Aimee Mann - I Should've Known

 #Aimee Mann #alternative rock #alternative pop #pop rock #singer-songwriter #folk pop #1990s #ex-'Til Tuesday

Aimee Mann is from Virginia, and is one of many successful Berklee College of Music dropouts. She is known for her straightforward but somewhat sorrowful style of Pop-Rock. Her albums often tell stories, sometimes a different tale with each song, and sometimes with concept albums based on a particular storyline, as with The Forgotten Arm (2005). She experimented with different musical styles in the 1980s, first dropping out of college to perform with her punk band Young Snakes, then founding new wave act 'Til Tuesday with Michael Hausman. 'Til Tuesday's best-known song is the anthemic breakup ballad "Voices Carry." She went on to record three full albums with 'Til Tuesday before embarking upon a solo career. Mann’s songwriting style has taken on a signature morose tone over the years since her foray into New Wave. Known for collaborations with independent creatives in film and comedy such as P.T. Anderson and Paul F. Tompkins respectively, Mann explores the dark sides of human nature in her songs. She says, "There is always a fair amount of moments where I write something that I suddenly realize is a very apt description of a situation that's uncomfortable or horrible, but that the very accuracy of it makes me laugh, even though I can't really expect that other people will. It's a bit of a gallows humor, maybe."  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/aimee-mann

Wilson Pickett - In the Midnight Hour

 #Wilson Picket #soul #R&B #Southern soul #rock & roll #deep soul #Stax/Atlantic #1960s

Wilson Pickett was an American singer-songwriter, whose explosive style helped define the soul music of the 1960s. Pickett was a product of the Southern black church, and gospel was at the core of his musical manner and onstage persona. He testified rather than sang, preached rather than crooned. His delivery was marked by the fervor of religious conviction, no matter how secular the songs he sang. Along with thousands of other Southern farm workers, Pickett migrated in the 1950s to industrial Detroit, Michigan, where his father worked in an auto plant. His first recording experience was in pure gospel. He sang with the Violinaires and the Spiritual Five, modeling himself after Julius Cheeks of the Sensational Nightingales, a thunderous shouter. Pickett’s switch to secular music came quickly. As a member of the Falcons, a hardcore rhythm-and-blues vocal group, he sang lead on his own composition “I Found a Love” (1962), one of the songs that interested Atlantic Records producer Jerry Wexler in Pickett as a solo artist. “Pickett was a pistol,” said Wexler, who nicknamed him “the Wicked Pickett” and sent him to Memphis, Tennessee, to write with Otis Redding’s collaborator, guitarist Steve Cropper of Booker T. and the MG’s. The result was a smash single, “In the Midnight Hour” (1965). From that moment on, Pickett was a star. With his dazzling good looks and confident demeanor, he stood as a leading exponent of the Southern-fried school of soul singing. His unadorned straight-from-the-gut approach was accepted, even revered, by a civil-rights-minded pop culture.  From: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Wilson-Pickett

OvO - You Living Lie

 #OvO #noise rock #sludge metal #industrial #extreme metal #experimental #avant garde #dark electronica #Italian

OvO is an Italian noise rock duo formed by Stefania Pedretti and Bruno Dorella in 2000 in Ravenna, Italy. The two initially planned for the band to be totally improvisation-based with an open lineup. After encouragement from members of their local music scene to become a band and tour, they decided to do so in order to play with Cock ESP, an extreme noise band from Minneapolis. Since, the pair have released eight full-length albums on a variety of international record labels. The origin of the band's name, OvO, stems from using a piece of the Italian word "nuovo", or new, which creates a palindrome. Decibel Magazine summarizes OvO's 2016 album, Creatura, as "making rhythmic, layered, sludgy noise" and a "David Lynch dance party.” Counting Swans and Diamanda Galás as their biggest influences, Pedretti and Dorella are known for primitive industrial sounds and Pedretti's theatrically dark vocals. The band is set up in minimalist fashion, with only two members, one of whom plays a half drum kit. Stereogum's Doug Moore described the band's sound as, "music – rhythmic noise, really – that simmers with a flat-affect malice, owing equal debts to extreme metal, noise rock, industrial music, and dark electronica," while Christian Eede of The Quietus recalled their music as being "punctuated by slamming, swampy drums, squalls of feedback and punchy guitar riffs, as well as Stefania Pedretti's no-holds-barred vocal."  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OvO_(band)#cite_note-Decibel_Magazine-5

Chelsea Wolfe - Carrion Flowers

 #Chelsea Wolfe #dark folk #gothic rock #experimental rock #noise rock #ethereal wave #industrial #doom metal #black metal #electronic #singer-songwriter #music video

“What I want is to open up. I want to know what’s inside me. I want everybody to open up. I’m like an imbecile with a can opener in his hand, wondering where to begin—to open up the earth. I know that underneath the mess everything is marvelous. I’m sure of it.”
– Henry Miller
Digging beneath the mess of the world to find the beauty underneath is perhaps the most consistent theme in Chelsea Wolfe’s expansive discography—a theme that ties together her ceaseless explorations in unorthodox textures, haunting melodies, and mining the grandeur embedded within ugliness and pain. With her sixth official album Hiss Spun, Wolfe adopts Miller’s quest to become empowered by embracing the mess of the self, to control the tumult of the soul in hopes of reigning in the chaos of the world around us. “I wanted to write some sort of escapist music; songs that were just about being in your body, and getting free,” Wolfe says of the album before extrapolating on the broader scope of her new collection of songs. “You’re just bombarded with constant bad news, people getting fucked over and killed for shitty reasons or for no reason at all, and it seems like the world has been in tears for months, and then you remember it’s been fucked for a long time, it’s been fucked since the beginning. It’s overwhelming and I have to write about it.”
Hiss Spun was recorded by Kurt Ballou in Salem, Massachusetts at the tail end of winter 2017 against a backdrop of deathly quiet snow-blanketed streets and the hissing radiators of warm interiors. While past albums operated on the intimacy of stripped-down folk music (The Grime and the Glow, Unknown Rooms), or the throbbing pulse of supplemental electronics (Pain Is Beauty, Abyss), Wolfe’s latest offering wrings its exquisiteness out of a palette of groaning bass, pounding drums, and crunching distortion. It’s an album that inadvertently drew part of its aura from the cold white of the New England winter, though the flesh-and-bone of the material was culled from upheavals in Wolfe’s personal life, and coming to terms with years of vulnerability, anger, self-destruction, and dark family history. Aside from adding low-end heft with gratuitous slabs of fuzz bass, longtime collaborator Ben Chisholm contributed harrowing swaths of sound collages from sources surrounding the artist and her band in recent years - the rumble of street construction at a tour stop in Prague, the howl of a coyote outside Wolfe’s rural house in California, the scrape of machinery on the floor of a warehouse at a down-and-out friend’s workplace. Music is rendered out of dissonance - bomb blasts from the Enola Gay, the shriek of primates, the fluttering pages of a Walt Whitman book are manipulated and seamlessly integrated into the feral and forlorn songs of Hiss Spun.  From: https://chelseawolfe.net/bio/

Nine Inch Nails - Broken

#Nine Inch Nails #Trent Reznor #industrial #alternative rock #electronic rock #industrial rock #industrial metal #ambient #transgressive #banned music video

Nine Inch Nails’ Broken (also known as The Broken Movie) is a 1993 short film featuring four music videos from the Broken EP with wrap-around segments shot in the style of an amateur snuff film. The extremely graphic film was directed by Peter Christopherson of Throbbing Gristle, Coil, and Hipgnosis design group fame. The NSFW video has never seen an official release (perhaps because no label would want to put their name on it?) and has to this day been a difficult piece to track down. The terrifying, violent, and unforgettable film was originally “leaked” by Trent Reznor himself via hand-dubbed VHS tapes in the ‘90s. The original tapes were given by Reznor to various friends with video dropouts at certain points so he could know who redistributed any copies that might surface. Reznor later implied in a comment on the Nine Inch Nails website that Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers was responsible for the most prominent leak of the original tape. In 2006 and 2013 the film was briefly “leaked” to the Internet, many believe by Reznor himself. In both cases, the film disappeared quickly. In the case of the 2013 “leak,” the entire video was made available for streaming on Vimeo via the Nine Inch Nails Tumblr account, but was removed by Vimeo almost immediately.  From: https://dangerousminds.net/comments/broken_nine_inch_nails_infamous_unreleased_snuff_film_now_online_nsfw_watch

