Musings on the byways of popular culture
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This Friday Taylor Swift will release her seventh album, Lover. It’s been previewed by four great singles that have swerved and wrong-footed us all and teed up the new record nicely.
Her last album, 2017’s Reputation was a harder album with a mixture of cynicism and dismissiveness. The lead single back in 2017 announced “The old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. Why..? Because she’s DEAD”.
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Hey folks. Myself and StevenC have started a new podcast about, are you ready for this, THE BEATLES. We are launching today and in future weeks will cover such topics as Help! & Magical Mystery Tour – the forgotten albums, January 3rd 1970, Beatle Books and more! So here’s a list of links to all the usual podcast-y places. Enjoy!
APPLE PODCASTS https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/nothing-is-real-a-beatles-podcast/id1462587848
SPOTIFY https://open.spotify.com/episode/6bbngJK9Vhf3evaJaaGx48?si=L7KdGjgsSnW0rWOpbhX30A
WEBSITE http://beatlespod.libsyn.com/website
RSS FEED http://beatlespod.libsyn.com/rss
STITCHER https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=400396
OVERCAST https://overcast.fm/+R-acTxxl0 While your enjoying your elevenses, what not listen and subscribe to Nothing Is Real, out now!
APPLE PODCASTS https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/nothing-is-real-a-beatles-podcast/id1462587848
SPOTIFY https://open.spotify.com/episode/6bbngJK9Vhf3evaJaaGx48?si=L7KdGjgsSnW0rWOpbhX30A
WEBSITE http://beatlespod.libsyn.com/website
STITCHER https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=400396
OVERCAST https://overcast.fm/+R-acTxxl0
PODBEAN https://www.podbean.com/media/share/dir-bcf44-61bbce3
PODCAST ADDICT http://podplayer.net/?podId=2368655
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At one point during McCartney’s gig last month he said to the crowd “we know when we’re doing a new song because we don’t see all your phones out”. A new song is often a cue to go take a break at a gig. But every classic hit was new once. Look at this clip of The Killers doing Mr Brightside to a small crowd in 2002 who are not that interested. This song now closes festivals. Anyone else have other examples of new songs before they were famous?
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Venue:
Echo Arena, Liverpool
Date: 12/12/2018
How do you review a Paul McCartney gig? What metric do you use? The size of the crowd? The length of the set list? There’s no precedent for how the most successful songwriter in history should be presenting himself at 76.
The pre-show “support” is simply a one-hour build up to the great man appearing on stage. The first part is a DJ who mixes stems and loops from McCartney’s 60 year recording career, where nothing lasts longer than 60 seconds before segueing into another song you know like the back of your hand. The DJ then leaves the stage as the screens come on and a slow scrolling vertical digital montage of McCartney’s life rolls down the screen, soundtracked by more McCartney songs. It’s hard to know how long it’s going to be – turns out it’s over 20 minutes. The montage starts with a boy at a window on Forthlin Road, gradually moves through the stages of life, before ending with the image of a CGI Hofner Bass rotating on top of skyscraper with surrounding fireworks. At this point the imagery is matched by a soundtrack of the orchestral crescendo » Continue Reading.
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I’m sure some of you have seen this by now, it’s the new video for Glass Onion, ahead of the White Album release next Friday. It’s quite a spiffing bit of animation.
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Just look at that cover. LOOK AT IT!
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91IWebubapL._SX569_.jpg
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It was announced yesterday that there is a new album on the way from The Monkees. 2016’s Good Times was a fantastic listen and they’ve gotten the band together one more time for a, wait for it, Christmas Album!
The Monkees Christmas Party has new and old contributions from all the people who generally live inside my pop brain. Produced by Adam Schlesinger (Fountains of Wayne) and with new songs via Any Partidge, Rivers Cuomo and Peter Buck, plus they’re going to do *those* songs made famous by Roy Wood and Paul McCartney. Peter Buck also plays on a cover of Big Star’s Jesus Christ. Who doesn’t want to hear that??!? It worth saying again: Peter Buck plays guitar on a Big Star cover on the new Monkees album. What a time to be alive.
http://origin.rhino.com/sites/rhino.com/files/styles/article_image/public/2018-09/monkeesxmas.jpg?itok=3MXSBa0q http://origin.rhino.com/article/the-monkees-to-release-christmas-party-their-first-ever-holiday-album
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I’ve only seen this Alan Parsons Project video recently. It’s from 1977 and shows Mr Parsons running around a still new-looking National Theatre. For good measure there’s also a Univac Computer. Old computers and London’s South Bank: What’s not to love? Could any other AfterWorders suggest Old Music Videos Shot In Interesting Places.
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The Roxy Music thread reminded me of Trash, a single with a video that’s fallen off the radar completely. 100k YouTube views compared with over 11million for Avalon.
Sometimes these forgotten cuts can shed more light on a band than some of their well known songs. A song that’s not a hit by a band that is used to having hits, can expose that band’s set of tricks or way of working a lot better than a track that is hugely familiar and successful. I have a low grade obsession with Queen’s Hot Space album. The video for Calling All Girls throws the band into the mix of a ridiculous Sci-Fi premise wherein they are the stars. The video is a damp squib, however they repeated the MO with the very next video they made: Radio GaGa. There’s a fine line between clever and stupid.
So any more of these parallel universe tracks?
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After a few days of heavy tweeting, EC has announced that something new from The Imposter is coming out tomorrow.
