12 July 2023 - Pixies - Debaser

The second you saw the name "Luis Buñuel" in yesterday's post, you should have known this was coming.

"I am un chien andalusia" is literally a line in this song.

"Slicing up eyeballs" is literally a different line in the song.

Can we look at the title of the film, though?  Un chien andalou is a mishmash of French and Spanish already.  The film is really about nothing.  It's a surrealist collaboration between Buñuel and Salvador Dalí. It was, at points, stomach-turning, debasing the standards of art and morality.

Ahhhh, there it is.  The title.  That last sentence paraphrases Black Francis a.k.a. Charles Thompson IV, the writer of this song and leader of the Pixies, the Boston-based post-punk band that broke through the US consciousness with their 2nd full length album, Doolittle, which opened with this bombastic song. 

Never released as a single in the US, this song hit #23 on the UK charts.  More personally, it's possibly my favorite song by a band that I count among my favorites.   

The Pixies did break up in the mid 90s but reformed about a decade later, and are still together and still making music.  Kim Deal did leave the band in 2013 to devote herself to The Breeders full-time, and was replaced on their 2013 tour by Muffs frontwoman Kim Shattuck - who was amazing as a fill-in.

Shattuck was replaced the next year - by most accounts, because her personality (which had been very frontwoman-y and outgoing) didn't mesh with what was a mostly introverted band, which is a shame because she was incredible.  She was replaced by Paz Lenchantin, who, to be fair, is also incredible.

11 July 2023 - White Town - Your Woman

Jyoti Prakash Mishra, White Town's sole member, famous music producer, and a guy, wrote this song as kind of a methaphor for all sorts of relations, that could be adaptable to all sorts of points of view.   He recorded the song using a sample from an old Lew Stone song (the muted trumpet), free MIDI software and a cheap tape recorder, releasing it in 1997.

He created a worldwide sensation.  

This song was a worldwide hit - top 30 in the US, top 10 elsewhere.  What's more, it carried Mishra's self-described mediocre voice and pretty good keyboard work to one hit wonder status.

No, seriously, he said this.

“I feel so privileged [because] to be 100 percent honest with you — I’m a mediocre singer, I’m a terrible guitarist, I’m a pretty good keyboardist, I’m a good producer, not amazing, but good.”

The video was partially inspired by Luis Buñuel's Un chien andalou - thankfully without slicing up any eyeballs - and other surrealist artists, and has the same 20's feel that the Lew Stone sample gives to the song.

10 July 2023 - The Cult - She Sells Sanctuary

In 1985, British band - from Bradford, West Yorkshire, if we're being precise - The Cult would release what would ultimately be their best known and most widely recognized single.  It wasn't their biggest hit - although close to it in the UK - and didn't even chart in the US, although its success and endurance paved the way for their future worldwide success.  

Written by Ian Astbury - the lead vocalist - and Billy Duffy - the guitarist..... I didn't need to tell you that.  The song shows that. Astbury's haunting vocals lend an air of enigmatic charisma to the lyrics that are tuned for his voice. His raw, soulful delivery infuses the lyrics with passion and depth, drawing the listener into a realm of introspection and introspective longing. Add that to Duffy's distinctive guitar work, which merges elements of psychedelic rock with a touch of new wave, and you've got a Cult classic.

No, not that kind of cult classic.

Weirdly, the song was also a club hit - so much so that in 1993, it got some remixes and a rerelease, which ended up being a hit in its own right.

It's weird, though.

The Cult, believe it or not, are still together. There have absolutely been some lineup changes, but it has always been, unceasingly, the Billy and Ian show throughout.  This performance from 2022 shows that the song has changed a little to accomodate for the changes age brings to vocalists, but not much - and the energy is still there.  

7 July 2023 - David Bowie – Space Oddity

In 1969, feeling feelings of alientation - his career was taking a nose dive - and having seen Stanley Kubrick's classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, David Bowie wrote and recorded this classic song.

It was an initial bomb but enventually because a UK hit, his only until 1973.  

It remained a bomb in the US for three years, until it was released in 1972.  THEN it hit #15 on the pop charts and became a big deal.  

In July, 1990, I was getting ready to go to college.  I was 18, and visiting family in Niagara Falls and Buffalo. Coincidentally, and not visiting my family, David Bowie was playing at the Niagara Falls Convention Center in what he said would be his last tour playing his classic songs, such as "Space Oddity".

