Yvonne Elliman and Cast, "Could We Start Again, Please?"

My posts became fewer and farther between this year as I found I simply had less to say - about music, about my life, about the human condition. 2009 proved for me a downer of a year on the whole, and writing about it would only have reinforced and magnified it. Better to turn away from a mostly sorrowful year and decade and look ahead.

And so we come to Mary Magdalene, Peter the Denier and the other cast members of Jesus Christ Superstar, looking to a Jesus who was right but betrayed by many of those closest to him. Do I believe their remorse when they sing "Could We Start Again, Please?" No, not really - especially since they can't resist the dig, "You've even gone a bit too far to get the message home." But I give them a B+ for effort. Yvonne Whinyface Elliman sings with genuine pain and anguish, and the Rice-Webber arrangement is nothing short of tear-inducing.

So the '00s, a period of considerable pain and suffering, come to a close tonight. But the slate shall not be wiped clean: those who were poor and hungry at the close of the aughts will be poor and hungry at the start of the teens; those in war-torn lands will continue to fight and kill for their lives; and most of the rich will continue to pretend that they all don't exist or at least are something short of human. I can't stop them; I can only clean up my meager backyard. I may continue this blog if I begin to feel passionately enough about music and my relationship to it again. Until then, thanks for reading this far.

Go in peace.

Annie Lennox, SING Public Service Announcement

Annie Lennox's efforts in the fight against AIDS are longstanding and commendable. It's a privilege to share the work she and her nonprofit SING are engaged in: to get people in South Africa tested and treated for HIV, and to eradicate the stigma against those who are positive. Indeed, Annie is herself not HIV+, but her point with the shirts she's made fashion of is, So what if I were?

Thank you, Ms. Lennox, for fighting the good fight in often sorrowful times.

The Pointer Sisters, "The Pinball Song"

Happy 40th birthday, Sesame Street. You were my favorite block to hang out on through most of the '70s.

And happy 11/10/09 to the rest of you. Here's a fitting Sesame Street tune for the date. Betcha didn't know this was the Pointer Sisters singing these pinball songs, huh? Molto grazie to the fan who linked them all together as one long clip.

Grass Roots, "Midnight Confessions"

The Grass Roots, prefab though they were in ways, were underrated insofar as the product they produced. Some of my very favorite songs of the 1966-1972 pop goldmine era came from them, from "Where Were You When I Needed You" to "Two Divided By Love." With their double-barreled vocal pair and the highly unorthodox (to my eyes) drumming of Sean Penn dead ringer Rick Coonce (seriously, he plays the drums as if he's twirling a Chinese yo-yo), they came up with a lengthy string of trash-single (and I use that term lovingly) pop gems.

Of them, "I'd Wait a Million Years" is my favorite (and a topic for another day), but the most interesting is "Midnight Confessions," an admission of desire for an unattainable other, a feeling we've all had at one time or another. I've worn that T-shirt more than once or twice myself. My friend Mike called my attention to Meatloaf video vixen Karla DeVito's version, but I'm afraid I have little use for it: she turns a genuinely painful situation into camp, in an unfunny way (she's crushing on a guy who beat up "Weird Al" Yankovic for his mustache and glasses? Really?). Like Toni Basil without the gleeful overlighting, Jane Wiedlin without a mission, Cyndi Lauper without a tool to pleasure herself: Just somehow missing the point.

And that's more than enough parentheticals for one day.

Friday Funtime: San Franciscan Nights

I spent much of the past two weeks in San Francisco, my former home and eventual home again someday. Said goodbye to one dear friend (R.I.P. Angela Welch) and hello to numerous others - some former co-workers and happy-hour revelers, some fellow music fanatics. Saw many of my favorite former haunts - neighborhoods, restaurants, bars, shops - and a few new ones too. Made my usual pilgrimage to Amoeba Music, the world's greatest record store, where I am incapable of spending under $50 once I get going. And attended the annual Bridge School Benefit concert, Neil Young's annual undertaking to raise funds for the Bridge School, which aids children with speech and physical impairments to learn and express themselves.

Here are some highlights from the Bridge show, plus a few of the things I bought at Amoeba.

1. Adam Sandler (!) and Neil Young, "Powderfinger"
2. Chris Martin, "Viva La Vida"
3. No Doubt, "Simple Kind of Life"
4. Wolfmother, "Woman"
5. Gavin Rossdale, "Comedown"
6. Monsters of Folk, "Man Named Truth"
7. Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs, "Baby Blue"
8. XTC, "King for a Day"
9. Pet Shop Boys, "Bet She's Not Your Girlfriend"
10. Neil Young, "Comes a Time"

Beach Boys, "Be True to Your School"

Damn if this isn't the most fucking fascist pop song ever:

Beach Boys, "Be True to Your School"

Of course, this comes from someone who's never been capable of being true to any school - a perpetual free agent, as it were.

Recap of recent San Francisco trip to come in tomorrow's Friday Funtime. Please don't mind my periods of silence here - I haven't had as many new thoughts of late.

Pop Argot

Jefferson, "I Love You This Much"

Origins of the power ballad? Not really, and not just because "I Love You This Much" wasn't a hit. Jefferson (not to be confused with my beloved interstellar flying contraption), the nom de disque of former Rockin' Berries vocalist Geoff Turton, seems to have been rather influenced by Nilsson's "Without You," a more likely candidate as progenitor of the species. It's lightweight, but don't take "I Love You This Much" lightly: there's a thoughtful and poetic sweetness to Jefferson's longings, and the melody is pretty enough that you can easily overlook the lack of a refrain.

