Was driving around yesterday and this song came on the radio…
While listening to it for perhaps the five hundred thousandth time, my personal opinion that this is the all time best “guitar” heavy song ever was strengthened by hearing each individual lick. I absolutely love the work of Mr. Hendrix here, the way his playing seems to go on digressions/different melodic tangents only to come back over and over to the main thrust of the song again. The end result is absolutely terrific.
So it got me to thinking. What are my favorite “guitar” songs? Songs where the guitar work is so exquisite, so memorable, that it just sticks out in my head?
Apart from Voodoo Child (Slight Return), only one other song instantly popped up in my mind, Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb.
Again, terrific guitar work. Unlike Voodoo Child (Slight Return), however, Comfortably Numb, like the album it came from, is at heart a sad song about alienation. The guitar work by David Gilmour seems to pierce your very soul.
I keep driving and I think: Come on! There are hundreds of other songs with strong guitar work you love.
There are, of course, but those two above stand out more than most, at least for me. Well then, if Voodoo Child (Slight Return) and Comfortably Numb are my two favorite “guitar” songs, what are some of my others?
How about a Beatles classic…
Many note the terrific drumming by Ringo Starr (and it is), but I’ve always loved the guitar work by George Harrison, the way the guitar seems to “answer” each lyric by John Lennon.
If you’ve been around this blog for a while, you know what a big fan of David Bowie I am. There are plenty of David Bowie songs featuring terrific guitar riffs. My two favorites happen to feature the guitar work of late Mick Ronson…
and…
My juices are flowing and I’m starting to think of so many others…How about Heart?
Radar Love by Golden Earring could well be the absolutely best “driving” song out there. Wonder how many people got speeding tickets while driving to this?
Ok, before I get too far afield and start listing just about all the songs I like that feature pretty good guitar work, how about Rolling Stone’s 100 Best?
Agree or disagree (I disagree with more than a few of their choices) it is food for thought. Another list, this one by Spinner Magazine, features their “Top 50 Guitar Riffs”. Some great stuff here:
As mentioned in the article, there was interest around the web when the isolated vocal tracks of the Queen/David Bowie collaboration “Under Pressure” was released. If you’re curious about that, here it is. It’s worth giving a listen to as well:
Fascinating article by Andrew Leonard for Salon.com regarding something that has been on my mind often of late: Despite all the great stuff it offers, what of the negatives regarding the Internet? Is all the good worth all the bad, both potential and realized?
Mr. Leonard’s focus is mostly on governmental “snooping” and journalism but it also can relate to the general impact of the Internet on everything, including loss of privacy both unintended and unrealized. For example, I recall in the earlier, wildly popular days of Facebook that some clever thieves realized that some posters on that social media website would over share their day to day activities, to the point where they posted information about upcoming vacations, including where they were going, when they were going, and for how long.
Which meant these clever thieves now knew when a poster’s home was potentially unguarded and empty and for what specific period of time, making it a perfect target for theft.
Revelations about the Government’s internet snooping should be alarming to most people, but there are other economic factors that I’ve were influenced by the rise of the internet. I’ve mentioned before how certain “mom and pop” type stores simply cannot compete with full service internet “stores” like Amazon.com and how even some bigger retail chains, including bookstores and electronic stores, now are in danger of closing their doors because of the increasing ease of purchase and seemingly unlimited stock available online.
But there exists yet another big threat created by the internet, one that personally scares me for different reasons: The possibility of creative destruction. If you think about entertainment, you think about a few things: Music, movies, television, books/novels, comic books, etc. All of these creative endeavors are now victims to pirate websites.
Looking for the latest album by artist X? Download it for free…sometimes before the album is officially released! Looking forward to seeing movie X? Same thing. Novels? Comic books? Television shows? Ditto, ditto, and ditto.
Where will this piracy of creative ideas eventually lead? If you’re a struggling artist, there’s precious little money to be made in your works. Whatever little bit you can scrape together is helpful and may allow you to hone your craft and allow you to make better and better product…provided you can indeed pay your bills. But what if your current work(s) find their way to pirate websites and whatever meager amount of money you might have earned on your current, best works takes a hit because of illegal downloads?
And what of established artists? Will movie/music companies become more and more fearful of signing off on a big budget item if the worry about how much they’ll lose on the illegal downloads of said item? Is it possible some companies will simply give up on funding films/TV shows/music albums entirely? And where will that leave many of us, audiences hungry for new entertainment?
