I Want You Back

I'm a big fan of the slowed down, acoustic, soulful covers of upbeat pop, rock and hip-hop songs, while acknowledging that it's an approach which had become overdone well past the point of cliché many years ago.

The unbelievably talented Janelle Monae indeed slows down this unassailably ebullient Jackson 5 hit, but rather than simply go the delightful if well-trod twee route, she takes it in a jazz direction without actually adding any swing rhythms—and yet embuing it with an incredible amount of swing. And the results are simply magical: ethereal and yet thoroughly earthy at the same time.

Baby Don't You Do It

Good golly but these gents occasionally would commence with the musical kicking of ass. I'd love to know what Holland–Dozier–Holland thought of this assault.

Also a pretty clear template for "The Real Me."

You Keep Me Hangin' On

I must admit, the Supremes are something of a blind spot for me. I like them, but I don't like them nearly as much as I love most of the other huge Motown acts. But "You Keep Me Hangin' On" is one of my all-time favorite Holland-Dozier-Holland songs.

So this

just oh so very much works for me, overwrought as it may be.

Favorite Song Friday: Papa Was a Rollin' Stone

The scene: a basement in northwestern Connecticut in the early-to-mid-1980s. A kid puts on a record his big brother's brought home from college.

Boomp boomp. 

Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch.

Boomp boomp boomp boomp. 

Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch.

Wacka-wacka-wacka-wacka-wacka-wacka-wacka-wacka. 

Miles Davis? That's not...is it? It sounds like him...

"It was third of the September...that day I'll always remember—yes, I will."

Sweet Jesu, what is this? This is Motown? This isn't Motown. The kid likes Motown, everyone likes Motown, who doesn't like Motown, Motown's great, but this...this is...man, this doesn't sound like "Stop! In the Name of Love"!

The kid sits, transfixed, until the song's over. The spell's broken when the next track begins, at which point the kid gets up and lifts the needle as fast as he can. He puts the first track on again. And again. And again. He's later surprised to realize the entire afternoon has gone by while he's doing this.

The kid doesn't really know what it was about this that spoke so immediately—I mean, from the first damn seconds—to his lily-white suburban 13-year-old soul more accustomed at the time to Led Zeppelin and the Who, but it did. Twelve minutes, one chord, one breath held the entire damn time.

Boomp boomp.