One

I don't know how I missed this at the time but I surely did. Eddie Vedder covering "One" for U2's Kennedy Center Honors. 

The song's abridged. The tempo's a bit too fast. And it's maybe the finest vocal performance I've ever heard Eddie Vedder give, and I believe I've heard everything official studio recording and dozens and dozens of hours of live material from him. 

Bono seems to be nearly vibrating as he listens and it's hard to blame him. 

Where the Streets Have No Name/Can't Take My Eyes Off of You

So I heard this maybe once or twice back in the day but had somehow entirely forgotten it had ever existed until today. 

I learned about it because I stumbled across an article that mentions that when it first came out, apparently Bono released a statement asking "What have we done to deserve this?" 

I at first assumed it was entirely in jest, especially since "What Have I Done to Deserve This?" is also the name of a Pet Shop Boys song. 

But listening to the track again, I have to think it was at least partially real. In fact, even for a Bono sliding so heavily away from his famous sincerity and into the ironically ironicalness in which he seemed to revel for most of the 90s, it's not hard to believe that to have a popular band he likely enjoyed and respected as the Pet Shop Boys release a piss-take on one of his most special hurt. 

And it's a bit hard to argue that it could be anything but a piss-take. It's not so much how they approach the song, which is an upbeat dance arrangement that actually manages to emphasize just how catchy the original melody is. Nor is it the vocal approach, which has been described as deadpan, and maybe so, but seems heartfelt if not terribly emotive. 

No, it's the part where it segues into the Frankie Valli classic "Can't Take My Eyes Off You." Which is a fine pop song, and one I've always absolutely loved. But the point of an interpolation (or medley or mashup or whatever) is to shed some extra or greater or at least interesting light on each individual part. And while I love "Can't Take My Eyes Off You," it's not only not exactly Dylanesque lyrically, but it doesn't seem to have any aspirations in that direction. Like much of the Four Seasons' work, it hews far more closely to the 50s or early 60s lyrical style, content with "moon/June" rhymes, and with no thought deeper than "you're really pretty and I would like to sleep with you." Which, hey, it's one of the prime human emotions and when it's set to a melody as catchy as this one, that's more than good enough for me. 

But "Where the Streets Have No Name" shoots far, far higher, taking on class warfare and ruminating upon where, if anywhere, one can truly find God. Now, it's possible the song does not achieve its goals as fully as the Valli song does. But there's no question its artistic goals are significantly loftier. 

And by melding the two, the Pet Shop Boys are either showing that they're determined to themselves tear down the walls that separate low art from high(ish) art, or they're sneering at the idea of a pop song even thinking of trying to be so pretentiously lofty and, possibly, at the very famous and famously pretentious lyricist. Or perhaps they're incapable themselves of seeing the difference between the two songs. Or maybe they really are simply suggesting there's no difference between the two. 

Who's Next/Achtung Baby — Going Bigger

Two legendary bands, at seemingly the height of their respective greatness, 20 years apart. Yet neither were satisfied with the enormity of their success and wanted to go bigger, newer and yes, even better.

And somehow they did.

The bands were The Who and U2. The years were 1971 and 1991—two absolutely monstrous years in music. And they each put out an album that signaled far and wide that the bands that the masses once new had changed. And a different era was underway.

Who’s Next. Achtung Baby. Absolute 100% bona fide game-changers. Any list of the greatest and most important albums in rock-n-roll history has these two albums on it. And if it doesn’t, the list is incomplete, almost stupidly so.

And here’s one more beautiful thing The Who and U2 had in common with these albums. The bands knew they were entering untouched territory, and they knew they had to let the listeners know that from the very start. 

So from the first seconds of opening tracks of those two albums, “Baba O’Riley” and “Zoo Station”—both amazing tunes, to be sure—our speakers and our ears were flooded from the get-go with sounds we had never heard from either band before. And holy cow did it get our attention. And still does today, to anyone listening.

