For today's CoronaVinyl category -- supergroup -- we shall look no further than the original supergroup (and power trio, for that matter), Cream. Of course, a supergroup is a band that is formed by musicians who are already famous, either as solo artists or as members of other bands. Formed in 1966, they chose their band name because that's what they were: the cream of the crop. Eric Clapton was the best guitarist in the world that anyone knew about (Hendrix wouldn't appear for another year) and had played in The Yardbirds and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. Ginger Baker was the best drummer in the world, and it wasn't close. Jack Bruce was a great bassist who could sing and write, and in addition to a brief stint in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, he and Baker had been the rhythm section in the Graham Bond Organisation. A little more than two years after they formed, they had broken up, but in that span, they recorded four albums, all of which were classics and loaded with a blistering combination of blues, psychedelic rock, proto-metal, and hard rock. So many great songs. "White Room" is a classic rock radio stalwart. "Sunshine of Your Love" is one of the first songs I learned how to play on the bass. "Crossroads" introduced a generation (and the generation after them) to Robert Johnson, even if Cream's version sounded nothing like the original. "I Feel Free" might be my favorite Cream song. Their cover of Albert King's "Born Under a Bad Sign" was fantastic. I could go on, but I won't, since I could say something nice about pretty much every Cream song, even "Pressed Rat and Warthog." The band's sophomore release was 1967's Disraeli Gears, which is arguably the best of their four albums (though they're all excellent). If the psychedelic album cover was any indication, the band was moving towards a more psychedelic rock sound than they had on their first album, Fresh Cream, which heavily featured blues covers. Disraeli Gears -- a malapropism uttered during a discussion about bicycles by one of their roadies, who meant to refer to derailleur gears, but instead went with the last name of two-time British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli -- features some of the band's signature songs, like "Sunshine of Your Love," "Strange Brew," "Tales of Brave Ulysses," and "SWLABR." The album was the band's breakthrough in the U.S., reaching #4 on the Billboard album charts and eventually going platinum. It also hit #5 on the UK album charts and was Top 10 in several other countries (including #1 in Australia and Finland). The only version of the album I could find on Spotify is the deluxe edition, which contains 40 songs -- 29 more than the original album. There are some demos, outtakes, BBC session recordings, and alternate versions. Favorite song from Side 1: "Sunshine of Your Love" If psychedelic 12-bar blues had an anthem, it would be "Sunshine of Your Love." What a great song, providing the road map for the transition from blues-based rock to hard rock and metal that would come in the years to come. It was the band's first Top 40 (and Top 10) hit in the U.S., climbing to #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 (only 1968's "White Room" would chart higher, hitting #5). Baker's drumming was maniacal and thunderous as ever on this track, and his drum fills are constant and delicious.
Favorite song from Side 2: "SWLABR" "SWLABR" was the B-side to "Sunshine of Your Love." I think it's an underrated song, with nonsensical lyrics, but a great groove and, of course, great guitar work. Apparently, it stands for "She Walks Like a Bearded Rainbow," which is why the final lyric make a little more sense. That's also a great way to describe how a female walks, though when you do describe someone's gait as such, make sure to add "and I mean that as a compliment."
As we continue our COVID-related Retro Videos of the Week, this week's video is Phish's "Down With Disease," off of their 1994 album (Hoist), the band's fifth studio album. (Hoist) remains the band's best-selling studio album, going gold in the U.S. At the time it was released, it was also their highest-charting album to that point, reaching #34 on the Billboard album charts. "Down With Disease" remains Phish's only official music video, and the song was the band's first to chart on any of the Billboard singles charts, hitting #33 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. It's a funky and catchy song with a few relevant messages for the times in which we now find ourselves. First, the title is clearly applicable. Rather than taking steps to allow the spread of COVID-19, we should all be taking steps to take the disease down as quickly as possible. Second, the chorus is a pertinent message about making the most of your time spent socially distancing and staying at home. "Waiting for the time when I can finally say / That this has all been wonderful but now I'm on my way." While many parts of having to stay home for months surely suck, parts of it are wonderful, like spending more time with your kids, having Zooms and virtual drinks with people you haven't otherwise talked to in person in months or years, and being able to wear whatever the fuck you want 24 hours a day. And when it's all over, you can be on your way back to relative normality while thinking the last few months weren't that bad. Third, there's that repeating "stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop" at the end of the chorus. When you get the urge to go to a beach or park with a bunch of strangers, pass by someone who isn't wearing a mask on the sidewalk without moving six feet away, or open-mouth kiss your Grub Hub delivery driver, remember those repeating "stops."
