joi, 20 aprilie 2023

The Beach Boys - ( B52 )

 It is the belief of Richie Unterberger that, "Before session musicians took over most of the parts, the Beach Boys could play respectably gutsy surf rock as a self-contained unit."

As Wilson's arrangements increased in complexity, he began employing a group of professional studio musicians, later known as "the Wrecking Crew", to assist with recording the instrumentation on select tracks. According to some reports, these musicians then completely replaced the Beach Boys on the backing tracks to their records. Much of the relevant documentation, while accounting for the attendance of unionized session players, had failed to record the presence of the Beach Boys themselves. These documents, along with the full unedited studio session tapes, were not available for public scrutiny until the 1990s.

Wilson started occasionally employing members of the Wrecking Crew for certain Beach Boys tracks during the 1963 Surfer Girl sessions – specifically, on two songs, "Hawaii" and "Our Car Club". The 1964 albums Shut Down Volume 2 and All Summer Long featured the Beach Boys themselves playing the vast majority of the instruments while occasionally being augmented by outside musicians. It is commonly misreported that Dennis in particular was replaced by Hal Blaine on drums. Dennis's drumming is documented on a number of the group's singles, including 1964's "I Get Around", "Fun, Fun, Fun", and "Don't Worry Baby". Starting with the 1965 albums Today! and Summer Days, Brian used the Wrecking Crew with greater frequency, "but still", Stebbins writes, "the Beach Boys continued to play the instruments on many of the key tracks and single releases.


va urma

marți, 18 aprilie 2023

Bob Dylan ( b33 )

 In August 2007, the award-winning film biography of Dylan I'm Not There, written and directed by Todd Haynes, was released—bearing the tagline "inspired by the music and many lives of Bob Dylan". The movie used six different actors to represent different aspects of Dylan's life: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger and Ben Whishaw. Dylan's previously unreleased 1967 recording from which the film takes its name was released for the first time on the film's original soundtrack; all other tracks are covers of Dylan songs, specially recorded for the movie by a diverse range of artists, including Sonic Youth, Eddie Vedder, Mason Jennings, Stephen Malkmus, Jeff Tweedy, Karen O, Willie Nelson, Cat Power, Richie Havens and Tom Verlaine.

Dylan, dressed in a black western outfit with red highlights, stands onstage and plays the keyboards. He gazes to the left of the photo. Behind him is a guitar player, dressed in black.
Bob Dylan performs at Air Canada Centre, Toronto, November 7, 2006

On October 1, 2007, Columbia Records released the triple CD retrospective album Dylan, anthologizing his entire career under the Dylan 07 logo. The sophistication of the Dylan 07 marketing campaign was a reminder that Dylan's commercial profile had risen considerably since the 1990s. This became evident in 2004, when Dylan appeared in a TV advertisement for Victoria's Secret lingerie. Three years later, in October 2007, he participated in a multi-media campaign for the 2008 Cadillac Escalade. Then, in 2009, he gave the highest profile endorsement of his career, appearing with rapper will.i.am in a Pepsi ad that debuted during the telecast of Super Bowl XLIII. The ad, broadcast to a record audience of 98 million viewers, opened with Dylan singing the first verse of "Forever Young" followed by will.i.am doing a hip hop version of the song's third and final verse.

The Bootleg Series Vol. 8 – Tell Tale Signs was released in October 2008, as both a two-CD set and a three-CD version with a 150-page hardcover book.


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luni, 17 aprilie 2023

The Beatles ( B44 )

 Residual disagreement emanating from Apple Corps' dispute with Apple, Inc., iTunes' owners, over the use of the name "Apple" was also partly responsible for the delay, although in 2008, McCartney stated that the main obstacle to making the Beatles' catalogue available online was that EMI "want[s] something we're not prepared to give them". In 2010, the official canon of thirteen Beatles studio albums, Past Masters, and the "Red" and "Blue" greatest-hits albums were made available on iTunes.

