Music Music Music

[Phoebe]

[akiva]

RIP Toots Hibbert

[Phoebe]

Ohhhh I saw this the other day! A musical giant.

[poorpete]

Lady Gaga being gaga over Fiona Apple led back to "Fetch the Bolt Cutters" which I left for a bit during the recent civil rights movement but relistening a much of it is expressing anger and self-advocating. The lyrics and emotion are two thirds of it, the last third is the wonderful musical bed, which feels like a DYI Pet Sounds. "Under the Table" is still my fav, and I imagine protesters yelling out "kick me under the table all you want, i won't shut up, i won't shut up", but this one, about middle school aggressions, is rising in the ranks:

[Phoebe]

I have been listening to Scars on Broadway, the more recent project of the guitarist from System of a Down. It's pretty good! I had always suspected that the musical quality I liked in system of a down, and even the backing vocal I preferred, was in fact accomplished by this dude with the crazy eyes. He was the source of the good stuff there. This particular one amuses me:

[poorpete]

Hands dirty, mind clean
A different vision with a new dream
We kickin' out the old regime
Liberation, elevation, education

[Phoebe]

When this song came out many years ago I was thinking about making a kid Ariel, so I found it rather amusing, but I ended up being (rightly) convinced that the Disney Little Mermaid would affect that name for many decades to come.

[poorpete]

Did you mean

I dunno if I've heard an artist so inspired by Billy Joel before.

[Phoebe]

Haha that is great, it is soooooooo Billy Joel! My paste was still occupied by the same paste, oops. I meant the System of a down Aerials. Generally if a choice arises where you can attribute my failure with a computing device to total incompetence, yet you doubt it because I don't seem entirely stupid, please do trust that I am entirely stupid!

Anyway, after a day of this it is out of my system, as it were, and I have moved on to Patti LaBelle.

[poorpete]

As I mentioned on the Movie thread, Edgar Wright featured this song in Scott Pilgrim, and it's got me relistening to The Bluetones, which was a fun little britpop band. I always felt the verses and chorus were brought together from different ideas, because the verses is all emotive and sad while the chorus is like "let's get it on" -- but now it feels pretty purposeful. I mean the title says it all...

[poorpete]

Rolling Stone released their new 500 greatest albums list and I will be analyzing for the next decade.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/musi ... 3-1063183/
My first quick take is excitement seeing more women on the list. Though not even close to parity, it's an important step.

Based on NPR's turning the tables list and my reranking of them:

My #1, Joni Mitchell's Blue, NPR's as well, and originally #30 on this list jumped dramatically to #3.
My #2, Beyonce's Lemonade, #6 on NPR, is #32 here! I'm equally excited about his.
My #3, Lauryn Hill's opus, #2 on NPR, originally #314 on this list also jumped dramatically to #10 here. NPR's top 2 making the top 10 might not be a coincidence, as it not only shows the influence of NPR's list, but probably critic overlap in both surveys. But so exciting. I'm totally happy to see this up high.
My #4, Carole King's Tapestry, #10 on NPR, is #35 here.

Also Sgt. Pepper drops to #24, and although it's a bit like if "Citizen Kane" did the same, I'm okay with some critical hits it takes, and it'll be back near the top in the future. (Plus #24 is still pretty great)

I'd also like to see if there's more Jazz and pre-1963 albums on here, for foreign too... but I doubt...

[Phoebe]

Oh my, I have so many issues with that, just having looked at a few of the sets of 50! Suffice to say their idea of a good album and mine are different, though of course a few essentials would overlap.

Anyway, antidotally, here's Lady Gaga being the Version One Lady Gaga again! So pleasant, and that little LG joke at the end? Priceless.



I just love her when she's doing pop songs, and I really do not like her in other genres. More power to her for experimenting and creating different stuff, but this is what she does best. The country stuff, ugh.

[Phoebe]

Apparently this album was out all summer and I only recently awakened to its existence, probably because I didn't like either of the singles that came from it earlier on the radio. I just like the robot Gaga, basically. Robot pop Gaga.

New robot Gaga song:


Older robot Gaga song:

[Phoebe]

I'm still on the Lady Gaga 9-1-1, I love it. It's such a pleasantly empty robotic sound, it's like being in a very clean room with very little stuff in it so that sound echoes off the walls a little. Apart from that I've been listening to nothing but classical music lately. So much music going on here, what with remote learning.

Bad things are happening to my friends, really heartbreaking things going on among people around me, from those I only know in passing to those I know better. None of it good. Just keeping the head up, treading water, trying to maintain the good habits, heavy reliance on ibuprofen for functioning. At times like the present, either this robot gaga or its opposite, these glorious and complex symphonies or sonatas, are quite soothing.

[poorpete]

Good luck and vibes everyone.

You talkin robot vibes and its recent appearance on the RS list had me checking out Robyn's Body Talk again. This one, of course produced by Max Martin. The cheerleading "hey"s are totally a bridge between his work with Britney and his later work with Taylor. But it's also in the Daft Punk mode of taking music back to the 70s to push music forward. It's pretty great.

[Phoebe]

I am loving this!

[poorpete]

Did I need a bass-led cover of Miles Davis' "All Blues"? I guess so! I absolutely love Ron Carter's bass playing, which I guess isn't a drastic statement to make, after all he's listed as the most recorded jazz bassist of all time. But slowly realizing how much he plays into popular music. I used to think (and we're made to think) Bootsy Collins was behind the bass on "Groove is in the Heart" but it's a sample of a Herbie Hancock number and that's totally Ron Carter playing. Of course Ron Carter plays on A Tribe Called Quest's opus "Low End Theory." Then there's his wonderful work on Roberta Flack's "First Take" album.

For the first time in a long time I heard Flack's "Killing Me Softly" and I encourage you to listen to it again. Obviously Flack's vocal performance is the highlight, and the bed is clearly in "soft rock" but for all its softness there's a lot going on, especially from Carter.

[akiva]

Strange and wonderful.

[poorpete]

[akiva]