Discography Year Two - Week 1

It's hard to believe that we've started a second year of Discography music discussion, and in some ways harder to believe that it's been half a year since we completed the first one. We have the band back together again, and have added some new souls.  Last year was a wretched, stressful year, and I know how much getting to spend time with you good folks and listening to great music made life a lot easier.

In honor of Gary Beatrice's dominant performance this week I'm including a brief snippet from Whit Stillman's under-rated The Last Day of Disco, where Josh (Matt Kesslar) explains why disco, although it will be misunderstood and parodied, was too big and too important to be dead.  In much the same way, the Discography will be misunderstood and parodied (especially Scudder's pretentious excesses) but it was simply too cool and too much fun not to come back.

Enjoy!!

Gary Beatrice

I'm happy that Gary sent out several year long comments. It was great to revisit forgotten comments but it also saved me from an embarrassing week one mistaken memory. I remembered Dave Kelley criticizing disco in his comments about Sly and the Family Stone. But in rereading his comments I realize we are in full agreement.

 I am paraphrasing, but Dave was saddened that Sly's brilliant funk gave way to its generally watered down offspring: disco. And compared to funk disco was often tepid.

But what I forgot was Dave's comment in the next paragraph, recognizing that some disco was great. And here Dave was again 100% correct. Most of us white teenagers during the mid-seventies peak of disco, hated or ignored it, often for reasons that were racist, even if we didn't recognize them as such. If we wanted to be a bit easier on ourselves we could blame the music industry. Radio aggressively divided listeners into rockers or dancers with no room for fans of both.

Regardless if you wanted to shake your ass, whether while drinking 3.2 beer at Lighthouse Limited, or at a wedding with friends who grew up in the area, you couldn't do much better than playing this soundtrack:

GREAT DISCO SONGS

10. How about a little controversy right out of the chute? When Hot Chocolate released "You Sexy Thing" I did not know a guy who didn't hate it. But Margie liked it. And all the ladies at the teenage nightclubs loved to dance to it. Listen to it now, 4 decades after its release, and hear how those vocals rock. This song is a blast.

9. Race issues abound in disco music, and the issues weren't raised with subtlety. Even in 2017 would a band name itself "Average White Band"? Regardless, listen to "Pick Up The Pieces" in the morning and damned if that great riff ain't buzzing through your brain at night.

8. More than a few disco divas hit the big time. Diana Ross wasn't the best of them, but Love Hangover was the best diva song.

7. Not all funk bands mellowed out in the disco era. I believe Parliament's biggest seller (and best song) was disco favorite "Give Up The Funk". Here's a tune that you can shake your ass and scream your head off with.

6. If there was ever a doubt that Heatwave's "BoogieNights" captured the disco era brilliantly, those doubts were put to rest when a movie about the seventies' porn industry chose the track as its title.

5) Just in case you didn't get enough Heatwave, try on the even stronger tune "The GrooveLine". It's not as well remembered today as "Boogie Nights" because it wasn't selected as the title of a porn biopic (although it would work). I find the groove even more infectious. I also can't resist the "whoo hoo" chant. Good disco does a great job of incorporating memorable chants, and this ranks with the best.

4) "Play That Funky Music" by Wild Cherry is another song addressing race directly. But I frankly can't understand the significance of "White Boy" and I can't figure out the singer's role in the story he sings. Is he the singer in the story, too? Is he a disk jockey? Is he the white boy? If so, does he perceive himself as being threatened or is he flattered by the feedback? I have no idea, and this is disco so I didn't show up for the lyrics. What I know is the music is brash and heavy on the hooks, and the vocals are rock solid. I may get a lot of resistance from by fellow scribes but I love this song, and I think it has aged surprisingly well. Plus "Wild Cherry" is a great band name.

3) At the risk of eliminating any slimmer of cool quotient that I may have remaining, I find the vocals in the Emotions "Best of My Love" to be among the best group vocals in any pop music, disco or not. The singers complement one another, and reach heights that would make Earth Wind and Fire proud. Since half of the members of EWF produced this song, the connection is probably not accidental. This was released shortly after the Eagles tune by the same name and I can remember arguing with high school classmates (not the ones on this site) that the Eagles' song was better.

2) The disco era was nearing its end when Michael Jackson released the fine album Off The Wall which immediately preceded the masterpiece Thriller. For my money the best song on either album is Off The Wall's "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough". Musically the track is relentless and dynamic, and not surprisingly the vocals are every bit as solid. Ironically "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" seemed to give disco more credibility but also helped it become sucked into mainstream pop and ultimately disappear.