In 2012, EMI's recorded music operations were sold to Universal Music Group. In order for Universal Music to acquire EMI, the European Union, for antitrust reasons, forced EMI to spin off assets including Parlophone. Universal was allowed to keep the Beatles' recorded music catalogue, managed by Capitol Records under its Capitol Music Group division. The entire original Beatles album catalogue was also reissued on vinyl in 2012; available either individually or as a box set.

In 2013, a second volume of BBC recordings, On Air – Live at the BBC Volume 2, was released. That December saw the release of another 59 Beatles recordings on iTunes. The set, titled The Beatles Bootleg Recordings 1963, had the opportunity to gain a 70-year copyright extension conditional on the songs being published at least once before the end of 2013. Apple Records released the recordings on 17 December to prevent them from going into the public domain and had them taken down from iTunes later that same day. Fan reactions to the release were mixed, with one blogger saying "the hardcore Beatles collectors who are trying to obtain everything will already have these.''

On 26 January 2014, McCartney and Starr performed together at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards, held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The following day, The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to The Beatles television special was taped in the Los Angeles Convention Center's West Hall. It aired on 9 February, the exact date of – and at the same time, and on the same network as – the original broadcast of the Beatles' first US television appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, 50 years earlier.


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duminică, 16 aprilie 2023

Traffic - House for Everyone ( L3 )

My bed is made of candy floss, the house is made of cheese
It's lit by lots of glow-worms; if I'm wrong correct me please.
The village is a pop-up book, the people wooden dolls.
The roads are made of treacle things, it's time that I moved on.

My home is half a walnut shell, the journey will be long
So I filled the whole with peppermints and creamy pink blanc-mange.
I sailed away for fifteen days, it never once got dark
And came upon two large houses set out in a park.

On the door of one was truth, on the other door was lies.
Which one should I enter thru? I really must decide
The door of lies had lots of flowers growing round outside
But looking close I noticed it was crumbling inside

The door of truth was very plain, but stood up very strong,
And when I entered thru its door I knew I wasn't wrong.

 

sâmbătă, 15 aprilie 2023

The Beach Boys ( B51 )

 On the group's blend, Carl said: "[Love] has a beautifully rich, very full-sounding bass voice. Yet his lead singing is real nasal, real punk. [Jardine]'s voice has a bright timbre to it; it really cuts. My voice has a kind of calm sound. We're big oooh-ers; we love to oooh. It's a big, full sound, that's very pleasing to us; it opens up the heart.'' Rock critic Erik Davis wrote, "The 'purity' of tone and genetic proximity that smoothed their voices was almost creepy, pseudo-castrato, [and] a 'barbershop' sound. Jimmy Webb said, "They used very little vibrato and sing in very straight tones. The voices all lie down beside each other very easily – there's no bumping between them because the pitch is very precise." According to Brian: "Jack Good once told us, 'You sing like eunuchs in a Sistine Chapel,' which was a pretty good quote." Writer Richard Goldstein reported that, according to a fellow journalist who asked Brian about the black roots of his music, Brian's response was: "We're white and we sing white." Goldstein added that when he asked where his approach to vocal harmonies had derived from, Wilson answered: 'Barbershop'."

Use of studio musicians

The Beach Boys performing in 1964

Biographer James Murphy said, "By most contemporary accounts, they were not a very good live band when they started. ... The Beach Boys learned to play as a band in front of live audiences", eventually to become "one of the best and enduring live bands". With only a few exceptions, the Beach Boys played every instrument heard on their first four albums and first five singles.


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marți, 11 aprilie 2023

Canned Heat - Evil is Going On ( L3 )



It's a long way from home,
Can't sleep at night.
Call on your telephone;
Something just ain't right.
That's evil, evil is going on wrong.
I want to warn you brother,
You better watch your happy home.

You make it to your house,
Knock on the front door,
Run 'round to the back;
You'll catch him just before he goes.
That's evil, evil is going on.
I have warned you brother,
You better watch your happy home.

