Fred Neil followed these rules to a proverbial "T". After 1967's Sessions, his fourth record, he did just that. He walked away from the music world to focus on his other passion: Dolphins.
My favorite song of his also happens to be about his post-songwriting career. It is psychedelic a year before Sgt. Pepper. It is staggering in its language of love and its comparison with marine life. It is used to brutal effect during a scene in the last season of The Sopranos where Christopher slips slowly back into drug use. It is covered brilliantly by the late, great Tim Buckley. It is a song that is alive and well, and will be remembered for eons longer than Mr. Neil's recording career lasted.
Which is more than can be said for the collective works of Fred Durst.
That was a cheap shot, but honestly, it was the first name that popped into my head.
Ever noticed how outside of certain genre's uber fan base, many groups or artists go unnoticed by the general public? Not many people outside of the freak-folk movement give much thought to Espers. How many people who aren't fans of underground hip-hop have heard of MF Doom? Another genre that is full of non-household names is Prog Rock. One band that has always been a secret handshake for true fans was Gentle Giant. In the 1970's, theyreleasedsomeofthetruest "Progressive" rockalbumsoutthere. They always bubbled just under the collective popular conscience. They even slid into the Billboard 200 with Three Friends, where today's track comes from. A concept album about three school friends who take three different paths in life, it is dense, beautiful and stunning in its complexity and craft. This standout piece features interwoven saxophone and guitar riffs that seem to be reaching for heaven while keeping their roots firmly locked into brimstone. It's also incredibly sweet, what with beautiful keyboard and string flourishes. Both parts tell the story of making your daily bread in something you love and something you don't. I can't recommend this album enough. If you have been on the fence about Prog Rock, this is a hell of a way to introduce yourself to one of the most important and misunderstood chapters in popular music. With Three Friends, you'll be one step ahead of the curve. You'll know the secret handshake!
Here are two great live performances of the song, from Giant themselves and nu-prog band 3RDegree.
Three Dog Night recorded a few of theirownsongs, but they were mainly a coversband. A coversband that sold ridiculous amounts of vinyl!!. They also helped jump start the careers of Laura Nyro, Elton John, Harry Nilsson, Leo Sayer, Randy Newman, Paul Williams and manymore. To have your song covered by the band was an honor many a struggling songwriter begged for in the early 70's. Hoyt Axton was given hits not once but twice by the group: : "Joy To the World" and today's selection. Whenever someone makes fun of the first, play them the latter. They will be trying to purchase Hoyt Axtonrecords before the week is out, I assure you.
This is the moment where Britpop takes a long hard look in the mirror and realizes it can't be all about the party. There comes a time when you have to sit down stone cold sober and reflect. Hearing this song my senior year of high school, my first thought was, "Damn, this kicks ' Bittersweet Symphony' 's ass!". I was always shocked that it didn't even chart on this side of the pond, while in the UK it would be Richard Ashcroftandcompany's biggest hit. It makes one wonder if maybe we should drink more Earl Grey or something!
There is nothing I can say about this masterwork of a song fromoneofournation'sfinesttreasures that isn't summed up in an article Andy Whitman wrote for Paste Magazine in 2005. I turn the floor over to him now:
It is a restless 3:00 a.m., the most melancholic hour for insomniacs. And it is a month near the dispirited end of a hellish year in which too many people have died. Sometimes I can block it out, and sometimes I can’t. The thoughts that swirl around my brain tell me that tonight I can’t.