Today's CoronaVinyl category is metal, and I'm going with an album that I highlighted a couple weeks ago in my Tuesday Top Ten on the Metal Albums of 1980: Motörhead's Ace of Spades. This is yet another album where the album cover is hanging on my wall of records in my office. The gravelly voiced lead singer and bassist Lemmy Kilmister formed Motörhead in 1975, soon after bringing on board guitarist "Fast Eddie" Clarke and drummer Phil "Philthy Animal" Taylor. Over the next forty years, the band (with a few lineup changes, though never without Lemmy) released 22 studio albums and influenced a generation of hard rock and heavy metal bands in the process with its rapid-fire mix of metal, punk, and rock. While Ace of Spades was Motörhead's fourth studio album, it was the first one released in the U.S., and it was a classic, arguably becoming the band's most iconic album -- and it certainly contained the band's most well-known song, the title track, which reached #15 on the UK pop charts in 1980 and then #13 in January 2016, right after Lemmy died. While the album didn't chart in the U.S., it was their highest-charting studio album in their native UK, reaching #4 on the UK album charts (their live album, No Sleep 'til Hammersmith, released in 1981, would hit #1). The Spotify version of the album is the one that I have on CD that includes three bonus tracks that are not on the original album -- "Dirty Love," which was the B-side to the "Ace of Spades" single, and two of the three songs from the band's St. Valentine's Day Massacre EP collaboration with Girlschool, "Emergency" and "Please Don't Touch" (the latter of which is one of my ten favorite '80s collaboration songs). Favorite song from Side 1: "Love Me Like a Reptile" "Love Me Like a Reptile" is my favorite song on the album. It's a fast-paced song about imploring a woman to lay eggs, so that the man can then fertilize them, I assume. Then again, I have no idea how reptiles make love or if they're even capable of the emotion of love.
Favorite song from Side 2: "The Chase is Better Than the Catch" The title is one of the better lessons in love and pursuit of intimate relations. Sometimes, you try to get something for so long, and then when you finally get it, you're all, Damn, I was too busy trying to bed [her/him] that I didn't even realize that [bitch/sumbitch] is crazy. It seems I was in a better position physically, mentally, emotionally, and sexually prior to when I discovered that [she/he] is a silver-tongued devil, demon lech."Or, as Lemmy once put it, "sometimes the face is better than the snatch."
Today's CoronaVinyl category is "influential but not commercially successful." Many bands and artists are both influential and commercially successful (Elvis, The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, etc.). Some bands and artists are commercially successful, but not influential (think bubble gum pop). The vast majority of bands and artists are neither. But there is a small fraternity of bands and artists who are highly influential -- be it in a specific genre or more broadly in music -- who, for one reason or another, just never became commercially successful. Maybe they were "ahead of their time." Maybe they broke up too soon. Maybe someone in the band died. The Velvet Underground was one of the most influential bands in rock history, yet they never had a song sniff the Billboard Top 40 or the UK pop charts. When they were together from 1967 to 1970, they made four studio albums (I don't count 1973's Squeeze, which was released in name by "The Velvet Underground," but there were no original members of the band, and Doug Yule was the only member of the Lou Reed-era band that appeared on the album). Two of their four studio albums didn't make it into the Billboard 200 album charts, and their highest-charting album when they were together was their debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico, which went to #171 on the Billboard 200 (it would later hit #129 in 2013, after Reed's death). There's a famous quote attributed to Brian Eno that only 30,000 people ever bought a Velvet Underground record, but every one of them started a band. That's not the exact quote, but the point is made. The Velvet Underground really were ahead of their time, experimenting with sounds, themes, and subjects that no one else was really trying to conquer in the late '60s. They were punk rock, noise rock, and art rock primogenitors, influencing punk, glam, alternative, and rock music from 1967 to the present. Like many (I assume), I discovered The Velvet Underground in college. Before that, I knew who Lou Reed was, and I had heard The Cowboy Junkies' haunting cover of "Sweet Jane" from the Natural Born Killers soundtrack, but in college I actually started listening to them. I found the band to be fascinating because, for the most part, they sounded nothing like anything else that was from that era. Their songs ranged from what seemed like Gregorian chants (thanks, Nico) to garage rock to droning to extended jams to pop to country rock to folk to tongue-in-cheek to soul/R&B to straight up rock and roll. But they were largely ignored by mainstream society, and like I said above, they had no songs that came anywhere close to charting. To this day, they still don't have a single album (studio, live, compilation, or otherwise) that has been certified gold or platinum in the U.S. -- which means that no VU album has sold more than 500,000 copies in the U.S.
