Tag: Rolling Stone magazine

U2, Bob Crewe, Fab Four, plus more

Bob Crewe died at the age of 83. You may not know the name – I’ll admit I did – but you surely know the songs.

u2If you’ve read this blog long enough, you know I can have some strong opinions. But with the U2/Apple thing, I feel ambivalent. On one level, I’m oddly entertained by people freaking out over Apple’s forced iTunes download of U2’s new album, and wonder if it’s just a first world problem. I particularly loved how it ruined someone’s “carefully curated collection.” I’m impressed how well the secret was kept, with the release date of the next U2 album still unclear to the media as of last month.

Then there’s the Why U2? contingent epitomized by this quote: “It’s true that Apple’s wine-drinking, plane-flying user base probably overlaps with U2’s cool-dad core audience more than most bands.” Ah, U2’s not cool enough; here’s the album should have given away instead, and maybe they’re right. Fortunately, I’ve read plenty of suggestions about how to delete it.

The result of this apparent misstep is that the album, Songs of Innocence, is crap. 24 hours after release, it was deemed the worst U2 album ever, as though one could decide something like that so quickly. I still haven’t hear the thing, so I have no opinion.

The bulk of the criticism, though, has to do with lack of choice in the matter, that was fascistically foisted upon millions of users. Maybe that’s true, I dunno. Read the Rolling Stone article about the event.
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Bob Crewe died at the age of 83. You may not know the name – I’ll admit I did – but you surely know the songs. There are nice pieces by Rolling Stone and Dustbury.
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Without much effort, I keep finding Beatles-related stuff, some e-mailed to me, for some obscure reason.
*1964 – the menace of Beatlism
*their 1st US TV Appearance?
*Someone Uploaded the Entire ‘Beatles’ Cartoon Series to YouTube – it’s not “long-forgotten” by me
*Kids React to the Beatles.
*Apple scruff Lizzie Bravo: the girl who sang with the Beatles
*It Don’t Come Easy by George Harrison
*Paul McCartney ‘Early Days’ behind-the-scenes blues jamming.
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Jay Z Steps Up To The Plate To Argue That Tiny Music Samples Are Unprotected By Copyright As TechDirt said, Good for him.
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Early Simpsons: a hymn by I. Ron Butterfly.
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Arthur points to the drinking song that we sing when we present the US national anthem. No, it isn’t that easy to sing either. I’ve been REALLY liberal when people do the Star-Spangled Banner (Jimi Hendrix, Marvin Gaye, Jose Feliciano are all fine with me, but Rosanne was not). I hear it as a swing version myself.

Oh, here’s version (of SSB, not the drinking song) by niece #1, Rebecca Jade, if I’m doing that FB embed thing correctly:

Beauty: skin deep

The New York Times used exactly the same photo on the cover of their May 5 issue as Rolling Stone did more than two months later.

It’s well established in the literature that attractive people generally fare better. In many cases, humans attribute positive characteristics, such as intelligence and honesty, to physically attractive people without consciously realizing it.

I think that’s why the story of the dental assistant in Iowa who was fired for being too attractive – Cheri noted it recently – got so much attention.

At some level, I think the issue of the recent cover of the magazine Rolling Stone was upsetting to some people because Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is not homely.

In TIME magazine, Alexandra Sifferlin quotes psychologist Ellen Berscheid: “While seeing an attractive picture of a villainous person isn’t likely to change our opinion of that individual’s egregious acts, as the uproar over the image indicates, it could lead us to feel some emotions that we may not think are appropriate. That includes sadness, and perhaps even a douse of empathy over why an attractive person would commit a terrible crime.”

William Rivers Pitt in Truthout opined: “The outrage over Tsarnaev’s face on the cover has everything to do with the fact that there is a puppy-dog cuteness about him which is jarring in the context of his alleged crimes… As for glorifying Tsarnaev or potentially upsetting the bombing victims, his face has been on the front page of every newspaper in the Western hemisphere more than once…” In fact, as Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi noted: “They used an existing photo, one already used by other organizations. The New York Times, in fact, used exactly the same photo on the cover of their May 5 issue.”

The same picture that Rolling Stone used was on the front page of the New York Times a couple of months earlier.

