Art is the music we make from the bewildered cry of being alive. ~Maria Popova
17 Jul 2012 2 Comments
in Songs You May Have Missed Tags: fitz & the tantrums, pickin' up the pieces
Fitz & The Tantrums: “Pickin’ Up The Pieces” (2010)
I’m glad a live-in-studio performance video exists for this funky throwback-soul number, although the drummer gets far too much screen time on it. It’s the only way I’d have believed that 1976 Daryl Hall wasn’t singing that lead vocal.
17 Jul 2012 Leave a comment
in Songs You May Have Missed Tags: guavaberry, juan luis guerra
Juan Luis Guerra: “Guavaberry” (1987)
If you’re unfamiliar with the work of Guerra, he’s one of the Dominican Republic’s most talented purveyors of merengue and bachata music, having produced dozens of melodic, irresistible dance tunes and ballads that just drip with romance. Guerra has collected 2 Grammys, 9 Latin Grammys and countless other awards. The Dominican senate has even declared him the ‘National Singer/Songwriter’.
No single song can adequately depict or summarize his career, but “Guavaberry” is certainly one of his most beloved merengue anthems.
See also: https://edcyphers.com/2026/02/03/songs-you-may-have-missed-818/
17 Jul 2012 Leave a comment
in Songs You May Have Missed Tags: cold chisel, forever now
Cold Chisel: “Forever Now” (1982)
Perhaps Australian band Cold Chisel’s best bid for American chart success was this rifftastic little pop truffle written by drummer Steve Prestwich, whose songwriting credits for the band were few.
Alas, while fellow Aussies Men at Work and Little River Band graced American radio in the early eighties, Chisel couldn’t quite cut it in the US.
Shame, too, because “Forever Now” would sound great coming from the jukebox at the local as an oldie today, with nostalgic, half-lit forty-somethings belting out the chorus in unison.
Prestwich died in January 2011 after undergoing surgery for a brain tumor.
16 Jul 2012 Leave a comment
(Source: Open Culture)
Just four days ago, the Rolling Stones celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of their first concert, which happened on July 12, 1962 at London’s Marquee club. Articles have quoted lead singer Mick Jagger as describing the crowd that evening as the kind of audience they’d expected as a band: “college students having a night out,” an “art-school kind of crowd” who “weren’t particularly demonstrative, but they appreciated and enjoyed the set.” But the Stones’ demographic would soon both shift and expand dramatically: “A few months later we were playing in front of 11 year olds who were screaming at us.” You can witness this very phenomenon in the 1964 newsreel above; perhaps all of the kids lined up outside the theater aren’t quite that young, but we’re definitely not looking at a collegiate crowd. Still, what this full house (“in fact,” the narrator says, “it could have been filled ten times over”) lacks in maturity, they make up for in raw enthusiasm.
Every Moment Has A Song 