1970's Loaded is the only VU album I have on vinyl. Like other albums I have reviewed during this CoronaVinyl experiment, the album cover itself is hanging on my office wall. Loaded was the band's fourth studio album, and the final album with Lou Reed, Mo Tucker, and Sterling Morrison (though Tucker was on maternity leave for the songs that ended up on the actual album and appears only on a few of the extra songs recorded during the Loaded sessions that have since been released). It didn't chart on the Billboard album charts. The album title is kind of a VU FU to their record label, who asked them to make an album "loaded with hits." It wasn't. But it's a fitting coda for the band, as it is full of rock, pop, trippy ballads, and the like. "Sweet Jane" and "Rock & Roll" are probably their two most recognizable songs from the album, and both are fantastic. "Rock & Roll" is a story of someone who's "life was saved by rock and roll," and I think many of us can relate to that. Rolling Stone ranked Loaded #110 on its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time. The Spotify version of the album includes several extra tracks (including those Tucker played on), so you get a nice bonus. Favorite song from Side 1: "Sweet Jane" Though the album version of the song is not the full version -- which includes the "heavenly wine and roses" bridge -- thankfully the version on the Spotify album is the full one. It's catchy and it rocks at the same time. I love how loose Reed is on the lead vocals. It sounds like he's having fun, adding "oohs" and "just watch me now" to verses. On top of that, there is great imagery and some great lines in the song, from wondering why Jack is wearing a corset to a stern warning on how not to be a parent ("And there's even some evil mothers / Who'll tell you that everything is just dirt."). And, of course, I love the bridge (if you can call it that) that busts into "But anyone who ever had a heart, oh / They wouldn't turn around and break it / And anyone who ever played a part, oh / They wouldn't turn around and hate it."
Favorite song from Side 2: "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'" The seven-plus minute final track on the album is a soulful jam with Doug Yule on lead vocals. It feels like it would fit in on a Grand Funk, CCR, or Allman Brothers album.
Today's CoronaVinyl category is British bands or artists, and I have a ton to choose from, but figured I would go with one of the best. Surprisingly, Let It Bleed is the only Rolling Stones album I have on vinyl. The album cover is among the 32 that I have framed and hanging in my office. Hence, the generic photo of the album cover above. Released in December 1969 -- about five months before The Beatles released Let It Be -- Let It Bleed is a crossroads album for the Stones, and not just because they cover a Robert Johnson song on the album. Founding member and guitarist Brian Jones was on the outs with the band, due to his heavy drug and alcohol problems, so he was fired while the album was being recorded and only played on two tracks. Sadly, he would die before the album's release, becoming the first '60s rock icon to join the infamous 27 Club. Mick Taylor was brought in to replace Jones, but Taylor only played on a couple tracks as well, so nearly all of the guitars on the album (lead and rhythm) were played by Keith Richards. Stylistically, the album is at the same time an ode to the band's blues roots -- like on their stripped down cover of Johnson's "Love in Vain," the electric blues of "Midnight Rambler," and "You've Got the Silver" -- and a step forward towards darker themes with songs like the anti-war "Gimme Shelter" and the aforementioned grim "Midnight Rambler." And then the album culminates with a song that not only became a signature song for the band, but has also been the inspiration for countless parents when their kids ask for something: "You Can's Always Get What You Want." Let It Bleed was the band's fourth #1 album in their native UK, and it went to #3 on the Billboard album chart in the U.S. to become their ninth studio album to crack the Top 10 in the U.S. Depending on whether you want to include Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed was either the first album in one of the best three-album runs in rock history or the second in one of the best four-album runs ever, as the Stones' next two albums were Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St. Favorite song from Side 1: "Gimme Shelter" The dark and brooding anti-Vietnam song "Gimme Shelter" kicked off the album, and it's one of the Stones' most-recognizable songs. It also served as the title for the documentary about the band's performance at Altamont in December 1969, where the Stones thought it was a good idea to hire the Hells Angels as security for a free outdoor music festival and pay them with beer, which ultimately resulted in a man being murdered in front of the stage while the Stones played. Anyway, the song is excellent, and one of my many favorite rock and roll Easter eggs is at about 2:59 to 3:02 mark in the song. Guest vocalist Merry Clayton is belting out the "rape / murder / it's just a shot away." Her voice famously cracks during one of the screamed "murders," and about a second later, you can hear Jagger and Richards in the background let out an exclamatory "whoa!"