The house settles around me. Everyone else is asleep. It is a Thursday night; work beckons again in just a few short hours. But sleep is not going to come, at least for a while, and so I wander downstairs, check my e-mail, read the CNN headlines, and look out my window at the few lights still on in my neighborhood, wondering who else is up and prowling their hallways. I put on the headphones and settle back with an old, familiar friend, Paul Simon’s “American Tune.” It is the perfect late night musical accompaniment to insomnia; its somber, stately melody cribbed from a J.S. Bach chorale, Simon’s gentle, hushed delivery unsuccessfully masking the images that churn with nocturnal disquiet:
I don't know a soul who's not been battered I don't have a friend who feels at ease I don't know a dream that's not been shattered or driven to its knees but it's alright, it's alright for we lived so well so long Still, when I think of the road we're traveling on I wonder what's gone wrong I can't help it, I wonder what's gone wrong
It is an American tune from the early 1970s, conceived in a far different world that still encompassed Ho Chi Minh and Richard Nixon, the fresh memories of Kent State and My Lai, but it is a sentiment that must sound all too contemporary to those who descend daily to London tube stations, who fearfully cross Baghdad streets, or who inhabit the splintered ruins of hundreds of Asian villages and towns inundated by tsunami. It must ring in the ears of those who endure genocide in Darfur, in those who suffer from the AIDS plague throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Death carries no passport, and it is no respecter of nations. And we too here in America have heard that insistent refrain. Poor New Orleans, pummeled and drowned, struggles to return to something approaching normal life. Where I live, in Ohio, a Cleveland suburb loses 14 of its young men in one bloody day in Iraq, and a community seeks to comprehend the gaping hole at its heart. Even closer to home, my father-in-law lies in his newly dug grave, and two dear family members battle cancer. And at 3:00 a.m., I can’t help it. I wonder what's gone wrong.
We come on the ship they call the Mayflower We come on the ship that sailed the moon We come in the age's most uncertain hour and sing an American tune Oh, and it's alright, it's alright, it's alright You can't be forever blessed Still, tomorrow's going to be another working day And I'm trying to get some rest That's all I'm trying to get some rest
We cross the oceans and send rockets hurtling to the moon, planting our flag on whatever scrap of rock we can find, claiming the land and its allegiance as our own. But it is not our own. We are misfits and strangers here, still apt to be blown away by winds or bullets, always voyaging, never able to escape from ourselves or the inevitability of our demise. And there are days when it appears we have learned nothing, least of all how to love. Just turn on the news. Or take a look at my heart. I think of the words I have spattered this year like bullets, fired willy-nilly out of anger, arrogance, stupidity, even naivete, always amazed that the gun goes off when I pull the trigger, always slightly stunned when that smell in the air turns out to be gunpowder and not the sweet perfume of the roses I scatter in my mind. It is the shock of recognition, the one clear moment that comes only when all the distractions and entertainments have faded, when there are no more excuses, when the mirror reflects back our true image. What can you do? In my case, you pray. And you play the single greatest song of a singularly great American songwriter. You shut up and listen. Some nights that’s the best thing you can do.
And in my case I sit in my office, bathed in the blue glow of a computer monitor in a darkened room, pounding out this grim end-of-the-year reckoning. I will not be sad to see the end of 2005. Auld Lang Syne, and good riddance. We traffic in sorrow, the real hard coin of the realm, and music sometimes speaks hard truths. Tonight I listen to Paul Simon, to a beautiful melody and words that sting, and ponder the minor miracles: how we manage to rise above the broken heartedness and our own damned culpability, how we somehow find the strength and courage to get up, bleary eyed, and do it all over again. -Andy Whitman
Simon's lyrics and musical reinterpretation of a Bach chorale has enchanted generations of musicians. Here's a sampling of the best of their versions.
I can't begin to express my love for this song......wait, I mean, yes I can...... oh, never mind!
The art pop geniuses behind 10cc crafted one for the ages with this track. A sterling denial of affection that has obviously overtaken our unreliable narrator, it is bathed in a 256 member choir ingeniously constructed from Godley, Creme, Stewart and Gouldman's four. If ever there was an argument for Analog over Digital, this would be it. Yes, they had to painstakingly assemble this through cutting and pasting loops of tape, but you are not going to get that sound on Pro Tools. This is merely an appetizer for thestrangeandbeautifulworld10ccpresentedtous. Commence perusing of back catalog.....NOW!!!!!!
Folk, Dance Pop and Bubblegum, I command you all to cover!!!!
