“A lot of people are kind of depressed. I’m happy some of the time, and some of the time I’m not.”
– Elliott Smith in 1998, as told to Barney Hoskyns
We came across a really lost special tape for this episode of Blank on Blank: Elliott Smith interviewed in 1998 by Barney Hoskyns. It’s a little eerie hearing him now more than 10 years after his death, but it’s also kind of soothing to hear his signature comfort and discomfort bubbling beneath the surface. It’s kind of like his timeless collection of music. Smith died under mysterious circumstances in 2003 at the age of 34.
In this animated film Elliott Smith talks about feeling like a freak in high school, how he initially didn’t feel confident singing in the style that became his signature voice, what he said when people compared him to Paul Simon, writing about people with addictions, the internal chaos that people face, and how his music isn’t happy or sad. “I couldn’t say what it is”
Here’s what you need for this chilly day – 3 absolute classics from The Beach Boys’ and their isolated vocals for you to blow your mind.
California Girls: Listen for a few spots of imperfect harmonies. That would have never pass if it was released today, which makes it all the more brilliant.
http://youtu.be/y2L25Ptl5ys
Wouldn’t It Be Nice?: Brian Wilson described the song as “what children everywhere go through … wouldn’t it be nice if we were older, or could run away and get married”.
http://youtu.be/rH0x_UGqE7o
Sloop John B: The Kingston Trio’s 1958 recording of “The John B. Sails” recorded under the title “The Wreck of the John B” was the direct influence on The Beach Boys’ version.
http://youtu.be/_YeV0Rk2OCY
“We Are the Champions” by Queen for their 1977 album News of the World, isn’t just one of the band’s most famous and popular songs, it’s among music’s most recognisable anthems.
The song was a worldwide success, reaching number two in the UK Singles Chart, and number four on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States. In 2009, “We Are the Champions” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, and was voted the world’s favourite song in a 2005 Sony Ericsson world music poll. In 2011, a team of scientific researchers concluded that the song was the catchiest in the history of popular music.
VOCAL only (Freddie Mercury):
GUITARS only (Brian May):
DRUMS only (Roger Taylor):
VOCAL (Mercury), PIANO (Mercury), RHYTHM GUITAR (May) only:
This is part 34 of an ongoing series where the kind folk of the music business reveal their favourite album of all time.
Ask people in the music industry the seemingly simple and straightforward question, “What is your favourite album of all time?” and you’ll find that it’s not always easy. After all, my industry peers listen to hundreds of albums a month – thousands of songs during that time. Because the question isn’t the best album of all time – the one that’s made them the most money in sales – but the one release they personally can’t live without, that one title they have two copies of in several formats, in case one breaks. It’s also about that album that for them has the best back stories and the one that has the most meaning in their lives.
Suzanne Raga, founder of After The Show I Am The West, Lovers
The strength of the lyrics is what first struck me – with the clever, playful, poetic use of language in individual songs and with the recurring animal imagery throughout the album as a whole. The 10 tracks on I Am The West successfully bridge tender, intimate, and thoughtful vocals with catchy, upbeat electro-pop in a way that I’ve never heard before. I Am The West is full of dichotomies – but it’s how Carolyn Berk of Lovers manages to balance and sometimes blur the lines between the extremes that makes this album so special to me. The songs are introspective but not tortured, full of yearning and confusion yet resolved to accept the uncertainty. The album is rooted in a gentle, calm, and kind purity of spirit, which you can hear especially clearly in the vocals of “Let’s Stay Lost” and “I Have Been The Moon.” Sonically, she blends the cold rigidity of electronic drums with warm, emotive strings and guitars. As someone who usually dislikes electronic drums, I was shocked to love this sound. But by blending indie/folk/rock instrumentation with an almost hip-hop vocal percussiveness (another thing I usually don’t like!), Berk provides all the rhythmic complexity needed with the speak-singing she does in some of the songs’ verses. And because the drums are mechanized (imagine the exact opposite feeling that free form jazz evokes), your ears have the space and freedom to focus on everything else — like the smooth, somehow effortless shifts from staccato vocal delivery to soaring, mellifluous guitars.
Gregory Miller, New York Post Blackout, Britney Spears
The absolute best blend of sugary pop and dark grit that pop music has ever seen. No album has so succinctly reflected the essence of a celebrity at this level. Spears’ empty, robotic vocals are hypnotic, giving all the more power to gut-wrenching lectures on how fame destroyed the pop princess in tracks like “Piece of Me” and “Gimme More.”
