Ode to the n'th shoegaze revival

Shoegaze is more culturally relevant now that it has ever been.  I had nothing to do with this, and didn't even know it was happening until I started reading the year in review pieces over the past month.  One had to be on TikTok or following certain TV shows, I guess, and that's not a complaint or a put-down, it's simply a self-reflecting statement about how far I'm removed from the reality of popular Gen Z culture these days. Although in retrospect, I should have suspected something based on the number of quality dream pop playlists showing up on Spotify.

Philip Sherburne's wrap-up for Pitchfork is predictably excellent, summarizing the successes of first generation and newer bands, as well as acts given a second life thanks to current trends.  His explanation for the genre's success is simple: it may have started as an introspective micro-offshoot of indie rock (with a derogatory name to boot), but its sound was always bold, confident, powerful, and even inspirational. As Sherburne writes, "...the sound of shoegaze has always aimed skyward, reaching further toward the stars with every billowing, coruscating chord."  When you put it that way, it comes across as a genre that was forever convinced of its own inevitable, inescapable success!  

Shoegaze in the late 80's and early 90's was the story of shy teenagers and early 20-somethings bursting out of their bedrooms and finding the inner strength to be extroverted standing behind a panel of guitar effects pedals.  It appears that's still true today, except that the kids don't need to leave their bedrooms, and in some cases, don't even need to buy the guitar pedals.  Eli Enis dives deep into TikTok's role in making shoegaze a breakout genre, and it's not even appropriate to talk about a "revival" when none of the 18-year olds were even born until years after the initial wave of 90's band had mostly broken up and disappeared.  Personally, when I listen to the TikTok acts, I hear more of a resemblance to Nirvana's standoffish ennui than MBV maximalist sheets of noise.  Nirvana T-shirts are more popular than ever, and it feels like they're long gone but have never really gone away, much like it was with the Beatles, Doors, Pink Floyd and plenty of other 60's bands that every music obsessed teenager was familiar with in the early 90's.  

Nirvana's anti-rock star poses have never really aged, it goes without saying that they've permeated the culture more than any shoegaze act ever did.  But at the same time, I have always been struck by how forward-thinking shoegaze has always been.  One could usually identify a 70's or 80's track based on their signature production cues, but with shoegaze, it's almost like we reached the production endgame.  Any track made today could have been believably recorded in 2013, or 2003, or 1993.  Burying the vocals in the mix also helps to transcend language and culture barriers, never tying the music to a specific country or era, thereby helping the music endure irrespective of its then-contemporary audience.       

"Maestro", dir. Bradley Cooper

I remember the final years of Leonard Bernstein's life, he was the superstar classical conductor who was paradoxically famous for composing one of the most beloved musicals.  His life story was spectacular but wholly linear.  In Mahler's time, he too was considered to be a conductor first, and a composer a distant second.  As the decades passed, the narrative flipped.  The person and his art was out of step with the societal norms of his time.  

"Maestro" accomplishes two very remarkable things.  First, it prominently features Bernstein's compositions in the soundtrack.  It showcases his remarkable flexibility as a composer, ranging from campy musical theatre to serious symphonic tours de force.  Overloading the soundtrack with pieces from the standard repetoire, from Mozart, Beethoven, or Haydn (Bernstein was an outstanding conductor of all three) would have been a safe and easy choice.  By placing his music front and centre, the movie makes the case that Bernstein was one of the most dynamic 20th century composers, and in my opinion it largely succeeds.  

Second, it presents Bernstein's struggle with his homosexuality and his struggles with his personal creativity as two sides of the same coin.  Actually, "struggle" is a bit misleading.  Bernstein knew exactly who he was in his personal life, and knew exactly who he was as a composer.  The problem was in how to present these facets in public.  Attempting to conform to what was expected of him, as a husband/father and as an artist, was a ongoing battle that was never resolved in his lifetime.  

"Maestro" isn't a biopic in that there is no attempt to highlight the key moments and accomplishments in Bernstein's life, no gimmicky "fly on the wall" recreations save for a brief snippet of his NY Phil conducting debut and the final six minutes of Mahler's "Resurrection" Symphony from Ely Cathedral with the LSO.  The latter essentially packs all of the reenactions into a single epic take.  The music and the setting is magical, although Cooper's conducting is unnecessarily histrionic, even for a Bernstein imitation.  I know the video and audio recording of that performance quite well, Cooper takes it a bit too far, perhaps the only time in the movie where he doesn't completely nail his subject.  Consider the difficulty of Cooper's task, in playing Bernstein at ages 25, 35, 45, 55, and 65, adapting flawlessly to the changes in his voice and mannerisms over those decades.

Thus, Bernstein's prodigious career accomplishments are downplayed, and the movie really focuses on his fascinating and complex relationship with his wife Felicia. It might be the best love story I have even seen in a music-centred movie.        

Supernova Music Festival 2023

The dance music community has always been the underdog, and with the exception of a couple of years in the late 90's and the recent trend of Las Vegas approved EDM events, this music has never been part of the mainstream.  There are many reasons for this.  Of note, the origin stories of so many subgenres are connected to the LGBTQ scenes or visible minority groups (e.g. Black, Latino), who fought for decades (and still do) for tolerance and understanding from the mainstream music industry.  

Keeping the music alive wasn't always easy.  Party locations and permits were not always easy to come by.  Local authorities worked tirelessly to shut down raves and clubs, citing security and safety concerns.  It was the same story everywhere, in dozens of countries, which helped forge a global unity of purpose that I think was unprecedented in modern music.  This constant struggle against authority, the fight to keep the music going, battling for tolerance and acceptance, it was a beautiful thing that transcended borders and cultures.    

On October 7, Hamas terrorists murdered hundreds of partygoers at a trance music festival in Israel.  The scale of the carnage was several times larger than the largest mass shooting in US history -- the Route 91 Harvest festival in Las Vegas in 2017. It came only a year after the Pulse Nightclub shooting, which targeted the Orlando gay community and sent shockwaves through the dance community that have arguably not subsided to this day.  The nightclub never reopened and a permanent memorial to the victims is currently planned.  The Nova Festival attack, which was also carried out by Islamic extremists, was without exaggeration, the most horrible tragedy in the history of the global electronic music scene.   How did the music press react?    

The UK-based Mixmag wrote a bland, anti-emotional report stripped of any semblance of anger, sadness, or frustration.  It could have appeared on CNN, BBC, or any other MSM site.  They approached with the subject with zero sense of traumatic indignation.  With its stone faced layout of a scant few relevant facts, they might as well have been reporting on traffic or the weather. 

A couple of weeks later, Mixmag reported on an open letter for Palestine, which contained lines such as "queer liberation is inextricable from the ongoing global struggle against imperialism and colonialism".  Well, if you can't count on Hamas to bring queer liberation to the world, then who can you count on?  Remember you can't spell "gay shame" without "Hamas".

The US-based Fader wrote an even more objectionable piece, categorizing the mass slaughter, rape, and incineration of ravers as "part of a large scale offensive" by Hamas.  The death count is simply a number, an exercise in bean counting that represents a few more deaths in an ongoing conflict but nothing to get too worked up about in the grand scheme of things.   

The UK's Resident Advisor went into more detail about the horrors of the massacre itself, but felt the need to include some "context" by outlining the Israeli response.  It seems that mass murder at a music festival wasn't a big enough story on its own.  They couldn't simply report on the story without "all lives matter"ing the killings and inserting their own political biases.   Since that time, they have kept a running list of fundraising efforts for Gaza in the electronic music community.  They offer no money or even encouraging words for anyone in the Israeli scene, or for Israelis directly affected by the massacre.  RA used to be my go-to site for keeping updated with the global scene, but I wasn't too surprised by their takes, because their slow radicalization has been going on for some time.  

I can't say that we're at a turning point, where the global reach and togetherness of the dance music community is exposed as a hypocritical sham, but I did expect better.  Every music scene has its cliques.  Clubs were almost always an island of tolerance -- come as you are, and stay as long as you'd like.  Now, it seems as though you need to be fully committed to the causes du jour in order to have a place at the table.  