In the wake of the Nick Drake post, let us follow it up with his spiritual son. Justin Vernon recorded his debut album in an isolated cabin, and that vibe picks up on ForEmma, ForeverAgo like feedback on the tracks. "Skinny Love" is masterful in its loneliness and in its firm belief in this transforming emotion even in the face of despair. No wonder Kanye likes him so much. This is 808 And Heartbreak unplugged in the woods.
Words sometimes fail in the presence of pure beauty, and there has rarely been anything on this earth morebeautifulthenNickDrake'smusic. Thanks be to Volkswagen for giving him back to us.
After his masterful Sea Changes, it only made since for Beck to record this song.
Rod Argent gave us two important bands. Everyone knows The Zombies. In rock critic's circles, Odyssey&TheOracle is always mentioned in lists of the best albums of all times. Lesser known but equally compelling was the band he founded after leaving The Zombies. Argent had a big hit with "Hold Your Head Up", but it was through this power ballad by singer/guitarist Russ Ballard that they had their finest moment. After listening, especially in this compelling version from the BBC's Old Grey Whistle Test, one gets the feeling that every word of the libretto is true. God really does want us to rock out, because he does too. Theology in popular music never sounded so good!
Of course, if you were born in the early 8o's, this is how you first heard this song...AND YOU LOVED IT!!!!!
I've often wondered why Oasis was never as big in the US as they were in their native UK. Granted, any child that came of age in the nineties will always hold the threehitballads from (What's The Story) Morning Glory? in high esteem, as it showed us how rock and roll could be epic again after the taming down of the genre by US grunge bands. Still, I believe America would hold them in a much higher regard if we had not given up at that point on a staple of recorded music: The B-Side. Noel and Liam's throwaways are better than practically any artist's hits from that period. The compilation album The Masterplan proved this point beyond a shadow of a doubt. Lovingly compiled by fan's votes, it showed Americans obsessed with Album-length statements that cd singles were just as important to an understanding of an artist's work. "Acquiesce"? "Half The World Away"? "The Masterplan"? What a ridiculous wealth of quality material these guys had at their disposal! Now that they are gone and appreciation of albums are also vastly fading, the time is ripe for a new generation to take up the call for the kingsofBrit-Pop. To do so, one only has to put The Masterplan on their IPOD. Now just hit shuffle and every once in awhile an Oasis song will pour into your brain, letting you know how important they were and what an irreversible loss their absence has made in popular music. Their will always be "Wonderwall" on our nostalgia obsessed playlists. There should be room for "Talk Tonight" as well.
Has a song that runs a minute and 30 seconds (give or take) ever said so much about humanity and the state of the world? Hell, have songs more than 10 times its length ever equaled its breadth of confusion and uncertainty floating on an underlying bed of beauty? This track is surrounded by classics on alateninetiesprogmasterpiece (Produced by Rick Rubin, Bob Ezrin and George Drakoulias, no less!) that let the world know that the youth of Britain had not forgotten their countrymen were the progenitors and kings of Psychedelic Rock. If ever there was a band you needed to investigate on this list, this is the one that will probably be the most familiar "name-wise" but the least when it comes to having actually heard their music (If you don't count their Deep Purple cover from the I Know What You Did Last Summer soundtrack.). Theirfourstudioalbums would have been studied and fretted over with the best of them if they'd been released 40 years ago.
TheRhodesScholarofcountrymusic names a lot of influences at the beginning of this track. Johnny Cash, Dennis Hopper, Ramblin' Jack Elliot and Jerry Jeff Walker all get equal time in this tale of a rogue/savior poet. You will be hard pressed to find a better couplet in popular music than "And he keeps right on a'changin' for the better or the worse/Searchin' for a shrine he's never found/Never knowin' if believin' is a blessin' or a curse/Or if the goin' up was worth the comin' down".
Three for the price of one on the ol' 365 today!
This might make all the cat videos on youtube worth it. This clip should be studied in history classes!
