Some music musings:
– Was driving to work this morning and sports radio went to a commercial, so I dialed up FM radio and just started zipping around. Came across the Nelly Furtado song “Turn Out The Light,” which I kind of enjoy. (“she acts so rough….rough….rough”). My point, you ask? Well, I think she’s weird looking. She looks like she was in all the smarty-pants classes in high school or something, then by luck stumbled across stardom. Good for her, I suppose. She has a nice voice. I won’t be buying the album.
– Also came across the Peter Frampton song “Show Me The Way.” You know that one, of course. From the 1970s. Well, I actually went through a very short period of time when I thought Frampton Comes Alive was a tremendous album. Especially that “Do You Feel Like I Do” song when it gets all odd with the voice manipulation, etc. This was back when I was a senior in high school, so I get a break. I did buy this album back then, but sold it back to the used CD store years ago.
– Speaking of the ’70s, Ted Nugent’s “Cat Scratch Fever” is one of the best rock songs of that decade. Even better, though, was the marathon “Stranglehold,” also by the Nuge. I have fond memories of my friend Jen and I on her living room floor, during SxSW (big music conference) in ’97, rather intoxicated, just laying there and agreeing that “Stranglehold” was the best song ever made. It was like 3am and I think the volume was as high as it could go. This opinion, of course, was heavily influenced by the intoxication and I don’t know about her, but I know I feel like it’s not the best song ever made. I still love it, though. Don’t have the album.
– My favorite artist of the 1970s, though, just might be Neil Diamond (I’m SO glad my parents had a few of his records laying around…..and the Bill Cosby records……..not the Barry Manilow records. That’s where I draw the line!) I’m not sure anyone made a more impressive string of hits than Neil Diamond. “I am…I said” is just an incredible song.
– If you’re reading this and think that the 1970s were terrible for music, all I can do is gently encourage you to buy “#1 Record/Radio City” by Big Star. A sprawling epic, just full of tremendous both emotional/dark and light/fun rock songs. I’m in the process of putting together my 10 desert island discs, and this will most certainly be one of them.
– I love the fact that Ryan Adams is getting all pissed off because people are yelling “Summer Of ’69” at his gigs now. This just delights me. The music business has gotten so bad that critics are just so desperate to simply find something to connect with. And so, with lack of a better artist out there, a lot of those critics have hitched onto Ryan Adams, whose talent admittedly is decent, but most certainly not deserving of the praise he gets. Unfortunatly for the real music fans, the robots out there who just listen to radio and buy whatever is served up to them by those radio idiots/shareholders will make him popular. How sad. How sad that the bands who HAVE talent (Sloan, Clem Snide, The Jayhawks) will never get the attention they deserve because ingrates like Adams are getting it. Makes me want to puke!