Love Never Felt So…Familiar

12 Aug 2021 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags:

 Photograph: Rex Features

At the 2014 “debut” of the new/old Michael Jackson song “Love Never Felt So Good”, most people heard the Jackson/Paul Anka composition for the first time.

The re-worked 1983 demo then appeared on Jackson’s poshumously-released Xscape album.

But the song had seen previous release. After Jackson failed to make a finished version of the song in ’83, Anka re-worked the lyrics and sent it to Johnny Mathis, who included it on his 1984 A Special Part of Me album.

The 1984 production of the song bears a strong relemblance to Japanese singer Junko Ohashi’s “I Love You So”, also released that year.

Compare the intros of the two songs.

Underrated Styx: The Most Overlooked Song From Each Album

11 Aug 2021 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags:

Via (Ultimate Classic Rock) by Sterling Whitaker

Few bands in rock history have such a carefully written and precisely arranged catalog of songs as Styx.

The Chicago-based group blends rock, pop and prog elements into a seamless whole that maintains a remarkably high standard across the majority of its albums, despite wandering around stylistically in a manner that few of its commercial peers can match. That fact makes it remarkably difficult to choose the most underrated song on each of Styx’ studio albums – because there are quite a few undiscovered gems on almost every album they’ve recorded.

Styx began their recording career as an Americanized pop-rock response to British progressive rock, but most of their biggest hits were an amalgam of straight-ahead rock and vocal-oriented pop elements. That approach yielded a run of classic hits that includes “Lady,” “Come Sail Away,” “Renegade,” “Blue Collar Man,” “Babe,” “Too Much Time on My Hands,” “Mr. Roboto” and more, but some of the best tracks on each Styx album are mostly unknown to casual listeners.

Below, we uncover a musical feast that touches on classical music, hard rock, blues, ballads and just about everything in between. Styx have something for everyone, especially if you dig deeper into their catalog…

Read More: Underrated Styx: The Most Overlooked Song From Each Album | https://ultimateclassicrock.com/underrated-styx/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral

‘Fragile’ at 50: Steve Howe Tells the Story Behind Yes‘s Landmark Album

11 Aug 2021 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: ,

Getty Images/Michael Putland

(via Guitar Player) by Joe Bosso

There was no such thing as progressive rock, explains Howe. It was just that their sound needed a bigger canvas.

Steve Howe has no idea where the term progressive rock came from, but he makes one thing clear: It certainly didn’t start with him. “I never called us ‘progressive rock’ or ‘prog-rock,’” he says. “As I recall, when I first joined Yes, we all used to call our music different things. 

“There was ‘orchestral rock’ and ‘cinemagraphic rock.’ We never argued about it, but there were a lot of names and terms being tossed about.” So what term did he use to describe Yes’s music? 

Howe laughs. “I often called it ‘soft rock,’” he says. “I thought what I wrote was a sort of soft rock, but the phrase didn’t catch on, at least not with what we were doing. But progressive rock? Where that got started, I don’t know. I think it might have come after the fact.”  

Read more: https://www.guitarplayer.com/players/fragile-at-50-steve-howe-tells-the-story-behind-yess-landmark-album

How a Car Accident Began a Run of Bad Luck For Robert Plant

11 Aug 2021 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: ,

(via Ultimate Classic Rock) by Michael Gallucci

Robert Plant and his family were vacationing on Aug. 4, 1975 in Rhodes, Greece, when the car he was driving spun off the road and crashed. It was the first in a string of bad luck moments for the Led Zeppelin singer.

The band was on a short break and in between tour dates when Plant, along with his wife and children, took a trip to the Greek island of Rhodes. They rented a car, which Plant lost control of and crashed. The accident left Plant and his wife Maureen injured; his kids escaped with just a few bruises…

Read More: How a Car Accident Began a Run of Bad Luck For Robert Plant | https://ultimateclassicrock.com/robert-plant-car-accident/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral

Billboard’s Highest Paid Musicians of 2020: The Top Ten

29 Jul 2021 Leave a comment

Image by Ed Cyphers

From Failures Come Pop Successes

29 Jul 2021 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: , ,

(via Culture Sonar) by Mark Daponte

One of the more bizarre sayings (and something parents of an infant shouldn’t have to say to the nanny) is “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.”  This advice, meaning don’t throw away something good in the course of throwing out something bad, was heeded by a number of rock stars who found gems amongst musical projects they had thrown out.

The most noteworthy salvage job was Pete Townshend’s unfinished sci-fi rock opera film called Lifehouse which started as a story written around several songs.  Pete recalled: “The essence of the storyline was a kind of futuristic scene.  It’s a fantasy set at a time when rock ’n’ roll didn’t exist.  The world was completely collapsing and the only experience that anybody ever had was through test tubes. In a way, they lived as if they were on television. Everything was programmed.  The enemies were people who gave us entertainment intravenously and the heroes were savages who’d kept rock ‘n’ roll as a primitive force and had gone to live with it in the woods.  The story was about these two sides coming together and having a brief battle.”

Read more: From Failures Come Pop Successes – CultureSonar

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