1) In my opinion the best disco tune was released early in the disco era, early enough that disco was not yet considered horribly uncool. Labelle's "Lady Marmalade" is irresistibly sexy with its French lyrics and it's burning vocals which have never been matched in any number of covers. Like the best music of any genre "Lady Marmalade" is timeless.

Dave Wallace

World Party - Put the Message in a Box 

Here's an old favorite from World Party, an underrated band from the '80s-'90s.  In addition to being catchy as all heck, there's something about the universality of the song's theme that I've always loved.  "Now is the moment/Please understand/The road is wide open/To the heart of every man/A few simple words ... Put the message in the box/Put the box into the car/Drive the car around the world/Until you get heard"

Phillip Seiler

Jonathan Coulton, All This Time

Jonathan Coulton is a geek's geek. Is he most famous for his Portal anthem, Still Alive? His annual geek cruise, JoCo? His ode to spring fertility, First of May? Does it matter?

All this Time is a surprisingly deep and beautiful tune that explores the limits of humanity. If the TV series Black Mirror were a song, All this Time would be the best episode. I dare you to watch the video and not have feelings for a robot in a text based adventure game. I do not know why this song resonates so deeply with me but in the age of Trump and man's inhumanity toward man, a song about setting a robot free may be all we need or can hope for. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do.

Kathy Seiler

Alicia Keys, Tell You Something (Nana’s Reprise)

With the news of the reprise of the Discography blog, I was both excited and intimidated. Last year I joined the blog well into its course and often skipped weeks or struggled with song selection. It was wonderful experience seeing the entries of people I spend time with, and I felt like I was getting to know those of you whom I have never met. That said, I’ve struggled all summer to figure out what the “right” song is for the first week of Year 2 for my post.

I’m writing this as I’ve returned from a vacation where a few folks involved in this blog spent time with us at a lake in New Hampshire. It was, without a doubt, one of the top three most meaningful and fun vacations I’ve ever taken. Both this experience and getting closer with friends this past year has me thinking about the value of relationships we have with others, whether they are family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, or (for some of us), those we teach. This is the inspiration for my song choice this week. But first, some background.

My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 13, then again two years later at 15. I am a middle child, and because of my mother’s illness, I ended up doing a lot of the parenting of my younger sister, who is eight years my junior. The experience left me in a sort of accelerated growth phase (not of height, as anyone who knows me will gleefully tell you), where I couldn’t rebel in the ways that teenagers do. I ended up becoming a responsible adult far too early and realizing my own mortality at a time when I should have been doing stupid, irresponsible things. While I obviously have regrets about this loss of youth, the experience left me with the realization that life is incredibly short and precious at a very young age. And from that, I realized that the only thing that really gives life meaning is the relationships we have with others. That’s resulted in me sometimes feeling like I wear my heart on my sleeve. I usually don’t hesitate to tell people how much I care for them, which I am not ashamed of, even though my candor can sometimes throw them off guard.

So, this week, you all have my heart. This is a wonderful group of individuals who I appreciate and love, even if I’ve never met you. And because I want to tell you this, my song this week is Alicia Keys’ Tell You Something (Nana’s Reprise). It expresses how I feel and my natural impatience to do so, perfectly.

Thank you all for intertwining your lives with mine.

Kevin Andrews

I Loves You Porgy, Tito Puente's Golden Latin Jazz All Stars - Live at The Village Gate (at 36:08)

Who doesn’t love show tunes? Me, that’s who. I’m not sure why I considered Porgy and Bess a musical, probably because I was force fed musicals before I was old enough to scratch a needle across a The Association record on the hi-fi. That, and it’s in English. Porgy and Bess is an opera. You knew that, didn’t you? If there’s anything I have a lower opinion of than musicals, it’s opera. I’ll make an exception for George and Ira (Great Jewish-Americans, as my friend Sanford would say) and Julie Andrews.

The first song that comes to mind from P&B is the haunting lullaby Summertime. It’s been performed by everyone and their mother. For the record, the definitive version is by Doc Watson. Though many have recorded it I was not familiar with I Loves You, Porgy until I heard the version on the linked disc. I bought the disc at the Flynn Theater during intermission of Tito Puente’s Latin Jazz All-Stars who headlined the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival in 1993. Soon after it became one of my favorite recordings ever. Twenty years later I heard the Billy Holiday version, heard the lyrics and learned how dark the song actually is.

