"There's a time in life for Hoagy Carmichael. There's a time in life for Claude Debussy. There's a time in life for Jerry Lee Lewis. There's a time in life for Destiny's Child. All these things have their moment." ~Elvis Costello
With the Beatles’ catalog now available via streaming, it gives fans yet another opportunity to appreciate band’s prodigious output. As with any masterpiece, Beatles’ music opens a new door with each visit. No matter how many times (roughly a billion in this case) you hear the songs, there’s always something fresh to appreciate.
In this round of bingeing, it was John Lennon’s guitar playing that re-introduced itself. Paraphrasing Mr. Lennon himself, if George was The Beatles’ forgotten singer, John was their forgotten guitar player…
I was never a big Billy Joel fan but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t have married him when I had the shot. Yes, that could have been MY LIFE. I could have been Mrs. Billy Joel, the uptown girl, living in an uptown world. If only.
It was the early Eighties, and I was a waitress at a nouveau-hot restaurant on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Early one Saturday night, a limo pulled up out front. Out stumbled two guys who looked like trouble. I was drawn. I’ve always enjoyed a nice batch of trouble.
I watched from my station on the balcony as the limo riders were led up the stairs to my empty section. The short one was disruptive, singing to the Billy Joel tape that was playing throughout the restaurant. He began waving from the steps like an emperor, claiming, “Hi, I’m Billy Joel! I’m Billy Joel!”
As much as we love our favorite artists, it’s hard to say that any of them are perfect. Here are 22 iconic artists who have been briefly lured by drugs, laziness, novelty, over-production, poor judgement or, in the case of Brian Wilson, rap music.
Elvis Presley, “Confidence” (1967)
Picking the worst song Elvis recorded for his wretched Sixties flicks is a little like picking your least favorite terminal disease. But where the exceptionally strong-stomached can at least find some camp pleasure in goofy junk like “Yoga Is as Yoga Does” or “He’s Your Uncle Not Your Dad,” this worthless rewrite of “High Hopes” from 1967’s Clambake is about as fun as a tetanus shot – and less memorable. The lamest of the 42 songs that Sid Tepper and Roy C. Bennett wrote for the King, it’s dragged even further down by its grating kiddie chorus, a cartoonish backing track and Elvis himself, who sings as though contractually obligated to convey no human emotion…
David Bowie, “The Laughing Gnome” (1967)
The laughing gas is cranked up to 11 throughout this novelty number featuring the helium-esque, sped-up vocals of producer Gus Dudgeon and a giddy 19-year-old icon-to-be. Featuring a bassoon line Bowie would later employ in “Speed of Life” and elsewhere, the track is punctuated by a punishing barrage of gnomic wordplay and displays a dedication to chart life by any means necessary. (It reached Number Six upon its re-release in 1973.) Bowie threatened, but did not deliver, a “Velvet Underground-influenced” live version in 1990. “I should have done more for gnomes,” he later told NME. “I really could have produced a new sensibility for the garden gnome in Britain.”
Love songs are where we get our passion, our soul — and most of our worst ideas.
Throughout human history, oceans have been crossed, mountains have been scaled, and great families have blossomed — all because of a few simple chords and a melody that inflamed a heart and propelled it on a noble, romantic mission.
On the other hand, that time you told that girl you just started seeing that you would “catch a grenade” for her? You did that because of a love song. And it wasn’t exactly a coincidence that she suddenly decided to “lose your number” and move back to Milwaukee to “figure some stuff out.”
That time you held that boom box over your head outside your ex’s house? You did that because of a love song. And 50 hours of community service later, you’re still not back together.
Love songs are great. They make our hearts beat faster. They inspire us to take risks and put our feelings on the line. And they give us terrible, terrible ideas about how actual, real-life human relationships should work.
Welcome to our little homage to musical homage. The following ten artists, whether by willful attempt or sheer happenstance, managed to pull off amazingly credible imitations of more notable musical acts. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. We’ll let you decide:
Dave Kerzner: “Stranded”
This Dark Side-era Pink Floyd sound-alike couldn’t possibly have happened by accident. Kerzner’s 2014 New World album, though it literally and figuratively shows its influences on its sleeve, is actually an outstanding progressive rock record in its own right. But “Stranded”, more than any song I’ve ever heard, shows an artist who’s assimilated the Floydian musical vocabulary.
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Lissie: “Further Away (Romance Police)”
Late-70’s Fleetwood Mac is revisited by singer-songwriter Lissie, complete with the Lindsey Buckingham guitar and Stevie Nicks vocals.
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Ali Thomson: “Take a Little Rhythm”
You may remember this #15 hit from 1980. If so, you almost surely thought it was Paul McCartney because it perfectly mimicked the sound of his late-70’s hits, not to mention the Tom Scott sax solo of “Listen to What the Man Said” and the prominence of the bass guitar in the mix. And also because who the hell is Ali Thomson?
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Jeremy Fisher: “Scar That Never Heals”
With all the stories floating around about Paul Simon cribbing musically from other artists it’s good to see another singer so “inspired” by Paul. Or so it sounds to me.
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Kingdom Come: “Get it On”
This one’s just brazen. From John Bonham’s thunderous drum sound to Robert’s Plant’s wail to a riff that, to say the very least, “evokes” Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir”…come on, guys. I mean, that sound is taken. Get your own.
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Tyler Ramsey: “Stay Gone”
Neil Young is channeled on this one, though it’s not clear if Tyler Ramsey consciously does so. I hear echoes here of some of young Neil’s early 70’s tunes such as “Winterlong”.
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Band of Horses: “Long Vows”
Again with the Neil Young! Band of horses sound like they got hold of a Zuma outtake here. In a good way.
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Kings of Convenience: “Homesick”
The Norwegian duo known as Kings of Convenience capture the close harmonies and intimate spare sound of “Scarborough Fair”-period Simon & Garfunkel on this one. Or as their own words in this very song describe it “two soft voices, blended in perfection”.
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Accept: “Balls to the Wall”
It seems in the world of 80’s metal you could scrape out a bit of a career merely by imitating an iconic act. Since their red hot career has presumably cooled off by now (unless like Spinal Tap they’re enjoying a revival in Japan) I wonder if it’s occurred to no-hit wonder Accept–and to the previously mentioned Kingdom Come for that matter–that there’s always a living to be made as a tribute band? Who could better fill the AC/DC void now that Brian Johnson has called it quits?
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Tin Tin: “Toast and Marmalade for Tea”
In case you’re not conversant with late-60’s pop, or old enough to remember that the Bee Gees had quite a successful career before anyone had ever heard of disco, Aussie duo Tin Tin was pretty much exactly what the Gibb brothers sounded like from about 1968 to ’72. It’s not a shock that Maurice Gibb produced the quaint “Toast and Marmalade for Tea”, Tin Tin’s only U.S. top 40 hit and a long-forgotten chestnut. It carries the stately sound of contemporaneous Bee Gees hits such as “Lonely Days” and “I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You”.
Irish guitarist Henry McCullough passed away Tuesday at age 72. McCullough was a former member of Paul McCartney and Wings and played on their 1973 Red Rose Speedway album. He is credited with the iconic solo on McCartney’s love song to Linda “My Love”.
His playing is also featured on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, among other things.
McCartney shared the following statement on Facebook:
“I was very sad to hear that Henry McCullough, our great Wings guitarist, passed away today. He was a pleasure to work with, a super-talented musician with a lovely sense of humour. The solo he played on ‘My Love’ was a classic that he made up on the spot in front of a live orchestra. Our deepest sympathies from my family to his.”
Every Moment Has A Song 