Think about it. 

The epic synth drone which lifts “Baba O’Riley” up to some space-age plain the second the needle drops on Who’s Next was a brand new frontier for The Who. They had done some fine albums and all those great and taut Maximum R&B singles and then in 1969, with Tommy,  they invented the rock opera and created an album that seemed to almost swallow their identity…mostly in a good way. But they needed to move on and looked even bolder, brasher. Even bolder and more brash than Tommy had been two years earlier; after all, The Who had dabbled splendidly in longer-form narrative before Tommy (“A Quick One While He’s Away” in 1966, “Rael” a year later). But they had never, EVER tried anything like this before. 

And those sounds that open “Baba O’Riley,” that hypnotic and circular Lowery organ pattern which seems to have been dreamed up as much by Arthur C. Clarke or Stanley Kubrick as by Pete Townshend, damned if it didn’t work and take the listeners on an uncharted journey. No one could have expected it, but within seconds we couldn’t imagine music without it.

Fast forward 20 years. Now how about the volcanic industrial sound that drops into our laps about three seconds into “Zoo Station,” a sound so thunderous and forboding it almost sounds like the musical version of The Big Bang. This was not "traditional U2", awash in reverb and shimmering delay and spiritual and political forthrightness we had come to know and deeply love, played majestically from Boy through The Joshua Tree. This was cataclysmic sonic mayhem, all metal and stone and echoes and shadows and distortion. U2 had conquered all worlds by 1991, even trotting out the highly subversive and (according to at least this writer) highly underrated multi-media experiment of Rattle and Hum in 1988. But now, much like The Who in 1971, they needed more, and they got more. 

And much like “Baba O’Riley,” it all sounded like world-building, because it was. For “Baba” it was a gateway into the aimless, miasmic plasma of the 1970s and out of the (fictitious) Age of Aquarius. For “Zoo” it was a guillotine to the Reagan-Thatcher years of despotic, plastic self-virtue (laid in musical form by years of empty-headed Aqua Net-pasted glam metal) and an invitation to blaze new trails across previously neglected human wastelands. In every sense of the word this was music of change.

And neither exactly occurred in a vacuum—both came out at momentous times in rock-n-roll history amidst staggering competition, and still were able to not just stand on their own, but stand victorious and proud amongst the very very best musical offerings of their respective years. Or most any years.

I mean, 1971. Look. LOOK at the kind of the music their counterparts were offering:

• Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On
• Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV
• Joni Mitchell – Blue
• Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers
• John Lennon – Imagine
• Sly and the Family Stone – There’s a Riot Goin’ On
• David Bowie – Hunky Dory
• Funkadelic – Maggot Brain
• Carole King – Tapestry
• Allman Brothers –At Fillmore East

I mean. I mean!

Not to be outdone, 1991? Well…again, just look:

• Nirvana – Nevermind
• Metallica – Metallica
• R.E.M. – Out of Time
• Matthew Sweet – Girlfriend
• Michael Jackson – Dangerous
• Public Enemy – Apocalypse 91: The Enemy Strikes Back
• Dinosaur Jr. – Green Mind
• Pearl Jam – Ten
• A Tribe Called Quest – The Low End Theory
• P.M.Dawn: Of the Heart, of the Soul and of the Cross: The Utopian Experience

Those are a couple of Murderer’s Rows of musical years, and sure, maybe some of those albums were as good as Who’s Next and Achtung Baby, but none of them—NONE of them—were better. 

Both offered a promise of a new day, a new musical awakening, with those opening tracks, and both delivered. Because of course it didn't stop there. In addition to the epochal starters each album contained arguably the respective bands’ greatest songs (“Won’t Get Fooled Again” and “One”), some statement of purpose masterpieces (“Behind Blue Eyes,” “Song Is Over” for the Who, “Mysterious Ways,” “Until the End of the World” for U2”) and, yes, some familiar musical territory done with as much muscle and gritty agency as ever (“Bargain” on Who’s Next, “Even Better Than the Real Thing” on Achtung Baby).

