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miko2I love pop music. I hate pop music. Much pop music is bland, uninteresting, predictable, unchallenging, and beyond boring. Witness any boy band or pop diva of the last 15 years.
But you know, a pop tune with great pop vocals like the Beatles, Beach Boys, or Abba -- now that's what I like.
The first albumn (cassette actually) that I ever bought with my own money was a greatest hits collection of Abba. I played that thing to death.
I can't even remember now which of Abba's songs I had actually heard on the radio before. S.O.S., certainly. Mamma Mia or Waterloo? Maybe. Ring Ring? Bang A Boomerang? Honey Honey? These were not hits in the U.S. so it's unlikely that I ever heard them on the radio back then, but in my mind they're all big Abba hits that I'm extremely familiar with.
When the Go Go's came along I fell in love with them, too. Especially their third albumn, Talk Show, which was more aggressive, because I'm both a sucker for good pop vocals and for aggressive, hard, complex rock music. Not that the Go Go's were ever complex, but they wrote good pop lyrics and rocked hard and had great vocals. So I was sad that they broke up after three releases. Belinda Carlise was successful as a solo artist, but her music didn't have the bite that the Go Go's had.
About the same time, the Bangles were exploding with songs like "Manic Monday" and "Walk Like An Egyptian", but at first I didn't really like them that much. They seemed like the Go Go's without Belinda Carlisle and minus any hard rock edge. They were all-pop, and I placed them in that category of pop that wasn't very interesting to me.
But on their third release (Everything) they did a cover of "Hazy Shade of Winter" that just rocked. I loved that. And on the same albumn was a song, "In My Room" which was a great hard rock pop tune.
So I changed my mind about the Bangles, they were pretty cool after all. Later when I got to hear some of their early stuff, I liked that too. "Going Down To Liverpool" is a fantastic power pop tune.
So... where does this all lead? On Sunday I hit Half Price Books and picked up some cheap music. One $3 was an Abba tribute cd. Mostly for me, tribute cds are a mixed bag... I get to hear Abba songs played by people I don't like as much, often stripped of the qualities that made them great songs to listen to, like the lush vocals and sharp pop instrumentation. And if a band tries instead to emulate the original band, they're not likely to measure up to the original. But usually there's a few tracks at least where the song itself conquers all, and you like the new interpretation as well as the old.
So... it was worth about $3 I think. The most fun was reading that Abba got as much or more money from their song "Hasta Manana", not because it was a big hit for them (it wasn't) but because Debbie Boone covered it as the b-side for "You Light Up My Life".
Another thing I picked up was "All Over The Place" by the Bangles, their first cd, with "Hero Takes A Fall" and "Going Down To Liverpool" on it. Those are clearly the best tracks, but the rest of the cd isn't bad.
And a third thing I picked up was "God Bless The Go Go's". This is an awesome pickup for $3. It's a brand new cd by the band, put out in 2001, their first new studio albumn in 17 years. It's popular these days for old rock groups to get back together and release new material -- in fact I recently picked up Boston's 4th cd "Corporate America" and Electric Light Orchestra's newest release "Zoom" -- but often the results are lackluster, not up to the standards the band set in the past.
Not so with the Go Go's. Their new release is very likely the best thing they've ever done. They haven't lost a step anywhere -- Belinda Carlise's voice sounds as good as it did in 1982, their songwriting is stronger than ever, and they're even more aggressive musically than on Talk Show.
Really makes you wonder what might have been. I really hope they stick together for a while this time.
Anyway, on the subject of pop music, two things I ordered from Amazon.com came in yesterday. Never mind that there are two other big shipments that I ordered in late December and early January that I haven't seen yet. What I got yesterday was one of the Rough Guide cds -- Arabesque, a cd of Arabic electronica, mixing traditional Arab music with modern dance. Should be fun. ^_^
But the other release is also fun, and I'm listening to it now. Gary Lucas, a guitarist who used to be in Captain Beefheart. Apparently he spent a part of his childhood in Taiwan, and fell in love with Chinese pop music. So his latest cd, "The Edge Of Heaven" is him and a few other musicians covering classic Taiwanese/Chinese pop tunes. Because of Gary's blues rock background, the songs take on a sort of bluesy/east-west feel, which seems very natural. He was interviewed on NPR and talked about how a lot of this music feels like the blues to him -- sad and soulful. Anyway, I had to order it. Very very cool stuff!
