Category Archives: Music

Bands, albums and live reviews

A pattern of behavior

Music,

The other day I was listening to a song called “Hearsay” by a group called Soul Children, and it got me thinking about a song off R. Kelly’s new album called “Real Talk.”

The full lyrics are here, but essentially “Real Talk” is about Kelly confronting his woman vis a vis a friend of hers, whom he believes is spreading untrue rumors about him.

MP3 – “Real Talk” by R. Kelly

Soul Children were a band formed by Isaac Hayes and Dave Porter when Sam and Dave left the Stax label. If you listen to “Hearsay,” it’s easy to hear the resemblance even though Soul Children were a co-ed group. The lyrics are essentially about the same topic: a man confronting his woman vis a vis a friend of hers, whom he believes is spreading untrue rumors about him.

MP3 – “Hearsay” by Soul Children

Disagreements in a relationship are certainly fodder for pop songs, even if there’s anger and conflict inherent in both the lyrics and delivery. But even the most venomous song lyrics (Queen’s Death on Two Legs comes to mind) don’t compare with the hate spewed at the unnamed woman in “Real Talk.”

R. Kelly uses the words “bitch” and “’ho” to describe a woman in the same way that you or I would use the word…woman. And there’s a liberal sprinkling of both words on the track. The dialogue in the song often approaches absurdity (I’m still not sure what “what they eat don’t make a shit” means) but there’s little mistaking the misogynist intent. There’s also little mistaking where the woman’s place is in this relationship, as far as R. Kelly is concerned.

The misogyny involved is even more obvious after listening to “Hearsay,” a song that addresses the same topic in a completely different way.

It isn’t as if the change in language translates to a lack of power in the song. Much like “Who’s Makin’ Love” by Johnnie Taylor, there’s a cautionary tale here. The conflict even gets ratcheted up a couple notches around 2:03 when the singer’s woman puts her two cents in, and the two begin fighting. Both of them are clearly angry, but there’s never the sense that one or the other is about to endure some physical harm. The discussion here feels far more like “real talk” in part because the woman’s voice is heard, both figuratively and literally. Though the same issue is at work in this relationship as in Kelly’s, you get the sense that both people have an equal say in what happens next.

Even in his magnum opus on troubled relationships (Trapped in the Closet) Kelly couldn’t find room enough for a woman’s voice to air a woman’s concerns. Unlike other artists, Kelly can’t legitimately distance himself from his work by saying he’s merely playing a role. The Robert Kelly that owns a house in the Chicago suburb of Olympia Fields is the same R. Kelly who at one moment speaks of fucking…er, flirting with girls in a club and at another moment gets angry at his woman for confronting him about it. More often than not, the discourse R. Kelly has with women isn’t so much conversation as it is a declaration.

Fuck me? Girl, fuck you!
I don’t give a fuck about what you’re talking about…

When I discussed the five year anniversary of R. Kelly’s child pornography charges, at TOC’s blog recently, I forgot to mention one thing: the actions that caused charges to be filed against Kelly can only be described as alleged, while his actions since then are nothing but the truth. How Kelly treated the woman at the center of his legal dispute is in question, but there’s more than enough proof available to know how R. Kelly thinks women, in general, should be treated. And none of it’s hearsay.

***

Incidentally, if you want more from Soul Children, check out the Chronicle collection. I’d also recommend you buy this Stax 50th Anniversary collection pronto. (Kerry, is that enough promotion to not get me in trouble with the powers-that-be for posting the Soul Children MP3?)

Press release of the day: Striking While The Iron Is Hot category

Music,

Kudos to Journey’s publicist for her excellent timing. Issuing this on the heels of the Sopranos finale, which ended with the strains of “Don’t Stop Believing” is a brilliant move. I hope she treated herself by leaving early for the day, after a long lunch. Because honestly: raise your hand if you even knew Steve Augeri had been replaced as lead singer of Journey. Hell, raise your hand if you thought Steve Perry was still the lead singer of Journey. Steve Perry certainly seems to.

Also, can we get a moratorium on the use of the phrase “no pun intended” when clearly a pun was intended?

JOURNEY ANNOUNCES DEPARTURE OF JEFF SCOTT SOTO

June 12, 2007 — Journey has parted ways with their recently named lead singer Jeff Scott Soto. Jeff’s first appearance with Journey was July 7, 2006 in Bristow, VA. He had been filling in for Steve Augeri, who had to leave the tour shortly after it began on June 23 due to illness. Jeff’s last performance was May 12, 2007 in Leesburg, VA.

