In The Number Fortys, we review every song that was sitting at #40 on the Billboard chats, starting in the first week of January 1984, right around the time this writer became cognizant/obsessive about music. The seeds for the idea came from Tom Breihan's Number Ones column over at Stereogum. However, we here at k-postpunk believe that the bottom is more interesting than the top (and obscurity is more interesting than either).
We try not to get too bogged down on research doing this column. We're more into what the academics call "critical analysis, and besides, if you want to know more, you know where to find it. But we do go to Wiki to check the chart positions, etc. And while there just now we learned that apparently, Scandal singer Patty Smyth was invited by Eddie Van Halen to join Van Halen after David Lee Roth quit. She declined because she was eight months pregnant at the time (which didn't have to be a deal breaker, but I get it). And I just want to say, that while I'm not a massive Patty Smyth fan (did the world need a more histrionic Pat Benatar? I'm not sure it did), I really, really wish that would have happened, because I'm even less of a fan of Sammy Hagar (did the world need a more histrionic Robert Plant? It most fucking definitely did not). I just want to say holy shit, the alternate universe where Patty Smyth became the singer for Van Halen is a better universe than this one.
As for Scandal, this was their biggest, and last, hit. It would reach all the way to #7. It's competent 80's rock. The way the drums drop out for that final chorus screams professional pop craft. Unfortunately, the most memorable part of the song (the bang bang in the chorus) is also its most annoying. Which means this song gets real old, real fast. But it's fun as hell the first few times you hear it. And nice Aladdin Sane makeup in the video, though I have a feeling if she ever went up to Bowie and introduced herself he would nod politely and start looking for an escape route.
Score: 5/10.
THE NUMBER ONE
Did a little research on Prince, the person. What I got back wasn't good. It's going to take me a while before I can engage with his music on a (im)purely music level. This has been #1 for three weeks, and was covered in depth the first time it showed up. The song is still a 10 though.
Friday, March 29, 2019
Thursday, March 28, 2019
The Number Fortys: The Go-Go's "Turn to You"
In The Number Fortys, we review every song that was sitting at #40 on the Billboard chats, starting in the first week of January 1984, right around the time this writer became cognizant/obsessive about music. The seeds for the idea came from Tom Breihan's Number Ones column over at Stereogum. However, we here at k-postpunk believe that the bottom is more interesting than the top (and obscurity is more interesting than either).
By 1984, The Go-Go's were a fucking mess. Drug addictions and personality conflict plagued the band. They had just released their third album in four years, Talk Show. The previous two had gone Top 10, and spawned three hit singles, including Our Lips are Sealed (an 8), We Got the Beat (a 9), and Vacation (a 9). Not only were they the first female rock band to have a #1 album, but they were a fucking fantastic live band, with a really, really good drummer. In honor of that, I'm going to post a live version of this song.
This was the second single off Talk Show. The first was the glorious Head Over Heels, a song about the fast pace of being in a successful rock band that covers the subject better than nearly every song in that well-traveled genre. It's a 10.
As for Turn to You, it's a song that gets over on the strength of the performance. The song itself (meaning lyrics & melody) isn't much more than generic power pop, but god what a performance. This song's last 30 to 45 seconds, the way they go into the breakdown, and then come out of the breakdown into a frenzy, that kind of thing doesn't happen by accident. This was a very smart, very talented band that could take their straightfoward pop/rock to places that more respected 60's pop/rock-inspired artists like,say, Tom Petty never got to (because The Go-Go's had been touched by punk, and Tom spent his life seemingly unaware that it happened).
For all that though, there's not much else going on here, and by the time I heard this song more than five times, I have a feeling the catchiness of that chorus would start to become excruciating. The recorded version of Turn to You is a 4. That version up there is a 6.
Talk Show would be their last album for 17 years. Singer Belinda Carlisle would have lots of hits (Mad About You is an 8; the rest of her solo career is a 2). Jane Wiedlin would have one hit (Rush Hour is a 7--maybe we'll catch up with it in 1988). I suppose the band member who was addicted to heroin had a lot of hits as well, but we're not counting those kind here.
THE NUMBER ONE
I have a feeling this is going to be #1 for a while. We went deep on it in the last installment when it first showed up (go find the link yourself). It's still a 10. It's so much a 10 that it's unfortunate other songs can also be a 10. It and Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time are easily the two best #1s we've come across so far.
Prince: The Least Beautiful
Mayte Garcia was Prince's first wife. She wrote a book about her life, including her life with Prince, called The Most Beautiful. It is ruthlessly honest, but written from a place of kindness and love that I can't help but admire. Despite the fact that Prince--as anyone paying close attention probably might have already guessed--is not at all a good person to become romantically involved with, Garcia's book tries so hard to be sympathetic and fair that at times it's almost hard to take it at face value. When I started reading, I thought that Garcia was incredibly naive. By the end of the book, I realized she was just being incredibly kind.
Garcia, already an accomplished dancer in her own rite, met Prince when she was 16. He was the first man she ever loved, and the first person she ever had sex with. Her life with Prince seemed to be a fairy tale (to her at least, I was waving red flags before they even started dating--but then I'm not an inexperienced teenager). She met Prince when she attended a Prince show, handed him a tape of her dancing, and Prince asked to meet her. The tape was her parents' idea. Mayte was doing a lot of dancing at the time to Arabic music, and when her father heard an Arabic influence in "Thieves In the Temple," he urged her to give Prince the tape. This seemingly makes Mayte Garcia's father the only person who liked"Thieves in the Temple."
Prince is charmed by the young lady, and soon asks her to join his band as a dancer. He does this in as enigmatically as you would expect. And it's worth considering how cool you would find the passive/aggressive silent treatment that Prince gives his bandmates in Purple Rain if you were one of the actual bandmates.
They become friends. Here's a letter Prince wrote to her after he found out some of the girls in his backing band were being mean to Garcia. Note, this was before they started dating. Prince uses a picture of an eye instead of writing "I," but I'm not going to do that. I'll keep the "u"s though.
At a certain point, their love is undeniable. Prince handles it like a, uh, real swell guy.
Look, there's a long history of older men, particularly ones who are in a seedy industry like entertainment or politics, who are surrounded by corruption and people wanting something from them, being attracted to young women because they see them as more pure than their day-to-day reality. They see the innocence of the young person as a refreshing change from most people they encounter. This is a sympathetic reading, of course. It's also likely than an inexperienced person is less likely to call them on their bullshit.
But for now things are great. Mayte and Prince are in love. Prince makes all the important decisions. He chooses the music. Prince decides where they'll eat. He treats her like a princess, etc. It's not all control-freak hell. They collaborate on projects, he handling the music, she handling the dance.
Then she gets pregnant. And the story goes from mildly disturbing to outright monstrous. It starts innocently enough. They call everyone they know, when she's only six weeks pregnant, as soon as the pregnancy test comes back positive. You shouldn't do this. A lot can go wrong in the first trimester, and it's best to just wait it out. Still, Prince is doting father-to-be, if still throwing up those red flags. He buys a monitor so he can hear the baby's heartbeat. Fine. Then there's this disturbing incident, shortly after Prince has a short-lived reunion with his estranged father. Garcia wakes up and can't find Prince. She calls around Paisley Park trying to find him.
The story gets dark fast, real dark. Just before she's four months pregnant, Garcia wakes up and realizes she's bleeding. She's in NYC. Prince had left the day before to head home. She and her mother rush to a doctor who sends her back to Minneapolis. Their doctor there suggests they do an amnio "to make sure there's nothing wrong genetically." Prince says no, it's in God's hands. He takes Mayte home and has them pray together. God must have been out of the office that day, because things get worse. Another ultrasound produces concerns, and the doctor again urges an ultrasound, in case there are "genetic abnormalities," in order to be prepared. Prince says no, again saying they're leaving it up to God. The next day, she goes into early labor. The doctor again mentions how because they didn't do the amnio, they don't know what they're dealing with. Prince, at this point turning into the most self-righteous religious dick, tells her, "If there's something wrong, it's God's will. Not because we didn't prepare." Prince then says, "I'm taking her home." The doctor objects, and they begin loudly arguing. The doctor says that if they go, Mayte needs to sign a release that says she's leaving against the doctor's advice and understands she's in danger."
Which isn't to say he was a bad human being. As I explain to our four year old son, there's no such thing as a good person or a bad person. People do good things and bad things. Even the not-nicest person on earth sometimes does nice things. (I don't explain to him this is why people often stay with their abusers, but it's true).It's up to you to figure out what you're willing to deal with in people, when to use your words and tell people how they're making you feel, and when to decide you don't want to be friends with someone. Let's just say Prince and I wouldn't have lasted long as a couple.
So Mayte's in the hospital. Prince sings to the baby. He holds her hand during the Cesarean. He arranges for a plastic surgeon to oversee the procedure (I know, right). Their son is born, and there are problems. I'm going to quote this passage in full, because Mayte Garcia deserves to tell her own story about this.
Again, this book is, if anything, overly sympathetic to Prince, and quick to rationalize even his shittiest behavior. For the record, Garcia never makes any claims of abuse, but plenty of other people have. Sinead O'Connor said Prince "used hard drugs commonly," and added, "He had been extremely violent to a number of women in his life including myself." She also alleges that the singer tried to "beat the shit out of me." The story goes that he summoned her to Paisley Park around the time Nothing Compares 2 U became a big hit to complain about Sinead's swearing in interviews. Sinead, quite rightly, told him to fuck off, and Prince flipped out.
Jill Jones, Prince's girlfriend from 1980-83-ish posted this on Facebook in the aftermath of the Chris Brown/Rhianna incident. "The honorable thing would've been for Prince to speak up and stop being so pious. Chris got caught, he never did." She deleted the post, but never denied what she had posted.
Garcia wasn't the only barely-of-age woman Prince was involved with either. Charlene Friend was 18 and Prince was 32 when they got involved. She would later accuse him of emotional and sexual abuse. He filmed her without her consent and made her watch videos of him fucking other women. Later, she realized that he been doing a lot of cocaine around that time.There were other young girls. Susan Moonsie, Anna Garcia a/k/a Anna Fantastic.
At this point, it would take a whole lot of mental gymnastics to think of Prince the person as anything other than a neurotic hypocritical control freak who dealt with--or more accurately, failed to deal with his insecurities and traumatic upbringing, and instead played out those traumas as an adult, and inflicted them on others. He treated the women he loved, at first like they were perfect, and then later like they were disposable.
The point of all this isn't to force people to make a decision on how they feel about Prince, or to call for his cancellation. It's to remind people that we don't know as much about artists as we think we do. The Ryan Adams stuff surfaced while I was thinking about writing this article. And one of the things that motivated to actually write it was seeing a tweet from Maura Johnston--a writer & thinker about music who I've always admired--reacting to the Ryan Adams news by saying she was going to go listen to Prince in order to, and I'm paraphrasing here, get the Ryan Adams stink away. And I remember thinking that's like reacting to the news about Louis C.K. by putting on some old Bill Cosby records. I understand her discomfort though. Believe me, as a parent of a kid that had a life-threatening illness at two weeks old, reading Mayte Garcia's account of the death of their child fucked me up pretty good, and I've been carrying around some serious negative Prince feelings. His records are upstairs because I have no desire to listen to them right now. But, in addition to whatever thoughts I feel like posting on here, I've been writing this column where, starting in the first week of 1984, I write about the #40 song on that week's Billboard Singles Chart. I also talk a little about the #1 song as well. This week it was When Doves Cry. I wrote about Prince's music, and even embedded an under-appreciated Prince song, All the Critics Love U In New York, to illuminate what I was talking about.