If you call on the telephone
And she answers long and slow,
Grab the first thing smoking
And you have to haul her home.
That's evil, evil is going on wrong.
I have warned you brother,
You better watch your happy home.

luni, 10 aprilie 2023

Bob Dylan ( b32 )

 The show was praised by fans and critics, as Dylan told stories and made eclectic references, commenting on his musical choices. In April 2009, Dylan broadcast the 100th show in his radio series; the theme was "Goodbye" and the final record played was Woody Guthrie's "So Long, It's Been Good to Know Yuh". Dylan resurrected his Theme Time Radio Hour format when he broadcast a two-hour special on the theme of "Whiskey" on Sirius Radio on September 21, 2020.

Dylan together with five members of his band onstage. Dylan, dressed in a white shirt and black pants, is second from right.
Dylan, the Spectrum, 2007

Dylan released his Modern Times album in August 2006. Despite some coarsening of Dylan's voice (a critic for The Guardian characterized his singing on the album as "a catarrhal death rattle") most reviewers praised the album, and many described it as the final installment of a successful trilogy, embracing Time Out of Mind and "Love and Theft"Modern Times entered the US charts at number one, making it Dylan's first album to reach that position since 1976's DesireThe New York Times published an article exploring similarities between some of Dylan's lyrics in Modern Times and the work of the Civil War poet Henry Timrod.

Nominated for three Grammy Awards, Modern Times won Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album and Bob Dylan also won Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance for "Someday Baby". Modern Times was named Album of the Year, 2006, by Rolling Stone magazine, and by Uncut in the UK. On the same day that Modern Times was released the iTunes Music Store released Bob Dylan: The Collection, a digital box set containing all of his albums (773 tracks in total), along with 42 rare and unreleased tracks.


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duminică, 9 aprilie 2023

The Beatles ( B43 )

 In 2003, Let It Be... Naked, a reconceived version of the Let It Be album, with McCartney supervising production, was released. One of the main differences from the Spector-produced version was the omission of the original string arrangements. It was a top-ten hit in both Britain and America. The US album configurations from 1964 to 1965 were released as box sets in 2004 and 2006; The Capitol Albums, Volume 1 and Volume 2 included both stereo and mono versions based on the mixes that were prepared for vinyl at the time of the music's original American release.

As a soundtrack for Cirque du Soleil's Las Vegas Beatles stage revue, Love, George Martin and his son Giles remixed and blended 130 of the band's recordings to create what Martin called "a way of re-living the whole Beatles musical lifespan in a very condensed period". The show premiered in June 2006, and the Love album was released that November. In April 2009, Starr performed three songs with McCartney at a benefit concert held at New York's Radio City Music Hall and organised by McCartney.

On 9 September 2009, the Beatles' entire back catalogue was reissued following an extensive digital remastering process that lasted four years. Stereo editions of all twelve original UK studio albums, along with Magical Mystery Tour and the Past Masters compilation, were released on compact disc both individually and as a box set. A second collection, The Beatles in Mono, included remastered versions of every Beatles album released in true mono along with the original 1965 stereo mixes of Help! and Rubber Soul (both of which Martin had remixed for the 1987 editions). The Beatles: Rock Band, a music video game in the Rock Band series, was issued on the same day. In December 2009, the band's catalogue was officially released in FLAC and MP3 format in a limited edition of 30,000 USB flash drives.

2010s

Owing to a long-running royalty disagreement, the Beatles were among the last major artists to sign deals with online music services


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vineri, 7 aprilie 2023

The Beach Boys ( B50 )

 He declared in 1966 that his greatest interest was to expand modern vocal harmony, owing to his fascination with a voice to the Four Freshmen, which he considered a "groovy sectional sound." He added, "The harmonies that we are able to produce give us a uniqueness which is really the only important thing you can put into records – some quality that no one else has got. I love peaks in a song – and enhancing them on the control panel. Most of all, I love the human voice for its own sake." For a period, Brian avoided singing falsetto for the group, saying, "I thought people thought I was a fairy...the band told me, 'If that's the way you sing, don't worry about it.'"