Favorite song from Side 2: "Midnight Rambler" "Midnight Rambler" is one of my favorite Stones songs. Clocking in at nearly 7 minutes, it's a haunting yet rousing bluesy number, supposedly about the Boston Strangler, Albert DeSalvo, who murdered 13 women in Boston in the early to mid '60s. Jagger's harmonica is what sticks out to me most on this track. It's the Glimmer Twins' attempt at Chicago blues, and I think they nailed it.
When I added to the CoronaVinyl categories, I decided to add categories for various sizes of bands that weren't on the original list, including septet. I did this without actually checking to see if I had any vinyl by a group of seven, but thankfully, I do have a few. One of them is Deliver the Word, the 1973 album by funk pioneers War. Though the musicians in War are all from the LA area, War started out with former Animals frontman Eric Burdon as their lead singer, releasing two albums with Burdon in 1970. You've likely heard "Spill the Wine," a fantastic song in which Burdon refers to himself as an "overfed long-haired leaping gnome," which went to #3 on the Billboard Hot 100. After Burdon left in late 1970, the band continued as a septet and achieved success throughout the '70s with hits like "The Cisco Kid," "Low Rider," and "Why Can't We Be Friends?" All in all, they had 12 Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 between 1970 and 1978, seven of which cracked the Top 10. Their third album after Burdon's departure, 1972's The World is a Ghetto went to #1 on the Billboard album chart and ended up being the best-selling album of 1973 in the U.S., and the follow up, Deliver the Word, kept the momentum going, topping the Billboard R&B album charts and going to #6 on the regular Billboard album charts. It's full of the kind of funk/Latin/jazz/rock jams that the band was known for, and it produced two Top 15 hits: "Gypsy Man" (#8) and "Me and Baby Brother" (#15). As an added bonus, i just found out that a friend of mine who lives in Long Beach is neighbors with founding member Harold Brown! Either that, or he's making up a very strange and specific lie. Favorite song from Side 1: "In Your Eyes" Bearing no relation to the Peter Gabriel hit of the same name, "In Your Eyes" foreshadowed what funk would become in the 1970s, especially that spaced-out intro. It's a freaky, acid-soaked jam. Favorite song from Side 2: "Me and Baby Brother" This is just a nice funky catchy song that kind of reminds me of Sly and The Family Stone.
So I used to tape songs off the radio, as I'm sure many of you did. You would just record whatever was playing, and then you'd listen to it over and over. I did that with a station called WRXR in Chicago when I was a kid. It was a really good rock station that played both classic rock and new stuff too, so you might have Pink Floyd followed by Howard Jones (which they did!) Sadly, it turned into a smooth jazz station -- inarguably the worst genre ever created -- and it changed its called letters to WNUA. But before then, one of my tapes included "Hand Me Down World" by The Guess Who. It's a good song, but then at the end, it turns into a great song because lead singer Burton Cummings starts wailing. That's when I fell in love with The Guess Who. I listened to a lot of classic rock radio in junior high and high school, so of course, I heard various Guess Who songs. In high school, for reasons that are still unclear to me, "No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature" played often during football weightlifting sessions, and it's another fantastic song, and to this day, when I hear that twangy guitar at the beginning of the song, I feel like I need to start benching more than my body weight. But I digress. Let's not kid ourselves, Burton Cummings is one of the best lead vocalists in rock history. His gravely, soulful voice is what we all need, every day. Every. Fucking. Day. Seriously, if you could have a rock singer's voice, that would be it. So today's CoronaVinyl category is greatest hits, and while I have many greatest hits albums, The Best of The Guess Who is one of my earliest CD purchases, and I'm happy to also have it on vinyl, even if it is a very floppy vinyl record. The cover features the band standing in presumably a Windsor whore bath run-off, and they don't seem to mind. Nary a bad song on the album, it makes you question why they aren't in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame yet. Arguably Canada's greatest rock export (apologies to Triumph), The Guess Who was a stalwart in the late '60s and early '70s, both before and after guitarist Randy Bachman left to form Bachman Turner Overdrive. Between 1969 and 1975, the band had 13 Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including 7 songs in the Top 10 and 2 #1 songs. In Canada, they were more successful than Robin Sparkles could have ever hoped to be, with 33 Top 40 hits on the Canadian pop charts, including 16 Top 10 songs and 5 #1 songs. The Best of album was released in 1971, and Cummings wrote or co-wrote all but two songs on the album. It's really a great compilation. Every song is good, and it's funny and interesting to see the band's progression from songs like "Undun" and "Laughing" in such a short time to "American Woman," "No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature," and "Share the Land." But don't take my word for it. Listen to the songs and enjoy. My only beef is that the spoken word introduction to "American Woman" is excluded. Favorite song from Side 1: "No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature" It was a tough call between this, "These Eyes," and "American Woman." I've only mentioned this song twice above, and it's an excellent early '70s rock song. The rhythm section makes the song, other than Cummings's vocals, of course. But seriously, the drumming on this track is great. Favorite song from Side 2: "Do You Miss Me Darling" This is my favorite Guess Who song. It kills me every time. This is your bottle of Jack, sitting alone in a dark room, talking to yourself while you're lamenting everything you did wrong song. "What good is it, if I can't can't sing it to you? What good is it if I can't even come out and sing it to you right now?" But there's also the fantastic harmonies and bridge, and then it goes back to the beginning, and Cummings is you and me, and everyone who's ever been dumped.
The original CoronaVinyl list of categories wasn't necessarily living in the past, but the only decades that it had as categories were the '70s, '80s, and '90s. With my expansion of the list, among the many categories I added was the 2000s. While my vinyl collection is skewed towards older music -- which is to be expected, since vinyl was the main medium used for albums from the '30s to the early '80s -- I do have some releases from the last 20 years. One such album is The Raconteurs' 2008 sophomore effort, Consolers of the Lonely. As you may know, The Raconteurs were a bit of a supergroup, with Jack White (who was then still technically in The White Stripes, although they would not officially disband for another three years), Patrick Keeler and Jack Lawrence of The Greenhornes, and solo artist/indie rocker Brendan Benson. White and Benson wrote all but one song on Consolers of The Lonely, and I liked the album even better than their debut album, 2006's Broken Boy Soldiers. I rated it my favorite album of 2008 and my 12th favorite album of the decade. Consolers of the Lonely has a great mix of straight forward rock, pop, garage rock, ballads, blues-based rock, and some other songs that I can't really categorize. But there's really not a bad song on the album. It's too bad we had to wait another eleven years until they released their third album! My vinyl copy album was another of the wonderful releases from the Third Man Records Vault club. As you can see, the album is a tri-fold, and when you unfurl the entire thing, you see the entire scene from the album cover across all three panels. The album was also split into two gold marbled records, so there are four sides that I get to review. Favorite song from Side 1: "Salute Your Solution" This is my favorite Raconteurs song, and it came in at #13 on my list of my Top 100 favorite songs of the 2000s. It's just a fantastic rock song that has been on my running mix -- were I to run -- basically since it was released. Favorite song from Side 2: "Hold Up" This could be my second favorite song on the album. It's another uptempo rocker. Favorite song from Side 3: "Attention" By now, you should be sensing a theme. This is another fast-paced rock song. But here's the thing, the band does them really well. And if there's one thing I like in the world, it's really good rock and roll. Favorite song from Side 4: "Carolina Drama" While I love "Rich Kid Blues" -- and White's impassioned wailing on that song -- I gave the nod to "Carolina Drama," a fascinating, folkish tale of violence, clergy, and milk that sounds like it could be on one of The White Stripes' first two albums. It's a story set to music, and it draws you in every time.
