The irregular and disjointed rantings and ramblings of a lifelong inside-the-loop Houstonian, dedicated urbanist, enthusiastic traveler and loyal University of Houston Cougar fan, who also roots for the University of North Texas Mean Green.
It's hard to believe that it's been 20 years since I received an iPod Shuffle for Christmas. Over those two decades, as my music library has grown and has migrated from iPod to iPhone, I've periodically taken stock of the twenty most listened-to songs in my collection (see here for the 2010, 2015 and 2020 lists). In continuing my tradition, here are the twenty most listened-to songs on my iPhone, as of December 31, 2025 (2020 ranking in parentheses):
If this list looks very similar to the 2020 list, that's because it is: my top four most-listened songs are the same (#5 and #6 swapped places) and there are only three songs on this list that weren't on the 2020 list. The lack of change is at least partly due to the fact that I don't listen to music on my phone as much as I used to; for one thing, I don't need to use music to block out office noise because I spend so much time working from home now. Additionally, I lost some of my play history when I upgraded phones a couple of years ago.
1. Ride a White Horse - Goldfrapp (Supernature, 2006, Mute/Universal Music) (#1) 2. That Smiling Face - Camouflage (Voice and Images, 1988, Atlantic) (#2) 3. Home - Erasure (Chorus, 1991, Sire) (#3) 4. Burst Generator - The Chemical Brothers (We Are The Night, 2007, Australwerks/EMI) (#4) 5. Hysteria - Def Leppard (Hysteria, 1987, Mercury) (#6)
Christmas is just a few days away, which means that by now Christmas music is pretty much the ambient musical norm wherever you go: on the radio, in the store, at the restaurant, Christmas tunes are ubiquitous. While most of these holiday-oriented songs are perfectly fine, some are truly awful.
When it comes to lists of horrible Christmas songs, thereis noshortageof opinionsas towhichsongsaretheworst. I, of course, have my own list of hated holiday tunes, which may or may not look different than other people's lists. For example, there are a lot of Christmas songs that other people can't stand but I tolerate: I can't get too worked up about either Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime," or Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas I you," even though a lot of people utterly detest both songs. And there are probably some songs I hate that other people absolutely adore.
The following is my countdown of the worst ten Christmas songs that need to be canceled immediately. Note that I make no distinction between "novelty" Christmas songs and "serious" ones, because they all seem to get played this time of year regardless. (Besides, aren't all Christmas songs essentially "novelty" songs?)
A "feed the world" song performed by some of the biggest names in British pop music might have made sense in 1984, when countries like Ethiopia were being wracked by starvation and death caused by famine (and exacerbated by the brutal incompetence of the Soviet-aligned Derg regime in Addis Ababa). But this condescending, neo-colonialist dreck has not aged well and should be retired from the annual holiday rotation. Bono's sneering "well tonight thank God it's them instead of you" stanza is probably the most cringy Christmas lyric ever recored.
This marching band-like tune from the early 50s, sung by a girl with an irritating nasally voice who thinks she's entitled to a wild animal for Christmas, was just a bad idea all around. No, you don't want a hippopotamus for Christmas: the animal is one of the most dangerous to humans, and it also does this:
A lot of people still think this song is "cute." But when I hear this girl prattle on about how she only likes "hippopotamuseses," I get the urge to smack someone.
The vocal tracks were sped up to create the high-pitched "chipmunk" voices in the song, which might have been cutting-edge technology when the song was recorded in 1958 but has not aged well. Put it this way: if I had to choose between listening to the grating, shrill, barely-intelligible vocals in this song or listening to fingernails on a blackboard, I'd probably opt for the latter. The song also features "bandleader" Ross Bagdasarian screaming at Alvin twice during the course of the two minute, twenty-second song, which is jarring as well.
It's hard to believe that this song went to #1 on the Billboard chart and won three Grammys in 1958. It's even harder to believe that this all-around unpleasant song is still played during the holidays today.
I might be the only person the world who hates this song. But I hate it for the same reason that a lot of people hate Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime" - it's a crass, obnoxious earworm. What the hell is a "jingle hop" or a "jingle horse" or a "jingle bell square?" How many times can you use the word "jingle" in a single song, anyway?
This is a 1950s-era "rock and roll is here, and it's really cool and hip, so let's make a Christmas song about it!" tune that should have been left in the fifties.
I'm sorry, but a song about a kid who witnesses his mom low-level cheating on his dad with Jolly Ol' Saint Nick isn't exactly one that brings me Christmas joy. In fact, it's sort of creepy. And, yes, I know the song's "inside joke" is that Santa is actually the kid's dad. But that only makes it even creepier because now it sounds like the kid is witnessing his parents' cosplay sex fetish.
But what's creepiest about this song is that Michael Jackson sang it, and then later would go on to (allegedly) sexually assault young boys.
(A side note: if Santa were real, can you imagine all the sex he would get? Bored and frazzled housewives all over the world would be throwing themselves at him to simultaneously thank him for bringing presents to their bratty kids and live out some weird daddy sex fantasy. Santa would be so busy banging moms that he wouldn't have time to deliver presents.)
If "Jingle Bell Rock" is a dated, 1950's "rock and roll is new and cool" earworm, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree"is exponentially worse. The rockabilly guitar, the bleating saxophone, the nonsensical lyrics (seriously, what does "dancing merrily / in the new old-fashioned way" actually mean, anyway?) all combine to create a catchy-yet-repetitive tune that gets stuck in your head and won't leave you in peace. It's a song that can drive one to insanity, which is why I hate it.
Part of the problem with this song - both the Lee original and its multitude of covers - is that it's ridiculously overplayed. So much so that as of last week it became the #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100, 65 years after it was originally recorded. This is why America can't have nice things.
A friend of mine believes that this overproduced, maudlin piece of mush is "not only the worst Christmas song, it's probably one of the worst songs ever recorded." Having only been casually exposed to it before writing this blog entry, I decided to give it a close listen.
I couldn't even make it to the end.
