Songs You May Have Missed #232

14 Nov 2012 Leave a comment

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

super

Superheavy: “Miracle Worker” (2011)

Over to Amazon.com‘s Editorial Review for this one:

Mick Jagger has teamed up with Eurythmics founder Dave Stewart, soul singer Joss Stone, Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack composer A.R.Rahman and reggae star Damian Marley to form a band cooperative project called SuperHeavy. This diverse and eclectic line up who share eleven Grammy Awards between them, have been recording together in various studios around the world, with the majority of the tracks on the project laid down over three weeks in Los Angeles earlier this year (2011).

It’s little wonder that Stewart refers to SuperHeavy as, “A mad alchemist type experiment”. Fusing the talents of one of the greatest front-men of all time, a two time Academy award winning Indian composer, a soul vocal prodigy, a three time Grammy winning reggae star, and one of the most sought after producers in the world, you would expect the explosive results to defy categorisation.

SuperHeavy came together after Jagger and Stewart considered what a band comprising of musicians from different genres would sound like. Jagger explains, “Dave really wanted to make a record with a different group of musicians, in other words, with different backgrounds of music. Instead of everyone being a rock musician, or basically a blues musician, or some other genre, he wanted to get as many genres together that would fit. I said it sounds like a good idea, I never thought it would actually happen.”

SuperHeavy is a new and spontaneous way of working for all the collaborators as Jagger explains, “I said to Dave, normally [with the Stones] we’d always have written songs before we go into the studio, but the jam sessions resulted in some great work believes Stone, “It felt better when we were just jamming, that way we made it up as we went along and it was easy.”

Acoustic Ke$ha: Stripped-Down Sensitivity or Dreck Laid Bare?

14 Nov 2012 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: , ,

The post below is reprinted, along with video attachments, from BuzzFeed. My comments are beneath it.

Ke$ha Made A Beautiful Acoustic Version Of “Die Young”

Who knew that underneath her hit pop song was a really gorgeous ballad?

Ryan Broderick, BuzzFeed Staff

It’s really easy to write off a pop star like Ke$ha (especially because she still insists on using that dang dollar sign). But it’s also really exciting when someone like her takes a step back, strips off all her usual radio pop nonsense and does something genuinely really nice.

This ambient, pretty gorgeous version of “Die Young,” off her upcoming album, Warrior, gives a really startling insight into the person underneath the auto-tune.

And this isn’t the first time Ke$ha’s take a quick foray to genuine musicianship. Last year she released a bafflingly subdued and heartfelt cover of Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” which is definitely a must-hear if you missed it.

Original post:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/keha-made-a-beautiful-acoustic-version-of-die-yo

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I understand the concept, Ryan Broderick of BuzzFeed staff. Sometimes stripping away the noise and letting an artist’s voice, melody and song be heard in a more intimate, sympathetic setting brings out the song’s beauty and the singer’s gifts. Good examples would be Robyn’s reworkings of her dance pop hits and Kylie Minogue’s brand new Abbey Road Sessions album.

That’s not what’s happening here.

Really nice? Ambient? Gorgeous? Genuine musicianship? Are we listening to the same stuff? I’ll tell you what it sounds like to me: it could use the synth dance backing track to cover up all that “gorgeousness” because it just reveals Ke$sha’s limitations as a singer and bad judgment as an artist.

Her acoustic “Die Young” is merely ordinary–the stuff a thousand teenage girls do as well on YouTube on a daily basis. But the festival of secretions that is her “subdued and heartfelt” take on Dylan is something that made me feel ickiness penetrating my brain through my ears. It wasn’t just unpleasant to hear; it was something I wish I could unhear. I mean, thanks for spraying all that “musicianship” all over one of my favorite Dylan songs. Hope you didn’t permanently ruin it for me.

Yeah, good thing she “stripped off all her usual radio pop nonsense” to “do something really nice”–like have an emotional breakdown with the mic on. There’s a difference between conveying emotion (which is what an actual good singer can do) and simply demonstrating your own emotion (which, when done so artlessly, can leave listeners cold or maybe wondering what the hell kind of issues you have).

I suspect Ke$ha either a) has watched too many bleary Amy Winehouse performances and thinks raw self-destruction is kind of a cool image to adopt (maybe to make inroads with the angsty Evanescence crowd?) or b) is desperate to be taken more seriously than she deserves, given that she’s probably the most one-dimensional act since KC & The Sunshine Band.

Either way she comes across as a poseur to me.

I do agree about that pointless dollar sign though.