Maybe the gods of rock were angry that their followers were recording ballads. That's the only explanation I can give for why this song stalled at number 15 on the charts, at a time when Kisswerestillthebest showintown. This song gets better every single time I hear it, but nothing will ever touch the first listen, when I was 16 years old. I had just received Double Platinum as a gift and while perusing such hard hitting classics like Black Diamond and Strutter '78, I came across this tender tale of longing. You don't expect this from Knights In Satan's Service. It makes an even stronger impact then "Beth" because Kiss is playing all the instruments and Rod Stewart turned it down! I'm not going to lie: I would love to hear Rod the Mod tackle this one. It would be ten times cooler than his last 18 Songbook albums!
Just know that this man has written a fewbeautifulmelodies. He also started out as a progressivefusionartist. Finally, at the age of nine, he made your humble 365 man want to play the saxophone. That's all I got. Please direct all angry comments to my parents for bringing this cheese into our house.
But if ya got 6 minutes or so, listen to the album version of this song, and tell me, honestly, if ya cut out the synths, it would remind you of Return To Forever, wouldn't it?
A funny thing happened inbetwixt Hot Fuss and Sam's Town: The Killers discovered classic rock. With a sound as epic as The Unforgettable Fire and Darkness On The Edge Of Town combined, Las Vegas' finest set out to make the great American rock record about their home town. It works on levels that the critics at the time simply missed. It is the exercise of youth acknowledging what had gone before and adding to that lexicon a heartfelt struggle of guitars and new wave keyboards. Sounding like Morrissey fronting E Street, Brendan Flowers has never delivered a better performance than he does on "When You Were Young". In a true nod to the former words I wrote, they have already been saluted by indie rockers Best Coast on their single "Boyfriend". You can sing along with Killers lyrics to that one. Trust me, my fiancee and I have done it!
This is better than it has any right to be. I'm gonna have to check this band out!
Alicia Keys held on to the number one spot in 2007 for five weeks with this smash, which exposes her voice to much more of a rock background than previouslyencountered on her recordings. It works in spades, leaving us with no doubt that she is aforce that will be around for a long time. Hell, she's on the new official anthem for New York!
Listen to this 10 year old and wonder what they are putting in the water these days that is making such impressive child singers!
The year before punk broke, the American charts were blessed with the last great prog single of the seventies. It was by Kansas, a band that had worked hard to make a name for themselves on their firstthreealbums. With their fourth, Leftoverture, they had hit pay dirt. Leftoverture is one of my favorite albums of all time. Besides Styx, Kansas is the greatest American prog band of all time. As with most of their peers, theirbestmaterialisfromtheseventies. Any of their releases from the decade are well worth searching for, as most of them have been remastered with bonus tracks in recent years. There's a lot more to these guys then "Dust In the Wind", even though that song's much better than it gets credit for.
You think this is good? Check her out doing Rush!!
Gary Jules has released someimpressivesinger/songwritermaterial but really, how much cooler is it that he flashed a previous version of a song completely out of existence with an understated, haunting cover of a dance-pop song?
Think how much more cred Idol would have today if he'd actually won.
Music geeks have always had a taste for outsider music in their mouths. I believe it stems from the universal love bestowed upon Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, Pink Floyd's only album fronted by Syd Barrett. Barrett's descent into madness is well documented on his cult classic solo debut The MadcapLaughs. It is a devastatingly beautiful collapse, showing brilliance peaking through the drug-induced dementia. If he could have maintained reality, I can't imagine what Barrett would have delivered to the world. Syd's story and his music are what make me love Daniel Johnston so much more. Not only does he suffer from mental illness, but he is more prolific than Barrett ever dreamed possible. Yes, there are tracks that can simply boggle the sane listener's mind, but there are popgems spread throughout his discography, like today's selection. Only just longer than a minute, it tells a clear story of absurdity, all through an upbeat sunny melody. It is psych pop for psychotics. If I can start you anywhere on your journey through Mr.Johnston'soeuvre, it would be here. Then, jump ahead to his major label debut (and bow), 1994's Fun. Listen to what comes out of the man in a realstudio, and wish Atlantic could have figured out a way to keep him on the roster.
