Sam started High School on Tuesday. It's easy to forget what a big leap this is, but early signs are good. He's catching the bus to and from school, so I'm no longer required to pick him up and drop him off from wraparound club. Seeing him in his uniform that first day rather choked me up - so big, so grown up, what happened to my little boy, etc. etc.
Sam appears to be taking it all in his stride. He's very resilient young man. He certainly doesn't get that from his dad. I hope he has a better time in High School than I did.
Usually I feature bands who share the same name, but this week, because it's New Year's Eve and nobody will be reading anyway, here's a few pop performers with the same name.
The guy at the top of the page is former Aussie rugby league player, Brett Anderson, who has not, to my knowledge, ever recorded any music.
Here though, are some Brett Andersons that have...
So here's a lazy idea for a new series, in which I dig back into the archives of my previous blog and mine it for content, thereby allowing myself to make sarcastic commentary on my younger self, with new tunes. Let's start by looking back at the first blog post I ever wrote...
I used to think blogging was pointless. I'm starting to think it'll soon be essential. I'm not sure that's a good thing, but it may be unavoidable.
For my first post, I considered a huge essay on how the Internet might be a champion of the individual, leading us gloriously forwards to a true democracy of opinion... or it might be the beginning of a collective loss of identity and privacy, a hive mind that eventually erases the individual altogether.
But I'm not smart enough to write that essay, especially when far more incisive social commentators have been there already. In her book, 'Tomorrow's People', Professor Susan Greenfield suggests:
"In brief, the notion of an independent individual, with a private life and a unique portfolio of thoughts, knowledge and opinions, is finished."
The future scares me. "Maybe the Unabomber had a point." But we can't go back now.
Ironically, I reckon I joined the blogoverse just as it had ceased to be essential, and the tastemakers were already starting to move on. I couldn't see that at the time. Maybe my arrival was the first nail in the coffin...
I don't know where I got that quote from, as I don't recall reading that book. Maybe I did. I read a lot more books 18 years ago. Of course, that quote seems all the more apt - and eerily prescient - looking back at it now. I'd like to claim some kind of foresight there, but as usual, I was just regurgitating what I'd read elsewhere, with added jokes.
The more things change, the more they stay the same...
At which point, I could have linked to this... but I figured you might prefer...
When it comes to Saturday Snapshots, you guys Don't Stop Till You Get Enough. And you didn't do Bad yesterday at all. It's good to know You Are Not Alone when you're playing this game, particularly this week as Alyson & Lynchie fought it out for top spot (I think Lynchie just clinched it), leaving Charity Chic, Walter, Chris and Rigid Digit to hoover up the leftovers. Thanks for playing, guys.
Another new feature. I pick a famous actor or actress, then find ten songs which
link to them one way or another... and try to explain the link in as
few words as possible.
We're starting with Humphrey Bogart because he is a legend. Not the greatest actor ever, but certainly one of the greatest movie stars. This guy had charisma, attitude, presence by the bucketload. He was a tough guy, sure, but he knew how to take a beating too. And while the kids of today probably wouldn't even know his name, the songwriters of yesterday couldn't stop writing about him. I could probably have made this a Top 20, just from songs that mention him by name (I won't be as direct with every star I choose), and I didn't even have to go to Nik Kershaw.
Anyone who doesn't dig Hall & Oates, well... when you're slapped, you'll take it and like it.
We've seen a million faces All staring at you and me But just like Humphrey Bogart said Before he passed out on his bed Here's looking at you kid And the rocky road ahead
Probably one I should haved saved for volume 2 of My Top Ten Stalker Songs...
Sure I'm alright No I'm not very cold Every now and then I can feel the subway heat So go on inside I'll leave you alone Anyway Bogart's on in the window down the street And I gotta do something
But there's always someone who's gotta spoil it for the rest of the gang You're such a little Bogart and I'm sorry but you just can't hang
Why don't you pass it around Don't bring the party down If you don't pass it around We'll run you right outta this town
I had to Urban Dictionary this one...
"To keep something all for oneself, thus depriving anyone else of having
any. A slang term derived from the last name of famous actor Humphrey
Bogart because he often kept a cigarette in the corner of his mouth,
seemingly never actually drawing on it or smoking it."
On a morning from a Bogart movie In a country where they turn back time You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre Contemplating a crime She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running Like a watercolor in the rain Don't bother asking for explanations She'll just tell you that she came In the year of the cat
Definitely Al's finest moment. (I wonder if I could have managed a Peter Lorre Top Ten?)
1. Bertie Higgins - Key Largo / Casablanca
Two for the price of one. Another couple I owe to Wogan, I suspect. No idea how else I'd remember these songs. The interweb informs me that "Bertie Higgins is one of China's most requested American entertainers". Good for him.
We had it all Just like Bogie and Bacall Starring in our old late, late show Sailing away to Key Largo...
If you think I've missed any obvious ones out... they might crop up in volume two of this series... so you might be able to guess who's coming next.
Feel free to leave a comment, but remember: people lose teeth talking like that. If you want to hang around, you'll be polite.
