus, the sweet, vulnerable retreat she makes at the start of the bridge). But her voice is one of control and steadiness, and she lends an edge to an otherwise very simple (if listenable and engaging) beat.

And in the video, I think it's pretty safe to say you literally can't take your eyes off of her. While her bandmates are decked out in menswear that seems to have been purchased from a catalog called, Man, Didn't the 80s Rock?, Patty is in her own world here. She is a bright red blur, bopping her little Long Island heart out in her red dress and heels, hardly ever cracking a smile but throwing us a gaze that goes right through the camera. The video is at times hilarious, with its sudden stop-action freezes in all sorts of weird times, but again, Patty doesn't care. She trades diva for dervish, and exists to sing the song with all she's got, and that's just what she does, dammit. She's not quite the Manic Pixie Dreamgirl. She's more the Manic Pixie Dreamgirl's older sister who you can't take your eyes off of and you don't dare screw with her. Bless her for that.

Just one little morsel of what the 1980s offered us. But such a good one. It really is.

Five Days in July

So I heard this at our local pizza joint the other day. I've been listening to a lot of Neil Young recently, so the opening harmonica immediately grabbed my attention, sounding as it does like an amalgamation of several different NY tunes, most especially "I Am a Child" and "Comes a Time," but shifted into the minor.

I couldn't hear very well, but enough to grok that it wasn't ol' Neil on vocals, and then some of the harmonic movement made it clear that if the song was written by Mr Young, it wasn't one I knew.

But then came the solo at the end I thought, damn, if these boys don't have the Neil Young aesthetic down pretty cold.

I've embedded this oh so pretty version of the song rather than the official video because the official video is about half the length and doesn't have the guitar searage.

Turns out Blue Rodeo was founded in the early 1980s and I'm only listening to them now. Seems about par for the course.

She Bop

I loves me some Slowhand—in fact, I loves me nearly all the Slowhand—but boy howdy did he screw up with his unconscionably tepid (to put it politely) unplugged version of "Layla." There are few more heart-rippingly desperately passionate songs in the history of rock and he somehow turned it into EZ-listening cream of wheat at the early bird special. Gross. What's worse is that other artists took exactly the wrong lesson and similarly neutered some of the best songs. Blech.

Now compare and contrast that with the superb deconstruction Cyndi Lauper gives one of her biggest ever hits here.

Do she want to go out with a lion's roar? Turns out a sinewy growl from a mountain cat is just as effective and even more unsettling.

Some Guys Have All the Luck

So previously I had declared this here perhaps The Most 80s Video Ever. Then a very unkind pal sent me this Rod Stewart video and I may have to reassess.

The animated effects, the deliberately herky-jerky framerate, the neon juxtaposed against the Patrick Nagel-like black and white, the drum machine, the chiming synths, the cheesy humor at the very beginning, the Miami Vice outfits...and of course, Rod the Mod at his Jaggerian pranciest. And if there's an artist in the world who has less standing to sing this nice guy anthem, I don't know who.

Needless to say, I love every second of this.

After the Fire

DT and I were talking a while back about post-Keith Moon Who LPs, as well as subsequent solo albums from various Who members. And I recalled that the Pete Townshend-written Roger Daltrey track "After the Fire" was really good.

But what I didn't recall was that the video itself gives Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" a serious run for its money when it comes to Most 80s Video Ever.

Sure, that's some earnest damn emoting at the beginning there, but then, Roger's always been a heart-on-the-sleeve singer. (And, if biographies are to be believe, guy.) And, yeah, you might think that one dramatic whiparound was enough, never mind seven. That's right, seven; I slowed the video down to half-speed, just to make sure my tally was right—although, admittedly, on the last one, he does a 270, rather than a 180, so I'm not positive if it counts. But what makes the opening work for me is how much drama he gets out of...lighting a match. Yeah, he later uses that match to spark a genuine conflagration, but that's in the future. At the moment the match is lit, it's just a surprise Spanish Inquisition-like appearance of...a match. And not even one of them really big mamajamas, neither; it's just a simple bog standard match, like used to be on the counter for the taking in restaurants and hotels and convenience stores. And yet the gravitas, the drama—it is simply glorious.

And I remembered right: pretty sweet tune.

Like the Weather

Another cold and rainy day in San Diego brought this song to mind.

I'd never seen the video before—despite owning the album back in the day, as most faithful R.E.M. fans seemed to—and was immediately struck by Natalie Merchant's dancing.

