Recently, I stumbled across a bit of promo fluff for an upcoming album by a musical entity I’m sure you’d all recognize. Your job is to guess who it describes. Your secondary task is to assess the teeth-grinding idiocy/insightful brilliance of the blurb in question. Here’s the blurb:
mixing pop art punch with soulful communication, jazzy explorations into psychedelia and dub with razor-sharp melodies, abstract soundscapes with clear-eyed forest-folk.
Certain artists play especially well here in the Halls of Rock. By “play especially well” I mean they instantly spark discussion, incite turf wars, cause Townspeople to question their fellow Townspeople’s true motives for getting so worked up about the particular artist. Respected, accomplished, yet polarizing artists The Boss and REM are sure to get folks going. Most Townspeople are willing to jump in as pure fanboys on any Beatles-related topic, but throw a Stones thread up here, especially one that plays off the ’60s Stones vs the ’70s Stones, and Townspeople take their positions personally. Among all the “go-to” artists for inciting rock chatter, however, few hold a candle to David Bowie. There are so many angles at which Bowie can be appreciated or derided, all of which boil down to, Is Bowie a shaman or a sham? We don’t question this split personality in an artist like Bob Dylan, but Bowie’s ambiguities are a constant cause for examination. Who could forget sammymaudlin‘s groundbreaking study of Bowie’s deep-seatedballs envy, Bowie & Balls: If He Can’t Have Them, No One Can.
In high school I bought the standard Changesonebowie single-album greatest hits collection in high school and loved almost everything on it. Despite the pleasure derived from those 11 songs, I soon found Bowie’s album cuts frequently disappointing if not outright annoying. The whole chameleonic Bowie persona was a turn-off too. Here I was, hip deep in trying to be all that I could be while this guy was, as I saw it, constantly running away from himself. In college I heard a few more good album cuts off The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, but at the same time the worst Bowie music ever had become wildly popular: the Let’s Dance album. Just typing that album title gave me a gated reverb flashback. Ugh. It wasn’t until I turned 30 that I finally bought Hunky Dory and realized I probably loved 30 Bowie songs yet still couldn’t say that I loved Bowie. Word got out and friends wanted to know what was lacking in the 30 songs I loved by David Bowie that failed to put the artist over the hump for me. Probably nothing was lacking in the songs. All the stuff I didn’t like about Bowie, including how frequently I strongly disliked those songs of his that I didn’t love, was too much to overcome, at least until recently.
In November 2007, after years of prodding and a campaign led by Townsman alexmagic, I finally released the list of the 30 David Bowie songs I love. Yesterday the Magic Man asked whether Bowie’s “Five Years” would make my next grouping of songs 31-60. I replied that it would probably rank among the Top 35. Then I thought about this issue some more. There’s no way I could fill out a list of my Top 60 Bowie songs, but I think I could fill out entries 31 through 40. Following is my list of the next 10 Bowie songs that I like.
In our continuing review of Rock Town Hall’s first 5 years as a blog, we will be providing some brief reviews of key aspects of this place. The hope is these overviews will pay homage to the contributions of our peers and provide newcomers easy access into the blog’s rich past. Let’s look at Rock Town Hall’s role as a semi-historical rock resource.
I don’t know about you, but I feel like dancing! Today, January 12, 2012, marks the 5th anniversary of Rock Town Hall’s life as a thriving, all-access public blog. If you ask me, the past 5 years (and the 4 years before that) have been a fun and worthwhile extracurricular pursuit. Not a day goes by that I don’t appreciate your participation and input in shaping what’s discussed, how music fans from different backgrounds interact, and so forth. Five years seems a long enough span to look back, see how the Hall has developed, and maybe even peek into the future. Over the next few days, we’ll take a little time to pay homage to some of our favorite posts and themes to date, culminating on Monday, January 16, with the debut of a long-awaited Rock Town Hall feature.
“So,” you might be asking yourself, “should I expect a self-mythologizing exercise…after the jump?” Certainly! Sisters been doin’ it for themselves all this time; why stop now?
Congratulations are in order to Mr. Moderator; the Rock Town Hall crew; and all the wackos, looneys, and yahoos who populate and litter the Hall. Even though I’ve only been year less than a year (since last March), it’s been a really fun time for me, and RTH is a frequent must-check. Sometimes I laugh, sometimes I get pissed off, sometimes I learn stuff, and sometimes I scratch my head in utter bewilderment at aberrations like Mr. Mod’s mancrush for Mike Love. However, I am always entertained and that’s the whole point, isn’t it? In the spirit of fifth-anniversary things, I’d like to submit a Last Man Standing challenge with one simple rule…find a song that mentions “five years” either in the title or lyrics (album titles can count too). I’ll start things off with this:
David Bowie – “Five Years” Live on Old Grey Whistle Test 1972
I’ve scheduled a trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame in February. I can’t wait to get there. I was there once when I was about 12. I don’t remember much about the place, but I remember loving it. You may recall, I love baseball as much as I love music.
As much as I love music I have only mild interest in one day visiting the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame. Each year the list of inductees gets more ridiculous. I no longer pay much attention or spend much time complaining about who gets in, but today I noticed that Laura Nyro is being inducted. I love the song she did with LeBelle, “The Bells.” Love it! It’s sad and beautiful, like my memory of seeing Braves pinch-hitter Mike Lum put an end ot Steve Carlton‘s 15-game winning streak in his magical 1972 debut season with the Phillies. Lum broke up an 11-inning tie game with a flare to right. I was seated along the first base line with my uncle, the same one who turned me onto rock ‘n roll. In ’72 he began taking me to Phillies games. When Carlton got on that roll, my lefthanded uncle knew it was special. He took me, his lefthanded nephew, to as many home games during that streak as possible. He always got us tickets along the first-base line, to better view the motion and wicked pickoff move of the sad-sack 1972 Phillies’ one shining beacon of hope.
I also love the big hit song she wrote for the Fifth Dimension, “Wedding Bell Blues.” Love that Fifth Dimension version! It’s sad and beautiful, which judging by photos and her music the late Laura Nyro seemed to be herself. Have you ever heard Nyro’s version of that song? It’s nowhere near as good. She also wrote “Stoned Soul Picnic.” Her version of that song is fine, although not quite as good as the Fifth Dimension’s. I won’t hold her writing of “And When I Die” against her. Her version is as bad as the hit version by Blood, Sweat & Tears. The entire conceipt of that song is bad to the bone. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
What the hell else did Laura Nyro do of note, of Hall of Fame note? She wrote “Eli’s Coming,” a hit for Three Dog Night that was unintentionally funny enough to avoid being as bad as “And When I Die.” I see references to her having written hits for Barbra Streisand. Am I forgetting some especially smokin’ Streisand tracks?
Please explain Laura Nyro’s induction in the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame. And please see if you can do so while avoiding beefs about the induction of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Beaver Brown Band, or whatever other dopes qualify these days. I know Nyro’s always been a critics’ darling for a certain generation, but who will understand her induction when the current crop of 70-year-0ld rock critics finally dies off? Shouldn’t future generations have some way of understanding her induction?