 

David Crosby - Laughing

 #David Crosby #Crosby, Stills & Nash #folk #folk rock #West coast folk rock #singer-songwriter #contemporary folk #ex-The Byrds #1970s

The ’60s were over and David Crosby was living on a boat. Aside from the recording studio, his 59-foot schooner, named The Mayan, was the only place where things made sense. When Crosby was 11, his parents decided to enroll their son in sailing classes. The wild-eyed, giggling California kid had an anti-authoritarian streak that was starting to get him in trouble, and some time on the docks, they imagined, might give him some discipline, or at least a place to spend his summers. Sailing came naturally, like he had captained many vessels in a previous life. It was an uncanny feeling, comforting and strange. As the decade came to a close, Crosby wrote the title track of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s blockbuster album Déjà Vu about this very sensation.
Around the same time, he experienced his first major loss. In 1969, on her way to take the cats to the vet, Crosby’s girlfriend Christine Hinton swerved her van and crashed into a school bus. She died instantly. Grief-stricken and depressed, Crosby stood at the start of a long spiral that would consume his next two decades. “I watched a part of David die that day,” his bandmate Graham Nash wrote. “He wondered aloud what the universe was doing to him.” He turned to hard drugs. Fifteen years later, he was in prison, almost unrecognizable, the creative spark that had defined him all but dissipated. Crosby seemed to exist only in the past tense.
While 1971’s If I Could Only Remember My Name is the first release credited to Crosby as a solo artist - and for a long time, the only release - it’s an album defined by harmony, community, and togetherness. The backing band is composed of members of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, with notable appearances from Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and Graham Nash. At the time of its release, these were some of the most popular names in music, nearly all of them coming off respective career-bests and commercial peaks. And yet together, they sound gloriously abstract. The music feels the way a dream sounds when you try to retell it in the morning: foggy, only loosely coherent, dissolving in real time.
This is David Crosby’s fingerprint. Look back at his earliest songs and you can hear an artist fighting against the confines of popular music. He played guitar in strange ways, opting for odd tunings that carried his songs and lyrics to unexpected places. His first great song, the Byrds’ “Everybody’s Been Burned,” sounds a little like a standard, except for the bass soloing through the entire thing. Later, in a cut called “What’s Happening?!?!,” he sang through what sounds like barely contained laughter, like someone exasperated with how much they have to say, realizing how words fail our deepest visions. The band can barely keep up with him.
The story goes, Crosby was kicked out of the Byrds for a few reasons. One, he was a pain to work with. Two, he had taken to indulging in long rants on stage, veering toward conspiracy theories about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Third, he had written this troublesome little song about a threesome. Continuing his nonmonogamous streak, he had also accepted a role playing with Stephen Stills in Buffalo Springfield at the Monterey Pop Festival. His bandmates took it as a sign of disloyalty—or maybe just an excuse to abandon him. Soon after his dismissal from the Byrds, Crosby and Stills began working with the Hollies’ Graham Nash on a new project focused on tight songwriting and three-part harmony. With Nash, Crosby found his most natural and consistent partner: someone who laughed at his jokes, provided comfort and wisdom when he needed it, and joined him on The Mayan for long treks down the California coast.
Near the end of If I Could Only Remember My Name, Nash and Crosby duet on a gorgeous, wordless piece of music, scatting along to one of the best melodies Crosby ever wrote. “I called it ‘A Song With No Words,’” he announces proudly at a show in 1970, gesturing toward Nash at his side. “He called it ‘A Tree With No Leaves.’ That shows you where he’s at.” The audience laughs. On the sleeve of the record, the song has both titles, Nash’s in parentheses, a symbolic compromise that speaks to the group mentality of the record. Alone with his music, Crosby heard sketches. With his friends around, they became forces of nature.
The creation of the album involved Crosby spending idle time alone in the studio, leaning against a wall or collapsing into tears, before his collaborators arrived to elevate the mood and enliven the music. Jerry Garcia’s pedal steel and Joni Mitchell’s harmony vocals turn “Laughing,” the most conventional song on the record, into the psych-folk ideal: a lazy sunset that gains resonance as it subdues. The kaleidoscopic opener “Music Is Love” was just a plaintive guitar riff before the choir turned it into a commune. “Everybody’s saying that music is love,” they all sing, one after the other, creating a world where it’s true.
Crosby was adamant not to let his pain define the record. “I got no more understanding than an ant does when you pull off his legs,” he told Rolling Stone about his grief. He spoke about his desire to keep the sadness to himself — “It was the most horrible trip of my life and nobody needs to go on it” — so that his music could remain an escape. The album ends up somewhere in the middle. It’s a peaceful but broken sound.
The only song with a narrative arc is “Cowboy Movie.” It tells the thinly veiled story of CSNY dissipating, less interesting for its hippy-comedown mythology than its depiction of a narrator finding himself more desperate and alone with each passing minute. The story is in the music too: a gnarled, paranoid skeleton of Young’s 1969 song “Down by the River” that crackles and fades like a dying campfire. Crosby’s voice is more ragged than usual. “Now I’m dying here in Albuquerque,” he sings at the end. “I might be the sorriest sight you ever saw.”
The record closes with two songs that Crosby recorded by himself. Both are mostly a cappella, his voice layered to sound angelic and vast. “I was sitting there, kind of goofing around,” he said of the experiments, “And then all of a sudden I wasn’t goofing around.” Titled “I’d Swear There Was Somebody Here,” the closing song has since been identified as Crosby’s elegy for Christine. On a record that includes some of his most pointed writing about politics (“What Are Their Names”) and loss (“Traction in the Rain”), this was his clearest statement. He sounds helpless, haunted.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/david-crosby-if-i-could-only-remember-my-name/

Black Sabbath - Hole in the Sky

#Black Sabbath #Ozzy Osbourne #heavy metal #hard rock #classic rock #heavy blues rock #British blues rock #doom metal #heavy metal pioneers #1970s

Sabotage is the final release of Black Sabbath's legendary First Six, and it's also the least celebrated of the bunch, though most die-hard fans would consider it criminally underrated. Sabotage came at a time when Sabbath was turning in one platinum record after the next, and critics were finally starting to appreciate the band as much as their fans. It also came during a lengthy and bitter legal battle between the band and their former management, which no doubt informed lyrical themes of betrayal and paranoia as well as the pervasive overall feeling of life itself unraveling. Musically, the band continues further down the proto-prog metal road of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, and this time around, the synthesizers feel more organically integrated into the arrangements. What's more, the song structures generally feel less conventional and more challenging. There's one significant exception in the blatant pop tune "Am I Going Insane (Radio)," which rivals "Changes" as the most fan-loathed song of the glory years, thanks to its synth-driven arrangement (there isn't even a guitar riff) and oft-repeated one-line chorus. But other than that song and the terrific album-opener "Hole in the Sky," the band largely eschews the standard verse-chorus format, sticking to one or two melody lines per riffed section and changing up the feel before things get too repetitive. The prevalence of this writing approach means that Sabotage rivals Vol. 4 as the least accessible record of Sabbath's early material. However, given time, the compositional logic reveals itself, and most of the record will burn itself into the listener's brain just fine. The faster than usual "Symptom of the Universe" is a stone-cold classic, its sinister main riff sounding like the first seed from which the New Wave of British Heavy Metal would sprout. Like several songs on the record, "Symptom" features unexpected acoustic breaks and softer dynamics, yet never loses its drive or focus, and always feels like Sabbath. Less immediate but still rewarding are "Thrill of It All," with its triumphant final section, and the murky, sullen "Megalomania," which never feels as long as its nearly nine-and-a-half minutes. But more than the compositions, the real revelation on Sabotage is Ozzy Osbourne, who turns in his finest vocal performance as a member of Black Sabbath. Really for the first time, this is the Ozzy we all know, displaying enough range, power, and confidence to foreshadow his hugely successful solo career. He saves the best for last with album-closer "The Writ," one of the few Sabbath songs where his vocal lines are more memorable than Tony Iommi's guitar parts; running through several moods over the course of the song's eight minutes, it's one of the best performances of his career bar none. Unfortunately, after Sabotage, the wheels of confusion came off entirely. Technically, there were two more albums released, but for most fans, the story of Osbourne-era Sabbath effectively ends here.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/sabotage-mw0000652467 

Pretenders - The English Roses

 #Pretenders #Chrissie Hynde #new wave #alternative rock #pop rock #hard rock #pop punk #British/American #1980s

