Category Archives: Popular music

by | May 29, 2014 · 1:00 am

ABBA’s film renaissance

 

ABBA’s music has often been denigrated as bland, mass market pop. However, viewed from the point of view of reception, the ABBA phenomenon is a highly complex text that offers contemporary music consumers diverse, even perverse, pleasures.

Between them, Stephan Elliott’s The adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) and P.J. Hogan’s Muriel’s wedding (1994) suggest a broad spectrum of ABBA consumers, from the sincere and sentimental to the hip, camp, and kitsch, using this spectrum to map a series of interfaces between culture, identity, the performance of gender, and place.

This according to “Music and camp: Popular music performance in Priscilla and Muriel’s wedding” by Catherine Lumby, an essay included in Screen scores: Studies in contemporary Australian film music (North Ryde: Australian Film, Television, and Radio School, 1999, pp. 78–88).

Below, ABBA’s Waterloo in Muriel’s wedding.

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by | May 26, 2014 · 1:00 am

The astrology of pop

Aquarius-Woodstock

Popular  music underwent a profound transformation during the period between 1954 and 1969; this change can be understood through the prism of the extraordinary planetary position of February 1962, which some call the Age of Aquarius.

The seven inner planets formed a stellium (multiple conjunction of planets) in Aquarius at the time of a total solar eclipse. Opposite the stellium was Uranus, approaching its half-cycle with Jupiter on 14 March 1962 (above left; click to enlarge).

A chart for the Woodstock Festival (above right) has the Jupiter–Uranus connection writ large, with airy ideals in Libra. Its Sun–Neptune square is both idealistic and druggy.

This according to “The astrology of pop” by Neil Spencel (The mountain astrologer XXVII/3 [April–May 2014] pp. 25–33. Below, The 5th Dimension elaborates.

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by | May 7, 2014 · 1:00 am

The Bonzo Dog Band

 

In the 1960s many rock bands were funny some of the time; only a few made humor about as much of the act as music was.

In the U.S., only two such bands did so with consistent brilliance: the Mothers of Invention and the Fugs. The international, and kinder and gentler, branch of that triangle of major rock comics was represented by England’s Bonzo Dog Band.

The Bonzos had only one big hit in the U.K. with I’m the urban spaceman, and some Beatles-glamor-by-association due to a cameo appearance in the Magical mystery tour film. In the U.S. they remained a cult band.

Sometimes compared to the Mothers of Invention, particularly in their zany stage shows and their facility for parodying multiple pop genres, the Bonzos lacked the savage cynicism that powered Frank Zappa’s brand of wit. As compensation, they offered a more whimsical, surreal take on the absurd that was in some ways more sonically versatile, encompassing not just rock but also prewar music hall, jazz, and spoken word.

This according to “The Bonzo Dog Band” by Richie Unterberger, an essay included in Urban spacemen and wayfaring strangers: Overlooked innovators and eccentric visionaries of ’60s rock (San Francisco: Miller Freeman, 2000, pp. 109–121).

Below, the Bonzos perform Death cab for cutie, the song that the American alt-rock band took for its name; the performance starts around 0:50.

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by | May 5, 2014 · 1:00 am

Music Monday

music monday

Music Monday is an annual event sponsored by Canada’s Coalition for Music Education; each year it unites hundreds of thousands of young people through their schools and communities from coast to coast through a simultaneous musical event on the first Monday of May.

Singing and playing the official Music Monday song brings attention to the importance of music as part of a well-rounded education. I.S.S. (Is somebody singing), the official song for Music Monday 2013, was commissioned by the Coalition and CBC Music and written by the astronaut  Col. Chris Hadfield—the first Canadian commander of the International Space Station—and singer/songwriter Ed Robertson of the Barenaked Ladies.

On Monday 6 May 2013 Hadfield performed the song from the International Space Station while Robertson, the Barenaked Ladies, and the Wexford Gleeks (the choir of the Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts), performed from Earth.

This according to “Building a voice that cannot be ignored!” by Holly Nimmons (Canadian music educator/Musicien éducateur au Canada LIV/3 [spring 2013] pp. 20–23).

Today is Music Monday’s 10th anniversary! Below, Hadfield, the Ladies, and the Gleeks perform I.S.S. for Music Monday 2013.

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by | April 18, 2014 · 1:00 am

Gatemouth vs. the purists

 

Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown (1924–2005) spent his career fighting purism by synthesizing old blues, country, jazz, Cajun, and R & B styles.

Asked in an interview about his early blues-based recordings, he gave a practical answer: “I had to sound like that because I was just starting out. Seeing as how I was a newcomer, I obliged.”

“But after a while, I thought, ‘Why do I have to be one of these old cryin’ and moanin’ guitar players always talking bad about women?’ So I just stopped. That’s when I started having horns and piano in my band, and started playing arrangements more like Count Basie and Duke Ellington, rather than some old hardcore Mississippi Delta stuff.”

This according to “Guitarist Clarence Gatemouth Brown dies at 81” by Ben Ratliff (The New York times 12 September 2005).

Today is Brown’s 90th birthday! Below, at the Montreaux Jazz Festival in 2004.

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by | April 13, 2014 · 1:00 am

Jack Casady’s signature bass

 

In a 2006 interview, Jack Casady recalled the development of the Epiphone Jack Casady Signature Bass: “When I first started playing, I ran across a short scale semi-hollow bass. Despite lacking some low end, I really enjoyed the semi-hollow nature of that bass and over the years tried to capture that characteristic.”