Pitt said: “Putting newsmakers on the cover [of the magazine] is not out of line. Hell, they had Charlie Manson on the cover once upon a time, as well as George W. Bush in 2009.” It’s not as though Rolling Stone dubbed him the sexiest terrorist or something.

Ty Burr of the Boston Globe complained the picture was a selfie in a bit of psychobabble I don’t quite follow.

I was reminded that, back in 1994, TIME magazine darkened a cover picture of O.J. Simpson. It was supposed to be some artistic decision, but many people thought it was designed to make him seem more sinister. And TIME has had as Man of the Year Adolf Hitler (1939) and Ayatollah Khomeini (1979), but they weren’t endorsing them, merely noting their significance.

I’m not unsympathetic to those who might find the photo unsettling, and I understand why some stores took it off the shelves. But I don’t think the cover choice is outlandish.

The Rolling Stone Top 10 Albums of the 1980s

There are plenty of Richard Thompson solo, usually live, versions of most, if not all of these songs.

There was a period, before such lists became ubiquitous, that I actually looked forward to Top 10 or Top 100 musical lists. Such was the case with “Rolling Stone – The 100 Greatest Albums Of The 80s”, which someone kindly listed here.

1. London Calling – The Clash
2. Purple Rain – Prince & The Revolution
3. The Joshua Tree – U2
4. Remain In Light – Talking Heads
5. Graceland – Paul Simon
6. Born In The U.S.A. – Bruce Springsteen
7. Thriller – Michael Jackson
8. Murmur – REM
9. Shoot Out The Lights – Richard And Linda Thompson
10. Tracy Chapman – Tracy Chapman

By the early 1990s, I had nine of these albums, all except #9. So one year, probably for my birthday, but possibly for Christmas, I received Shoot Out The Lights from my workmates. It has to be the least well-known album of the bunch.

Here’s the Wikipedia telling about the tortured history of the album, involving the late Gerry Rafferty. “Richard and Linda Thompson’s 1982 masterpiece, Shoot Out the Lights, is a celebration of love gone sour. Like all great works, its themes are at once specific and universal.”

Side one
Don’t Renege on Our Love – 4:19
Walking on a Wire – 5:29
Man in Need – 3:36
Just the Motion – 6:19
Side two
Shoot Out the Lights – 5:24
Back Street Slide – 4:33
Did She Jump or Was She Pushed? – 4:52
Wall of Death – 3:43

There are plenty of Richard Thompson solo, usually live, versions of most, if not all of these songs on YouTube.

30-Day Challenge: Day 6 – Favorite Song

I own the vast majority of the music released in the 20th Century on the Rolling Stone magazine list, but did only so-so on this past decade.

If you had access to the soundtrack of my mind – my, that’d be VERY scary, and you don’t know how lucky you are – you would know that picking a favorite song is nigh unto impossible. I did select 100 songs that moved me, with my #1 pick here a couple of years back, but such a list is highly fungible.

Besides, that doesn’t mean any of them are my favorites. I’m always thinking, “How could I forget THAT one?” Experienced that phenomenon just recently when I was watching an episode of Glee and hear the song “A House Is Not A Home” and thought, “I’m very fond of the Dionne Warwick version of that song; should have made the list.”

So, I decided to pick a list of three of my favorite songs that namecheck other songs by that same performer:

3. Creeque Alley by The Mamas and the Papas, with the final line, “And California Dreamin’ is becomin’ a reality…

2. Glass Onion by the Beatles with references to Strawberry Fields Forever, I Am The Walrus, Lady Madonna, Fool on the Hill, and Fixing a Hole

1. Sly and the Family Stone – Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) that mentions, almost in a row, Dance to the music, Everyday people and Sing a simple song


Rolling Stone has updated its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Since none of them are from before 1940, I assume we’re talking popular, recorded songs, not of the classical or jazz genre. Still, I note that I own the vast majority of the music released in the 20th Century on the list, but only so-so on this past decade. I own the first 50, indeed, the first 99; #100 is Crazy by Gnars Barkley.

The Tony Awards, celebrating Broadway’s finest, are on this Sunday, broadcast on CBS-TV. I always watch because it’s generally more entertaining than any other awards show. There’s a large number of actors more associated with TV and film who are nominated this year. Also nominated for Best Musical: American Idiot, based on the Green Day album.

Ramblin' with Roger
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