To be fair to Aiken, his was not the song's original recording. But he chose to breathe new life into this auditory atrocity by covering it, so he deserves blame.
Speaking of sex and Santa... Here's a song about a woman with a ridiculously long wish list of lavish and expensive things she wants for Christmas, with a suggestive vibe that implies the singer is willing to trade sexual favors with Santa for said gifts. "Hurry down the chimney for me," indeed.
A lot of people place this truly disturbing tune at the very top of their worst Christmas songs list, and for good reason: it is a horrible song that should never have been written or recorded. I personally give thanks to the fact that I don't hear this one very often, because I think most decent people are horrified by it and don't want to listen to it. Needless to say, if you think a song about a kid trying to buy shoes for his cancer-stricken, dying mother is somehow a "good" Christmas song, you really need to re-think what Christmas is all about.
But don't take it from me; here's Patton Oswald to explain just how depraved and ridiculous this musical monstrosity actually is:
I've already written about how much I hate this song, and not just because of the coercive, date-rapey creepiness implied by its annoying, call-and-response lyrics:
The song is melodically repetitive, monotonous and uninteresting; it lacks the most basic elements of songcraft, such as a bridge or a chorus. What's more, it's not even a song about Christmas; there's no mention of anything holiday-related in the lyrics. "It's cold outside" in January, February and even March, too, depending on where you live, so why is this piece of acoustic crap assumed to be a holiday song?
So while various artists can attempt to rehab this song's problematic image by changing the lyrics - see Me and Him reversing its gender roles, or John Legend and Kelly Clarkson creating a "consent" version - it's still just an all around shitty tune.
Please, quit playing this tiresome and repugnant not-a-Christmas song. It sucks.
In fact, please make the holiday season better for everyone by no longer playing any of the songs on this list.
A couple of Fridays ago, Corinne and I went to see Billy Joel play at Minute Maid Park. Seeing the legendary New York singer-songwriter in person was something of a bucket list item for both of us. It was our first time seeing a concert at the baseball stadium as well.
Billy Joel obviously has a considerable repertoire, and he managed to fit his biggest hits into the two-hour-long concert, including "Just The Way You Are," "The Longest Time," "My Life," "You May Be Right," "Uptown Girl," "It's Still Rock and Roll To Me," and, of course, "Piano Man." Several songs of his that I'm less familiar with, such as "The Entertainer," "Pressure," "Allentown" and the epic "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant" also made the setlist.
I was hoping to hear "I Go To Extremes" while Corinne was looking forward to hearing "The Downeaster Alexa." Neither song made the setlist, unfortunately; in fact, the only track off Storm Front was his Boomer history lesson that everyone claims to hate but can still sing along to, "We Didn't Start The Fire." (Joel needs to release an updated version of that song that captures all the crazy shit that's happened over the past eight years or so, and title it "This Is A Dumpster Fire.")
In addition to his own music, Joel sprinkled his performance with covers from The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen (who, like Joel, was born in 1949), and ZZ Top. His guitarist, who has some considerable vocal talent of his own, treated the audience to a rendition of the Italian aria "Nessun Dorma," and Joel's percussionist (who also had impressive vocal skills) spliced "Dancing in the Street" into the middle of "River of Dreams."Allowing members of his band to take over a couple of songs gave Joel a chance to rest his vocal cords, although he continued playing the piano the entire time. All in all, pretty good enegy for a 73-year-old man.
It's worth remembering that Joel has not put out a new album since 1993 - almost 30 years. Yet he's still such a legend that he can fill a 40-thousand seat baseball stadium with his fans.
That said, I'm not sure Minute Maid Park is going to become a preferred concert venue for me. The acoustics were fine, but a venue that large means that you don't have a great view of the person performing unless you want to pay the big bucks for the field seats. Billy Joel's stage was set up in deep center field, while most of the audience sat in the stadium's seating area. The distance was considerable; being in the 400 level on the first base side, Joel was little more than a dot to our eyes. The big screens were partially obscured by speakers and other equipment as well. I wish I hadn't forgotten my binoculars.
However, the bottom line is that my wife and I finally got to see Billy Joel live, and had a great time.
The concert setlist is here, while the Houston Press's concert review is here.
I got an iPod Shuffle for Christmas 15 years ago; over the years, as my music library has grown and has migrated from iPod to iPhone, I've periodically taken stock of the twenty most listened-to songs in my collection (see here for the 2010 and 2015 lists). In continuing my tradition, here are the twenty most listened-to songs on my iPhone, as of December 31, 2020 (2015 ranking in parentheses):
Once again, my musical tastes continue to be dominated by electronica, with a pair of British duos - Tom and Ed and Vince and Andy - being among my clear favorites. My top four are the same as they were four years ago, and over half of the songs on the 2020 list were on the 2015 list.
New quarterback? No problem! The Cougars got back to their winning ways by upsetting North Texas (yes, the Mean Green were favored) in Denton, notching their first win against an FBS opponent for the season and emphatically answering questions as to the team's "will to fight" after starting quarterback D'Eriq King opted to redshirt for the rest of the 2019 season.
The Good: With King no longer behind center, it was up to second-string quarterback Clayton Tune to show that he could direct the offense. He performed well, completing 16 of 20 pass attempts for 124 yards and a touchdown. He also rushed for 100 yards. Patrick Carr ran for another 139 yards and three scores. The UH defense, meanwhile, held UNT's rushing attack to less than 100 yards on the evening.
It was a great night for UH special teams, as they scored touchdowns on a kick return (Marquez Stevenson, 82 yards) and a punt return (Bryson Smith, 60 yards) - the first time since October 1973 that the Coogs had two such returns for touchdowns in the same game.
The Bad: The Cougars’ pass defense continued to struggle, as UNT quarterback Mason Fine lit them up for 353 yards and two touchdowns. UNT actually outgained the Coogs in this game, 456 yards to 359 (however, these totals do not include kick return yards).