According to guitarist Neal Schon, “We appreciate all of Jeff’s hard work and we can’t thank him enough for stepping in when Steve Augeri got sick last year. He did a tremendous job for us and we wish him the best. We’ve just decided to go our separate ways, no pun intended. We’re plotting our next move now.”

Keyboardist Jonathan Cain continues, “We were lucky to have a friend who was already a Journey fan step in on a moment’s notice during the Def Leppard tour to help us out. Jeff was always the consummate professional and we hope that he remains a friend of the band in the future. We just felt it was time to go in a different direction.”

Journey–Neal Schon (guitar), Ross Valory (bass), Jonathan Cain (keyboards) and Deen Castronovo (drums)—is taking the rest of 2007 off to spend time with their families, write new songs and map out plans for 2008.

From the archives, vol. 2

Music,

It’s not as if I haven’t had things on my mindgrapes this past week (specifically the full-on revival of girl group rock and the end of the 2nd season of The Ultimate Coyote Ugly Search). Due to lots of work-related stuff and some technical difficulties*, I haven’t been blogging. Right now, my PC is in safe mode (throw ’em up, geeks!) as I type this, due to a busted video card. It’s like using a computer with no peripherals whose display is rendered by a sloppy child wielding a crayon. So it’s making blogging a less than enjoyable undertaking.

And much as it pains me, I’m not going to get up this week’s Oblivious Living post, which is a shame because it’s a really solid track, though sung by a band with a very unfortunate name.

Still, it’s been a solid week since new stuff went up here so I’m again posting a piece I wrote last year around this time.

This piece was written in June 2006 for a series of readings and events that fell under the banner of Music With Meaning, which was a fundraiser for Rape Victim Advocates and America’s Second Harvest. I was asked to read for this event by two of the Machine Media folks, and immediately agreed before I realized I had nothing to read that would fit the format. So over the course of a week (though mostly during a caffeine-fueled Friday night), I composed the following.

The piece deals with the often difficult relationship Chicago has with its rock star past, and specifically with Billy Corgan. I’ve been meaning to go back to it, and do some additional editing, but I’ve never quite gotten around to it. The last lines’s amusing considering what I wrote on TOC‘s blog last week, and it’s also a little dated now, what with the Smashing Pumpkins reunion/Zwan 2.0 relaunch. But I still think it’s worth it for the line about Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin running a series of bait shops.

Enjoy, and I promise more this week.

Where Have You Gone, Billy Corgan?
(A City Turns Its Lonely Eyes To You Then Proceeds To Give You The Finger)

For a long time, Chicago rock fans have been a lot like the guy in his mid 30s who won’t shut up about the year he made the game-winning catch in the Homecoming game then proceeded to take the hottest girl in school with him to Prom. That is to say, we’re having a really hard time getting over the year 1993—the last time Chicago was both a critical and commercial force in the music industry. But more than that, we’re having a hard time adjusting to life without Billy Corgan.

There’s no denying that Chicago is responsible for some of the best rock music of the last forty years, and Richard Marx. But in the summer of 1993, Veruca Salt, Urge Overkill, Liz Phair and the Smashing Pumpkins all released the albums that, for better or worse, defined their careers and created the last great movement in Chicago rock music: American Thighs, Saturation, Exile in Guyville and Siamese Dream.

Now in actuality, Veruca Salt’s American Thighs didn’t actually come out until October of 1994, but I think in the minds of most people who bother to care about such things, that release date got swapped with the August 1993 release date of its doppelganger, the Breeders’ Last Splash, because it makes for a much tidier story. So that’s what I’m going with here. Truth is important, but it doesn’t always make for good entertainment, which is why Lifetime movies based on real events, but starring Tori Spelling are so much more fun than that A&E show with Bill Kurtis.

Anyway, it’s probably unfair to expect a band to stay together for more than ten years but I can’t help but think most people in town are disappointed with the fact that the four great white hopes of the last Chicago rock movement have all fallen apart in one way or another. Both Veruca Salt and Urge Overkill followed up their breakthrough albums with solid, but underappreciated records that failed to build on their previous success.

This left Liz Phair and the Smashing Pumpkins to battle it out for the hearts and minds of the city of Chicago. Though Liz has outlasted the Pumpkins as a working artist and just about matched them in terms of output, if you asked most people in Chicago, “Which artist more accurately represents the city?”, they’d undoubtedly say the Smashing Pumpkins. Ask them which is the more influential artist and most people will still probably say the Smashing Pumpkins. Yet I don’t think this is the case outside of Chicago, at least in terms of the albums that launched each into national prominence.