They were gutsy moves. Two of the greatest bands ever, each having reached pinnacles they couldn’t have imagined when they were starting out years earlier. Each wanting more. And each getting it.

It’s unfair to offer that they never would be that good again, because how do you top sheer once-in-a-lifetime masterpieces? Hell, if they didn’t equal those efforts they came pretty close—All That You Can’t Leave Behind, Quadrophenia, The Who By Numbers, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb—and that’s saying more than something. But those efforts they churned out in 1971 and 1991 remain sui generis works of art. And if there’s one thing that art does, it lives. Does it ever.

The Who and U2 live forever in those opening generational strains of “Baba O’Riley” and “Zoo Station.” The music explains why, as it always has.

One

With or Without You

One of U2's best known songs redone as a gothic dirge? Sure, why not.

I like this a lot but I'm not actually sure it works. But what is undeniably impressive is how thoroughly Lee has put her own stamp on this iconic tune, keeping virtually nothing of the original arrangement. For a song as entrenched in pop culture as this one, that's no mean feat.

(I especially dig the "On a Plain" vocals at the end.)

R.E.M.'s "Country Feedback" = U2's "One." Really?

 Yes. Really.

So Scott recently sent me an email entitled “R.E.M. = U2.”

And the first line read, “'Country Feedback’ = their “'One.’”

At first I wondered if he’d been drinking, which was unlikely.

Then I wondered if I’d been drinking. Which was all but a certainty. But then I am getting off-topic.

But really, at first I thought he was nuts. “One” equaling “Country Feedback?” In terms of quality and import? The two tracks being similar enough to equate their places in the band’s respective (and expansively amazing) catalogues?

“One” and “Country Feedback,” essentially brothers of other mothers? Impossible!

Or was it?

I mean, sure, for all their differences the bands have run remarkably similar paths. They are arguably (not here, of course—here there is [almost] no argument) the two greatest bands of their generation, as well as the two most important and successful of that same era. Both had big personalities out front—no one in the game is as big as Bono in that sense, but Michael Stipe has surely (and surprisingly) become one of rock’s more outspoken and articulate spokespeople over the last 30 years, making a rather shocking transition from his days as a shy, barely audible art student. And both emphasized the band as a unit, more than the personalities within it, better than any band since The Beatles. R.E.M. and U2 are filled with talented and innovative band members, but the band always always always comes first. Berry-Buck-Mills-Stipe and Bono-Clayton-Edge-Mullen Jr. are inseparable forces that make R.E.M. and U2 what they are.

There are plenty of more similarities from two bands that really came to be rock’s standard bearers in the 1980s and beyond. Monstrous albums, a commitment to sound and style that really remained unwavering and identifiable throughout (you know the sound of an R.E.M. or U2 song—you just do) and ability to keep evolving yet staying true to their roots and core mission.

There were differences as well, of course. They sound very little alike, even as they both fall so decidedly into the rock-n-roll genre. R.E.M.’s sound was firmly rooted in their southern backgrounds and leaned as much on the Byrds and other folk-rock ancestors as their beloved post-punk peers and punk-era forerunners. Meanwhile U2 emerged from Ireland birthed by both the new wave-crazed British movements of the late 1970s as well as the same blues heroes who inspired like the likes of Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page, and blended it with unbending political intuition and a certain Catholic stridence. In the case of both bands, these innovative and unique backgrounds and influences—Southern Gothic with punk leanings, Celtic Fire with blues leanings—created their sound and made them who they are.

So all of that is good, great, super. Their best albums (War, The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby and Murmur, Document and Automatic For the People) from their first decade or so all belong, at the very least, on any Top 100 of all time list, likely much higher than that. Both bands hit and hit and hit. And they did it almost in direct parallel to each other, at least until Bill Berry left R.E.M. in 1997.