When the UH secondary wasn't covering poorly, they were tackling poorly. UNT’s final touchdown occurred because Cougar safety Deontay Anderson hit UNT wide receiver Jason Pirtle but failed to wrap him up, allowing Pirtle to bounce off of him and walk into the endzone.
The Cougar defense’s 21-game streak of recording at least one turnover also came to an end, as neither team turned the ball over in this game.
The Beautiful: the Green Brigade and the Spirit of Houston joined together at halftime for this wonderful rendition of America the Beautiful:
The announced attendance of 30,123 was an Apogee Stadium record.
What It Means: This was a much-needed win for the Cougars, and Clayton Tune showed that he is capable of running Dana Holgorsen's offense for the remainder of the season. UH now gets a much-needed week off before hosting Cincinnati on October 12.
The all-time series between Houston and North Texas is now tied at seven games apiece. The next edition of the Mean Green Cougar Red Bowl will occur at TDECU Stadium next year.
A couple of Fridays ago, Corinne and I went to the lawn at the White Oak Music Hall to see CHVRCHES. It was a good concert at a nice venue that I'll need to visit more often.
Not too much to report form the concert itself. The synth-pop trio from Glasgow played most of their better-known songs; keyboardist Martin Doherty even took over from foul-mouthed frontwoman Lauren Mayberry to sing a couple of tunes. The back-and-forth chatter between band members between songs was just as entertaining as the songs themselves.
The set was rather short, at 15 songs total, and left out a couple of my favorites, including "Gun" and "Lies." My biggest complaint wasn't that, but rather the Gen Z douchebags standing in front of us who were more interested in talking over the songs than watching the show. Such is the nature of outdoor festival-type concerts such as these.
Otherwise no complaints. the late-spring evening was perfect for an outdoor concert. The lawn at WOMC is a small and comfortable space to watch the show. The lines for drinks were short, and a couple of food trucks handled eating options (although they probably could have used one or two more). I have no complaints about acoustics or sightlines.
We didn't try to drive and park, but rather took the METRORail Red Line up from Midtown, got off at Quitman Station, and made the short walk to the venue. I would recommend this option for getting there, if you are able to do so.
The Houston Press review, including the setlist, is here.
Ray Thomas, flautist, vocalist and founding member of the Moody Blues, died Thursday at the age of 76.
Thomas' label Esoteric Recordings/Cherry Red Records confirmed the multi-instrumentalist's death on Facebook, adding that Thomas died suddenly at his home in Surrey, England. No cause of death was announced.
"We are deeply shocked by his passing and will miss his warmth, humour and kindness," the label wrote. "It was a privilege to have known and worked with him and our thoughts are with his family and his wife Lee at this sad time."
Thomas passed away a bit over a week ago, but I didn't learn about it until now. It was only a month ago that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced that the Moody Blues were (finally) being inducted.
As flautist, multi-instrumentalist and singer in the Moody Blues, Thomas appeared on all of the prog rock band's albums – including their classic LPs like Days of Future Passed, In Search of the Lost Chord, A Question of Balance and Every Good Boy Deserves Favour – until his retirement in 2002.
Thomas also wrote and sang Moody Blues tracks like "Twilight Time," "Legend of a Mind," "Dr. Livingstone, I Presume," "Dear Diary" and "And the Tide Rushes In." In addition to his time with the Moody Blues, Thomas also released a pair of solo albums, 1975's From Mighty Oaks and 1976's Hopes, Wishes and Dreams, while the group went on hiatus in the mid-Seventies.
Thomas retired from the Moody Blues in 2002 after suffering from a series of health issues. In 2013, Thomas revealed that he was suffering from "in-operable" prostate cancer. "The cancer is being held in remission but I'll be receiving this treatment for the rest of my life," Thomas wrote on his website.
In December, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced that the Moody Blues' classic lineup – Thomas, Hayward, Edge, Lodge and Pinder – would be inducted as part of the Class of 2018; Laine was subsequently added to the band's Rock Hall roster days later.
It's ironic that one of the Thomas's aforementioned songs - "Legend of a Mind" - was (according to this Wikipedia article) recorded exactly 50 years ago today. The song, a six-and-a-half minute long song about LSD guru Timothy Leary on which Thomas sings and plays the flute - was never released as a single but remains one of their most iconic works. They even made a video for it. (Give it a watch... You can't really get much more 1968 than that!)
The Moody Blues are one of my dad's favorite bands, so growing up I got to listen to them a lot and developed a taste for them as well. So I was happy to learn today that this underrated British band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
For The Moody Blues, the honor comes after years of fans harping that the group deserved recognition. The band became eligible for the honor in 1989, and "in 2013, a Rolling Stone reader poll listed the Moody Blues as one of the top 10 bands that need to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame," according to the organization.
If you want to seem them live, they'll be performing at the Smart Financial Centre in Sugar Land in mid-January. Rolling Stone's interview with frontman Justin Hayward about the honor is worth reading, too.
Although they're among my all-time favorite bands, Sunday evening's concert was the first time I had seen Depeche Mode live in 16 years. (I don't do a lot of concerts...)
A band that has been around as long as Depeche Mode (37 years!) always faces a dilemma when they tour to support their latest album in that they need to strike a balance between the new material that they want to promote and the older material that their fans really want to hear. The Generation-X-centric crowd at the Pavilion clearly wanted to hear the older stuff.
The view from the lawn at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
To that end, the band provided, reaching back as far as 1983 with "Everything Counts," playing two songs off of 1984's Black Celebration ("A Question of Lust," "Stripped"), three songs from 1990's Violator ("World In My Eyes," "Enjoy the Silence," "Personal Jesus"), three songs from 1993's Songs of Faith and Devotion ("In Your Room," Walking In My Shoes," "I Feel You"), and one song apiece from 1984's Some Great Reward and 1987's Music For the Masses ("Somebody" and "Never Let Me Down Again," respectively).