I remember the first time I encountered 10,000 Maniacs. My pal Dave and I saw them open for R.E.M. in Charlottesville on the Work tour (and that show, as well as a later one in New Haven, still count as two of the best concerts I've ever seen). Despite eagerly anticipating the headliners, we were fascinated by the openers.

The band played catchy, accessible folk-rock type songs and were fronted by a singer who spun and whirled and twirled, the centrifugal force causing her long skirt to create utterly fetching patterns. The main thing, though, was that Dave and I spent their entire set—except, perhaps, when Michael Stipe came out to duet with her on one song—debating whether or not she was speaking English. There were times we were sure she wasn't, times we thought she maybe was, as a clearly English word would suddenly emerge, and most of the time we just couldn't tell.

Those are my main memories of my initial exposure to 10,000 Maniacs: the Stipe duet, the language debate, and the image of her whirling, twirling skirt. So when I saw this video for the first time, I saw surprised by her dancing. Not that it wasn't of the übër-polished, complex, technically impressive style pioneered in videos by the likes of Michael Jackson, Madonna and Janet Jackson, and later made an imperative by stars such as Britney Spears and Beyonce. It's that it was...well, so utterly graceless. Given that I have two left feet, I don't look down upon anyone for not being able to dance well. In fact, I've sometimes wondered if we've missed out on some fine pop stars over the past 10 or 15 years because, despite their other talents, they weren't able to dance. (Adele is an argument that there's nothing to worry about, but I'm not sure one possible exception, no matter how popular, can count for too much. Then again, I'm just talking out of my ass and, anyway, none of this is something which causes me to lose a lot of sleep.)

No, it's more that her dancing reminded me of something, but I just couldn't quite figure out what, until my good lady wife made the connection.

RIP George Michael

And the worst year of my sentient life continues.

It would be inaccurate to say I was ever a George Michael fan, or a fan of Wham! At the time I foolishly thought myself above what I considered such pop piffle. And yet...and yet when the videos came on, I never turned the TV off. Not because I enjoyed the videos themselves—although the videos for "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" was a lot of silly fun—but because, in the end, as always, it comes down to the music, and Michael's gift for melody was undeniable. (As were his voice and his production skills, as well as his extraordinarily handsome looks, but none of those have ever meant anything close to as much to me as melody.)

So...yeah. Somebody wake me up once 2016 has gone-gone.

I Can't Stop Thinking About You

So this right here is an absolutely amazing pop song.

Upon first hearing it, my initial impulse was say I didn't think Sting could write like this anymore, but more accurately, I should have said I didn't think he had any interest in doing so. But upon reflection, it's not like I've heard any of his deep cuts in 20 years, so for all I know he's being putting a half dozen such tracks on each album. (Although I doubt it.)

But the really amazing thing, beyond how great a tune it is, is that up until the chorus at least, it sounds like Bruce Springsteen: the guitar-driven backing track, the melody, the lyrics, hell, even the way the video is shot. There seems to be a weird key change (maybe?) in the chorus that makes it not quite Bruce, but otherwise, it feels like ol' Gordon is channeling his blue collar pal at his very catchiest. And that chorus is absolutely prime 1984 pop, and I have no higher praise for a single than that.

Against All Odds

You know, for all the fecal matter slung his way, even some of Phil Collins's most popular ballads were really kinda weird structurally and harmonically.

"Against All Odds," with its rising chord progression that methodically works its way through almost every chord in the key of A minor, skipping E minor only to return to it later, unexpectedly, after G major, and shifting the D minor chord to a D major chord for the chorus, is, well, weird. The lack of a bridge or solo, the ever shifting lyrics, which reuse lines but rarely exactly...it really does sound like what it was, a guy in pain playing just for himself in his empty house as way to try to ameliorate or at least work through his issues. It's just that, in this case, the guy in question turned into a major pop star and was able to rework some of his musical therapy sessions and turn them into massive worldwide hits. But the unusual elements and the pain remains.

Backstabber

This is a hysterically accurate dead-on parody of early 80s rock videos, up there with "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and "Separate Ways." The fact that it's real just makes it all the better.

A pal sent it to me. Shocked that I—such an avid MTV viewer—had never seen or even heard of it before, I went looking for more info, and found this, which sums it up perfectly in the comments: "what the hell?"