Billboard's Best 500 Pop Songs of All Time

I loved this list.  At its essence, this was no less than a concerted effort to assemble an entirely new canon of top songs, moving entirely away from album-oriented song selection and focusing solely on songs that made their impact on the Hot 100.  Years ago, I wrote about the Pitchfork 500 and noted that it was really a best albums list in disguise.  For the most part, they chose a favourite or representative track (or two) from each of their canonically accepted albums.  This problem has plagued far too many "best songs" lists over the past few decades.  They also limited the number of songs by any lead artist to three, ensuring greater variability in their selections and reducing the predictability.  The Beatles appear just once in the Top 100, as does Madonna.  Mariah Carey appears twice, as does Michael Jackson (once as a solo artist, once as part of the Jackson Five).  Those are the acts are 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 6th in all-time #1 hits, with 64 #1's between them.  They get just five spots in the all-time Top 100.  That's some rich variety.  The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin (who were never a singles band), and countless other huge rock acts don't appear in the top 100 at all.  

Unfortunately, they couldn't quite stick the landing.  Crowning Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" as the #1 pop song felt forced, an attempt to rebrand a good song into an all-time great.  The 80's were full of joyous dance pop, and many did it as good or better than Whitney.  "I Will Always Love You" appeared at #60, in its time it was completely inescapable and went on to be her most influential song, inspiring countless aspiring divas and reality show contestants.  Half of the songs in the top 20 would have been better choices for #1.  In my opinion "Dancing Queen", "My Girl", "Be My Baby", "Baby One More Time", "Hey Ya", "Crazy In Love", "Dreams", "Fantasy", "I Want To Hold Your Hand", "Billie Jean" and "Like a Prayer" all could have been justifiable, worthy #1's.  Personally, out of that group, I would have went with "Billie Jean" or "Dancing Queen".  

U2 in the "Sphere", Las Vegas

The advance hype surrounding their 1997 "Popmart" tour promoted it as an audiovisual spectacle that had never before been seen.  It would be bigger and more audacious that their already audaciously big "Zooropa" tour.  The giant, gleaming yellow arch (a half-McDonalds logo that represented a critique of bloated consumerism or a brilliant piece of cross-promotion, or both, who really knows) would be hauled from town to town and had to be seen to be believed.  Oddly enough, this was the only time I ever saw U2 in concert.  These days, even their fans see the tour as classic overreach, a creative speed bump on the way to getting back to basics with "All That You Can't Leave Behind" in 2000, and re-connecting with their fans in a more direct way without the Mephisto-like avatars and technological gadgetry.

The U2 of 2023 probably wishes that the Sphere in Las Vegas had been around in the 90's.  Instead of constructing those gaudy sets, they could have simply projected them onto all-immersive, super-IMAX-like LED board.  Finally, their wildest ambitions can be straightforwardly turned in to (virtual) reality.  The city of Las Vegas is betting a couple of billion dollars that this experience is the future of concert-going.

The video clips look absolutely spectacular.  The problem is that U2 almost feel like an afterthought at their own concert.  People flocked to see Laser Floyd because of the lasers, not because of the Floyd.  The attraction wasn't in seeing a band, it was the bombardment of the senses while the music played in the background.  Does any of that matter to U2?  No doubt they're making enough money to make it well worth their while not to care.   

Prom 62, Aurora Orchestra cond. by Nicolas Collon, "The Rite By Heart"

I have been meaning to write about this performance for a while.  For me, this was the most noteworthy and unique concert at the Proms.   Certainly there is an aspect of gimmickry here.  If the whole drawing card of a concert (classical, pop, or any genre) is to hear the music played live to the highest standards possible, then what's the point of playing by heart?  Is there really an orchestra in the world that could play this music better by heart than they could by looking at the sheet music?  Does playing by heart inevitably downgrade the quality of the music in tangible and wholly avoidable ways?  Yes, concertos are played by soloists by heart, because it makes for a stronger performance -- with nothing to obscure the view of the musician from concertgoers, the soloist can move more freely and project a more emotional connection with the music to the audience.  But the orchestra and conductor's job is to provide the accompaniment.  The soloist sets the tone and the pace, the orchestra follows along and rely on their sheet music and the instructions of the conductor in order to do it.  But in these performances by the Aurora Orchestra, everyone on stage is playing by heart, it's truly a remarkable visual sight.  How was the music?  

The piece starts out punchy and energetic at the start.  There's no question that they are impeccably rehearsed.  The intra-communication necessary to pull this off is "aided" by having smaller forces on stage, I think this task would be nearly impossible with a large orchestra.  I find that the excitement tails off by the end of the work.  As the time signatures get more diabolical toward the finish, every musician must be counting furiously to keep things together, and as a result, their playing gets stiffer and more mechanical.  The magic in the conclusion to Rite of Spring is to construct a furious, swirling, disorienting chaos upon the audience, without the orchestra falling victim to it themselves.  The safe choice is take it slow and risk losing the excitement.  So the Aurora Orchestra doesn't quite get there.  But make no mistake, Prom 62 was a brilliant piece of performance art and an exemplary achievement viewed through that lens.    

Country music dominating the Hot 100

Morgan Wallen setting a record for the most weeks at #1 by a solo artist, in any genre.  Luke Combs hanging in the top five for weeks.  Jason Aldean stirring up a minor firestorm.   Oliver Anthony Music appearing out of nowhere and improbably debuting at #1.  The top three songs in the US are country songs, and it's happened only once before.  The only previous time was one month ago.  I have been struggling to come up for a reason as to why this is happening now.  It makes sense that in times of collective trauma, such as COVID-related forced isolation and mass uncertainty, that people would turn to acoustic, homeland music.  Except that COVID was three years ago, and Taylor Swift already made the mood-defining indie-folk lockdown albums.  So once again, why now?  

I really don't know what's happening, but I am quite sure that any time an artist can upend industry conventions like Oliver Anthony Music has done, then it's a good thing.  A musician who had zero prior chart exposure hit number 1 without any resources at his disposal -- no record labels, A&R people, or corporate sponsors.  Just a guy and his guitar, performing in the woods.  It seems nearly inconceivable, but then again, Justin Bieber was discovered on youtube and "Killing In the Name Of" was the UK Xmas number one a few years back thanks to a viral campaign, so perhaps I should stop being surprised by such unusual occurrences.    

The CD refuses to die

There isn't all that much to this WaPost article other than an offhand reminder to casual music fans that the CD still exists.  It probably won't help CD sales in the slightest.  

I do think that something interesting is happening though, in the same way that 8-tracks and cassettes enjoy a long tail of underground appreciation long after their peaks as a format.  The article covers the basics: 1) the CD is a physical format, and people like to own pretty objects.  2) CD's are inexpensive, and there has never been a better time for cheap finds on this format.  3) CD's are easy to store, and take up little space.  4) for those who want to own their music, rather than be subject to the content whims of streaming services, the CD is tough to beat.  

The fates of vinyl and the CD have virtually flipped since the 90's.  I used to find countless classic albums on vinyl for a dollar and sometimes even for free (yes, some stores simply placed boxes of records out on the curb when they couldn't sell them).  These same albums are now luxury items pressed for Record Store Day specials.  These days, CD's are far too cheap and undervalued considering the music they contain.  

Unlike vinyl, I don't expect a full on CD revival.  The vinyl revival was well deserved and long overdue.  Those of us who still supported vinyl in the mid-90's, when it was considered dead by almost everyone other than DJ's, collectors, and hardcore audiophiles, knew that it was aesthetically and sonically superior to the CD and cassette formats.  Obviously vinyl lost out when it came to convenience.  But it deserved better than the treatment it got, and vinyl's comeback has been richly rewarding.  

One lesson learned from the recent history of vinyl is that there isn't a single, universally great format.  From 1990-2000, the CD was touted as the apex of musical ownership, driving out nearly all the competition.  "Perfect Sound Forever" -- it wasn't true, but plenty of people bought into it. Depending on the mood (morning, night, alone, with friends ...) or setting (at home, at the gym, in the car ...), the ideal format can vary.  Multiple formats should absolutely co-exist in any serious fan's collection.   