Today's CoronaVinyl is funk. Over the last few years, I've made a concerted effort to increase the funk contingent in my vinyl collection. When I have to work late at home, I generally listen to funk, as it keeps my head bobbing and helps to offset the feelings of despair associated with having to work late. If "Flash Light," 'Move On Up," or "She's a Bad Mama Jama" don't lift your spirits, you are beyond saving. And, of course, the past several years, I have played funk music almost exclusively when I host Thanksgiving, which I have redubbed Funksgiving. I strongly urge you to do the same. Any discussion of funk music has to start with Parliament and Funkadelic -- George Clinton's sister groups that revolutionized and popularized funk in the '70s. When you listen to pretty much any Parliament or Funkadelic album, you quickly realize how much influence they had on music, as nearly every song has been sampled at some point in rap and hip hop, particularly in the '90s by artists like Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Ice Cube. It's like when I first bought a Muddy Waters CD and had that "holy shit" moment when realized that I had heard most of the songs as covers by Led Zeppelin, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, and others. Among my growing funk vinyl collection are a few Parliament albums and a Funkadelic album. All are fantastic, but I decided to go with 1975's Mothership Connection, even though my album cover is a little torn up. It was a concept album about a black pimp in space, and it rose to #13 on the Billboard album charts (tied for their highest-charting album ever) and was the first Parliament album that went gold and platinum in the U.S. It was also the first Parliament album to feature saxophonist Maceo Parker and trombonist Fred Wesley, who defected from James Brown's backing band, The JBs. Mothership Connection is only seven songs, but all are great, and some are among the most influential funk songs ever, like "P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)," "Give Up The Funk (Tear the Roof of the Sucker)" (the group's first Top 40 hit in the U.S., reaching #15 on the Billboard Hot 100), and the title track. It's impossible to listen to the album without wanting to have a dance party in space. Favorite song from Side 1: "Mothership Connection (Star Child)" A funk classic, the title track introduced Star Child, which was Clinton's alien alter ego. One of my "holy shit" moments was when I first heard this song and realized that my favorite Dr. Dre song, "Let Me Ride," was essentially a sampled cover of the middle third of "Mothership Connection (Star Child)." Favorite song from Side 2: "Handcuffs" At 4:03, this is the shortest song on the album, but what it lacks in length it makes up for in funk. Feel free to use that line when appropriate, gentlemen. But seriously, it's got a funky goopy bass (which makes sense when you hear it), complemented by the horn section and guitarists Glenn Goins and Gary Shider's lead vocals.
Continuing the COVID-19-related Retro Videos of the Week, this week's selection is from Rebbie, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, La Toya, Marlon, Michael, and Randy's younger sister, Janet. To say that Janet Jackson's fourth studio album, 1989's Rhythm Nation 1814, was a huge hit would be an understatement. In addition to going 6x platinum in the U.S. and selling over 12 million copies worldwide, Rhythm Nation 1814 spent four weeks at #1 on the Billboard album charts and was the best-selling album of 1990 in the U.S. It is the only album ever to have seven Top 5 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 -- "Miss You Much," "Escapade," "Black Cat," and "Love Will Never Do (Without You)" were #1, "Rhythm Nation" and "Come Back to Me" were #2, and "Alright" was #4 -- and it's the only album to have #1 songs in three separate calendar years (1989, 1990, and 1991). "Miss You Much" was the lead single from the album. It was the second of her eventual ten #1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, spending four weeks at #1 -- following another "miss" song, Milli Vanilli's "Girl I'm Gonna Miss You." It also went to #1 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts, in addition to reaching #2 in Canada and New Zealand and the Top 20 on the charts in five other countries. "Miss You Much" ended up being the #5 song on the 1989 Billboard year-end chart. In today's environment, we can easily replace "you" with "human contact," "going to the grocery store without wearing a mask," or "drinking beer somewhere other than in my bedroom." Stay safe, folks.
Today's CoronaVinyl is New York, and obviously there are a ton of bands and artists from New York -- or at least who went to New York to become famous or formed bands in New York. To make it easier on myself, I'm limiting this category to people or bands that were actually from New York. I'm going with the Money Man -- Eddie Money. Edward Joseph Mahoney was born in Brooklyn and grew up in the Long Island post-war planned community (and archetype for the post-war suburbs) Levittown. His father, brother, and grandfather were all New York City cops, and Money initially tried to follow suit, but left the training program because he was not allowed to grow his hair long and he wanted to pursue music. Ironically, his band at the time kicked him out because they didn't want a cop in the group. He then moved to California to become a musician, changed his name to Money as a reference to being broke while he was trying to make it, played clubs in the Bay Area for several years,and eventually got a record deal, releasing his debut album in 1977. Every single he released between 1978 and 1991 charted on the Billboard Hot 100. Produced by legendary producer Tom Dowd, No Control is Money's fourth studio album, released in 1982, and it reached #20 on the Billboard album charts and eventually went platinum in the U.S. It featured two songs that charted on the Billboard Hot 100 -- "Shakin'" (#63) and "Think I'm In Love" (#16), the latter of which was Money's fourth Top 40 hit in the U.S. and second-highest charting song to that point, behind 1978's "Baby Hold On" (#11). As you may know, Money died last September at age 70, from complications relating to esophageal cancer. He always seemed like a down-to-earth, working-class guy with a good sense of humor -- they kind of guy you'd want to have a beer and a shot with.