They balanced this out with five songs from their "newer" albums (which I consider to be anything from 1997 onward, after Alan Wilder left the band), five songs from their latest album (note to self: listen to new album before going to concert promoting said album), and an excellent cover of David Bowie's "Heroes." Dave Gahan, who is pretty spry for being 55 years old, handled most of the singing duties and did a great job interacting with the crowd and moving about the stage as he did so. He handed vocal duties over to Martin L. Gore for a handful of songs, including "Home" (off of 1997's Ultra).
Martin L. Gore provides a heartfelt rendition of "Somebody"
Of course, there are only so many songs that can be fit into a two-hour set. This meant that several iconic Depeche Mode songs I (and many of those around me) would have liked to have heard - "Master and Servant," "Blasphemous Rumours," "People are People," "But Not Tonight," "Strangelove," "A Policy of Truth," etc., - didn't make the setlist. That just goes back to the previously-referenced dilemma faced by long-lived bands with deep back catalogues like Depeche Mode: you're not going to be able to play everything everyone wants to hear.
This isn't to say I was disappointed; to the contrary, I had a great time, and I introduced my girlfriend, who was aware of only a handful of Depeche Mode's more famous older songs, to a sound I've enjoyed since I was in middle school.
This was the first time I watched a concert at CWMP from the lawn. (Like I said, I don't do a lot of concerts.) My decision to purchase a pair of cheap but functional binoculars from Academy right before the concert turned out to be a good one. Unfortunately, they could only do so much to cut through the haze of marijuana smoke that persisted throughout the concert. I get that Depeche Mode is the kind of music that lends itself to being listened to while stoned, but at times it looked (and smelled) like a freakin' Grateful Dead concert up there!
When you first hear it, the song seems like a cute, flirty call-and-response duet between a man and his lady friend who are debating whether she should stay the night. On the one hand, what would her parents or the neighbors think? On the other hand, it’s just so cold outside. The ending is ambiguous, but it’s implied that she decides to stay after all, keeping them both warm on a cold winter’s night.
But when you listen closer, the song’s lyrics also seem, well ... a little rapey. The guy ignores his date’s protests and badgers her to stay, which feels a lot like sexual coercion. At one point the woman asks, “Say, what’s in this drink?” — which is pretty alarming to a modern audience that understands how roofies work. The original score even lists the man’s part as “Wolf” and the woman’s part as “Mouse,” making the predator/prey dynamic creepily explicit.
The song’s legions of defenders argue that those concerns are overblown. They note “What’s in this drink?” was a common joke in the 1930s and ’40s made by people who wanted to make an excuse for something that they knew very well they shouldn’t be doing. And in that more prudish time period, women were expected to turn down sex (at first, anyway) even if they wanted it.
The vastly different ways people hear the same short song have set off an annual internet battle over its feminist merits. For every think piece calling it a “date-rape anthem,” there’s a corresponding “Oh, come on” take about how oversensitive “social justice warriors” are killing romance and seduction and taking the song’s lyrics out of context.
Which reading is right? Is “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” too problematic to enjoy with a clear conscience anymore, or is our perception of it the real problem?
Crockett goes on to break down the song's lyrics, providing both a "rapey" and "romantic" interpretation of each verse, and then goes into a lengthy discussion about the song, its historical context, its modern interpretation, sexual assault, feminism and affirmative consent. The "romantic versus rapey" debate regarding "Baby, It's cold Outside" is not new, and is culturally important.
However, this debate overlooks the most important and fundamental issue regarding this song, which is that IT ABSOLUTELY SUCKS.
"Baby, It's Cold Outside" is the Yuletide equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard. Its call-and-response lyrical structure is obnoxious and annoying, and the lyrics themselves are as vapid as they are creepy. The song is melodically repetitive, monotonous and uninteresting; it lacks the most basic elements of songcraft, such as a bridge or a chorus. What's more, it's not even a song about Christmas; there's no mention of anything holiday-related in the lyrics. "It's cold outside" in January, February and even March, too, depending on where you live, so why is this piece of acoustic crap assumed to be a holiday song?
Look, a lot of Christmas songs are utter garbage. Humanity died a little when "Jingle Bell Rock" and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" were recorded, and don't even get me started on the mind-bending stupidity that is "Christmas Shoes." But "Baby, It's Cold Outside" is the absolute worst. It is unlistenable, a crime against music. I don't know it really is a song about date rape, but I do know that I feel like my ears are being raped every time it is played.
So, please: stop playing this song. Better yet, delete or destroy every copy and every version of this song, and for the love of baby Jesus stop recording new versions of it every year.
The best way to resolve the "rapey versus romantic" debate regarding "Baby, It's cold Outside" - and, in the process, to improve Christmas music as a whole - is to simply erase this horrible excuse for a song out of existence entirely.
I did this five years ago, so I thought it would be interesting to take another tally of the songs I listen to most frequently on my iPhone (which has replaced my iPod Nano as my portable repository of music about four years ago).
It appears as if my musical tastes remain pretty eclectic but are dominated by 80s and 90s electronica. Twelve of these songs were in my top 20 of five years ago (2010 ranking in parentheses), which means I obviously enjoy listening to them. It also might suggest that I need to start listening to some new music...
