Player's "Baby Come Back"

One of my favourite baseball podcasts recently used the smooth rock classic "Baby Come Back" by Player. I immediately noticed that the song I was hearing was different than the version that I'm used to hearing.

The version I'm used to hearing is the 7" single cut, which checks in at 3:40. The version on the podcast was the album version, which is 3:56 in length and features a guitar solo. The single cut reached #1 on the Billboard chart back in November 1977, according to Joel Whitburn.

Sixteen seconds seems somewhat insignificant, but every second counted on radio, and anything longer than that would be on the bubble of played/not played. Unless you were a huge artist, the chances of your "long" record getting played were slim.

Here's a rendition of the longer version:

5 seconds of every #1 song ever

It's pretty mindbending:
5 Seconds Of Every #1 Song Ever

Ugh

The Glee cast now has more Billboard 100 songs than The Beatles [AV Club]

Saigon Sunday

Peter Murphy perfects his Bowie impression in this 1990 track. Reached #1 on the Billboard Modern Rock tracks chart in February of that year. I like the album cut better, but this works too.

#4 with a bullet

M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" is enjoying a surge on the Billboard Hot 100 lately, possibly due to the fact that the track is featured so heavily in the Pinapple Express trailer.

First issued in LP form on last year's Kala, the track has received a well deserved spike in chart popularity.

The track now appears to be heading into its chart decline, after peaking at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100.



Excellent for driving slowly past suburban public schools in a mini-van. (not actually recommended)

Hip pop

The other day I was eating lunch at Tim Hortons and seated beside me were a couple of young kids and their mother. The kids were talking about their favourite songs and rappers, suggesting names to each other.

"50 Cent!"
"Chris Brown!"
"Lil Wayne!"

Umm... excuse me? Lil Wayne? These kids couldn't have been more than 10 years old! I am certainly anti-censorship, but I think mama should at least be aware that her kids are being exposed to a song with these lyrics:

"Sh, sh, she lick me
Like a lollipop, lollipop"

"I ain't never seen an ass like hers
That pussy in my mouth
Had me lost for words"

Of course it all makes sense when you check the top of charts - Lil Wayne is #1. Even the smallest and most vulnerable of ears are going to come into contact with this malt sugar concoction.

I don't mean to sound like some kind of PMRC nut, but there should at least be some sort of minimum age requirement for hearing lyrics about how Mr. Carter's braces-on-vagina formula is leaving him at a loss for words... at least he was raised well - "Don't talk with your mouth full!"

But it's not just the pop charts - Lil Wayne impresses the hell out of indie-rock snobs too.

Here's the hilarious video, which reminds me of the part in Saturday Night Fever at the start... or is it Grease... where there's that montage of getting ready to go out. It's the same thing. The video also features some idiot on top of the stretch-Hummer-limo playing the guitar. The guitar is not in the album cut, and probably should have stayed out of the song, as it sounds shabby. It's not mixed well.
I wonder if Lil Wayne paid off a drug debt by putting the guy in his video. That must be it.

Playlist of Fame

Maybe it's the rain, but I just had a brainstorm.

Why not make a Smart playlist in iTunes that adds every artist inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! What a brilliant idea! I should have thought of it sooner... maybe I did, but just didn't bother to do anything about it. Yes, that will be the official story.

Naturally, it's a huge list with some unnatural additions. There are definitely some kinks (not the band... or The Band) that need to be ironed out (not the Sabbath).

For example, the following songs that may not quite be "Hall of Fame" material:

Aerosmith - "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing"
Bryan Adams, Sting and Rod Stewart - "All For One"
David Bowie & Mick Jagger - "Dancing in the Streets"
Any/all Elton John collaborations
Kenny G & Smokey Robinson - "Save the Best For Last"
Madonna - all of her songs
Michael Jackson & Akon - "Wanna Be Startin' Something 2008"
Joni Mitchell & Michael McDonald - "Good Friends"
Glass Tiger & Rod Stewart - "My Town"

I guess it's just proof that all awe-inspiring artists make terrible, horrible, no-good very bad music at some point... but there's simply no excuse for this pop atrocity:



Not only is it a totally unnecessary and frankly offensive cover version, the video is fucking terrible! I thought Bowie was relatively drug-free by the mid-80s, but this video suggests otherwise. By the end of the decade, the Thin White Duke was offering up thin white puke, in the form of "Fame '90". He must really have needed the money. Really, really needed the money. Why else would he slash and burn his first US #1? Don't forget this was after the massive train wreck that was 87-89. Never Let Me Down, Glass Spider, Tin Machine...

