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Musings on the byways of popular culture

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Nano pop – songs that only have one tiny memorable bit

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Consider if you will, the recent hit song “Mr Jones” by Counting Crows. OK?…remember it? Sing it! Go on! Sing it now!

Right. I am prepared to bet good money that all you did was go “#Mis-terr JONES and me.. # “. Why? Because it’s the only bit that sticks in the mind. I assume there’s a lot more to the song than that like the guitars and that – but that’s all we remember.

Compare this to most ABBA choruses – there’s a line or two at least that most people can bash out if they have to.

This is different to just a memorable chorus. This is nano pop. Songs with just a tiny soupçon of memorableness. Any others?

I’m almost married to Kylie

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It’s my beloved wife’s birthday today…and she shares it with the fragrant La Minogue. I have a tradition of sending out a Facebook greeting to her with a Kylie tune attached; this year I selected the fabulously cool mash-up of ‘Slow’ with ‘Being Boiled’, as witnessed on last year’s poptastic ‘Golden’ Tour, and thought some of you good people would enjoy it, and perhaps share the love by posting your own faves from a surprisingly eclectic and adventurous career. C’mon, you know you can confide in me…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLyMeSSVH90

ATM: A Girl Called Eddy – New stuff!!!!

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Long term members may recall that A Girl Called Eddy crops up as one of the great lost albums/artists of the last 20 years or so. One stellar album on the early noughties and then….silence.

Well it seems the wait is over. Firstly there’s a collaboration with Mehdi Zannad of FUGU on an album called The Last Detail, to be released in early November on Elefant records.

And, according to both her Instagram feed and a recent Facebook interview on an Eddy fan page, new album “Been Around” will be released soon. Featuring collaborations with Paul Williams, The Watson Twins and featuring Steely Dan’s horn section. She describes the new album as Annie Hall compared to the first one being The Seventh Seal, whatever that means! It is produced by Daniel Tashian of The Silver Seas.

The video link to Fun Fair from the Last Detail features a woman miming to Eddy’s vocals.

https://youtu.be/IAaabyVyahg

https://elefant.com/noticia/1001/

Happy Birthday, Your Madge

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Yes, Madonna celebrates a big birthday today. Dunno what the general opinion of her music is on here, but I’ve always liked her (she was the first pop star I had on my wall at the age of 7 or so; I think I thought she was “pretty” which I guess when you’re 7 is as far as it goes) and you can’t deny she’s had some excellent records.

Over on the Twitts there is a top 5 thing going on; I’m not suggesting we do that here (it’s an interesting read, mind), but it’s certainly worth some celebration.

Here’s probably my favourite (from around the time I put the poster up). A fantastic record, with some fantastically unsubtle innuendo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52iW3lcpK5M

Play That Song (a bit differently)

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I caught this on the radio this morning. US pop-rockers Train have taken Hoagy Carmichael’s ‘Heart and Soul’ and re-booted it for the Magic FM generation. I wonder if this is likely to become fashionable? If so, can we expect, say, an adaptation of ‘Blue Moon’ by Little Mix? Or perhaps an autotune-heavy ‘Easter Parade’ from The Weeknd? How about a nice rendition of ‘Umpa Umpa’ from A$AP Rocky?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5qWnG5RQTk

The feelgood hit of the summer has arrived – a couple of months late

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I heard this on the radio today and it’s marvellous. I honestly though it was an old school eighties post-disco electro track at first, but a bit of generic phasing and the use of the word “hashtag” in the lyrics gave it away as new. It’s by Bruno Mars, it’s called 24K Magic, and I can’t wait for the album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqyT8IEBkvY

Best song of 2016 (so far)

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I haven’t checked in here for a while (not that I’m in any way a regular poster by any means) for a number of reasons (namely emigrating).

Anyway, having spent a while wading through the thread about how this place isn’t as good as it used to be, I noticed discussion about the enthusiasm (or lack thereof) for modern music.

2016 is now in it’s third month so I think we can now start thinking about this question – what’s your favourite song of the year so far?

Mine’s this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXdW0g6jAxE

Paperface.

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Saw Paperface at Saturday lunchtime’s free Daylight Music gig. A bearded guy in a blue hat jeans and jacket singing and playing an acoustic guitar, a keyboard player (also bearded), a (beard-sporting) electric guitarist, a (yes, bearded) drummer, a stubbly-cheeked bassist and three very attractive lady backing vocalists. So, 4 beards out of 5 for the males onstage, but the music wasn’t beardy, far from it. Melodic adult pop with interesting lyrics and hooks aplenty (very slightly marred by the drummer’s use of beaters on every single song). Standout live song for me was one called “Alison” (not a cover), which doesn’t appear to be on YouTube else I would have posted it here.

I bought their album “Out Of Time” (on CD) for a tenner at the merch stall. Basic cardboard sleeve, nice bright multicoloured collage artwork, no details of who plays what or anything much of that sort apart from the song titles. I think they had some vinyl copies there too. The album has a lot of top-notch orchestration throughout, which they obviously couldn’t do live, but the keyboards and guitars filled the sound out very nicely indeed on Saturday.

Have a listen to the clip and » Continue Reading.

A quick burst* of something uplifting

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A few days ago I re-watched the first Pitch Perfect movie in the company of my teenage niece, and was reminded just how great the audition montage scene is. A celebration of pure pop, this cover of Kelly Clarkson’s Since You Been Gone is skillfull, funny, cheesy of course, but mainly uplifting – just the thing for a drizzly Wednesday.

Feel free to post something uplifting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNV6UtkYPU4