1. Ride a White Horse - Goldfrapp (Supernature, 2006, Mute/Universal Music)
2. Home - Erasure (Chorus, 1991, Sire) (#13)
3. That Smiling Face - Camouflage (Voice and Images, 1988, Atlantic)
4. Burst Generator - The Chemical Brothers (We Are The Night, 2007, Australwerks/EMI) (#4)
5. Looking at You - Sunscreem (Looking at you: Club Anthems, 1998, Centaur Entertainment)
6. Let Forever Be - The Chemical Brothers (Surrender, 1999, Australwerks) (#8)
7. Life Is Sweet - The Chemical Brothers (Exit Planet Dust, 1995, Australwerks)
8. Hysteria - Def Leppard (Hysteria, 1987, Mercury)
9. Blissed - Jesus Jones (Doubt, 1991, SBK) (#1)
10. Sometimes [Erasure/Flood Two Ring Circus Remix] - Erasure (The Two Ring Circus, 1987, Sire)
11. Rolling in the Deep - Adele (21, 2011, Columbia/XL)
12. Big Time Sensuality (The Fluke Minimix) - Bjork (Big Time Sensuality EP, 1993, Elektra) (#12)
13. Primary - The Cure (Faith, 1981, Elektra) (#2)
14. Destroy Everything You Touch - Ladytron (Witching Hour, 2005, So Sweet) (#15)
15. Thank U - Alanis Morissette (Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, 1998, Maverick/Reprise) (#7)
16. Lightning Blue Eyes - Secret Machines (Ten Silver Drops, 2006, Reprise)
17. Love U More - Sunscreem (03, 1993, Columbia) (#3)
18. Space Age Love Song - A Flock of Seagulls (A Flock of Seagulls, 1982, Jive) (#18)
19. Imagination - Xymox (Twist of Shadows, 1989, Wing) (#21)
20. Four Leaf Clover - Abra Moore (Strangest Places, 1997, Arista) (#6)
A few weeks ago, electronic "big beat" duo The Chemical Brothers released their newest album. The duo, composed of Englishmen Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons, has spent the last two decades layering breakbeats, samples, and synths into bombastic tunes that run the gamut from 80s old-school hip-hop to 60s acid rock. They are among my favorite bands.
Their latest album, Born in the Echoes, is meeting with fair-to-positive reviews. I myself think it's kind of hit-or-miss, although the sinewy distortion of "Reflexion" is classic Chemical Brothers and "Wide Open," a hypnotic, soulful collaboration with Beck, needs to be released as a single.
So, in the spirit of "if they can do it, why can't I?," and in honor of the Chemical Brothers' most recent release (as well as next week's 20th anniversary of the release of their first album, Exit Planet Dust), I decided to create a top ten list of my own. I therefore present the official Mean Green Cougar Red list of the top ten Chemical Brothers songs:
10. "Surface to Air" (Push the Button)
2005's Grammy-winning Push the Button is probably best known for the track "Galvanize," a 2000s nightclub standard featuring a memorable Middle Eastern string loop and lyrics by Q-Tip (which would probably compete with "Setting Sun" for #11 on this list). That being said, my favorite track on the album is the last one: an insistent, ambient jam that provides an excellent soundtrack for working out, driving across the country at night, or filming a Red Bull promotional video. It's mind-clearing mood enhancement in sonic form.
9. "Come With Us" (Come with Us) Their fourth album,
released in 2002, included the frenetic tribal beat of "It Began in Africa," the head-bobbing "Galaxy Bounce," and the
shimmering, Bowie-influenced "Star Guitar." Those are all great songs, but my favorite is the opening and title track, which escalates, pulsates, swirls, and, as Allmusic notes, "detonates like a bomb blast." It sets the tone for what I believe is one of their stronger and more cohesive albums. I especially enjoy the bassy breakdown at the 3:30 mark.
8. "The Private Psychedelic Reel" (Dig Your Own Hole)
As the aforementioned Stereogum article explains:
Named for a legendary rumored recording the Beatles supposedly made for
themselves to drop acid to, “The Private Psychedelic Reel” takes some
recognizable elements of vintage psychedelia — a droning, chiming sitar
chief amongst them — fuses it with a characteristically oversized drum
loop, drops it in the middle of a Blade Runner flying car rush hour, and then gets Mercury Rev’s Jonathan Donahue to lace it with a clarinet freakout, of all things.
Indeed, one of their most unique and innovative songs.
7. Hey Boy Hey Girl (Surrender)
1999's Surrender was a bit more house-oriented than the previous two Chemical Brothers releases. That's evident in this playful song, which features a driving disco beat, rave-y acid synths, and a sample from 1984 hip-hip standard "The Roof Is On Fire" by Rock Master Scott and the Dynamic Three. That's Ed and Tom getting out of the taxi at the end of this skeleton-centric video:
6. Escape Velocity (Further)
2010's Further achieves liftoff with its second track, which perhaps gets its name from a phrase in a Guardian review of their music from a few years before. To Stereogum, once more:
“Escape Velocity” pulls off more breathtaking force in twelve minutes
than most on-wax dance acts are usually capable of outside the
mass-moving expanse of a festival crowd. And it does so with a drive
that fuses rise-and-fall dynamics with a sound lab’s worth of dance
music history, decades of accumulated influence worked into contemporary
motion.
5. "Where Do I Begin" (Dig Your Own Hole)
With a looped guitar sample and a morning-after lament by Beth Orton that layers upon itself, this song slowly and hypnotically builds, not finally releasing its tension into a cymbal-heavy breakbeat until over three minutes in. At the 4:45 mark, the song transforms once again, this time into what could best be described as an accelerating motorbike. It's kind of weird, but it's an appropriate conclusion to a song that is, for all intents and purposes, the soundtrack to a head-splitting Sunday morning hangover.
4. "Burst Generator" (We Are The Night)
In spite of winning Rowlands and Simons their second Grammy Award for Best Electronic/Dance Album, 2007's We Are The Night garnered mixed reviews from critics. While the album is somewhat scattershot - seriously, WTF was the deal with "The Salmon Dance?" - it nevertheless contains some solid tracks. "Burst Generator," as its name implies, features a series of build-and-release sonic bursts above a pulsing bassline and amidst a reverberating wall of sound. It was never released as a single nor is there an official video for it; there is this fan video which, albeit interesting, is clearly based off the official video for Star Guitar.
3. "Let Forever Be" (Surrender)
Rowlands and Simons have been heavily influenced by The Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows," and it is evident in this track. Noel Gallagher (of Oasis fame) provides psychedelic-textured lyrics over a furious drum loop and gurgling bass. This trippy Michel Gondry-directed video is one of the Chemical Brothers' most well-known videos.