In the group's early recordings, from lowest intervals to highest, the group's vocal harmony stack usually began with Love or Dennis, followed by Jardine or Carl, and finally Brian on top, according to Jardine, while Carl said that the blend was Love on bottom, Carl above, followed by Dennis or Jardine, and then Brian on top. Jardine explains, "We always sang the same vocal intervals. ... As soon as we heard the chords on the piano we'd figure it out pretty easily. If there was a vocal move [Brian] envisioned, he'd show that particular singer that move. We had somewhat photographic memory as far as the vocal parts were concerned so that [was] never a problem for us." Striving for perfection, Brian insured that his intricate vocal arrangements exercised the group's calculated blend of intonation, attack, phrasing, and expression. Sometimes, he would sing each vocal harmony part alone through multi-track tape.


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[Love] had a hand in a lot of the arrangements. He would bring out the funkier approaches, whether to go shoo-boo-bop or bom-bom-did-di-did-did. It makes a big difference, because it can change the whole rhythm, the whole color and tone of it.

— Carl Wilson

joi, 6 aprilie 2023

Anthrax - I'm Eighteen ( L3 )

Lines form on my face and hands
Lines form from the ups and downs
I'm in the middle without any plans
I'm a boy and I'm a man

I'm eighteen and I don't know what I want
Eighteen, I just don't know what I want
Eighteen, I got to get away
I got to get out of this place

I'll go runnin' in outer space!

I've got a baby's brain and an old man's heart
Took eighteen years to get this far
Don't always know what I'm talking about
Feels like I'm living in the middle of doubt

'Cause I'm eighteen, I get confused every day
Eighteen, I just don't know what to say
Eighteen, I've got to get away

Lines form on my face and my hands
Lines form from the left and right
I'm in the middle, the middle of life
I'm a boy and I'm a man


I'm eighteen and I like it

miercuri, 5 aprilie 2023

George Michael - Faith ( s 1.4 )

 

Track listing

7": UK / Epic EMU 2

  1. "Faith" – 3:16
  2. "Hand To Mouth" – 4:36

12": UK / Epic EMU T2

  1. "Faith" – 3:16
  2. "Faith" (Instrumental) – 3:07
  3. "Hand to Mouth" – 4:36

Mixes

  1. Album version – 3:16
  2. Instrumental – 3:07

Personnel

  • Vocals, programming, percussion – George Michael
  • Bass – Deon Estus
  • Guitars – Hugh Burns
  • Cathedral organ – Chris Cameron

marți, 4 aprilie 2023

George Michael - Faith ( s 1.3 )

 

Music video

The official music video for the song was directed by Andy Morahan. It features Michael, with noticeable stubble on his face, wearing a black leather jacket with 'Rockers Revenge' and BSA logo, Ray-Ban Aviator sunglasses and a pair of Levi's blue jeans with cowboy boots, playing a guitar near a classic-design Wurlitzer jukebox. Writers Bob Batchelor and Scott Stoddart say the music video positions him as a "masculine sex object", breaking him up into individual body parts such as "stubbled"  chin and butt.

The music video also features part of another song by Michael. The video starts by playing "I Want Your Sex", and then is interrupted by the jukebox starting into "Faith". The intro of "Faith" is the chorus of Wham!'s song "Freedom", played on a church organ.

Chart performance

The song reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and number two on the UK Singles Chart for two weeks in late October and early November 1987. It entered the UK Singles Chart at number 10 but was kept off the top spot by "You Win Again" from the Bee Gees.

On the Billboard Hot 100 chart, "Faith" went from number 54 to number 37, the week of 31 October 1987. It reached number one on 12 December 1987 and remained there for four consecutive weeks. Altogether, "Faith" stayed in the top 10 for nine weeks, the top 20 for 11 weeks and the top 40 for 15 weeks.


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duminică, 2 aprilie 2023

Bob Dylan ( b31 )

 In 2003, Dylan revisited the evangelical songs from his Christian period and participated in the CD project Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan. That year Dylan also released the film Masked & Anonymous, which he co-wrote with director Larry Charles under the alias Sergei Petrov. Dylan played the central character in the film, Jack Fate, alongside a cast that included Jeff Bridges, Penélope Cruz and John Goodman. The film polarised critics: many dismissed it as an "incoherent mess"; a few treated it as a serious work of art.