Favorite song from Side 1: "Think I'm In Love" "Think I'm In Love" is my favorite Eddie Money song. It's a great early '80s rock song about those glorious beginning stages of a relationship, when everything is so new and promising and exciting, before you grow to become annoyed by the little things he or she does that you used to find cute. It was featured years later in the David Spade/Brittany Daniel vehicle Joe Dirt, which itself featured one of my favorite movie lines of all-time, uttered by Christopher Walken's character (Clem) to Kid Rock's character (Robby): "Hey! You're talkin' to my guy all wrong. It's the wrong tone. Do it again, and I'll stab you in the face with a soldering iron." That has nothing to do with the song, but any time I can think of Christopher Walken or Brittany Daniel -- or Kid Rock getting stabbed in the face with a soldering iron -- a smile comes to my face. Favorite song from Side 2: "Drivin' Me Crazy" This is one of those songs that you hear and it makes you say, "Why wasn't that a single?" It has everything you'd want from an early '80s rock single. It's fast-paced, catchy, has a nice guitar solo, and has ambiguous backing vocals that I imagine were sung by Fraggles -- or at least they should have been if there was a music video to this song.
Today's CoronaVinyl is duo, and I can't think of any better duo to showcase than the most successful duo in popular music history, Hall & Oates. They are members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Over their nearly 50-year career, they have released 18 studio albums. Including live albums and compilations, they have 8 platinum albums in the U.S. and 6 gold albums, but really their strength and success was in their singles, not their albums. While Hall & Oates only had three studio albums reach the Top 5 on the Billboard album charts -- 1981's Private Eyes (#5), 1982's H20 (#3), and 1984's Big Bam Boom (#5) -- they have had 29 Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including 16 Top 10s and 6 #1s. On the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, they have had 34 Top 40 hits, including 14 Top 10s and 2 #1s. I only have two of their albums on vinyl, and both are very early in their career -- their second album, 1973's Abandoned Luncheonette, and their self-titled 1975 fourth album. I had to go with the fourth album because of its ridiculous album cover. Sometimes referred to as "the Silver Album," as you can see, the cover is entirely silver and black and, for some reason, Darryl Hall and John Oates are completely glammed up. When you learn that the cover was designed by Pierre LaRoche -- the man who came up with Ziggy Stardust for David Bowie -- it makes a little more sense. Except Hall & Oates did not play glam rock. Many years later, Daryl Hall jokingly quipped that, on the album cover, he looked like "the girl I always wanted to go out with." Meanwhile, John Oates looks like a mime. The album was the group's highest-charting at that time, rising to #17 on the Billboard album chart. They were still five years away from the massive success they would have in the '80s, where all but one of their 22 singles they released in the U.S. reached the Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100, but and you can hear Hall & Oates finding their sound -- a mix of pop, blue-eyed Philadelphia soul, and soft rock. The album featured their first Top 40 (and Top 10) hit in the U.S., "Sara Smile," which hit #4, and was enough of a hit that the group re-released "She's Gone" from 1973's Abandoned Luncheonette as a single, and it hit #7 (after only getting to #60 when it was originally released). Oddly, the song order on the back of the album cover is not the same as the song order on the album itself, which is confusing for me, since I usually prop up the back of the album cover next to me while I'm listening to an album in order to figure out what song is playing, as I have not yet figured out a way to spin my head at 33 1/3 revolutions per minute.