As a woman breaking into rock, Pretenders founder and lead singer Chrissie Hynde offered a much-needed upset to the genre’s domination by men. Even as she deplored her perceived lack of commercial “beauty,” she was able to use this ostensible deficiency to her advantage — thus establishing herself as a serious songwriter and musician. She told Fred Schruers in a 1981 Rolling Stone story, “They’re not looking at me like I’m some sex symbol or girl with huge tits bouncing around the stage. And this thing [her guitar], this isn’t an extension or a phallic symbol.” Hynde has also insisted on being uncompromisingly straightforward in her music. Newsweek contributor Jim Miller noted her attack on the sexism prevalent in rock lyrics: [Her songs] are memorable not only for the skilled way in which Hynde reworks stock riffs, but also for the matter-of-fact, unsentimental manner in which sex is described from the viewpoint of a woman with appetites and a will of her own. Her best lyrics, at once tender and tough, are a bracing change from rock’s stock erotic fare, which often features a macho stud laying waste to the enemy.  From: https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/music-popular-and-jazz-biographies/pretenders

Faun - Walpurgisnacht

 #Faun #pagan folk #darkwave #neo-medieval #folk rock #neofolk #European folk #traditional #world music #German #music video

Of all the anonymous-authored quotes floating around the interwebs, this is probably my favorite: "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." The quote is often attributed to Roman renaissance man, Seneca the Younger, though nobody seems to know when or where he actually said it, which means someone probably just stuck that quote onto him to give it more legitimacy. I guess the quote being the truest thing ever simply didn’t make it legitimate enough. What’s kind of funny about people attributing this quote to a Roman is that anytime I see the quote, I immediately think of the Roman Empire. When Rome started out, religion was generally an unorganized series of beliefs and rituals that greatly differed from tiny region to tiny region. A region often had a patron/patroness god/goddess such as Athena for Athens. Today this ancient form of religion is known as “Paganism.” However, when the city of Rome became the huge Roman Empire, there were many different peoples with many different beliefs and cults all living under one government. For a while, the government’s official policy was that anyone could believe what they wanted, as long as they paid their taxes. Actually, there was a fairly new religion called Christianity which was banned for a while. But eventually Christianity was legalized, made the official religion of Rome, and Pagans were heavily persecuted. Because Roman culture was based on Greek culture, and the Greeks love irony. And buttsex. So in an act that has forever solidified itself with the above quote, the Roman leaders used religion as a way of uniting the multicultural empire. It made sense. It’s pretty hard to have unity when you have a nation full of Latins, Greeks, Germans, Celts, Arabs, Jews, Turks, Iberians, and so on, all believing vastly different things. The Roman Empire needed to be united under the worship of one imaginary friend, as opposed to a diverse tapestry of imaginary friends. So this is the part most of us are familiar with. Christians in power began persecuting Pagans in an attempt to stomp out the old religions, a practice that continued well after the empire had fallen, and there were new kingdoms in its place. One of the methods of stomping out both the religion and culture of Paganism, besides a genocide here and there, was the Christianization of Pagan holidays. The Celtic holiday of Samhain became the Catholic holiday of All Hallows’ Eve, now known as Halloween. Ostara became Easter. For those of you wondering what painting eggs has to do with the return of Jesus, it symbolized the return of Spring, which is what Ostara was about. One of the Pagan holidays was May Day, which is the day after Walpurgisnact, and finally here we are!
Yes, dear readers, the Musik Video I’m reviewing today is about Walpurgisnacht. And the reason that massive introduction was needed is because the holiday, the Video, and the band that made it, are all proof that cultural Paganism is alive and well, despite two thousand years of attempts at Christianization. But first, one last history lesson. May Day, a secular version of which is still largely celebrated, was all about welcoming Summer. The Germanic Pagans celebrated the night before by lighting a bonfire, and dancing around a Maypole which symbolized a big throbbing Schwanz. Yeah, my elementary school teachers left that part out when my class did the Maypole dance. So how does one Christify a holiday like this? Well, the Catholic Church decided that April 30th - May 1st would be a time to celebrate Saint Walpurga, an English missionary that is credited with bringing Christianity to Deutschland. What followed next was perhaps the most awesome discretion in the history of religion. The night before May Day, known as Walpurgisnacht (Walpurgis Night), eventually became a haunted night where witches allegedly gather in Germany to hold rituals and, I assume, do various witchy things. Basically, Saint Walpurga’s night became Germany’s Satanic Halloween. To add yet another insult, The Church of Satan now celebrates Walpurgisnacht as one of its unholy holidays. Ouch. So now with all that being said, on to the Musik.
“Walpurgisnacht” is performed by German Pagan Folk band Faun, and it’s awesome. Seriously, with all the babbling I just did, it should be obvious that I love this topic, and Faun did a sweet job of honoring such a cool holiday. Faun’s “Walpurgisnacht” paints a really beautiful picture of German Pagans coming out to celebrate. Faun’s ode to Witchcraft is definitely more about the pre-Christian Pagan celebrations as opposed to Satanism. However, the Video actually bridges the past with the present. It starts out with some scenery porn showing the band travelling through the forest to the Maypole. When they get there, there are sexy Frauen wearing while silk, and prancing around the Maypole/Schwanz. After some more prancing, the girls light a bonfire, and as the flames grow higher, they smear dirt on their skin while looks of ecstasy appear on their faces. Yeah, the forest isn’t the only eye candy in this Video. But it’s at this point that things really get good if you’re a humungous nerd like me. The shots now alternate between the band singing around a bonfire in the darkness of night, and people dressed as fauns dancing around said bonfire, and waving incense. The shot then cuts to the sky to reveal three moons, and the Triple Moon Goddess of Wicca. After a close-up of the fauns, the shot then goes to show two moons with Wicca’s Horned God. It’s at this point that my head just fucken explodes all over the walls. Yeah, I pretty much marked out like mad the first time I saw this. I totally love Wiccan mythology. Yes, I know its ancient origins go back to the sixties, but who cares? The imagery and stories of Wicca are awesome. And we so rarely see any representation of its mythology in the media. So yeah, I was super excited to see the Triple Moon Goddess and Horned God here. What’s even better is that the Video then goes on to do things that reference other less known aspects of Wicca. The Horned God throws a type of spiritual rope up to the Triple Moon Goddess and pulls her down from the moon onto earth. This is a reference to a ritual called “Drawing Down the Goddess,” in which Wiccans summon the goddess to come down and possess the body of the High Priestess. I kind of have mixed feelings here. On the one hand, the fact that people believe in literally existing gods is one of the reasons I’m a card-carrying misanthrope. On the other hand, I can’t help but enjoy it from a pure entertainment standpoint. It’s cool mythology, and perhaps the people who worship these gods are a part of the mythology too. After the goddess is brought to earth, she and the god slowly walk towards each other, while a priestess holds a rope. She ties their wrists together, which is a reference to the Wiccan handfasting. And probably the bondage that will occur later that night. The Horny God, amirite?
“Walpurgisnacht” mixes good Musik, interesting stories, and pretty visuals to make a great Video. I also can’t stress enough just how good it is that Faun, who has songs in many different languages, chose the German language for this song. A lot of European bands sing in English in order to reach a wider audience at the expense of quality. English is fine, but die schreckliche deutsche Sprache is an art language. Depending on how one uses German, it can sound brutally violent, soft and sweet, heartbreakingly sad, or seductively sexy. Eisblume manages to do the latter three in “Leben ist Schön.” German is naturally dramatic, which makes it perfect for Musik and movies. “Walpurgisnacht” would have been a good song in the language of Shakespeare, but not nearly as good as it is in the language of Lindemann.
From: http://eisenkreuzleben.blogspot.com/2015/01/walpurgisnacht-faun.html

Faun is a German band formed in Munich in 1998, who have been labeled as Pagan folk (as they often refer to themselves), neofolk, darkwave, Celtic folk, medieval music or, more recently, folk rock. The fact is that the Bavarian sextet presents a range of very original and diverse compositions, ranging from melancholic ballads to more festive songs. Most of these characteristics are the result of the use of ancient musical instruments such as the Celtic harp, the nyckelharpa, the hurdy-gurdy, the cittern, bagpipe and many others. In addition, the songs are sung in several languages, including the band members’ native German, Latin, Hungarian and ancient Scandinavian languages. The name “Faun” refers to the deity of Roman mythology, Faunus, the Pan of the Greeks, which refers to the band members’ reverence for nature and its creatures.  From: https://mythologica.com.br/en/features/faun-german-pagan-folk/