Personally, I still love the CD as a convenient format for owning music in large quantities.  Holding a vinyl record is special.  Looking at a great album cover is like admiring great art, it's a nostalgic and even humbling experience.  With few exceptions, I don't get nostalgic about CD covers.  I do love searching for catalog items (particularly electronic and classical music) that are long out of print or difficult to find, especially if I can pay next to nothing for them.  Most of all, I love owning an object, reading the liner notes, and getting information about the people who wrote and recorded the music (which is notoriously absent on virtually all streaming services).

Sinead O'Connor RIP

Sinead once said that ripping up the photo of the pope on SNL didn't destroy her career, it allowed her to recover her career and be the confrontational artist she always had been and always wanted to be.  The SNL appearance destroyed the career of the music execs who were banking on another five million copies sold for her next album. She had a long, successful career and never conformed to popular demand.  Her career trajectory will never be repeated.

I admittedly lost track of her musical output around 1995, her interests and mine were completely divergent in the mid-nineties.  When you'd read something about her it would usually be clickbait-style reporting on her personal hardships.  That's just how it was post-1993, once the money (according to the music establishment) was no longer in selling millions of records, it shifted to incessant negativity and phony narratives, crazy Sinead is opening her mouth and saying controversial things again so let's listen and laugh.  It was sad at the time and it's simply inexcusable now.  She was complex, she was always searching, she stood for something, and if she wasn't always perfectly eloquent about it then what does it matter.   Look at the tributes pouring in from musicians across several decades and wildly distinct genres.  I had forgotten how many guest appearances she did on other people's records and various compilations.  The wide spectrum of people who worked with her knew how special she was.  

I have written about "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got" before, as time passes I think it become an increasingly indispensable classic.  The politics may have changes but the sentiments haven't.  It's still baffling to recall that millions of people paid money to listen to "Three Babies", "Black Boys on Mopeds", and "The Last Day of Our Acquaintance". 

"Get Back", dir. Peter Jackson (2021)

There is so much to say about this remarkable documentary, and yet what can I possibly say about the Beatles and "Get Back" that hasn't been said in the nearly two years since its release?

There have been a recent spate of biopics with shabby narratives and one-dimensional characters that exist mainly to provide a "fly on the wall" experience for the viewer who often dreamt of "being there" during those magical moments.  Every one of them has been put to shame by "Get Back".  Eight hours of insight into the inner workings of the actual, real life Beatles -- how can you top it?  

For the most part, the Beatles were who we thought they were at the time the documentary was filmed.  Paul was the confident perfectionist, assumed leader of the band, whose visionary ideas influenced the final output more than any other Beatle.  

John was the reluctant Beatle, charming and magnetic, but not entirely reliable and prone to moments of lethargy.  He was at home jamming with the others and goofing off in the studio, but less tolerant of the minutiae of deadlines and day-to-day business of the band.  Yoko accompanied him everywhere, and it's clear that he was mentally checked out of The Beatles.  The seeds are clearly sown for his departure from the band later that year.   

George's heart wasn't entirely in their work either, it's clear he felt underappreciated and restrained by continuing to work in the Beatles.  Some have commented that George comes across as petulant and immature, fighting over creative credit with John and Paul instead of just enjoying his fame and money.   For the most part I felt sorry for George.  He couldn't crack the McCartney-Lennon partnership, and had no hope of being a key creative force in the band no matter how hard he tried.  John could get away with bringing Yoko everywhere, and the other Beatles simply needed to learn to cope with it.  But nobody had much patience for George's meditation retreats and weirdo Hare Krishna friends.  In short, George needed to go solo more than any of the others. 

Ringo might have been quiet, barely uttering a word during most of the recording sessions, but his importance to the Beatles' sound couldn't have been more stark.  He hardly ever spoke, but he was constantly attentive, never caused any drama, and never had a bad take.  Ringo and Billy Preston were the unsung heroes of the film, always radiating positive vibes and providing the glue to keep the music flowing.  Preston's entry into the band is like night and day, the direction of the project doesn't fully gel until he joins.  

Prior to the release of "Get Back", the narrative was that the mood in the studio was horrible and that The Beatles were on the verge of collapse.  This is partly due to the "Let It Be" documentary (which I haven't seen) that was released over fifty years ago using some of the same footage.  I expected more shouting and arguments, but those are virtually non-existent.  For the most part, everyone is professional and enjoying themselves when they're able to sit together and jam.  A significant part of the film shows them messing around in the studio, playing wacky cover versions and impromptu jams.  Seeing Yoko as a constant presence is a bit strange, she didn't merely come to the studio and hang out, she sits literally next to John all the time, huddled together with the other three Beatles in the jam circle for hours on end.  But she always sits silently, never interrupts, and is never a distraction.  John never asks her to do anything, never asks her opinion.  After a while she simply blends in with the scenery, John clearly wanted her with him day and night, such was the depth of their connection. 

I can't possibly go into detail on all the nuanced character traits, or the multitude of charming and brilliant musical moments.  The direction of the project changes course a few times during the film, and we get to see it play out.  The build to the rooftop concert is a satisfying payoff, but one that remains in doubt nearly until the final moments. 

If there's a theme to it all, it would be the struggle between the idea of the Beatles as a band, and the Beatles as a brand.  Everybody understands that the band is a valuable commodity, even outside of the the conventional record-tour-album cycle, but nobody really understands how to manage it.  Today, it's normal for bands to go on hiatus, pursue outside projects, and reconvene later.  But there was no precedent for it in 1970.  Each Beatle had begun recording solo work -- they even released their work on the record label they personally set up to handle their interests.  And yet they couldn't find a way to balance their solo work with Beatles business.  It was all or nothing.  They were constantly pushing forward, with new projects and new creative outlets.  Monetizing their back catalog and making a profit off of Beatles nostalgia wasn't part of the vocabulary.  Even the addition of Billy Preston presented a challenge -- these days it's normal to add touring musicians, but at the time it was a genuine struggle to find a way to perform the songs because the four of them on stage was the only performance model they'd ever known.  

If there has ever been a better music documentary, I have yet to see it.  I can't see "Get Back" being topped any time soon.               

"Wham!", dir. Chris Smith

This documentary is difficult to follow, flying by breathlessly in a flurry of audio interviews, video clips, and scrapbook entries (the latter lovingly compiled, in thirty comprehensive volumes, by Andrew Ridgeley's mother during the 1980's").  I'm quite sure that was exactly what was intended.  The brief blaze of glory that was Wham should be presented as a whirlwind of events.  

I constantly needed to remind myself about how young they were.  When Michael tearfully accepted the Ivor Novello award for songwriting (the tabloids cruelly found humour in his show of emotion), he was barely twenty one and had been a mainstream pop star for less than two years.   The entire Wham story lasted only four years, and in documentary form it can seem a bit puzzling to watch it end so quickly.  But that four year arc is roughly the same as that of the Spice Girls, Take That, and One Direction.  Anyone who lived through the peaks of those bands knows how ubiquitous they were.  With the years in the rear view mirror, four years seems like a short time, but in the moment, events unfolded in slow motion nearly every day.  None of those groups imploded, they all went out at or close to the peaks of their power and influence.  It was simply time to move on to something else. 

As corny as it sounds, the highlight of the documentary is observing the strength of the Ridgeley-Michael friendship.  There was never any deep bitterness between them, and Ridgeley couldn't have been prouder or more supportive of Michael's solo success.  Michael comes off as a precocious savant, his talents were underappreciated until his genius became impossible to ignore or write off once "Faith" was released.  From writing "Careless Whisper" in 1981 and later producing it himself, to composing "Last Christmas" in a sudden burst of inspiration, the roots of his more mature and complex solo work are evident. 