In October 2004, Dylan published the first part of his autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One. Confounding expectations, Dylan devoted three chapters to his first year in New York City in 1961–1962, virtually ignoring the mid-1960s when his fame was at its height. He also devoted chapters to the albums New Morning (1970) and Oh Mercy (1989). The book reached number two on The New York Times' Hardcover Non-Fiction best seller list in December 2004 and was nominated for a National Book Award.

No Direction Home, Martin Scorsese's acclaimed film biography of Dylan, was first broadcast on September 26–27, 2005, on BBC Two in the UK and PBS in the US. The documentary focuses on the period from Dylan's arrival in New York in 1961 to his motorcycle crash in 1966, featuring interviews with Suze Rotolo, Liam Clancy, Joan Baez, Allen Ginsberg, Pete Seeger, Mavis Staples and Dylan himself. The film received a Peabody Award in April 2006 and a Columbia-duPont Award in January 2007. The accompanying soundtrack featured unreleased songs from Dylan's early career.

Modern Times

Dylan's career as a radio presenter commenced on May 3, 2006, with his weekly radio program, Theme Time Radio Hour for XM Satellite Radio, with song selections on chosen themes.


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sâmbătă, 1 aprilie 2023

The Beatles ( B42 )

 That same year McCartney, Harrison and Starr collaborated on the Anthology project. Anthology was the culmination of work begun in 1970, when Apple Corps director Neil Aspinall, their former road manager and personal assistant, had started to gather material for a documentary with the working title The Long and Winding Road. Documenting their history in the band's own words, the Anthology project included the release of several unissued Beatles recordings. McCartney, Harrison and Starr also added new instrumental and vocal parts to songs recorded as demos by Lennon in the late 1970s.

During 1995–96, the project yielded a television miniseries, an eight-volume video set, and three two-CD/three-LP box sets featuring artwork by Klaus Voormann. Two songs based on Lennon demos, "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love", were issued as new Beatles singles. The releases were commercially successful and the television series was viewed by an estimated 400 million people. In 1999, to coincide with the re-release of the 1968 film Yellow Submarine, an expanded soundtrack album, Yellow Submarine Songtrack, was issued.

2000s

The Beatles' 1 a compilation album of the band's British and American number-one hits, was released on 13 November 2000. It became the fastest-selling album of all time, with 3.6 million sold in its first week and 13 million within a month. It topped albums charts in at least 28 countries. The compilation had sold 31 million copies globally by April 2009.

Harrison died from metastatic lung cancer in November 2001. McCartney and Starr were among the musicians who performed at the Concert for George, organised by Eric Clapton and Harrison's widow, Olivia. The tribute event took place at the Royal Albert Hall on the first anniversary of Harrison's death.


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vineri, 31 martie 2023

The Beach Boys ( B49 )

 He was the only white guy on his track team. He was really immersed in doo-wop and that music and I think he influenced Brian to listen to it. The black artists were so much better in terms of rock records in those days that the white records almost sounded like put-ons." On Jimi Hendrix and "heavy" music, Brian said he felt no pressure to go in that direction: "We never got into the heavy musical level trip. We never needed to. It's already been done."

Another significant influence on Brian's work was Burt Bacharach. He said in the 1960s: "Burt Bacharach and Hal David are more like me. They're also the best pop team – per se – today. As a producer, Bacharach has a very fresh, new approach." Regarding surf rock pioneer Dick Dale, Brian said that his influence on the group was limited to Carl and his style of guitar playing. Carl credited Chuck Berry, the Ventures, and John Walker with shaping his guitar style, and that the Beach Boys had learned to play all of the Ventures' songs by ear early in their career.

In 1967, Lou Reed wrote in Aspen that the Beach Boys created a "hybrid sound" out of old rock and the Four Freshmen, explaining that such songs as "Let Him Run Wild", "Don't Worry Baby", "I Get Around", and "Fun, Fun, Fun" were not unlike "Peppermint Stick" by the Elchords. Similarly, John Sebastian of the Lovin' Spoonful noted, "Brian had control of this vocal palette of which we had no idea. We had never paid attention to the Four Freshmen or doo-wop combos like the Crew Cuts. Look what gold he mined out of that."