While writing this piece, “Never Said” off of Exile came on Sirius’ “Left of Center” satellite radio channel. I swear this actually happened. I always thought writers made up bullshit coincidences like this just to make their work more organic or something while at the same time allowing them to prattle on about topics that wouldn’t fit anywhere else. And while the latter isn’t any less true, maybe those coincidences aren’t so bullshit after all.

But here’s the interesting thing. Not once have I heard a Smashing Pumpkins song on Left of Center. Not once. On the off-chance that I just wasn’t listening at the right times, I asked my roommate (who practically has Left of Center’s playlist jacked into his brain in the same way that Keanu Reeves learned kung-fu in The Matrix) how often he’s heard a Pumpkins song. “Maybe twice,” he replied. How often do they play Liz Phair? “All the time,” he said.

This makes absolutely no logical sense to me and probably most other Chicagoans. While “Never Said” is a fine enough song (though not near as good as two of her other singles: “Polyester Bride” and “Supernova”), the Pumpkins probably outsold her by at least 10 to 1 (I’m completely guessing here but that sounds about right, doesn’t it?). Plus, most people would argue that the Pumpkins albums all remained challenging, while Liz’s albums eventually got played on The Mix.

While judging an artist’s total accumulated sales is hardly a measure of influence, chart position at least indicates what audiences were willing to digest at the time. Exile’s highest chart position was 196, barely cracking the Billboard Top 200. Siamese Dream? #10. But really, this makes perfect sense. The alt rock revolution was in full swing by the time Siamese Dream came out so audiences were already primed for Corgan’s metal-meets-psychedelia breakthrough. A woman talking about being your blowjob queen? Not so much.

Critically speaking, the Smashing Pumpkins, as important as they were to the larger alternative rock movement, were really nothing more than an amalgam of other influences, while Liz Phair was a phenomenon that no one saw coming and is therefore more influential as a result.

Yet people in the city still identify more strongly with Corgan and the Pumpkins and are still wishin’, hopin’, and prayin’ for a Pumpkins reunion. For better or worse, we have decided that Billy Corgan and the Smashing Pumpkins represent the last time Chicago was a major musical touchstone. Despite the litany of great Chicago rock acts that are revitalizing the sound of this city, we continue to cling to him as our cultural ambassad
or. If the Pumpkins reunite, it means we as a city are relevant again and New York and the Strokes can both go and suck it.

How did this happen? How did a band that took a smattering of admittedly awesome but not exactly groundbreaking metal and rock influences become the symbolic White Knight? I’ve grown up in the Chicago area my whole life and the only explanation I can offer for this is that people are very particular about what gets chosen as the unique Chicago cultural experience. If it doesn’t reflect THEIR experience, then it isn’t REALLY Chicago and is derided as false. This is ridiculous, but it’s true. My Chicago experience is way different from yours and way different from some dude in Pilsen, Portage Park, Roseland, or Lakeview.

So why did we pick this guy, rather than say…Nash Kato? It’s very simple. I think it’s because he likes the Cubs. And he doesn’t just like the Cubs. He LOOOOOVES the Cubs. Do you think ‘XRT thought “Hey, let’s get Billy Corgan to do Cubs commentary for us?” Of course not. You and I both know Corgan talked himself into that job just like he did the time he subbed for a Chicago Tribune sports beat reporter. It’s almost as if one day in gym class, Corgan’s gym class was picking teams for baseball and he was picked last. And at that moment, little Billy knew he would never display enough athletic ability to play for the Chicago Cubs. So he figured the easiest way to get himself a spot in the Cubs organization would be to become a famous rock star and then they’d have to let him participate. The entire Gish album was essentially a request to start spring training and if there’s a song other than “Suffer” that better describes being a Cub fan then I haven’t heard it.

That’s a very Chicago kind of fandom. Think about it: Even if you yourself are not a Cubs fan, you’ve probably encountered people who are as ravenous about them as Billy. And because you’re probably a Sox fan, you can’t stand them (or at least that aspect of their personality). But this doesn’t take away from the fact that they are your people. Sox fans need Cub fans. We are the yin and the yang. We are Chicago. And therefore, Billy is Chicago. I am he and you are he and we are all together.

Oddly enough, I think we as a city were just about ready to take our Smashing Pumpkins albums out of our collective hope chests and move on until last summer when Billy Corgan started acting like a total rock tease. At that point, Corgan was like an emotionally distant ex-boyfriend. He had started dating somebody else (some slut named Zwan) and then decided he needed his space to find himself so he started working on a solo album.

