The 2002 Rykodisc Kinks tribute This is Where I Belong focused not on the “tired and true” Ray Davies-penned material; there’s nary a “Lola” or “You Really Got Me” or “Come Dancing” in the bunch. Instead, a collection of well-qualified, well-respected men and women such as Jonathan Richman, Bebel Gilberto, Steve Forbert, Ron Sexsmith and Matthew Sweet knock around some of the more interesting second-tier Davies material–the deep cuts.
So tunes like “Starstruck”, “Victoria”, “Picture Book” and “Muswell Hillbilly” get a fresh look-in. And power poppers Fountains of Wayne turn up the volume on “Better Things”, an anthem for graduates if I ever heard one.
Brainstorm, the Latvian pop rock/band–not to be confused with Brainstorm the American funk/R&B band from Michigan, or Brainstorm the German power metal band, or Brainstorm the experimental pop band from Portland, or Brainstorm the doom metal band from Ukraine, or Brainstorm the punk band from Serbia, or Brainstorm the jazz rock band from Germany, or Brainstorm the death metal band from Bulgaria, or Brainstorm the hardcore band from Salt Lake City, or Brainstorm aka electronic musician Moby, or Brainstorm the rapper from Washington–attained international notoriety when they finished third in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2000 (although they’d been around since 1989).
Since 1999 they’ve been releasing albums both in Latvian and English. The band remain active despite having lost bassist Gundars Mauševics in a 2004 car accident.
In 2001 or 2002, guitarist and singer David Gilmour of Pink Floyd recorded a musical interpretation of William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18″ at his home studio aboard the historic, 90-foot houseboat the Astoria. This video of Gilmour singing the sonnet was released as an extra on the 2002 DVD David Gilmour in Concert, but the song itself was apparently connected with When Love Speaks, a 2002 benefit album for London’s Royal Academy for the Dramatic Arts.
The project was organized by the composer and conductor Michael Kamen, who died a little more than a year after the album was released. When Love Speaks features a mixture of dramatic and musical performances of Shakespeare’s Sonnets and other works, with artists ranging from John Gielgud to Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Kamen wrote much of the music for the project, including the arrangement for Sonnet 18, which is sung on the album by Bryan Ferry. A special benefit concert to celebrate the release of the album was held on February 10, 2002 at the Old Vic Theatre in London, but Bryan Ferry did not attend. Gilmour appeared and sang the sonnet in his place. It was apparently around that time that Gilmour recorded his own vocal track for Kamen’s song.
“Sonnet 18″ is perhaps the most famous of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets. It was written in about 1595, and most scholars now agree the poem is addressed to a man. The sonnet is composed in iambic pentameter, with three rhymed quatrains followed by a concluding couplet:
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date; Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm’d; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st; Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
The Move, the Kinks, Small Faces, and even the Delfonics and Syd Barrett-era Floyd all seem to be points of reference for the Bees (formerly Band of Bees) on their Free the Bees LP, which takes its listener on a kaleidoscopic tour of sixties rock and pop. This is a band that time forgot.
“Chicken Payback” sounds like someone randomly rearranged the lyrics of those 60’s dance-craze-of-the-month songs (“The Payback”, “Camel Walk”, “Mickey’s Monkey”, “Funky Chicken”, “Donkey Walk”) perhaps with Austin Powers sitting in as executive producer.
Nilsson: “The Most Beautiful World in the World” (1972)
Harry Nilsson…where do I begin? Underrated singer, overlooked songwriter, a favorite of the Beatles, a bad influence on John Lennon, and kind of a wacky character. But never dull.
After his massive breakthrough album, 1971’s Nilsson Schmilsson, and just when he’d caught the world’s attention with his Grammy-winning worldwide hit recording of Badfinger’s “Without You”, Harry seemed bored already with the whole platinum-selling record thing. Follow-up Son of Schmilsson featured: a lead single with an F-bomb in the chorus, a false take interrupted by a belch, a Jim Stafford-esque parody country song, and a sing-along featuring residents of a retirement home with a chorus of “I’d rather be dead than wet my bed“.
The album’s closing track is a cheeky tribute to…the world. Like, personified. Hence:
Your mountains when you’re mad/Your rivers when you’re sad/And those deep blue seas
I love you for your snow/Your deserts down below/I love the way you wear your trees
The most beautiful world in the world/And though there are times when I doubt you/I just couldn’t stay here without you
So when you get older and over your shoulder/You look back to see if it’s real
Tell her she’s beautiful, roll the world over/And give her a kiss…and a feel
Every Moment Has A Song 