Yep, it all makes the "smart" playlist, even the unforgivable Hours.

Now... time to give this playlist a whirl! If only I could solve the Beatles bootlegs dilemma...

Relying on each other, ah ha

The other day I tuned in to The Hour just in time to see Canada's indie sweetheart Feist get the interrogation of a lifetime from Strombo.

Of course, the first thing I did when the commercial break hit was run over to the computer, bring up the Arts & Crafts website, and listen to "Islands in the Stream". Whoda thought one of the highest selling singles of all time would make such a great indie rock gem, and early candidate for song of the year?

Then it occurred to me that this isn't the first time that Feist has covered/ co-covered a #1 hit song written by the Bee Gees... yes, "Inside Out" was also a Gibb-penned classic!

The way things are going, the next Broken Social Scene album could have a cover of Frankie Valli's "Grease". If we're lucky.

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Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers - "Islands in the Stream"

Stacey! Jane!

Warning: Listening to this may cause you to have this song stuck in your head the rest of the day. Right now, this is the #1 track in the UK. It's basically "My Sharona" mashed with "Hey Mickey", and it's way more fun than Rihanna's current chart topper, the Madonna-title-copping "Take a Bow".

The Ting Tings - "That's Not My Name" (single version)

Alannah & Andy

Alannah Myles - Black Velvet (#1 Billboard Hot 100, March 24, 1990)

&

Velvet Underground - Black Angel's Death Song

Burning out his fuse up here alone

I'm going to take a wild guess and say that Mindy McCready has seen more video hits on YouTube in the past couple days than she has seen in the past decade. It turns out that the Rocket Man himself, Roger Clemens, had a "relationship" with the country singer, dating back to his Red Sox days, though it wasn't physical. :|

The gossip mills and sports journalists are going nuts with this one, as the greatest pitcher of all time continues his monumental slide, and things are only going to get much worse.

I'm planning on pitching a reality show, tentatively titled "Rocket of Love".

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Links:
Mindy McCready - Guys Do It All The Time (#1 Billboard Country, Sept. 14, 1996)

Mindy McCready [Wikipedia]

Bleeding #1

Recent chart topper Leona Lewis sings on "Bleeding Love", a track with some deliciously crisp pop production. The song's retro-chic feel, filtered through the best damn compressors and plug-ins since the last listenable Kelly Clarkson album, puts this song in the early running for 'song of the summer' status. It's no coincidence that the last time a British female singer topped the Billboard Hot 100, it was 1987, and another bunch of cheques were made out to "Holland-Dozier-Holland".

The new trend for chart toppers seems to be "Two Boys for Every Girl".

Mariah Carey just surpassed Elvis as the artist with the second most chart topping tracks in the US, just behind the Beatles. This pegs the diva-turned-siren as the most popular American solo artist ever... which also means that Mariah Carey is the Queen of Pop. Not Madonna. She can be the unholy saint, charlatan, or super-tramp (not to be confused with the band,Supertramp) of Pop. That's it. Madonna only has 12 #1 songs. She's a pretender to the throne. And as much money as she has, it's going to be quite a task for her to catch up to Mimi. The only reason Madge has the title at all is because of her age, which she shows more and more these days...

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Links:

Leona Lewis - Bleeding Love [US Version]
Mariah Carey - Touch My Body

Meme Generation

Buzz Feed: Rick Astley Gets Rick Rolled

I pretty much missed the boat on this one... But thanks to BuzzFeed, I can now add 'Rick Rolled' to my vocabulary, then promptly forget its meaning.

--

Links:

Main Offender - Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (#1 Billboard Hot 100 March 12-19 1988)

Strange, you never knew

This is a track by Mazzy Star titled "Fade Into You", which hit the Billboard Modern Rock chart in 1994. Stylistically, the song isn't too far off from a Cowboy Junkies song, circa Trinity Sessions.

Single gone low low low low low low low low

2008 is off to a grand start with four straight weeks of the rowdy ringtone rap "Low" at the top (or at the lowest position) of North America's cultural compass.

And he's not referring to a freshly baked apple pie cooling on the window sill. No, no, not at all. It's actually Nelly's booty-boppin' clothing line.



As YouTube user QCacd puts it, "c'est dla cris de marde."
And to that, I would respond - "Touché".

And how is it that Finger Eleven remains in the top 10 on the Hot 100 chart? That song is so 2007.

Totally mashed!