As Mr. Leonard put it in his article:
…we are increasingly sensing that we have no idea where this techno-roller coaster is ultimately headed. There’s a sense that things are out of control. Our growing uneasiness doesn’t jibe well with all the hype about how the world is being made a better place by a proliferation of smartphone apps.
Just wanted to point out a pair of fascinating articles on Slate magazine for your reading (and listening) pleasure.
The first article, by Dave Mandl, explains why certain popular songs are re-recorded by the original artists and subsequently (and at times murkily/stealthily) released as if these are the original versions:
I suppose it doesn’t spoil the article too much by stating it all has to do with money. The original artists while working on the original recordings usually signed terrible contracts that resulted in the artists losing royalties they might gain with said music. Years later, the artists would re-record the songs and sometimes try to hit the material note-for-note so these new recordings may earn them the royalties they cannot gain from the originals.
The big issue is that often the song you as a consumer want is the original version and when you hear the re-recording you almost instantly realize this isn’t the version you want. Thus the reason some artists may purposely blur the “original” song from the “remake” version.
But not all of them.
I recall a few years ago while listening to (I believe) First Wave on XM radio they had an interview with the two principal members of the band Squeeze. The band members were promoting a “best of” collection that was about to be released…only every single song on this collection featured new recordings of their most famous works. The band members were very upfront in explaining the album was a “re-recording”, even naming the album “Spot the Difference” to make it clear what it was audiences were buying. The band members, in that interview, explained their reasons for re-recording the material, noting that one day they heard one of their songs on a TV commercial and realized they would not make a single penny out of the use of that song on that commercial. The re-recording, thus, was a way to gain control of their music, albeit in a (obviously) re-recorded format.
Moving on, Andrew Grant Jackson offers a fascinating look (and listen) to a series of songs written by John Lennon and/or Paul McCartney between 1963 and 1964 and “given away” to other artists:
While I tend to favor Beatles music from 1965’s Help! on (and, don’t get me wrong, I consider many of their early works pretty damn good as well, I just happen to like their works from Help! on a little more), this article points out some very interesting songs that the Beatles wound up giving away. Perhaps the most famous of the lot is “I Wanna Be Your Man”, which they gave to The Rollings Stones. Of course, the Beatles would wind up recording their own really good version of the song as well!
A fascinating article. I know there were more songs the Beatles gave away after this particular time period and would love to see (and hear!) more.
A few days back I posted an entry regarding Mason Currey’s fascinating articles published on Slate regarding creative people and their rituals (in that case, his column was about procrastination). In this, his last entry regarding creativity, he focuses on what is perhaps one of the more important things a creative individual should do: Work.
Or, as he put it, don’t wait for inspiration to hit you:
I enjoyed this particular column so much I had to add my two cents, which essentially amounted to repeating what was written above! For those curious:
Don’t wait for inspiration may well be the best advice to any creative individual. There have been many a day I absolutely DID NOT want to sit before my computer and get to work…yet did so anyway. The temptation not to do work, as Gershwin so aptly put it, is indeed a great one. But if one day you want to have the unique pleasure of looking back at what you accomplished in your creative life and be rewarded with the sight of a bookshelf carrying your books or an art gallery featuring your works, etc. etc., then you have to put in the effort. Inspiration does indeed come to me when I keep working, regardless of my mood.
Basically, he’s worried about movie studios and “digital streaming”. I think he hits the bullseye in many respects with the rant, noting that when you purchase a “stream” of a film, you really don’t own it. Yes, you can watch the film but, should the movie studios in the future decide to remove the film from their streaming services (for whatever reason), you’re essentially out of luck. The film you “purchased” is gone.
Mr. Hunt goes on to compare this with music streaming and, effectively, champions keeping a “hard copy” of whatever entertainment (be it music or motion picture) you may have because of the possibility that somewhere down the road the thing you spent money on might no longer be accessible to you.
I can certainly sympathize with Mr. Hunt’s worries. Technology has shifted dramatically. A few years ago, I had to go to the local electronics store and bookstore to see the latest movies/books/music that was available for purchase. Now, there are no bookstores anywhere near me, and its been quite a while since I’ve gone out to the local Best Buy.
If I’m purchasing music, I do so exclusively online (and, yes, I do actually purchase the music!) via download. I keep copies of my music on my harddrive and a backup drive, but the idea of having “physical” copies on CD has become a thing of the past.
So too it seems with most books. If I want one, I tend to go to Amazon and download it and read it on my tablet. If I want a physical copy of a book, I similarly order it (usually through Amazon) and wait the few days it takes before arriving at my home. It’s hard to believe it, but I don’t miss the bookstores.