I was entering an age of family circa 1999. My son was born, got married and things where in need of change. Learning how to keep myself grounded and being a giant music aficionado classic/psychedelic/prog rock of the underground was really driving it’s way into my life. Hence my 2nd child Emerson (now where’s Lake and Palmer, ha!) I noticed this album had this Jesus type face full blown on the cover of the album, and knowing Mike did the soundtrack for The Exorcist got me to thinking. Is this Jesus who did the soundtrack for The Exorcist? What else can he accomplish? The album didn’t really hit me right off the bat since it is so unconventional in it’s ways. Worldly instruments and only 2 songs. It’s a trip that needed some full blown attention. Then it finally came, everyone went out for the night and I had the place to myself. I put the record on and it began. What was I seeing? What was I hearing? Where was it taking me? What is happening? After listening to the album 10 times that night I knew things would be different from here on in. I woke up and the whole world was nothing like it seemed and for Mike Oldfield’s Ommadawn I would never look back.
Kateryna Topol, Quip Magazine Built on Glass, Chet Faker
The album is very together, each track leads into the next and they almost need to be heard in order, though on their own they are equally magical we well. I love the story, the voice and impeccable production of this album.
Bill Knowlton, We Love Metal Heaven & Hell, Black Sabbath
The doom oriented feel of the title track combined with the soaring vocals of Dio brought me back to metal when I had started to stray. As music is therapy, personal issues in my life prevented me from doing things I really wanted, but I took the last few dollars I had at the time and bought a used copy of the CD. I consider it life changing in the fact that I knew at that moment getting off the couch and making the changes needed would be my only ticket to getting the life I wanted. How this is attributed to the gloominess of Black Sabbath I will never know… My life long obsession with Ronnie James had begun and his music was something I turned to when I needed that extra push, but if I needed to be “shoved” Heaven & Hell is what I turned to; and still do to this day.
“There are some things that are blown out of proportion in terms of their media presence. Some years ago where Amanda Palmer had a crowd funded record that was very successful, it made her a million dollars. Then she mounted a tour to promote that record and she was trying to crowd source musicians to play her music on stage with her. That just seemed incredibly cheap to me.
“I made a couple of comments about that and that became what passes for music news these days, which is that somebody said something about somebody else. So I had to deal with that for a couple of weeks and that seemed overblown and ridiculous. I don’t think I was wrong but I also don’t think that it was that big of a deal.
“So it’s actually considered legitimate journalism now to see something on a message board or twitter and copy it and paste it into a news release and to say that this happened on twitter. And that this is suitable copy for journalism. I find that staggering. That something as insignificant would be used to substitute legwork and reporting and research, and general knowledge and everything that I’ve described is a result of that. It has nothing to do with me speaking out about something or something catching the public consciousness, it has to do with the manner of journalism now. It has been reduced to very superficial stuff. Literally stuff being copied off twitter and presented as news.” – Steve Albini
Today in 1958, one of the greatest rock and roll songs ever released, Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Great Balls Of Fire” hit #1 on the US Billboard Chart. It’s the very first single I ever bought with my own money, after hearing the song once in 1976 on CHUM AM while in the car with my parents. 1 minute, 52 seconds. That’s the entire length of the song, and the length of time it took me to really understand the power of rock and roll.
To celebrate the chart-topping time, here are 5 fun facts about the song:
1. Even though it will forever be Jerry Lee Lewis’, he didn’t write the song. It was written by Otis Blackwell and Jack Hammer. Blackwell was no stranger to success by the time he was done in music – he wrote Little Willie John’s “Fever”, Jerry Lee Lewis “Breathless”, Elvis Presley’s “Don’t Be Cruel”, and “All Shook Up”. Hammer didn’t fare so well, even though he wrote many songs during the “Twist” fad of 50’s and 60’s, including an album released under his main stage name, Jack Hammer, under the title “Twistin’ King” released in France.
2. “Great Balls Of Fire” was an instant hit. The song sold one million copies in its first 10 days of release in the United States and sold over five million copies, making it both one of the best-selling singles in the United States, as well as one of the world’s best-selling singles of all time.
3. The song was featured in a performance by Jerry Lee Lewis and his band in the 1957 Warner Brothers rock and roll film Jamboree, which also featured Carl Perkins, Fats Domino, Buddy Knox, and Dick Clark.
4. The song title comes from a Southern expression, which some Christians consider blasphemous, that refers to the Pentecost’s defining moment when the Holy Spirit manifested as “cloven tongues as of fire” and the Apostles spoke in tongues.
5. Among the artists who have covered the song? Let’s see…There’s The Kingsmen, The Crickets, Electric Light Orchestra recorded a version for their 1974 The Night the Light Went On in Long Beach, Fleetwood Mac, who included the track on the 1999 release of the Shrine ’69 album, even Tiny Tim recorded a version as his b-side to “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.” Garth Brooks did a version for his Blame It All on My Roots: Five Decades of Influences album, and Ronnie James Dio & the Prophets recorded this song for the Live at Domino’s album.