Owner of a Lonely Heart

Been listening to a lot of Yes since Chris Squire's passing which is how I got to this and, well, it's pretty revelatory. I'd read that Trevor Horn had heard this Trevor Rabin demo and convinced a skeptical Rabin to work on it, but I'd never actually heard the demo and holy god does Trevor Horn have golden ears. How the hell do you hear a #1 hit in this sporadically really interesting but generally really generic 80s AOR skeleton?

Going from that to this

is...unlikely. And yet.

Alan White's drum part is magnificently understated, while this may be the most underplayed bass part Squire ever played. Also, damn, Rabin's one hell of a rock guitarist.

Stuck On You

It has just come to my attention that the Lionel Richie collection titled The Best of Lionel Richie: 20th Century Masters (Millennium Collection) does not include "Stuck On You," thus rendering its own title a lie.

Look. I loves me some "Penny Lover," adore "You Are" and don't even think for a moment I come in second to anyone in my love of "Hello" and its adorbs memes. And that's without even getting into his work with the Commodores. [Oh, "Sail On"...you are the sun, you are the rain that makes my life this foolish game. You need to know I love you so and I'd do it all again and again.]

But his best song is so clearly "Stuck on You."

I mean, it's so obvious. It's not even up for debate, any more than evolution or climate change or the need to vaccinate your kids. It. Is not. Open. For debate.

Listen to it. Start with that hushed and lovely opening. His voice is just the right mix of sweet and yet commanding. The way he hits certain phrases; listen to the way he sings, almost murmurs "...that I just can't lose." This is someone very gifted operating at the height of his talents.

The melody, simple and logical, remains nothing less than perfect, especially impressive given the way the phrases blend unexpectedly into each other in an oddly circular manner. Listen to the way the little fills in between the verses resemble another straightforward and classic lovely love song, "Wonderful Tonight." And much like that gem, Lionel offers no tricks here, just intimate and intricate affection.

There is so much to love here. That the meat of the song—hell, the very title of the song—is on you from the start. Just as "Losing My Religion," years later, would be rightly lauded for its popular and artistic success as a pop song despite its lack of a real chorus, so too with "Stuck On You." Instead, it has just a few verses that quickly wind their way into your subconscious, just like "Operator" and "Something" and a few other of the finest love songs ever written. The harmonies are sublime. The sentiment is both real and realized. The bridge builds the suspense by staying on the minor third and minor sixth chords over and over, ramping up the tension until he finally brings us back to the still unresolved but more familiar subdominant and dominant chords. And just as soon as it gets going again, it ends. The entire thing is a fleeting, indelible show of beauty that you want to revisit time and again.

Lionel Richie had a barnful of hits that made him a deserved legend. He is worthy of a greatest hits collection, no doubt—in fact, his record labels seems to believe him worthy of a dozen such collections. But a wise man once said, "A flute with no holes is not a flute. And a donut with no holes is a danish." Sorry, Millenium Collection. Lionel Richie had a great many hits. But without "Stuck On You," it is not a "best of" collection, not even close, nevermind one deserving of the appellation Millenium.

Magic

I don’t know if The Cars get their proper due as a great American rock band.

I never hear them come up in discussions when people talk about, oh, the likes of R.E.M. and Credence Clearwater Revival and Pearl Jam and Simon and Garfunkel (if they count as a “band”) or even Van Halen and, for people with a really cute sense of humor, Aerosmith.

Because damn. For those 5-6 years where The Cars were really in their prime, they weren’t just good. They were great. Really great.

They checked every box. They were the hippest new-wave band on the block. They were all over the pop charts. They embraced all the glorious madness of MTV and videos fairly early on and used it to their great benefit. And! And they also could rock as well as anyone—listen to “Just What I Needed” and “Let’s Go.” Those aren’t just synth’d up pop productions; those are rock-n-roll to the core. From the self-titled debut album in 1978, which yeah, seems like a Greatest Hits album now (just look at this track listing!) through 1984’s Heartbeat City, The Cars had it all.

Oh, okay. Not really. They didn’t have it all. They were a great studio band but when it came to playing live…they were a great studio band. 

In the summer of 1984, when The Cars for awhile walked in that same rarified air as Michael Jackson and Prince on the pop charts and sold out arenas across the country to promote Heartbeat City, they came to Hartford. Scott and I were there. And the show didn’t last longer than an episode of Matlock.

They seemed genuinely uncomfortable playing such a large crowd (15,000 plus at the Hartford Civic Center). You could tell; they barely said a word outside of (yes, this is true) “Hartford, you’re just what I needed!” at the very end. Lead singer/leader/friendly alien Ric Ocasek said that. And that was it for the chatter. The music was…good. It was like listening The Cars’ record for 55 minutes. Only, you know, it was a concert. Where strangely enough some fans expect more.