Then all of a sudden he makes the equivalent of a drunken phone call to us 3 in the morning in the form of a full-age ad in the Trib and the Sun-Times. Not since Lloyd Dobler held a boom box under Diane Court’s window had a suitor made such a nakedly bold declaration of love. In the ad, he said, “I moved away to pursue a love I had, but got lost.” At first, we didn’t believe it. Did he still love us? Did he still care? He must have because he then he started leaving cryptic comments on his MySpace page. “The surprise I have in store for you all will be announced soon enough….hold on to your horses. After all, good things surely comes to those who wait….Don’t you just love the suspense?”

But we didn’t start getting wet until it was rumored that the Pumpkins would be reuniting, first at Coachella (which turned out to be false) and then Lollapalooza. The latter rumor was fueled by one line in an article from Billboard magazine that said “Chicago media reports have suggested a primary target for a headliner is Smashing Pumpkins.” Intrigued, I emailed the New York editor who wrote the piece and asked about his source. It turned out to be nothing more than an aside muttered by a Billboard intern who used to live here. And there it was. Chicagoans so wanted Corgan to reunite the Pumpkins that they were willing to furnish a reunion themselves in the same way that William Randolph Hearst helped fan the flames of the Spanish-American War.

The problem with all this now is that a reunited Smashing Pumpkins isn’t going to look anything like the Pumpkins of old. No, a reunited Pumpkins is going to end up looking more like a reunited Styx, which is really just a reunited Damn Yankees and holy shit, nobody wants that. Unless The Nuge is involved. Then maybe.

See, Corgan hasn’t spoken to D’arcy since 1999 and James Iha found out about the plans for the reunion the same way you and I did when the Tribune ad ran. Jimmy Chamberlain’s in, but you get the feeling that if Billy Corgan asked Jimmy Chamberlain to help him start a chain of bait shops in Northwestern Indiana then he’d probably do it. Essentially, our old flame has invited us over to his place to rekindle our passions over a romantic dinner, but once we arrive he’s had the game on, a couple of his buddies are passed out on the couch and someone is in the corner trying to get the dog drunk. Plus? While we were there? That skank Melissa Auf Der Mar called and left a message saying, “My services are there for him whenever he needs them.” Bitch.

So fine, Billy. You go. We’ve had our affections toyed with for the last time. You do your own thing with your fancy new friends. Anyway, we’re seeing someone else now. His name is Fall Out Boy and he’s young, and hot, and sends us naked pictures of himself over the Internet. And he’ll probably love us forever.

Oblivious Living, Part 1.9: "Romanticide" by Combo Audio

Music

MP3 – “Romanticide” by Combo Audio
Lyrics – “Romanticide” by Combo Audio

A brief aside to begin: With Combo Audio’s “Romanticide,” we’re getting into fairly obscure territory here. Case in point: whenever I’ve been doing research for these posts (Yes, research! Do you think I just pour a glass of whiskey and knock this out? I mean, I do, but there’s a bit of poking around first) I’ve run into countless lyrics pages for each song. Not so for this one. “Romanticide” has a mere two pages devoted to publishing its lyrics. The band’s allmusic.com page doesn’t even list its discography or a brief bio; the sole piece of information published there is a reference to this Living in Oblivion compilation. Plus, it’s not even the most common song called “Romanticide” out there (that honor goes to some goth metal band called Nightwish). In fact, there’s so little information out there about this song that by the second page of Google results, this blog pops up thanks to last week’s post. So give a listen to the song first via the link above. Otherwise, you’re going to be bored stiff.

“Romanticide” follows an almost quintessential New Romantic song structure. The first and second verses are nearly identical, save for the opening stanzas, and contain a couple almost rhymes (yourself/health) when the words aren’t flat-out identical (out/out). The lyrics are built around a prominent chorus, with everyone in the band chipping in for the lead-in (“It’s a clear! Cut! Case!”). The drums are the loudest things in the mix, the keyboards sound like a harpsichord, and the guitarist appears to have nipped out for a bit to eat during the session. All it’s really missing is a properly overwrought bridge, though the turn of phrase that substitutes for it (“It’s not losing you, it’s just feeling lost”) is exactly the kind of clever wordplay that leaves stoners breathless and has been getting “sensitive guys” laid since time immemorial. In all manner of presentation, the song sounds as if it were composed by those who’ve studied at The Dream Academy under Professor Ultravox.

So it’s a bit of a surprise to discover that they’re from Urbana, IL.

The idea behind the chorus is brilliant. Rag on emo if you like, but there was no genre of music more romantically self-involved, more destructively navel-gazing than New Romanticism. This guy is killing himself, not necessarily because his heart is broken, but because he’s continuing to ruminate over this woman who’s tossed him aside with so little regard that she couldn’t even be bothered to have an argument with him before throwing him out. And now he is so destroyed that he cannot even summon up the good graces to tip his waitress, while he sits there taking up a table that could very well be used by two people who would probably order more than the measly cup of coffee and order of fries (with a side of ranch dressing) that he’s fussing over.