Favorite song from Side 1: "Camellia" The first track on the album features Oates on lead vocals, which became rarer as time went on. The song is a lovely and catchy '70s pop song that makes me want to write a sitcom named Camellia set in mid-'70s Atlanta, just so I can use this as the theme song. Josh Radnor stars as the lovelorn Ted Mosby, Sr., searching for a girl he met one night while watching some live music at the Paradise Tropical Moon Club. There was an instant attraction, and he thought he might even be in love with her even though they only talked for an hour or so, but then she had to abruptly leave before he could get her number. She left him with only a name. Camellia. Telly Savalas -- were he not dead for 26 years -- would play Sal, the grizzled but sage bartender. Andre Benjamin would play Freddy, Ted's best friend and the triangle player and lead singer in Sensei Freddy and The Kung Fu Five, the Paradise Tropical Moon's karate-themed house band. Without his glasses, he's nearly blind. Rhea Pearlman would play the wildly inappropriate and overly horny middle-aged Judy Gumb, who co-owns the Paradise Tropical Moon Club with her ex-husband Dirk, played masterfully by Fred Willard. She can't stand Dirk ("Dirk the jerk," she calls him) -- even though he's always trying to win her back -- but boy does she have the hots for Freddy. She's always purposely stealing Freddy's glasses and then goosing him when he's comically looking for his glasses, prompting him to say, "Judy, get your hands off my booty!" Will Dirk ever win Judy back? Will Freddy ever sue Judy for constant blatant sexual harassment? Will Ted ever reconnect with Camellia? Tune into CBS Fridays at 8 Eastern / 7 Central to find out! Favorite song from Side 2: "Gino (The Manager)" This song is about the group's then-manager -- and future head of Sony Music, pop music mogul, and short-lived Mariah Carey spouse -- Tommy Mottola. He'll have a cameo in Camellia as a record company A&R man who comes to the Paradise Tropical Moon Club to scout Sensei Freddy and The Kung Fu Five and maybe even sign them to a record deal. Or so he says. Sal is immediately suspicious, but will Freddy be too blinded by potential fame to listen to Sal's advice? Tune into CBS Fridays at 8 Eastern / 7 Central to find out!
We're doing two Third Man Records Vault selections in a row. After yesterday's collaboration album with Willie Nelson and Friends, today's category is blue vinyl. I'm going with Jack White's 2014 solo album Lazaretto. Somehow, I managed to buy this twice on vinyl. I pre-ordered the regular version, and then I ended up receiving the special edition via the Third Man Vault record club. The Vault version contains the cool split blue and white vinyl you see in the photo above, as well as a more textured black and white album cover you see above (rather than the normal color version). Lazaretto is particularly appropriate for CoronaVinyl because a lazaretto is a building or an anchored ship that is specifically for quarantining maritime travelers to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. There's also a song on the album called "That Black Bat Licorice," so I'm not saying that Jack White is an all-knowing prescient being, but I'm also not not saying that. Lazaretto was White's second solo album, after 2012's Blunderbuss, and I personally like it better than Blunderbuss or his third solo album, 2018's Boarding House Reach. All three hit #1 on the Billboard album charts (and all three debuted at #1). Lazaretto also reached the Top 10 on the album charts in 13 other countries, including #1 in Canada and Denmark. The vinyl version of the album sold 40,000 copies in the first week, setting the record for most vinyl sales in one week by any album in the Nielsen SoundScan era (which started in 1991). Overall, 87,000 vinyl copies of the album sold in 2014, making it the best-selling vinyl album in a calendar year in the Nielsen SoundScan era. Lazaretto is a nice amalgamation of what I love about Jack White and his eclectic talents. The songs vary from straight rock to country to garage rock to blues, and he does all genres well.
The first side also spins from the inside outward, unlike a normal vinyl record. Of course, unless you remember this, you put the needle down, and become very confused when it starts playing a hidden, repeating track after "High Ball Stepper," so all you hear is White's fuzzed-out guitar playing the same riff over and over again. The second side spins the right way, but there is also a hidden repeating track after the last song that sounds like crows cawing -- a not-so-subtle prompt that it is time to lift the needle.
Favorite song from Side 1: "Lazaretto" The title track is like a funky proto hip hop garage rock song. That description probably sounds like it makes no sense, but I assure you the song is great. Whenever I hear this song, in my head I say "Padilla and Travieso." Yes, I am such a college basketball nerd that when I hear a Jack White sing "Como en madera y eso," I imagine that he's actually saying the last names of the formidable back court from UMass's now-vacated 1996 Final Four team. Favorite song from Side 2: "That Black Bat Licorice" Setting aside that people messing with bats caused this whole pandemic, this is another great song with elements of funk, hip hop, and rock. The song has a great groove that makes you bob your head, even when you're sitting in sweatpants in your living room for the 35th day in a row.
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