Look, most human beings are problematic. Artists tends to be especially problematic, not because being an artist makes you more likely to be, uh, troubled or some shit, but because more people are likely to excuse your bullshit because of your art. And as long as we're pontificating about human behavior, let me suggest here that if you experienced serious trauma/abuse/neglect growing up, that becoming one of the most famous fucking people on the planet doesn't seem like it does a whole hell of a lot of good in helping people to deal with their shit. Fame, and money, and power, aren't going to fix anything. In fact, they're more likely to disorient you, and distract you from doing the real, actual work necessary to break the cycles that need breaking.
Lastly, one of my favorite albums of all time is John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band. Favorite isn't the right word. It implies a joy in listening, a kind of fandom that isn't exactly accurate. Let's just say that the deep levels of emotion in that record--the anger, sadness, and love--that is overflowing in that record reaches parts of me, explains parts of me, and comforts parts of me, that very few records are able to do. I'd take that record over everything the Beatles ever recorded. These days, at least in the social media circles I travel in, John Lennon is more likely to be dismissed as a wife beater. Which is understandable. After all, he told people all about it.
Which isn't to say John Lennon was a better person than Prince, or vice-versa, or whatever. It's just saying that 21st century woke-ness is awesome, and long overdue, but it's also complicated. It's going to require serious critical thinking skills. And if something feels easy (Michael bad, Prince good, Ryan bad, Lennon bad, Bowie good, Axl fine, Streisand good), it probably isn't. The only absolutely true thing about humans is that anyone is capable of anything. And if we're going to start dividing up people, or artists, into camps of good or bad, things are going to get complicated, and confused, very quickly. These are arguments worth having, but they are arguments with no easy, or absolute, solutions.
Garcia, already an accomplished dancer in her own rite, met Prince when she was 16. He was the first man she ever loved, and the first person she ever had sex with. Her life with Prince seemed to be a fairy tale (to her at least, I was waving red flags before they even started dating--but then I'm not an inexperienced teenager). She met Prince when she attended a Prince show, handed him a tape of her dancing, and Prince asked to meet her. The tape was her parents' idea. Mayte was doing a lot of dancing at the time to Arabic music, and when her father heard an Arabic influence in "Thieves In the Temple," he urged her to give Prince the tape. This seemingly makes Mayte Garcia's father the only person who liked"Thieves in the Temple."
Prince is charmed by the young lady, and soon asks her to join his band as a dancer. He does this in as enigmatically as you would expect. And it's worth considering how cool you would find the passive/aggressive silent treatment that Prince gives his bandmates in Purple Rain if you were one of the actual bandmates.
They become friends. Here's a letter Prince wrote to her after he found out some of the girls in his backing band were being mean to Garcia. Note, this was before they started dating. Prince uses a picture of an eye instead of writing "I," but I'm not going to do that. I'll keep the "u"s though.
One of the main reasons I love and worship u is because u don't have a history. And what's more beautiful is that u don't desire one. I can't begin 2 tell you how many women are jealous of u because they know u're a virgin. They don't want u around because they feel less than u.A totally normal thing for a 34 year old man to write to an 18 year old girl who's working for him. And if you're wondering why her virginity is some kind of blessing, but Prince's extreme lack of virginity doesn't make him "less," or what makes him think she doesn't "desire" to, uh, lose that virginity, congratulations you're thinking very clearly about this situation. Anyway, not too soon after that letter he docked her a week's pay because he saw some junk food on a table next to her backstage.
At a certain point, their love is undeniable. Prince handles it like a, uh, real swell guy.
Prince leaned into my ear and said, "I think it's time."Of course, she has to go do it all by herself. I should point out that he an experienced adult well into his 30's at this point, and she is a 19 year old girl. To an armchair observer, their relationship feels a lot like grooming. Their connection feels real enough throughout the book, but one has to feel the reason Prince waited until she was 19 before they consummated their relationship is because he didn't want to be a skeez (spoiler alert: he dumps her for a younger woman. Well, not exactly dumps,. More like starts ignoring her, dating someone else, and waits for her to ask for a divorce). Where were we? Oh yeah, Mayte Garcia's trying to get birth control, a decision that has been made for her by Prince.
"What do you mean?" I said, like an idiot. '
"It's. Time."
"For. . ."
"For you to get on birth control."
I won't go into the thousand deaths I died making the appointment, enduring my first Pap smear, an forcing myself to present the prescription at the drugstore.... You have to understand, I wasn't ignorant, but I'd had a traumatic childhood experience that made me extremely protective about that part of myself.Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Garcia was sexually abused as a child. Hey idiot, Prince. She wasn't a virgin because she was more highly evolved. She was a virgin because she was scared shitless.
Look, there's a long history of older men, particularly ones who are in a seedy industry like entertainment or politics, who are surrounded by corruption and people wanting something from them, being attracted to young women because they see them as more pure than their day-to-day reality. They see the innocence of the young person as a refreshing change from most people they encounter. This is a sympathetic reading, of course. It's also likely than an inexperienced person is less likely to call them on their bullshit.
But for now things are great. Mayte and Prince are in love. Prince makes all the important decisions. He chooses the music. Prince decides where they'll eat. He treats her like a princess, etc. It's not all control-freak hell. They collaborate on projects, he handling the music, she handling the dance.
Then she gets pregnant. And the story goes from mildly disturbing to outright monstrous. It starts innocently enough. They call everyone they know, when she's only six weeks pregnant, as soon as the pregnancy test comes back positive. You shouldn't do this. A lot can go wrong in the first trimester, and it's best to just wait it out. Still, Prince is doting father-to-be, if still throwing up those red flags. He buys a monitor so he can hear the baby's heartbeat. Fine. Then there's this disturbing incident, shortly after Prince has a short-lived reunion with his estranged father. Garcia wakes up and can't find Prince. She calls around Paisley Park trying to find him.
The security person called me a little while later, speaking Spanish so my husband wouldn't know what they were telling me. They were taking him to the emergency room. They'd found him passed out. There was vomit on the floor. He was saying it was because he took aspirin with red wine, which made zero sense to me.This wasn't the first time Prince had seemed a little, in her words, off. Maybe there's another reason you get into a relationship with someone who's young and naive, and who doesn't do drugs. Anyway. Garcia rushes to the hospital. When Prince sees her, he jumps off the gurney and announces they're leaving. Garcia, naturally, has some questions.
"What were you thinking? Why would you--"On the way home, Prince tells her not to worry. "It was a stupid mistake." With the benefit of hindsight, Mayte Garcia, no longer as young and naive, realized she was being bullshitted.
"I had a migraine," he said. "I took too many pills.:"
"Too many aspirin."
"Yes."
"Why? How is that even possible."
"I don't know. My head hurt." He turned and said to his security person. "Go back and get those records. This is private."
Yes, it's lame. I look back now, and I see a dozen moments like this one, and I want to go back in time and shake this girl by the shoulders and say, "Wake up! Aspirin? Girl, please!"Later she adds, "We didn't mention it the next day--or ever." Garcia hints throughout the book that Prince's drug use had been going on for some time, dating at least back to the early 80's. She's kind enough to give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, she didn't see him actually take anything. She just saw him slurring his words and acting weird. Even when she realizes that Prince likes to go on little "Vicodin holidays" (my phrase, not hers), she's quick to rationalize his behavior. After all, look how hard he was working his body on stage, the immense pressure he was under, etc. etc. Which would be all fine and good if he hadn't docked her a week's pay when he saw some junk food on a table next to her backstage.
"I'll sign," I said, in tears because I didn't want to upset my husband who clearly needed me.... He wasn't used to someone standing up to him like that, and the more disrespected he felt, the more scared I was of the jangling, negative energy swirling around us in that little box of a room.Yeah. Once in the car, she begs him to take her to another doctor. They pull into the closest ER. A doctor explains why she'll have to have a C-section, to which Prince, not a doctor, responds, "The body can do remarkable things." If you're wondering why Prince is the one making all the decisions on his wife's delivery, I can tell you. It's because Prince is a control freak asshole. This can be a good quality for creating great art; it's a very bad quality for being a good husband, or a good human being.
Which isn't to say he was a bad human being. As I explain to our four year old son, there's no such thing as a good person or a bad person. People do good things and bad things. Even the not-nicest person on earth sometimes does nice things. (I don't explain to him this is why people often stay with their abusers, but it's true).It's up to you to figure out what you're willing to deal with in people, when to use your words and tell people how they're making you feel, and when to decide you don't want to be friends with someone. Let's just say Prince and I wouldn't have lasted long as a couple.
So Mayte's in the hospital. Prince sings to the baby. He holds her hand during the Cesarean. He arranges for a plastic surgeon to oversee the procedure (I know, right). Their son is born, and there are problems. I'm going to quote this passage in full, because Mayte Garcia deserves to tell her own story about this.
On the cold white page of a medical text, Pfeiffer syndrome type 2 is a genetic disorder that causes skeletal and systemic abnormalities. Crarniosynostosis is the premature fusing of the bones in the skull, sometimes resulting in "cloverleaf skull, " in which the eyes are located outside the sockets. Brachydactyly is the fusion of bones in the hands and feet, causing a webbed or pawlike appearance. Anal atresia is the absence of an anus, indicating life-threatening abnormalities in the colon and bowels. I learned all this later.I became fluent in a language I didn't want to speak. But in that first moment, I couldn't understand what I was seeing. It was as if we were at the center of a whirlpool, and the room around us was turning in on itself, contorting, twisting everything.There follows panic, chaos, a series of surgeries. Prince, to his credit, dotes on his newborn child with a fierce protectiveness and selflessness. Less to his credit, he doesn't allow Mayte to see him, telling her, "I don't want you to see him like this. I don't want you to see him till they get him stabilized so he can come home with us." Not your decision, asshole. Meanwhile, Prince goes and sees the baby whenever he wants. After a couple of days, Prince goes home to take a shower, and once he leaves, Mayte gets a nurse to bring her to see her son. That's a big fucking red flag by the way. For the first time, since he was born, she finally gets to hold her son. Prince returns to the hospital. "I worried that he'd be angry," she writes, "but he wasn't." And by now we have enough red flags to start our own international communist movement. After six days, their baby is still struggling, and Mayte says to a doctor, "He's not leaving here, is he?" The doctor avoids the question, but things don't look good. She realizes that the baby's life is, and is always going to be, agony, and it pains her. Talking with the doctors and her husband, they agree to take the baby off the life support. Papers are signed, a time is scheduled, and Mayte Garcia wakes up to a phone call, answered by Prince.
My husband came in and said, "It's done. They took the tubes out."Fucking fuck this guy. Seriously. This is the second time I've read this, and both times I've been flooded with adrenaline against my will. Go get the book from your library and read the rest, about how Oprah arrives a week later to see the baby for a TV segment around Prince's new album, and Mayte is forced to pretend like their baby is still alive. Read about her second miscarriage, and Prince continuing to argue, what Garcia now recognizes as "a solid refusal to place my physical well-being over his own self-righteousness." Prince meets someone else, lies about it. When Garcia is too worn out to go to a basketball game with him, Prince responds, "Fuck you. You know how many people want to go to this basketball fame with me? How many women exhaust themselves trying to get my attention?" You can read about how he encourages her to go to Spain to fix up their house there and then barely ever shows up. How he suggests they get their marriage annulled so they can "continue our marriage in a less traditional fashion." They argue for a couple of days. They make plans to renew their vows and start over. She signs the paper. The next day he's gone. The vows aren't renewed. He's seen in public with other women. Finally, isolated in a house in a different continent, she writes him a letter. Prince, being Prince, has his assistant burn everything in his house that reminds him of her or their baby, including the kid's ashes. There's more. You should read it.
