Musings on the byways of popular culture
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Power ballads I cannot be doing with. Now a premium cheesy song with sweet harmonies and sentiments with a few hooks and a sublime middle eight, ideally by an artist who is seeking a hit outside of albums … quite different. Todd the Godd is a master of such things. Who else?
Sparks have been trying to make a movie musical for decades. Getting close with A Tim Burton film in the 90s. But their dream as now come true and they are opening the Cannes film festival in July. Amazon have bought the streaming rights. Here’s the first trailer. https://youtu.be/On4v1gNJkrE
The Sparks documentary also arrives this summer. Directed by Edgar Wright it’s been picked up for wide distribution by focus features. In the doc they meet up with their first producer Todd Rungren after 50 years. They must have got on well because this surprise one off single just appeared. https://youtu.be/eVxnnyvpqr0
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As a Hall & Oates nut, this song will always be in my Top 5 H&O songs. Not only do you get Daryl & John but you have the amazing “Buy 2, get a 3rd free” special offer of the voice and sweet guitar of Todd Rundgren.
So, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to post a video of your favourite guest appearance with a band or solo artist. Extra points for the guest not being named (as here) in the artist title.
Let’s have an old fashioned Word/Afterword Blog Friday night video-fest.
And, ah one………
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Haven’t seen anyone posting about this. Not everyday two of my heroes work together, and it has added political piquancy. This, from a recent interview in a Variety:
Variety – Donald Fagen sings lead on the anti-Trump song “Man in the Tin Foil Hat,” but it’s hard to tell who wrote what in the tune, because the chord progressions and biting humor both sound like both of you.
TR – That was one of the more interesting collaborations on the record, because it’s the only one in which me and my collaborator were in the same physical place at the same time. I’ve known Donald since he spent some time living out at Kauai, where I still live, and he just happened to be on vacation on the island in January. We went out to dinner, and I thought, well, geez, why don’t I just spring it on him? The song was primarily driven by our common frustration with what happened in the recent election. It was still pretty fresh, and we were still pretty mad about it, so it happened pretty organically. So who knows? If I’m actually in the room with a collaborator, a lot of things can » Continue Reading.
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The ‘best’ entry level thread is interesting. What about the reverse: those tracks that scare people off who might otherwise like the artist in question? I could have introduced them by “Can We Still be Friends?” or “I Saw the Light, but my Todd Rundgren enthusiasm led me to scare off potential converts by introducing them via “Dogfight Giggle” (2 minutes of annoying pissing abut that was probably fun when they were stoned in the studio), and the attached “A Treatise on Cosmic Fire” (as above, but 35 minutes). I don’t suppose “Singring and the Glass Guitar” impressed many outside of here, either.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZJi1nGFZiA
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I have some beautiful things in my life. My wife, family and friends, for a start. My health which, despite the current set-back, has kept me going this past 59 years. I live in a nice part of the country, with rivers and valleys and green spaces. And I can travel to other nice parts of this beautiful country, or even abroad, because I am lucky enough to have the means to do so.
After a few days that I would rather forget, I was putting together a playlist of music I consider beautiful. This cropped up. Not just the song, but this performance of it. I have loved the song since 1985, when I waited for the HMV store in Woking to open it’s doors, on the day the album (A Capella) was released. No, it is this performance that grabbed me, with the addition of the orchestra (Todd sings all of the backing arrangement on the original,) that, despite the downbeat lyric, makes this a thing of beauty for me.
So, what else ya got? What music would you describe as a thing of beauty.