And that album artwork is simply perfect for the song: the serenity of domestic bliss as so many of us idealize it. May each of us have someone who loves us this much. White picket fence optional.

The Mamas & the Papas, "I Saw Her Again Last Night"

That lyric really takes on an ugly sheen now, dunnit?

But ignoring John and Mackenzie Phillips' family affair, I've long wanted to repurpose "I Saw Her Again Last Night" to be about a closeted guy with a beard-girlfriend. And watching Mad Men a few weeks ago, when Sal daintily and diligently performed the entire "Bye Bye Birdie" choreograph for his silently horrified wife, I thought to myself: "To string her along's just not right ..."

Justin Hayward, "Forever Autumn"

So begins another fall, and this message of unresolved and unsatisfied longing feels appropriate for a summer that never truly became summer, in a year when few dreams came true: "Forever Autumn," Justin Hayward's best work outside the Moodies.

Friday Funtime: (Rerun) Talk Like a Pirate Day

Sorry, didn't have time to come up with anything new, so here's a rerun. Tomorrow is International Talk Like a Pirate Day; check out last year's observation of the day for some arrrrrr-tistic inspiration. Avast ye!

Pet Shop Boys, "Go West"

It's September 17 again, the anniversary of my 1996 move to San Francisco, a huge event in my personal development. I've told that story on this blog before, so today I'll just offer a note of tribute to the West Coast. While I've been in NYC for 6+ years and figure to be here quite a while longer, it was in SF I felt most fully at home and most fully able to live and breathe as myself. So for those feeling dislocated today, I offer this simple bit of advice, rendered originally by the Village People but more effectively by the Pet Shop Boys: "Go West."

PS: There's lots of hammer-and-sickle imagery in that PSB video. Glenn Beck, you can go fuck yourself.

First Class, "Beach Baby"

I wanted to get this beautifully executed Beach Boys homage in before the summer's over. As genre imitations go, First Class's "Beach Baby", a Top 5 hit from the late summer of '74, was a spot-on surf harmonizer - with the assistance of a bright and blasting horn chart - and there's something about the way Tony Burrows sings "the suntanned crewcut all-American male" that to me is downright sexy in its evocations.

Ah, for a weekend in Rehoboth Beach. From July to the end of September, everyone deserves to take away at least one memory of a beautiful body lying on the sand.

Jim Carroll, "People Who Died"

Well, it was either this or "She's Like the Wind," and I'm not up to the challenge of reconciling Patrick Swayze's titular phrase with his observation, "she's out of my leeee-eague." I suppose the wind is out of my league too, given that we're different states of matter.

So yeah. Swayze and Jim Carroll - those are people who died, died.

The Beatles, "Revolution #9"

Number 9 ... Number 9 ... Number 9 ...

Paul Anka, "Hold Me 'Til the Mornin' Comes"

Last weekend I had the displeasure of hearing, in a Casey Kasem '70s AT40 countdown, Paul Anka's noxious "I Believe There's Nothing Stronger Than Our Love," one of his mid-'70s hit duets with the otherwise unknown Odia Coates. His swarthy warbling has always rubbed me the wrong way - I believe there's nothing flatter than his voice.

But Anka got a small reprieve this past weekend, when in a rebroadcast of one of Casey's '80s shows, I was reminded of his last chart gasp. "Hold Me 'Til the Mornin' Comes", his first Top 40 charter in almost five years, peaked for two weeks in the chart's anchor position this month in 1983 - and it actually deserved better. Anka wisely hangs out in the background, turning the show over to the Splenda-sweetened voice of Peter Cetera for the soaring refrain. "Hold Me" is really no different from the ballad formula Cetera was working with David Foster and Chicago at the time - you're the inspiration and a hard habit to break, so it's hard for me to say I'm sorry - and it's worth noting how closely Chicago stuck to the formula after Cetera's 1985 departure, "Will You Still Love Me" sounding uncannily like this one.

But "Hold Me 'Til the Mornin' Comes" had two other things working against it: the lyric, an attempt at having one's cake and eating it too, is barely believable; and it's very difficult for two men to sing a love-song duet without appearing to be singing to each other. (It's the Air Supply curse.) I for one would rather not picture Cetera holding Anka 'til the mornin' comes. But I'm glad I was reminded of this song's existence.

George Michael, "Killer / Papa Was a Rollin' Stone"

Last year I used today's date as the peg to play one of the Temptations' very best efforts - not to mention Norman Whitfield's finest hour. This year, it's George Michael's turn to tell us what happened on the third of September.

Michael's merging in 1993 of "Rollin' Stone" with Seal's "Killer" was a winning combination, and sadly, one of the last times he exhibited any particular musical adventure and ambition. He's spent the 2000s in a drug-induced lethargy, seemingly only minimally interested in music anymore. A shame for someone who was once one of pop's most elite triple threats.

Neil Diamond, "September Morn"

Although summer doesn't officially end for another three weeks or so, September 1 marks for me, and I'm sure others, the psychological end of the season. (Labor Day's never been a lively vacation weekend for me.) I'll cite another summer song or two before the seasons change, but for now, a way to ease into the coming autumn: Neil Diamond's "September Morn."

How fortunate a man Neil is: By this point, not only did he get to wear glittery outfits that a figure skater would scratch your eyes out for, he increasingly got away with writing material like this that demands only a speak-sing from a less-than-an-octave range. I wonder what kind of rivalry he and the more vocally gifted if less lyrically introspective Barry Manilow had going around 1980.