But back to the initial premise here. “Country Feedback” being the R.E.M. equivalent of “One?” And vice versa? What the who?!

In this corner we have “One.” A modern epic from Achtung Baby that easily stands as one of the five best songs U2 ever did. Even its title—“One”—seems huge and important. It was a radio and video success. Peripheral fans and hardcores hold it in similar reverence, and my guess is it remains one of the first songs you think of when you think of U2. At least I do, and I don’t think I’m alone.

And in this corner you have “Country Feedback,” the penultimate track from R.E.M.’s Out of Time album that came out the same year as Achtung Baby (1991). It practically has a working title – “Country Feedback” just screams “placeholder,” doesn’t it? Obscure and oblique, it had virtually no radio or video presence and is known mostly to just the hardcores. Yet…hmm…among those hardcore fans, list after list of R.E.M.’s finest songs always seem to include “Country Feedback” way up at the tippety top of the best the band ever did.

So there is that similarity. Hmm. Hmmm. Let’s look further.

Both songs sound wholly unique for their respective bands. Both abandon the trademark sound of each—“One” loses the reverb, “Country Feedback" loses the jangle—and instead goes the quiet, more introspective route. And both belie the larger sounds that surround them on their albums—“One” has none of the heavy industrial pulse that beats through so much of Achtung Baby, while “Country Feedback” loses the mandolin and genteel breeziness that dominated so much of Out of Time. So there’s another one.

Here’s yet another, this one a huge one. Both songs start quiet but quickly, declaring their intentions from the first 15-20 seconds. And both songs keep building, building, building to something much bigger, grander than their hushed beginnings indicate at the outset. “One” soars louder and higher, “Country Feedback” keeps gaining dirge-like menace as it plods along. And most important, neither ever break down in the middle only to start again (like, say, two of their other greatest songs, “Losing My Religion” and “Bad” do) and neither ever retreats to the quieter beginnings. Both songs end high and big—“One” with Bono’s melodic howling, “Country Feedback” with Peter Buck and Mike Mills filling the studio with the funereal moan of the guitar and organ. Both songs end and almost literally the opposite place where they began.

And here’s one more, which convinced me that Scott’s initial assertion of the equivalencies of these two songs was, in fact, right on the money. (Whereas initially I thought he was nuts). Both songs are dominated, first and foremost, by the vocals. Which is odd for two songs instilled with such precise and intricate musicianship.

But “One” is Bono’s forum and “Country Feedback” is Stipe’s. I have talked about the epic nature of “One” and I mean it, but it felt funny declaring something that runs only 4:36 as “epic” in the rock oeuvre. After all we’re talking about a category that has longplay standards like “Free Bird” and “Hotel California” leading the “epic” parade, right?

Not really. Had “One” added an extended intro and outro, sure, it would have fit easily into the same six-minute-plus form as those two songs. But that would have defeated its purpose. “One” is about the vocal and needs to have the vocal as its center. “Free Bird” and “Hotel California” each feature wonderful vocal turns from Ronnie Van Zant and Don Henley, respectively. But is either the first thing you think of when you think of those songs? Or are you more aware of Gary Rossington’s gorgeous minute-long slide lead in and Allen Collins’ mindblowing five-minute finishing solo? The same applies to the dueling guitar work Joe Walsh and Don Felder offer at the beginning and end of “Hotel California.” Those guitars, in both songs, are the set-pieces, despite the awesome vocals.

In “One” it begins and ends with Bono. While Henley and Van Zant take on either side of a minute to start singing in their songs and finish up several minutes before the end of the songs, Bono first shows up a mere 14 seconds into “One” and stays virtually until the end. His plaintive lyrics—fracture and loss and who we are and what we do to each other – take hold for more than four minutes of a song that runs just 4:36. (Conversely, Henley is only heard for about 3 ½ minutes of the 6:30 “Hotel California,” and Van Zant only 3:45 of an almost 10-minute “Free Bird.”) Perhaps more than any song in U2’s magnificent canon, “One” belongs to Bono, and showcases his voice as instrument better than any.

