Other people should hear this song...

Kenna - "Better Wise Up"

This song lives on its buildup. The groove in and of itself is great, but the way everything piles up on top of itself until it reaches the bridge is just... man. When the release point hits at the end and the one synth buzz hangs over into the wind down, it really does make me want to wise up.

Yaz - "Bad Connection"

This song is an old favorite that Julia heard once and latched onto. I love the bouncy (synth pop? - sorry I'm terminally dumb about this sort of thing) sound. Favorite lyrics to sing along (especially if Julia is joining in): I wish they'd fix the wires/ cuz my baby don't know/ that I'm leaving in the morning/ and I'm ready to go...

Wanda Jackson - "Funnel of Love"

A kick in the brain reminder that women in country music used to be tough as nails barroom brawlers, as drunk and road-weary as their male counterparts. One foot in spector-pop, the other in rockabilly, and enough gravel in her voice to make the pretty pieces shine through like diamonds.

R. Dean Taylor - "There's a Ghost in My House"

omg this song! the guitar! vocals! better than the fall cover!!!

"Dames" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akET7aP01_8 because I love the upbeat, cheeky feel of it, and the way the arrangement keeps bubbling along, always kicking up something new and always staying just on the right side of vulgar.

"I Only Have Eyes for You" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLqo77gQrxg similar bubbly, inventive, evolving arrangement to "Dames", but with pleasant sleepy feel, similar to Ronald Binge's "Sailing By" (a ref that will mean nothing outside of the UK, sorry) +++ when the girls all start singing it's very uplifting.

Whoever did the orchestral arrangements for these pieces was the shit! If I could come up with something 1/100th as good as that, I'd be well pleased.

In both cases the tunes are great, ridiculously catchy and, er, "melodic", sorry geir.

I've been totally spazzing out on "classic" hollywood musicals these last few months. Where this came from, I've no idea, if you told me 6 months ago that I'd really dig movies with tap dancing and/or carmen miranda in them I'd have been like "get to fuck!"

Oops, that's 2 songs, not a "single song", sorry Dan.

No, that's fine! I didn't want people to talk about entire albums.

PS: The Flamingos version of "I Only Have Eyes For You" is one of the greatest songs ever recorded. Not only are the harmonies perfect, but the band arrangement is also to die for. Had we not done a tango, I would have suggested that to my wife as our first dance song.

Yeah, there's a slightly weirdly edited clip of The Flamingos' version on Youtube that I play quite a bit (I use youtube as a jukebox at work) , the vocals are heavenly & super-romantic - I don't think you can go wrong with that tune really, I like the Platters version and Peggy Lee's too, though the original is my favourite. Art Garfunkels, maybe not so much. I kind of wish the Byrds had covered it.

Here is a youtube of the Wanda Jackson song:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2gyfQ-Krz0

BONUS FEATURE: FOOTAGE IS OF CATS LAZILY BRAWLING

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca9HI66ROHY&feature=related

I would be 6? 7? There was this man with the funny voice on Top of the Pops, the first time I'd ever noticed a falsetto I guess. My dad took the mickey a lot. I just loved how dreamy the vocal sounded. It stuck. The Philly sound kills me: the string and brass melodrama kinda 19th century sounding - a bit Tchaikovsky or something - and the voices of total angels, my favourite vocals ever, gliding along across the top. This is my fave Stylistics song I think, because of the switch from the minor key verses to the major key chorus or something. And cos it's so triumphant and joyous. The youtube video gets cut short but I remember it from childhood as clear as anything and it's beautiful and perhaps it was my first idea of what the US was, at least the modern US. And singing on rooftops is always cool.

The Fredric - Born In Fire

perfeck psychedelic pop song. The vocals are particularly alluring -- how he sings "We will die here" etc.

I'm not really obsessed with the song that we used for our first dance at our wedding, but I still mist up idiotically whenever I hear it. It is the version of "Unforgettable" sung as a duet by Nat King Cole and his daughter Natalie Cole. Awesome voices for both father and daughter, and the fact that Nat King Cole was long deceased when it was recorded by his daughter always strikes me as... poignant, I guess.

It's a beautiful song and there were people who were ridiculously impressed with our (rather stilted) fox trot. (Dan, a TANGO! Wow.)

Aside from that dance, the song also calls to mind the first spring we were dating. For whatever reason, it reminds me of how I had a religion class in the chapel that was really long and A. used to pass by it about halfway through. I used to make sure I sat so I could see out the window so I could see him go by.

