Well, I need to excise some tracks, albums and artists off of this iPod. The crimes? They range from being the bland quasi-local spin-off of a band I really liked (rhymes with milko) or a Top 40 rip-off of a band I really love (rhymes with Meplacements).
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Better Things I Learned the Hard Way
Martha Wainwright, Tower Song, I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too
Res, 700 Mile Situation How I Do
Stevie Wonder, Sir Duke Songs in the Key of Life
The Autumn Defense, Iowa City Adieu Circles
Neil Young, Loner Decade
Hideo Kobayashi, Teardrops with Rasmus Faber A Drama
Goo Goo Dolls, Long Way Down A Boy Named Goo
Linda Ronstadt, I Will Never Marry Simple Dreams
Neko Case, Fever Middle Cyclone
Stevie Wonder, Golden Lady Innervisions
The Temptations, Papa Was a Rolling Stone (DJ Jazzy Jeff and Pete Kuzma Soleful Mix), Cafe Mambo Ibiza 2006
And I have to delete the Martha Wainwright. This is in italics because, while I really do like her voice, she is kind of crazy and most--all?--of the songs are unequivocally bad aural feng shui. She's always waking up in someone's bed she shouldn't have been in or waiting by the phone for that no-good (married, distracted, shady) man to call but then he comes back and BAM her zipper's undone and there we are again.
That's just some poor-choices, self-hating poison to pour into your own earholes.
But then Shuffle gives you the antithesis of that to start your day.
And, in that small, random gift, you have a pool of morning sunshine to swim in later when things and thoughts darken during the day.
You want your iPod to not only play what you like instead of what you don't, but to soundtrack exactly where you are (and we're talking the undiscovered country here, folks, the insides), not someplace that you're not.
Showing posts with label Sharon Jones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sharon Jones. Show all posts
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Friday, December 30, 2011
On Repeat: You're Too Strong Not to Keep On Keepin' On
I discovered this during my recent (and likely to rouse itself again soon) obsession with Soul Train line dances.
It's been stuck in my head for about the last month, with plans to pay January rent.
Two observations to tap out with its syncopation and grit. Okay, three. First: I love how it builds. Masterful.
First-point-five: this particular line dance pulls the ain't-nowhere-to-go-but-up joy out of the song and makes its butt shake. In bellbottoms.
I've been trying to figure out a way to recreate it on a stage with just myself. I need the technology behind those commercials in which Fred Astaire is lifted from Royal Wedding and dances with a Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner. I suppose more recent technology would serve me better--whatever made Tom Cruise "climb" the Burj Dubai in that new Mission Impossible movie I saw last week.
Second, I haven't really been familiar with Gladys Knight beyond "Midnight Train to Georgia" (which, by the way, was originally "Midnight Plane to Houston." I always thought LA to Georgia was a long way to go on a train.) and other slow burners that I probably heard on the radio with my wee ears while in the back seat of the car. I was never that attracted to Gladys, or, rather, Gladys through those tracks, because the mournful my-man-done-me-wrong, the party's over isn't much my cup of tea. But at the risk of making a no-shit parallel, I'd say Sharon Jones owes as much to Gladys (or at least this performance) in her recordings as she does to James Brown and Tina Turner for her live show. She just doesn't have some Pips; she has Dap-Kings that don't sing. To wit: "If You Call." Gladys eventually lost that grit you hear in "Imagination;" she moved onto 80s drum-machine soul, the kind of stuff that you'd skate to at the roller rink in the middle of that decade, and dropped the Pips. She even made a James Bond theme, a forgettable Timothy Dalton one at that.
And third--what was third? Oh yes. I wish that whenever I sing (which is not often enough any more), I could have three guys smoothly backing me, subtly hyping me, and reminding me that I'm too strong not to--you know.
It's been stuck in my head for about the last month, with plans to pay January rent.
Two observations to tap out with its syncopation and grit. Okay, three. First: I love how it builds. Masterful.
First-point-five: this particular line dance pulls the ain't-nowhere-to-go-but-up joy out of the song and makes its butt shake. In bellbottoms.
I've been trying to figure out a way to recreate it on a stage with just myself. I need the technology behind those commercials in which Fred Astaire is lifted from Royal Wedding and dances with a Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner. I suppose more recent technology would serve me better--whatever made Tom Cruise "climb" the Burj Dubai in that new Mission Impossible movie I saw last week.
Second, I haven't really been familiar with Gladys Knight beyond "Midnight Train to Georgia" (which, by the way, was originally "Midnight Plane to Houston." I always thought LA to Georgia was a long way to go on a train.) and other slow burners that I probably heard on the radio with my wee ears while in the back seat of the car. I was never that attracted to Gladys, or, rather, Gladys through those tracks, because the mournful my-man-done-me-wrong, the party's over isn't much my cup of tea. But at the risk of making a no-shit parallel, I'd say Sharon Jones owes as much to Gladys (or at least this performance) in her recordings as she does to James Brown and Tina Turner for her live show. She just doesn't have some Pips; she has Dap-Kings that don't sing. To wit: "If You Call." Gladys eventually lost that grit you hear in "Imagination;" she moved onto 80s drum-machine soul, the kind of stuff that you'd skate to at the roller rink in the middle of that decade, and dropped the Pips. She even made a James Bond theme, a forgettable Timothy Dalton one at that.
And third--what was third? Oh yes. I wish that whenever I sing (which is not often enough any more), I could have three guys smoothly backing me, subtly hyping me, and reminding me that I'm too strong not to--you know.
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