The same can be said for Stipe in “Country Feedback.” His singing starts in the first 10 seconds and keeps up, becoming more and more desperate by the second and remains, pretty much, until nearly the end. He is still heard moaning a “Crazy what you could have had” as the song winds to its discordant and unsettling close. Like “One,” the backing music is mesmerizing and superior. But this is Stipe’s show. I cannot think of an R.E.M. song where Stipe is more in command, more out there in front and overpowering, than “Country Feedback.”

And again, the song runs just 4:10, nowhere near the traditional “epic” length as mentioned above. Sure, it could have been. It could have started murkier, with 30-40 seconds of lead-in, and it could have stretched out at the end to the six-minute mark if it had to. But why? “Country Feedback” accomplishes all it needs to accomplish in its tight 4:10 time-frame. Just like “One.”

“Country Feedback” shows an entirely different direction for the band, just like “One.”

“Country Feedback” builds and builds and never comes back down. Just like “One.”

“Country Feedback” is a part of a groundbreaking album that launched the band in the 1990s. Just like “One.”

“Country Feedback” is an epic experiment in understated, unnerving lyrics that allows its singer to stretch his range and let his voice become the very embodiment of the words he is singing. Just like “One.”

And lastly, “Country Feedback” stands easily among the very best songs R.E.M. ever did. Just like “One” does for U2.

“Country Feedback” is R.E.M.’s equivalent to U2’s “One.”

Scott was right.

Scott. Was right.

Damndest thing, huh?

Selling Out

 So I ran across this very amusing piece a few days ago, and it reminded me of a series of posts I wrote to a mailing list back in the days of yore, when mailing lists were the main way people passionate about a given topic exchanged ideas and information—which is to say the prehistoric days around the turn of the century.

I don't recall what started the entire discussion, but it could have been the then-fairly-recent commercial for...an automobile, maybe?...featuring Peter Gabriel's song "Big Time." Or maybe it was Led Zeppelin definitely shilling for a car company. Or Pete Townshend...shilling for a car company. Before he sold perhaps his greatest song to a cheesy cop show. Which was before he sold perhaps his second greatest song to another cheesy cop show.

Whichever it was, it seemed just such a betrayal by one of our greatest artists, something I found shocking and upsetting. Ah, but I was so much older then...

Look. I get it. I do I mean, yeah yeah, it's all very meta, the way Gabriel is saucily taking the piss out of the entire venture by using that song, of all his songs, to shill a product. So mighty clever. As Pete Townshend, now vying with the Glimmer Twins for the poster boy of what used to be called selling out, once said:

For about ten years I really resisted any kind of licensing because Roger had got so upset when somebody had used "Pinball Wizard" for a bank thing. And they hadn't used the Who master—and what he was angry about was, he said that I was exploiting the Who's heritage but denying him the right to earn. Who fans will often think, "This is my song, it belongs to me, it reminds me of the first time that I kissed Susie, and you can't sell it."

And the fact is that I can and I will and I have. I don't give a fuck about the first time you kissed Susie. If they've arrived, if they've landed, if they've been received, then the message is there, if there's a message to be received. 

I think the other thing is, though—and I'm not trying to sideswipe this, this is not the reason why I license these songs, it's not the reason why I licensed "Bargain" to Nissan—it was an obviously shallow misreading of the song. It was so obvious that I felt anybody who loved the song would dismiss it out of hand. And the only argument that they could have about the whole thing was with me, and as long as I'm not ready to enter the argument, we don't argue. Well, I'm not ready to argue about it. It's my song. I do what the fuck I like with it.

[Emphasis added.]

Isn't that just adorable. "Sure, I took millions but you were all in on the joke, right? If you were a real fan, you'd have gotten it."