"What? No! I'm supposed to be there!"
"I didn't know if you could handle it."
"I'm going. Right now. If no one wants to take me, I'll drive."
He put his arms around me. Made me stop. IN less time than it would have taken me to get there, the phone rang again. He answered it, and then he hung up and said, "He's gone."
Again, this book is, if anything, overly sympathetic to Prince, and quick to rationalize even his shittiest behavior. For the record, Garcia never makes any claims of abuse, but plenty of other people have. Sinead O'Connor said Prince "used hard drugs commonly," and added, "He had been extremely violent to a number of women in his life including myself." She also alleges that the singer tried to "beat the shit out of me." The story goes that he summoned her to Paisley Park around the time Nothing Compares 2 U became a big hit to complain about Sinead's swearing in interviews. Sinead, quite rightly, told him to fuck off, and Prince flipped out.
Jill Jones, Prince's girlfriend from 1980-83-ish posted this on Facebook in the aftermath of the Chris Brown/Rhianna incident. "The honorable thing would've been for Prince to speak up and stop being so pious. Chris got caught, he never did." She deleted the post, but never denied what she had posted.
Garcia wasn't the only barely-of-age woman Prince was involved with either. Charlene Friend was 18 and Prince was 32 when they got involved. She would later accuse him of emotional and sexual abuse. He filmed her without her consent and made her watch videos of him fucking other women. Later, she realized that he been doing a lot of cocaine around that time.There were other young girls. Susan Moonsie, Anna Garcia a/k/a Anna Fantastic.
At this point, it would take a whole lot of mental gymnastics to think of Prince the person as anything other than a neurotic hypocritical control freak who dealt with--or more accurately, failed to deal with his insecurities and traumatic upbringing, and instead played out those traumas as an adult, and inflicted them on others. He treated the women he loved, at first like they were perfect, and then later like they were disposable.
The point of all this isn't to force people to make a decision on how they feel about Prince, or to call for his cancellation. It's to remind people that we don't know as much about artists as we think we do. The Ryan Adams stuff surfaced while I was thinking about writing this article. And one of the things that motivated to actually write it was seeing a tweet from Maura Johnston--a writer & thinker about music who I've always admired--reacting to the Ryan Adams news by saying she was going to go listen to Prince in order to, and I'm paraphrasing here, get the Ryan Adams stink away. And I remember thinking that's like reacting to the news about Louis C.K. by putting on some old Bill Cosby records. I understand her discomfort though. Believe me, as a parent of a kid that had a life-threatening illness at two weeks old, reading Mayte Garcia's account of the death of their child fucked me up pretty good, and I've been carrying around some serious negative Prince feelings. His records are upstairs because I have no desire to listen to them right now. But, in addition to whatever thoughts I feel like posting on here, I've been writing this column where, starting in the first week of 1984, I write about the #40 song on that week's Billboard Singles Chart. I also talk a little about the #1 song as well. This week it was When Doves Cry. I wrote about Prince's music, and even embedded an under-appreciated Prince song, All the Critics Love U In New York, to illuminate what I was talking about.
Look, most human beings are problematic. Artists tends to be especially problematic, not because being an artist makes you more likely to be, uh, troubled or some shit, but because more people are likely to excuse your bullshit because of your art. And as long as we're pontificating about human behavior, let me suggest here that if you experienced serious trauma/abuse/neglect growing up, that becoming one of the most famous fucking people on the planet doesn't seem like it does a whole hell of a lot of good in helping people to deal with their shit. Fame, and money, and power, aren't going to fix anything. In fact, they're more likely to disorient you, and distract you from doing the real, actual work necessary to break the cycles that need breaking.
Lastly, one of my favorite albums of all time is John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band. Favorite isn't the right word. It implies a joy in listening, a kind of fandom that isn't exactly accurate. Let's just say that the deep levels of emotion in that record--the anger, sadness, and love--that is overflowing in that record reaches parts of me, explains parts of me, and comforts parts of me, that very few records are able to do. I'd take that record over everything the Beatles ever recorded. These days, at least in the social media circles I travel in, John Lennon is more likely to be dismissed as a wife beater. Which is understandable. After all, he told people all about it.
I was a hitter. I couldn’t express myself and I hit. I fought men and I hit women… But I sincerely believe in love and peace. I am a violent man who has learned not to be violent and regrets his violence. I will have to be a lot older before I can face in public how I treated women as a youngster.He was shot and killed within months of saying this, which adds a certain tragedy to that last sentence. Of course, he said this in an interview with Playboy to promote his forthcoming album, so that kind of is facing it in public. But I think Lennon is expressing the deep shame he felt for the things that he did. If it is true, that he learned not to be violent and felt remorse, then it means he did some hard work, and confronted the worst parts of himself. That's a story, in my opinion, to draw strength from.
Which isn't to say John Lennon was a better person than Prince, or vice-versa, or whatever. It's just saying that 21st century woke-ness is awesome, and long overdue, but it's also complicated. It's going to require serious critical thinking skills. And if something feels easy (Michael bad, Prince good, Ryan bad, Lennon bad, Bowie good, Axl fine, Streisand good), it probably isn't. The only absolutely true thing about humans is that anyone is capable of anything. And if we're going to start dividing up people, or artists, into camps of good or bad, things are going to get complicated, and confused, very quickly. These are arguments worth having, but they are arguments with no easy, or absolute, solutions.
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
The Number Fortys: Robin Gibb - "Boys Do Fall In Love"
In The Number Fortys, we review every song that was sitting at #40 on the Billboard chats, starting in the first week of January 1984, right around the time this writer became cognizant/obsessive about music. The seeds for the idea came from Tom Breihan's Number Ones column over at Stereogum. However, we here at k-postpunk believe that the bottom is more interesting than the top (and obscurity is more interesting than either).
The video here, set 100 years in a future where people watch videos on DVDs, is a massive what-the-fuck-fest. But that probably wasn't Robin's fault, so let's just try to focus on the song. Wait, did he just say something about making love to a paper moon? Maybe we should focus on something else. Cool steal of the pre-chorus from Neil Diamond's Cracklin' Rosie though.
Robin Gibb was one of the BeeGees, and so what if he looks like a lizard. We all have our physical flaws, right?
Let's try the music again. The arrangement is uninspired. That four note synth hook during the pre-chorus is so cliched and predictable, it's a joke. The chorus isn't bad, but even the stutter B-b-b-boys feels second-hand, like someone read a Songwriting for Dummies book (not around then, I know--whatever the 1984 equivalent was then) and saw a bullet point that read, "repeating the consonant sound at the beginning of your title is also a way to create a memorable hook, and one that your audience won't be expecting."
The lyrics are nonsense. The whole premise of the song is nonsense. I think we all know that boys fall in love. I suppose we could read a gay subtext into the lyrics. If we assume the woman/girl in the song is trying to persuade the boy that it's okay for the boy to fuck her (they make love / they get love on a Saturday night), but the boy is reluctant because he is still wrestling with his sexuality, or maybe he hasn't come to terms with it yet, or maybe he doesn't even realize what's going on, if we assume all of that then I could see where the song would somehow take on a more poignant meaning.
But then we'd be doing work that the song itself was too lazy to do. Fuck this song. It gets a 2.
THE NUMBER ONE
When people talk about 1984 (or 1983, but I'm partial to 1984) as one of the great years for pop music, you have to understand that this was the #1 song of the entire year. And any form of mass market art/entertainment that can throw up something as strange and moving and futuristic as this, and have it become the most popular song in the world, it's almost enough to make you believe that life under capitalism is the best of all possible worlds.
Stuff like When Doves Cry (and pretty much everything on Dirty Mind, all of Purple Rain except the title track--it's fine in the context of the album, but doing Journey better than Journey is pretty much the definition of an artistic pyrrhic victory--and scattered tracks throughout the 80's) is why I find all that NPG-era stuff, and half of Sign O' the Times unlistenable we-think-we're-funky-but-we-sound-like-a-late-night-house-band dreck. Prince was a polymath genius that he did his best work when pushed outside his comfort zone (I wonder what this button does). That is to say, the more experimental he got, the more stunning pop music he made, because his pop instincts were so sound that he couldn't help making pop. When he fell back on his musical equivalent of comfort food--James Brown, 70's R&B, all he did was make inferior versions of those. Even the decent songs from that period aren't recognizably Prince, whereas everything he did from 1980-84 was so distinctive that you could recognize it without him ever opening his mouth.
Anyway, this song is a 10. And as long as we're expounding on Mr. Nelson, here's an example of a throwaway on the back end of his 1982 double album that still sounds like it came from the future. It's a 9, and it makes stuff on his 1988 double album, songs like Housequake and Play in the Sunshine, sound totally fucking quaint in comparison.
The video here, set 100 years in a future where people watch videos on DVDs, is a massive what-the-fuck-fest. But that probably wasn't Robin's fault, so let's just try to focus on the song. Wait, did he just say something about making love to a paper moon? Maybe we should focus on something else. Cool steal of the pre-chorus from Neil Diamond's Cracklin' Rosie though.
Robin Gibb was one of the BeeGees, and so what if he looks like a lizard. We all have our physical flaws, right?
Let's try the music again. The arrangement is uninspired. That four note synth hook during the pre-chorus is so cliched and predictable, it's a joke. The chorus isn't bad, but even the stutter B-b-b-boys feels second-hand, like someone read a Songwriting for Dummies book (not around then, I know--whatever the 1984 equivalent was then) and saw a bullet point that read, "repeating the consonant sound at the beginning of your title is also a way to create a memorable hook, and one that your audience won't be expecting."
The lyrics are nonsense. The whole premise of the song is nonsense. I think we all know that boys fall in love. I suppose we could read a gay subtext into the lyrics. If we assume the woman/girl in the song is trying to persuade the boy that it's okay for the boy to fuck her (they make love / they get love on a Saturday night), but the boy is reluctant because he is still wrestling with his sexuality, or maybe he hasn't come to terms with it yet, or maybe he doesn't even realize what's going on, if we assume all of that then I could see where the song would somehow take on a more poignant meaning.
But then we'd be doing work that the song itself was too lazy to do. Fuck this song. It gets a 2.
THE NUMBER ONE
When people talk about 1984 (or 1983, but I'm partial to 1984) as one of the great years for pop music, you have to understand that this was the #1 song of the entire year. And any form of mass market art/entertainment that can throw up something as strange and moving and futuristic as this, and have it become the most popular song in the world, it's almost enough to make you believe that life under capitalism is the best of all possible worlds.