From boingboing:

Mashup of the 25 most popular songs in the U.S. in '07

A whole year of trash mashed into five minutes! Nah, it's actually really cool.

Na na na na na na na na na na

"The Day the World Went Away" is NIN's highest charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, at #17! Wha... ?! Sometimes you forget. The Fragile famously went to the top of the album chart then disappeared entirely the next week. Few artists have such rabid fan bases.

Here's the Still version of the song mashed with promo footage for the track. An official video was never released, but the visuals were put together with a live performance, and available as a hidden track on And All That Could Have Been DVD. To access: In between "Head Like A Hole" and "Just Like You Imagined", at 16:10, press quickly LEFT, RIGHT, DOWN, UP and then press ENTER. (From Wikipedia, and any DVD Easter Egg site)



Can't find the director info for this video, and mvdbase.com has nothing.

What is it good for?...

Here's Edwin Starr (born Charles Hatcher) and the Funk Brothers with this Billboard Hot 100 #1 from August 29 to September 12, 1970, Gordy 7101, "War".




Compare this to the current #1 single, Kiss Kiss, from the talentless hack Chris Brown and featuring the astonishingly pathetic production and icy, soulless, auto-tuned vocals of Mr. T-Pain.

Week by week we continue to see the proof of the devolution of our popular arts... the difference in the two of these songs in musicality, performance and sheer talent on record is nothing short of staggering.

Charting disaster

The awkwardly designated "Soulja Boy" [sic] continues his reign of terror atop the Billboard Hot 100 for the third straight week (and fifth overall). I find it extremely hard to believe that Kanye West can't overtake this guy, leaving one with the impression that the chart is wholly contrived (nah...). How else could a guy without a high school diploma best a guy who just graduated college? It certainly wasn't Mr. Boy's clever wordplay or immaculately produced tracks, though he apparently conjured up the whole mess all by his little self. He's credited with producing most of the tracks on his album, including the follow up to "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" [sic], the imaginatively titled "Soulja Girl" [sic].

Embarrassingly, the AllMusic guide gives the album 3.5/5... instilling in me with a curiosity that I will likely take to the grave.

In other heinous chart debacles, Feist tumbles from #8 to #27. Maybe that fruit company should run some more ads for mp3 players? With the drop, the 'board is left with Nickelback as its Canadian chart-darling... here's hoping 'Rockstar' can make it to #1 before "Soulja Girl" [sic]

Links:
Soulja Boy [sic] - Crank That (Soulja Boy) [sic]

Playlist of the Century...er...

David Kravetz at Wired.com has been following the RIAA trial of a woman who downloaded a few songs from Kazaa. The woman has been ordered to pay up to the tune of over $222,000 (or, $9,250 per song). Score one for the bad guys.

This is the corporation who was awarded the dubious title of "Most Hated Corporation in America" last year, edging out Cheney's Halliburton.

The most interesting part of this whole thing is, of course... the playlist for which Jammie Thomas was liable!

*Guns N Roses "Welcome to the Jungle"; "November Rain"
*Vanessa Williams "Save the Best for Last"
*Janet Jackson "Let's Wait Awhile"
*Gloria Estefan "Here We Are"; "Coming Out of the Dark"; "Rhythm is Gonna Get You"
*Goo Goo Dolls "Iris"
*Journey "Faithfully"; "Don't Stop Believing"
*Sarah McLachlan "Possession"; "Building a Mystery"
*Aerosmith "Cryin'"
*Linkin Park "One Step Closer"
*Def Leppard "Pour Some Sugar on Me"
*Reba McEntire "One Honest Heart"
*Bryan Adams "Somebody"
*No Doubt "Bathwater"; "Hella Good"; "Different People"
*Sheryl Crow "Run Baby Run"
*Richard Marx "Now and Forever"
*Destiny's Child "Bills, Bills, Bills"
*Green Day "Basket Case"

The lesson here is obvious. If you're going to download music, simply avoid downloading songs that are remotely popular. This list contains four tracks that peaked at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (Bills, Bills, Bills, Iris, Save the Best for Last, and Coming Out of the Dark), not to mention "Basket Case", which went to #1 on the Modern Rock chart, along with chart double-threat "Iris".

The ridiculousness of this situation is hard to overstate... it will do nothing but harm the RIAA's credibility in the eyes of the very people they're selling peddling their wares to. Certainly the RIAA intended to use this poor woman as an example, hoping to incite fear in their consumer base rather than concentrating on re-imagining their business models for the 21st century.

I wonder if anyone is willing to pay $92,500 for the new Radiohead album?