An Imposter single? On the Fourth of July? I wonder who it might be about…
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Apparently it’s National Vegetarian Week: Well done everyone! For over 11 weeks now I’ve been meat-free, and what had begun as a Lenten experiment now seems to be gaining some traction. There’s a desire not to “break the chain” but I still haven’t figured out what the long term plan is.
In some ways it’s been easy as you find out how much of your diet is meat-free anyway (let’s hear it for toast). In other ways it hard to break some habits and recipes have had to be re-learned or adapted. Amazingly the kids didn’t notice the switch to meat-free lasagnas (the rest of the household have remained carnivores)
I’d be interested to hear of other people’s motivations and experiences with vegetarianism and all that. I have no idea how anyone copes with being vegan. Imagine a life without cheese.
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As I type, Record Store Day 2017 is a mere ten sleeps away. I’d like to declare the what-are-you-going-to-get thread OPEN! So, what is everyone interest in?
[Please note: this thread is an RSD-grump-free zone]
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…called Is This The Life We Really Want? Nigel Godrich producing. First album in 25 years. I find it amazing that the previous 25 years covered Piper.. to Amused to Death. Time flies, eh?
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Out March 31st. It’s another collection of standards…
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DrJ on DrJ on the new 2CD reissues of all seven Crowded House albums
By the summer of 1985, Neil Finn was 27 and already he was an old soul. For eight years he had been in Split Enz: He had been around the world, had written their biggest hit, had felt their diminishing returns and finally he orchestrated the band’s dissolution. He was also married with a baby. Split Enz had never been his band though, it had belonged to his older brother Tim.
So that summer he decamped to LA with a record deal for a new band pulled from the end of the Enz and initially called The Mullanes. While playing in Chinese restaurants and with everyone living in the one crowded house, á la The Monkees, they recorded a debut album with producer Mitchell Froom. They also figured out what their new name should be.
Their debut album, Crowded House, came out in 1986 and in a parallel universe it would live alongside earnest but less well-regarded contemporaries like Icehouse and Burgeous Tagg: Vaguely remembered by some, fondly remembered by a few. Yet here we are thirty years later with this deluxe 2CD reissue leading » Continue Reading.
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Crowded House are coming back to life again, for a little bit… There are two shows scheduled at Sydney Opera House in November to celebrate 30 years of CH & their induction into the Aria hall of fame. Plus all seven albums are being rereleased as 2CD deluxe sets with new vinyl versions too. This new news report is quite charming.
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Today sees the release of new albums from The Monkees, Paul Simon & Dexys. In the pre-streaming/on-demand age, this would have sent me to a record shop to pick up those albums on the day they came out. Today I have “Saved” those records into my Spotify, but I really only feel compelled to pick up a copy of The Monkees. For the last Dexys album, which I thought was really great, I have never bought a physical copy.
So who are your “Day One” artists? Who’s new release do you still want to hear as soon as it comes out? Do you still need to buy a physical copy or has that tradition fallen away…
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Hot off the digital presses: Burn The Witch.
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As regular AW podcast star Ola is coming to Dublin next week, there will be a going-out on the Friday night, January 15th. Where? Oh, somewhere “in town”. Time? 8pm seems sensible. I’ll figure out the details next week. Yeah? Who’s in??
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As we all get excited about “best of 2015” I wondered about if you are still enthralled with your favourite albums of 2014. Would you change your vote? Has something turned up that you missed at the time? I know I had St Vincent down as my favourite thing this time last year. However, The War on Drugs seems to have stayed the course more. Anyone..?
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…or thereabouts. I have fond memories of the months of hype leading up to Free As A Bird and the Anthology series. In retrospect, the Fab’s timing was perfect: An upswing in all things Beatles from the Britpop Stars du jour; the nascent Internet had yet to consume the music business (so they could keep FAAB private and sell shed loads of double CDs) and George was still with us. The Anthology was a great showcase for previously unseen clips that are now only a YouTube search today, but more amazingly, there was Paul, Ringo & George… In a room… Together… with Macca still getting on thequietone’s nerves. I have fond memories of the whole enterprise & remain pro-Threetles.
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I was in a YouTube rabbit hole recently and found this: The last live performance from ELO at a charity gig in Birmingham in 1986. I find these kind of things interesting. The band, although headlining, are on the other side of a commercial peak. Did they know it was the end? Although it’s not as portentous as Ziggy & the Spiders or as iconic as the Fabs on the roof, there is a foreshadowing at the end when George Harrison comes on and shows Jeff where his future lies.
Any other interesting last things? Last gigs. Last songs. Last photos, etc.
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I’m curious to know who among the Massive listens to surround sound reissues. What’s your set-up? DVD-A? Blu-Ray? Type of surround sound speaker set-up? Is music just a by-product of setting up a surround sound system for movies? Worth it? Waste of time?
I would like to hear the upcoming surround releases of Oranges & Lemons and Tusk, but the whole thing seems a bit of a total faff to be honest. Interested to hear from y’all. Thanks.
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You know the type of thing: Two or more songs soldered together to make a bigger, better song. Here’s Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain. Show your working out, if you can. I’ll put the demo pieces of The Chain in the main thread…
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It’s been announced that Jeff has signed with Columbia for a new ELO record due out next year. Here’s hoping we get a tour. Hold on tight to your dreams, etc, etc.
(photo via http://elobeatlesforever.blogspot.com )
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_3J_rl7XImU/VfGf7KgIbhI/AAAAAAAAL6E/1rHzw0nItO0/s1600/FB_IMG_1441895850873%255B1%255D.jpg http://jefflynneselo.com/news/258463