There’s a line in High Fidelity that goes “Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?” I think of it every time I hear the lines of this song, along with a piece of literary criticism that I picked up somewhere along the way about the character of Romeo in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Someone – it may have been my 8th grade English teacher – said that Romeo was in love with the idea of being in love. It wasn’t so much the lady who was important, as it was the feeling she engendered within him. Both reflections speak of a kind of young man who tortures himself with that which he cannot have. It’s an unattainable – and in some cases unquantifiable – love that will always elude him, while the love that will ultimately be the best for him slips away quietly without his notice. In movies, said young man usually comes to his senses at the end (see also: Eric Stoltz in Some Kind of Wonderful), but in real life, this doesn’t always happen, and he always mourns a bit for what might have been.

AAAAAnyway, the song is a trifle, but it’s a well-constructed trifle. Little but sugar at its center, but easily stacks up against the best of its genre, which brings us back around to the obscurity of this song. Like one chocolate in a box full of them, there is little to suggest this band had any impact on the 80s at all, and merely blended in with the rest. A Google search about Combo Audio is more likely to turn up information about RCA cables than anything else. Yet I discovered a couple fan sites that were quite effusive in their praise of the band, who apparently hailed not from London, but from Urbana, IL.

All this is further evidence of a long-held theory of mine that no matter how unknown the band, no matter how early on in its career it might be or no matter how past their prime they are, there will always be three to five people standing near the front of the stage at its live shows, singing along with every word, with at least one girl dancing around like she is a little tipsy on cherry wine, while at her Senior Prom that she is attending with the best-looking boy at school. If the band is no longer performing live, there were most assuredly be at least three to five people who will proclaim the band to be “incredibly underrated” and the best of a series of bands in a particular “scene,” a scene with which most other people are not familiar thereby rendering said statement unassailable in its logic.

And so it is with Combo Audio’s “Romanticide,” where it matters not the quantity of love, but the quality. Not the longevity, but the intensity.

Oblivious Living Part 1.8 – "Homicide" by 999

Music

MP3 – “Homicide” by 999
Lyrics – “Homicide” by 999 (and here as well…see below)

You could count on one hand the number of bands on the first two discs of the Living In Oblivion collection that are still performing live in 2007, and 999 would be one of them. This sounds unusual – twenty-odd years is a long time for any band to play together – but not unthinkable. Until you place it a modern-day context, that is.

Imagine that you find a time machine and travel into the future – specifically the year 2031 – and after getting your hands on a sports almanac, Back To The Future-style so you can make a few well-placed bets later on, you start paging through the A&E section of your Chicago Tribune Personal KeyPadd Edition touchscreen, to discover that Sum 41 is still touring and recording the occasional album every couple of years. How shocked would you be? Despite the strength of “Homicide,” 999 were the Sum 41 of their day, neither the best or the worst of the UK punk movement, but certainly not the band most likely to succeed.

“Homicide” is off 999’s 2nd album, Separates, and was followed by an album replete with covers, so this could fairly be called the band’s artistic peak. From the outset, it sounds a bit like a slowed-down version of Generation X’s “Dancing With Myself” then transmogrifies into a kind of Stiff Records pub rock crossed with AC/DC’s “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.”

Even with this meager C.V., 999 still tours regularly in the U.K. and if their website is to be believed, they’ll be releasing their first album of original material later this summer. I suppose if Iggy can do it, so can they.

Depending on the lyric sheet you read, the song is either a prima facie uber-anarchist call to arms, or a dark, foreboding cautionary tale. I’d be more inclined to believe the latter if the band’s website wasn’t otherwise riddled with typos, leading me to wonder if they’d bollixed up their own lyrics. But since “I believe in homicide/I rest my case” is like saying “Your honor, that man is a murderer, and the state calls no further witnesses,” I’m going to side with 999 on this matter.

Plus, this video puts to rest any questions of whether the band had cum for your children. Seriously, what the hell is going on here? Vocalist Nick Cash is wearing a brown vest AND a red bow tie* over a yellow shirt and yellow pants. It’s as if he is dressed up for Halloween as the first accountant made entirely of banana pudding. Also: if you are the costumer designer for this video, and the band is being filmed against a stark white background, what color pants would you put on the bassist? If you said “white,” then congrats, you will have a job in show business if that time machine of yours can make it back to 1978, while millions of children scream in horror at the disembodied torso fiddling around on the Fender.