Fatal Attraction, boil a bunny while I breakdance
Fart in my hotpants in a crowded theatre at Sundance (must have been the hot ranch)
...here's Princess Superstar to kill the mood. I like my rappers with a wicked sense of humour, and PS flips more puns than Eminem. This is the same song where she confesses:
Ahh, enough of this, I killed Snuffalufagus
With pills and made a snuff film to prove to Big Bird he exists (See he is real!)
Which is top quality rhyming, whichever way you cut it.
Saying
this sounds like every other James Brown jam is kinda missing the
point. I think for a large part of his career (and with a few obvious
exceptions such as It's A Man's Man's Man's World), James Brown pretty
much released the same record. When I saw
him live about 20 years ago, the whole show felt like one long song
(and The Godfather didn't even come on stage for the first half hour!). Still, it's funky in all the right places: that's what counts.
Back in 1964 when they formed, The Dramatics were originally called The Dynamics. There was a printing error on their third record though and I guess it was cheaper to change the name of the band than get all those labels reprinted...
And the main lesson to be had here: even if you want his advice on hotpants, don't accept a ride in Jarvis Cocker's cab.
4. Prince - Peach
Uh-oh... here she comes with those gold hot pants on again...
Sexist guff of the highest order, of course. And yet, because it was Prince, somehow he got away with it...
The thing is, while even Prince was pushing it here, it's far less offensive than the majority of modern day r 'n' b which seems to have set objectification to eleven to the point that everyone takes it for granted. I joke about the 70s, but the way women are portrayed (or even choose to portray themselves) in mainstream pop these days is far worse than it was in the 70s... because we should know better by now.
So says an old stick in the mud who's been teaching media studies as a sideline for the last couple of years and can't get his head round what the kids take for granted these days.
A
rarity in pop music: a song that objectifies both women and men in
equal measure. Gotta give Fred and Kate credit for that...
(Fred:) I'm in shippin', if you're receivin' 'Cause what I see I ain't believin' The longest legs in the shortest pants You got me doin' a matin' dance
(Kate:) Sap's up spring's on the rise I'm bustin' out my tube top tonight Workin' the night shift, I get off at three Breakin' out of that factory Thunder thighs-hangin' out! Moon beams, dancin' about (Both:) If you would be so kind Put on those red hot pants and take a stroll through my mind
Don't wear hotpants around the Donnas, and certainly don't try it on with their blokes... just a friendly warning.
Hey little girl, you're tryin to get with my guy
I've got two words: hands off, or baby I'll make you cry
I don't pull hair and I don't fight dirty
But piss me off at 9 and you're lunchmeat by 9:30
1. Loretta Lynn - The Pill
If you want to find the toughest, sassiest, "girl power" recording artists of the last 50 years, country music would be a great place to start looking. Dolly, Tammy, Loretta... these ladies took no shit and told it like it was. The Pill is a 1975 hit by the Coal Miner's Daughter, although it was recorded three years earlier: the record company were just too chicken to put it out. Even when they did, half the country stations in America refused to play it.
The Pill tells of a wife who's sick of being pregnant over and over again (Loretta herself had 6 kids; three before she was 19!) so is proud to switch to birth control when it becomes widley available so she can enjoy a little of the freedom her husband's been relishing. If you thought this post was destined to end up sexist... here's to Loretta's hotpants!
All these years I've stayed at home while you had all your fun
And every years that's gone by, another baby's come
There's gonna be some changes made right here on nursery hill
You've set this chicken your last time cause now I've got the pill
This old maternity dress I've got is going in the garbage
The clothes I'm wearing from now on won't take up so much yardage
Miniskirts, hot pants and a few little fancy frills
Yeah, I'm making up for all those years since I've got the pill
Final word goes to the B52s this time...
Who says hot pants are dead and gone? Wait'll they see what you've got on Yeah, I never saw nothin' so doggone hot You belong in Ripley's Believe It Or Not!
Which one gets you screaming, "Supercalihalitosis, oooh that outfit's the absolute mostest!"
Surprisingly, despite making Number One in last week's Top Ten Jean Songs, Bruce doesn't make the Songs About Jeans chart at all... despite that iconic image above. (However, a band of his biggest fans do feature at #5.)
Here are ten songs about pulling your blue jeans on and getting that denim all dirty...
Special mentions to The Swinging Blue Jeans, Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves Of Destiny, Bob B. Soxx & The Blue Jeans, Mr. Little Jeans, Pissed Jeans, and Jack Jeans (I had to link to that one).
Be-Bop-A-Lula is one of the defining records of rock 'n' roll, but Gene Vincent was never really able to bottle that lightning again. This is about as close as he got, a "minor" follow-up "hit"... although this was back in the days when "minor" hits still sold a million copies even if they only made number 49 in the charts.
Unfairly labeled a poor man's Arctic Monkeys, Little Man Tate called it a day in 2009. Which is a shame, because they wrote witty, spiky guitar pop songs... the sort of thing the radio is sorely missing these days.