Traffic - Hole In My Shoe

 #Traffic #Steve Winwood #Dave Mason #Jim Capaldi #psychedelic rock #progressive rock #British psychedelia #blues rock #jazz rock #folk rock #1960s #music video

This psychedelic song was written by Traffic's guitarist Dave Mason, who played sitar on the track. Depending on your state of mind, you might find some weighty meaning in the song, but Mason says he was just writing down random thoughts in the style of a nursery rhyme. He also insists that he hadn't tried LSD when he wrote it. In a Songfacts interview with Mason, he explained: "That's the first song I ever wrote. It was my first attempt at songwriting. I mean, that stuff I did back then, when I listen to it, I cringe and realize I need to work on writing. But writing comes out of living. You have to have something." Dave Mason tells us that this song was "the beginning of the end as far as the other three guys were concerned for me." The band's second single (after "Paper Sun"), it was a the biggest UK hit for Traffic, but it wasn't what Mason's bandmates had in mind, since they didn't think it represented their sound. Steve Winwood explained: "We never wanted to be a pop band but we had a hit with 'Shoe,' which was Dave's song. Dave had his own idea about the band, the rest of us had another one - a not-quite-as-sensible one, really, because it wasn't half as commercial." Mason quit the band soon afterwards and Traffic began to develop a less commercial sound, which put an end to their run of hit singles in the UK. However their new material proved popular on American Rock stations and it gave the band a second wind across the Atlantic.  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/traffic/hole-in-my-shoe

Traffic was a British rock group of the 1960s and ’70s, known for incorporating lengthy jazzlike improvisation into rock-music structures. Principal members included singer-keyboardist Steve Winwood, flautist-saxophonist Chris Wood, guitarist Dave Mason, and drummer Jim Capaldi. Founded in 1967 and charting one of the most tumultuous careers in rock history, Traffic underwent substantial shifts in both musical style and membership. The group’s first incarnation was a psychedelic pop collective whose members lived together in Berkshire, England, and collaborated on the composition of most songs on their debut album, Mr. Fantasy (1967). Mason departed briefly, returning just long enough to write half of the songs on Traffic (1968) — a hit in both the United Kingdom and the United States — before leaving again. Shortly thereafter, Winwood (who had already experienced fame as a teenager with the Spencer Davis Group) broke up the band and formed Blind Faith with former Cream members Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker. In 1970, midway through recording a solo album, Winwood reconvened with Wood and Capaldi, releasing John Barleycorn Must Die as Traffic. The 1970s version of Traffic, built on this core trio, moved away from pop songcraft and forged a sound built on free-form improvisation, earning continued commercial success with The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys (1971), Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory (1973), and When the Eagle Flies (1974). Both on tour and in the studio, the group added and subtracted a number of additional musicians during these years before finally disbanding in 1975.  From: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Traffic-British-rock-group

Patty Griffin - Every Little Bit

 #Patty Griffin #folk #folk rock #Americana #country folk #alt-country #contemporary folk #alternative folk #singer-songwriter

1996 was one heck of a year for American roots music. You had Johnny Cash recording Unchained, possibly the greatest album of his long, long career, with Rick Rubin and Tom Petty. Outlaw country legend Steve Earle telling the world I Feel Alright after a long bout of drug addiction. Wilco announcing their arrival as a major player on the scene with sophomore album Being There. Jon Spencer and the Blues Explosion’s punk, techno, and blues-tinged rock album Now I Got Worry and their collaboration with the great R.L. Burnside on his punk, techno, and rock-tinged blues album A Ass Pocket of Whiskey. The Australian Nick Cave filling traditional American songs with overwhelming dread in his masterpiece Murder Ballads, and 16 Horsepower taking folk tradition to even darker places in the apocalyptic Sackcloth ’n’ Ashes. You’d think it’d be hard to stand out in the midst of all that, but the most powerful of them all was a debut album by a slight, unassuming New England divorcee.
Patty Griffin’s story plays out like a real-life version of Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, with Griffin taking the end of her marriage as a catalyst to pursue her dream of musical stardom. She sent a demo tape of just her and a guitar to A&M Records. Superproducer/Chic frontman Nile Rodgers loved it, but he was unsatisfied with all the attempts to clean it up for mass consumption. So in the end, he just went ahead and released Griffin’s demo tape unedited. Nile Rodgers is not exactly a man who’s known for minimalism, so when he makes a decision like that, you know it means something. And he was exactly right. You can’t improve on a record that lands in your office already perfect. Living with Ghosts gets at what draws people to folk music. That age-old power of sitting in the same room with a musician around a hearth or campfire, nothing standing between you and the music.
For reasons known only to my parents, I came to Living with Ghosts years after discovering their collection of Griffin’s later, more polished albums — the oldest Griffin record they owned is 2002’s 1000 Kisses, so apparently they didn’t know about her before then and took years to cycle back to the beginning. Either way, Living with Ghosts was a revelation. Griffin evolved into a refined, motherly figure on her later albums. Living with Ghosts is the farthest thing from that. This is a pure, unadulterated howl of youthful rage and despair. Griffin’s proven she can belt like a soul diva, but there’s nothing in her catalog like the banshee wail she unleashes here. Maybe she never could unleash it again. She screams with so much power on this album it may have scraped her vocal cords raw. But Griffin’s incredible range is already present here. Living with Ghosts opens with a scream, and it ends with a whisper.
Living with Ghosts draws from the experience that led to its creation, most explicitly on “Let Him Fly.” That song, like “Time Will Do the Talking” regards Griffin’s dying relationship from a distance, from the perspective of someone with the wisdom to regard the inevitable with serene acceptance. But that’s not the mood at all on the raw, assaultive breakup songs “You Never Get What You Want” and “Every Little Bit.” “You Never Get What You Want” opens with Griffin sneering “You first found me in my holding pen/Stopped to take a look and stuck your finger in/I bit one off and you came back again and again.” It’s the kind of thing that could sound try-hard coming from a lesser artist, especially one doing such a total 180 from the persona Griffin projects for most of the album, but she hisses it out with such venom you have no choice to believe it. “Every Little Bit” gets at the same effect from the opposite angle, letting Griffin’s rage simmer through a husky, almost whispered vocal in the chorus, making the moment Griffin repeats the title, building in frenzy until words become insufficient and she starts screaming wordlessly land like an atom bomb. Both tracks make the most of Griffin’s limited resources as she plays the guitar subtly off key to create a dark, maddening mood. Near the end of “You Never Get What You Want,” her rage seems to boil over and the steady backing descends into frantic strumming like the acoustic-guitar equivalent of banging on the keys.
From: https://scottsm589.medium.com/a-shout-from-the-heart-patty-griffins-living-with-ghosts-304dcde3ee07

A singer and songwriter whose literate, impressionistic storytelling and richly evocative melodies have made her one of the most respected artists in the contemporary folk community, Patty Griffin is also a superb vocalist who sings of the human heart and soul with a passion that's palpable but never histrionic. Most comfortable working outside the major-label system, Griffin went from performing in Boston coffee houses to national acclaim with 1996's Living with Ghosts, a debut album drawn from her solo acoustic demo recordings. While she would explore more full-bodied arrangements on 1998's Flaming Red and 2002's 1000 Kisses, her work always expresses a powerful emotional intimacy.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/patty-griffin-mn0000022348/biography

The Rolling Stones - Torn and Frayed

 #The Rolling Stones #Kieth Richards #Mick Jagger #blues rock #hard rock #classic rock #British blues rock #rock & roll #British R&B #1970s 