And that sums up Townshend so wonderfully right there, the way he manages to be absolutely right and completely wrong at the same damn time, even as simultaneously compliments and denigrates the hell out of Who fans. As counterpoint, I present this quote taking the opposite stance:

I had such grand aims and yet such a deep respect for rock tradition and particularly Who tradition, which was then firmly embedded in singles. But I always wanted to do bigger, grander things, and I felt that rock should too, and I always felt sick that rock was looked upon as a kind of second best to other art forms, that there was some dispute as to whether rock was art. Rock is art and a million other things as well—it's an indescribable form of communication and entertainment combined, and it's a two-way thing with very complex but real feedback processes as well. I don't think there's anything to match it.

[Emphasis again added.]

Let's see now, who said that? Oh, that's right: it was Pete Townshend. Calling his older self full of shit. (To be fair, Pete often calls himself full of shit, not infrequently in the same interview or even breath.)

So. Seems that once upon a time, at least, there was such a thing as the concept of selling out, and that some artists considered this a bad thing. Some of those artists later went on to do the very thing their earlier selves had claimed to find abhorrent. Life's a funny thing, innit?

First of all, let me point out the blindingly obvious, which is that the world has changed since I wrote much of this, 10 long years ago. For the majority of artists—including, yes, major gazillionaires like the Who and the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton and so on and so forth—the only way to get their new stuff heard is by licensing it to a commercial, and that goes quadruple for almost any act younger than U2. So I get that.

The concept of selling out is so old-fashioned that I'm not sure some of today's artists are even aware that it was even a thing, much less thought of negatively. So I may not like that the only way I'll hear a new song by, say, Camera Obscura or Real Estate or The War on Drugs is when they license it for a television show, but I get it. Hey, times have changed, the world moves on, and an artist has to make a living. I oh so very much get that. Trust me, I'm nobody and I've totally sold out more times and more cheaply than I can bear to remember.

But it seems to me that there's a big difference between writing a song with a commercial in mind (Stevie Wonder's commercial for a local soda of which he was extremely fond) and a song which, theoretically, was written from the heart (say, "Bargain").

The first is a simple act of craftsmanship and has a long history, and if that history isn't normally thought of as noble, well, at least some truly great artists have contributed to it. And when it's simply an exercise, there's seems to me no great crime against High Art, whatever that may be—it's just providing a service, and if the end result is of a high enough quality, we're all better off: there are always going to be commercials, so better good commercials than bad and, really, is it all that different than Bach writing The Art of the Fugue as a try-out for a club he wanted to join?

The second one, however, seems to me a betrayal of everything that truly great rock artists believe in and stand for. I'd have no moral qualms with Pete Townshend or Peter Gabriel giving up rock to write commercials; I'd be saddened, maybe, but otherwise, hey. But to write a song from the heart and sell it to the fans with the implicit promise (and I believe that promise is indeed implicit in everything those guys said in the first few decades of their careers) that this means something to me, this is what I really feel, this is a small slice of my soul...and then sell it to a soulless corporation for a big chunk of change, when neither of those guys is exactly on their way the poorhouse, seems a despicable act.

Do you really believe that's not the exact pose the Rolling Stones were attempting (quite successfully) to sell in the 60s and 70s? In retrospect it's pretty clear that Jagger, at the least, was almost certainly never some true believer—but they worked hard to embody the total rock and roll image, which included giving The Man the finger. But if you don't believe that they tried to make their audience believe that they somehow embodied a higher version of Integrity than the pop stars of yore, as well as the business men of the day, you're either kidding yourself or don't know your rock history. 'cuz that's exactly to a T what those middle-class kids posing as rebels were doing.

Now, do I deny that it's their right to do whatever they want with their work? Of course not. In fact, let's say that again, for those in the back, just to be perfectly clear: it's their work and they have every right to do whatever they want with it.

You know what? To make this unmissable, let's say that one more time:

It's their work and they have every right to do whatever they want with it.