The Legendary K.O., "George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People"

This weekend saw the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, an ugly storm that revealed an ugly side of America. Our nation's slothful indifference to the needs of the people trapped in the region was nothing short of shocking, and Kanye West was right to call it as he saw it.

But the Legendary K.O. made one error in transferring Kanye's loaded soundbite to the song "George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People": they rendered the refrain as "George Bush don't like black people. That's not the case. I'm sure there was no personal animus from W toward African Americans. What Kanye meant - and what I agree to be the case - was that black people in the Deep South, being on the whole poor and uninfluential, were simply off George's radar; dull man that he was, he just couldn't conceptualize that there were actual people down there in actual suffering. Their economic and social status defined their humanity in his and his administration's eyes. Like most Republicans in 2000s America, the only people George Bush was able to recognize as people were people who were a lot like him.

Alas for George and his GOP cronies, it's a different world: Your neighbor may well not be at all like you anymore. Your sister-in-law may well not be at all like you. Your boss may well not be at all like you. And, yes, your president may well not be at all like you. For those reactionaries and John Birch-inspired fearmongers, I have but one word in response: Deal.

And the comic tragedy, of course, is that "not at all like you" is a fallacy anyway. Not that you could tell a modern-day right-winger that.

Friday Funtime: Philly Soul!

While on a much-needed vacation, I stopped at a record store (yes! physical record stores still exist!) with the tasteful name of the Electric Fetus. (Well, at least there was no risk that the URL was already taken.) There, I got a marvy deal on a marvy box set: Love Train: The Sound of Philadelphia. Highly recommended for anyone who wants 4 discs of some of the '70s' very best orchestrations, melodies, and harmonies. For today's Friday Funtime, a sampling of some highlights:

1. The Delfonics, "Ready or Not, Here I Come"
2. Jerry Butler, "Only the Strong Survive"
3. Joe Simon, "Drowning in the Sea of Love"
4. MFSB, "Family Affair"
5. Billy Paul, "Thanks for Saving My Life"
6. The Trammps, "Where Do We Go From Here"
7. Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, "Wake Up Everybody"
8. The O'Jays, "I Love Music" (the L-O-N-G version!)
9. The Manhattans, "Kiss and Say Goodbye"
10. Dee Dee Sharp, "I'm Not in Love"

Steely Dan, "Pretzel Logic"

Yours truly is going off the grid for several days, so no updates until this time next week. Until then, here's one dedicated to Brother Argot, who celebrates a birthday today: his favorite song, Steely Dan's "Pretzel Logic." "They say the times are changing, but I just don't know."

Diana Ross, "Last Time I Saw Him"

My friend Mike has long suggested that the song was tailor-made for Helen Reddy - and Dottie West offered this minute-long tantalizing taste of what it would have sounded like in her honky-tonk hands - but the quaintly vaudevillian "Last Time I Saw Him" belongs to Diana Ross.

Well, her and the Electric Mayhem.

Friday Funtime: Woodstock at 40

What does Woodstock mean to me, as someone who was not yet alive when it happened and who has never attended a music festival of remotely similar scope? Simple: Proof that such a gathering can be done. When we find ourselves isolated from our neighbors, our families, our cow orkers, we can remind ourselves that occasionally there are moments when more than a few - say, a hundred-thousand-plus - find themselves not isolated, not alone at all, for three days of peace and music.

It can happen.

PS: My gratitude to the kind people who made these clips available for us.

1. Richie Havens, "Freedom / Motherless Child"
2. Arlo Guthrie, "Coming Into Los Angeles"
3. Santana, "Soul Sacrifice"
4. Jimi Hendrix, "Purple Haze"
5. Joe Cocker, "With a Little Help From My Friends"
6. Sly & the Family Stone, "I Want to Take You Higher"
7. Jefferson Airplane, "Won't You Try / Saturday Afternoon"
8. Crosby, Stills & Nash, "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes"
9. John Sebastian, "Darling Be Home Soon"
10. Country Joe and the Fish, "Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag"

Toby Keith, "American Ride"

Where the idiotic guy who advocated lynchings a few years ago (and I still haven't fully forgiven Willie Nelson for his involvement with that, though I guess going Top 40 with "Beer for My Horses" paid his bills for the decade well enough) returns with coded language about a "tidal wave come across the Mexican border" (oh noes! the immigrants are invading!) and cautions "don't get busted singing Christmas carols" (oh noes! the ACLU atheists are invading!) to play on some of Christofascist America's deepest fears. I suppose for racist Middle Americans, disbelief in diversity would indeed be cause for sarcastic appreciation of "this American ride." At least Toby left the President and other African-Americans out of this one.

Richard Marx, "Right Here Waiting"

Twenty years ago this week, I was on my way home from a summer "young scholars" science internship at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg. The six-week session represented my first extended period of time on my own - and I quite enjoyed the liberating feeling.

My summer soundtrack consisted of my Monkees cassettes with only a smattering of Top 40 tunes (1989 being one of pop's least vital years): Prince's "Batdance," Simply Red's "If You Don't Know Me by Now," Neneh Cherry's sublime "Buffalo Stance." But the #1 song in the nation that August was the ambitiously coiffed Richard Marx's "Right Here Waiting."

Song's a little corny, to be sure. But a young friend of mine recently told me it was one of the very first songs he remembers from his childhood, one of the first he learned on piano, and that got me thinking: How strange it now seems, in an era when what passes for ballads have refrains like "birthday sex, birthday sex" and "you tha fuckin' shit, you tha fuckin' shit," to have a #1 song that's as appropriate for kids to sing as for adults. Today, music is only so innocent when it's marketed to Radio Disney, and that's a pity for all of us.