2. "Life Is Sweet" (Exit Planet Dust)
This paean to a happy-go-lucky life features a throbbing, grinding bassline over an intense breakbeat and breathy vocals provided by Tim Burgess of The Charlatans, all punctuated with a sampled shout of triumph. Allmusic describes the track as "somewhere between straight-ahead techno and alternative dance with just a bit of funk thrown in for good measure," and it sounds as fresh and ebullient today as it did when it was released twenty years ago. The song in the video omits the last couple of minutes of the album track, which transforms into something more spacey and ambient.
1. Dissolve (Further)
At the same time psychedelic and symphonic, this track (never released as a single) is an homage to classic rock. The intro recalls The Who's "Baba O'Riley," the acid synth riff that dominates the song is a nod to the Beatles' "It's All too Much," the soaring counter-melodies are reminiscent of "Here Comes the Sun," and even the drums sound like something out of a sixties acid rock track. It all - shall I say "dissolves?" - into an oboe-paced interlude featuring trippy lyrics supplied by the Brothers themselves before dropping into a grande finale whose sonic intensity would blow your average hippie's LSD-fried mind. To shed any additional doubts of this tunes' 1960s provenance, take a look at the official video, which features British actress Romola Garai running the gauntlet of freaks and creeps and until she finds her man.
This is, without question, my favorite Chemical Brothers tune.
Tracks 11-20: "Galvanize" (Push the Button), "Setting Sun" (Dig Your Own Hole), "Out of Control" (Surrender), "Leave Home" (Exit Planet Dust), "It Began in Africa" (Come With Us), "Wide Open" (Born in the Echoes), "Block Rockin' Beats" (Dig Your Own Hole), "A Modern Midnight Conversation" (We Are The Night), "Star Guitar" (Come With Us), and "The Sunshine Underground" (Surrender).
I rarely go to concerts, but given that Erasure is one of my favorite bands - yes, I admit it - and given that I hadn't seen them in concert since the mid-'90s, my attendance at their concert at the Bayou Music Center last Saturday evening was pretty much mandatory. (I actually attended two concerts last weekend: the ex-wife [!] dragged
me to the Toyota Center to see Katy Perry [!!] on Friday night.)
The veteran British synthpop duo was playing two nights in Houston as a part of a tour supporting their latest album, The Violet Flame, and they did play a handful of songs from that album. Their set, however, was dominated by hits from their mid-'80s-to-early-'90s heyday. Which is perfectly fine: that's what the crowd, which skewed fortysomething, came to came to dance and sing along to, and they did not leave disappointed.
In contrast to the elaborate productions that past Erasure tours were known for, this show was rather stripped-down: no sets, no props, no fancy costumes or dancers; just Vince Clarke at his laptop and keyboard (he played an acoustic guitar for a few songs), Andy Bell at the microphone, and a couple of backup singers. And again, that was perfectly fine.
As somebody who occasionally gets grief for liking Erasure - people tell me that synthpop "sucks," that Vince Clarke's compositions are formulaic bubblegum, that Erasure is a "gay" band (whatever that means) - I found it extremely enjoyable to be able to sit in a venue with thousands of like-minded fans singing along to "Star" or "A Little Respect." Maybe it's nostalgia, but they have created some truly classic songs.
Alas, before I knew it, the concert was over. And that's my one gripe: their set was barely 90 minutes long. I wish they could have gone another thirty minutes or so. It's not like they were running out of great songs to include in the setlist; they only played one song apiece from Wonderland and I Say I Say I Say, and nothing at all from Cowboy (one of their better albums IMHO) or the Crackers International EP.
The length of the show aside, I had a great time. These guys always put on a good performance; age has not diminished Andy's vocal chops or his ability to work the crowd in the least. Hopefully Vince and Andy will make their way back to Houston soon, with a slightly longer setlist.
Chris Gray's Houston Press review of the concert is here.
I didn't watch the Video Music Awards on MTV last Sunday; it's just not my thing. So I wouldn't have known anything at all about Miley Cyrus and her "coming of age performance" if my Facebook feed hadn't blown up with comments about it all Sunday night and Monday morning.
So, thinking that she must have done something truly groundbreaking, I finally watched her performance on YouTube to see what all the furor was about.
And I saw her nude-hued bikini, her foam finger-dildo, her ass grinding against Robin Thicke's crotch, her off-key rendition of "Blurred Lines," her tongue dangling from her mouth... And when it was over, all I could think was, "is that all?"
gawker.com
It wasn't scandalous. It wasn't sexy. It was clumsy and contrived and unoriginal. You remember the quiet, introverted girl in high school who one day showed up in trashy clothes and trampy make-up in an attempt to shock people into noticing her? And everybody thought, "poor girl, she's trying too hard?" That was Miley on Sunday night.
So I'm left with a difficult time understanding what, exactly, all the controversy is about: why I should be outraged, or why ought I "pray for Miley," as one of my horrified Facebook friends exhorted all of us to do. The VMAs generally have a history of raunchy, exhibitionist performances, dating all the way back to Madonna and her wedding gown in 1984. The "chaste Disney child star gets on stage and expresses her post-adolescent sexuality" thing was already done by Britney Spears, thirteen years ago. There's nothing new or unique here; the only thing Miley's performance will be known for, years from now, is how awkward and shopworn it was. Her antics really don't deserve the attention they've received.
That being said, I now realize that I just wrote an entire blog post about Miley Cyrus. So maybe she, along with her agents and her publicists, knew exactly what she was doing on Sunday night.
Donna Summer, who passed away Thursday, was considered the "Queen of Disco." And she did have a lot of iconic songs from that era: "Love To Love You Baby," "Last Dance," "MacAuthur Park," "Bad Girls," "Hot Stuff," "On The Radio," etc. But there's one song of hers, above all others, that I consider to be her greatest:
"I Feel Love" - with its eerie synthesizer chords, its galloping baseline, Summer's sparse yet seductive lyrics - is not only one of the best songs of the disco era, but a song whose impact has been felt in pop music far beyond the end of disco. As The Guardian music critic Jon Savage explains:
I Feel Love was and remains an astonishing achievement: a futuristic record that
still sounds fantastic 35 years on. Within its modulations and pulses,
it achieves the perfect state of grace that is the ambition of every
dance record: it obliterates the tyranny of the clock – the everyday
world of work, responsibility, money – and creates its own time, a
moment of pleasure, ecstasy and motion that seems infinitely expandable,
if not eternal.