The 70s was obviously a great decade for songs about jeans (see below) and this is the one that famously doubled up as an advert for Brutus Jeans. It seems Dundas was a member of British nobility - his full name and title is Lord David Paul Nicholas Dundas - as his dad was Lawrence Aldred Mervyn Dundas, 3rd Marquess of Zetland (also a famous tennis player in the 40s).
Well, I never knew that.
Of course, iffypedia might have made it all up... you never know.
The song was also covered a few years back by Chungking... but sadly, I can't find their version on youtube.
Scruffy Scottish indie kids - they've had the same jeans on for four days now - with their only Top Ten hit from 2007. It's rare I say this... but it seems longer ago than that.
As previously discussed on this site, Jimmy Webb is god. Although he's more famous as a songwriter than a performer, he's also released a succession of excellent solo albums over the last 40 years, five of which were recently reissued in an extremely affordable box set on the Rhino label. Considering how rare these albums were prior to the box set, it's pretty much an essential purchase for fans of quality songwriting. This is taken from the 4th album in the 5 disc set, 1974's Land's End. Gorgeous stuff.
The Gaslight Anthem always wear their New Jersey roots on their sleeves and this one describes perfectly Bruce's famous 80s dress sense... while also throwing in a sly reference to early Tom Waits.
This track's a bit of a rarity, from the 2008 EP Señor and the Queen, but it stands up as well as some of their better known songs.
Classic spunky & punky girl-pop from the California foursome led by the female Brett Anderson. In the Suede versus Denim battle, it's hard to call a winner. The other Brett never wrote anything as bitchy as this...
You look like you've only slept for an hour You smell like you haven't taken a shower And your hair is so dirty It makes you look like you're thirty
Your pants are slung way too low I see stuff I don't wanna know I wonder why you're so moody? Is it 'cause you've got no booty?
That second Lana Del Rey album - the one with Video Games on, the one that made her a star - is still an amazing piece of work, even if she's failed to live up to its potential since. The cognoscenti may have tried to expose her as a phoney or a poseur... but what do the cognoscenti know? She has a new album out this week - fingers crossed it's a return to form.
Lawrence (he has no second name... except he does, and it's Hayward) started life in fondly remembered 80s indie band Felt. Then sometime in the early 90s, he folded up the Felt and embraced Denim - with added glam stomp. Since then, he's gone ultra lo-fi with Go Kart Mozart... but if you ask me, Denim will always be his finest hour.
1. Neil Diamond - Forever In Blue Jeans
Listen - money talks, all right? Even if it don't sing or dance or walk...
There is a popular mondgreen associated with this tune, that Neil's actually singing "Reverend Blue Jeans". Which would be wonderful... if it were true.
What can I say, if you don't appreciate a bit of classic Neil... there's something missing in your life.
Next week (if I have time) - the final part of the trilogy. My Top Ten Gene Songs.
Meanwhile, don't put your jeans back in the wardrobe just yet. Which is your Nick Kamen?
If you're in any doubt, check out the video in which Paul King wanders round an old quarry with a can of spray paint wearing a green suit, red boots and a raven on his head before teaching a bunch of kids how to breakdance. It cost 50p to film and they still had change for a bag of chips.
He's presentable, well looked after
He's domestically disastrous
He's adorable - Mother's Pride
Maternal versus paternal influence... and it does seem Paul Heaton thinks you're better off taking after your mum.
He'll always roam the yard looking for a fight
He'll pick on all the kids who're twice his height
He's the reason dinner ladies toss and turn at night
Teacher's Blight - Father's Pride
Kevin Rowland reclaims the notion of national pride from the fascists and the politicians in a deeply touching ode from the woefully under-appreciated Don't Stand Me Down album.
I've denied my beautiful heritage
Gone away from my roots and come back home again
I gave away my individuality
And listened to the "now" generation
When really I'm not one of those
But love has brought me closer to the truth and right now
I couldn't be any closer
To love your father is a fulfilling thing
My national pride is a personal pride
Batley Bob goes reggae with an amusing tale about a guy who loses his woman to the gym.
You want her attention
Well, you’ll have to wait
She’s in the gymnasium
Reducing weight
In shorts of a leotard
Despite her age
The girl’s gonna exercise
Your life away
So the Olympics are here, and even I can't avoid them...
But I promise, you won't find any songs specifically written for the Games here... because songs written for sporting events are usually pretty dreadful. As Muse have confirmed.
I'll get onto songs about specific sports - running, jumping, Top Ten Songs About The Shot Put, et al. - in the next few posts. First though, a random smattering of Olympic themed tunes...
Everyone had hopes for Colin Meloy's sporting prowess... his dad, his coach, his girlfriend... but he lets them all down in championship style here. An anthem for those of us who were always last to be chosen for the team. (See also Billy Bragg's The Boy Done Good, though I'm saving that for if I ever do a football Top Ten. However unlikely that may be.)
Could I write a piece about you now that you've made it?
About the hours spent, the wilderness in your training
You only did it so that you could wear
Your terry underwear
And feel the city air
Run past your body
1. Gene - Olympian
If they were handing out medals for underrated bands, Gene would get the gold.