Beach Boys, "Never Learn Not to Love"

This weekend marked the 40th anniversary of one of the more unfortunate episodes in the annals of pop culture: the Tate-LaBianca murders, committed at the behest of Charles Manson by his family of followers. Manson was for a time an L.A. outsider, a fringe musician who befriended the Beach Boys' Dennis Wilson and thereby persuaded the band to record his song "Cease to Exist." Retitled "Never Learn Not to Love", the song proved passable at best, salvaged only by the hypnotic monotone hum of Bruce Johnston and Al Jardine's backing vox and the saintly corrupted visage of Dennis himself on the stoned lead.

The murder of Sharon Tate and her friends and the LaBiancas tells us little about Manson himself but much about his Family, whose murderous members took years to develop genuine remorse for their actions. It is well to realize how readily some people will obey, whether the leader is Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, Charlie Manson or your figurehead of choice. We're largely a nation of followers, merely in search of someone to lead us on. May we learn to not be so easily led down paths that conflict with our own codes of conduct. It may be too late for Atkins, Van Houten and Krenwinkel to absorb this lesson, but not for the rest of us. Never learn not to trust your internal moral compass.

Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson, "The Man"

Oh, wow. Someone on the ILM board brought up a duet between Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson that not only had I never heard, I'd never heard of it. "The least famous of their three co-writes/duets," the gent argued, "is IMO the best of them all."

And damn if he isn't right. "The Girl Is Mine" and "Say, Say, Say" have gotten a bad rap over the years, and I think it's unfair - particularly in the case of the latter, whose defense I'll save for another day. They're good songs.

But allow me to extoll above them the virtues of "The Man," a tune on Macca's 1983 Pipes of Peace album. (The reason I'd never heard it: McCartney solo has never been an album guy for me. Give me the singles, and that's pretty much all I need.) The songwriting's credited to Paul and Michael both, but I suspect, given the vocal range it calls for, it was almost entirely MJ at work concocting this oblique observation of - a god? A golden child? A man who's found self-awareness and wisdom within?

Or perhaps, more specifically, the one who has the courage to venture out into unknown territory, and come back with experience and tales for those who cannot themselves leave. The heroic journey described by everyone from Joseph Campbell to Sandra Cisneros. Can you be the one to go where others cannot? Can I? Who can? This is the man.

PS: How this was not a single, I'll never understand.

Natalie Merchant, "Wonder"

A very dear friend of mine became a father late last week. With my congratulations to him and his wife on little Zaden's safe arrival, here's a tune of celebration. "Wonder" was Natalie Merchant's finest moment: on its surface, a testimony to a prodigy or golden child, but more broadly and effectively, a sincere expression of adulation for the arrival of any newborn as well as a note to self to always remain appreciative and strong, to help this loved one grow: "Know this child will be gifted / With love, with patience and with faith / She'll make her way."

Norman Connors, "You Are My Starship"

Barry Scott's weekly Lost 45s show yesterday reminded me of a number of songs I neglected to include the Friday before last in my moon/space celebration set. Rather than miscontextual fluff like "Desert Moon," I should have gone with Bobby Womack's splendid take on "Fly Me to the Moon." And how did I forget Paul Revere & the Raiders' whimsical confection "Mr. Sun, Mr. Moon"?

Another bit of Barry's space travel last night was Norman Connors' R&B hit from 1976 "You Are My Starship." The smooth-jazz drummer had his sole pop crossover moment with this Michael Henderson-sung ode to a love that liberates. "Starship" is a bit crass in places - "and don't you come too soon" can mean only one thing in this context - and in the unedited album version, it seems implausible that someone would repeat the refrain twice before plunging into the verse of self-doubt: "I just can't say / It's here that you want to be." But once that doubt's reassured, once the beloved is here willfully and here to stay, "You Are My Starship" reveals itself to be a soft seduction - nothing more, nothing less, and sometimes that's all that's needed.

Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, "A.C.D.C."

A friend on a message board introduced me to Joan Jett and the Blackhearts' "A.C.D.C." today. The 2006 track was totally new to me, and I instantly fell for it: it rocks, and I dig songs with bisexual themes. I don't know if Joan is formally out or in open-secret-land, but she did the GLBTs proud with this one.

Why I love YouTube: it allowed me to hear this song and learn that it was a cover (Sweet did the Chapman-Chinn composition way back in '74 - !).

Why I hate YouTube: I made the mistake of reading the comments, many of which were predictably homophobic. God, people are idiots, especially when granted anonymity.

Starsailor, "Faith Hope Love"

Starsailor's never caught on in America like I wish they would. At their best, they combine simple but thoughtful lyrics with driving music to create something of universal value. Their product over the decade has been inconsistent from song to song, but damn if there's a better song than "Faith Hope Love" to hear at 4 a.m. on the way home from work when you're stressed out and wondering if maybe a few people don't really have your back after all. "Faith, hope, love - be enough," you might sing to the skies and the gods and yourself in such a moment.

R. Dean Taylor, "Indiana Wants Me"

I used to make a lot of mix tapes - for myself, for friends; as gifts, as mementos. My dual-cassette boom box got quite a workout over the years. Some songs came from my tape collection; far more were recorded off the radio. (Sorry if I've upset the apple carts of the copyright police by admitting this. It's not like I haven't spent thousands of dollars on the music industry.)