Michael's sexual orientation is discussed at length.  We learn that he came out to Ridgeley early in Wham's career, and was torn between pursuing megastar status on the Madonna/Prince level and the pressures of not living his life openly.  I'm obviously not the best person to comment on it, but the 80's were not an easy time for the gay community.  They suffered through AIDS while many politicians remained indifferent and large sections of the general public vilified them for introducing it into the general (i.e. straight) population.  Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Jimmy Sommerville were more the exceptions, a great number of stars were terrified about letting the truth get out and presented themselves as ambiguously as possible.  In the 70's, David Bowie and Elton John could flamboyantly dress up in sequined jumpsuits and skintight leotards, that stuff was a no-go in the 80's.  Pop stars were expected to appear suave, rugged, and straight as an arrow, much like in Duran Duran's era-defining video for "Rio".   Michael speaks repeatedly about his ego, about constantly striving to be the best.  Would he have been even better than he was without the emotional stress?

Lush, "Spooky"

I need to counter the revisionist history of Julianne Shepherd's Sunday review in Pitchfork.   

The review paints Lush as underrated and misunderstood, a pop band unfairly lumped into a scene that wasn't suited for them, subject to discrimination on account of the two main songwriters and vocalists being women.  

As a side note, I need to take issue with this line: "Berenyi was the rare woman of color in the alt-rock scene of any subgenre".  As usual, Jews get no diversity points from most critics, the 90's had Justine Frischmann (Elastica), Louise Wener (Sleeper), Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss (Sleater-Kinney), just to name a few off the top of my head.  

"Female fronted rock bands" was a media catchphrase in 90's British indie rock, so I don't understand the implication that two women in a rock band was something particularly rare or notable, even in the shoegaze genre.  

Was there discrimination?  Undoubtedly.  Berenyi's autobiography (which I haven't read, but hopefully will eventually) describes many disturbing events in detail.  The video for Spooky's "Nothing Natural" is all the proof you need of the way male record execs tried to market them as sexy exotic gravure idols rather than just focusing on the music as they would have done with any male band.  With their hair billowing in the artificial wind, bodies pressed close, and wistful stares, it's like indie T.A.T.U. one decade ahead of its time.  Berenyi and Anderson don't look comfortable in the least.  

The suggestion that Lush were a pop entity and not really shoegaze is simply false.  In any number of interviews from the time (many good examples are collected here) they talk about burying their vocals in the mix, turning up the guitars, and playing with other bands in the shoegaze scene.  It's nonsensical to suggest that two former fanzine writers with virtually no prior experience in bands didn't know exactly what they were doing by latching onto a popular underground movement to boost interest in their group.  

Lush were always fairly rated.  During the 90's and 00's, dozens of urban centres had dozens of great shoegaze bands each.  Lush weren't better than most of them.  If anything, being a female fronted band helped distinguish them from the wealth of charisma-challenged male bands.  Musically speaking, "Spooky" is fairly pedestrian and displays its influences (Cocteau Twins, MBV) a bit too outwardly, there's a distinct lack of originality and plodding sameness to the tracks.  But that's how it was in the early days of shoegaze.  Most bands simply ripped off the undisputed kings of the genre and burned out quickly.  The more talented ones learned to adapt. Unfortunately, the mid-to-late 90's were a horrible time for shoegaze veterans trying to remain relevant and grow their audience, they were swiftly shunted aside by Britpop (in the UK) or by grunge and nu-metal (in the US).  

Sharing bills with the Gin Blossoms in America wasn't the right move, but the odds were stacked against them anyway.  Still, they had a decent chance at sustaining their success with "Lovelife".  "Ladykillers" smart and sassy and made perfect sense in the post-"Last Splash", post-"Live Through This" alt-rock scene.  It didn't happen, but that's OK.  I always liked them, I bought their "Best Of" and still enjoy a couple of the early EP's.  But they were not a great band, or an important one, or a band that demands an revision of their legacy.         

Glastonbury 2023

The lineup this year didn't look too exciting to me, I could take a pass on two of the three headliners, but Glastonbury is probably the most famous music festival in the world, so what are you going to do?  A few thoughts:

Lightning Seeds.  I always likes them and when it comes to unexpectedly putting a smile on my face, Lightning Seeds performing their sublimely underrated 90's hit "Life of Riley" was a bittersweet moment for me.

Rick Astley.  Ten years ago, what sort of betting odds could you have gotten on Rick Astley ruling Glastonbury in 2023?  Somehow he's transformed himself from an 80's punchline into a respected crooner by ways of an internet breaking meme.  By the end of "Never Gonna Give You Up", even the security guards were dancing.  Astley performed a second set that day, collaborating with the Blossoms for an inspired set of Smiths covers, providing an alternate reality reunion story in a universe where Morrissey gets canceled once and for all.  

Foo Fighters.  I appreciate their boundless energy, ace musicianship, and incredible connections with live crowds.  But after nearly 30 years, I still don't like hardly any Foo Fighters songs. 

Kelis.  For many of these bands, I only saw a track or two on BBC Music's youtube channel.  Kelis played "Acapella", and it SLAYED.  A booming masterpiece of a track and I'm ready for the full-fledged Kelis comeback.   

ADG7.  This Korean group was wacky but riveting, whimsically folksy yet also sleek and modern.  

Royal Blood.  I'm kind of a sucker for rock duos making shitload of noise (strange that I never cared much for the White Stripes though).  This band was sort of a revelation for me, thanks to their blistering mini-epics and the guitarists' incredible ability to make his instrument sound like a bass and electric guitar at the same time.  

Gabriels.  I didn't recognize former American Idol finalist Jacob Lusk.  Good on him for finding post-Idol success, and capping his weekend with an appearance during Elton John's set.    

Blondie.   The band these days consists of Debbie Harry, Clem Burke, and a few hired hands (including former Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock).  I saw Blondie and in 1999 and could scarcely believe that they sounded so relevant and powerful "at their age".  Now it's almost a quarter of a century later, and Debbie Harry still exudes the same effortless New York cool that she's had since her 20's and has never lost for a moment until the present day.

Lizzo.  Yeah, she could have, and probably should have headlined on Saturday.  

Yusuf/Cat Stevens.  The concept of the "legends slot" is losing its meaning when this year's and last year's headliners are older.  His voice sounds almost exactly as it did in the 70's.  

Lil Nas X.  He could have become a one-hit wonder trivia question, but he's built a great career for himself with a succession of post-"Old Town Road" hits.  This was like Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" video stretched out over a full set, with bizarre fashion meets sex fantasy over relentless beats.  

Elton John.  Drawn in by the historic aspect of seeing a legend's final (allegedly) UK show, I watched Elton John's Sunday headlining set in its entirety.  It's the first complete Elton John concert I have ever seen, in any format (live, streaming, DVD), but having been born between the years 1950 and 1980, I know all of the songs.  Elton's vocal range is shot and his dynamic range rarely ventures beyond "loud" to "shouting".  But he's still got the lungs and a remarkable, magnetic energy to his singing and playing.  He and his band have decades of stadium experience and this "farewell" tour is stretching into its sixth year (with a two year COVID break), so there's no way this could be anything other than great.  I don't think his set had that "end of an era" all-time great moment vibe like Paul McCartney's set last year did, where it will be remembered in 20-30 years time.  Maybe that's not a fair criticism, but that seems to be where the bar is set these days for Glastonbury headliners.  But it was undoubtedly a great send off for Elton.     

Lou Reed, "Berlin" -- revisited

It had been a while since I last heard "Berlin" in its entirety.  I felt as though I was hearing it through a set of fresh ears, and my reaction to the music somewhat shocked me.  

I heard an colourless pastiche of emotional decay.  A ploddingly staged and unconvincingly acted two act tragedy, where the pain and sadness are presented for the composer's own amusement.  I couldn't suspend my disbelief and immerse myself in the sentiments suggested by the lyrics. Maybe listening to it in the car was a mistake, this album demands a certain atmosphere that intercity traffic jams obviously don't provide.   

These are the reasons why "Berlin" was, according to legend (I won't try to sort out truth from legend in this brief post), so hated and misunderstood in the 70's.  It eventually became viewed as a masterpiece, the most depressing album ever, an album that can devastate one's mood for the remainder of the day more decisively than just about any record ever made.  So these criticisms are nothing new, I just never agreed with them.  