Stuff like When Doves Cry (and pretty much everything on Dirty Mind, all of Purple Rain except the title track--it's fine in the context of the album, but doing Journey better than Journey is pretty much the definition of an artistic pyrrhic victory--and scattered tracks throughout the 80's) is why I find all that NPG-era stuff, and half of Sign O' the Times unlistenable we-think-we're-funky-but-we-sound-like-a-late-night-house-band dreck. Prince was a polymath genius that he did his best work when pushed outside his comfort zone (I wonder what this button does). That is to say, the more experimental he got, the more stunning pop music he made, because his pop instincts were so sound that he couldn't help making pop. When he fell back on his musical equivalent of comfort food--James Brown, 70's R&B, all he did was make inferior versions of those. Even the decent songs from that period aren't recognizably Prince, whereas everything he did from 1980-84 was so distinctive that you could recognize it without him ever opening his mouth.
Anyway, this song is a 10. And as long as we're expounding on Mr. Nelson, here's an example of a throwaway on the back end of his 1982 double album that still sounds like it came from the future. It's a 9, and it makes stuff on his 1988 double album, songs like Housequake and Play in the Sunshine, sound totally fucking quaint in comparison.
The Number Fortys: Lionel Richie - "Hello"
In The Number Fortys, we review every song that was sitting at #40 on the Billboard chats, starting in the first week of January 1984, right around the time this writer became cognizant/obsessive about music. The seeds for the idea came from Tom Breihan's Number Ones column over at Stereogum. However, we here at k-postpunk believe that the bottom is more interesting than the top (and obscurity is more interesting than either).
Hey, didn't we see you a few columns ago at #1?
Goodbye.
THE NUMBER ONE.
Hey, didn't we see you a few columns ago at #1?
Goodbye.
THE NUMBER ONE.
Duran Duran holds on for a second week with their PSA about doing cocaine.
Monday, March 25, 2019
Nina Ryser - Laughing Tears (Ranch Records)
The kind of off-kilter strangeness that gets under your skin in the best way possible.
Because it actually isn't strange at all. If this doesn't make sense to you, if you don't recognize these ideas as already in your mind, in your marrow, then it's just because you aren't listening closely enough. I understand. People pay a lot of money to ingest chemicals that will silence the disturbing inconvenience of 21st century life. Me, I try to do like Jonathan Richman and take this world as straight as I can (though unlike, Jonathan, I don't stand outside people's windows at night, craft impossible fantasies around their existence, and I think it's totally fine if you'd rather be with Hippie Johnny because you should be with whoever makes you happy).
But I digress. Or do I? This is the part where I'm supposed to tell you more about this person, Nina Ryser, where they live, what other bands they play in, etc. I should compare it to other things I have heard before, in the hope that you will recognize one of the artists and therefore compelled. But if I compared it to, say, the insular hyper-consciousness of Young Marble Giants blended into the electronic sensory overload of OSR Records stuff, you would listen and say this doesn't sound like Final Day AT ALL you asshole. I should post a photo of her looking winsome, or enigmatic, or angry, so you can see the eyes and body of this person, and decide whether they look like a person whose music you want to listen to. I should tell you the story behind the album. I should provide you with context, because your time is valuable, because you need to make at least some kind of judgment before you listen. After all, you are a busy person, a busy cog in a neoliberal machine that only values your labor. You have the vast history of music at your fingertips, and you need to make an informed decision as a consumer. I can speak to you of beauty and mystery, and you ask for a compelling backstory. I say just listen. Trust me, a disembodied voice on the internet, a self that also refuses to provide you context, when I say that this album, Nina Ryser's Laughing Tears, despite having less than 1,000 plays of any of its songs on that corporate orifice of payola & PR called Spotify, is worth the 26 minutes it takes to listen to it.
You can buy this on cassette for only five fucking dollars. Click this link. This will make you a better person. It is better than medicine, better than candy, better than coffee, and better than the internet. Eat a big bowl of granola, inject this into your veins and go outside and sit.
Because it actually isn't strange at all. If this doesn't make sense to you, if you don't recognize these ideas as already in your mind, in your marrow, then it's just because you aren't listening closely enough. I understand. People pay a lot of money to ingest chemicals that will silence the disturbing inconvenience of 21st century life. Me, I try to do like Jonathan Richman and take this world as straight as I can (though unlike, Jonathan, I don't stand outside people's windows at night, craft impossible fantasies around their existence, and I think it's totally fine if you'd rather be with Hippie Johnny because you should be with whoever makes you happy).
But I digress. Or do I? This is the part where I'm supposed to tell you more about this person, Nina Ryser, where they live, what other bands they play in, etc. I should compare it to other things I have heard before, in the hope that you will recognize one of the artists and therefore compelled. But if I compared it to, say, the insular hyper-consciousness of Young Marble Giants blended into the electronic sensory overload of OSR Records stuff, you would listen and say this doesn't sound like Final Day AT ALL you asshole. I should post a photo of her looking winsome, or enigmatic, or angry, so you can see the eyes and body of this person, and decide whether they look like a person whose music you want to listen to. I should tell you the story behind the album. I should provide you with context, because your time is valuable, because you need to make at least some kind of judgment before you listen. After all, you are a busy person, a busy cog in a neoliberal machine that only values your labor. You have the vast history of music at your fingertips, and you need to make an informed decision as a consumer. I can speak to you of beauty and mystery, and you ask for a compelling backstory. I say just listen. Trust me, a disembodied voice on the internet, a self that also refuses to provide you context, when I say that this album, Nina Ryser's Laughing Tears, despite having less than 1,000 plays of any of its songs on that corporate orifice of payola & PR called Spotify, is worth the 26 minutes it takes to listen to it.
You can buy this on cassette for only five fucking dollars. Click this link. This will make you a better person. It is better than medicine, better than candy, better than coffee, and better than the internet. Eat a big bowl of granola, inject this into your veins and go outside and sit.
The Number Fortys: Michael Jackson - "Farewell My Summer Love"
In The Number Fortys, we review every song that was sitting at #40 on the Billboard chats, starting in the first week of January 1984, right around the time this writer became cognizant/obsessive about music. The seeds for the idea came from Tom Breihan's Number Ones column over at Stereogum. However, we here at k-postpunk believe that the bottom is more interesting than the top (and obscurity is more interesting than either).
Well this one's easy as fuck to cancel. It says a lot that, even with MJ riding a wave of post-Thriller success, that the title track from some "lost sessions" from 1973 which Motown just happened to find the year after MJ became the biggest fucking musical star on the planet, could still only reach #38. Michael's voice is golden, and the chorus has a melody that you can still remember even after the song ends, but the rest of the song--despite the overdubs Motown threw on there to make it sound more contemporary--is 70's sting-laden schlock.
Of course, the references to school and such have aged about as poorly as MJ did. I don't have much to add to the conversation going on right now concerning Michael Jackson's monstrous acts, other than to say this was all apparent and obvious when the allegations surfaced. When your defense is, sure, me and the little boys slept in the same bed together, but we never had sex, you're a little suspect. Also, MJ didn't love children, as people said at the time. He loved little boys. Not a whole lot of little girls hanging out at the Neverland ranch. Lastly, and most importantly, whatever abuse he suffered is not a defense. Many, many people experience physical and/or sexual abuse without themselves becoming abusers. Now to overcome that requires strength, commitment, and hard fucking work.
I am sorry for what MJ suffered; I am even sorrier that he created, out of his own personal hell, a personal hell for others. I'm glad he's dead, and I wish he had died sooner. But ultimately, I wish he had gotten the kind of help that maybe might have helped overcome his demons, or at least learn how to keep them at bay. Everyone's experience is different, but I can say that therapy has helped me immensely in learning to deal with my own personal violent and destructive tendencies. I put off making that call for years, way longer than I should have, in part because it didn't seem to do shit in helping my parents. I was wrong.
As a musical piece, "Farewell My Summer Love" is a 3. As a documentation on one man's journey through a life of pain both absorbed and inflicted, I can only avert my eyes.
THE NUMBER ONE
The lyrics here are pretty much coke-fueled gibberish. You can go read them them if you want. Now that I'm listening, the music is kind of coke-fueled gibberish too. Are those steel drums? It's got a nice melody. And Duran Duran, a band that obviously grew up with Roxy Music posters all over their walls, were gifted, like Roxy, with a solid enough drummer to give their songs the groove and force to get through most melodic rough patches. This was their first #1. Their previous single off this album, "New Moon On Monday," which I vastly prefer, only reached #10. The world isn't fair, but then you already knew that. NMonM is a 7. The Reflex is a 5.
Well this one's easy as fuck to cancel. It says a lot that, even with MJ riding a wave of post-Thriller success, that the title track from some "lost sessions" from 1973 which Motown just happened to find the year after MJ became the biggest fucking musical star on the planet, could still only reach #38. Michael's voice is golden, and the chorus has a melody that you can still remember even after the song ends, but the rest of the song--despite the overdubs Motown threw on there to make it sound more contemporary--is 70's sting-laden schlock.
Of course, the references to school and such have aged about as poorly as MJ did. I don't have much to add to the conversation going on right now concerning Michael Jackson's monstrous acts, other than to say this was all apparent and obvious when the allegations surfaced. When your defense is, sure, me and the little boys slept in the same bed together, but we never had sex, you're a little suspect. Also, MJ didn't love children, as people said at the time. He loved little boys. Not a whole lot of little girls hanging out at the Neverland ranch. Lastly, and most importantly, whatever abuse he suffered is not a defense. Many, many people experience physical and/or sexual abuse without themselves becoming abusers. Now to overcome that requires strength, commitment, and hard fucking work.
I am sorry for what MJ suffered; I am even sorrier that he created, out of his own personal hell, a personal hell for others. I'm glad he's dead, and I wish he had died sooner. But ultimately, I wish he had gotten the kind of help that maybe might have helped overcome his demons, or at least learn how to keep them at bay. Everyone's experience is different, but I can say that therapy has helped me immensely in learning to deal with my own personal violent and destructive tendencies. I put off making that call for years, way longer than I should have, in part because it didn't seem to do shit in helping my parents. I was wrong.
As a musical piece, "Farewell My Summer Love" is a 3. As a documentation on one man's journey through a life of pain both absorbed and inflicted, I can only avert my eyes.
THE NUMBER ONE
The lyrics here are pretty much coke-fueled gibberish. You can go read them them if you want. Now that I'm listening, the music is kind of coke-fueled gibberish too. Are those steel drums? It's got a nice melody. And Duran Duran, a band that obviously grew up with Roxy Music posters all over their walls, were gifted, like Roxy, with a solid enough drummer to give their songs the groove and force to get through most melodic rough patches. This was their first #1. Their previous single off this album, "New Moon On Monday," which I vastly prefer, only reached #10. The world isn't fair, but then you already knew that. NMonM is a 7. The Reflex is a 5.
Thursday, March 21, 2019
The Number Fortys: Ollie & Jerry - "There's No Stopping Us"
In The Number Fortys, we review every song that was sitting at #40 on the Billboard chats, starting in the first week of January 1984, right around the time this writer became cognizant/obsessive about music. The seeds for the idea came from Tom Breihan's Number Ones column over at Stereogum. However, we here at k-postpunk believe that the bottom is more interesting than the top (and obscurity is more interesting than either).
I've always wanted to write a poem, or something, with the title "Daylight Doesn't Matter," but the phrase doesn't jump off the page the way it jumps out here in this song.