</end sentimentality - or senti-mentalism?>

Sara,

You should check out Spanish-Romani singer/actor Lolita Flores singing an Andalusian-ish gipsy-inspired duet with her long-dead mother (also a singer/actor) Lola Flores on the eighth track of the album Y Ahora Lola ...Un Regalo a mi Madre, the transcendentally gorgeous A Tu Vera

listen here

HAI!!1 ONLY 1 PERSON HAS DOWNLOADED BORN IN FIER. IT'S NOT LAME I SWEAR.

I'm drinking now. btw.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Wnl1fnYl2k

Sweet Female Attitude - "Flowers" (Sunship Mix)

This is probably the best use of Erick Satie since Pop Will Eat Itself. I love the wide-eyed earnestness of the song and the breezy backing beat. I can't help but fall in love all over again every time I hear it; this, for me, is really the epitome of what I wanted out of two-step.

xpost to remy - Thanks for the suggestion!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXmQnpD6T4Y

Annuals - "Brother"

I first heard this song while listening to The Current one afternoon and it grabbed my attention for some reason; lately it seems to be looping through my head at odd moments. I like the way it starts out seeming kind of quiet, but then halfway through the percussion and everything else kicks in full force. Oddly, while I usually find lyrics to be a really important component of a song, I haven't even bothered to listen to them in this case.

OK, so srsly, anyone who isn't listening to "No Parking (On the Dance Floor)" by Midnight Star on repeat forever is pretty much wasting their life and failing to truly understand the true power and evolutionary possibilities of the vocorder, no matter how squandered they might have been by cher and many of our current popular music stars and also it is funky and it is the JAM.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_Uj1u86lrE

ok so also i specifically remember roller-skating to this song at Saint's West roller rink and haven't thought of it for years and it is awesome

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8OL7I3hpYA&feature=related

Freak-a-zoid also by midnight star

I think you should be required to post photos of yourself roller skating to get everyone in the proper frame of mind.

i discovered it is much easier to rollerskate when you are old enough to get wasted beforehand/during, and thus remove all fear of injury and pain

Wait, what is your excuse for not ice skating again?

After listening, I actually think we need current pictures of John roller skating to these songs. (VERY fun songs, I'm sure they would protect him from any harm.)

Portishead - "Machine Gun" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1HZ6H_b8JY

holy shit

At this point I don't have much more to say than that. This is not really the Portishead everyone knew and loved back in 1997; this is a Portishead that got ahold of a Nitzer Ebb album and decided to distill all of its wistfulness into a poisonous, staccato blast of merciless drum machinery.

"everyone"

Whatever, though, this is gr8

BLUE MONDAY

Leonard Bernstein - "Chichester Psalms", Movement III

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx4Hi9XYqm4

The full version with orchestra is harrowingly beautiful; this organ rendition can't even start to compete but the singing is still excellent.

HERE WE GO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb58gyNVEi0&feature=related

My God, those strings!

The Casinos

i love this v v much (is that enough talk, please don't delete my post.)

That's lovely, estie.

this is a really great idea for a thread & should have a lot more answers, i get like this about songs all the time

Portishead - Nylon Smile

This isn't one of the gonzo tracks from the new album; in fact, it's an exercise in sustained restraint. The groove percolates smoothly underneath a frail vocal line dripping with wistful meloncholia and self-loathing, adorned with a multitude of unobtrusive guitar flourishes that seem determined to take up all 64 tracks on the mixing board by themselves (the foundational backwards guitar part is particularly awesome).

I don't know about the Portishead album. At times her vocals remind me of Muse.

No, better: Evanescence

tombot.muxtape.com people

I've had the same six c.d.s in the changer in my car for the last two months. One of them is the Indigo Girls' Retrospective. While this album has my very favorite Indigo Girls song ever on it (ghost), for some reason, every time I hear Watershed lately, I get a little lift. Favorite lyric, "But ending up where I started again makes me want to stand still." God, no kidding.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mut_T0GcehI

gimlet.muxtape.com

Book of Love - "Boy"

The perfect mix of darkness & cheekiness for a synth-pop song. Cliched chord progression + deadpan vocals + daft lyrics pulled off perfectly. And the bells during the chorus = possibly the catchiest hook ever.

^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8uFN_rvg48&feature=related

Tuung - so how exactly have heard of this until i heard them until some tim buckley cover record? i do live in a cave, but dark vocals, odd harmonies, electroglitchitude, sounds good to me.

this is not that song but it is good

WARNING - "FOLKTRONICA" ugh i hate that term AHEAD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb0JtmjHbMA&NR=1

Hmmmm, I liked that.

