Rate That Song

[The Comedian]

I could see how one would want to push buttons to that song. . . . but not much else. 5/10

I'm more in the mood for a bluesy, head-nodding song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBACTCS4SmI

[billl]

It's a little strange to me--the "blues" angle is interesting... I'm inclined to imagine melodrama and moaning about "baby left me" or some "back door man" and there's often something to smile about in the vivid complaining about how bad things are or in some rascally reaction. This tune, though, hits me like a straight-forward lecture about how things can only go in one direction, and that direction is down. Like an instruction manual type of vibe. I can't even decide what emotion the singer is feeling--maybe there's subtleties replacing the melodrama, moaning, and humor I'm used to, when I think "blues"... There must be.

Of course, he's basically a legendary vocalist now, from all reports many people love his singing, and his music continues to touch people's souls. (For the record, I dig "Rooster".) There's dudes nodding their head in the clip and really getting into it, so I'm sure someone else could really rate this pretty highly. But I just don't get it, it actually seems cold and robotic to me. Not bad, though.

4/10


Here's music that I'm thinking might manage to accommodate head-nodding and button-pushing.
http://vimeo.com/5943130

[MarkBastable]

Here's music that I'm thinking might manage to accommodate head-nodding and button-pushing.
http://vimeo.com/5943130

I don't find that at all easy not to like, despite not being able to find any reason not to hate it. 9/10


Here's a band I stumbled across on iTunes, who sound so spookily like their influences that you sort of wonder why they bother.

[billl]

I don't find that at all easy not to like, despite not being able to find any reason not to hate it. 9/10


Here's a band I stumbled across on iTunes, who sound so spookily like their influences that you sort of wonder why they bother.

7.5/10

This song was OK--kind of straight-ahead in regards to the melody and the tune in general. What stand out, of course, are the production, the polished performance, and the earnestness. It has the scent of "school band nerd", and the essence of the performance is naturally reminiscent of Marillion, with perhaps a Pink Floyd finish. I'm interested that the album might have a theme or story to it, and they seem good enough that I'd probably be able to make it through a listen. Going by just this particular track, though, I can't help but think that, if I let my mind wander just an inch, it might continue for a mile.

I decided to check what their influences might actually be (via Wikipedia article), and saw mentioned Genesis (Peter Gabriel era, I assume) and Gentle Giant. I know that Genesis a little bit (Lamb Lies Down On Broadway is the only thing I can really point to, though), and I see the thematic angle there, and perhaps the band nerd angle too. But Gentle Giant, I knew nothing about, and so I checked one song on youtube, avoiding the first-listed video because the text summary began with some raving about how handsome the drummer is. And so, accompanied by a nagging memory that I eventually realized was the British TV show "The Goodies", I watched this fascinating and quite watchable slice of the 70's that I completely missed happening at the time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMrYSTzqFI8

[MarkBastable]

..the Goodies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMrYSTzqFI8

3/10

A brilliant observation, and not just because of the dungarees. The thing about 70s prog rock is that when it worked at all - which it often didn't - there was usually an element of self-mockery about it. And Gentle Giant displayed very little of that.

The other problem was a tendency towards the apparently arbitrary. Any kind of art - but particularly music - ought to convince you that that's exactly the way it goes, and if it didn't go that way, it wouldn't be what it is.

When you listen to prog rock and you hear tiddley-bonk-tiddle, biddle-whack, biddle-whack-whack, you can't help thinking, "Well, that's alright, but there seems to be no real reason why it could not just as easily have been tiddley-tiddle-bonk, whack-biddlewhack, bonkity-bonk-whack."


I thought I might post a few that had been used as theme tunes for UK TV shows. Here's one now. (Long fade-in. Do not adjust your set.)

[billl]

I thought I might post a few that had been used as theme tunes for UK TV shows. Here's one now. (Long fade-in. Do not adjust your set.)

Great point, by the way, about how that Gentle Giant vid had some troubling examples of apparently arbitrary "tight" jamming.