How many artists, in any field, can say they released the defining statements of their craft in four different decades? No one but MilesDavis comes to mind. In the 40's, he exploded on the scene with the hard bop of Birth Of Cool. He invented fusion in the 60's with BitchesBrew. He made jazz funky with On TheCorner in the 70's. But it was his masterpiece of the 1950's that changed the music forever. His modal scales and improvisational workshops known as Kind Of Blue gave us the greatest gathering of players ever to be recorded, with John Coltrane, Bill Evans and Cannonball Adderley all working towards a common goal of beauty. It is revered today in the same breath as Salinger's Catcher In The Rye, Warhol's soup cans, Kubrick's2001 and Chases' The Sopranos. And that opening statement! Just listen and here why Ken Burns spent 12 hours on a documentary telling us that Jazz is the greatest American art form.
Let's be honest here: for some reason, the French make the most exciting electronic music of the last twenty years. From Cassius to Air, they constantly give us something new that draws ingenious references from our Analog past into the digital future. No one does it better than those boys in Daft Punk though. These two robots/producers/djs are two of the strongest magic makers in the business, and although they have only released threestudioalbums in 13 years, they have influenced everyone from Yeezey to Disney. These robots want you to dance, and we should probably appease them, before they decide to take over. You know they could. Look at their helmets for God's sake!!!!
The finest ballad of the outlaw country movement, sung by itsonlyfemalemember, Mrs.WaylonJennings. So good you never even bother with the fact that she says her name is Judy. Clearly she was so caught up in her passionate pleading that she forgot her own name!
No one writes about love, lust and loss like Field Commander Cohen, although that may be because no one has loved, lusted or lost like he has. This tale's power comes from how every word of it is true. It is a retelling of Leonard's affair with Janis Joplin. It is beautiful, coarse, cruel, kind and devastatingly heartbreaking. It is the penultimate song from the penultimate singer/songwriter. If you haven't explored everyinchofhisfirstsevenalbums, I suggest you do it now. Go ahead. I'll be here when you get back.
Covers abound, but no one truly gets Leonard like Rufus.
So, here's a funny story about precociousness in youth. In 1989, Rolling Stone Magazine released their list of the 100 best albums of the 1980's. Their top five included such milestones as Graceland, The Joshua Tree and Remain In Light. Purple Rain was the number two album listed, so you knew that number one had to be amazing. And it was......it just came out in 1979. At 9, already enamored with lists, I had found my least favorite artist. I had no idea who they were until the day I opened that issue, but I knew I despised them. For not only had they cheated their way to number one, but they had robbed The Boss and his Born In the USA album of a rightful spot in the top 5. And where wasGenesis?? And why was So by Peter Gabriel at a lowly 14??!!? Had those deans of music journalism really come so far from where they started that they couldn't be bothered to see if the album they picked as the definitive statement of a decade was from that decade??!!!?!! I Digress... It wasn't until much later that I learned London Calling wasn't released in the US until January of 1980, making it eligible. I'm sure they said that in the article, but back then I was a "picture and headlines" reader when it came to my music magazines. It's a shame I didn't read it though, because I'm sure whatever they said would have made me turn my hatred into curiosity, thus saving me the embarrassment of waiting until 8th grade to discover The Clash's magnum opus. It is the greatest punk album of all time, not because it embraces the punk ideal already perfected by The Ramones and The Sex Pistols, but because it expands the genre into an all-encompassing behemoth. Ska, Blues, Rockabilly, Metal, Soul......you like a style, The Clash give it to you on these two platters of vinyl. Yet, the song I will always love more than any other is their take on lower class suburban boredom, which is like social commentary gone New Wave. Yep, The Clash even do New Wave here, and its better that anything Spandau Ballet, The Thompson Twins and Modern English ever released. My hatred was premature but like any music lover of note, I hate to be dishonest when it comes to my passions. So there's the story of how I once loathed The Clash. Thank you for your time.
I think Ben Folds can cover anything and do it justice!