Naturally, I wanted to go, but I was only allowed to go if I went with my Aunt Martha, who, to be fair, wasn't terribly old herself and so was cool enough to actually enjoy the show.  We had a great time and it was a great show.

My younger sister was pissed because she wanted to go.  Sorry, Dawn.

This is from Santiago, Chile, on the same tour.  I can tell you that this is exactly how it sounded.

  

By the way, David Bowie lied, because here he is, performing the song in 1997.  David Bowie taught me not to believe that farewell tours are real.  

But that 1990 show was still great.  

6 July 2023 - Peter Schilling - Major Tom (Coming Home) (Völlig losgelöst)

This top 20 hit was released in 1983 by German artist Peter Schilling.  The titular Major Tom is, at least officially, not the same Major Tom who happens to be an astronaut in the David Bowie classic "Space Oddity:.   

But c'mon.

Yes it is.  

The synth-heavy song is right in place in 1983 - and it remains a really cool song to this day.  It was Schilling's first English language single, and it ended up being a worldwide hit.

Ready for the other shoe?  Well, the title of this post should have given it away.  

This was a rerecorded version of a German song - and a hit song at that - by Schilling in 1982. Titled "Major Tom (Völlig losgelöst)", it was hit in Europe and the German-speaking world.  Specifically, it was a #1 hit in Germany.  

The video is not NEARLY as good.  

5 July 2023 - Harold Faltermeyer - Axel F

This song was commissioned for the 1984 hit movie Beverly Hills Cop.  Most of you probably knew that.  I mean, it's Harold Faltermeyer's best known song.  

"Alex F" was named for the character Axel Foley, portrayed by Eddie Murphy in the movie.  What you may not know is that it was composed in the key of F minor, continuing the F theme.  Faltermeyer wrote the song, and performs all the instruments, which are all electronic.  He also appears in the video, strangly wearing an overcoat, sunglasses and a hat while pounding away on what was probably state-of-the-art computer equipment in 1984.

Before you all go running off to the Wikipedia page for this song and tell me that I'm wrong and that the song was written by Hans Faltermeier, you should know that his full name is Hans Hugo Harold Faltermeier.... and he anglicized his name for single release (mostly because Americans are more likely to listen to a Harold than a Hans, to be frank and sad about it).

Anyway, it was a worldwide instrumental hit, and you should just listen to it.  

Now enjoy Peter Griffin dancing to it.

4 July 2023 - Van Halen - Jump

Well, Happy Independence Day to all our US readers.

We decided it was appropriate to go with a 40-year-old motivational song that started off as something very different than that.

You see, Eddie Van Halen wrote the synth part first - and the rest of the hard-rockin' band rejected it.  When David Lee Roth was finally convinced to give it another shot, he recalled a news story of a person who was threatening to commit suicide by jumping off a building... and, well, there's always that asshole who has to yell "C'mon, Jump!"  

Well, since encouraging suicide isn't really something that record labels are going to get behind, the lyrics the band wrote ended up being a bit more motivational and less... well, death-y.  

What the end result turned into was the biggest hit of Van Halen's career, by a lot.  Deservedly so, too - it was a great, energetic song that brought rock to the masses.

Famously, David Lee Roth left Van Halen and was replaced by Sammy Hagar - which really begat a different band.  This live version of the song from 1993 is a lot less synth-y, which tracks with the harder rocking feel of the band.

Funny enough, this live version was released as a single in Europe and ended up being a bit of a minor hit, too.  

Perhaps not so famously, Sammy Hagar left Van Halen and was replaced by Gary Cherone from Extreme.  Not surprisingly, he needed to perform David Lee Roth's songs, too.

This version was not released as a single and was not a hit because no one liked Gary Cherone as the lead vocalist of Van Halen.

Because this is a blog post, we are very much oversimplifying the history of Van Halen, but the short version is, David Lee Roth came back and the band, of course, performed this song.  It is very much a fusion of the rock and synth styles - and that's Wolfgang Van Halen on bass.

There was supposed to be a "kitchen sink" reuinion with Hagar, Cherone, and Michael Anthony rejoinign the band - but, sadly, Eddie Van Halen passed away before that could happen.  So, this post ends here.