“Homicide” also reveals that while Living in Oblivion may have a lot more charm to the modern ear than your average Now That’s What I Call Music! compilation, the motives for both are the same. See, “Homicide” came out in 1978, and as a result, it sounds very out of place here. But no matter. It’s making someone some money. It won’t be the last track here to play fast and loose with the subtitle (“The 80s Greatest Hits”), but you could argue that most of the tracks here don’t live up to that boast. And frankly, slotting it here – right before Combo Audio’s “Romanticide,” is a sly move, and a nice palette cleanser after the mush that preceded it.

* By the way, is that thing made of tissue paper? It sure looks like it.

One man's sexy is another man's poorly written trend piece

Music

This story on CNN is nothing new, and it’s almost insulting that it’s treated as such. There are a whole mess of problems with this article, starting with the difficulty in defining sexy. It seems to be substituting for “conventionally attractive” But for the sake of argument, let’s stick with sexy and all the connotations therein.

I don’t find Avril Lavigne “sexy” at all, and I doubt anyone over the age of 13 would use that word to describe her. Lumping her in with Shakira or Beyonce is some lazy fucking writing, and the only evidence for such a claim is the litany of promotional appearances she’s made for this album wherein she gets glammed up.

And since we’re talking about pop music here, that’s really what we’re talking about: image, and how it’s used to sell pop music. Avril Lavigne is no more “sexy” now than she was a “skate punk” earlier in her career. She’s switched images, but that’s all it is. The image of Avril might be sexy, but Avril sure ain’t. Sexy is confidence in who you are, not trying on big sister’s clothes.

So to say that you need to be sexy to be a successful pop singer, and to use Avril as your leading example, is to completely ignore her prior success, which wasn’t built on a “sexy” image at all. In fact, she was sold as the antithesis of sexy in some respects (note that the article mentions she used to rail on female singers who would pose in the way she is now).

The headline is also misleading, as the word “female” should be changed to “pop.” Go look at the Billboard top 40 albums that the author uses to make his/her case. Gosh, that Michael Buble in the #1 spot sure is handsome. One might even say…sexy. As are Tim McGraw, Akon, Robin Thicke, Justin Timberlake, Trent Reznor from NIN, and Timbaland, all of whom are sitting pretty (pun intended) in the top 40.

And not for nothing, but Barbra Streisand, who the author mentions as being an example of pop music’s oh-so-enlightened past when substance mattered more than style, is on the top 40 albums list this week, too. By the way, AP writer, this is how Barbra used to market herself. I’m sorry, strike that “used to.” She’s got ’em out on the new album, too. Why? Because she’s a pop singer. And that’s how it’s done.

But having said all that, pop stardom isn’t given only to the sexy. You might just chalk this up to the difference between when the author looked at the charts and when I did this evening but those top 40 albums also include Bjork and Martina McBride. Bjork is either unconventionally attractive, adorable or weird-looking, depending on your perspective, and Martina McBride, while certainly good-looking, doesn’t fit into the conventional definition of sexy. Nor does Daughtry or anyone in Bone Thugs-N-Harmony.

But I’ll tell you what: I’d get down on my knees and pray every night if sexiness were a prerequisite for pop stardom if it meant those ugly cusses in Nickelback had to go back from whence they came.

Oblivious Living Part 1.7 "19" by Paul Hardcastle

Music

MP3 – “19” by Paul Hardcastle
Lyrics – “19” by Paul Hardcastle

I remember when this song came out. It blew my fucking mind.

It’s 1985, and I am in my suburban Chicago bedroom listening to B96 on my stereo. Though I have a few years of pre-Zinn, grade school history behind me, I am not yet politically aware*, but I have seen quite a few episodes of Family Ties, so I have some sense of the Vietnam War having occurred, and there being some controversy over it. And apparently there were hippies involved.

Anyway, I am minding my own business, waiting for Huey Lewis and The News’ “The Power of Love” to come on the radio so I can unpause the tape that’s sitting in the recorder so I can continue my quest to fill an entire Side 1 with 30 minutes of the song on repeat, when this really weird news report, with a beat that sounds like something I heard in Breakin’ comes on the radio. Or maybe it’s a dance song with lyrics that don’t seem to…exist. In any case, there’s some dude who sounds like Max Headroom telling me over and over that the average age of those serving “I-I-I-I-in Vietnam” was 19, and is sounding very funky fresh about it.

And I’m thinking, “Wow, this is the most serious, amazing thing I have ever heard in my life.”

Obviously, I was 10.

I’m sure at some point someone thought this was a pretty revolutionary record to make: a rap song combining break beats with political commentary about a war not ten years removed from history, released only a year after Reagan’s re-election.