Vocals

Brian identified each member individually for their vocal range, once detailing the ranges for Carl, Dennis, Jardine ("[they] progress upwards through G, A, and B"), Love ("can go from bass to the E above middle C"), and himself ("I can take the second D in the treble clef").


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joi, 30 martie 2023

George Michael - Faith ( s1.2 )

 

History

The song incorporates the famed Bo Diddley beat, a classic rock and roll rhythm. It begins with organ played by Chris Cameron, referencing Wham's song "Freedom", followed by guitar strumming, finger clicking, hand-claps, tambourine and hi-hat.

The song was featured in the film Bitter Moon, directed by Roman Polanski. More recently, it featured in Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One and plays during the wedding scene in Ridley Scott's House of Gucci.

Music video

The official music video for the song was directed by Andy Morahan. It features Michael, with noticeable stubble on his face, wearing a black leather jacket with 'Rockers Revenge' and BSA logo, Ray-Ban Aviator sunglasses and a pair of Levi's blue jeans with cowboy boots, playing a guitar near a classic-design Wurlitzer jukebox. Writers Bob Batchelor and Scott Stoddart say the music video positions him as a "masculine sex object", breaking him up into individual body parts such as "stubbled"  chin and butt.

The music video also features part of another song by Michael. The video starts by playing "I Want Your Sex", and then is interrupted by the jukebox starting into "Faith". The intro of "Faith" is the chorus of Wham!'s song "Freedom", played on a church organ.


continuare

marți, 28 martie 2023

George Michael - Faith ( s1.1 )

 Work on the song later resumed on 1 September 1987, when a new bridge added and a 50s-inspired guitar solo by Burns - played on a Geffen custom Stratocaster - were added at Sarm West Studio 2 in London. According to Porter, the solo was constructed bar-by-bar over a period of 4 hours in a similar fashion to recording George's vocals.

Michael never thought of releasing "Faith" as a single in the beginning but once he decided it was going to be released he extended the song length to add the guitar solo, as explained in an interview with Countdown in 1988:

"Faith was never actually intended as a single when I first recorded it. And then I listened to it more and more and... 'cause in fact, originally it was two minutes long. Originally there was no guitar solo. There was no real guitar sound on it or anything. And everyone said it's great, it's great but it's too short, you know. And everyone kept saying that 'I love Faith, I love Faith'. So I thought, well maybe I should put it out as a single when it came to that. I said, I think a two-minute long single is a bit, you know... so I went in and extended it. But it was originally never intended as a single. It was just gonna be a small track on the album, a really short track."


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luni, 27 martie 2023

George Michael - Faith ( s1 )

 


"Faith" is a song written and performed by George Michael, from his 1987 debut solo album of the same name. It held the number-one position on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for four weeks and, according to Billboard magazine, was the number-one single of the year in the United States in 1988. The song also reached number one in Australia and Canada and number two on the UK Singles Chart. In 2001, it placed at number 322 on the Songs of the Century list.

Writing and recording

As with the rest of the album, the track was written, arranged, and produced by Michael. It is claimed that the idea came from publisher Dick Leahy's suggestion that Michael write a rock and roll pastiche. The song began life in May 1987 at PUK Studios, Denmark with Michael doing a 2-bar LinnDrum loop and Hugh Burns playing the Bo Diddley-style acoustic rhythm guitar part on a nameless metal-bodied acoustic.  Long-time bassist Deon Estus laid down a bass part, while the cathedral organ part was recorded with a Yamaha DX7 (although some sources state it is from a Roland D-50). While recording the vocals on the Faith album and other subsequent solo albums, Michael would usually write lyrics in front of the mic, and build the lead vocal by singing a line, each time he had Chris Porter rewind the tape so he could drop in at certain points to create the right emotional effect with his voice. For this song, George wanted the vocals to be "dry and in-your-face", like on Prince's songs at the time, which Porter noted "had a very tight delay on the vocals, making him sound very growly but dry and aggressive" - it was that kind of effect they managed to recreate with an AMS digital delay.


