Not bad, but harmed by the godawful recording technology of the time which has unfortunately lost much of the finer points of the performance.
The singing reminds me a lot of Hugh Laurie’s new album or maybe even Leon Redbone in a way. I’m all about the blues and this was a great listen. Love the guitar work, elegant and well executed.
Time to heavy it up some: Apocalyptica with Nina Hagen doing Rammstein’s Seemann
Dick Van Patten, actually.
Wow! Delightfully menacing and off-kilter.
And now for something completely different - MKTO, “Classic”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ba_qTPA4Ds
It’s a good song, but it’s overproduced. It’d be a better track if it were more raw.
Fast-paced great voice dancin’ jam. Listened to it a second time without the video and liked it even better. Will seek to hear more.
Nurse With Wound: Beetle Crawls Across My Back
That was awful. There was nothing about that song or video I liked at all.
Here’s some real music by Joe Jackson.
This is a song that’s been seemingly used in so many movies/tv/commercial backgrounds that I forgot that it’s a song. I ended up watching “Steppin’ Out” after that and hearing more of his range that he wasn’t using in his live performance linked.
Know it All by Angela McCluskey
Very odd female voice-not unpleasant. A “stage” metaphor type of song…conventional arrangement…
Here’s another rather unique female voice, a bit akin to Annie Lennox, Mary Fahl:
Very Annie Lennox-esque. I love me some Annie, so this voice totally works for me. I wish there were more of this kind of warm, throaty female singer in popular music. The song itself doesn’t move me much one way or the other, though; this plinky/strummy acoustic rock would have been right at home on Lilith Fair in 1997.
How have I never heard of this band? The video looked straight out of the early 90s, like something out of U2 Joshua Tree. I like the sound, an edgier and angrier Oasis although I’m sure the band would hate that description; I’d put it on the playlist.
You know what’s great about the singer’s voice? It’s rock n roll straight up with no cookie monster or vocal burn. It’s just a full, rich timbre.
JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound: Rouse Yourself
That was just outstanding! Gotta find some more. Love those drums. Really good voice. Marvin Gaye feel. And Aubrey Plaza, too!
5th Dimension, If I Could Reach You
Somehow all of the best songs are the sad ones. Really enjoyed listening to that one several times through. Takes me back a number of years. Fine and sincere vocals.
Fire + Ice: The Old Grey Widowmaker
I liked the vocalizations and the Renaissance feel of the music itself but I found myself distracted by the tuning they used on the guitar; it sounded slightly out of tune. It had a very heavy overcast, winter’s day feel to it if that makes sense. In keeping with the spirit of ache and loss:
Lucinda Williams- Those Three Days
The video is meh, but this is the studio cut I like the most.
I forgot about this thread. (And so did everyone else.)
I like the music in this one, it’s slick and mellow, but the vocals are too drunken-Patti-Smith-esque for my taste. I feel the lyrics, though.
Hey, this is pleasant, unassuming, and earnest alt-country. During our Folk Festival this weekend I’ll be hearing a lot of stuff like that. RYM describes some of her other stuff as being a bit more atmospheric and edgy, FWIW…
I would’ve sworn I’ve heard this song before, and at first I would’ve said that I’ve just heard a lot of songs that were inspired by its sound - it seems to be equal parts Nine Inch Nails, Tool, and Pearl Jam.
Then I found out this song came out in 2011, and I’ve got it all backwards - JA here is synthesizing the product of a genre they helped create in the first place. It’s not bad.
I’m not a HUGE ELP fan, but I do like their “classical” adaptations (“Fanfare,” the Prokofiev piece from “Works, vol. 1”) a bit better than their original stuff. “Hoedown” is pretty cool–I particularly like the “Turkey in the Straw” riff near the end. If they could harness Emerson’s finger power, they’d solve all the US energy problems for the next decade. And Palmer’s all over those drums.
Some will recognize this (co-written by Bill Cosby):
One could call Quincy Jones the distant ancestor of today’s EDM producer-auteurs like David Guetta or Avicii, who’re best known for composing and arranging tracks where the heavy lifting is done by contributing musicians. This is a pretty tightly perfomed track with a nice dash of funk to it - in my head I can just see it playing over stock footage of Harlem in the '70s. I can dig it, brother.