Sure, I have skipped down this path before, notably in my review of the "Berlin Live at St. Ann's Warehouse", where the music was dragged down to turgid levels of disinterested ineptitude "thanks" to a cringe-worthy and perfunctory Lou Reed performance.  But I also think there's something deeper going on here.

I discovered "Berlin" in 1998, which in retrospect was its peak societal impact.  Lou Reed was a living legend, still coasting off his reputation as an alternative rock pioneer and the good will generated from the Velvets reunion a few years earlier.  Enough time had passed for a thorough re-evaluation of his more "difficult" albums such as this one and "Metal Machine Music".  Before social media and the widespread influence of the TMZ-style internet, the culture was ripe for acceptance of art involving flawed celebrities and their horrifying secrets. The unsettling imagery in "Berlin" -- delinquent parents, and their shrieking children, all-consuming sorrow made worse through copious amounts of drugs -- could have been a commentary on Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love's relationship.  Or more specifically, pre-Twitter and pre-direct windows into thought processes of every major celeb on the planet, it could have been a commentary on how the public perceived their relationship.  This week marked the 25th anniversary of Phil Hartmann's murder.  In the 90's, the music was heavy and serious and debates over "Jeremy" and the impact of Marilyn Manson's shock/art was widespread.  "Berlin" fit right in.  

With the passage of another twenty five years, the culture has flipped.  Hate and depravity get exposed more quickly, sometimes due to the perpetrators own ill-advised tweets.  But "Berlin" had a voyeuristic appeal, all the behaviour it described was taking place in the seedy underground of a divided, isolated city, hidden from public eyes.  That situation no longer exists.  Berlin the city has been transformed immeasurably as well since 1973.  

So what's left of "Berlin" the album, once the debauchery becomes routine?  It enters a sort of limbo between unintentionally amusing (in terms of its orchestration and production) and vapid, tossed-off shock rock (in terms of its artistic merit ... "ooh, he mentioned drugs and suicide again, this is deeeep").  It should be crushingly sad, but instead comes across as disingenuous and not to be taken seriously.     

Andy Rourke RIP, The Smiths Live at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre June 29, 1985

Smiths bassist Andy Rourke passed away last weekend at the far too young age of 59.  I never cease to be amazed by how young the band was in their time.  Three-quarters of them were only nineteen when The Smiths made their first recordings.  Regarding Rourke's importance to the band, I think the debate over individual contributions to The Smiths (and rock groups in general) has long since been settled.  Singers and lead guitarists are often overrated, whereas rhythm sections are often underrated.  One of the many great things about the Smiths was the perfect musical synergy between its members, each instrument functions as a lead instrument yet blends perfectly into the whole.  Each part is intricate and complex, all the band members are equally busy, but nobody is showing off and trying to dominate over the others.  In the same era, Joy Division were like this, but New Order weren't, except at their very best.   The Stone Roses were like this on their debut album, but not afterwards.  

If there was a tragic figure in The Smiths, it was Rourke (either him or Morrissey, depending on whether you consider his alt-right turn to be tragic or simply a case of getting what he deserves after years of excuses).  His personal issues got him fired from the band, only to be brought back a couple of weeks later (in part, allegedly, because his parts were so difficult to play).  In court, he settled with Morrissey and Marr for a fraction of his true worth, sacrificing millions of pounds of back and future revenues from his singular work with the Smiths.  Morrissey might have trashed him in his court testimony, but he could have grabbed any number of session bassists for his early solo recordings.  He chose Rourke time and again.  The long-awaited reunion, the subject of endless discussion for over three decades, which I and countless others had assumed would eventually happen, never did.  

And that brings us to the ninth in a series of albums that I haven't heard in over twenty years, since the start of this blog in January 2000.  I bought a number of Smiths bootleg cassettes over the years, and this one is particularly famous for its encore, which showcases Rourke at his absolute best.  The audio recording can be heard here.

At this point in their career, The Smiths were a taut live ensemble, infusing a manic energy into their live shows in part thanks to a general quickening of the tempos compared with the studio versions.  The sound quality of this recording is poor, it's a standard audience recording likely done with a cheap tape recorder smuggled into the venue.  These recordings tend to swallow the mid-range treble, thereby ruining the clarity of Johnny Marr's guitar playing.  Morrissey's vocals seem to drift in and out occasionally.  But Rourke's bass playing and Mike Joyce's drumming are accentuated, shining through the hazy mess on several songs but particularly on "Hand In Glove", "Shakespeare's Sister", "Still Ill" (I never liked the studio version of this song, but on live recordings it was always a highlight), and "The Headmaster Ritual".  

I used to revisit this bootleg mainly for two reasons.  The first was the touching and elegant version of "Reel Around the Fountain" that closes the first encore.  It's always been one of my favourite Smiths songs and they rarely played it after 1984.  The second reason is the famous third (!) encore, featuring the final and longest ever live version of "Barbarism Begins At Home", stretched out for an astonishing sixteen minutes.  Marr does his best Nile Rodgers impression on guitar, and Joyce is a muscular machine on drums, but Rourke is the star.   Such impressive funk workouts were unheard of for The Smiths (especially considering Morrissey's infamously dismissive attitude toward all forms of dance music), so it's clear that we have Rourke to thank for this song being the monster that it is.   

Reviewing every Eurovision Song Contest Winner (1972, 1973)

1972.  Vicky Leandros, "Apres toi" (Luxembourg)

A workmanlike entry but nothing more, co-written by the same lyricist (Yves Dessca) who worked on the previous year's winning song ("Un banc, un abre, une rue"), perfectly passable but easily forgettable.  It expresses your standard "oh what will I do without you" sentiments, rendered even more flat and emotionless that it reads on paper owing to Leandros' lack of charisma and indistinctive voice.  At least the orchestra had a good day, unfortunately she's nearly drowned out by it throughout her "winning" performance.  3/10.   

1973.  Anne-Marie David, "Tu te reconnaitras" (Luxembourg)

We're deep into 70's soft rock balladry here, but David's performance is actually quite riveting.  With her piercing stares into the camera and soaring, powerful voice, she lifts the song to the level of a worthy winner.  Truly a moment for the perfect singer having a moment while making the most of a bland and featureless song.  This was one of the closest Eurovision finishes ever, with just six votes separating first place from third.  I have no idea how anyone could have preferred Spain's third-rate 5th Dimension (Mocedades) or the UK's post-post hippie rock (Cliff Richard) entries to this.  6/10.    

Reviewing every Eurovision Song Contest Winner (1970, 1971)

Eurovision is on, and I am back after a four year hiatus to continue (finally) with this project!

1970.  Dana, "All Kinds of Everything" (Ireland)

This was the first of Ireland's record seven wins (as of this writing).  The song is a mix of weepy 50's balladry and post-hippie dewy-eyed shlock.  France Gall and Serge Gainsbourg won in 1965 and provided Eurovision with more of a pulse, those years of excitement came to a crashing halt.  Even the ballads from the mid-to-late 60's, such as Frida Boccara's "Un jour, un enfant" from the previous year, tended to have an operatic fervor that jolted you out of your seat.  Dana's performance is perfectly competent but also somnambulantly boring.  4/10.  

1971.  Severine, "Un Banc, Un Arbre, Un Rue" (Monaco)

This is more Eurovision catnip about growing older and following one's dreams, nearly elevated into something special by Severine's fiercely committed performance.  The bombastic arrangement would have made the LA Wrecking Crew proud, although for me the four male backing singers add nothing and even subtract from the performance because their voices don't mesh with Severine's at all.  What little they add in harmonic depth is taken away by their distracting presence -- the visual impact of the performance could have been far more powerful by focusing it completely on the soloist.  A worthy, but flawed winner.  6/10.    

Gordon Lightfoot RIP

So many thoughts about Gordon Lightfoot ...