That person was an idiot.

First of all, there’s nothing groundbreaking about a white rap song (let’s face it, that’s what this is) on pop radio in 1985, since “Rapture” came out five years earlier. Also, did I mention Breakin’ came out before this? It’s clear that the music here is as fresh as those TV commercials that would tell you about exciting careers in data processing. Worst moment: where there’s a weird scream that’s followed soon after by the cut-rate backup singers rapping about “De-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-destruction.”

Plus, the…what? Creator? Co-conspirator? In any case, the composer of this song, Paul Hardcastle, was later forced to share writing credit with Mike Oldfield, as “19” bore a resemblance to the climactic layered melody of his “Tubular Bells” opus.

And all of the commentary in this song was lifted directly from a ABC documentary that turned out to be inaccurate in some respects, but particularly regarding the average of a Vietnam solider (it was more like 23, not 19). Interestingly, the lyrics above mention some additional lyrics that sound even darker than what precedes it, but I’m pretty sure in context that they suck green eggs, too.

So basically, everything about this song is unoriginal or false, which is why it’s not a surprise that Ol’ Cosby Sweater over there went on to produce some lousy smooth/electronic jazz records. What is a surprise is that this song was #1 in the UK for five (!!!) weeks, sold 4 million copies around the world, and won the Ivor Novello award for best song of 1985. Of course, this prestigious award was also given to the Spice Girls. Hardcastle’s bio says “his early recordings sound as fresh today as they did when he recorded them” and he’ll get no argument from me on that point.

After this and the limpness of “The Politics of Dancing,” I’m looking forward to the string of New Romantic and pop-punk songs ahead.

* This would occur shortly thereafter, due to the Iran-Contra scandal. It’s also possible that this song somehow contributed to my political awakening. This kind of scares me.

Oblivious Living Part 1.6: "The Politics of Dancing" by re-flex

Music

MP3 – “The Politics of Dancing” by re-flex
Lyrics – “The Politics of Dancing” by re-flex

This is really depressing.

After blogging five of the arguably best known one-hit wonders of the 80s, I was set to kick off a slew of fairly obscure songs. These little-known tracks would allow me to let my id run free. Like onions, I’d slice off one layer at a time, delving into the minutiae of each, as I unearthed themes, motifs, and heretofore unknown nuggets of wisdom hidden inside these gems, like so many diamonds inside lumps of coal.

And the first track I start with is an incredible disappointment.

I had a passing familiarity with “The Politics of Dancing,” derived mainly from the chorus. Therefore, I was convinced it was some kind of stealth gay rights anthem. That somehow the song suggested there was, in fact, politics – or rather the advancement of a civil rights agenda – in the relatively benign act of dancing.

If there is a political bent to the lyrics, it’s at the high school level of rhetoric: all fire and no lucidity.

Honestly, with a few tweaks, it really could have weight. In fact, just switch two stanzas, and you’ve got a pretty powerful statement. Instead of:

We got the message
I heard it on the airwaves
The politicians
Are now DJs

You swap those last two lines so “the DJs/are now politicians” and you’ve really got something. Otherwise, you’ve got this image of Ted Kennedy behind the wheels of steel saying “Ahd lahke to dehdicate this sahng to Brad Dehlp, who rahcked so successfully as a paht ahf Bahston ahl those yea-ahs.”

In all fairness to my point of view, it appears that I’m not the only one to consider it. According to Wikipedia, there’s a film called Edge of Seventeen that includes this song on its soundtrack. The film is about “a gay teenager finds out who he is and what he wants, who his friends are, and who loves him.” Take out the word “gay” and that’s pretty much every John Hughes film ever made. But whatever. Someone else feels this song has resonance as a gay rights anthem. We are an army of two.

Here’s what’s really sad though: this song was the band’s only hit. In fact, they recorded another album, but it was never actually released. I can’t even find a picture of the band to post here. Little surprise since the band didn’t think enough of itself to capitalize its name.

Plus, they got beat out by Shalamar’s “Dancing in the Sheets” for a spot on the Footloose soundtrack. If there was ever a film that begged for a song that spoke of a crossroads between politics and dancing, this was it. But no dice.

There’s probably some notion of sexual politics at play here, but I’m too irritated to even consider it at this point. On the other hand, if I somehow found myself at Roscoe’s and this song came on, I would totally dance to it. It’s got that beat that even white people can groove to. So if nothing else, it’s got that going for it.