VID GRADE: 9/10

This latest TV Theme entry makes me think that a show opening with that would probably be something out of the ordinary. I can vaguely hear "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence", but then this sort of track maybe invites some "filling in the blanks" due to the simplicity and 80's-Modern style. That might not make sense exactly, but the point I want to make is that it's unique and unexpected, and a listener is in a position of doing their best with it. But the uniqueness doesn't owe to some crazy dissonance, or to anything that seems done for shock. And, in fact, now, in a post-MIDI world, something like this gets another layer of oddness, a sort of human scrub to the cold machinery we were once supposed to be so curious about. I suspect a show associated with it would probably be similarly unusual, charming, and human.

I could have, of course, left the latest entry sit up there for a while, since it just arrived and I've already posted a few recently. However, the promise of a plan to post "a few" TV Theme songs for UK TV probably means that I might even be doing a service by immediately continuing the Theme theme with a theme song that I nearly posted on my last post--I was a little shy about putting something up that was barely over a minute, so this is the perfect opportunity.

It's to a show I've never seen, but had a rabid fan base that was devastated by the show's cancellation. Quite a bit of catchiness in a minute and a half.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVHOn...&feature=feedf

[MarkBastable]

A year or so after Eno released this album (1975), Bowie hooked up with him and blatantly nicked all his ideas to use on Low and Heroes (though Bowie's brilliant strategy, of course, was to get the guy in the room with him before he started plagiarising). The music for Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence was written in the early eighties, and it owes a hell of a lot to this piece of Eno's, and others like it.

Another Green World was used as the theme for the BBC arts show Arena.

[billl]

Amazing that was '75. I knew he was ahead of things, but that's still hard to get my head around.

[Jack of Hearts]

6/10 for Terriers. That guy singing the deep parts sounds like the lead singer of the Butthole Surfers.

Here's one everybody else in the world knew about but this reader discovered last Tuesday:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCZuYS-9qaw&ob=av2n

[MarkBastable]

It's a chucklesome puzzle for Brits of my generation that Billy Idol seems to be taken seriously in the US - because we think of him as Disneyfied chipmunk punk. With the bleached hair, teeth and personality, he's about as threatening and subversive as a chicken McNugget. But less nourishing. 2/10

Bet she's still a virgin but it's only twenty-five till nine.

[Jack of Hearts]

8/10. The music really plays to his vocal strength. That's the kind of music they ought to play at a dive bar out in the sticks, on a tiny FM radio with washed out speakers, on a Wednesday at 3:00am, when everybody's drunk and leaning over the railing.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hbC-_79p7I




EDIT: Look at this reader's comment on Mark's song and then look at the top comment for the Youtube video linked directly above. Wow.

[billl]

I sometimes cringe at his nearness to minstrelry, but these two tracks work pretty well--a showman, storyteller and poet: 8/10.

I wasn't able to find something else, but I did find this Senegalese track from the early 90's. Sanitation wasn't great there, and this *educational* song by an Islamic pop music guy is called "Set", which translates as "keeping clean" apparently, but the meaning probably extended beyond just being careful around piles of trash. Maybe just good background music for some of us non-speakers, though...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LIcWnvdiuE

[Jack of Hearts]

6/10... but admittedly not nearly worldly enough to appreciate it. You can describe the experience all day long, you can tell people that this is music from Senegal and the 'Set' means 'be clean,' but there's no accounting for some actual experience. Maybe hearing the song in a closer context. Maybe having more context. This song makes this reader feel insulated, like he should be traveling and finally learning these things.

Here's a striking comparison, something nearer the heartland:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JczEyQHBLEw&feature=fvst

[billl]

Here's a striking comparison, something nearer the heartland:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JczEyQHBLEw&feature=fvst

That's actually a novel "beat" for him. I like listening to the old Hank (although I have a limit at around 5-10 songs, depending), and that one's particularly good--it underlines the point you were making well.

Now, for some Christmas Cheer, [strike]gentlemen[/strike] everybody. A genius performance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb3a0NKigOU

[MarkBastable]

Well, that was pretty wonderful, in a totally ironic, postmodern way, obviously. 9/10


Victorrrrrrrria!