One of the interesting things about recording songs off the radio was the segues you'd wind up with before and after: sometimes the intrusiveness of a DJ, more often the abrupt shift of one song beginning its fade into another having just kicked in. The best such crossfade I ever created was a happy accident: Frankie Valli's vamping wails on the Four Seasons' pop psychedelicacy "Tell It to the Rain" magically turned into the police sirens that open R. Dean Taylor's morbid story-song "Indiana Wants Me." Same key and everything, I could swear. I wish I could have found a studio clip of the 4S tune to play them side by side for you.

But that's not the only reason to listen to "Indiana Wants Me." One doesn't want to sympathize with a guy who opens the lyric with his declaration of a revenge killing, yet one cannot help but be touched by such a naked line as "It hurts to see the man that I've become." I heard the Top 10 song hundreds of times on Pittsburgh oldies station 3WS during my formative years (back when "oldies" meant 1957-1970) and have always appreciated the tale-telling effort from one of Motown's second-stringers. My friend Mike just told me he thought it was Simon & Garfunkel on first listen, and I can totally hear that. Too bad Taylor's subsequent efforts, like "Ghost in My House", couldn't find similar footing in our charts or our hearts.

They Might Be Giants, "Destination Moon"

One final word of tribute to man's desire to touch the face of the moon: "Destination Moon," a They Might Be Giants tune from the underappreciated John Henry album. The LP, edgier and less whimsical than previous TMBG efforts, returned the duo from the near-mainstream to their unique spot on the pop fringe (Ween and Flaming Lips are neighbors, but they don't visit much anymore). And the song, typical for John & John, is both evocative and inscrutable: it's based on the space-travel film inspired by Heinlein, but that doesn't explain its backwards-recursive refrain, nor why its subject's leg is revealed to be withered at the end. (Of the song, not the leg.)

So enjoy the tune, and enjoy the notion of space travel as man's unrelenting urge to go further. But ignore the Simpsons visuals of the YouTube clip I've provided above; they're not useful. A better fan vid would have turned for inspiration to The Adventures of Tintin. Or Wallace & Gromit. Or the moon movie that inspired Smashing Pumpkins' greatest video.

Friday Funtime: Pop Argot Goes to the Moon

With Monday marking the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, here's a 10-song set celebrating the final frontier and the achievements of Armstrong, Aldrin et al. Sort of, anyway. Alas, I could not find a clip of the B-52s' "There's a Moon in the Sky Called the Moon."

1. The Police, "Walking on the Moon"
2. The Beach Boys, "Surfer Moon"
3. Dennis DeYoung, "Desert Moon"
4. Duran Duran, "New Moon on Monday"
5. Paul McCartney and Wings, "Jet"
6. Vik Venus, "Moonflight"
7. Kate Bush, "Rocket Man"
8. David Bowie, "Space Oddity"
9. Peter Schilling, "Major Tom (Coming Home)"
10. Nina Simone, "Everyone's Gone to the Moon"

Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, "Don't Give In to Him"

I was listening to some Gary Puckett and the Union Gap last evening.

Yes, I listen to that cornball. Gary and his band are the pork rinds of '60s pop: ridiculous and unhealthy, but enjoyable under the right circumstances. And I realized, in the midst of his medley of molestation - the "Young Girl" whom he woos as his "Lady Willpower" with an ultimatum and then "Is a Woman Now" after he pops her clutch - that there was a Top 40 hit of his that I'd never heard before.

YouTube to the rescue. Thank you, kachzvi, whoever you are, for posting a clip of "Don't Give In to Him," a #15 hit from 1969 that is rightly forgotten. It's not a bad song, just a bland one, something less than a footnote. At least it isn't creepy... Unless you take "You don't dare refuse him" as something more than an ultimatum.

In other matters, isn't Mr. Puckett himself something a dead ringer for Gary Cole?

Grace Jones, "Slave to the Rhythm"

On another day, for another song, I might simply say by way of introduction: It's Grace Jones; what else do you need to know?

In this case, though, for this 2009 live performance of "Slave to the Rhythm," you need to know that:

• She's wearing a bustier and thong.


• Her heels are ferocious.

Oh, and ...

• She hula-hoops ... for the duration of the song.

That's amazing, Grace.

ETA: H/t to Jose for sending me this clip in the first place.

Melanie, "Look What They've Done to My Song, Ma"

It's Bastille Day, but that's not a useful holiday for a rock critic to write about - there's not much in pop music concerned with the affairs of the French. There was one #1 hit sung in French - but I dobut anyone here is itching to hear "Dominique." A handful of songs have dropped in a line or two of French language - the Beatles' "Michelle" and ELO's "Hold On Tight" being perhaps the most notable examples - but I'll highlight a different one today.

"Look What They've Done to My Song, Ma" was a Top 20 hit for the New Seekers in 1970, but the original, written and sung by the ever barely hinged Melanie, is a superior reading. Melanie was incapable of delivering a line without sincerity, even en francais - at least, until "Brand New Key" made her a superstar and ruined her career. But back to "Song, Ma": It's a vague but evocative lament that a writer's words have been misappropriated - which makes one wonder how Melanie felt about its treatments in the hands of Ray Charles and Barbra Streisand and Puf'n'Stuf urchin Jack Wild. I'd like to think she approved of what they did to her song.

The Easybeats, "Friday on My Mind"

If on Monday you have Friday on your mind, you need this. Never has a singer look so elated to be on stage - or maybe simply elated to be alive - as the Easybeats' lead singer Steven Wright does here on "Friday on My Mind." The jangling rocker (with a class-conscious line railing against the rich man!) was the Australian band's only hit, and is the only song I've ever heard from them. I don't want to correct that - I could only be disappointed, as this power-pop precursor is one of the more perfect songs of its ilk, hardly capable of being improved upon. It certainly got my Monday off to a nice start.