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duminică, 26 martie 2023

Bob Dylan ( b30 )

 In December 1997, US President Bill Clinton presented Dylan with a Kennedy Center Honor in the East Room of the White House, paying this tribute: "He probably had more impact on people of my generation than any other creative artist. His voice and lyrics haven't always been easy on the ear, but throughout his career Bob Dylan has never aimed to please. He's disturbed the peace and discomforted the powerful".

2000s

Dylan commenced the 2000s by winning the Polar Music Prize in May 2000 and his first Oscar; his song "Things Have Changed", written for the film Wonder Boys, won an Academy Award for Best Song in 2001.

"Love and Theft" was released on September 11, 2001. Recorded with his touring band, Dylan produced the album himself under the pseudonym Jack Frost. The album was critically well received and earned nominations for several Grammy awards. Critics noted that Dylan was widening his musical palette to include rockabilly, Western swing, jazz, and even lounge ballads. "Love and Theft" generated controversy when The Wall Street Journal pointed out similarities between the album's lyrics and Japanese author Junichi Saga's book Confessions of a Yakuza.


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sâmbătă, 25 martie 2023

The Beatles ( B 41 )

 In 1984, Starr co-starred in McCartney's film Give My Regards to Broad Street, and played with McCartney on several of the songs on the soundtrack. In 1987, Harrison's Cloud Nine album included "When We Was Fab", a song about the Beatlemania era.

When the Beatles' studio albums were released on CD by EMI and Apple Corps in 1987, their catalogue was standardised throughout the world, establishing a canon of the twelve original studio LPs as issued in the UK plus the US LP version of Magical Mystery Tour. All the remaining material from the singles and EPs that had not appeared on these thirteen studio albums was gathered on the two-volume compilation Past Masters (1988). Except for the Red and Blue albums, EMI deleted all its other Beatles compilations – including the Hollywood Bowl record – from its catalogue.

In 1988, the Beatles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, their first year of eligibility. Harrison and Starr attended the ceremony with Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, and his two sons, Julian and Sean. McCartney declined to attend, citing unresolved "business differences" that would make him "feel like a complete hypocrite waving and smiling with them at a fake reunion". The following year, EMI/Capitol settled a decade-long lawsuit filed by the band over royalties, clearing the way to commercially package previously unreleased material.

1990s

Live at the BBC, the first official release of unissued Beatles performances in seventeen years, appeared in 1994.


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vineri, 24 martie 2023

The Beach Boys ( B48 )

In a 1966 article that asked if "the Beach Boys rely too much on sound genius Brian", Carl said that although Brian was the most responsible for their music, every member of the group contributed ideas. Mike Love wrote, "As far as I was concerned, Brian was a genius, deserving of that recognition. But the rest of us were seen as nameless components in Brian's music machine ... It didn't feel to us as if we were just riding on Brian's coattails." Conversely, Dennis defended Brian's stature in the band, stating: "Brian Wilson is the Beach Boys. He is the band. We're his fucking messengers. He is all of it. Period. We're nothing. He's everything."

Influences

The band's earliest influences came primarily from the work of Chuck Berry and the Four Freshmen. Performed by the Four Freshmen, "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring" (1961) was a particular favorite of the group. By analyzing their arrangements of pop standards, Brian educated himself on jazz harmony. Bearing this in mind, Philip Lambert noted, "If Bob Flanigan helped teach Brian how to sing, then Gershwin, Kern, Porter, and the other members of this pantheon helped him learn how to craft a song." Other general influences on the group included the Hi-Los, the Penguins, the Robins, Bill Haley & His Comets, Otis Williams, the Cadets, the Everly Brothers, the Shirelles, the Regents, and the Crystals.

Though the Beach Boys are often caricatured as the ultimate white, suburban act, black R&B was crucial to their sound.

— Geoffrey Himes

The eclectic mix of white and black vocal group influences – ranging from the rock and roll of Berry, the jazz harmonies of the Four Freshmen, the pop of the Four Preps, the folk of the Kingston Trio, the R&B of groups like the Coasters and the Five Satins, and the doo wop of Dion and the Belmonts – helped contribute to the Beach Boys' uniqueness in American popular music. Carl remembered: "Most of [Mike's] classmates were black.