The performers are a Who’s Who of Latin Jazz and they’re at their professional peak. The solos are emotionally wringing, lyrical and poetic, especially Dave Valentin’s flute. The four percussionists and Hilton Ruiz’s piano add a clockwork precision as a rhythm section. If you listen carefully during the solos you’ll hear the rest of the band quietly doing amazing things in the background.

In considering selections without context I went for songs that keep coming back to me over time. Songs that I like to spend time with like old friends. This record, this song, is to me one of the most beautiful things ever made.

I’d suggest you crank the album (Album?) while cleaning to take advantage of its infectious energy. If you listen too closely you’ll get caught up in its heart wrenching beauty. 

Dave Kelley

Ring the bells, slay the fatted calf, gather the finest donuts, schnecken and muffins in all the land!!!!  A big welcome back to the music blog.  Hello to all of the returning musicologists and a big welcome to those who are joining our merry band for the first time.  Part celebration of music, part opportunity to go on and on about whatever is on our mind, and part group therapy for having a barbarian occupying the oval office.  Let's get the party started!!!!!

"What's So Funny 'Bout Peace Love and Understanding"    Elvis Costello

Although I could put together a pretty lengthy list of Elvis Costello songs that I think are fantastic, I am not a huge fan overall.  I find many of his lyrics to be too clever by a half, and a lot of his music leaves me pretty lukewarm.  Back in the day, Dave Wallace and I had many debates with Gary B. about whether or not Gram Parsons was better than Costello.  Of course, DW and I were correct.  

My selection is a fairly obvious one given all of the nonsense going on in the nation and the world at this time.  This has long been one of my favorite Costello songs despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that it was written by Nick Lowe.  Only a cynic like Costello could get away with song titled like "What's So Funny 'Bout Peace Love and Understanding".  The lyrics are simple and powerful, and the instruments just propel the song forward at a furious pace.  Despite the title, Costello absolutely snarls the lyrics. 

I could go on and on (as I certainly will do in future posts) but this time I will let the music do the talking. 

Miranda Tavares

It feels good to be back. Thanks for getting the band back together!

Josh Ritter, Getting Ready to Get Down

Hi, all! It's been a long time. When we were last here we were all still coming to grips with the feces in the face that is our current president, and I like to think we've all come along way since then (not due to any current events, mind you, but because we are all strong, carefree and resilient), so I'd like to start off this blog year on a lighter note. Have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior?

I have incredibly conflicted views about religion. Like a weapon, its use depends on its wielder. It can be a drug or an elixir, a poison or antidote, a cancer or a cure. For those who need solace, a connection to humanity or the earth, a purpose, a sense of belonging, or general guidance, I am sure religion is incredibly helpful. However, for those who feel content to ignore their place in the grand scheme of things, who think there are so many questions there couldn't possibly be acceptable answers and so just forget it all and live so that you feel good about yourself and hope the rest will work itself out, religion can be an unnecessary prescription. And for those who have nefarious intentions, religion is an effective, powerful, and harmful means of control.

Getting Ready to Get Down is about a young girl gently rebelling against her conservative Christian upbringing. She's not running wild, she's just questioning the doctrine, declining to take it on faith, turning away and living in the manner of her choosing. I find the description of such tempered actions in the lyrics pretty compelling. In real life, people rarely cut ties with their upbringing in a sudden and violent manner; it's most often one small choice at a time.  Although the song has been hailed as rockin' alt-country, the music comes across as a bit bland on first listen.  However, it is incredibly catchy, and, after finding myself singing it at random, it has grown on me. Perhaps a more complicated, layered sound would not be such an ear worm. The same is probably true for the chorus. "Get down" is such a generic term. I'm sure Ritter was trying to be all-encompassing in his meaning, not wanting to limit the chorus to just sex (the most popular form of religious rebellion, I believe), but I think in his desire to be limitless he became somewhat meaningless as well. But to try to expound on such complicated ideas in a tap-your-foot manner...well, there's a reason he's on the radio and I'm not. Considering I play this song weekly, I'd say he made the right choice.  

Alice Neiley

Mack the Knife, Live in Berlin, 1960 – Ella Fitzgerald.

If forced to choose an Ella Fitzgerald tune to be stranded with—a deserted island Ella tune, if you will—“Mack the Knife” wouldn’t even make my top five. Not if I was put on the spot, anyway. I’m an insufferably sentimental spirit, and lyrics are often just as, if not more, important to me than the melody. “Mack” doesn’t cut it for me in that department. I’m drawn to “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye,” “Black Coffee,” and especially “Cheek to Cheek,” the song to which my 96-year-old-grandmother remembers dancing with my grandfather for the first time.  