PS: Favorite unexpected line: "Even my old man looks ... good."

Friday Funtime: Pop Argot's "Sweet" Tooth

Still with "Wicked Game" in the back of my head, I considered a Friday setlist of the sexiest songs I have ever heard. But Robert Palmer's "You Overwhelm Me" was nowhere to be found, and without that, my list would have felt woefully incomplete. So instead, a celebration of confections: some of my favorite "sweet" songs. I hope you find them tasty too.

1. Anita Baker, "Sweet Love"
2. Sade, "The Sweetest Taboo"
3. Jackie Wilson, "I Get the Sweetest Feeling"
4. Rufus & Chaka Khan, "Sweet Thing"
5. Barbra Streisand, "Sweet Inspiration / Where You Lead"
6. Commodores, "Sweet Love"
7. Sweet Sensation, "Sad Sweet Dreamer"
8. Barry White, "Your Sweetness Is My Weakness"
9. Four Tops, Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever"
10. Juice Newton, "The Sweetest Thing (I've Ever Known)"

Peter Criss, "You Matter to Me"

In the middle of 1978, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons were on top of the world. Their band, Kiss, was the hottest touring commodity in the world; they'd lodged seven Top 40 hits in less than three years; and they were poised to break it big in other media as the worlds of TV and comic books came a-calling. They even had the marketing gimmickry and inspiration for each of the four band members to release a solo album that fall - though surely Paul and Gene expected theirs to perform best, as they were unquestionably the leaders and creative vision of the group as well as the songwriters and primary singers.

So it must have been galling to Stanley and Simmons when Ace Frehley scored the sole Top 40 hit of the lot (with the infectious "New York Groove") and Peter Criss unexpectedly turned in the best pop song. "You Matter to Me" wasn't a hit, but it holds up nicely as a period piece alongside the similar "Stumblin' In" by Suzi Quatro and Chris Norman. (My apologies, though, for that YouTube clip - it was the only one I could find of the song. Who knew there were adult men who are fans of both Peter Criss and My Little Pony?) Paul and Gene would have to content themselves with moderate sales success and eventual solo follow-ups, not to mention increasingly tight control over the group (it's not for nothing that KISS was taken by many to be an initialism for "KISS Is Stanley & Simmons").

Anyway, listen to "You Matter to Me" and tell me it isn't one of the more underrated songs of the late '70s. For sub-Chapman-&-Chinn, it works for me.

Thomas Dolby, "I Love You Goodbye"

This morning I dreamed about my friend Brandon for the first time in recent memory. Maybe even the first time since his passing away 3 1/2 years ago. It was one of those dreams where a number of surrealistic situations come and go (a few and far between thing for me - I don't dream much anymore); the germane detail was that Brandon and I had skipped a river boat cruise and gone instead to a boardwalk Vietnamese restaurant. We were seated, ordered some appetizers; I fretted over what to have to drink ... and then started crying. Sobbing. "I know I'm dreaming," I said softly to him, "because you're talking and I can hear you." At that point his voice faded to mute, his visage blurred to my eyes, and I woke up.

I'm hoping that by typing this out I'll transcend the empty, hollow feeling that results from a dream like that. It's not hard to interpret: one of my many regrets about his passing is that it came so suddenly, at 3,000 miles' distance, that I had no opportunity to say goodbye to him.

Back in February 2006, when a wake was held for him in San Francisco, two songs reverberated as part of my grieving process. There was a self-pitying and self-destructive impulse to be found in Death Cab for Cutie's "Soul Meets Body" ("if the silence takes you, then I hope it takes me too," even if that's not what they meant by that). And then there was Thomas Dolby's "I Love You Goodbye," a 1992 nonhit that I've heard on the radio from time to time over the years. Its storyline of a Britisher joyriding in the deep Cajun Southeast has nothing at all to do with Brandon or me, but its refrain became my plea to myself for strength:

"There is a spirit here that won't be broken ... Some words are sad to say, some leave me tongue-tied / The hardest words I know: I love you, goodbye."

Chris Isaak, "Wicked Game"

A gentleman doesn't kiss and tell.

Having said that ... If one were a gay man, obsessed with music; and one were being seduced by a (mostly) straight musician in the country on holiday; and that musician, at 7am in an eccentric and mural-splashed hotel room, were to preface what he was about to play with, "This is the sexiest song ever written" - well, one could hardly do better than to hear Chris Isaak's sublimely erotic "Wicked Game."

ETA 7/7/09: In re-reading this, I realize how my ambiguous wording could be misconstrued. The musician in question was not Chris Isaak himself, but rather, a person who was playing various songs for me on his iPod speakers, including "Wicked Game." I sincerely apologize if I gave any impression otherwise; it was certainly not my intent.

Friday Funtime: Pop Argot Goes to the Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell

For all of you who are gonna be firecrackin' this weekend: I did a 4th of July Funtime set last year (I was a bit angrier toward our nation at the time) although I wish I'd linked to more of those. Ah well, y'alls know how to navigate YouTube.

Instead, I'll celebrate the convergence of two of America's most American concepts: fast food and corporate merger. It's hard to explain its appeal, but this summer's novelty hit manages to laugh at itself while laughing at franchise marketing, overconsumption habits, stoner disorientation, and belief of the hype. But ignore the original version of "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell" by Das Racist (cute name, that: it deflects the criticism it simultaneously invites). Instead, go with the funked-up, popped-out, Propeller-headed Wallpaper remix, which gives authority to its absurdity. Really, what summarizes 2009 America better (on a hamburgers-and-hot-dogs holiday, no less) than "I got that Pizza Hut / I got that pizza gut / I got that pizza butt / I'm at the Pizza Hut"?