In May of 1972 the Rolling Stones released their 10th British studio album and first double LP, Exile on Main St. Although initial critical response was lukewarm, it is now considered a contemporary music landmark, the best work from a band who rock critic Simon Frith once referred to as “the poets of lonely leisure.” Exile on Main St. was both the culmination of a five-year productive frenzy and bleary-eyed comedown from the darkest period in the Stones’ history.
By 1969 the storm clouds of dread building around the group had become a full-blown typhoon. First, recently sacked member Brian Jones was found dead, drowned in his swimming pool. Then, as the decade ended in a rush of bleak portents, they played host to the chaos of the Altamont Speedway Free Concert, a poorly organised, massive free concert, which ended with four dead including a murder captured live on film.
Yet amidst all this the Stones produced Let It Bleed (1969) and Sticky Fingers (1971), two devastating albums that wrapped up the era like a parcel bomb addressed to the 1970s.
Songs like Gimme Shelter, the harrowing Sister Morphine, and Sway, which broods on Nietzche’s notion of circular time, exuded the kind of weary grandeur that would define Exile.
The story behind Exile on Main St. has become rock folklore. Fleeing from England’s punitive tax laws, the Stones lobbed in a Côte d'Azur mansion that was a Gestapo HQ during World War II. Mick Jagger was largely sidelined, spending much of the time in Paris with pregnant wife Bianca. The musicians were jammed into an ad-hoc basement studio, a cross between steam-bath and opium den, powered by electricity hijacked from the French railway system. The house was beset by hangers-on, including the obligatory posse of drug-dealers. Yet with control ceded to the nonchalant, disaster-prone Keith Richards – the kind of person a crisis would want around in a crisis – they somehow harnessed the power of pandemonium.
The result was a singular amalgam of barbed soul, mutant gospel, tombstone blues and shambolic country, as thrilling in its blend of familiar sources as works by contemporaries Roxy Music and David Bowie were in the use of alien ones. Jagger shuffles his deck of personas from song to song like a demented croupier, the late, great drummer Charlie Watts supplies his customary subtle adornments, and a cast of miscreants – most crucially, pianist Nicky Hopkins and producer Jimmy Miller – function as supplementary band members.
All 18 tracks contribute to the ragged perfection of the document as a whole. Tumbling Dice and Happy are textbook rock propelled by a strange union of virtuosity and indolence. And there is an undeniable beauty to the likes of Torn and Frayed and Let it Loose, albeit a beauty that is tentative, hard-earned. The package is completed by its distinctive sleeve art, juxtaposing a collage of circus performers photographed by Robert Frank circa 1950 with grainy stills from a Super-8 film of the band and a mural dedicated to Joan Crawford.
Exile confused audiences at first: Writer John Perry describes its 1972 reception as mixing “puzzlement with qualified praise”. The response of critic Lester Bangs was typical. After an initial negative review, Bangs came to regard it as the group’s strongest work. Critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine confirms that the record over time has become a touchstone, calling it a masterful album that takes “the bleakness that underpinned Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers to an extreme.”  From: https://theconversation.com/exile-on-main-st-turns-50-how-the-rolling-stones-critically-divisive-album-became-rock-folklore-181704

Jazmin Bean - Worldwide Torture

 #Jazmin Bean #Jasmine Adams #pop metal #hyperpop #alt-pop #trap metal #alternative rock #nu metal #trap rock #music video

Jasmine Adams, professionally known as Jazmin Bean, is a British singer, songwriter, makeup artist, beauty brand owner, business entrepreneur, and of course, style icon. The artist is non-binary, goes by the pronouns they/them, and toes the line between pop star and underground rebel on a daily basis. As a champion of multiple aesthetics, Bean has been credited for her fearless approach to blending various styles together, sonically and visually, in her music career. “I create music and film that pushes the boundaries of beauty and societal standards - and throws itself into extremes,” she said in an interview. There is a certain allure in the dark and lurid appeal of Bean, with her website currently featuring an image of her holding a giant blade. Frequently linked to other acts like Grimes, Rina Sawayama, Babymetal, Poppy and Melanie Martinez, the rising pop star has cemented her place in the alternative genre. Bean’s art seems to pull all ends of the spectrum, from nightmarish visuals to lullaby lyrics which both transform the way we enjoy and interact with music.  From: https://screenshot-media.com/culture/influencers/who-is-jazmin-bean/

Queen - Father to Son

 #Queen #Freddie Mercury #Brian May #Roger Taylor #hard rock #glam rock #progressive rock #heavy metal #classic rock #1970s

A month after releasing their debut album Queen returned to Trident Studios to commence work on the follow-up, tentatively titled “Over The Top” – an idea that didn’t amuse EMI any more than “Dearie Me” had for its predecessor. Despite positive reviews for “Keep Yourself Alive” the individual members still weren’t convinced Queen was a going concern and maintained outside interest in physics (Brian May), electronics (John Deacon), Freddie Mercury and his art studies and potential dentist, Roger Taylor keeping on their side-line of a Kensington Market stall because who knew how long this thing would last?
Still they were anxious to resume work before going back on the road and preparing for a tour with Mott the Hoople so they grabbed a vacant August slot in Trident and began making the record that is many a fan’s favorite. It is certainly the first time one hears their trademark multi-layered overdubs, those rich harmonies, and the sheer joie de vivre of a group of young men refusing to be hindered by boundaries and conformity. So while other rock stars went on their holidays Queen worked like Trojans.
All four took to the recording process like a duck to water with the notable assistance of Roy Thomas Baker and in-house man Robin Geoffrey Cable, an ally of the band since he’d produced Larry Lurex aka Freddie Mercury on a spectacularly operatic attempt at the Phil Spector-Ellie Greenwich-Jeff Barry masterpiece “I Can Hear Music.” Also on that session was engineer Mike Stone, yet another highly talented sound man who’d learned his trade at Abbey Road, sitting in on The Beatles’ Beatles For Sale album and more recently thrown some magic dust over Nursery Cryme for Genesis and Joe Walsh’s heavy guitar gem The Smoker You Drink, the Player You Get. Quite a team in other words, and May and company had plenty of their own ideas to bring to the party.
What became Queen II was done and dusted in that hot month. Realizing that as songwriters Mercury and May had radically different lyrical agendas – Brian the guitarist preferring a personal or emotional slant, while Freddie the singer liked to operate in realms of the phantasmagorical – it was decided to give the record a loose concept, splitting the material into “White” and “Black” sides to match the light and shade of the songs. The gatefold sleeve and the album’s label reflected the B&W mood and when they hit the road to support it they invested in monochrome stage gear designed by Zandra Rhodes. Photographer Mick Rock was hired to shoot the cover on the strength of his striking images of David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and Lou Reed, and he had the band posed to look suitably moody and vampish a la Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express. Freddie, of course, couldn’t resist the faintest of smirks as he looked up at Rock with arms crossed.
For the debut Queen’s friend Douglas Puddifoot had depicted Mercury holding his soon to be familiar short microphone stand, performing in a spotlight on what looked like an arena stage. A fine conceit, considering Queen were far from that status yet, it didn’t really give the viewer a sense of what lay inside. Mick Rock’s photograph, which the boys thought was slightly pretentious at first, showed them to be a band or a gang and this time the potential purchaser was left intrigued by the potential content.
Inside there were many wonders. It starts with “Procession,” played by May in funeral march time on multi-tracked guitar, the Red Special hand-built by Brian and his father, Harold, when the aspiring musician was a teenager. The instrument, also known as the Old Lady or the Fireplace, became iconic for Queen fanatics.
Brian’s “Father to Son” was written with Harold in mind and combines metal guitar bridges and introspective piano played by the writer as well as John Deacons’ acoustic guitar and a neat vocal harmony.
The fortuitously titled “White Queen (As It Began)” was a song Brian had written in 1968 when he was just about to go to Imperial College to study physics. Inspired by the Robert Graves treatise on poetry and myth, The Golden Fleece, May also had a female muse in mind, a girl from his A-Level biology class at Hampton Grammar, and the combination of courtly love lyrics and an ideal of feminism struck a chord with Queen’s audiences who would soon realize this wasn’t just another standard glam rock group.
May makes his debut as sole lead vocalist on “Some Day One Day” and also contributes startling guitar overdubbing, with the outro section featuring three instruments playing different parts rather than meshing together in synch. Trident’s 24-track came into its own and Brain was exultant to achieve the sound he’d always craved.
Drummer Roger’s “The Loser In The End” closes out the “White” side with a variation on the Mother to Son theme, albeit with a slightly tongue in cheek or ambiguous humor in the verses and some lovely marimba work.
If Freddie’s contributions thus far were sporadic he took over for the “Black” side. “Ogre Battle” was carried over from the first album and given a proper arrangement, a damn heavy one with chilling vocal screaming and a taut thrash of guitars and drums, a classic gong, and plenty of sound effects to herald a suite that is Queen at their most progressive. Mercury wrote it on guitar and his heavy metal riff was leapt on with relish by May for its martial power and would become a staple in their live sets over the next four years.
“The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke” was inspired by frequent visits to the Tate Gallery, taken by Freddie and the others to admire Richard Dadd’s nightmarish painting of the same name. To replicate the strangeness of Dadd’s canvas the band employed heavy stereo panning, Fred’s piano and harpsichord parts, Roy Thomas Baker’s castanets, and multiple vocal overdubs and harmonies. Claustrophobic and deranged, the medieval fantasy world of the artist was brought to life with startling success. The reference to the “quaere fellow” in the lyric is nothing as obvious as some people imagine, rather another literary reference to Brendan Behan’s play, The Quare Fellow, given an arcane spelling.
“Feller” flows in segue form with Mercury at the piano picking up the closing three-part harmony to introduce “Nevermore.” Freddie and Robin Cable would also play pluck or string piano (again no synthesizers) on a song that deals with relationship breakdown, with a nod at Edgar Allen Poe’s poem The Raven.
The octave bending, polyrhythmic “The March Of The Black Queen” was written by Mercury at the piano and developed as an electric and acoustic guitar extravaganza with May adding symphonic tubular bells. As such it was virtually impossible to replicate live but remains an album highlight.
Another segue leads the listener into “Funny How Love Is” a Mercury song blessed with one of his most poignant and lovely lyrics (“Funny how love is coming home in time for tea”). The singer felt more comfortable working with Cable on this track and the pair revisited the Wall of Sound technique they’d employed on “I Can Hear Music.” It was Freddie in a nutshell.
And so to the finale – “The Seven Seas Of Rhye” – a song first heard by many when Queen snapped up David Bowie’s cancellation of a Top of the Pops engagement to debut “Rebel Rebel.” The show’s producers asked Mike Stone if he could recommend a replacement and so Queen made their first major TV appearance on February 21st playing the newer, fully fleshed track before the cameras and landing in living rooms with such panache and insouciance that switchboards jammed. The song was released as a single two days later.
Noted for its panning and arpeggios and a cross-fade that leads into a brief rendition of “I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside” (with Baker on stylophone, still not really a synth!) this is a magnificent piece of work on every level. A classic glam rock item of the era, one that recalls the brutal intensity of The Move. Good work all round.
Queen II is now acknowledged as a landmark in the band’s development and while it is hardly obscure, in America it is considered to be a cult artifact revered by the likes of Billy Corgan, Steve Vai, and Axl Rose, and remains an obvious influence on everyone from U2 to Muse. Even Bowie sat up and took notice, no doubt allowing himself a wry smile at Queen’s arrival due to his no-show and probably basking in some of their limelight. Finally, some competition.
But while the album was ready to go by September, fully mixed etc., it was held back by EMI since the first album was still in its infancy. The oil crisis of 1973 also led to a shortage of vinyl as Britain slumbered in the three-day week, galloping inflation and increasing political and social unrest. Even so, those who heard the album when it did come out on March 8, 1974, were impressed and spiritually uplifted. Queen had arrived in style and Freddie could give up his weekend job and concentrate upon the great times that lay ahead. Goodbye Kensington Market, hello the world.  From: https://www.udiscovermusic.com/behind-the-albums/queen-queen-2/