Ollie & Jerry never released an album. The duo wrote and recorded this song for the movie Breakin', a quickie B-movie designed to cash in on the breakdancing fad sweeping (parts of) America. The film is better than it has any right to be, given that as you watch it, you can imagine the actors and crew sprinting to the next location in an attempt to stay under budget. The ending is basically a cheesier version of the already cheesy ending of the previous year's Flashdance. Still, the movie's a 6. I'm (barely) old enough to have seen Breakin' in the theater. Afterwards my friends and I heading back behind the grocery store and fished out some cardboard boxes so we could learn to breakdance. Turns out it's really hard, but that didn't stop every kid at East Junior High in Brockton, MA around this time from trying to do some spins while waiting for gym class to start.
As for the song itself, it's got one foot firmly planted in late 70's R&B like Sister Sledge (the chorus, pretty much), and the other embracing contemporary cutting-edge synth sounds (the verses). But the sentiment of the song--we're going to fucking make it, man--is hard to pull off, and they did it, so good for Ollie & Jerry. This one went all the way to #8, and deservedly so. The song's a 6.
Despite the song's success, Ollie & Jerry would break up the following year, but not before recording a song for Breakin''s (I think I did that right, typographically speaking) sequel, Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo. The movie, by the way, is either a 1 or an 8, depending on your tolerance for unintentional comedy. Ollie & Jerry's contribution to the soundtrack, "Electric Boogaloo" is just boring and forgettable. It's (maybe) a 2. Since it never reached the Top 40, I'll go ahead and post it here.
Another song off the Breakin' soundtrack, "Ain't Nobody," by Chaka Khan & Rufus, was also pretty great. It reached #22 the year before; it's a 7.
I've always wanted to write a poem, or something, with the title "Daylight Doesn't Matter," but the phrase doesn't jump off the page the way it jumps out here in this song.
Ollie & Jerry never released an album. The duo wrote and recorded this song for the movie Breakin', a quickie B-movie designed to cash in on the breakdancing fad sweeping (parts of) America. The film is better than it has any right to be, given that as you watch it, you can imagine the actors and crew sprinting to the next location in an attempt to stay under budget. The ending is basically a cheesier version of the already cheesy ending of the previous year's Flashdance. Still, the movie's a 6. I'm (barely) old enough to have seen Breakin' in the theater. Afterwards my friends and I heading back behind the grocery store and fished out some cardboard boxes so we could learn to breakdance. Turns out it's really hard, but that didn't stop every kid at East Junior High in Brockton, MA around this time from trying to do some spins while waiting for gym class to start.
As for the song itself, it's got one foot firmly planted in late 70's R&B like Sister Sledge (the chorus, pretty much), and the other embracing contemporary cutting-edge synth sounds (the verses). But the sentiment of the song--we're going to fucking make it, man--is hard to pull off, and they did it, so good for Ollie & Jerry. This one went all the way to #8, and deservedly so. The song's a 6.
Despite the song's success, Ollie & Jerry would break up the following year, but not before recording a song for Breakin''s (I think I did that right, typographically speaking) sequel, Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo. The movie, by the way, is either a 1 or an 8, depending on your tolerance for unintentional comedy. Ollie & Jerry's contribution to the soundtrack, "Electric Boogaloo" is just boring and forgettable. It's (maybe) a 2. Since it never reached the Top 40, I'll go ahead and post it here.
Another song off the Breakin' soundtrack, "Ain't Nobody," by Chaka Khan & Rufus, was also pretty great. It reached #22 the year before; it's a 7.
THE NUMBER ONE
Cyndi stays at #1 for a second week, and I'm just pissed there isn't a number higher than 1--or lower than 1. Wait. Hold on. Yeah, I know 0 is lower than 1. I'm just trying to say that it's unfair that a song like "Time After Time" can't reach a higher number, quantitatively speaking, than Footloose did. Like there's an unfair barrier keeping it from going further than any other song. Whatever. It's still a 10. It will always be a 10.
Marissa Nadler & Stephen Brodsky - "For the Sun"
Here's the song.
The cool thing about music--as opposed to, you know words on a page, or a screen--is that you can affect the meaning of the words in a way that reveals (if you're into that kind of thing) how little words actually communicate. That is to say that inflection, tone, nuance, pace, etc. play a bigger role in creating meaning.
Take this bleak beautiful goth-drone from Marissa Nadler (of Marissa Nadler fame), and Stephen Brodsky (of Cave-In though I remember playing his 1999 solo thing when it came out; here's a link to a great lost 4-track indiepop song). The song's lyrics are straightforward enough. The singer is waiting for the sun. Just like Jim Morrison did. But this makes The Doors song sound more like someone waiting for a bus, or maybe a beer. "For the Sun" is 3:30 (it's also a three and a half minute pop song! with a catchy melody!) of paranoia and dread, sung from the perspective of someone who has cried and bled all the hope out of their body. It's strikingly (picks up thesaurus, looks for synonyms for beautiful...) pulchritudinous.
The absence of drums results in a lack of forward momentum, a kind of icy languor. The album will be out in April. As a former Massachusetts resident, I can say with certainty, that the sun will start to emerge around that time. Though I remember most of my May birthday get-togethers up there being fueled by a kind of collective psychosis that was (partly) the result of six months of gray, and cold, and static electricity, and bouncing in place while waiting for public transportation. All of which feels more prosaic and mundane than what the song here is putting across. There's a difference between "waiting for the sun," which is what we were doing, and WAITING FOR THE FUCKING SUN WHICH IS PROBABLY NEVER GOING TO COME ANYWAY SO FUCK EVERYTHING ESPECIALLY YOU AND ESPECIALLY ME, which is more like what this song is doing. Though if I'm being totally honest, I've had a few of those moments as well. A poem I wrote during that time (which got published on a real-life small [very small] press and in an anthology) contained a line, "I believe Boston is a coffin / filled with frostfingers & neglect." I'm pretty sure Marissa Nadler & Stephen Brodsky would know exactly what I was talking about. And even if they don't, I can hear all that, and so much more, in this.
The cool thing about music--as opposed to, you know words on a page, or a screen--is that you can affect the meaning of the words in a way that reveals (if you're into that kind of thing) how little words actually communicate. That is to say that inflection, tone, nuance, pace, etc. play a bigger role in creating meaning.
Take this bleak beautiful goth-drone from Marissa Nadler (of Marissa Nadler fame), and Stephen Brodsky (of Cave-In though I remember playing his 1999 solo thing when it came out; here's a link to a great lost 4-track indiepop song). The song's lyrics are straightforward enough. The singer is waiting for the sun. Just like Jim Morrison did. But this makes The Doors song sound more like someone waiting for a bus, or maybe a beer. "For the Sun" is 3:30 (it's also a three and a half minute pop song! with a catchy melody!) of paranoia and dread, sung from the perspective of someone who has cried and bled all the hope out of their body. It's strikingly (picks up thesaurus, looks for synonyms for beautiful...) pulchritudinous.
The absence of drums results in a lack of forward momentum, a kind of icy languor. The album will be out in April. As a former Massachusetts resident, I can say with certainty, that the sun will start to emerge around that time. Though I remember most of my May birthday get-togethers up there being fueled by a kind of collective psychosis that was (partly) the result of six months of gray, and cold, and static electricity, and bouncing in place while waiting for public transportation. All of which feels more prosaic and mundane than what the song here is putting across. There's a difference between "waiting for the sun," which is what we were doing, and WAITING FOR THE FUCKING SUN WHICH IS PROBABLY NEVER GOING TO COME ANYWAY SO FUCK EVERYTHING ESPECIALLY YOU AND ESPECIALLY ME, which is more like what this song is doing. Though if I'm being totally honest, I've had a few of those moments as well. A poem I wrote during that time (which got published on a real-life small [very small] press and in an anthology) contained a line, "I believe Boston is a coffin / filled with frostfingers & neglect." I'm pretty sure Marissa Nadler & Stephen Brodsky would know exactly what I was talking about. And even if they don't, I can hear all that, and so much more, in this.
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
The Number Fortys: Styx - "Music Time" (Yes, Again)
In The Number Fortys, we review every song that was sitting at #40 on the Billboard chats, starting in the first week of January 1984, right around the time this writer became cognizant/obsessive about music. The seeds for the idea came from Tom Breihan's Number Ones column over at Stereogum. However, we here at k-postpunk believe that the bottom is more interesting than the top (and obscurity is more interesting than either).
Normally, the Top 40, much like life itself, is always in flux. Songs go up the charts; they come down the charts. Sometimes they go down one week but then back up the next, as if America was reconsidering--you know, maybe that song isn't so bad after all.
And sometimes a song just sits there, neither falling nor rising. So on June 9, 1984, American music listeners felt exactly the same way about Styx's "Music Time" as they had felt the week before, i.e. not very much one way or the other. So for the second week in a row, Styx's "Music Time" sat at #40.
This inertia wouldn't last for long. The following week, it plummeted to #56, one spot below something called Yarbrough & Peoples, who had a song called "Don't Waste Your Time" (I'm going to take that song's advice here). As for Styx, this song is still a 2. My feelings haven't changed. If anything, I hate it more. Let's call it a 1 then.
THE NUMBER ONE
One of the greatest songs ever made. Also one of the greatest videos ever made. Anything I could say here would only cheapen its effect.
Score: 10/10.
Normally, the Top 40, much like life itself, is always in flux. Songs go up the charts; they come down the charts. Sometimes they go down one week but then back up the next, as if America was reconsidering--you know, maybe that song isn't so bad after all.
And sometimes a song just sits there, neither falling nor rising. So on June 9, 1984, American music listeners felt exactly the same way about Styx's "Music Time" as they had felt the week before, i.e. not very much one way or the other. So for the second week in a row, Styx's "Music Time" sat at #40.
This inertia wouldn't last for long. The following week, it plummeted to #56, one spot below something called Yarbrough & Peoples, who had a song called "Don't Waste Your Time" (I'm going to take that song's advice here). As for Styx, this song is still a 2. My feelings haven't changed. If anything, I hate it more. Let's call it a 1 then.
THE NUMBER ONE
One of the greatest songs ever made. Also one of the greatest videos ever made. Anything I could say here would only cheapen its effect.
Score: 10/10.
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
The Number Fortys: Styx - "Music Time"
In The Number Fortys, we review every song that was sitting at #40 on the Billboard chats, starting in the first week of January 1984, right around the time this writer became cognizant/obsessive about music. The seeds for the idea came from Tom Breihan's Number Ones column over at Stereogum. However, we here at k-postpunk believe that the bottom is more interesting than the top (and obscurity is more interesting than either).
You've got to hear and watch this one before we go any further.
This song caused Styx to break up. And for that, we should add a few points to this song's score, because Styx fucking sucked. Their 70's hits Lady, Come Sail Away, and Babe are all monotonous turgid turds that dominated classic rock radio (probably still do for all I know). And they're probably best known, in a pop culture sense, for Mr. Roboto, a song that can only be enjoyed ironically, i.e. in a isn't-it-hilarious-that-we-are-actually-listening-to-this-right-now sense. Tommy Shaw, the Styx guitarist, left the band because they didn't rock hard enough, or had gotten too musical theatre or something. This was his first solo single.
Tommy Shaw's declaration of freedom reached #33, so maybe it'll pop up here in the next couple of months. But I think it needs to be said that leaving a band because you've just gotta rock man and emerging with this cheeseball shit may be one of the greatest self-owns in music history (am I getting this music critic hyperbole thing right?).
