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Since NPR started airing the current Wycliffe Gordon-penned theme for All Things Considered in 1995, I’d always imagined it as a smartened variation of the Smurfs theme. (South Park returned the favor in 1998 by lifting its cheesy poofs theme from NPR.) My friend Jim, though, has just sent me a terrific 1968 Christmas song by a Polish rock group called Skaldowie (aided by a girl group called Ali Babki), and if my ears don’t deceive me, the refrain near the end of the song, starting at 2:19, anticipates All Things Considered quite faithfully 27 years previous.
Skaldowie - Bedzie Koleda (There Will Be a Christmas Carol)
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December’s always a good time to check in with Hal Schneider, a.k.a. Hal Holiday, the man that brought us the deathless “Sleigh Bell Rock”/”Booze Party” single in 1960 and whom I declared, quite astutely, back in ‘07 to be “Utah’s King of Rock ‘n’ Roll.” Hal continues to perform live in the Ogden and Salt Lake areas and recently gathered up some local press when the makers of the Australian film Red Dog used “Booze Party” for a bar scene. A smashing development for someone who, as of four years ago, had yet to see a dime for his nearly half-decade-old songs.
The Kingston Trio’s “Tom Dooley” hit #1 over the Thanksgiving weekend in 1958. I had a mini-Dooley fest on Folkways today, where I played the hit version, the Smothers Brothers version, Grayson and Whittier’s original 1929 version (Grayson was actually related to the Grayson in the song), and “Tom Dula” by the late Bill Morrissey with Greg Brown from 1993. I did not, however, play this 1974 Incredible Bongo Band version of the song, called “Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley, Your Tie’s Stuck in Your Zipper.”
Kendell Kardt has posted a disarming children’s story with a Thanksgiving theme on his blog. It’s called The Pearl, and let’s hope that by this time next year, some wise publisher or animator will have gotten to know William the Bell Buoy, Sally the Seagull and Freddy the Fish and given their story its due.
This is a mural done by William M. Tracy that once graced the entryway of the Terror Ride at Lagoon, which is an amusement park in Farmington, Utah. See it in full splendor at Ichabod Sanz’s Flickr page.
When I was a teenager in the ‘80s, the current hits of the day were always playing at swimming pools, arcades, malls, grocery stores, and theme parks. You didn’t need your radio carefully tuned to the Top 40 station to hear contemporary hits. As an adult who now takes his own kids to these places, 85% of what I heard this summer were hits from the ‘80s.
If public background music targets adults so aggressively nowadays (at least in my neck of the woods), I wonder how kids are hearing current hits. Do they listen to Top 40 with more premeditated determination than my generation ever did? Are they sneakier about it? Are chart positions today swayed by an even smaller segment of the population than before? Are the dance clubs that cater to late teens and twenty-somethings now the primary venues for Top 40 exposure? Is it TV that’s introducing kids to these songs? Someone should get empirical about this and let me know how it turns out.
I can at least talk about some of the hits themselves. What follows is a quick skim through all 23 titles to have roosted in the Top Ten of Billboard’s Hot 100 between June 1 and August 31 of this year. I’m no mathematician, but I’ve listed them according to popularity in terms of chart positions and weeks in the Top Ten. I’ve gone out of my way this summer - which is what it requires for an adult - to take these songs in along with their accompanying videos. I’ve done this by keeping my ears glued to the local Top 40 station (avoiding mornings) and spending unrecommended amounts of time on Vevo.
Before getting started, allow me to touch upon six trends I’ve noticed in this year’s summertime hit parade:
1) Eurodisco: At first glance, the term might seem dated and out of context, but I can’t think of anything more accurate to describe the frenzied, Ibiza-friendly sounds that presently make “rock” and “R&B” seem like far more badly dated terms than “eurodisco.”
2) Workhorse 4-bar chord sequences: Hit songwriters of today and the audiences who support them are very happy with refrains consisting of four repeating measures with four chords, each one assigned to an entire measure. The “With or Without You” (U2) template (”wowy” is what I call it) is among the most popular. The plodding persistence of this 4-chords per 4-measures in 4/4 time approach to songwriting (Adele’s “Someone Like You” is only the latest) is partly responsible for giving everyone over thirty the impression that their own teenage soundtracks were somehow innovative and/or Gershwin-esque.