Gin Blossoms - Allison Road

 #Gin Blossoms #alternative rock #jangle pop #power pop #post-grunge #pop rock #college rock #power pop #1990s

There really is an Allison Road that inspired this song. It's in Roosevelt, Texas, off of I-10. A friend of Gin Blossoms lead singer Robin Wilson was driving back from the South By Southwest Festival in Austin on his way to El Paso when he saw a sign for it, and because his sister's name is Allison, he snapped a photo. That photo found its way to Wilson, who decided to use it for the title of a song. The song is about a girl (not really named Allison), with the Allison Road a metaphor for their relationship. Robin Wilson says the lyrics came from a place of joy and with romantic intent, so it seems he's having a revelation that this is the girl for him.  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/gin-blossoms/allison-road

“Do you think it’d be all right if I could just crash here tonight?” The introduction to “Hey Jealousy,” the 1992 song by the Gin Blossoms, introduces a lackadaisical ne’er-do-well, one who laments the loss of an old relationship while asking his ex for a place to ward off his hangover, because he has nowhere else to go. Unlike Nirvana or Pearl Jam, the darkness of the lyrics wasn’t matched by a darkness in the melody—the tune, in fact, had more in common with a melodic tune from R.E.M. or The Lemonheads than the sludge from Seattle. (It lent itself to Top 40 radio play as a result.) But lyrically, the tune did not come from a good place. The subject of the song was its author, Doug Hopkins, who wrote some of the best songs on the band’s 1992 album New Miserable Experience. Hopkins was a member of the band until the middle of 1992, just before the completion of this album, when his alcoholism became so out of control that he was fired from the band, which continued to perform his songs.
Not that they ever felt very comfortable with that fact. The band, full of lifers in the Tempe, Arizona music scene, were about to see major success. But Hopkins’ personal problems threatened that success—even though it was his songs that made that success possible. “Without Doug and his songwriting, we never could have signed a record deal,” lead singer Robin Wilson told People in 1994. “Even Doug admitted we couldn’t have succeeded with him in the band. He also felt we had betrayed him.” Hopkins’ bandmates were basically forced into a bad situation by their record label. A Metro Times piece by his friend, Brian Smith, laid some of the fault at his bandmates’ feet, but most of it at the label’s: His band mates were, to me, total bastards then — but kids, really; at least emotionally. They were young signees of a major record label — at the mercy of the A&R and lawyerly suits who lived in southern California-cliché homes in the hills above Sherman Oaks. The label mandate was dump Doug — get rid of the guy who built the band and whose songs got the band the record deal — or else. The label had already spent a small fortune recording a first album, which was scrapped. What’d the band know? Even Doug’s best friend, with whom he grew up, was a Gin Blossom. The band needed a career and took one.
Hopkins was a local legend in Tempe, and he soon found himself in another band, though that broke down, too. His physical state was not good, to say the least. “At that point Doug couldn’t function as a guitarist or a human being,” Smith said. Already suffering from both alcoholism and chronic depression, things got worse after he had been forced to hand over part of his royalties to his Gin Blossom replacement. Understandably, the situation sat poorly with him. Beyond “Jealousy,” Hopkins also wrote “Found Out About You,” a top 40 hit in 1994 that was about an ex-girlfriend who seriously injured him by kicking him in the head at an R.E.M. concert. As that song was starting to chart, Hopkins received his gold record for “Hey Jealousy,” one of 1993’s biggest hits. According to his biography on Lost Horizons, a site dedicated to his memory, he hung it on the wall for two weeks, then smashed it. Soon after, he took his own life — while not one, but two of his songs were becoming major hits. The band, of course, was torn up by the situation, naming their next album, Congratulations I’m Sorry, after the odd dichotomy of success and loss. His local scene was broken up over the situation as well.
From: https://tedium.co/2017/09/28/gin-blossoms-hey-jealousy-tragedy/

Gin Blossoms graduated from the college rock circuit in 1993, when the singles "Hey Jealousy" and "Found Out About You" became top 40 hits. Compared to the waves of grunge produced in the wake of Nirvana's breakthrough, the Gin Blossoms evoked an earlier time - specifically, the big jangle of the '80s, when the South was alive with bands who strove to replicate the ringing sound of R.E.M. Certainly, New Miserable Experience, the group's 1992 major-label debut, sounded like a kindred spirit to '80s college rock, even if it was goosed with loud guitars that made it feel at home in the alt-rock explosion of the '90s. Despite racking up a number of hits during the mid-'90s, Gin Blossoms were plagued with internal problems, chief among them dealing with the fallout, departure and subsequent suicide of guitarist Doug Hopkins, who wrote half of New Miserable Experience. These tensions led the group to split in 1997 but after a five-year break, they reunited for an album and tour. From that point forward, Gin Blossoms were an active concern, releasing albums every few years and touring regularly, pulling in audiences who remember their '90s hits fondly.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/gin-blossoms-mn0000947563/biography

Genesis - Supper's Ready

 #Genesis #Peter Gabriel #Phil Collins #Steve Hackett #progressive rock #art rock #British prog #symphonic prog #theatrical rock #1970s