As for Music Time, it's close enough to Devo, and I guess early Oingo Boingo, that you could probably play it for fans of those bands and they'd probably like it. And if they didn't like it, they might be forced to go back and re-evaluate their love for those bands Hint: Devo wasn't actually as smart as people think they were, and their satire wasn't all that incisive. Most of Devo's (and in this case Styx's) satire is little more than saying you like things that you actually don't. So I guess most people I knew in middle school were also brilliant satirists of mass culture yeah, I'd LOVE to go to Sizzler for dinner. That sounds AMAZING. NICE shirt by the way...not. See, when the Styx guy says I like fast food we're supposed to understand that he doesn't actually like fast food, that he's making fun of people who like fast food. It (and Devo) suggests that the problem in society today is the shallow, self-interested choices made by poor people, and not say rampant structural inequality (both financial and societal) and corruption fostered by the rich that creates systems of oppression. To put it more clearly, Devo (and this one Styx song) have zero criticisms of the oppressors in their philosophy (which can be reduced to "everyone is stupid but me, and I guess, by extension you, since you're smart enough to listen to me," but lots of criticism of the oppressed. Devo was the kind of band that would criticize people for not voting, and deduce that they're lazy/apathetic/etc., without ever mentioning the mechanisms that keep people from voting. Just something to think about.
But getting back to Styx. Music Time is a 2.
THE NUMBER ONE
We covered most of this when it popped up last week, but right now I'm just wondering if she had a brother named Denephew.
You've got to hear and watch this one before we go any further.
This song caused Styx to break up. And for that, we should add a few points to this song's score, because Styx fucking sucked. Their 70's hits Lady, Come Sail Away, and Babe are all monotonous turgid turds that dominated classic rock radio (probably still do for all I know). And they're probably best known, in a pop culture sense, for Mr. Roboto, a song that can only be enjoyed ironically, i.e. in a isn't-it-hilarious-that-we-are-actually-listening-to-this-right-now sense. Tommy Shaw, the Styx guitarist, left the band because they didn't rock hard enough, or had gotten too musical theatre or something. This was his first solo single.
As for Music Time, it's close enough to Devo, and I guess early Oingo Boingo, that you could probably play it for fans of those bands and they'd probably like it. And if they didn't like it, they might be forced to go back and re-evaluate their love for those bands Hint: Devo wasn't actually as smart as people think they were, and their satire wasn't all that incisive. Most of Devo's (and in this case Styx's) satire is little more than saying you like things that you actually don't. So I guess most people I knew in middle school were also brilliant satirists of mass culture yeah, I'd LOVE to go to Sizzler for dinner. That sounds AMAZING. NICE shirt by the way...not. See, when the Styx guy says I like fast food we're supposed to understand that he doesn't actually like fast food, that he's making fun of people who like fast food. It (and Devo) suggests that the problem in society today is the shallow, self-interested choices made by poor people, and not say rampant structural inequality (both financial and societal) and corruption fostered by the rich that creates systems of oppression. To put it more clearly, Devo (and this one Styx song) have zero criticisms of the oppressors in their philosophy (which can be reduced to "everyone is stupid but me, and I guess, by extension you, since you're smart enough to listen to me," but lots of criticism of the oppressed. Devo was the kind of band that would criticize people for not voting, and deduce that they're lazy/apathetic/etc., without ever mentioning the mechanisms that keep people from voting. Just something to think about.
But getting back to Styx. Music Time is a 2.
THE NUMBER ONE
On Eavesdropping
To paraphrase Oscar Wilde (I think), the first duty in public conversation is to be as boring as possible. Nobody has figured out what the second duty is yet.
I can't remember the last time I overheard people talking--in a coffee shop, in a bar, in a restaurant, without wishing I could stop overhearing it. The stories people tell go on forever, seemingly without end, with details that go on forever without adding to the story. A story about someone else's camping trip unfolds in what feels like real time. A cat that lived at the campsite came into their tent. A girl in the tent was allergic to cats. Sniffling occurred. The cat kept coming in. The night passed. Morning arrived. The group went hiking. A list of things they saw is recited, in order, without any real elaboration or poetry. We saw this. And then we saw that. As if all life were prosaic.
I'll stop there. I can't help wondering if the past 15-20 years of living in what is, essentially, a surveillance state, has created a society where we have internalized the idea that we need to watch what we say in public. Americans have, in the words of Bush Press Secretary, Ari Fleischer "watch what they say, watch what they do" in the wake of 9/11. Maybe it would be more accurate, and more fair, to talk about people's fear, rather than their boredom. The fear of being exposed--as a social/political/cultural deviant--creates the need to be as bland as possible. We live in outwardly bland, conformist times, surrounded by bland architecture, bland fashions, bland culture, bland language. And yet our private lives are marked by deviance. Consider the ubiquity of internet porn, or drug use. I live in a town of approx. 125,000 people, and this town has more sex shops than book stores, more paraphernalia shops than record stores, but nobody talks about sex or drugs in public spaces. We can hear people talk endlessly about Game of Thrones (well, I can't, not a fan), but we can't hear them talk about all the fucking in Game of Thrones, or all the violence. That kind of talk isn't fit for public consumption. I don't know. Maybe it's the cultural gentrification, bougie people wanting to participate in music/film/art/etc. that they used to look down on.
I just think any time there's a profound disconnect between your private self (hedonistic, freer) and your public self (repressed, polite to a fault) you're creating a conflict that's going to be hard to resolve, a split consciousness of the self that becomes a hyper-self-consciousness which can only breed anxiety when one ventures out into a public space.
You can feel free to draw your own conclusions about the need for medication, self, prescription, and otherwise that would be necessary in order to live such a life.
I can't remember the last time I overheard people talking--in a coffee shop, in a bar, in a restaurant, without wishing I could stop overhearing it. The stories people tell go on forever, seemingly without end, with details that go on forever without adding to the story. A story about someone else's camping trip unfolds in what feels like real time. A cat that lived at the campsite came into their tent. A girl in the tent was allergic to cats. Sniffling occurred. The cat kept coming in. The night passed. Morning arrived. The group went hiking. A list of things they saw is recited, in order, without any real elaboration or poetry. We saw this. And then we saw that. As if all life were prosaic.
I'll stop there. I can't help wondering if the past 15-20 years of living in what is, essentially, a surveillance state, has created a society where we have internalized the idea that we need to watch what we say in public. Americans have, in the words of Bush Press Secretary, Ari Fleischer "watch what they say, watch what they do" in the wake of 9/11. Maybe it would be more accurate, and more fair, to talk about people's fear, rather than their boredom. The fear of being exposed--as a social/political/cultural deviant--creates the need to be as bland as possible. We live in outwardly bland, conformist times, surrounded by bland architecture, bland fashions, bland culture, bland language. And yet our private lives are marked by deviance. Consider the ubiquity of internet porn, or drug use. I live in a town of approx. 125,000 people, and this town has more sex shops than book stores, more paraphernalia shops than record stores, but nobody talks about sex or drugs in public spaces. We can hear people talk endlessly about Game of Thrones (well, I can't, not a fan), but we can't hear them talk about all the fucking in Game of Thrones, or all the violence. That kind of talk isn't fit for public consumption. I don't know. Maybe it's the cultural gentrification, bougie people wanting to participate in music/film/art/etc. that they used to look down on.
I just think any time there's a profound disconnect between your private self (hedonistic, freer) and your public self (repressed, polite to a fault) you're creating a conflict that's going to be hard to resolve, a split consciousness of the self that becomes a hyper-self-consciousness which can only breed anxiety when one ventures out into a public space.
You can feel free to draw your own conclusions about the need for medication, self, prescription, and otherwise that would be necessary in order to live such a life.
Friday, March 15, 2019
The Number Fortys: The Icicle Works - "Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream)"
In The Number Fortys, we review every song that was sitting at #40 on the Billboard chats, starting in the first week of January 1984, right around the time this writer became cognizant/obsessive about music. The seeds for the idea came from Tom Breihan's Number Ones column over at Stereogum. However, we here at k-postpunk believe that the bottom is more interesting than the top (and obscurity is more interesting than either).
This song was all over the alternative radio station near where I lived from 1985-1998 (my teenage years and early 20s), and understandably so. It's great.
My favorite thing about this song is how the intro part is perfectly fine and beautiful, and sets us up for a song that's going to be a UK version of, I don't know, early REM or something, before going off in this postpunk-ish direction that obliterates (in melody, if not in mood) Echo & the Bunnymen.
Like Echo (and, I guess, Ringo Starr), The Icicle Works were from Liverpool. Also like Echo, they weren't afraid to, in the process of striving for poetic profundity, risk embarrassing themselves in their lyrics. Still, I can at least appreciate the originality of lines like feathered books the colors of the bright elation. And yes, I had to look them up. I've spent god knows how many years hearing this song and never had any real confidence at all, as I sang along to it, that what I was singing were the actual lyrics (they weren't).
But what makes this song is the drums. Or maybe the dynamics. Actually, it's both. The verse is impossibly spare, nothing but vocals and drums, and you barely notice because the drum part is so enthralling. Great bassline too.
This was their only US song to reach the charts. It would rise to #37 before leaving forever. I've never heard any other songs by The Icicle Works. Maybe one day I will. As for this song, it's an 8.
That's not good football. It's barely even good dancing.
The Footloose soundtrack has sold 9 million copies to date, so I guess it's no surprise we keep running into it here. I've always thought of 1984 (the year we began this column in--we're up to May btw) as the year of Cyndi Lauper, Prince, Springsteen, Madonna, et. al., but yeah, I guess it was the year of Footloose too.
This anthem of women empowering men to be the best men they can be--that's a charitable reading. I think of it more like overlooking all of his flaws, which include poverty, periods of long silence, an inability to properly dress one's self, a lack of romance, and a singing voice that makes you want to cover your ears (basically every aspiring male musician in Athens, Georgia), because he is adequate enough to help her achieve an orgasm once in a while, so, you know, let's give the boy a hand, I guess.
The melody is peppy enough, and bounces its way up and down the scale in a way that's easy on the ears. Williams, who spent most of the 1970's singing backup for people like Stevie Wonder, does a fine job with it. It's a 5.
This song was all over the alternative radio station near where I lived from 1985-1998 (my teenage years and early 20s), and understandably so. It's great.
My favorite thing about this song is how the intro part is perfectly fine and beautiful, and sets us up for a song that's going to be a UK version of, I don't know, early REM or something, before going off in this postpunk-ish direction that obliterates (in melody, if not in mood) Echo & the Bunnymen.
Like Echo (and, I guess, Ringo Starr), The Icicle Works were from Liverpool. Also like Echo, they weren't afraid to, in the process of striving for poetic profundity, risk embarrassing themselves in their lyrics. Still, I can at least appreciate the originality of lines like feathered books the colors of the bright elation. And yes, I had to look them up. I've spent god knows how many years hearing this song and never had any real confidence at all, as I sang along to it, that what I was singing were the actual lyrics (they weren't).
But what makes this song is the drums. Or maybe the dynamics. Actually, it's both. The verse is impossibly spare, nothing but vocals and drums, and you barely notice because the drum part is so enthralling. Great bassline too.
This was their only US song to reach the charts. It would rise to #37 before leaving forever. I've never heard any other songs by The Icicle Works. Maybe one day I will. As for this song, it's an 8.
THE NUMBER ONE
That's not good football. It's barely even good dancing.
The Footloose soundtrack has sold 9 million copies to date, so I guess it's no surprise we keep running into it here. I've always thought of 1984 (the year we began this column in--we're up to May btw) as the year of Cyndi Lauper, Prince, Springsteen, Madonna, et. al., but yeah, I guess it was the year of Footloose too.