• "If You Could Read My Mind" just may be the greatest song ever written, and if it's not, it must be the most perfect song ever written.  There's not one iota of detail about it that you could dream of changing.  The melody, arrangement, vocal delivery, and lyrics are all impeccable.
• Some context regarding this famous, yet brutally awkward clip of Bob Dylan inducting him into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.  Viewed in isolation, it might appear as though Dylan was confused and/or stoned and/or half-assing it on some low-budget Canadian awards show that he was reduced to appearing on during the nadir of his commercial and critical fame.  In fact, Dylan was never comfortable at award shows, he always appeared nervous, unrehearsed, and would stumble to find his words.  Eventually stopped going to these ceremonies altogether -- remember, he skipped his own Nobel Prize ceremony.  Nearly every Lightfoot obituary in the MSM contains at least one Dylan quote, his esteem for Lightfoot can't be questioned.  Dylan showed up in person to a ceremony not to receive an honour, but to honour someone else, this was a special moment and it speaks volumes about how Dylan felt about him.  
• I grew up seeing the mustachioed Lightfoot of the 70's and 80's, I think that it still most people's first association of him, since it coincides with his commercial peak.  But Young Lightfoot was suave and charismatic, with pop star good looks that could have translated to any era.  
• Who is the better lyricist, Dylan or Lightfoot?  They are often compared with each other, even though their styles are so different.  Dylan is a vocabulary wizard, his twisted turns of phrases and colourful imagery are uncopyable.  But Lightfoot was the master of capturing the feels, he could articulate nearly any human emotion and craft the experience into something more haunting and real than anything you have felt in your entire life.
• An underrated aspect of Lightfoot's lyrics: he could do both sides of heartbreak better than anyone.  Plenty of artists can write about getting one's heart broken, but Lightfoot could also write about those who break hearts ("For Lovin Me", "Go Go Round").
• I think Lightfoot reached his creative peak in the early 70's, as evidence, check out this 1972 performance on the BBC.  There has never been a better acoustic folk troubadour than early 70's Lightfoot.  But my first association with his music is symbolized by "Carefree Highway", for me, it's the sound of late 70's FM-ready soft rock in a nutshell.  

Atlantic Rock and Roll Series

This box set collects six albums by six giants of 50's rock and roll and R&B.  Don't be misled by commenters arguing about the genre categorization of this music.  The line between R&B and R'n'R in those was mostly nonexistent.  The distinction mainly came down to marketing, which in turn was largely due to race.  When Atlantic released a Ray Charles album and promoted it as rock and roll, they were actively trying to reach a white audience.  The music was the music regardless.  

When these albums were first released, they didn't contain entirely new music.  They were, and are, compilations of the artists' biggest hits recorded throughout the decade to that point.  Ray Charles' album comes closest to sounding like a modern album, with varying styles and tempos sequenced into a coherent multi-track journey, rather than a random assortment of unrelated tracks.  Joe Turner's is entirely homogeneous in tempo, feel, and lyrical cadence, it's almost like a reggae compilation with repeated toasting over the same riddim.  It's quite obviously a collection of singles that was never meant to be heard in one sitting.  And yet, it's by far the most breathlessly exciting material in the box.  Turner's album is packed with classics ("Shake, Rattle and Roll", "Honey Hush", "Chains of Love") that transcend time,  they simply never fail to set your heart racing.  

Clyde McPhatter's voice is sublime but his album is the most restrained in the set.  Ruth Brown was a blueprint for rock and rock years before it was named as such.  She could be gritty and intense, or sweet and soothing depending on what the song demanded.  For black audiences, she was the queen of R&B but with more polish in her voice could be relatable to whites as well.  This album shows her talent and versatility exceptionally well.

La Vern Baker's voice could cut through a block of stone, when she meant business she really meant it -- check out "Jim Daddy"or "How Can You Leave a Man Like This".  The lyrics of the latter are rather uncomfortable to listen to these days, but you can't fault her blistery, impassioned delivery.  The songs aren't always the strongest, but that's no fault of hers.  Finally, according to the notes on the original back cover of the album, Ivory Joe Hunter didn't like being tagged as a blues singer.  That's marketing speak for "he's a blues singer that we're targeting for crossover appeal".  It's not surprising that he never did cross over into the mainstream, despite his prolific output and multi-genre talents (blues, country, R&B) he was just too esoteric for a large national audience.

I would recommend this set for the great music and the even better history lesson.       

Sinopoli's Bruckner 7 (Deutsche Grammophon 1993)

Before listening to this recording with the Staatskapelle Dresden, I was aware of the criticism surrounding Giuseppe Sinopoli's conducting style. I knew about his obsession for micromanaging his the sound of his recordings, his penchant for subjecting everything he touched under a mountain of oppressive strings.  I didn't care.  For me, these descriptions seemed simply wonderful.  Sure enough, I found this recording of Bruckner's 7th to be immensely powerful, if you take it for what it is.      

It amounts to nothing less than a shoegaze version of the symphony, nearly every great moment of note is choked to the gills by an immense wall of  sound dominated by strings.  Make no mistake, this is the sound brought forth by the conductor, not a characteristic style of the orchestra.  Jochum's recordings of the Bruckner symphonies with the same Dresden orchestra sound nothing like this.  I say that even while admitting, in all honesty, that Jochum's versions are most likely the best overall, the apex of all Bruckner recordings.  

In Sinopoli's take, you can't hear all of the instruments.  I know that transparency and clarity of the different parts of the orchestra is integral to the performance ... most of the time.  It simply doesn't matter here.  Much like with MBV's "Loveless" (to name the most obvious example from shoegaze), it makes no sense to complain about not being able to understand the lyrics, or to gripe about the imbalance between guitars and drums.  Likewise, I don't see the point of complaining about the brass section getting drowned out during the climaxes, or the relatively colourless woodwind sonority.  It's all about the rich, zen-like droning strings.  Everything they say about Sinopoli is true, his fans and his critics have both got it right. It's simply a matter of deciding whether you, the listener, like hearing the music performed in this way.

The return of Depeche Mode

I wrote a post last year in memory of the late Andy Fletcher, but it might as well have been a eulogy for the entire band.  Little did I know that a new album had largely been written, albeit not recorded, and a world tour was in the works.  

Veteran superstar touring acts like The Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen have always ensured that the show goes on, defying any concepts of age and personal tragedy.  Charlie Watts dies and the Stones keep chugging along.  Clarence Clemons passes away, and his son joins the E-Street Band in his place.  I never expected Depeche Mode to be one of those bands, even though their every four years album and tour schedule has been entrenched for decades.  

I haven't heard "Memento Mori" yet, but "Ghosts Again" is probably their best single in over a decade.  Watch the video and the familiar sights and sounds are all there -- Anton Corbijn's dystopian black and white urban landscapes, all-black wardrobes and dark sunglasses, standoffish rock star cool, growling synth melodies and lamentations on death in yet another pseudo-revival of the "Black Celebration" narrative.  It's nothing new but it's wonderful to see.

Speaking of wonderful to see, I watched a fan video of the encore from their first concert of the tour and it's almost enough to erase the bad memories of the pandemic.  In the darkest days of 2020 I feared that stadium and arena concerts might never return, but despite years of delays and the death of a founding member, here they were again, Depeche Mode performing their hits on a huge stage, a triumphant return to the new normal.  Performing a duet of "Waiting For the Night", Dave Gahan and Martin Gore looked thin and fit, their voices are as pure and as powerful as any time over the past thirty years.  They surveyed the crowd and couldn't have looked more happy to be there, and to be standing shoulder to shoulder with each other.  The rest of the encore -- "Just Can't Get Enough", "Never Let Me Down Again", and "Personal Jesus", a combined 113 years old between the three -- continue to sound timeless.     

John Gay, "The Beggar's Opera", realized by Benjamin Britten

Fourteen years after the last post in the series, finally, it's the ninth in a series of albums that I haven't heard in over twenty years, since the start of this blog in January 2020.  

I had read the text of the play but I knew that the phenomenon that was "The Beggar's Opera" is somewhat lost without the music to accompany the words, so I bought these discs to experience it in full.  I had the slightest clue about who Britten was, his importance to post-WWII British music, or his reputation as an opera composer.  I bought the only version of the piece that I could find.  

