Culture Greyhound

Every Saturday, I post a 15-20 minute podcast featuring some tracks I’ve been jamming the previous week, as well as some commentary and random musings from yours truly. Enjoy!

Playlist:

Hall & Oates – You Make My Dreams Come True
Tears For Fears – Sowing the Seeds of Love
Matthew Wilder – Break My Stride
Hall & Oates – I Can’t Go For That

The best way I can describe something as downright odd as the sound of Eric Braden, aka NYC’s Old Bowl, well…..I really can’t. You’re just gonna have to go download Intricate Days and find out for yourself. Braden recently dropped the LP on his site in that DIY pay-what-you-want style we all love so much.  But perhaps if J Dilla decided he loved the Books and his favorite Beatles song was “Revolution 9,” that would be akin to the sharp, sound collage mindfuck Old Bowl has put together here.  There is nary a stale moment; the listener is engaged throughout the spaced-out clipped beats, sampled dialogue, and snipped obscure songs.  It’s a stirring compilation of progressive beats, mesmerizing melodies, and, at times, beautiful chaos.  Take the trip for yourself.

Take a listen to “SHAME:”

Spring break is upon us, and with it the finest week of the year, SXSW.  As is customary, my friends and I are gonna RAGE and make like Andrew W.K. and PARTY HARD and all that good stuff.  New parties and showcases are being announced every day, and next week I hope to have a list of my picks for ones to check out.  In the meantime, however, after the jump is a list of bands I am hoping to see this year while meandering around downtown Austin, and you should try your damndest to see them as well.

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Out of all the 70’s-80’s arena rock groups, who are now staples of the yacht rock club (think REO Speedwagon, Styx, Foghat, Foreigner, et al), Journey is probably the one whose popularity has endured and been passed on to a younger crowd better than the others.  Why?  Well, perhaps it’s because everyone’s parents owned a copy of the band’s Greatest Hits album (shown above). After all, it has sold 15 million copies and spent 760 weeks on the Billboard charts, and it’s Journey’s best selling album.

Maybe it’s because “Don’t Stop Believing” has never exactly left the pop music consciousness; it was, after all, the only thing my Freshmen roommate would listen to whenever he came home – I mean, he would just blare it repeatedly, over and over and over and over.  Not to mention it’s a karaoke staple and pretty much the most unavoidable song in the history of the world….I hate that I still like it, I really do.

Everything off this compilation is heard on the radio every day, and in bars, clubs, and the occasional Girl Talk mashup.  And Journey, as this comp proves, had some pretty badass songs (even though “Lights” and “Lovin’ Touchin’ Squeezin'” are pretty much the same song).  Sure, Journey’s greatest hits aren’t perfect, there are some duds, and sorry, world, but these guys can’t top my love for Foreigner or REO, but there are some jams in here, particularly “Any Way You Want It.”  How can you not crank it when that one comes on?

“Any Way You Want It”

“Lovin’ Touchin’ Squeezin'”

“Lights”

Today I continue a series of posts dedicated to the best albums of the last decade, posting analysis of one album at a time.

41. TV On the Radio – Dear Science

Though not as groundbreaking as the group’s first two albums, Dear Science was arguably the big breakthrough to mainstream popularity TV On the Radio had been working so hard to accomplish – they had finally found a way to incorporate their pop-craft tendencies into sharply constructed accessible songs. While Return to Cookie Mountain still had an experimental tendency, Dear Science is mostly a more straightforward recording all the way through – it simply picks up where “Wolf Like Me” left off.

Kyp Malone’s harmonizing is in full force here – it’s even more at the forefront, since that ultimately is TV On the Radio’s trademark.  His “oohs” and “aahhs” are backbones to some tightly built indie dance.  David Bowie’s not around to help lay down the boogie, but it hardly matters; wound up rump-shakin’ “Golden Age” and “Dancing Choose” are two of the best upbeat tracks the band has put together.  Meanwhile, the group continues to expand and flex their songwriting muscle, with jam “Crying” and the strong ballad “Family Tree.”

In just a few weeks, we’ll have the first new material from TV On the Radio since this album was dropped back in 2008, and first samples sound promising, even if they seem similar to the groundwork lain here.  With smart writing, concise production, and an always energetic live presence, Dear Science, which debuted on the Billboard 200 at #12, was the group’s first shining moment in the spotlight of “big bands” in the world of indie rock.  TV On the Radio has always been a progressive collective, and I look forward to their triumphant return in 2011.