But. For them to deny that every fan who gave them their money and spent hours and hours listening to their work, work that was presented as one thing, and then to turn around and sell that same piece and allow it to be used in such an utterly different and contradictory way, is a rejection of those very ideals that made them attractive to us fans in the first place. It's a con job. It's saying, here, check out this thing—it's a small slice of my soul. And you take it as such and perhaps it forms a small part of who you are. And then ten years later they sell it to an SUV commercial. That's bait and switch. It's a fine technique for making money. It's impossible to reconcile with Art or Truth.

Once again, as Townshend himself said: "Rock is art and a million other things as well: it's an indescribable form of communication and entertainment combined, and it's a two-way thing with very complex but real feedback processes."

It's a two-way thing. You give us your music, we give you our money, but in rock and roll that's not where the deal ends. There's, as Pete Townshend himself said, more—there's feedback and an identification thing that is perhaps unique to rock and which most of the great bands have acknowledged and utilized. Townshend himself obviously did (and this is not the only time he said something along these lines, just the one that was close at hand). Or at least he did before H+P offered him a couple million.

Look, he and they all have the right to do it. But that doesn't mean it was the right thing to do. I'll still enjoy their music and sometimes be touched by it and often marvel at their artistry. But I can no longer believe that they are the pure artists they would have (or have had) us believe they are.

And here's the thing: if artists as diverse as The Doors, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, R.E.M., The Replacements, Sonic Youth, Nirvana and Pearl Jam have all refused to license their songs (it's extremely notable that McCartney has no qualms about licensing the songs of others he owns—Buddy Holly, for instance—but refuses to let the actual Beatles recordings be used) giving up in some cases mind-boggling amounts of money, then the very notion that there's something distasteful about the practice isn't absurd. You can disagree with my argument and maybe you're even right, but these artists obviously agree with me to some extent. And when someone passes up tens of millions of dollars to avoid doing it, it's something that needs to be at least given the benefit of some thought rather than dismissed out of hand.

Now. You'll note that all my examples are of extraordinarily wealthy rock stars. I don't begrudge Gary US Bonds whatever he made for those beer commercials in the early to mid 1980s, or Southside Johnny, who did one as well, or B.B. King for whatever he's done—XM Radio? Sirius? And maybe a hotel commercial too, right? And diabetes medication. And a fast food chain. And maybe a few others. God bless you, good sir, say I.

But do you really think at any point in the past twenty-five years that any of them (toss Etta James in there too) has in their best year made even a third of what, say, The Stones have made in their worst year? When real life (paying the mortgage, say) runs up against ideals, real life wins. I mean, duh. But when you're sitting on a hundred million in the bank, I kinda feel like staying true to the ideals you espoused which got your that fortune in the first place just isn't asking too much.

Neil Young clearly feels the same way, given how openly he savaged his friend Eric Clapton in an award-winning video:

As pal DT once said,

Robert Klein once joked, you may recall, that imagine how set for life Neil Armstrong would have been had he stepped onto the lunar surface and exclaimed, "Pepsi Cola!" Some moments need to exist for themselves, and art needs to exist for itself. If it's good enough or, hell, even mainstream enough, it will take on another life and turn into a moneymaker. And to that I say, "Groovy."  

Two last points and then I'll allow this self-righteous rant to die a merciful and deservéd death. The first is Tom Waits seems to agree with me and, as a general rule of thumb, if Tom Waits agrees with you, you're probably on the right track:

Songs carry emotional information and some transport us back to a poignant time, place or event in our lives. It’s no wonder a corporation would want to hitch a ride on the spell these songs cast and encourage you to buy soft drinks, underwear or automobiles while you’re in the trance. Artists who take money for ads poison and pervert their songs. It reduces them to the level of a jingle, a word that describes the sound of change in your pocket, which is what your songs become. Remember, when you sell your songs for commercials, you are selling your audience as well.