But I thought you moved out of your cave and into a house.

Tuung is pretty good.

the improbably named Johann Johannsson, who is from iceland, and is good, and requires that you listen to the whole song because if you miss the grand scope of the thing it will probably seem like soothing orchestral themes but NO it is so much more than that. it is a pretty pretty thing. video for "The Sun's Gone Dim and the Sky's Turned Black"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv4CuIIspdE

if you like this i insist you also listen to late period ulver btw

which is also aweeeeeesome

it sound intersting.

Penelope - Nous sommes comme nous sommes

I've been pretty obsessed with this song lately. some blog comment describes it as "[François] Hardy meets "Whiter Shade of Pale", throw in psych-giallo era Morricone acoustic guitar with a dash of moog and sprinkle of reverb," which is about right. it has something in common melodically with the guitar solo in the Zombies' "Hung Up on a Dream," and like a lot of later Zombies songs, it has an air of stately wistfulness, as if it's meant to be played at the end of a graduation ceremony when people start hugging and saying their goodbyes and trying their hardest to look mature.

just cuz I feel like it, I'll give a blow-by blow of the whole 3 minutes. in the intro, a clean, barely distorted electric guitar plays the song's main riff, accompanied by a high-pitched, reverb-heavy synth with the chiming texture of a glass harmonica. the riff repeats at the end of the second verse, the keyboard lagging behind the guitar by a fraction of a second. for the next verse and chorus, the keyboard fades into an echoey haze, sounding like a distant church choir. post-chorus, it becomes a synthy flute for the length of a verse before morphing into an organ for another verse and guitar break. the choir effect returns during the second chorus. the final verse (which starts off with a neat key change) features a deeper, clearer keyboard sound with the richness of a church organ, which drops out after a few seconds and gives way to a clean, high pitched organ line that continues until the end of the verse. then the singer starts humming the opening riff while the keyboard, suddenly swathed in reverb, plays along. the song ends with the keyboard veering off into new melodic territory before running through the main riff once more. the bass gulps along pertly throughout, and Penelope's sweet, well-annunciated ye-ye girl voice conveys a mixed sense of self-reflection, determination, and uncertainty.

I'm not sure what the lyrics mean, although the title translates to "We Are As We Are" and at one point she sings the French words for "girl" and "boy". I also know very little about Penelope herself. Disques Vogue released this song as a single in 1970, b/w the almost as great 'Les poches sous les yeux'. it seems to be Penelope's only release. she looks like a gothy, dark-haired Nico in the cover photo.

huh, why is this thread in the idiot thread repository?

I feel like I should be able to explain that. Some combination of ITR is where some of us HSTNGS people hang out on ILX now, and we like to talk about music sometimes.

see, I thought Hastings was just another ilx in-joke, whereas it's actually a town in Minnesota whose most notable resident is HI DERE. and I also thought the idiot thread repository was a place where naughty threads go to die, whereas it's actually a place where people from Hastings go to...chit-chat. I don't understand a lot of things, sorry.

No need to apologize!

None of us actually lives in HSTNGS anymore, either. It's less of an ILX in-joke and more like an entire part of our lives was an in-joke.

But yes, HI DERE was our most notable resident, lol.

I didn't know that "most notable" and "black" were synonyms

well they are in Hastings dude

(and as a side note, ITR is many things to many people. it contains multitudes, one of which is HSTNGS, lots of which are me being batshit about whatever i wanna all caps that day/when drunk)

To summarize:

Dan: black and notable
John: batshit and drunk
ITR: lots of stuff here, including HSTNGS
Me: still the most boring

Unregistered: hopefully less confused

This thread: wildly off topic

MORE SONGS LESS CHARACTER SUMMATION

THERE ARE NO SONGS HERE ZOMG!!!

808 State - "Colony"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS39U1tLiY8

This is the lead song on the US edition of Gorgeous, IMO the best album 808 State released. It hits a ton of 90s dance touchstones, from the syncopated beat to the buzzing synths, all wrapped up in the band's meticulous attention to song evolution; the transition from main riff to "verse" riff and back, to segue into a bridge that morphs back into a variation on the verse... These guys were writing instrumentals in relatively strict pop song form that really force you onto the dance floor (see also "San Francisco" from Ex:El, another fantastic album opener).

back on track

*whew*

To summarize:

Dan: black and notable
John: batshit and drunk
ITR: lots of stuff here, including HSTNGS
Me: still the most boring

this is extremely informative!