TV On the Radio – Halfway Home

TV On the Radio – Dancing Choose

TV On the Radio – Golden Age

Every Saturday, I post a 15-20 minute podcast featuring some tracks I’ve been jamming the previous week, as well as some commentary and random musings from yours truly. Enjoy!

Playlist:

Architecture In Helsinki – Contact High
The Cool Kids – Bundle Up
Wavves – Horse Shoes
James Vincent McMorrow – If I Had a Boat (Star Slinger R ‘n’ B Thug Mix)

Today I continue my ongoing feature showcasing my personal picks for the best songs of the past decade, posting ten songs at a time.

50. Passion Pit – Sleepyhead

Named my favorite song of 2009, I’ve already explained how much I love this song. Even a casual reader of the blog knows how many times I’ve blared it loudly, as I’m doing right now. It never gets old. The song is littered with hooks – in the singing, in the wordless chorus, in the sampling, in the background synths. It all just works. And Passion Pit will likely never top it.

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This is just too cool.  Stereogum posted a discovered archive of two streams that play every US #1 hit from 1956 to 1992 – each track is about 5 seconds long.  Whether the archivist, named Hugo Kessing, decided to do this in lieu of Billboard reaching their 1000th #1 song (Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way”) or not is anybody’s guess, but nevertheless, this is an awesome afternoon killer, as it was for me inevitably, and a pretty solid observation of the evolution of popular music over the many years.  And if Wikipedia is any indication, this is more or less accurate from the year Elvis had his first #1 to the year grunge took over (though you won’t find any evidence of that here).  The first stream is about 45 minutes, the second is about half an hour.  Now we just need someone to go from ’93 to the present….

Five Seconds Of Every #1 Pop Single Part 1 by mjs538

Five Seconds Of Every #1 Pop Single Part 2 by mjs538

Some stray observations:

-We can slowly see rock and roll take it all over hit by hit, mostly by Elvis, but slowly by others.  Of course, the first rock and roll #1 wasn’t by the King, but by Bill Haley and His Comets in 1955 for “Rock Around the Clock.”

-When the Beatles broke, Elvis all but disappeared.  The Fab Four consistently sprang up #1’s every year, but nothing like their debut on American shores at the beginning of 1964.  Elvis showed up with a comeback hit in 1968 for “Suspicious Minds,” and then disappeared.  The last Beatles #1 was “The Long and Winding Road.”  All four Beatles scored solo #1 hits through the 70’s and 80’s, the most of course by Paul McCartney, who cashed in with his band Wings.  Ringo even had a few; George scored an surprising #1 with his re-do of “Got My Mind Set On You” in 1987, the last #1 for a Beatle.  John Lennon’s last #1, “Just Like Starting Over,” stayed on top from late December 1980 through January of ’81.  He was killed on December 8, and never saw this happen.

-The slow build of disco is apparent and all too real by 1976, with the Bee Gees breaking through to the top.  By 1978, that’s pretty much all that’s topping the charts, even disco novelty (like “Disco Duck,” the song that made Rick Dees a prominent public figure, destined to ruin weekends on the radio for years to come).

-This should remind you that the 80’s were just really fucking awesome.  While the Knack’s “My Sharona” is credited as the song that “killed disco,” it didn’t entirely, though it did a pretty solid job overall when it hit #1 in 1979.  Just a few weeks later, the first “new wave” #1 was by M – “Pop Muzik.”  We then start to see more new wave groups breaking through, particularly Blondie.

-Among the British Invasion, Motown and Phil Spector’s girl groups also scored many hits throughout the 60’s.  Frankie Valli stayed around from before the Beatles with the Four Seasons to the late 70’s, providing the hit theme to Grease.

-Speaking of themes, they are everywhere in the 70’s and 80’s.  Chariots of Fire, Flashdance, Footloose, Back to the Future, S.W.A.T., and Miami Vice all reached #1.

-Barbara Streisand and Barry Manilow just like to ruin everything. Consistently. All the time.

-The 70’s were an awesome decade for music, though you wouldn’t know that from observing what made #1 during those years.

-The years 1989-1991 are mostly unbearable.  Seriously, especially ’89, where the breakout stars for the year, Milli Vanilli, who had three #1’s, ended up being a couple of lip synching no-talents.

-The first rap #1 was in 1990 by Vanilla Ice (“Ice Ice Baby”).  The first REAL rap #1 was in 1991 by PM Dawn (“Set Adrift On Memory Bliss”).