FA+
Shop
Is it still good to ya?
a year ago
I'm seldom without my MP3 player. (My what?) Where else am I going to find an acceptable, custom-tailored playlist that takes in Redbone and the Asrael Symphony? Certainly not on any streaming service: algorithms have no taste, no curiosity, and no historical perspective. So hit shuffle play on this week's selection of tunes, and you might hear something like this:
Culture Club/The Medal Song
Another buoyant Culture Club calypso, beautifully sung by Boy George. So what if the lyrics are, as usual, barely comprehensible? It's not the first time a set of falling-out-of-love lyrics have gotten listeners onto a dance floor.
Charlie Rich/Lonely Weekends
As music writer Dean Rudland put it, Charlie Rich's sides for the Smash label are "the records you wish Elvis had been making in the '60s." The updated rockabilly of "Lonely Weekends" is one side of a complex (and perpetually underrated) musical personality that was equally at home in country, jazz, and R&B. (I only wish that most rockabilly performers could sing as well as Charlie Rich.)
Ashford & Simpson/Is It Still Good to Ya?
We need to talk. A couple realizes, in their mutual boredom, that they may have come to the end of their road together, so is it time for a drastic change? This is a heart-rending breakup song, and a reminder that the true test of performers isn't to express their feelings, but to make their audience feel what the performers want them to feel.
XTC/Burning with Optimism's Flames
Could Andy Partridge be too clever a songwriter for his own good? Since XTC consistently matches hyperliterate lyrics with driving rhythms and instantly memorable tunes, the result is pretty much my ideal rock band, but let's not get hyperbolic. This song is "typical" XTC, lyrics not quite grounded in reality: the verse steps into a rhythmic minefield that vocalist Partridge navigates with almost contemptuous ease; the chorus celebrates a woman who's demonstrably not all there, not that the song's erotomaniac climax cares.
The Stylistics/People Make the World Go Round
It's the sound of producer/arranger Thom Bell's wind chimes, strings, and marimba, Russell Thompkins Jr's falsetto vocals, and Linda Creed's ambivalent lyrics ("changing people's heads around/Go underground young man") coming together to prove that there's a thin line between a long-term plan for subversion and defeatism. Philly Soul with a troubled conscience.
The Pretenders/My City was Gone
The singer comes back to Ohio to find that everything she remembered and loved about it has been sold out and destroyed by fast-buck politicians. The song, betrayal articulated, is built on a funky instrumental vamp that opened Rush Limbaugh's show for over a decade, without permission or the payment of royalties. (It turned out that songwriter/vocalist Chrissie Hynde's dad was a fan of Rush's show.) Rush, being Rush, couldn't leave well enough alone and finally got around to hurling on-air personal insults at Hynde, at which point her lawyers stepped in and twisted his arm. He had to pony up $100,000 in unpaid royalties, and the singer forced him to donate the entire sum to PETA, an organization Rush despised. Who says there's no such thing as poetic justice?
Oh yeah, it's a great song, too.
Culture Club/The Medal Song
Another buoyant Culture Club calypso, beautifully sung by Boy George. So what if the lyrics are, as usual, barely comprehensible? It's not the first time a set of falling-out-of-love lyrics have gotten listeners onto a dance floor.
Charlie Rich/Lonely Weekends
As music writer Dean Rudland put it, Charlie Rich's sides for the Smash label are "the records you wish Elvis had been making in the '60s." The updated rockabilly of "Lonely Weekends" is one side of a complex (and perpetually underrated) musical personality that was equally at home in country, jazz, and R&B. (I only wish that most rockabilly performers could sing as well as Charlie Rich.)
Ashford & Simpson/Is It Still Good to Ya?
We need to talk. A couple realizes, in their mutual boredom, that they may have come to the end of their road together, so is it time for a drastic change? This is a heart-rending breakup song, and a reminder that the true test of performers isn't to express their feelings, but to make their audience feel what the performers want them to feel.
XTC/Burning with Optimism's Flames
Could Andy Partridge be too clever a songwriter for his own good? Since XTC consistently matches hyperliterate lyrics with driving rhythms and instantly memorable tunes, the result is pretty much my ideal rock band, but let's not get hyperbolic. This song is "typical" XTC, lyrics not quite grounded in reality: the verse steps into a rhythmic minefield that vocalist Partridge navigates with almost contemptuous ease; the chorus celebrates a woman who's demonstrably not all there, not that the song's erotomaniac climax cares.
The Stylistics/People Make the World Go Round
It's the sound of producer/arranger Thom Bell's wind chimes, strings, and marimba, Russell Thompkins Jr's falsetto vocals, and Linda Creed's ambivalent lyrics ("changing people's heads around/Go underground young man") coming together to prove that there's a thin line between a long-term plan for subversion and defeatism. Philly Soul with a troubled conscience.
The Pretenders/My City was Gone
The singer comes back to Ohio to find that everything she remembered and loved about it has been sold out and destroyed by fast-buck politicians. The song, betrayal articulated, is built on a funky instrumental vamp that opened Rush Limbaugh's show for over a decade, without permission or the payment of royalties. (It turned out that songwriter/vocalist Chrissie Hynde's dad was a fan of Rush's show.) Rush, being Rush, couldn't leave well enough alone and finally got around to hurling on-air personal insults at Hynde, at which point her lawyers stepped in and twisted his arm. He had to pony up $100,000 in unpaid royalties, and the singer forced him to donate the entire sum to PETA, an organization Rush despised. Who says there's no such thing as poetic justice?
Oh yeah, it's a great song, too.
Also a lot of New Retro Wave. Lazerhawk, Michael Cassette, Magic Sword, Toxic Avenger, Mitch Murder, Droid Bishop, Pylot, that sort.
It's not you, the stuff I listen to is way out of the beaten path.
My music taste is a big pool that I return to slowly in cycles. On a whim, I bought myself a cassette player and now am testing the longevity of some genuinely old tapes, as well as a literal mixtape I made for myself. and I still have a lot of CDs. Of tapes, I've been sucking the pleasure out of Billy Joel's The Stranger, noting I only feel meh about two songs (Get It Right The First Time, and Everybody Has A Dream). A few 70s compilations which I enjoy, getting the most joy out of Diamonds And Rust, and Vincent. That mixtape actually was the impetus for the purchase. One side has furry music. Some of the tracks are either still around here on FA, or I have them on the Furry Fantasies 2 CD, or both. But there are two songs that came from the Furry Music Foundation, do not exist anywhere else I know of, and I didn't even remember to write down the artists. My cracked brain thinks the one named Mirror Halls was buy a guy named Nessus, but the one titled Sinai Airships is a complete mystery. That's my kind of deep cut. A niche so niche it was technically ever not niche. Songs by a tiny group from a time when that was even more difficult to do. It's like filk collecting. Which I also did. I listen to that a lot. Mostly biggies, Leslie Fish, Julia Ecklar, now Alexander Adams. There's something cozy about these almost secret things, hidden creations that so few people know. They're very special. Oh and rounding it out, I've got The Boss, Greetings From Asbury Park NJ, and Voltaire will always be a part of my collection. I cycle through Devil's Bris, Almost Human, and Ooky-Spooky.