Songs to take oversized mallets to

Cafe Society
221

Back in Black was the soundtrack to nearly every party I went to for several year (later replaced by Appetite for Destruction ) so I have a soft spot for it. But, I don’t ever seek it out. I’ve listened to it, along with many bands so many times that I don’t really need to hear them much more these days.

  • Zep
  • Doors
  • Who
  • Beatles
  • Kinks (well, I still hit them up occasionally)
  • Metallica (other metal I still listen to)
  • RHCP
  • Ramones
  • Pixies

And many others. Back then, I would buy an album and it would be on solid repeat for a long time.

222

A bit of a prologue…

My wife was born and raised in the Soviet Union (Ukraine SSR), a place I was fascinated by from about the age of 15 or so. And one of the things I was convinced about the USSR was that they never had rock/pop music because of the censorship and anti-West bias.

But this wasn’t true. If the pop/rock came from a socialistally acceptable country, it was allowed in. Which has, in Inna’s case, resulted in a rather skewed perspective on what was big in the West and what was not. For example, she knows ABBA, they were very popular in the USSR, but she has zero knowledge of The Beatles.

A few weeks ago she mentions about how all the “big” stars would come to the USSR and perform. When I asked her who, one of her replies was “Chris Norman, who sang the song ‘Stumblin’ In’”, a song I always known as a “Suzi Quatro and some guy” song. Inna didn’t know who Suzi Quatro was, but because Mr Norman somehow gained a lot of popularity in East Germany and some of the Eastern Bloc countries, he was “accepted” while Ms Quatro was not.

And I asked her who else, and she mentions Boney M, noting that they were massive in the USSR.

“Boney M?”
“Yeah, Boney M.”
“Never heard of them.”

So I dug them up… and, yes, holy shit, I remember this crap.

(Then, in one of those odd coincidences life throws at you, “Boney M” was a plot device in a Black Mirror episode we saw earlier this week. Forgot about them for 40 years, then get reminded of their existence twice in the same month.)

And I realized that their biggest song was a perfect entry for this thread, so ladies and gentlemen, I proudly present to you

Rasputin, by Boney M:

223

Chris Norman used to be the lead singer for Smokie, a massively successful British band in the UK, Germany and the rest of Europe. The played a kind of US west coast, country rock/pop. Together with Suzi Quatro (they had a common producer team, Chinn/Chapman, hence the Norman/Quatro duet) they are one of my earliest musical memories.

And btw., I like Boney M, and especially “Rasputin”. It’s fabulous camp. Fun fact: their producer and manager Frank Farian was also the producer for Milli Vanilli. And the only male member of Boney M, Bobby Farrell, was actually just a dancer, he never sang a note, all the male vocals were provided by Farian himself in the studio. I was a kid at the time, and that was an open secret, but never escalated to such a big scandal as with Milli Vanilli 10 years later. Nobody in Germany was surprised when the truth about Milli Vanilli got revealed.

224

Approaching 225 responses and no one posted this musical travesty. The singer apparently lives here in Vegas and is a friend of my sister. For everyone’s sake, I hope I never meet him.

225

“Undercover Angel”

Especially (with hideous echo effect) “I said whuh? whuh? whuh? I said Oooo-oooo-oooo-weeee. I said alright. I said love me love me love me”.

226

I was introduced to this song circa 1999 by my roommates who were from Canada. They simply could not believe I had never heard of Boney M.

Put me down as another person who loves these kinds of threads. I like many of the songs mention in this thread even if I agree some of them are bad. Funky Town is an earworm of a song but it’s not very good.

227

“Abracadbra” by Stephen oops Steve Miller.

228

It’s the desert - so let the horse run loose to die of starvation and thirst. You never bothered to name the worthless animal anyway.

229

“Sure is a nice horse. What’s his name?”
“You don’t have to put a name on something you might have to eat.”
–The Culpepper Cattle Co. (1972)

230

I kinda like it- once in a while.

231

I’ve always suspected he reworked his song “Flying” that he did with the Faces. That song is so much better (mostly due to the band).

I am sailing/home again/across the sea…

does sound like:

I’m flying/across the ocean/and I’m soaring, back home…

232

Already debunked in this thread because “Sailing” was a cover. I don’t know who wrote “Flying”, but the similarities just seem to be coincidental.

233

Oh, I didn’t catch that “Sailing” was a cover… (that Rod liked because it reminded him of one of his own songs?)… but thanks!

.

I often stop myself from buying an expensive concert ticket by thinking “Wait a minute, I have NONE of their songs on my phone. Do I really like them enough to (over)pay to see them?”

But this post reminded me of another category: Bands that I know by heart.

I don’t need to carry any Beatles tunes with me, I can just think ‘Hey, how about side 1 of Revolver? I think I’ll play that …[reverb] … in my mind…’"

234

There used to be a black jazz singer, a woman, who was big way back when. Possibly the 40s or earlier. I don’t know her name, but her voice timbre sort of reminds me of Billie Holiday, but really nasal and annoying. She can’t do tremolo or vibrato, so does a sort of “EE-ee-EE-ee” after many words. The jazz station we stream plays her songs on Sundays, which is their oldies day. Someone should have dynamited her entire catalog long ago.

235

Eartha Kitt? I like her.

236

Phil Collins’ ‘in the air tonight’

A GD horse tranquilizer. It would be less so if it weren’t 2 and a half years long. The mumbled lyrics are seemingly devoid of any consonants, as though he was singing with his mouth full of Lidocaine shots.

237

Ms. Kitt wouldn’t sound like that if she had pneumonia and inhaled helium.

238

Thank you for this, I thought I was the only one. I’ve never been a big fan and I never got the love for Hotel California.

239

In the mid-'60s I worked on a summer camp dish crew. We all shared a cabin and fell asleep to music every night for three months. We were too far “up north” to get a radio station, but HEY! One guy had brought a portable record player…

… but he only brought one LP (In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida), and one 45 single… of “In The Year 2525”

240

“Billy Don’t Be a Hero”. 1974, Paper Lace.

They should have faced federal charges for inflicting cruel and unusual punishment.