Random notes

Music

Has anyone else seen the new commercial for the BMW 5 series? I wouldn’t normally have noticed for two reasons:

1. I rock the Tivo.
2. I have no money, and can barely afford a ride in one of those bike rickshaws, much less a BMW.

In any case, a chassis is seen cruising the streets as this black goo surrounds the car, creating the steering wheel, the seats, and the rest of the vehicle. I kept waiting to hear “You can see the new BMW 5 series in Spider-Man 3“, but it never happened.

The rest of this is mostly local, so I apologize to those folks from Sweden who keep ending up here as the result of Google searches for Naked Eyes songs.

Leave it to the University of Chicago to make fun complicated. Next up, a kegger which requires you to brew your own beer first.

Chicagoans: remember how Radiohead was denied a permit to perform at Millennium Park, and we all laughed at the rubes who wouldn’t let the “dangerous” rock band play in the pretty park? Well, maybe they had a point. Because apparently when you mix rock and rich people venues, it causes Skip, Lance and Reginald to start some m’f’in’ shit! Seriously? At a Ben Folds show? At the Boston Pops? Rockin’ the suburbs indeed.

Finally, TOC just launched its Summer Festival Guide. We’ve got all the street fests laid out for you, plus articles, interviews, etc. Look for more updates throughout the summer. Yours truly contributed a do’s and don’ts list with some valuable tips to keep you from puking, looking like a stalker or acting like a jackass this summer.

Oblivious Living Part 1.5: "Turning Japanese" by The Vapors

Music

MP3 – “Turning Japanese” by The Vapors
Lyrics – “Turning Japanese” by The Vapors

There is one other well-known song on this volume of Living in Oblivion, but this closes out the compilation’s opening five-song salvo of hits, and it’s a doozy. This is the third song of this collection to clock in around 3:42, and I’m starting to think that’s the perfect length for a pop song.

The phrase “one hit wonders” gets overused at times, as the minor achievements in a band’s history get lost to time, and it becomes easier to tell their story with a slur. But in the case of The Vapors, it’s apt. The album that followed the single was not well-received, and the second album even less so.

But the single goes down like a caramel of the perfect consistency. VH1 logged it at #36, which is a shame. It’s a damn sight better than “Stumblin’ In’” by Suzi Quatro. I feel pretty confident in saying this even though I haven’t ever heard “Stumblin’ In’” or even heard of it. Not to mention that I can name two other Suzi Quatro songs, both of which were hits in England, which ought to eliminate her from the list, even though they weren’t hits here.

ANYWAY, there’s not much to say about the song in totality. On its face, the song is about a guy who misses his girlfriend, but somehow gets by on a very evocative piece of photography, and well-developed forearms. The chorus is merely a twist on the old warning that abusing oneself might cause blindness (or conversely, the warning most mothers gave that if you made a certain face long enough, it would freeze that way). But if you dig a little, some interesting bits emerge.

First, “Turning Japanese” is yet another example of the “racism can be funny” school of the 80s. I’m not going to get all ranty here, because I think it’s kind of funny, in a way. Look at the following examples:

* The song “Turning Japanese” wherein a English pop band compares the squinty look one supposedly gets when masturbating to the facial features of Japan.

* The movie Soul Man wherein a white guy pretends to be black in order to get access to scholarship money, intended for an African-American student.

* The song “Illegal Alien” by Genesis wherein Phil Collins puts on the worst accent this side of Speedy Gonzales and sings of the difficulties of getting a green card.

And nobody batted an eye. It’s just amazing what people were getting away with in popular culture at the time.

On matters less serious, there’s this often misheard lyric:


Everyone around me is a total stranger
Everyone avoids me like a cyclone ranger

Several sites on the Internet will try and tell you that line is “psyched Lone Ranger,” but they’re wrong. Think about it: that line makes no sense. First, why would the Lone Ranger be “psyched?” And even if he was, why would this cause people to avoid him?

“Aw shit, Lone Ranger totally wants to go down to the Hitching Post and check out this sale on masks and kerchiefs. He will not shut up about it. Just avoid him, if you can. He’ll get distracted and then go back to trying to convince you that Zorro’s a pussy.”

Also, there’s an old movie called The Cyclone Rangers, about a bunch of cattle rustlers, who try to put their thieving ways behind them. So it makes more sense that the song would be referring to mistrustful horse thieves, though I’ll grant you it’s a bit confusing as to why a band from Surrey would be referencing an obscure American western.

Finally, has anyone else ever realized this song is totally a letter from some creepy serial killer-type guy in prison? The lyric where he mentions putting up a million of his beloved’s picture in “his cell?” The bit about photographing her from the inside? The references to cattle rustling and self-love? Come on!

In any case, I still enjoy it so long as I can keep the Buffalo Bill images out of my head.