Back in 1977, I Feel Love was a radical breakthrough, and was designed as such. It was started as a cut for I Remember Yesterday, an album that producer Giorgio Moroder originally planned as a mini-tour through dance music
history: a Dixieland number here, a Tamla number there. To complete the
project, he needed what NME called a "next-disco sound".
"I had
already had experience with the original Moog synthesisers," Moroder
told NME in December 1978, "so I contacted this guy who owned one of the
large early models. It was all quite natural and normal for me. I
simply instructed him about what programmings I needed. I didn't even
think to notice that for the large audience this was perhaps a very new
sound."
It was indeed a very new sound, one that influenced everything from the synth-pop and house music of the 1980s to the rave and trance music of the 90s to the techno and dance music of today:
Speaking to Summer's genre-bending influence, house-music forefather
Frankie Knuckles called her unforgettable hit "I Feel Love" one of the
most commercial electronic pieces of music ever written.
"Today
you can hear its influence on all popular Dance music, House, Techno,
Trance," he told MTV News in a statement. "She was deemed 'The Queen Of
Disco.' She's been sampled and ideas of her songs have crept into
today's popular dance music by everybody. Her association with
[legendary record producer] Giorgio Moroder set the tone for what Dance
Music is all about."
[...]
The reception of Summer's iconic 1977 anthem essentially
revolutionized music, not to mention the rest of her chart-toppers that
would soon follow.
"One day in Berlin, [Brian] Eno came running in
and said, 'I have heard the sound of the future,' " David Bowie
famously wrote in the liner notes to Sound and Vision. "He puts
on 'I Feel Love,' by Donna Summer. ... He said, 'This is it, look no
further. This single is going to change the sound of club music for the
next 15 years.' Which was more or less right."
Summer died at the age of 63 of lung cancer, even though she did not appear to be a regular smoker. She will be missed, but her influence will always endure.
UPDATE: Donna Summer is not the only disco icon to pass away in the last few days. Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees died on Sunday after a long battle with liver cancer. He was 62.
Adam Yauch, one-third of the pioneering hip-hop group the Beastie Boys, has died at the age of 47, Rolling Stone has learned. Yauch, also known as MCA, had been in treatment for cancer since 2009. The rapper was diagnosed in 2009 after discovering a tumor in his salivary gland.
"It is with great sadness that we confirm that musician, rapper, activist and director Adam 'MCA' Yauch, founding member of Beastie Boys
and also of the Milarepa Foundation that produced the Tibetan Freedom Concert benefits, and film production and distribution company
Oscilloscope Laboratories, passed away in his native New York City this morning after a near-three-year battle with cancer," reads an official
statement from the Beastie Boys. "He was 47 years old."
Yauch sat out the Beastie Boys' induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April, and his treatments delayed the release of the group's most recent album, Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2. The Beastie Boys had not performed live since the summer of 2009, and Yauch's illness prevented the group from appearing in music videos for Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2.
There was a time in the spring of 1987 - I was in eighth grade - when I probably would have been able to recite every lyric of every track on Licensed to Ill: an album that could easily have been written off as a parody record suitable
for playing only at fraternity parties (seriously, a trio of middle-class Jewish kids from Brooklyn making a rap album?) but would
instead become the first hip-hop album to reach #1 on Billboard's Hot 200 albums
chart and eventually become the biggest selling rap album of the
1980s.
Licensed to Ill's sample-laden fusion of rock and rap was unlike anything any of us at my inner-city middle school had ever heard before; its self-assured, bombastic rebelliousness was thematic for the mid-80s adolescent. The white kids at my inner-city middle school almost universally loved the
album when it came out. Most of my black classmates seemed to enjoy it as well, although a few argued at the time that it was a lame attempt by a
group of white poseurs to appropriate a form of music that until then
had been the
exclusive purview of the African-American community. The resulting classroom dialogue was as interesting, in retrospect, as it was contentious.
Music critics, furthermore, generally seem to agree that Licensed to Ill was far from the Beasties' best album. That accolade usually goes to the criminally under-appreciated Paul's Boutique, and their '90s work - Check Your Head, Ill Communication, Hello Nasty - was regarded by the musical intelligentsia to be artistically stronger and more mature as well.
I don't disagree, and songs like "High Plains Drifter," "Hey Ladies," "So What'cha Want," "Sabotage" and "Intergalactic" will always be favorites of mine. But, from an emotional and nostalgic standpoint, they will never be quite as meaningful to me as tracks such as "Paul Revere," "Brass Monkey," "No Sleep Till Brooklyn" and "Fight For Your Right (to Party)." My affinity for Licensed to Ill is one of those things that I just can't explain to people not of my generation: you had to have "been there" in order to fully appreciate it.
Yauch and his bandmates, Mike "Mike D" Diamond and Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz, are now regarded as a integral part of rap's rise to mainstream acceptance. as Time's Touré notes, "The Beasties were a seminal early hip hop group that the genre needed to
grow into a phenomenon because they served as an entry point for
millions of white fans and because they helped expand the boundaries of
hip hop with their sonic experiments." Licensed to Ill had a lot to do with that: as good as their later work was, does anybody honestly believe that the Beastie Boys would have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame had that album never been released?
Somewhere among this clutter is a dusty old CD of Licensed to Ill. Tomorrow I'm going to dig it (along with Paul's Boutique) out, dust it off and play it through for the first time in years. And I bet I'll still be able to remember most of the lyrics.
Rendez-Vous Houston happened 25 years ago today. I remember sitting out with my family on Allen Parkway with hundreds of thousands of other people to watch the spectacular laser and fireworks show. Although I've seen many rather impressive pyrotechnics displays since then, I can honestly say that I've never seen anything quite like Jean-Michel Jarre's concert and light show in terms of its complexity, its duration and its downright awesomeness. J. R. Gonzales has more retrospective.
