Song of the Week – Mandinka, Sinead O’Connor

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IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED

In 1987 Sinead O’Connor burst onto the music scene with her debut album The Lion and the Cobra. The 20 year old Irish lass with the shaved head and tattoos made it clear from the start that she would be an unconventional force to be reckoned with. That album did OK in the US, reaching #36 on the Billboard album chart and spawning a couple of singles that were popular on modern rock radio and in dance clubs.

A few years later O’Connor scored big time on MTV with Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” from her second album, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got. Everyone remembers the video close ups with her striking blue eyes and the tear drops that delicately roll down her cheeks toward the song’s sad conclusion.

But let’s get back to The Lion and the Cobra for today’s SotW, “Mandinka.”

“Mandinka” reached #14 on the Billboard Hot Dance/Club Play chart at a time that I was a club DJ in Boston. It was one of my favorite tracks to spin.

Some people have interpreted the song to be a protest against the African Mandinkan tribe’s tradition of female genital mutation.

I have refused to take part
I told them “drink something new”
Please let me pull something through

I don’t know no shame
I feel no pain
I can’t

It would be no surprise if that wat the topic given O’Connor’s penchant for courting controversy. In 1992 she appeared on Saturday Night Live and tore up a picture of the Pope and tossed it at the camera to protest sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

In the late 90s she was ordained a priest in Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church, which is not part of the Roman Catholic Church (that does not allow women to become priests).

As recently as 2014/15, O’Connor has released new music that has received nominations for music industry awards.

Enjoy… until next week.

Obit – Grant Hart – Husker Du – 9/14/17

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Husker Du drummer Grant Hart died of cancer today at age 56. Zen Arcade was in my top 50 album list and the Huskers were true pioneers of the melodic dissonance sound copied a billion times over since their heydey in the 80’s. I was fortunate enough to see them live at some dump in Philly in their prime.

Of course, Husker Du is not in the Rock Hall. We need the space for rapper Tupac and seventh-rate copy punkers Green Day.

I know this is a song written by Grant and sung by him too. Adios, amigo.

Seu Jorge

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My girlfriend’s taking me to see Seu Jorge 9/30 in Philly. Like everyone else on the planet, I was turned on to Seu Jorge via Life Aquatic.

I think a dog could bark Life On Mars and it would be beautiful, but this moves me. I think I like Jorge singing Bowie even better than I like Ferry singing Dylan (and that says a lot).

Song of the Week – My City of Ruins, Bruce Springsteen

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IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED

All of the recent natural disasters – multiple hurricanes and a huge earthquake off the coast of Mexico – have caused me to think about Bruce Springsteen’s “My City of Ruins,” today’s SotW.

“My City of Ruins” was included on Springsteen’s album The Rising (2002). The Rising was The Boss’s answer to the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center although “My City of Ruins” was actually written a couple of years earlier about Asbury Park.

In Springsteen’s autobiography Born to Run, he describes “My City of Ruins” as “the soul gospel of my favorite sixties records, speaking not just of Asbury Park but hopefully of other places and other lands.”

“Soul gospel”… that’s just how I always heard it. Let’s call it a distant cousin to Curtis Mayfield’s (The Impressions’) “People Get Ready,” a long time favorite of mine.

Springsteen is one of the few artists whose later albums speak to me as completely as his early albums. There aren’t many.

Enjoy… until next week.

Yes, Roundabout

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This isn’t the only excellent Yes song.

But when I put on their History of Yes set, sorted randomly, I was quickly shunted into despair.

All the talk about virtuosity here, the reason we thought these songs were rock songs were because the drums spoke to us. The bass, too.

Wakefield. Capes. Pawns. As rock fans in the day this came out, it wasn’t exotic. It was music that evolved naturally out of Traffic and the Moody Blues and whatever.

Lester Bangs and the Delinquents, “I Just Want to Be a Movie Star”

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Facebook friend Darren Viola posted some Christgau clips of 1977 live show previews of the B-52s and Fleshtones shows at Max’s, which are fun, but down in the comments was a link to this tune from 1980.

I didn’t know this one, which is great fun.

Listening to the whole album. Good!

Prog Rock Episode

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I loved ELP’s version of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.

I loved Yes. I liked the Moody Blues. Fucking King Crimson.

Kelefah Sanneh wrote about prog rock in the New Yorker earlier this year. You can read his excellent piece here.

I loved much of this music. Virtuosity was important, but so was a big bottom. In my memory this was music that pounded was aggressive, like rock, but also exulted in notes and playing, and felt really good.

Sanneh gets that, which is why I’m here.

One thing I remember was that Scott Muni, the program director of WNEW as well as DJ, would often put on a whole side of Yes or the Moody Blues in order to take meetings while DJing. That usually worked, though WE knew.

There are lots of good suggestions about what you should listen to in Sanneh’s story, so go and listen to them. I’ve had three conversations in recent weeks about the Mahavishnu Orchestra. As Sanneh says, not prog, but passing.

And more than anything, you should listen to Bitches Brew.

 

 

 

Obituary: Walter Becker (February 20, 1950-September 3, 2017)

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Walter Becker, co-founder, guitar, bass player, and songwriter for Steely Dan has passed away from and undisclosed illness.

I pretty much dismissed the band following the release of their first single, Reelin’ in the Years, thinking it was a solid enough pop tune, but not thinking that much of the band, kind of the same as I liked Radiohead’s Creep when it was released never thinking what an incredible and rich catalog of tunes the band would produce.

In fact the analogy works for me since I bought both bands’ first albums, Can’t Buy a Thrill (Steely Dan) and Pablo Honey (Radiohead) liking the works in general, but never really suspecting how sophisticated the development of the band’s respective music would become.

But, starting with Countdown to Ecstasy, Pretzel Logic, Katy Lied, and then The Royal Scam, the Dan produced four albums that are as good, interesting, musically listenable and challenging as anything any performer could make

In fact, I think when I noted bands with three brilliant consecutive albums, Tom rightfully put Steely Dan’s–named for a chromed dildo in William Burrough’s Naked Lunch–list from above starting and stopping wherever you want, even adding Can’t Buy a Thrill on the front and Aja the back end.

I have to admit that with the band’s final big commercial success with Aja I became disinterested, slightly because it felt like I had been there before with the band, and partly because I was seriously into Punk and British Power Pop by then.

And, I had no interest in the band reforming and was no more interested in seeing their reunion than I would have been The Doobie Brothers or The Moody Blues.

Still, the band killed it for ten years with fantastic melodies and obscure interesting lyrics and a cluster of albums I still love.

Later Walter. Thanks for an incredible body of work and hours of pleasure. Here is a fave of mine.