“In 1985 I was living in New York and happened to stop in a music store one day and saw a goldtop, full scale semi-hollow Les Paul bass. I loved the bass but found the pickup to be deficient…I did a little investigating and found out that only about 400 of the instruments were made in 1972 and because it was kind of an odd duck, it didn’t catch on.”

“I approached Gibson and asked if they would be interested in reproducing the bass with my input. Epiphone’s Jim Rosenberg was very interested, and allowed me to kind of re-make the instrument. I told Jim that I’d like to develop a Jack Casady pickup for it and he hooked me up with the R&D Department at Gibson.”

“I went to work on the pickup and it took almost two years to develop. I think they were getting pretty antsy by this time but I wanted it right. I did a lot of homework and bench testing and finally when it clicked in right, it was great. They blow the old Gibsons to smithereens, even in the construction. As you know, the early 70s weren’t good for cars or guitars (laughs) and the workmanship that’s coming in on these instruments is just super.”

Excerpted from “Jack Casady: The interview” by Don Mitchel (Epiphone 29 March 2006).

Today is Casady’s 70th birthday! Below, soloing on his signature bass with Hot Tuna in 2011; another Casady solo starts around 7:00.

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by | March 30, 2014 · 1:00 am

Tracy Chapman restarts

SONY DSC

Following a wrenchingly poor childhood and a hard-won scholarship, Tracy Chapman was hit by stardom right after graduating from college, when her 1988 self-titled debut album sold 10 million copies.

She had only recently overcome her fear of playing for coffeehouse-sized audiences, and suddenly the machinery of celebrity was bolted around her. Despite her success, she recalled in 2000 that “they weren’t particularly happy times.”

Periods of seclusion followed, but in 1995 she restarted her career on her own terms. “You have to pay attention to the moment and make it the best it can be for you,” she said. “Make it count. I’ve been trying to do that. It’s really made a major difference for me—I’m a happier person.”

This according to “Telling her stories” by Christopher John Farley (Time CLV/8 [28 February 2000] p. 92).

Today is Chapman’s 50th birthday! Above, the singer-songwriter in Bruges in 2009; below, performing one of the songs from her debut album at the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute in 1988, effectively jump-starting the first leg of her career.

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by | March 27, 2014 · 1:00 am

Sarah Vaughan crosses over

Sarah_Vaughan_1946

Aided by her extraordinary voice, technical proficiency, and mastery at adopting multiple performing personas, Sarah Vaughan obscured conventional divisions between jazz and pop, masculinity and femininity, and blackness and whiteness. By transcending these binary oppositions, she crafted a vocal identity that was commercially viable, artistically satisfying, and which undermined racial stereotypes. In so doing, she reconfigured how American audiences understood the black female voice.

In American jazz criticism of the 1940s and 1950s, discourses on vocal timbre became a means to maintain boundaries between style, race, and gender, and anxiety was expressed by critics when a voice did not match the expectations created by the body that produced it or vice versa. Given that Vaughan’s voice was constructed as neither distinctly black nor white, and neither distinctly jazz or pop, this provides some explanation for her dramatic transformation, including plastic surgery, to create a physical appearance appropriate for her voice.

The roles of recording technology, the suburban home, and the contrasting domain of the nightclub all must be considered in terms of the politics of crossover in  Vaughan’s career.

This according to To bebop or to be pop: Sarah Vaughan and the politics of crossover by Elaine M. Hayes, a dissertation accepted by the University of Pennsylvania in 2004.

Today is Vaughan’s 90th birthday! Above, the singer in 1946; below, in 1958.

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by | March 15, 2014 · 1:00 am

Sly Stone and the Sanctified Church

 

Sly and the Family Stone played a crucial role in introducing black church aesthetics to popular music audiences in the late 1960s.

Sylvester Stewart (a.k.a. Sly Stone) introduced secular audiences to what James Cleveland called the Sanctified Church through his own personal experiences in the black Pentecostal church.

In the foreground of Stone’s work are the recording Stand! (1969), particularly the single I want to take you higher. The band’s demographic—black and white, men and women—and the message that everyone needs to work together in harmony all represent the epitome of post-Civil Rights culture.

This according to “Sly Stone and the sanctified church” by Mark Anthony Neal, an essay included in The funk era and beyond: New perspectives on black popular culture (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).

Today is Sly Stone’s 70th birthday! Below, a performance of I want to take you higher from 1969.

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by | March 3, 2014 · 1:00 am

Taarab redux

 

Taarab’s performers and audiences consider the genre to be a link to Egypt as another powerful place of coastal imagination, but it demonstrably owes more to centuries of exchange across the Indian ocean.

Despite the political agendas that engulfed Zanzibar in the mid-20th century, Swahili musical and urban sensibilities prevailed, and taarab continues to flourish. However, the older style of song text, which thrived on social commentary and improvisation, gave way in the 1950s to songs about the human condition, particularly romantic love songs.

This according to “Between mainland and sea: The taarab music of Zanzibar” by Werner Graebner, an essay included in Island musics (Oxford: Berg, 2004).

Below, Culture Musical Club performs old-style taarab with the legendary Bi Kidude (also above).

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More posts about Tanzania are here.

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