Songs You May Have Missed #198

17 Oct 2012 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in Songs You May Have Missed Tags: ,

extreme

Extreme: “Tragic Comic” (1992)

Extreme were a band born at the wrong time, arena rockers who seemed to want to be either the Beatles or an ambitious progressive rock band.

Everyone remembers, for better or worse, their megahit “More Than Words”, a song that (somewhat inaccurately) defined the band. Fewer may recall or realize the song came from a rather grandiose concept album with which the band attempted to stretch the parameters of the pop metal genre.

By the time of Extreme’s third release grunge prevailed. Songs like “Tragic Comic”, which leaned toward the Beatles end of the band’s sound spectrum, probably stood less than no chance at putting the band back on the radio. And that’s what makes this a song you may have missed.

Mumford Revisited

17 Oct 2012 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: ,

Following up on my post of Oct. 8th: https://edcyphers.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/mumford-sons-in-a-league-with-the-beatles-um-no/

(taking issue with an item in Paste which hyped Mumford & Sons’ latest album by comparing the sales of its singles to the Beatles’ chart successes)

The following is from the today’s Rolling Stone online feed:

Folk-rockers continue their slow decline

LOSER OF THE WEEK: Mumford & Sons. Look at the numbers:  600,000, 169,000, 96,000. Not an impressive trajectory for a smash album. Babel had a fantastic debut two weeks ago, but its sales plunged 72  percent last week and another 43 percent this week. And the band’s single “I  Will Wait,” despite a respectable 6.6 million YouTube views, seems to be  petering out as well – it’s down 14 slots on BigChampagne’s Ultimate Chart  (which tracks Internet criteria) from Number 16 to Number 30. It’s still  possible for Mumford to maintain its positioning with a slow-burning, Lady  Antebellum-style, release-great-singles-over-time strategy, but for now, its  chart run appears to be declining.

And just to be clear, the BigChampagne chart didn’t exist in the Beatles’ day (and they’d have owned it if it did) so the Billboard singles chart makes for the best apples-to-apples comparison. Billboard’s chart shows “I Will Wait” at #32 this week, down from its peak of #23. So the statement still holds true: Mumford & Sons still haven’t cracked the top twenty with a single. And the drop from 600,000 in album sales to 169,000 the following week is quite spectacular.

And as for a “release-great-singles-over-time strategy”, there were already (as Paste correctly pointed out) six Mumford singles on the chart simultaneously as of two weeks ago. So much for doing that.

Not saying they aren’t great. Just saying it takes more than a single great week on the chart to earn anyone a comparison to any all-time great. Especially the Beatles.

Hmph.

Symphony of Science: Education (Auto)Tuned to Young People

17 Oct 2012 2 Comments

The world of science is indeed full of wonders. Would you ever have believed you could buy a 7″ vinyl record of a song by Carl Sagan?

That would be “A Glorious Dawn”, one of 17 or so bits of science-as-entertainment produced so far by a project called Symphony of Science. The songs and their accompanying videos give scientific and philosophical concepts a pseudo-chillwave musical treatment and feature (with the help of our old friend auto-tune) such prominent figures as Sagan, Isaac Asimov, Stephen Hawking and Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Check out the site for more:

http://www.symphonyofscience.com/

Video by Ed Cyphers

“Earworm”–It’s Officially a Word.

16 Oct 2012 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags:

Among the new words added to this year’s update of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate® Dictionary (bucket list, f-bomb, game changer, man cave) is “Earworm”: a song or melody that keeps repeating in one’s mind. The example given on the website is  “Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepsen. Ya think?

According to Merriam-Webster, the first known use of the word was in 1802. (Hard as I try I can’t think of a song from 1802 nearly as catchy as “Call Me Maybe”)

The German word “ohrwurm” (literally translated as “earworm”) has the same definition, and certainly this is a case of English co-opting one more useful word from another language.

Now, while we’re at it…

The German language has a word for a song that is popular for a short time and then seems to disappear from favor.  It’s an Eintagsfliege (One-day-fly), named for the sort of flies that live only a few hours (in English: Mayflies). We need to Englishize (Englishify?) this word to describe all our flash in the pan songs, many of which began their life cycle as the most inescapable of earworms.

John Denver at the PMRC Hearings, 1985

16 Oct 2012 Leave a comment

The Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) also known as the “Washington Wives” was formed in 1985 with the purpose of exerting control (“censorship” some said) over the access children had to violent and explicit music by putting warning labels on albums.

Rap music of the time was thought to be a particular threat, with rapper Ice-T specifically accused by Tipper Gore of inciting increased violence against police in Los Angeles.

On September 19, 1985 three musicians stepped to the microphone to testify. They were Dee Snyder (of Twisted Sister), Frank Zappa and…John Denver, who’d had his own music banned in some cities in the early 70’s.

Many on the PMRC committee expected the folk-pop singer to speak in support of their agenda. But instead Denver articulately stated the case against censorship saying, “That which is denied becomes that which is most desired, and that which is hidden becomes that which is most interesting. Consequently, a great deal of time and energy is spent trying to get at what is being kept from you.” (Spoken like an experienced dad)

(Snyder and Zappa were less conciliatory in tone. And Zappa subsequently responded with his Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention album, which featured a parody of the warning label on its cover.)

Video by Ed Cyphers

“Giving Her Away”: One of the Best Student-Produced Short Films You’ll Ever Watch

15 Oct 2012 Leave a comment

This blog will rarely stray from music-related topics, but I consider this a must watch. “Giving Her Away” is a student-produced 9-minute film that won awards in multiple film festivals in 2006. Enjoy, and have a tissue or two nearby.

Video by Ed Cyphers

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