As for movies, I realized early on that, like laserdiscs, there were a bunch of films I had to have early one, and I spent an awful lot of money getting my hands on them. I moved to DVD and then to BluRay, but once I had those “essentials”, my spending dropped dramatically. I tend to use Netflix to check out “new” films, and if I like them enough, I will purchase a physical copy, but I can honestly say many of the newer films I’ve seen are decent but only a few have been worth actually owning.
What is the point of all this?
I guess it boils down to this: What used to be standard is no longer so. We used to want books/movies/music, we’d go to a book/music/movie store to buy them. We’d have the physical copies. Now, we go online and do one of three things: download the material, stream it, or purchase physical copies which are sent to our home.
Which means that the physical shops I used to see are slowly, inevitably, dying out. As I said before, I don’t have a bookstore close to my house. And I live in a BIG city. The nearest bookstores are at least a half hour to forty five minutes away. As for music stores, forget it. The only movie store is a Best Buy about twenty minutes away and, as I noted before, I barely go there anymore.
And I don’t miss doing so.
The fact is a that computers and the internet have created the proverbial better mousetrap, but I worry about the consequences. Less physical stores means less places for people to hang out and meet other people. Also, less places for employment. When we were younger, many of us worked in a record or bookstore. No longer. A big section of business has effectively been compressed into an online system of which Amazon is king and iTunes is running a close second.
Unquestionably, I have access to everything I want and/or need within my fingertips. I can find obscure films or music or books without the hassle of running to different stores searching (often in vain) for what I want.
But this instant gratification comes with a cost locally.
It is better for the consumers, I believe. But is it better?
Bought the album Actor by St. Vincent a while back while it was on sale on Amazon, have listened to it more and more frequently of late and absolutely love the song Laughing With A Mouth Full of Blood…which became part of a very humorous skit on Portlandia.
Portlandia is usually hit and miss for me, but I have to admit the skits involving musical guests have usually been gold. Loved the Aimee Mann featured episode in particular and, as a bonus, here’s her extended appearance in it:
A few days (ahem) have passed since I (legally!) downloaded the latest David Bowie album, The Next Day, and, after a few listens, a few thoughts:
I remain impressed with the album. It’s a solid piece of work with some truly exceptional songs often punctuated by nebulous (but delicious) lyrics. What is most interesting, to me, is to see how a bunch of critics have raised this album to the near mythical status of “Best David Bowie album since Scary Monsters“. With many critics and fans, that 1980 David Bowie album marks the last time Mr. Bowie released a “good” album, a point that I most certainly dispute. The critics also are aware of musical flourishes from previous albums, echoes, if you will, of Mr. Bowie’s past works.
Addressing that point first, let me agree with the critics here. David Bowie fans will indeed hear echoes of previous songs here and there in The Next Day and the accompanying lyrics at times point out that, indeed, Mr. Bowie is engaging in some looking back while also looking at the here and now and/or forward. However, let me be very quick to say that this isn’t necessarily something new. David Bowie’s aborted 2001 album, Toy, was meant to be a very strong “look back” into his musical past. The album was to feature remakes of very early David Bowie songs and only three “new” compositions. When the album was cancelled, some of the material eventually appeared in 2002’s Heathen, including, as a bonus song, the incredible remake of “Conversation Piece”.
By the way (and my apologies for the digression) here is the original 1969 version of “Conversation Piece” as a comparison:
However, way before this David Bowie on the already mentioned Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) took a sly look back at Major Tom from his first hit single, “Space Oddity”, with the song “Ashes To Ashes”:
To further beat the dead horse, here we have “The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell” from the 1999 Bowie album hours…, a clear shout out/reference to “Oh You Pretty Things” from 1971’s Hunky Dory.
The point I’m making is that the critics who are so enchanted with how David Bowie is “looking back” with The Next Day seem to either be ignorant of or are ignoring the many other examples of when he did just that in a multitude of instances on previous albums.
Which brings us to the whole issue of whether The Next Day is indeed David Bowie’s best album since Scary Monsters. It is my feeling, after having listened to it several times, that while The Next Day is a damn good album, of the David Bowie albums that followed Scary Monsters, it doesn’t fall as the “best of them”.
At least in my opinion.
Again, though, that’s not to say it isn’t a pretty damn great album on its own.
Music and the arts can be cruel. You can hit the big time with critics and audiences and, a year later, release something you feel is just as good as your last work and no one gives a crap about it. Over time, “his/her old stuff was better” becomes an all too common refrain. Unfortunately, sometimes fans and critics come into new works hoping an artist recaptures his/her old “magic” and are bitterly disappointed when they don’t.