But you know, a pop tune with great pop vocals like the Beatles, Beach Boys, or Abba -- now that's what I like.
The first albumn (cassette actually) that I ever bought with my own money was a greatest hits collection of Abba. I played that thing to death.
I can't even remember now which of Abba's songs I had actually heard on the radio before. S.O.S., certainly. Mamma Mia or Waterloo? Maybe. Ring Ring? Bang A Boomerang? Honey Honey? These were not hits in the U.S. so it's unlikely that I ever heard them on the radio back then, but in my mind they're all big Abba hits that I'm extremely familiar with.
When the Go Go's came along I fell in love with them, too. Especially their third albumn, Talk Show, which was more aggressive, because I'm both a sucker for good pop vocals and for aggressive, hard, complex rock music. Not that the Go Go's were ever complex, but they wrote good pop lyrics and rocked hard and had great vocals. So I was sad that they broke up after three releases. Belinda Carlise was successful as a solo artist, but her music didn't have the bite that the Go Go's had.
About the same time, the Bangles were exploding with songs like "Manic Monday" and "Walk Like An Egyptian", but at first I didn't really like them that much. They seemed like the Go Go's without Belinda Carlisle and minus any hard rock edge. They were all-pop, and I placed them in that category of pop that wasn't very interesting to me.
But on their third release (Everything) they did a cover of "Hazy Shade of Winter" that just rocked. I loved that. And on the same albumn was a song, "In My Room" which was a great hard rock pop tune.
So I changed my mind about the Bangles, they were pretty cool after all. Later when I got to hear some of their early stuff, I liked that too. "Going Down To Liverpool" is a fantastic power pop tune.
So... where does this all lead? On Sunday I hit Half Price Books and picked up some cheap music. One $3 was an Abba tribute cd. Mostly for me, tribute cds are a mixed bag... I get to hear Abba songs played by people I don't like as much, often stripped of the qualities that made them great songs to listen to, like the lush vocals and sharp pop instrumentation. And if a band tries instead to emulate the original band, they're not likely to measure up to the original. But usually there's a few tracks at least where the song itself conquers all, and you like the new interpretation as well as the old.
So... it was worth about $3 I think. The most fun was reading that Abba got as much or more money from their song "Hasta Manana", not because it was a big hit for them (it wasn't) but because Debbie Boone covered it as the b-side for "You Light Up My Life".
Another thing I picked up was "All Over The Place" by the Bangles, their first cd, with "Hero Takes A Fall" and "Going Down To Liverpool" on it. Those are clearly the best tracks, but the rest of the cd isn't bad.
And a third thing I picked up was "God Bless The Go Go's". This is an awesome pickup for $3. It's a brand new cd by the band, put out in 2001, their first new studio albumn in 17 years. It's popular these days for old rock groups to get back together and release new material -- in fact I recently picked up Boston's 4th cd "Corporate America" and Electric Light Orchestra's newest release "Zoom" -- but often the results are lackluster, not up to the standards the band set in the past.
Not so with the Go Go's. Their new release is very likely the best thing they've ever done. They haven't lost a step anywhere -- Belinda Carlise's voice sounds as good as it did in 1982, their songwriting is stronger than ever, and they're even more aggressive musically than on Talk Show.
Really makes you wonder what might have been. I really hope they stick together for a while this time.
Anyway, on the subject of pop music, two things I ordered from Amazon.com came in yesterday. Never mind that there are two other big shipments that I ordered in late December and early January that I haven't seen yet. What I got yesterday was one of the Rough Guide cds -- Arabesque, a cd of Arabic electronica, mixing traditional Arab music with modern dance. Should be fun. ^_^
But the other release is also fun, and I'm listening to it now. Gary Lucas, a guitarist who used to be in Captain Beefheart. Apparently he spent a part of his childhood in Taiwan, and fell in love with Chinese pop music. So his latest cd, "The Edge Of Heaven" is him and a few other musicians covering classic Taiwanese/Chinese pop tunes. Because of Gary's blues rock background, the songs take on a sort of bluesy/east-west feel, which seems very natural. He was interviewed on NPR and talked about how a lot of this music feels like the blues to him -- sad and soulful. Anyway, I had to order it. Very very cool stuff!