To tell the truth, I hadn't cared much for the play.  Compared to the Restoration comedies that I loved from the previous generation of British writers, the text is lacking in wit, the characters are simplistic, the plot is drearily straightforward and bereft of true twists and surprises, with a clumsy deus ex machina ending that confuses and frustrates rather than providing a cause for celebration. If I had heard a musical arrangement that was close in spirit to the light, baroque airs that the original text stipulates, perhaps I could have gained more of an appreciation for the work.  Britten's realization is none of those things.  I was looking to flip my opinion of "The Beggar's Opera", and Britten was just about the worst possible composer to help me along.  

The music is characteristically Britten.  The orchestra is rather small (just fourteen players credited) but rich with unusual sonorities, and upfront and jarring percussion.  The overall effect is one of a much larger ensemble, as such, the musical arrangements take on more of a starring role than in the more "literal" adaptations.  A key element of "The Beggar's Opera" was its satirical interpretation of early 18th century Italian opera.  With larger than life divas supplanted by lowly thieves and miscreants, and the high drama of opera composition replaced by innocent English ballads that Gay's audience would have been completely familiar with, the irony in the presentation would have been impossible to ignore.   Britten's re-interpretation removes those chaste, innocent qualities from the music and presents something far more sinister.  One cannot forget for a moment that these are low-lifes singing along to a soundtrack meant for thieves.   Many musical phrases have uncomfortable resolutions, and unflinchingly displeasing conclusions.  

The pacing of the opera is still not much to my taste.  The vacillation between text and brief musical airs is dizzying.  What passes for action in the text is given little room to develop or breath through such short snippets of dialogue, and the same can be said for the short ballad airs (fifty five of them in all).  But Britten is a composer whose work rewards repeat listens, the music is dense and fascinating.   

Professor of Rock: Top Ten from February 7, 1984

If you were a music fan in the 80's, there's something for you on Professor of Rock's (Adam Reader) channel.   His  unapologetic championing of the era's music is admirable, albeit repetitive.  If never watched another music related channel, you'd think that no good music was made after 1987 or so.  You have to admire someone so devoted to his craft, even though his concept of "classic" music is so narrow in time and scope.     

One of the recurring segments on his channel is a countdown of the top ten songs in the US on that date in music history.  He also "re-ranks" the top ten in terms of total streams/views since they were released, to come up with a revised chart that reflects those song's long term impact. I'm not certain of his methods (streams and views on which platform?   During which years?  And if the goal is to gauge impact why don't sales count for anything?) but it makes for interesting debate material.  

Recently, he covered the top ten from 39 years ago, the week of February 7, 1984.  This is right up my alley.  He claims that 1984 was the best ever year for music, and he may well be right.  This was the first year that I followed the pop charts religiously, each week, for an entire calendar year.  Looking over Billboard's list of the Top 100 Singles of 1984, I know nearly every one of those one hundred songs with the possible exception of two or three, and can sing or hum excerpts from each of them from memory from the place I'm sitting in now.  It was a formative time in my beginnings as a music fan, so of course my memories will be hopelessly subjective, but that's OK.  Some people claim that the best music ever made is the music you listened to when you were sixteen.  That age might vary by a few years depending on who is making the claim, but I can't recall the number going as young as ten.  The rational, I believe, is that high schoolers rely on music to shape their identity and personality, but once you hit your 20's and have matured into your (mostly) fully formed adult self, music as a consequence starts losing its ability to make a lasting impression.   

There's a good argument to be made there, but my experiences fall well outside those parameters.  In 1984, I followed the charts like they were sports.  I clipped the CHUM charts from the newspaper each week as if they were the boxscores of games, I made a point of studying them and memorizing them, knowing the stats behind the songs (how many weeks at #1, in the top ten, etc.).  I wrote about this at some length in a post from over twenty years ago.  I had no money to buy records or tapes, the nearest music shop was a twenty minute walk from our house (too far for me to venture on my own).  We didn't get MTV in Canada, and in February 1984, Much Music was about six months away from its initial launch.  I learned the music by listening to the radio constantly, devouring nightly broadcasts and especially the countdown shows.  I knew the top 40 each week but that's all I knew at the time.  There was no "alternative", no niche genres to discover, but it was nevertheless my first attempt at a musical identity that was independent of the music my parents owned and listened to.  And that's how a ten year old became more deeply versed in the minutiae of the pop charts than at any point in my life since.   

Here is that top ten from thirty nine years ago: 

10.  Elton John, "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues"  

9.  Christopher Cross, "Think of Laura"

8.  John Cougar Mellencamp, "Pink Houses"

7.  Lionel Richie, "Running With the Night"

6.  Genesis, "That's All"

5.  Van Halen, "Jump"

4.  Yes, "Owner of a Lonely Heart"

3.  The Romantics, "Talking In Your Sleep"

2.  Kool and the Gang, "Joanna"

1.  Culture Club, "Karma Chameleon"

It's the fifth year of the decade, and the top ten is dominated by ... notable acts of the 70's, in various stages of adjusting to the challenges of being pop stars at the dawn of the music video era.  We have prog rock bands figuring out how to write four minute manifestos for mainstream radio (Yes, Genesis), and 70's megastars reinventing themselves for a newer, younger audience that might not have known their earlier hits (Elton John, Kool and the Gang, Van Halen, Lionel Richie).  Regarding that latter point, "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues" was my first memory of Elton John as a contemporary pop star, "I'm Still Standing" was my favourite song of his (mainly thanks to its memorable video), and I didn't become familiar with his 70's megastardom hits until years later.  Similarly, "Jump", "Joanna", and "Owner of a Lonely Heart" were my introduction to each of those acts.

These days, I think The Romantics are remembered for the sound of their debut album, but "Talking In Your Sleep" was their most successful song by far. Christopher Cross debuted in 79 and was a force at the top of the charts in the early 80's, but his music was a holdover from the mellower FM soft rock of the 70's.  John Cougar Mellencamp also began his career in the 70's and found considerable success in the 80's, but his brand of heartland rock isn't characteristic of that decade.  More than any other song on this list, "Pink Houses" could have been released as-is and found a willing audience in just about any decade since the 70's. That leaves us with just one absolutely no doubt quintessential unmistakably 80's act -- Culture Club.  It should come as no surprise that they are #1 on the revised chart too unsurprisingly the retroactive #1 too (from least to most streams/views: Lionel Richie, Christopher Cross, Kool and the Gang, Mellencamp, Genesis, Romantics, Elton John, Yes, Van Halen, Culture Club).   

Where were all the 80's giants?  Michael Jackson was between "Thriller" singles.  Hits from albums by Duran Duran and Cyndi Lauper were several weeks away from peaking.  Tina Turner's triumphant comeback was a few months away.  Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, and Prince would release decade defining albums only later in the year.  With these unusual set of circumstances, the odds and sods 70's continuation acts were able to sneak in and take over the top of the pop charts.    

"Suede: The Insatiable Ones", dir. Mike Christie

This was a bit of a letdown after reading/enduring the raw outpouring of emotion in Brett Anderson's two books.  However, it does communicate the notions of fun and contentment that Brett's writing mostly lacks.  As a lighter look at Suede and their many accomplishments, one could certainly do worse.  And the documentary ends on a high note, with their 2010 reunion show at the RAH and subsequent return to recording and touring.  

Simon Gilbert's handheld camera archive is the drawing card of the documentary, but most of what we see are fast cut camera edits, with no sense of time and place and action.  They're really just a collection of random band photos spanning the first decade or so of Suede's existence.  If you're hoping for a fly on the wall, "Don't Look Back" type of capture of the times, it's not here.

I enjoyed the scenes where Brett tours around the neighbourhoods where he grew up and where he lived in London as an adult.  This provides air and colour to the sepia scenes that he describes in his books.  Justine Frischmann appears on camera and has nothing but good things to say about her time in Suede, she comes across as the wise insider turned outside, the voice of truth in nearly all her scenes.  Neil Codling speaks poignantly about his illness in the late 90's and early 00's, and the pain in his eyes is nearly unbearable as he describes the permanent changes in his personality even after "recovering", clearly the trauma of those years has never really gone away.       