I don't think you're boring, but hey...)

[/thread derail]

*tempted to post the most boring song I can find, but now I'm actually kind of at a loss, DAMN*

do you have any U2 albums

I had kind of forgotten about them, but YES

Yes is kind of dated but I wouldn't call them boring

I'LL BE THE ROOOOOOOOOOWWWWNDABOUT

okay, I've got it: "Uptown Girl," Billy Joel.

you can't tell me THAT isn't boring.

ok I already have a gimme that nutt dedicated thread so ill just assume you have already listened to that so instead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGmUsJvRv7U

MARTY ROBBINS - BIG IRON

by the time i became aware of this dude as a child he was already a wrinkled 70's country mustache casualty*, so i wrote him off for years until i rediscovered this song thanks to a video game (fallout nv). Theres a quality in his voice that is really hard to put a finger on, but its that weird purity that we hardly ever seem to get nowadays, especially in the bloated corpse of country music. and it slays me every single time.

*no seriously look at this thing:
http://www.cmt.com/sitewide/assets/img/artists/robbins_marty/martyrobbins02-430x250.jpg

oh and in case unregistered hasnt been chased off by my yammering, that penelope thing is pretty interesting - theres a quality to her voice that has bits of the jacques brel is alive and well lady or a more well-mannered eartha kitt slow jam, or a retconned pizzicato 5 or something.

Theres a quality in his voice that is really hard to put a finger on

I think this quality is "being recorded in the 50s"

basically everyone who wasn't doing a blues bellow sounded like this to some degree

You might be right, Dan, but that's probably what makes it likeable? (The mustache is really scary, lol.)

Country music drove me away (not that there was far to go) with the horrible inanity that was "Achy Breaky Heart," and sometimes I suspect I'm missing a lot by not going back and giving it a chance, but as it is I'm already going to pay for even thinking of country music with an unending loop of that in my brain for the next 48 hours.

no modern coutry is, with a very few exceptions, totally vile

country music died on Bicentennial Day ;_;

The only modern country song that I don't hate to pieces that I know of is Lady Antebellum's "Need You Know", which is barely a country song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWWDm9x48ak

Most of it is the harmonies in the chorus, but a good portion is also that the lyrical sentiment is the right mix of sentimental and self-loathing without resorting to annoying RAH RAH AMERICA cliche or being Taylor Swift.

lol "Need You Now"

this, OTOH, is basically everything I hate about country music in one handy package:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmzmHffY6l4

I would love it if Trace Adkins caught on fire for recording this travesty. Everything about it, from the overly-labored baseball imagery to the verging-on-Creed groaning singing to the "kill everyone involved with this" video, is wholly repellent and if is the type of thing you dig, please don't lynch me, bro.

boo yer links do not work ON IPHONE

that lady antebellum is ok, but there is something about the dopey plink plunk piano line in the intro and bridge that is supremely annoying

in sort of a "aw its cute that yer nephew can play the piano but leave him at home next time" sorta way

I made it through 1 minute of that second one before I began having suicidal thoughts and decided it was best to not proceed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ou-6A3MKow&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Can I just

Holy shit

*tries to resist irritating screed about how furious I am that the last 30 years have turned "blues" into a schlocky embarassment*

give in to your anger, young jedi

Wolf >>>> everyone else on Chess

*tries to resist irritating screed about how furious I am that the last 30 years have turned "blues" into a schlocky embarassment*

― O_o-O_0-o_O (jjjusten), Friday, February 25, 2011 11:36 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

pls be my guest

Oh man, I am willing, but it's going to need it's own thread and some prep. I am always kinda o_O about the fact that ilm treats traditional blues as some old hat lockstep musical style w/ no variation most of the times it comes up in casual conversation. Which is so so insane.

i would be interested in some rational discussion on the subject as i have v. mixed feelings about the blues to say the least

#1 hint - things went completely downhill when blues went electric.

(note - no one else will agree w/me on this)

Also Stevie ray Vaughan ruined everything forever.

nah i will totally agree with you

point #2 is kind of a no-brainer

I should prob save this for that later imaginary thread, but if I was doing a why blues is important and not the stereotype people think it is I would prob start w/ (themes listed first)

Redemptive love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHH-jmj7DJQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Upbeat fun second person storytelling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHsRrq1i0lo&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Gothic brutal gospel acceptance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_bBuAMQFvw&feature=youtube_gdata_player