Songs You May Have Missed #231

14 Nov 2012 Leave a comment

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

desert

Desert Rose Band: “Love Reunited” (1989)

 

As I’ve mentioned previously, the thread of melodic pop that seemed to leave off where 80’s new wave and synth pop took over merely detoured into other formats, like 80’s country. No coincidence that artists who had a pop hit or two in the 70’s such as the Bellamy Brothers, Exile, Michael Johnson and Michael (Martin) Murphey went on to even greater success in the 80’s as so-called “country” artists.

And don’t forget Dan Seals who (in addition to being the younger brother of Jim Seals of Seals & Crofts) was half of 70’s soft rock giants England Dan & John Ford Coley. Melodic pop made with real instruments by people without strange haircuts found sanctuary on country radio after being banished from Top 40.

It’s interesting to wonder how huge the Little River Band could’ve been as “country” artists had they too positioned themselves as such when their pop career began to fizzle.

Country radio in the late 80’s bore little resemblance to its current incarnation, where every third song is a tribute to “cold beer on a Friday night/A pair of jeans that fit just right…” and similar banal clichés. 80’s country was where exciting new artists like Lyle Lovett, Dwight Yoakam, Steve Earle, Alison Krauss and k.d. lang were breaking out–and breaking ground.

And some holdovers from pop yesteryear had roots still further back than the 70’s, like Chris Hillman’s Desert Rose Band. That’s former Byrd and Flying Burrito Brother Chris fronting a trio that also included versatile guitar ace John Jorgenson and superb harmonist Herb Pederson–and sounding younger than yesterday. (But of course, he was so much older then…)

How to Dismantle Bono’s Image as a Great Philanthropist

13 Nov 2012 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in Best of the Blog, General Posts Tags: , ,

(Reprinted from Thought Catalog)

From a post by Ben Branstetter entitled “6 Liberals This Liberal Can’t Stand”

1. Bono

Aside from his music (U2 being one of those bands it’s safe for Boomers to like mostly because it’s where he works out his messiah complex), Bono is also an avid douche. While I cannot deny him the power of his philanthropy, it’s hard not to wonder how many mosquito nets he could buy if he sold off his collection of designer aviator sunglasses. That, and his humanitarian efforts are often laughed at by charities and economists alike. Take, for example, Product Red, the vestige of every enlightened liberal in your college. Built on the idea that people love buying things for themselves more than they like changing lives, the project to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria was largely a boondoggle, with companies such as Nike, The GAP, and Apple refusing to reveal what portion of their special (RED) products would actually go to charity, not to mention they spent $100 million on advertising for the project and, five years after it’s launch, had only raised $18 million. Also, all three of those companies use foreign labor associated with sweatshops, meaning people with these horrid diseases were likely making clothing for upper-class American teenagers who believed they were actually helping to fight those same diseases. You want to support a cause? Make a direct donation and skip the fashionable t-shirt.

Or let’s look at U2’s 2006 world tour for their album How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, a tour more largely seen to sell his ONE campaign for international aid. The gross ticket receipts of that tour managed to hit over $448 million dollars (putting it fifth for the world’s most lucrative tour though the top spot is also held by U2 for their 2009 360 Tour which netted the band over $760 million). That’s gluttonous compared to the ONE Campaign’s 2010 earnings of $14.9 million, of which only 1% actually goes to charity (the rest is spent on employee salaries). So remember, when you see his egoistic, holier-than-thou, eternally-unshaven mug on your TV asking for money, donate to an actual charity instead of buying the latest brand because some self-styled Irish demigod told you it was cool.

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Articles Branstetter cites for support include:

Bono and Bob Geldof increase Africa’s problems say Charity (NME): http://www.nme.com/news/bono/32704

Bottom Line for (Red) (New York Times Business): http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/06/business/06red.html?pagewanted=all

U2’s Bono in Charity Scandal (Fabulous Buzz): http://fabulousbuzz.com/2010/10/03/u2s-bono-in-charity-scandal/

Spock’s Cover Band

13 Nov 2012 Leave a comment

Image by Ed Cyphers

Songs You May Have Missed #230

12 Nov 2012 Leave a comment

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

los

Los Manolos: “Que Te Quiero” (1994)

 

Irresistible flamenco rumba from Spain. These guys aren’t trying for that passionate, overwraught flamenco thing. I mean…look at them.

manolos

Their music is a lot of fun though. Cheesy covers of Sinatra’s “Strangers in the Night” and the Beatles’ “All My Loving” are outstanding. But “Que Te Quiero” is one of the most addicting things they ever did. Often songs of this genre give you a double chorus and that’s what the guys do here–if it sounds nice, sing it twice. Sounds better loud too!

los 2

See also: https://edcyphers.com/2021/10/02/songs-you-may-have-missed-712/

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