Brett Anderson, "Afternoons With the Blinds Drawn"

This is the follow-up autobiography to Anderson's "Coal Black Mornings", which I read over three years ago.  Anderson is upfront about his intentions with the book from the opening pages.  He doesn't want to recount the post-1992 Suede narrative that fans already lived through and know quite well.  Instead, the book functions as an extended therapy session/confessional episode for Anderson, an opportunity to examine the past by applying the knowledge and self-awareness he has gained since those heady days.  As a result, "Afternoons" is a bleak, almost depressing read compared with with "Coal Black Mornings".  The first volume was full of dense, flowery writing about unusual minutiae, but by the end there was a palpable sense of excitement and anticipation for what was to come.  Reading the book made me appreciate the unconventional journey that led to Suede's well-earned success.  But there is very little joy in "Afternoons".  Being in Suede comes across as a grueling ordeal (albeit a rewarding one that produced some of the finest music of the 90's), full of near-disastrous mistakes and countless regrets.  

I think it's important for Suede fans to read this, because there's a certain brand of honesty that is rare in music bios.  For instance, he's extremely frank about criticizing his own music, and isn't shy about flat out staying that certain songs (and even albums) were horrible and should have never been released.  Anderson owns up to his poor treatment of friends and bandmates, and goes into thoroughly unglamorous detail about his years of drug addiction.  There's virtually nothing along the lines of amusing road stories, name-dropping, or interactions with other bands or music industry types beyond that of his inner circle.  His bandmates of over thirty years, Mat Osman and Simon Gilbert, are nearly invisible in his story.  I found myself agreeing with his perspectives on the 90's more often than not.  "Coming Up" is presented as his proudest achievement because the hype machine had already chewed up Suede and left them in the trashbin.  "Coming Up" was their most commercially successful album, but if you weren't there at the time, you might view it as an inevitability considering the still ongoing quality of music being made by the post-1996 lineup of the band.  Make no mistake, many people thought Suede were done as a creative force once Bernard Butler left.  Brett gets it exactly right in his retelling.  

One surprise in the book is his repeated laments about Suede's choice of b-sides, in many instances he claims that they erred in relegating great songs to the b-sides of singles instead of saving them for inclusion on an album.  But every fan I knew considered those b-sides to be a profound superpower that was unique to Suede.  I still believe that "Sci-Fi Lullabies" is the best Suede album.  In North America, the b-side was a complete afterthought, particularly since singles released six months or year in advance of an album was rare.  Why care about the b-side if there is an entire album of great music there to enjoy and process?  In Britain, many bands would build anticipation for an eventual album release via a succession of singles.  With fans being hungry for new material, the b-sides were expected to be stronger and worthy of repeated listening.  Suede were the masters of this, you couldn't possibly retell the band's history without including those songs, and as such, every true fan was intimately familiar with them.  

This is a good place to clarify some comments I made about Suede when they first reunited in 2010.  These lines in particular stand out: "Suede were a number of things, but risk-takers they were not.  They never strayed too far from a safe, signature sound".  That was unreasonably harsh on my part.  At the time, I had my doubts about their reunion, but after four albums of solid and far better than anyone could have expected material, their "signature sound" has proved to be more resilient than that of any rock band of their era.  Second, Suede weren't risk-takers in the sense that their key influences were fairly obvious -- Bowie, the glitz and androgyny of 70's glam, the windswept glamour of Echo and the Bunnymen.  But they were risk-takers by being profoundly unique compared to anything else happening in British indie music at the time.  The indie bands of the early 90's were a collection of sad sack C86 hangers on, Smiths wannabes, and Madchester dropouts, most of whom have been completely forgotten about today.  Shoegaze was underappreciated but was (and still isn't) the type of music to light a fire under the charts.  American grunge bands were the rage, and countless twee British acts were blown away into irrelevance as a result.  Suede cut through the boredom like a lightning bolt, there was nobody even remotely like them, the music seemed to get better with each classic single release and their potential seemed limitless.  

As a companion to this review, I plan to watch the band documentary "The Insatiable Ones" as soon as I can.                

Music Men: The Playboy Interview (50 Years of the Playboy Interview)

For several years in the 90's, I bought a couple of dozen music magazines per year, both weeklies and monthlies.  The NME/Melody Maker/Select style was a fly on the wall approach.  The journalist would join the artist or band in their natural environment (in the studio, on tour, their favourite pub, whatever the case may be), soak up the atmosphere, and grab as many juicy quotes as they could.  The Canadian free weeklies and monthlies (NOW, eye, Exclaim!) used a more measured style, it was rare to see a circus-type presentation, the interviews were more straightforward reporting.  This isn't necessarily a negative, but the British style was more consistently entertaining.  But of course, the free magazines didn't do long form highly in depth articles, their format limited the space they could afford for any one story compared with the paid publications.  

This is all to say that the style of the Playboy interview -- a long form, deep one-on-one conversation without any of the scenic bells and whistles -- is rather new to me.  The list of names (all of them men) is stellar, but when it misses, it really misses, and the conversation bogs down in dreadful minutiae and elongated tedium.  It's like reading the transcript between a reluctant host and hangers on at a party who simply refuse to leave.  The Bob Dylan interview (March 1978) is an unfortunate example of that.  David Bowie (September 1976) says very little of substance, and Elton John (January 1976) dances around nearly every serious question aimed at providing genuine insight into his thoughts, in particular, his thoughts on homosexuality and bisexuality (understandably so, considering the time, but it doesn't make for entertaining reading).  Luciano Pavarotti (November 1982) is a unique look at a personality that was never featured in "rock" mags, but the conversation is just too damned long, stitched together from multiple conversations.  

I want to lump together three interviews from the 90's, which carry similar goals but produce wildly varying results.  The idea is to interview a living legend, reflect on his career, celebrate his accomplishments, and speculate on their continued relevance into the 90's.   Berry Gordy (August 1995) comes across like a complete asshole, defending his policy of indentured servitude for his artists in the 60's and generally showing himself to be out of touch with most music and artist relations post-early career Michael Jackson.  Frank Zappa (April 1993) is as unfiltered as you'd expect.  His fans (I was never one) would probably enjoy his wild musings on politics and parenthood, he was undoubtedly one of a kind but if you never acquired a taste for his music, the interview probably won't be to your liking either.  He also speaks openly about his health, and would sadly pass away less than a year following the interview.  Pete Townshend (February 1994) owns up to all his problems past and present, he's a real person prone to temper tantrums, bad decisions, and frequent vacillations in opinion.  Compared to the David Bowie and Elton John interviews from the 70's, where they were ultra-careful in protecting their image and not harming their marketability, Townshend is firmly in give no fucks mode.  

The most recent interviews with Jay-Z (April 2003) and Kanye West (March 2006) encapsulate the rapid decline of the print mag industry.  In the 21st century, the 24/7 news cycle was an essential service, the internet was in every household, and the rapid rise of social media was just around the corner.  Fans no longer needed these types of interviews to gain rare insight into musical giants.  Jay-Z is entertaining and larger than life, but the interview is nothing special, he's punching the clock and not revealing anything about his true self.  On the other hand, Kanye gives clear glimpses of what he eventually became fifteen years later, speaking openly about his pr0n addiction and attraction to conspiracy theories.  

The highlights are the first three interviews in the collection.  They're like a time capsule into a long ago era of life in America.  Frank Sinatra (February 1963) is politically incorrect, boorish, and arrogant, but you can't say he didn't show up ready to play ball.  He gives his unfiltered opinion on politics and foreign affairs, providing views that were far from mainstream.  He's determined to advertise himself as as a thinking man's performer who wouldn't stand for any politician's bullshit, and couldn't care less if he comes across as a "difficult" interviewee.  The Beatles (February 1965) are immature kids captured at the height of their teenybopper fame.  Before they retired to the studio, took drug-fueled trips to India, and became peace crusaders, there was this, just four young men riding a pop star wave the world had never seen.  Some of their comments have not aged well, but it's refreshing to read something of this length about the Beatles that was published before the legend was complete.  Best of all is the interview with Ray Charles (March 1970) who comes off as the most intelligent man in the country, a musical prophet who speaks candidly and impactfully about US race relations and his niche as a performer.