When I was a kid, if I saw an artist I admired doing a commercial, I’d think, “Too bad, he must really need the money.” But now it’s so pervasive. It’s a virus. Artists are lining up to do ads. The money and exposure are too tantalizing for most artists to decline. Corporations are hoping to hijack a culture’s memories for their product. They want an artist’s audience, credibility, good will and all the energy the songs have gathered as well as given over the years. They suck the life and meaning from the songs and impregnate them with promises of a better life with their product.

Finally, I think Berke Breathed's Bloom County summed it up nicely—and when in doubt, always go with a drawing of a penguin:

New Year's Day

Here's to 2014 being the best yet, and not nearly as good as all the ones to follow.

(Sure, it's obvious. Sometimes the best stuff is.)

New Year's Day

So my imaginary friend Chris mentioned that he has several times been stuck in hotel courtesy vehicles with drivers who are enamoured of this series of God-awful albums.

Naturally, I was horrified, as would any right thinking mammal, upon hearing The Clash covered by—and this is really their real name—The Cooltrane Quartet. Because I mean really. Need I say more?

But then I made the mistake of playing this one.

And...and...

...and I kinda love it.

I don't like cool jazz—in fact, I pretty much hate it the way DT hates hair metal. And I'm not at all fond of lounge singing or, indeed, almost any jazz vocals. But damn if this doesn't somehow work.

Automatic Baby

Read someone on the internets today make the incredibly stupid statement that this version of "One," by the one-off supergroup Automatic Baby (consisting of R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe on vocals and Mike Mills on guitar and U2's Adam Clayton on bass and Larry Mullen on percussion) is actually superior to any actual U2 version.

And then I relistened. And...huh.

Huh.

I like Bono. I love U2. But Stipe's more modest voice does actually seem to reach into the heart of the song a bit better than Bono's bigger and bolder delivery. And Mills' backing vocals are just perfect.

So...huh.

My 25 Favorite Songs, Part II

20) “Bad”— U2, 1985. A terrifyingly gripping song, mixing tragedy and hope in one six-minute swell. I never wanted to like U2 in the mid-80s when they started to get huge—just because, I guess. But watching Bono do this at LiveAid led to a grudging “Mm hmm” from me. And then watching it a few years later during Rattle and Hum put me over the edge. No pun intended (heh...The Edge. Heh.) Anyway, it's symphonic in the way it builds to a climax and then lets up very slowly, very deliberately. Sad and astonishing. “True colors fly in blue and black, blue silken sky and burning flak.”



19) “Red Shoes”—Elvis Costello, 1977. Geek bravado at its apex. As a geek who likes to think he’s brave (I’m not), it kinda speaks to me. Usually saying, “Get out of my face.” But still I love the way it smiles and hisses at the same time. “I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused.”



18) “America”—Simon and Garfunkel, 1968. In college I took off one night on a plane ride halfway across America and spent a couple of days on the road, from Texas out to New Mexico, searching for…something. I never found it, and neither does the narrator of this song. But the search for something real and personal continues, Paul Simon put together a travelogue of the soul here. “'Kathy, I’m lost,’ I said, though I knew she was sleeping.”



17) “Me and Bobbi McGee”— Kris Kristofferson, 1971. This probably should be higher, but being on this list should be good enough for now. It’s Jack Kerouac condensed to four lovable minutes. And it’s a genuine piece of my childhood—on every car trip we’d take as a family, my parents had this playing on the tapedeck. It’s now embedded, as it should be. Love, adventure, and loss without regrets, a landmark tale of affection that takes us straight across the U.S.A. “I’d trade all my tomorrows for one single yesterday, holding Bobbi’s body next to mine.”



16) “The Pretender”—Jackson Browne, 1976. The man knew pain. And he knew how to write about it. Self-deprecating and self-realizing without an ounce of self-pity. My favorite Jackson Browne song. “We’ll get up and do it again. Amen.”