Axwell, "I Found U"

This past weekend I marched in NYC's GLBT Pride parade. There are many reasons for these events, but my favorite is simple: the reminder that what matters is not who you love; it's that you love.

I had the pleasure of riding on a float for the first time - "I'm on a float!" - and enjoyed hearing the blaring dance music coming from the bear-ish float in front of ours. One song that recurred was a club hit from two summers ago, Axwell's "I Found U," whose video serves as a great reminder that we find ourselves when we open ourselves to another, when we open ourselves to love.

Michael Jackson, "In the Closet"

There's just one more point I want to make regarding Michael Jackson before we resume other musical matters. To put it mildly, much has been made over his longstanding interest in children's company and his lack of apparent adult sexual relations. I may be very much in the minority on this, but I am willing to give MJ the benefit of the doubt that his interest in kids was companionary and nonsexual. It does me no good to speculate on predatory possibilities, and I have no stake in the rumors either way. But I do wish to bring up a hypothesis that no one talks about at all.

It may well be that Michael Jackson was, at the end of the day, asexual. Asexuality is a rare topic to hear about; on some levels, it elicits even more of a "what's wrong with you?" reaction than homosexuality or bisexuality. It can be a difficult and embarrassing thing to try to explain; little wonder that few try. Kinsey and others have estimated that about 1% of the population is essentially asexual - not to be confused with being celibate, which is a choice. Asexuality is an orientation, one which few openly claim for themselves. (I learned in the process of making this post that Edward Gorey was asexual. I hope he acknowledged this with no sense of shame.)

There's a reason, you know, that so many celebrities came to Michael's defense over the years and so few disavowed him outright. Maybe money's involved. Or maybe Michael really was that rare creature whose closet was not that he had kinky predilections or a minority orientation but that he had no orientation at all. Our society remains so afraid of sexuality that we can’t even talk about the absence thereof as a concept. American society would truly benefit itself by getting over a few hang-ups and having some honest national (and local) conversations about sex and sexuality.

"In the Closet" wasn't one of Michael's better records. As happened increasingly through the '90s, he got lost in his own mix, burying his quavering words beneath overproduced New Jack beats and effects. It's one of many cases where he forgot the joy that could be found in singing a simple song and sought with his producers to craft a many-handed epic instead. And it's so abstract that it fails to be erotic. But it grooved enough to hit #1 R&B and make the pop Top 10 in 1992 as Dangerous's third single, and it's worth revisiting for a moment this week to see, yet again, how the conflicts and contradictions in Michael Jackson's life unfolded in his songs, sometimes despite himself.

Farewell, Michael. We hardly knew ye.

Jackson 5, "Hallelujah Day"

I've been thinking a lot this weekend about Michael Jackson, about GLBT pride (in light of this weekend's revelry in NYC and the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots), and about some unexpected intersections therein. Still fleshing out my thoughts, so for the time being, here's an underappreciated J5 clip from the spring of 1973, when Michael and his brothers were in a relative cold spell, going no higher than #10 for seven consecutive singles after starting their career with four #1s and two #2s. "Hallelujah Day" was a celebration of the impending return of young American men from Vietnam; it chugs and churns like the Rascals' "People Got to Be Free," to the extent that you can almost see a freedom train coming 'round the bend.

Friday Not-So-Funtime: Michael Jackson, "Scream"

Dear readers: I began this week with the intention of presenting a Friday Funtime of GLBT Pride, songs from artists who have been courageously open about their sexual identities and still musically successful. The past day's events led me to rethink this. Hey - it'll allow me to shine specific spotlights on anthems like Bronski Beat's "Why" and Erasure's "Always" on future dates.

So with that, I turn the page over to my dear friend Dave*. He and I both graduated college right around the time "Scream," the antagonistic song Michael Jackson recorded with his sister Janet, hit the airwaves and video screens. It made it only to #5 in June 1995, but "Scream" represented much more for Michael: an unreturnable breaking point. Its message, both aural and visual, was clear: I'm in my fantasy world now; leave me the fuck alone. D* and I, in a difficult to explain fascination, over a long stretch of time pondered separately and together what might become of a Michael so thoroughly divorced from reality and so ongoingly divorced from his own skin. There never seemed a possible happy ending. It seemed likely things would end badly, but not suddenly and certainly not now.

And yet here we are. And here's D*'s contemplation on a modern tragedy.

_____

I saw a movie about industrial processes once. The operator took a disk of sheet steel, hard, solid, resilient. He put in a steam press and pulled a lever. The press came down and crumpled that shiny steel like it was tissue paper.

Michael Jackson's life always reminded me of that.

The man never had a self; he never had time to make one. From the time he was 10, a media spotlight shone on him, never letting up, getting brighter and brighter until the early '80s, when he was featured in practically every media outlet on Earth. He could do no wrong. Billions of people slavered over him. And then, over the course of the late '80s, they put him in a mirror. All the attention was there, but suddenly he could do no right. There has to be a second half to every Behind the Music; society demands one. And everything we love one day, we grew sick of and hate the next.