Scary Monsters was a great album and something of a demarcation for David Bowie’s career. The years before -indeed the entire decade of the 1970’s- David Bowie released one classic album after the other, arguably starting with the excellent The Man Who Sold The World and continuing through Hunky Dory, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders of Mars, Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dogs, and so on and so on through the Berlin Trilogy.
Mr. Bowie would follow Scary Monsters with Let’s Dance, an upbeat danceable -yet undeniably sugary- confection. One that I happen to love but that many fans and critics dismissed as David Bowie “selling out”. While the album did great business (I believe it was his best selling album of his career), Let’s Dance appeared to drive a wedge into longtime Bowie fans. Things didn’t improve much with Tonight, the follow up to Let’s Dance which also followed the same general tone of the previous album, only it was less successful (IMHO) overall, despite a few absolutely terrific tunes.
From there, David Bowie stumbled badly. He released what many, including Mr. Bowie himself, called his worst album, the very ironically titled Never Let Me Down. By then, the obituaries on David Bowie’s career were in full force.
Yet I never gave up on him, purchasing every new thing he released as it came out. David Bowie followed up Never Let Me Down with the two album Tin Machine experiment, a group and a set of albums that many critics and fans derided yet I felt were never quite as bad as many felt. Having said that, neither would I put this period of time, and his return to solo work with Black Tie White Noise, as among his best period.
Then came the 1993 soundtrack to The Buddha of Suburbia. For the first time since the mid-1980’s, it felt like Mr. Bowie had regained his musical footing. While the album was a soundtrack and there was plenty of “incidental” music, the songs were very solid. Despite this, the album was barely released in the United States. Having gotten a hold of a copy (there were no downloads possible back then), I became genuinely excited to hear more from this David Bowie.
With the next album, 1995’s 1. Outside, he didn’t disappoint. If there’s an album I would put up there as being among his all time bests of the “modern” era, 1. Outside would easily be it. Yes, the album was perhaps a little more bloated than it should have been (the in-between-the-songs dialogue bits could at times be too much), 1. Outside was nonetheless a terrific, genre bending concept album that featured a multitude of musical styles and ambition to spare. Mr. Bowie was suddenly white hot to me, and he followed that terrific album with the equally terrific electronica-heavy Earthling.
As far as I was concerned, the David Bowie I loved was back. To the rest of the world, these works seemed to elicit little more than a shrug. Subsequent albums came and went. Though they weren’t quite as good, IMHO, as the one-two punch of 1. Outside and Earthling, they were all strong works
His last album before this new one, 2003’s Reality, appeared and, like the others, received scant attention. What did receive attention was that in 2004 Mr. Bowie suffered a heart attack while on tour for Reality. Afterwards Mr. Bowie abruptly turned away from the spotlight and a host of questions came from fans and critics. Was David Bowie done? Was he retiring from music? Would Reality be his final album?
Years passed. Before his heart attack, Mr. Bowie would regularly release a new album every year or two. After nine years and no new album, no new concert, and precious few public appearances, many, including me, gave up hopes he was coming back.
Thus, when the release of The Next Day was suddenly announced, all that concern was all at once dissolved. David Bowie was back! We had a new album! Hooray!
I suspect this abrupt, delightfully surprising return made many critics who didn’t bother with many of Mr. Bowie’s recent works to give The Next Day a closer look than they might have if it had been simply “another” release. What many of them heard in this new album delighted them and the reviews have been very strong.
Which makes me shake my head.
Where were you guys when Mr. Bowie started his renaissance back in 1993?
Again, it is my feeling The Next Day is a damn good album. But it also represents a part of continuum, again in my opinion, to albums dating back to 1993’s The Buddha of Suburbia. To all those ex-David Bowie fans who feel he didn’t do anything “good” since Scary Monsters, do yourselves a favor…check out the six albums he released from The Buddha of Suburbia to Reality.
The Next Day is scheduled to be released on March 12 but is now streaming absolutely free (minus the bonus songs present on the “premium version”) via iTunes.
I’ve listened to the album all the way through once and, now roughly half-way through a second listen, all I can say is: Mr. Bowie, I’m glad you’re back.
Two early favorite songs (thus far) are The Stars (Are Out Tonight) and Valentine’s Day.
Second single released for the upcoming David Bowie album. Pretty cool stuff and more “upbeat” than the first single, though the song’s topic appears to be similar (and certainly is emphasized in the video!) of looking back…
Huffington Post offers an interesting article concerning the video release, as well as noting that early reviews of the album are positive. The full album is set to be released March 12.