A cornerstone in the story of progressive rock, Supper’s Ready found this still developing genre reaching its apogee. There had been double-digit-length album tracks before - not least Genesis’s own 10-minute The Musical Box - but nothing quite as conceptually epic, as ambitiously executed as Supper’s Ready. Constructed from seven distinct parts that form a jagged musical whole, it instantly rose to become perhaps the most famous and influential musical adventure in a genre then bursting its creative banks with all-time classic tracks: the template for the ornate, classically influenced, lysergically-charged, heroically daft, peculiarly English variety of progressive rock that then ruled the world. According to keyboardist Tony Banks: “When we started it we thought we were writing a kind of follow-up to The Musical Box, and it was going along quite nicely. Then we had this pretty-pretty song, Willow Farm, on its own, and thought, what if we suddenly went from there into this ugly, descending-chords sequence? No one would be expecting it. And once we got into that, we thought, well, we’re here now, let’s carry on, with freedom, and see where it leads us. When we put the whole thing together and heard it back for the first time, we went: ‘Oh, this is actually pretty good.’” Genesis’ former guitarist Steve Hackett insists now, however, that he was not convinced it was a good idea at all: “I thought, no one’s gonna buy this, because it’s too long. The [lyrical] references are too far-flung. It’s totally ambiguous. I thought the first time [Charisma Records chief] Tony Stratton-Smith heard it he was gonna say: ‘Sorry, boys, game’s up, contract’s cancelled, you’ll be hearing from our lawyers.’” Instead it was Stratton-Smith who positively encouraged the band to take their music as far as it could go, according to Foxtrot producer David Hitchcock. Seeing his role as “essentially a facilitator” Hitchcock says his greatest contribution to the track was “explaining they didn’t need to play it all the way through to record it, that we could do it section by section, with cross-fades and edits, then put it all together later. That allowed them to concentrate for the three or four minutes of each section, and get the best possible performance, while also allowing them to bring in different sounds for each section, rather than playing it straight through with one long, homogenous sound.” The pressure was also on for the band to find chart success. “Not in the sense of making them sound more commercial,” says Hitchcock, “but in the sense of taking what they did as far as it could possibly go.” Tensions in the studio were rife. “Mainly between Tony and Peter,” says Hitchcock. “There weren’t big bust ups, just a lot of sulking.” When Gabriel began singing over the keyboard solo in the section titled Apocalypse In 9/8, Banks admits “I was pissed off. ‘You’re singing on my bit!’ Then I realized it now had all the excitement we’d been trying to create, especially the ‘Six Six Six’ section. You have a lot of drama in the chords themselves, then what he did on top just took it to another level. Yes, that half-minute or so is our peak.” The other big battle Gabriel won was over the lyrics. “We were all involved as lyricists on Foxtrot per se,” says Hackett, “but Pete insisted on writing all of the lyrics to Supper’s Ready himself.” The rumor subsequently spread that the core of the lyrical narrative was based on a ‘supernatural’ experience Gabriel had gone through with his then-wife Jill; that Gabriel had been convinced she was possessed, and brandished a makeshift cross out of candlesticks, to which she reacted violently. According to Hackett, however, the situation was probably more prosaic. “I believe there’d been some drug taking going on. I believe she was having a bad trip at one point, and that Pete and a friend managed to talk her round and get her out of the horrors or whatever it was. So that’s a part of what the song was about, but in a way there’s a kind of redemption implication that goes with that.” Gabriel later claimed other parts of the lyrics were inspired by a late-night sighting of seven shrouded men walking in his garden. There were also lighter moments like Willow Farm, which Hackett not inaccurately describes now as “part Teddy Bears’ Picnic, part I Am The Walrus.” Plus sideways mentions for topics as seemingly disparate as Winston Churchill in drag, firemen, New Jerusalem, and not forgetting: a flower. Whatever one took from the lyrics, Supper’s Ready immediately assumed the mantle of all-time showstopper at Genesis concerts, Gabriel going through several ever more outlandish costume changes before ascending to the indoor sky in a silver suit at its climax.  From: https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-story-behind-the-song-genesis-suppers-ready

 

Aretha Franklin - I Never Loved a Man (the Way That I Love You)

 #Aretha Franklin #soul #R&B #gospel #pop #jazz #blues #rock #Atlantic soul #Southern soul #pop soul #Muscle Shoals #1960s

In 1967, Aretha Franklin signed to Atlantic Records after the expiration of her recording contract with Columbia. She had not had the breakthrough success that she was hoping for on her previous label, and was eager to make a new start at a new home. She was immediately paired with legendary producer Jerry Wexler, and at his request, headed to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to record at the town’s F.A.M.E. Recording Studios. Wexler wanted to take Aretha away from the bustle of New York and LA to a sonic incubator to record a sound that was more authentic to her roots. The sessions in Muscle Shoals were successful in establishing the producer-artist bond between Wexler and Franklin, and the pair was able to produce the hit single “I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Loved You)” during that time. Franklin would go on to have many chart-topping successes on Atlantic Records under Wexler's guidance. Some notable titles include “Respect”, “Chain of Fools”, "Rock Steady” and “Think”.  Franklin would later recall, “Coming to Muscle Shoals was the turning point in my career.” Franklin remained with Atlantic Records from 1967-1979. This period is regarded as her most prolific and commercially successful. She received 10 Grammy Awards during her tenure for works that she co-produced with Jerry Wexler and the esteemed Atlantic production team in New York and Muscle Shoals.  From: https://www.atlanticrecords.com/posts/aretha-franklin-art-musical-partnership-18201

Bjork - I Miss You

 #Bjork #art rock #avant-garde #experimental #electronica #alternative rock #glitch pop #psychedelia #trip-hop #neo-classical #singer-songwriter #ex-Sugarcubes #Icelandic #1990s #animated music video #Spumco #John K

Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi has made his first music video for Icelandic beauty Björk, who is an equally outrageous and innovative artist. Illustrating the song "I Miss You," the video features John K's stupid yet loveable character Jimmy the Idiot Boy cavorting with a bubbly animated version of the singer. A variety of techniques are used, including traditional 2-D cel animation by Kricfalusi's own Spumco Productions and Colorkey Productions, 3-D computer animation supervised by Charlie Gibson at Rhythm & Hues, real-time motion-capture animation by House of Moves, plus blue screen mattes bringing in live-action into the mix. (The live-action sequences with Björk were shot in a Los Angeles studio in just one day.) Björk, a long-time fan of Kricfalusi's work, insisted that he do a video for her when they met at one of her concerts. She was so pleased when she first saw John's storyboard that she apparently proclaimed, "It's just like Christmas!" and did not ask for any changes. The video is becoming something of a novelty, since MTV edited the director's cut to remove an end sequence featuring the animated Jimmy and Björk dancing underneath what look like a cross between rubber nipples and condoms on top of her actual (live-action) chest. It is ironic that the network cut that sequence while keeping shots of Björk violently ripping up a chicken, and even Jimmy himself. But fret not, devoted fans; the director's cut can be seen in rotation on that other music channel, The Box, as well as on MTV's new alternative sister network M2. The video is also included in promotions of the new RealVideo technology, which enables full-motion video to be displayed over the Internet.  From: https://www.awn.com/mag/issue1.12/articles/jacksoncapsule1.12.html

Björk Guðmundsdóttir was born in Reykjavík, Iceland, in 1965. Technically she recorded her first album as an 11-year-old; she sings the Beatles’ “The Fool on the Hill” in Icelandic. A decade or so later, she joined the Sugarcubes, Iceland’s premiere art-rock band. They sounded like Twilight Zone Roxette. The first and best Sugarcubes record, Life’s Too Good - it’s got “Motorcrash” on it - came out in 1988, the year they played Saturday Night Live. The Sugarcubes put out two more records and had a beguiling junk-drawer chemistry to them, but anytime Björk’s voice pulled into anything past second gear, it was obvious where she was headed - or, let’s say it was obvious that only she knew where she was headed. And thus, in 1993, did her real first solo album arrive. She called it Debut. In her first music video as a solo artist, for her first single, “Human Behavior,” she is eaten by a bear. Debut’s genre, if you gotta assign a genre to it, is Björk. Björk makes Björk music. There’s a needle to thread here though, as her star ascends in 1993, and as we gird ourselves for the decades of Björk excellence and flamboyance to come. A quick summary of the last 25, 30 years of Björk. The truly extraordinary run of mind-bending music videos. “Bachelorette” especially, shout-out Michel Gondry. The increasingly avant-garde album covers. Utopia especially. The titanic avant-pop influence of the albums themselves, Post and 1997’s Homeogenic especially. The Timbaland album. The beatboxing album. The phone-app album. The starring role in Dancer in the Dark. The Oscars swan dress. The coffee-table book. The other book. The other other book. Like 400 box sets and compilations and so forth. Lotta box sets. The MOMA exhibit nobody liked. The multimedia magical-realist universe that revolves around her. The needle to thread here, the challenge to accept here, is to marvel at the inimitable Björk-ness of Björk without infantilizing her or merely caricaturing her. There’s a tendency to reduce her to a woodland-fairy-type late-night-comedy routine. Remember when Winona Ryder did a Björk impression on Saturday Night Live, in a Celebrity Jeopardy! skit, in 2002? That’s the exact moment the ’90s truly ended, just FYI.  From: https://www.theringer.com/2021/4/21/22395193/bjork-hyperballad-post-history