On the other hand, who’s to say I wouldn’t be allowed to choose a second artist to satisfy my craving for melancholy on the island (who makes these rules, anyway *cough* Scudder)? If those were the parameters, and I had a moment to breathe, to think, “Mack the Knife” would not only make my list, it would be the heartbeat. Ella often provides me with an open door to more elusive emotions—joy, for example—which I imagine would be particularly fleeting as I paced back and forth on a lonely patch of sand. And Ella’s live recording of “Mack the Knife” in Berlin, 1960, conjures joy from the air.

It wasn’t until high school that I became obsessed with Fitzgerald. Her voice stopped—stops—me in my tracks. It’s magic. I was quite a serious singer myself at the time, and memorized her every vocal move the best I could, beginning with her rendition of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” I found it on a holiday compilation produced by Pottery Barn and listened to it, and nothing else, on repeat for a week. I subsequently bought the Verve album Pure Ella: The Very Best of Ella Fitzgerald on which “Mack the Knife” is track #1.

There are many (rather obvious) reasons this tune is remarkable, including but not limited to two key changes—modulations upward that perfectly match both the rising energy of Fitzgerald’s voice and that of her brilliant piano/bass/drum trio. And…she breaks every vocal “rule.” Perfectly. She slides between notes, she overemphasizes “r” (“pearrrrrly white”). Classic Fitzgerald.

But this version of “Mack the Knife” is also something akin to revelation. I used to believe, subconsciously I suspect, that sorrow and intensity made for the best (“deepest”) musical experiences, perhaps because songs were my only mirrors for those parts of myself, ones in which I often found myself lost in my teens and 20s. But “Mack the Knife” proved joy could be even stronger—its purity, its spontaneity, its way of bubbling up from an even further depth than sorrow, as if it had been hiding there, waiting for a voice.

Joy: when Ella forgets all the words about halfway through the tune. She’s a pure, natural improvisational genius, and in this moment she lets her forgetfulness (a.k.a. humanness) and her talent fuse. She even dares to imitate Louie Armstrong, and does so in the most charming way possible, capturing not only his rough vocal timbre but also his essence of playfulness.

Joy squared: a more subtle moment (between second 0:30 and 0:33 on the album version; between 0:26 and 0:28 on this youtube version). Subtle and necessary—like the day-in-day-out of love. Between those seconds, on the words “shows them,” you can actually HEAR Ella smile. Those are, without question, my favorite 3 seconds of any song. Unmistakable glee fills the notes. The sudden happiness constricts her vocal chords bit, as if she’s about to laugh out loud but sings instead. In that instant, a warm, expansive feeling blooms up through my whole body. In short, listening to “Mack the Knife” can be the difference between a good and bad mood. I imagine it would also be the difference between a cold, frustrating deserted island experience and a bright one. 

To say the least, I am eternally grateful that I can’t un-hear that tune, that voice, that joy-throated moment. 

Mike Kelly

"Hang Me In the Tulsa County Stars" -- John Moreland

Regrettably, I kick off this second season of the Discography by stating that anything I write about this song will inevitably cheapen the experience of sitting on your deck on a late summer night with a bourbon in hand and letting John Moreland make you feel okay about things for three and a half minutes.  Just go do that. Like now and then read the rest. 

++++++

I think we collectively get into trouble when we're unable to compartmentalize the myriad people, ideas, responsibilities and joys that make up a life.  This is just another way of saying the stuff you've heard before about living in the moment, taking things one day at a time, etc. etc. but it's still so terribly true.  Hanging with John Moreland in that Oklahoma sky is a reminder to do these things, but not necessarily by yourself and that's what makes the song all the more resonate.  

So, darling, let the charmers leave the room
Let them have that Nashville moon
I want to know exactly who you are

Then hang me in the Tulsa County stars 

Being able to shut the world off for awhile and making an authentic connection with someone or something is the reason why some people go to church but for me it's why I listen to songs like this one. I don't want to overstate the case here, but figuring out what it means to do this work is the difference between being miserable about how fucked everything is in 2017 America and being able to find a harbor of serenity that illuminates all the beauty that's still there but a little harder to see.  

Dave Mills

Song: Why Are You So Boring?