This anthem of women empowering men to be the best men they can be--that's a charitable reading. I think of it more like overlooking all of his flaws, which include poverty, periods of long silence, an inability to properly dress one's self, a lack of romance, and a singing voice that makes you want to cover your ears (basically every aspiring male musician in Athens, Georgia), because he is adequate enough to help her achieve an orgasm once in a while, so, you know, let's give the boy a hand, I guess.
The melody is peppy enough, and bounces its way up and down the scale in a way that's easy on the ears. Williams, who spent most of the 1970's singing backup for people like Stevie Wonder, does a fine job with it. It's a 5.
Thursday, March 14, 2019
The Number Fortys: Mike Reno and Ann Wilson - "Almost Paradise...Love Theme From Footloose"
sIn The Number Fortys, we review every song that was sitting at #40 on the Billboard chats, starting in the first week of January 1984, right around the time this writer became cognizant/obsessive about music. The seeds for the idea came from Tom Breihan's Number Ones column over at Stereogum. However, we here at k-postpunk believe that the bottom is more interesting than the top (and obscurity is more interesting than either).
We meet again Footloose. First it was Kenny Loggins at the top spot. Now it's this power ballad dreck at the bottom (it would eventually reach #8 though).
Mike Reno was the singer for Loverboy; their entire recorded output is a 2. Ann Wilson was the singer for Heart; their entire recorded output is a 3. Tthey both may still be the singers for those bands, they might not be, they might both be dead, or alive, or one dead and the other alive, I don't care. Loverboy was from Vancouver, Canada. Heart was from Seattle, which isn't far from Canada, or Vancouver. So let's just consider the song a bit of international longing, a border love song for our times.
Or not. I think the worst songs in this column are the ballads because they drag on for what feels like forever. This song is so slow it feels like it has negative beats per minute. The melody resembles a church hymn, taking it one note at a time as it moves up the scale, and then down the scale. The beat sounds like someone in rehab slowly learning to walk, to the point where halfway through the song I start coaching the drummer. First this step. Okay, now another step. Good. Now another. Excellent. You're getting there. We're almost to the end of the song. One more step. You can do it.
It's a 1.
THE NUMBER ONE
Lionel's incel anthem holds on for another week. We went deep on it last week, so go read that if you're interested. The two songs in this column definitely make for the worst music we've encountered top to bottom since we began, and the sooner we end this installment, the sooner we'll be on to something else. It gets better (the music gets better, not the column--the column already rules). I promise.
We meet again Footloose. First it was Kenny Loggins at the top spot. Now it's this power ballad dreck at the bottom (it would eventually reach #8 though).
Mike Reno was the singer for Loverboy; their entire recorded output is a 2. Ann Wilson was the singer for Heart; their entire recorded output is a 3. Tthey both may still be the singers for those bands, they might not be, they might both be dead, or alive, or one dead and the other alive, I don't care. Loverboy was from Vancouver, Canada. Heart was from Seattle, which isn't far from Canada, or Vancouver. So let's just consider the song a bit of international longing, a border love song for our times.
Or not. I think the worst songs in this column are the ballads because they drag on for what feels like forever. This song is so slow it feels like it has negative beats per minute. The melody resembles a church hymn, taking it one note at a time as it moves up the scale, and then down the scale. The beat sounds like someone in rehab slowly learning to walk, to the point where halfway through the song I start coaching the drummer. First this step. Okay, now another step. Good. Now another. Excellent. You're getting there. We're almost to the end of the song. One more step. You can do it.
It's a 1.
THE NUMBER ONE
Lionel's incel anthem holds on for another week. We went deep on it last week, so go read that if you're interested. The two songs in this column definitely make for the worst music we've encountered top to bottom since we began, and the sooner we end this installment, the sooner we'll be on to something else. It gets better (the music gets better, not the column--the column already rules). I promise.
The Number Fortys: Van Stephenson - "Modern Day Delilah"
In The Number Fortys, we review every song that was sitting at #40 on the Billboard chats, starting in the first week of January 1984, right around the time this writer became cognizant/obsessive about music. The seeds for the idea came from Tom Breihan's Number Ones column over at Stereogum. However, we here at k-postpunk believe that the bottom is more interesting than the top (and obscurity is more interesting than either).
Back when the internet was fun, and we all made jokes and argued about whether a hot dog is a sandwich, you know, before baby boomers started using it, there was this thing called literal videos, where the words of the song are changed to reflect what's going on in the video. This one was my favorite. The original is a 9 by the way.
So years before the concept, Van Stephenson, who is ostensibly the subject of this post, practically made a literal video of his own, in which his song about a hairdresser features a video of a hairdresser cutting his hair.
For those of you who aren't familiar with the Biblical story--and why would you be, have you read the Bible? I have. All the way through. Trust me, it's, uh, not exactly a page turner. That's why Christians hire a priest to read it for them and tell them the important parts. Church is just like a live action of Cliff Notes when you really think about it.
Anyway, Samson was this really strong guy until he fell in love with Delilah and she cut all his hair off, robbing him of his power (It's a metaphor! A misogynist metaphor too!). So in this song, Van Stephenson, an actual graduate from an actual seminary school, updates the misogynist metaphor for our times, though the song's lyrics are so literal as to obliterate any sort of symbolism or deeper meaning. In Stephenson's song, this song is literally about a girl who cuts hair. Let's point out the line all the darlings and the dears in the first verse, because that's definitely the only time that phrase has ever been used in human speech.
So it's a pretty straightforward song about a talented woman...UNTIL WE GET TO THE CHORUS when it turns out our hairdresser will apparently use her scissors TO KILL YOU (true fact: you're way more likely to be murdered by a man than a woman, and the Delilah of this song is statistically more likely to die because her boyfriend/husband kills her than to die of breast cancer). At this point, the song goes off the rails, psychologically speaking. The hairdresser loves you like a lion / leaves you like a lamb. So she's not only stabbing Van in the heart, she's also fucking him? And how exactly does one leave anyone "like a lamb"? Is there a trail of lamb shit following behind. Does a pungent lamb smell linger in the room?
The song continues. She slips things into your shampoo (huh?). You wake up on the floor (after being stabbed in the heart?) with a bad hair cut (take a mirror from the drawer / the damage is done) or did she cut something else off? Van goes on to call her "a mistress of lies." And basically the whole song turns into a poorly written gynophobic piece of garbage that suggests Van either has an irrational fear of women or thought it would be a cool idea to write a song about an irrational fear of women. Given his seminary school background, I'm going to go with both.
Musically insipid, lyrically confused, this shitty song reached #22. It's a 0..
Some post WWII philosopher, I don't remember who, theorized that because an event like the Holocaust had never happened before, now that it had happened, it meant there would likely be more Holocausts in the future. I don't necessarily agree with all of that--go ask the native US population how they feel about that "never before in history" shit--but I will say that in 2009, Kiss, yes that Kiss, wrote their own song called "Modern Day Delilah." I listened to it long enough to determine whether or not it was a cover (it's not), but if you can listen to it all the way through you're a stronger person than I am. By the way, the entire recorded output of Kiss is 1. As human beings, they are 0's. Their fans rate a solid 2 only because I pity them so much.
THE NUMBER ONE
First off, that is some seriously bad acting in the beginning of the video, and I hope Professor Lionel gives them all C-minuses.
Now let me answer that question in the chorus. I'm pretty sure, based on their complete disinterest in you, that, despite your obsession and fixation with this person, that no, it is not you they are looking for. This isn't a reflection on you, or your ability to be a human being capable of giving and receiving love. We can't help who we're attracted to. The human heart is a mystery, human sexual urges even more so. The idea that you need advice on how to win this person's heart suggests to me that maybe this isn't the right person for you. In my experience, the best relationships I've been in had a natural momentum of their own. You didn't have to think about it. It just seemed to happen. That's the magic of falling in love.
Conversely, I've been in relationships that, even though they made sense on paper, similar interests, person looked attractive, etc., it just didn't click. It felt like work. Those relationships never got any better. I guess what I'm saying, narrator of this song, is that this probably isn't the person for you. And to Lionel Richie, I would say that writing a song that romanticizes the stalking of, and obsession with, an idealized woman, was not a good idea. In your music video, it ends with the object of your obsession carving a laughably bad sculpture of you (it turns out she was obsessed to!), but in the real world these things all too often end in terror and death. I know that you were just writing a song about longing, but as I would explain to my three year old son, actions have consequences, and you are responsible for those consequences. And while I appreciate a minor key melody, this song is a musical dirge laced with lyrical poison. It gets a 2.
Back when the internet was fun, and we all made jokes and argued about whether a hot dog is a sandwich, you know, before baby boomers started using it, there was this thing called literal videos, where the words of the song are changed to reflect what's going on in the video. This one was my favorite. The original is a 9 by the way.
So years before the concept, Van Stephenson, who is ostensibly the subject of this post, practically made a literal video of his own, in which his song about a hairdresser features a video of a hairdresser cutting his hair.
For those of you who aren't familiar with the Biblical story--and why would you be, have you read the Bible? I have. All the way through. Trust me, it's, uh, not exactly a page turner. That's why Christians hire a priest to read it for them and tell them the important parts. Church is just like a live action of Cliff Notes when you really think about it.
Anyway, Samson was this really strong guy until he fell in love with Delilah and she cut all his hair off, robbing him of his power (It's a metaphor! A misogynist metaphor too!). So in this song, Van Stephenson, an actual graduate from an actual seminary school, updates the misogynist metaphor for our times, though the song's lyrics are so literal as to obliterate any sort of symbolism or deeper meaning. In Stephenson's song, this song is literally about a girl who cuts hair. Let's point out the line all the darlings and the dears in the first verse, because that's definitely the only time that phrase has ever been used in human speech.
So it's a pretty straightforward song about a talented woman...UNTIL WE GET TO THE CHORUS when it turns out our hairdresser will apparently use her scissors TO KILL YOU (true fact: you're way more likely to be murdered by a man than a woman, and the Delilah of this song is statistically more likely to die because her boyfriend/husband kills her than to die of breast cancer). At this point, the song goes off the rails, psychologically speaking. The hairdresser loves you like a lion / leaves you like a lamb. So she's not only stabbing Van in the heart, she's also fucking him? And how exactly does one leave anyone "like a lamb"? Is there a trail of lamb shit following behind. Does a pungent lamb smell linger in the room?
The song continues. She slips things into your shampoo (huh?). You wake up on the floor (after being stabbed in the heart?) with a bad hair cut (take a mirror from the drawer / the damage is done) or did she cut something else off? Van goes on to call her "a mistress of lies." And basically the whole song turns into a poorly written gynophobic piece of garbage that suggests Van either has an irrational fear of women or thought it would be a cool idea to write a song about an irrational fear of women. Given his seminary school background, I'm going to go with both.
Musically insipid, lyrically confused, this shitty song reached #22. It's a 0..
Some post WWII philosopher, I don't remember who, theorized that because an event like the Holocaust had never happened before, now that it had happened, it meant there would likely be more Holocausts in the future. I don't necessarily agree with all of that--go ask the native US population how they feel about that "never before in history" shit--but I will say that in 2009, Kiss, yes that Kiss, wrote their own song called "Modern Day Delilah." I listened to it long enough to determine whether or not it was a cover (it's not), but if you can listen to it all the way through you're a stronger person than I am. By the way, the entire recorded output of Kiss is 1. As human beings, they are 0's. Their fans rate a solid 2 only because I pity them so much.