But twenty-five years ago? Wow.
Oh, and my twenty-year high school reunion? It's a week from this Saturday.
I've had an iPod for five years now: first, a Shuffle that I received for Christmas 2005, and then a Nano I purchased a few years later. I thought it would be interesting to see which songs I've listened to the most over those past five years.
Below is the list, with title and artist, and then album, release year and label in parentheses. Obviously, I like electronica, but I also like 80s pop and New Wave, 90s alternative and even some good ol' 70s disco.
I was going to stop at twenty, but the last two songs on this list had the same play count, hence the "Top 21."
1. Blissed - Jesus Jones (Doubt, 1991, SBK)
2. Primary - The Cure (Faith, 1981, Elektra)
3. Love U More - Sunscreem (03, 1993, Columbia)
4. Burst Generator - The Chemical Brothers (We Are The Night, 2007, Australwerks/EMI)
5. Birdhouse in Your Soul - They Might Be Giants (Flood, 1990, Elektra)
6. Four Leaf Clover - Abra Moore (Strangest Places, 1997, Arista)
7. Thank U - Alanis Morissette (Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, 1998, Maverick/Reprise)
8. Let Forever Be - The Chemical Brothers (Surrender, 1999, Australwerks)
9. So Far Away - Dire Straits (Brothers In Arms, 1985, Warner Bros.)
10. Straight Lines - Silverchair (Young Modern, 2007, Eleven)
11. With or Without You - U2 (The Joshua Tree, 1987, Island)
12. Big Time Sensuality(The Fluke Minimix) - Bjork (Big Time Sensuality EP, 1993, Elektra)
13. Home - Erasure (Chorus, 1991, Sire)
14. Every 1's a Winner - Hot Chocolate (Every 1's a Winner, 1978, EMI)
15. Destroy Everything You Touch - Ladytron (Witching Hour, 2005, So Sweet)
16. Run - Collective Soul (Dosage, 1999, Atlantic)
17. Mr. Brightside - The Killers (Hot Fuss, 2004, Island)
18. Space Age Love Song - A Flock of Seagulls (A Flock of Seagulls, 1982, Jive)
19. White Love (Radio Edit) - One Dove (Morning Dove White, 1993, FFRR)
20. Let's Go All The Way - Sly Fox (Let's Go All The Way, 1985, Capitol)
21. Imagination - Xymox (Twist of Shadows, 1989, Wing)
In the several days since Michael Jackson died, one of the constant refrains of the relentless media coverage of his death is how we've tragically lost such a brilliant, talented, iconic entertainer.
This isn't entirely true. That brilliant, talented, iconic entertainer - the Michael Jackson who fronted the Jackson 5 as a child, who created two of the greatest pop albums of all time in Off the Wall and Thriller (the second of which is the biggest-selling album in history), who invented the moonwalk, whose contributions to early MTV programing, including the groundbreaking mini-movie for "Thriller," essentially defined the music video genre - died a long time ago. In his place emerged a frail, bleached, plastic freak who insisted that there was nothing wrong with sleeping in the same bed with young boys, who dangled babies from hotel windows, who showed up to courtrooms in pajamas, who, in spite of amassing unbelievable wealth in his lifetime, died hundreds of millions of dollars in debt. That pitiable Michael Jackson, not the early '80s superstar, is who passed away last week.
There's no question that Michael Jackson created some great music. That's reflected in the fact that, at one point earlier this week, sixteen of the top 25 downloads on iTunes were his songs. His best song, in my opinion, is "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough." The fact that it was released towards the end of the disco era doesn't matter: if this whirlwind of a song didn't get you and your leisure suit off the suede couch and onto the plexiglass dance floor with the blinking lights underneath and the mirror ball overhead, you simply didn't have a pulse. "Man in the Mirror" is another one of my favorites; while Jackson would never be able to replicate the success of Thriller, he still had enough drive and talent left in him to make Bad a decent album. After that, however, it was all downhill for the man who would eventually be known as "Wacko Jacko."
The story of Michael Jackson will not end with his memorial services next week; the true circumstances of his death, the future of his children and the disposition of his estate will continue to be played out in the media as well as in the courtrooms for months, if not years, to come. And it's only a matter of time before the nutty, Elvis-esque "Michael Jackson faked his own death" conspiracy theories arise. I'm going to do my best to ignore all of that. As I said, the Michael Jackson I want to remember was gone a long time ago.
I don't go to live shows very often, so rest assured that concert reviews will be few and far between on this blog.
That being said, last night's show was pretty impressive, especially for a band whose members' ages range from 59 to 63. Yes, they can still rock.
The line-up was 4/5ths of what most people would consider "classic" Fleetwood Mac: Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and Stevie Nicks. Christine McVie's absence meant that some of my favorites - "You Make Loving Fun," "Everywhere" - didn't make the set list, but they played most of my favorites: "Dreams," "The Chain," "Gypsy," "Go Your Own Way," "Tusk," "Rhiannon," for example, as well as a rather mesmerizing solo acoustic performance by Buckingham of "Big Love." Nicks also dipped into her solo repertoire with "Stand Back."
Buckingham was clearly the most dynamic member of the group, singing and performing in every song. I can only hope to have anywhere near that much energy when I'm that age. Nicks, for her part, looked great for her age (she can afford the plastic surgery, of course) but wasn't quite as energetic as Buckingham, and didn't even try to hit the high notes in a couple of her songs. That being said, the band's overall abilities have not diminished; they sounded very good.
Lori and I, believe it or not, were not the youngest people in the audience. In fact, while the audience was clearly Boomer-centric, there were a lot of teenagers and twentysomethings there, a testament to the cross-generational appeal of this band's music.
This was my first concert at the Toyota Center, but for all the grousing I've heard about the arena's acoustics - some folks never got the memo that the place was designed as a sports venue, not a concert hall - I thought it sounded fine. On a couple of occasions an echo became noticeable, but that was the extent of it.