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joi, 23 martie 2023

Bay City Rollers - Give it to me Now ( L3 )



Whatever you got and you got a lot it's just I wanta desire
And you can bet that I'm gonna get ya cause ya set me on fire
C'mon and give, give give
Give it to me now
Wherever you go I want you to know you're gonna be blowin' my mind
Yeah, I'm gonna take you, I'm gonna shake ye
I'm gonna make ye all mine
You're gonna give give give, give it to me now
Shim sham sham a ram
Baby, I'm a ram
Give it to me now
Give it to me now

Whatever you say I won't go away 'caus
 I'm gonna stay at your door
Ya got what I need ah yes indeed and now 
I'm pleadin' for more
C'mon and give give give give it to me now
Well, I've been a burnin', 
I've been a learnin' why you're turnin' me on
'Cause I never knew nobody like you
Ya do what ya do and I'm gone
You gotta give give give give it to me now
Shim sham sham a ram
Baby, I'm a ram
Give it to me now
Give it to me now
Give it to me now

miercuri, 22 martie 2023

luni, 20 martie 2023

Bob Dylan ( b29 )

 Dylan recorded two live shows for MTV Unplugged. He said his wish to perform traditional songs was overruled by Sony executives who insisted on hits. The resulting album, MTV Unplugged, included "John Brown", an unreleased 1962 song of how enthusiasm for war ends in mutilation and disillusionment.

Dylan and members of his band perform onstage. Dylan, wearing a red shirt and black pants, plays an electric guitar and sings.
Dylan performs during the 1996 Lida Festival in Stockholm

With a collection of songs reportedly written while snowed in on his Minnesota ranch, Dylan booked recording time with Daniel Lanois at Miami's Criteria Studios in January 1997. The subsequent recording sessions were, by some accounts, fraught with musical tension. Before the album's release Dylan was hospitalized with a life-threatening heart infection, pericarditis, brought on by histoplasmosis. His scheduled European tour was canceled, but Dylan made a speedy recovery and left the hospital saying, "I really thought I'd be seeing Elvis soon". He was back on the road by mid-year, and performed before Pope John Paul II at the World Eucharistic Conference in Bologna, Italy. The Pope treated the audience of 200,000 people to a homily based on Dylan's lyric "Blowin' in the Wind".

In September Dylan released the new Lanois-produced album, Time Out of Mind. With its bitter assessment of love and morbid ruminations, Dylan's first collection of original songs in seven years was highly acclaimed. One critic wrote: "the songs themselves are uniformly powerful, adding up to Dylan's best overall collection in years". This collection of complex songs won him his first solo "Album of the Year" Grammy Award.


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duminică, 19 martie 2023

The Beatles ( B40 )

 The Broadway musical Beatlemania, an unauthorised nostalgia revue, opened in early 1977 and proved popular, spinning off five separate touring productions. In 1979, the band sued the producers, settling for several million dollars in damages. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978), a musical film starring the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton, was a commercial failure and an "artistic fiasco", according to Ingham.

Accompanying the wave of Beatles nostalgia and persistent reunion rumours in the US during the 1970s, several entrepreneurs made public offers to the Beatles for a reunion concert. Promoter Bill Sargent first offered the Beatles $10 million for a reunion concert in 1974. He raised his offer to $30 million in January 1976 and then to $50 million the following month. On 24 April 1976, during a broadcast of Saturday Night Live, producer Lorne Michaels jokingly offered the Beatles $3,000 to reunite on the show. Lennon and McCartney were watching the live broadcast at Lennon's apartment at the Dakota in New York, which was within driving distance of the NBC studio where the show was being broadcast. The former bandmates briefly entertained the idea of going to the studio and surprising Michaels by accepting his offer, but decided not to.

1980s

Harrison and Starr performing at the Prince's Trust All-Star Rock Concert at Wembley Arena, 1987

In December 1980, Lennon was shot and killed outside his New York City apartment. Harrison rewrote the lyrics of his song "All Those Years Ago" in Lennon's honour. With Starr on drums and McCartney and his wife, Linda, contributing backing vocals, the song was released as a single in May 1981. McCartney's own tribute, "Here Today", appeared on his Tug of War album in April 1982.