Artist: Desperate Journalist

As I begin another year of teaching philosophy and liberal arts, I think I might have to use this song in my grading. I might just have to send a link to this track instead of making written comments for students like the one in this Onion piece: http://www.theonion.com/article/guy-in-philosophy-class-needs-to-shut-the-fuck-up-1804. The song, by Desperate Journalist, is sort of the musical version of that Onion article. Desperate Journalist are a British post-punk band who debuted about 5 years ago. They grew up listening to punk rock, other British bands like the Smiths and The Cure, along with REM and lots of American grunge. The resulting sound is excellent, if you're into this sort of thing. The singer, Jo Bevan, has a great vocal quality that fits nicely with the aggressive bass, drums and electric 12-string guitar that round out the band. It's all slightly reminiscent of Garbage, but with richer texture, a British accent, and stripped of all unnecessary 90s-ness. "Boring," Bevan says, "is inspired by a certain type of irritating person I've spent many evenings with in pubs and at gigs and at clubs and at houses. People who think they are desperately interesting and original and crucially, more desperately interesting and original than anyone they meet, because they have once in their lives given something cultural or political more than a modicum of thought, or because they have been told that they have. These people and their lack of self-awareness and their patronizing chatter and their awful flirting techniques are everywhere. They aren't charming, and they're ten a penny. It's a protest song about tossers." So, if you end up with tossers of this sort in your classrooms or lives in general this academic year, send them a link to this song.

Cyndi Brandenburg

First Aid Kit, Emmylou

Here we go again, ready to embark on another year of shared sensory
and emotional experience through song. This time around, I'm gonna
take chances all over the place, and I commit to avoiding all the old
standbys as I strive to post something that's new (at least to me)
each week that I participate. I am going to take Scudder's invitation
as an opportunity to push myself to seek out new things when it comes
to my musical preferences and tastes, and I'm not going to worry too
much if I discover and share something that proves to be nothing more
than a one-hit-wonder.  As a result, my contributions here will
undoubtedly capture fleeting feelings of infatuation, occasionally
prove to be downright embarrassing (along the lines of, "seriously?
What are you thinking? That song sucks!"), but hopefully more often
than not, reflect an intuitive gut aesthetic that can not only
recognize a worthwhile new song, but also see the potential promise of
its staying power.

This first post is relatively easy because I've had so much time to
think about it.  Credit goes to both the amazing Alice Neiley and
Arctic expedition naturalist Steve Zeff for introducing me to First
Aid Kit this past summer.   I love this song in particular because,
while we can fill the blank spaces in our hearts and our minds in so
many ways, sometimes all we really need is a reliable, well-harmonized
partner in song.  The thrill of the storm is inexplicably great, but
the comfort of the calm steady matters too.  And in the best case
scenario, we get to have them both all together and all wrapped up
into one.

  

Gary Scudder

Cannonball Adderley, Somethin' Else

Remember last year when I said that if we did this again I wouldn't include so much jazz?  Well, as usual, my word means nothing. However, I couldn't even think about starting the second year with any other song because getting together again makes me crazy happy, and I don't know if I can think of a song which more purely expresses joy than the title track of Cannonball Adderley's 1958 album Somethin' Else.  Last year I championed the song Autumn Leaves from the same album, but I think I actually like this song better (I guess what I'm saying is that this is an essential album).  The truly excellent quintet featured on this album are Cannonball Adderley, Hank Jones, Sam Jones, Art Blakey, and, oh yeah, some guy named Miles Davis.  It's about the only time that I can think of Miles Davis essentially acting as a sideman once he had become MILES DAVIS, and maybe that's one of the reasons why it's so good.  We think of Miles Davis as a protean genius who reinvented jazz repeatedly (which is why, as every right-thinking individual knows, Davis was the greatest American genius of the 20th century) but it's sometimes easy to forget that he was an extraordinary musician as well; essentially, the son of a bitch could play.  It was Cannonball Adderley's album and that allowed Davis to just play, and there is an undeniable and infectious joy in his playing.  The strange comparison I'll make is to the Neil Young and Crazy Horse album Americana, where they put their own peculiar stamp on American classics, and they are clearly just having a great time with no pressure to promote new songs.  Everything about Somethin' Else is wonderful, but to me THE MOMENT is around six and a half minutes in when at the end of a Hank Jones piano solo Davis and Adderley just blow it out and bring it home in a transcendent moment that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.  It doesn't matter how dreadful life is at any particular moment, you cannot listen to Somethin' Else and not be instantly happier.