3) Gap rap: As I put it once before, “gap rap” is a “longstanding musical feature unique to radio and music video in which ‘clean versions’ of (mainly) rap songs contain non-vocalized gaps in place of rude language. The effect is that of a rapper using a very cheap microphone cord.” An aura of defectiveness, in other words, accompanies all gap rap tracks.
4) The Katy Perry/Lady Gaga/Britney Spears corruptathon: The three biggest female singers of today are currently competing to see who can kill your preteen daughters’ childhoods the fastest. In their defense, they may be merely attempting to affirm that they are not, in fact, preteens themselves.
5) Whistling: The sound of whistling, either actual or synthesized, appeared in enough songs this summer to qualify as a full blown trend (so to speak). Who started this? What does it mean? Does it prophesy of the revenge of the “tweeter” after the long reign of the subwoofer?
5) Winks to the ’80s: Most of these songs contain a synth hook, melody, drum pattern, sample, or chord sequence that middle-agers will say sounds especially familiar. This is likely because contemporary hits are targeted to, and in many cases created by, kids who have subconsciously developed an ear for their parents’ ‘80s music, continually airing as it does in public spaces. (All of the short sound samples place the current hits alongside the ones they salute.)
The Neighborhood Archive is a gathering place for “all things Mister Rogers” lovingly maintained by curator Tim, who adds to it regularly.
Five of my favorite discoveries there include:
1) If We Were All the Same, a storybook about Lady Elaine Fairchild discovering the Purple Planet.
2) The Matter of the Mittens, a 1973 storybook featuring Lady Elaine at her edgiest and King Friday ordering everyone to wear mittens in the middle of the summer.
3) A plastic trolley that plays “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” as it rolls around.
4) The Mr. Rogers record player (this page has a bonus link to the Mr. McFeeley Speedy Delivery documentary DVD).
5) The Johnny Costa Plays Mister Rogers Neighborhood piano jazz LP.
Five things that I’ll be recommending for Tim the curator to add include:
1) Footage from synth legend Bruce Haack’s appearance on the show.
2) More stuff about Chef Brockett.
3) A mid-fifties appearance by Johnny Costa and “Handyman” Joe Negri on Ken Griffin’s 67 Melody Lane.
4) The floppy blue record Lady Aberlin gave me at the Valley Fair Mall in ‘76.
5) A terrific 1998 Esquire article by Tom Junod called “Can You Say…Hero?“
I’m pleased to announce that my new book, Early ’70s Radio: The American Format Revolution, is now available. I’ve also started a companion blog for the book that I’ll be monkeying around with alongside this one.
Clips:
Spirit - “Taurus” (1968)
The Chocolate Watchband - “And She’s Lonely” (1969)
Led Zeppelin - “Stairway to Heaven” (1971)
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The musical thieving habits of Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page are no big secret. And although pop music depends on and celebrates such practice, the apparent unwillingness of Page and co. to consistently give credit where it was due casts a bit of a pall over their safely monolithic legacy. A Perfect Sound Forever article called “The Thieving Magpies” catalogs the most egregious examples.
The article doesn’t mention the case of “The Immigrant Song,” though, which finds the band turning to “Bali Ha’i” from the Rogers and Hammerstein South Pacific soundtrack for that exotic, iconic opening caterwaul. Or, depending on the actual release date of the self-titled debut album by Lucifer’s Friend, Led Zeppelin perhaps nicked that group’s use of “Bali Ha’i” for their album-opener, “Ride in the Sky.” The Lucifer’s Friend album came out sometime in 1970 on the Vertigo label, and it’s a release LZ would surely have been hip to. “The Immigrant Song” showed up on Led Zeppelin III in October 1970…
None of this is in the category of “egregious,” but it’s amusing to think about. That fun club called Abba, after all, paid tribute to the whole lot of ‘em in 1975.
Update: This write-up of mysterious origin says the following: “The self-titled Lucifer’s Friend 1970 debut album, released by Vertigo Records in Europe and Billingsgate Records in the USA, sparked controversy through the track ‘Ride The Sky’, as critics voiced concern that the song was too close to Led Zeppelin’s ‘Immigrant Song’ for comfort. However, these assertions were quashed when it was revealed [that] ‘Ride The Sky’ had been composed much earlier.” Again, the LF album’s actual release date is important here if anyone can actually find it…
Clips: South Pacific soundtrack - “Bali Ha’i” (1949)
Led Zeppelin - “The Immigrant Song” (1970)
Lucifer’s Friend - “Ride in the Sky” (1970)
Abba - “So Long” (1975)
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