Anyway, I digress. Not a good live band. But an awesome studio band.

Yesterday I dipped back into some of their catalogue and came across a true gem. “Magic.” From Heartbeat City.

It was a decent-sized hit, though “You Might Think” and “Hello Again” and Ben Orr’s lovely Phil Collins’ impersonation “Drive” were bigger hits off of a very big album. But none of them was better than “Magic,” which showcased the band at their truly best for maybe the last time.

“Magic” was the perfect meshing of the band’s rock-n-roll sensibilities and new wave stylings. At its heart it is all about those three thundering power chords that drive it along. Ocasek and keyboardist Greg Hawkes add some nifty and very-80s synths to it, and the glossy production values (“Whoa oh, it’s Magic!”) dominate throughout. But those three power chords, such a very basic tenet of rock-n-roll, run the show. Elliot Easton was a hell of a fun lead guitarist, and his quirky, distinct solos were what made so many of the band’s songs so damn imaginative (he has another one here at the midway point, and if it sounds dated I think it’s only because Elliot had such a unique sound that was so affixed to this era). But those chords of his (and Ocasek, I would guess. And Orr on the bass) are Rock-n-Roll 101 and they give “Magic” an indelible pop hook that is just irresistible. (That chorus, seriously, is just amazing).

And then there’s the video, which I don’t know why, but I just love.

Part vanity piece and oh-so-very of the “Life is the best and we’re never gonna die!” 1980s, it’s still a perfect match for such a sunny, infectious tune. I honestly don’t know what’s going on here—something mayhap about a pool party of beautiful people that partly morphs into a Ric Ocasek Svengali-like water-walking seminar? Is that it? Was Ric Ocasek invited here, or is this just where the spaceship dropped him? And check out the guy in the cowboy hat at the 2:22 mark! ACTING!

I don’t care. I love it. And I love watching Ric Ocasek throughout it. As he genuinely seems to resemble a creature from another galaxy whom just got left here by the mothership and is now trying to understand what is up with all these well-dressed, fawning earthlings. He reminds me of David Bowie in The Man Who Fell To Earth, in that he looks both so human and so alien at the same time.

I really do love The Cars and their music. So much fun to it, so much going on behind it. If only they had a longer prime. And were better live. Alas, sometimes greatness is fleeting. And not meant to be brought outdoors.

Favorite Song Friday: Bizarre Love Triangle

I didn't like New Order. I didn't really know anything about them at the time, mind you, just that they were British and—and this is vital—from the 1980s. See, if they'd been from the 1960s and British, well, I'd have been all over them. 1970s were a bit dicier, but by the 1980s, especially the late 1980s, British bands equaled no for me, sight unseen and sound unheard. Yes, I was an idiot.

My (first) senior year of college, I ended up in a falling-apart, fire-damaged house in a dicey part of town with four other guys, only one of whom I knew at all. I got to know the others fairly quickly, of course, and one of the ways was through the habits and rituals most humans have. And one of the things a couple of my roomies did—the two who lived in the large room right above mine—was to blast this song repeatedly every Friday night as everyone (well, except me, of course) was getting ready to go out.

Naturally, I hated it from the first. And the fact that I had to listen to it three or four times every Friday night didn't help.

That's not exactly true. It turns out I actually really liked it, I just couldn't admit it, even to myself. It took seeing Michelle Pfeiffer dancing to it in the film Married to the Mob, and the surprising (to me) rush of joy hearing it in that context brought, to be able to admit that, by gosh and by golly, it was an utterly perfect pop song in every way.

The lyrics are...well, they're not good. They're not terrible, they're just little more than a series of loosely-connected phrases connoting romantic confusion and unhappiness clearly chosen more for their adherence to the rhyme scheme—one of my favorites, incidentally—than as a serious attempt to elucidate this most mysterious human mystery. Or, who knows, maybe they did try and just failed.

But it doesn't matter. Because the music—driven almost entirely by an usual IV-V-iii chord pattern, with the tonic only lightly and briefed touched upon during a few of the instrumental sections—carries the entire thing with a propulsion that makes even someone with one and a half left feet such as myself feel like he can and must dance. And when you combine that melody and those burbling synths, suddenly you realize that together they "say the words that I can't say." And when you get to the end, to that final moments, the music drifts off, unresolved, and ain't that ever so often the way?