The story of Michael Jackson is the story of how our society works, a crucial one to any future historian who wishes to understand our era. And it will probably never be told. It's funny, really: whoever was willing to be honest about the fact of MJ's life (which are almost certainly more bizarre and disturbing that we know) would make a fortune, but no one will spill, out of fear or loyalty or just fatigue. Those who are most willing to talk are those who probably know the least. Sometimes it seems like there are no more secrets, but often it's the most superficial things that are revealed, providing a more impenetrable mask to the truth.

Mask. His face was a mask. What was he trying to make himself into? There's a phrase: "He's trying to be someone he isn't." I think Michael Jackson was trying to be someone he was. He was always trying to live up to his own divine image.

It's hard to have sympathy for celebrities, and rightly so. Yeah, it's hard, but the hardness is cushioned by a thick, spongy layer of money. It's only in the extreme examples, like Jackson, that the true nature of the beast shines forth. We pay these people to be spiritually vivisected, and we all gather around the operating table to ooh and ahh at the fine kidneys and lungs, to criticize a malformed liver or a disappointing pancreas, to dismiss the gonads as the same-old-same-old. The lucky ones get sewn up again, but God help the ones we really find interesting. And outside in the hall there's a line around the block of new victims.

Lord, please show Michael Joseph Jackson more mercy than we did.

Drake, "Best I Ever Had"

I'm not opposed to sampling. I roll my eyes when samples are used in excessively obvious ways (see: Puff Daddy's mid-'90s karaoke), but I admire the creative potential of the form and wish licensing weren't such a damn hassle. (Flo & Eddie, I'm looking at you.) Repurposing existing material is an art in its own right.

But I get really, really disappointed when an old song I love is sampled in a novel way - and wasted on a horrid new song that doesn't deserve such a production assist.

L&Gs, I present Drake's current Top 10 hit "Best I Ever Had," a worst-of-year candidate except for that inspired interlacing of (if my ears aren't failing me) the billowing bass and tinkling piano of the opening notes to Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds' "Fallin' in Love." (Note that I've substituted the "clean" version of Drake's hit - not because I'm a prude, but because it's too depressing a trend in 2009 that someone should go Top 10 with a chorus hook that goes "You tha fuckin' best.") At least the sentiment of the sample is retained, if not the dignity.

Jesse Johnson f/ Sly Stone, "Crazay"

"Cocaine's a hell of a drug," went the now sadly immortal phrase, and damn if Rick didn't prove it in this 1980 Soul Train clip in which he fidgets and boasts and behaves as a total ass. D: "You have a lot of energy." R: "Oh, it's that vitamin E I took." Come on! Trying to clown Don Cornelius?

I was thinking about cocaine-laced funk this week when I was introduced to the nightmarish world of a guy named Ricky Simms who recorded with friends under the moniker Wicked Witch. The I Love Music discussion board has a thread on him, through which I got to hear the WW album Chaos 1978-86. And I hope I never hear it again. Listening to tracks like "Fancy Dancer" and "X Rated" put me in a disjointed haze, their basslines growling as if coming up from hell itself, their ideas going off in jagged directions and abrupt disconnections, hollow and desperately empty. No wonder they call it the Devil's dandruff.

But I won't subject you to that. You needn't have my nightmares. Instead I'll give you some more-benign '80s funk: "Crazay," by a Jesse Johnson whose sobriety I cannot guess at and a Sly Stone who in all likelihood has no memory of ever having performed this song. Johnson had left the Time two years prior with a good sense of period funk formula, but Sly brought little lyrical coherence and the refrain was a washout, so "Crazay" deservedly made it only to #53 on the Hot 100 in 1986.

PS: This is my 200th entry here. I will have a cupcake.

Tony Carey, "The First Day of Summer"

I've been thinking that if I keep posting "summer" songs, maybe Mother Nature'll take the hint and send the sun out to play for a few days. Thus we have Tony Carey, a middling storytelling rocker with a Meatloaf-meets-Milsap look, with his second and final hit, "The First Day of Summer." For a brief time in 1984 his tales of ne'er-do-wells hiding from their lives and responsibilities sat comfortably alongside the characters from Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp who were trying a bit harder. "First Day" is kind of forgettable (nice riff, but a silly video); I prefer its predecessor, "A Fine Fine Day," whose video tells a far more sensible story.

It's a fine, fine day for summer to actually begin. Ain't it?

Jamestown Massacre, "Summer Sun"

It's officially summer now, though you wouldn't know it to look at a New York City that's resembling London more and more each week. Last year I posted a "Summer" theme set (though I wasn't yet in the practice of including YouTube links all over the place); there hardly seems reason to repeat the idea. Especially since, as he always does, Barry Scott gave a far superior treatment to the "summer" theme on this weekend's episode of "The Lost 45s."

Scott, a longtime fixture on Boston radio, deals primarly in chart-pop obscurities, the sorts of songs that made the Top 40 in their day but never came back into circulation in any of the oldies/classic rock/Jack radio formats. He can always be counted on to play something I've never heard before, and this weekend he came through again. Played "Summer Sun," a tune I'd never heard of from a band I'd never heard of (Jamestown Massacre, and the name is a reference to events of 1622, not a foreshadowing of events of 1978) that made it to #90 in 1972. A bit of research tells me they're from Chicago, and I shouldn't be surprised: there's a unified sound that links "Summer Sun" both to the Buckinghams, Chicagoans who'd had a burst of success five years prior, and to roughly contemporary local efforts "L.A. Goodbye" by the Ides of March and "Lake Shore Drive" by Aliotta, Haynes & Jeremiah. I've been thinking that if there really was such a thing as a "Chicago sound" circa 1972, I'd like to hear more of it.