5/31/2017 0 Comments 6. Heart of Glass – BlondieI have no idea how disco managed to resonate in my young head, but that bass line / hi hat combination gets me every time, which is why I still fall for bands who do it now, just to be ironic. And god, what a great front person Debbie Harry was! Just so impossibly glamourous, even though she was living with a punk band in the Lower East Side. How they got from that to this is a thing of wonder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGU_4-5RaxU
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5/30/2017 0 Comments 5. I’m A Believer – The MonkeesThey really were a cartoon, but became a band. Why does no one make kids TV shows featuring a band living together and getting into hijinks? Modern life is rubbish. Didn’t they have a cool beach buggy too, or was that Sigmund and The Sea Monsters? I don’t care, this is a great tune, hanging on the simplest keyboard line in the world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU93NiF12qs
I never knew The Beatles were a real band at first: I thought they were a cartoon. I used to watch the cartoon every week, when the lads would get into adventures interspersed with opportunities to sing a song. Hey, we can put the show on right here! But I loved this one for the switch to what I thought was the chorus, but is weirdly maybe the verse? “Life is very short,” John would sagely suggest, “and there’s no tiiiiiiiime for fussing and fighting, my friend.” And aint that the truth? Will Buxton, who is possibly the biggest Beatles fan I know, almost blew his head off when I told him about the cartoon, but he was too young to see it first time round. I bet it sucks now, though. But this doesn’t. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qyclqo_AV2M
5/28/2017 0 Comments 3. SOS - AbbaLook, it was the 70s and I was a young kid: no one was immune, and don’t try to pretend otherwise. I used to stare at the cover of Arrival with my sister when we’d put on the record, that helicopter looking impossibly cool, and wonder what it was like to be in the biggest band in the world. Well I did, anyway. But this was the song that I always loved, for the contrast between those downbeat keys until that great riff kicks in. Everything seemed bigger back then. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvChjHcABPA
5/27/2017 0 Comments 2. Crazy Horses – The OsmondsThis is possibly the first song I can ever remember, and might explain a lot about the songs that come after. The Osmonds were a clean-cut, clean living family who sang together for the world: what could go wrong? I literally cannot remember another song of theirs, but this thing, for a 4 year old, was a beast. I went to see them with my parents at some long gone venue (somewhere down in Chinatown, maybe, or the State Theatre? It was a long time ago) and that synth sound has stayed with me ever since. Epic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMM3MgS4yxc
5/26/2017 0 Comments 1. It Overtakes Me – Flaming Lips:So I put on my iPod for the slow walk from the room to breakfast this morning, and this was the first song to come on when I hit shuffle, because sometimes it’s nice to be surprised. And it was the perfect song to start the day, the weekend, the year, the perfect song to explain just what music does, what I’m trying to do here, what it all just is. A bassline of style and grace to carry the load, and a repeated lyric to reiterate a single point. “And I'm scared, thinkin' 'bout the way that I / Don't understand anything at all / And how it overtakes me, and I am just so small / Do I stand a chance?” Let’s find out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUljHD4JJ1U
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