THE NUMBER ONE
First off, that is some seriously bad acting in the beginning of the video, and I hope Professor Lionel gives them all C-minuses.
Now let me answer that question in the chorus. I'm pretty sure, based on their complete disinterest in you, that, despite your obsession and fixation with this person, that no, it is not you they are looking for. This isn't a reflection on you, or your ability to be a human being capable of giving and receiving love. We can't help who we're attracted to. The human heart is a mystery, human sexual urges even more so. The idea that you need advice on how to win this person's heart suggests to me that maybe this isn't the right person for you. In my experience, the best relationships I've been in had a natural momentum of their own. You didn't have to think about it. It just seemed to happen. That's the magic of falling in love.
Conversely, I've been in relationships that, even though they made sense on paper, similar interests, person looked attractive, etc., it just didn't click. It felt like work. Those relationships never got any better. I guess what I'm saying, narrator of this song, is that this probably isn't the person for you. And to Lionel Richie, I would say that writing a song that romanticizes the stalking of, and obsession with, an idealized woman, was not a good idea. In your music video, it ends with the object of your obsession carving a laughably bad sculpture of you (it turns out she was obsessed to!), but in the real world these things all too often end in terror and death. I know that you were just writing a song about longing, but as I would explain to my three year old son, actions have consequences, and you are responsible for those consequences. And while I appreciate a minor key melody, this song is a musical dirge laced with lyrical poison. It gets a 2.
Wednesday, March 13, 2019
The Number Fortys: Real Life - "Catch Me I'm Falling"
In The Number Fortys, we review every song that was sitting at #40 on the Billboard chats, starting in the first week of January 1984, right around the time this writer became cognizant/obsessive about music. The seeds for the idea came from Tom Breihan's Number Ones column over at Stereogum. However, we here at k-postpunk believe that the bottom is more interesting than the top (and obscurity is more interesting than either).
Jesus. When we started this column a couple of months ago, it didn't occur to us that we might encounter the same artists over and over again. But here we are not even halfway through 1984 (in the column--that wasn't meant to be some kind of Orwell reference about our current surveillance state existence) and we've bumped into Billy Joel and Huey Lewis twice already. Which I guess makes sense. They were two of the bigger acts around this time. But what are the odds of Real Life entering the charts at #40 twice? They only had two songs reach the US Top 40, and if you're following this column, congratulations. You've now heard both of them (a remix of "Send Me an Angel" called "Send Me an Angel '89"hit #26 in 1989, but that's still the same song--not fooling me Real Life). Anyway, here's the song.
This song has slowly grown on me. I can always appreciate a song that holds one chord throughout the verse, building up tension, and then releases it with a perfect change to the next chord. The song also has a nice wistful, ephemeral, ethereal, empirical?, no not empirical?, that was probably too many adjectives anyway. What I was talking about? Oh yeah, the chorus. Nice chorus. Probably a little too airy to go rampaging up the charts in 1984. In fact, the following week it left the Top 40, never to return. As we've said before, a lot of strong stuff up there. I mean, this song was at #11 that week (after having gone as high as #8). It's Tracey Ullman. Written by Kirsty Maccoll (Morrissey suggested she go to Mexico and she got hit by a boat and died--one more reason to hate Morrissey I guess), with that guitar solo, that moment of silence broken by that cry of Baby, it's a 10
As for Real Life. "Catch Me I'm Falling" is a 4. If this column makes it into 1987, we may get to hear another song called "Catch Me I'm Falling." If you needed a reason to keep living, what Poison, at their most emotionally desperate, referred to as "Something to Believe In."
THE NUMBER ONE
Phil me once, shame on you. Phil me twice.... Anyway, three weeks at #1 for Phil is enough. Bye-bye Phil.
The 25 Songs That Matter Right Now According to The New York Times
I guess they don't matter anymore. A more accurate headline would read "The 25 Songs That Mattered Last Sunday." Our house has a Sunday subscription to The New York Times. We were caught up in a sentimental moment, presumably on a day that Bret Stephens was on vacation, or maybe when they announced they were adding Michelle Alexander as an Op-Ed columnist. Anyway, we wanted to support journalism, and on most days we don't regret it.
This Sunday's Magazine was devoted entirely to music, 25 songs written about by 25 music writers. When I saw the cover, I felt this mix of excitement and cynicism. I bet there's at least one song in here that's going to be great that I haven't heard before, but man I bet there's going to be some bullshit too. Something like that. Perusing the list, I saw Weezer (oh my god, fuck no), The 1975 (oh fuck no, and written about by Steven Hyden), Lady Gaga (not my favorite) written about by Wesley Morris (probably my favorite writer about culture today on the planet--he also played a role in our subscription), Tierra Whack (hell yes). And so on. But this is the story of music in 2019, and so like any good story we started at the beginning. Bruce Springsteen's "Born In The U.S.A. (2018) by Hanif Abdurraqib. Let's being, shall we?
I don't know if Bruce Springsteen thinks about death as much as I think about the inevitability of his dying.
Damn. It sounds like Hanif's not much of a Bruce fan. Neither am I--I defer to R. Meltzer who called him the Fonz of rock and roll in this epic rant--but I can't say I spend a lot of time thinking about his death. I bet Hanif's going to go off some riff about all the different ways he imagines Bruce dying. I'm guessing heart attack on stage as he heads into hour three of his shtick.
I've lived an entire life as a fan of Bruce Springsteen, which means I have already imagined the world without him in it--
Well that went in a completely different direction. And does he really mean his entire life. Like from birth to the present he has always been a fan? 3rd grade, on the playground humming "The Rising" to himself as he plays kickball? If I could remove two things from contemporary journalism, and esp. music journalism, it would be headlines written as questions (Can We Still Listen to Michael Jackson?) and the use of hyperbole. I'm just going to go on the record here and say that there has never been a single artist that I've been a fan of my entire life. I can go years, sometimes a decade, without listening to an artist I love. But, you know, hyperbole just comes with the territory.
--and I have mourned that world.
Oh fuck off.
This Sunday's Magazine was devoted entirely to music, 25 songs written about by 25 music writers. When I saw the cover, I felt this mix of excitement and cynicism. I bet there's at least one song in here that's going to be great that I haven't heard before, but man I bet there's going to be some bullshit too. Something like that. Perusing the list, I saw Weezer (oh my god, fuck no), The 1975 (oh fuck no, and written about by Steven Hyden), Lady Gaga (not my favorite) written about by Wesley Morris (probably my favorite writer about culture today on the planet--he also played a role in our subscription), Tierra Whack (hell yes). And so on. But this is the story of music in 2019, and so like any good story we started at the beginning. Bruce Springsteen's "Born In The U.S.A. (2018) by Hanif Abdurraqib. Let's being, shall we?
I don't know if Bruce Springsteen thinks about death as much as I think about the inevitability of his dying.
Damn. It sounds like Hanif's not much of a Bruce fan. Neither am I--I defer to R. Meltzer who called him the Fonz of rock and roll in this epic rant--but I can't say I spend a lot of time thinking about his death. I bet Hanif's going to go off some riff about all the different ways he imagines Bruce dying. I'm guessing heart attack on stage as he heads into hour three of his shtick.
I've lived an entire life as a fan of Bruce Springsteen, which means I have already imagined the world without him in it--
Well that went in a completely different direction. And does he really mean his entire life. Like from birth to the present he has always been a fan? 3rd grade, on the playground humming "The Rising" to himself as he plays kickball? If I could remove two things from contemporary journalism, and esp. music journalism, it would be headlines written as questions (Can We Still Listen to Michael Jackson?) and the use of hyperbole. I'm just going to go on the record here and say that there has never been a single artist that I've been a fan of my entire life. I can go years, sometimes a decade, without listening to an artist I love. But, you know, hyperbole just comes with the territory.
--and I have mourned that world.
Oh fuck off.
Friday, March 8, 2019
The Number Fortys: Huey Lewis & the News "The Heart of Rock & Roll"
In The Number Fortys, we review every song that was sitting at #40 on the Billboard chats, starting in the first week of January 1984, right around the time this writer became cognizant/obsessive about music. The seeds for the idea came from Tom Breihan's Number Ones column over at Stereogum. However, we here at k-postpunk believe that the bottom is more interesting than the top (and obscurity is more interesting than either).
Wait. What's that? Chalk Circle never had anything released on Dischord despite being friends with all those guys and part of the same scene? That's weird, because this is better than 90% of the shaved head proto-boot camp jock jams that label put out in the 80s. I wonder what Chalk Circle didn't have that those other bands had....Hm....
Anyway, Huey does mention Seattle a full two years before the formation of Sub Pop. To continue the ‘heart’ metaphor, maybe he had his finger on the pulse of something.
THE NUMBER ONE
A mean-spirited UK music writer, Julie Burchill, I think, once referred to Phil Collins as the ugliest man in pop. If I remember right, she said he looked like George Orwell. Ouch. I have no strong feelings about Phil Collins' physical appearance either way. But I think it is worth mentioning that a song about how there's no way in fuck, statistically speaking, that Phil's loved one is coming back--it is quite literally against all odds--I think it's interesting that the first line in the chorus is 'take a look at me now,' as if Phil has internalized Burchill's criticism. This is a song about a guy who has no chance, knows he has no chance, and when he says 'take a look at me now,' he isn't saying it because he thinks she (most likely a she, in Phil's case) is going to change her mind when she sees how straight-up hot he is, the way Robert Plant or Kanye or someone would. He's saying it because he believes he looks pathetic. And looking pathetic is the only power he has left in the relationship, the power to hopefully making his departing loved one feel as bad as he does. It's something to think about when you listen to this dreck, I guess.
American cities with thriving music scenes in 1984 not mentioned in this song about all the places where the heart of rock and roll (whatever the fuck that means) was still beating (whatever the fuck that means too):
Athens, GA.
Minneapolis
Olympia
Chicago
Nashville
Providence
And cities where, according to this song, the heart was ‘still beating’:
San Antonio
Baton Rouge
Tulsa
Oklahoma City (pre-Flaming Lips)
Philadelphia (pre-Dead Milkmen) — referred to in the song as, bizarrely, ‘The Liberty Town’
Philadelphia (pre-Dead Milkmen) — referred to in the song as, bizarrely, ‘The Liberty Town’
Cleveland also gets mentioned, owing to the band’s overt Pere Ubu influence (I know, it's more likely they were thinking of WKRP In Cincinnati and got their Ohio cities confused). So does Washington D.C., because, sure HL&TN’s music might have sounded like a bunch of dads playing softball, but apparently these guys were way into Dischord and Go-Go. This gives me a chance to post a video by D.C. band Chalk Circle, my favorite Dischord band.
Anyway, Huey does mention Seattle a full two years before the formation of Sub Pop. To continue the ‘heart’ metaphor, maybe he had his finger on the pulse of something.
But forgetting Minneapolis? In the year of Purple Rain, Let It Be, and Zen Arcade? Inexcusable.
Note: Special versions were recorded for different markets. So people in Arizona would get a ‘Phoenix’, or a ‘Tucson’ at the end of the song when they heard on the radio. Those versions don’t count. This version gets a 3.
THE NUMBER ONE
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)