XTC - Ball and Chain

 #XTC #new wave #post-punk #progressive pop #art rock #pop rock #baroque pop #art punk #power pop #psychedelic pop #1980s #1990s

XTC were a long-running cult favourite Alternative Rock band from Swindon, UK, active between 1976-2006. From 1982 to 1998, the band had the following core members: Andy Partridge (vocals, guitar), Colin Moulding (vocals, bass) and Dave Gregory (guitar, keyboards, string arrangements, backing vocals). The band's other two initial members were keyboardist Barry Andrews and drummer Terry Chambers. XTC throughout their existence were based around the two main songwriters, Partridge and Moulding. Their initial style was a frantic, hyperactive variation of New Wave that added in elements of Funk, Punk Rock, Ska and Reggae. This stylistic fusion found favour with the contemporary Punk Rock movement, and the band gained some success with its first two albums. Andrews' resignation from XTC in 1979 and replacement with Gregory proved to be a pivotal moment in the band's career, as Gregory's sixties-influenced guitar style steered the band towards its later sound, and his invaluable contributions to the band's albums helped drive Partridge and Moulding to new musical heights. For a while after Gregory's arrival, the band got slightly more attention from the mainstream and managed to score a few hits, such as the goofy, Moulding-penned single "Making Plans for Nigel" and Partridge's "Senses Working Overtime" and "Sgt. Rock is Going to Help Me". The band retired from touring definitively in 1982 after Partridge suffered a severe mental breakdown, forcing their world tour to be cancelled. They remained studio-bound for the rest of their career, making occasional live appearances on radio and television. In response to the loss of touring income, Chambers left and moved to Australia. Partridge, Moulding and Gregory didn't bother to replace him, instead recruiting session drummers on an album-per-album basis. Once Chambers left, the group completely changed their style, with the dreamy, pastoral folk-rock of Mummer arguably serving as their New Sound Album. From that point on XTC became a full-blown Psychedelic Rock band, taking production cues from The Beatles and The Beach Boys, jangly guitars from The Byrds and idiosyncratic, humorous lyrics critical of society from The Kinks. Soon afterwards, XTC recorded the album commonly regarded as their masterpiece, Skylarking. Besides critical accolades, Skylarking managed to gain them a controversial hit single as well, the Beatlesque rock of "Dear God", where Partridge basically embarked on a long Nay-Theist Smite Me, O Mighty Smiter rant, railing against God's horrendous, callous treatment of humanity. God was so incensed by Mr. Partridge's display of testicular virility that he personally purchased 250,000 copies of Skylarking. Around the same time, XTC recorded some outright Psychedelic Rock Affectionate Parodies, under their alter egos The Dukes of Stratosphear. As The Dukes, the band released an EP, 25 O'Clock (1985), and an album, Psonic Psunspot (1987), where they were all credited under Stage Names (Partridge was Sir John Johns, Moulding was The Red Curtain and Gregory was Lord Cornelius Plum) and did their damnedest to pass the material off as genuine Sixties psychedelia. The EP and album were initially available on vinyl only, but simultaneous with the album the two were compiled as Chips from the Chocolate Fireball on CD only. It wasn't until 2009 that the original works were released on CD separately, with bonus tracks and credited to XTC as The Dukes of Stratosphear. The Dukes were also jokingly thanked in the Skylarking liner notes for allowing XTC to borrow their instruments.  From: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Music/XTC

Fairport Convention - Percy's Song

#Fairport Convention #Sandy Denny #Ian Matthews #Richard Thompson #folk #folk rock #British folk rock #electric folk #British folk #1960s #Bob Dylan cover

The best British folk-rock band of the late '60s, Fairport Convention did more than any other act to develop a truly British variation on the folk-rock prototype by drawing upon traditional material and styles indigenous to the British Isles. While the revved-up renditions of traditional British folk tunes drew the most critical attention, the group members were also (at least at the outset) talented songwriters as well as interpreters. They were comfortable with conventional harmony-based folk-rock as well as tunes that drew upon more explicitly traditional sources, and boasted some of the best singers and instrumentalists of the day. A revolving door of personnel changes, however, saw the exit of their most distinguished talents, and basically changed the band into a living museum piece after the early '70s, albeit an enjoyable one with integrity. When Fairport formed around 1967, their goal was not to revive British folk numbers, but to play harmony-and guitar-based folk-rock in a style strongly influenced by Californian groups of the day (especially the Byrds). The lineup that recorded their self-titled debut album in 1968 featured Richard Thompson, Ian Matthews, and Simon Nicol on guitars; Ashley Hutchings on bass; Judy Dyble on vocals; and Martin Lamble on drums. Most of the members sang, though Matthews and Dyble were the strongest vocalists in this early incarnation; all of their early work, in fact, was characterized by blends of male and female vocals, influenced by such American acts as the Mamas & the Papas and Ian & Sylvia. While their first album was derivative, it had some fine material, and the band was already showing a knack for eclecticism, excavating overlooked songs by Joni Mitchell (then virtually unknown) and Emitt Rhodes.

What We Did on Our Holidays
Fairport Convention didn't reach their peak until Dyble was replaced after the first album in 1968 by Sandy Denny, who had previously recorded both as a solo act and with the Strawbs. Denny's penetrating, resonant style qualified her as the best British folk-rock singer of all time, and provided Fairport with the best vocalist they would ever have. What We Did on Our Holidays (1969) and Unhalfbricking (1969) are their best albums, mixing strong originals, excellent covers of contemporary folk-rock songs by the likes of Mitchell and Dylan, and imaginative revivals of traditional folk songs that mixed electric and acoustic instruments with a beguiling ease.

Liege & Lief
Matthews had left the band in early 1969, and Lamble (still in his teens) died in an accident involving the group's equipment van in mid-1969. That forced Fairport to regroup, replacing Lamble with Dave Mattacks, and adding Dave Swarbrick on fiddle. Their repertoire, too, became much more traditional in focus, and electrified traditional folk numbers would dominate their next album, Liege and Lief (1969). Here critical thought diverges; some insist that this is unequivocally their peak, marking a final escape from their '60s folk-rock influences into a much more original style. This school of thought severely underestimates their songwriting talents, and others feel that they were at their best when mixing original and outside material, and contemporary and traditional styles, in fact becoming more predictable and derivative when they opted to concentrate on British folk chestnuts.

Full House
The Liege and Lief lineup didn't last long; by the end of the '60s, Ashley Hutchings had left to join Steeleye Span, replaced by Dave Pegg. More crucially, Denny was also gone, helping to form Fotheringay. Thompson was still on board for Full House (1970), but by the beginning of 1971 he too had departed, leaving Nicol as the only original member.

Angel Delight
Fairport have kept going, on and off (mostly on), for the last 25 years, touring and performing frequently. It may be too harsh to dismiss all of their post-Thompson records out of hand; Angel Delight (1971), the first recorded without the guitarist on board, was actually their highest-charting LP in the U.K., reaching the Top Ten. Nicol's exit in late 1971 erased all vestiges of connections to their salad days. Fairport was now not so much a continuous entity as a concept, carried on by musicians dedicated to the electrified British folk style that had been mapped out on Liege and Lief. 

So it continues to this day, supported by a devoted fan base (Dirty Linen, the top American roots music magazine, originally began as a Fairport Convention fanzine). Denny would actually return to the group for about a year and a half in the 1970s, prior to her death in 1978; Nicol rejoined in 1976. Keeping track of Fairport's multitudinous lineup changes is a daunting task, and the group has coexisted on an erratic basis with the various other projects of the most frequent members (Nicol, Mattacks, and Pegg, the last of whom has played with Jethro Tull since the late '70s). They began playing annual reunion concerts in the 1980s (sometimes joined on-stage by Fairport alumni like Thompson), events that turned into some of the most popular folk festivals in Europe. They also released some albums of new material intermittently throughout the last couple of decades, mostly pleasant traditional-oriented outings that appeal primarily to diehards.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/fairport-convention-mn0000162233/biography