Suddenly...
A lot of people in the world of iTunes have (re-)discovered the Beatles since their music, originally recorded in a studio named Apple Records, is now finally available on Apple's music service.
Now their is a bombardment of playlists of the Beatles Most Psychedelic Songs, The Beatles Evolution, The Best Beatles Songs to Cook By, Beatles Songs for your next Garden Party, Beatles Songs to Make Baby Smart, etc. Neat.
The thing is that if you are wildly successful you can produce some pretty awful stuff, and it gets released because, well, after all you're the Beatles or "Paul and the boys were having a laugh" or "John was high" or "Wow, they're pushing the boundaries!", etc. Yes, but it's still awful.
I will also include little known Beatles covers by people who obviously thought if they performed a popular song by a popular band it would be GREAT. I remember how difficult it was to maintain my poker face back in my band days when someone spoke in awe of a local band who could "cover the Beatles AND Pink Floyd". OK, sure, man.... The fact is these guys wrote songs, and good musicians can play them and they will sound good if they are good songs. (For instance...) In other words, if they are not the songs on my list. Again—the claim that "awe, you can tell he/she/they was/were joking" will be summarily dismissed.
Love that analog delay and reverb, man.
Maybe I will do a Worst of Pink Floyd playlist sometime. But I don't know if there's a time limit on playlists. I might have to get out the editing software and do one called First 45 seconds of the Worst Pink Floyd Songs.
Dang. I can't find Bing Crosby's Hey Jude on iTunes.
ReplyDeleteHave you informed Professor Rodriguez that we are standing with him against Beatles microaggression?
ReplyDeleteFunny! Well, sad, but funny.
DeleteJust added Joan Baez's Eleanor Rigby. Very few people can take a hit, rewrite it, sing it totally differently and have it still be good. There is a shortage of Jimi Hendrix's in the world.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is that if you are wildly successful you can produce some pretty awful stuff, and it gets released because, well, after all you're the Beatles or "Paul and the boys were having a laugh" or "John was high" or "Wow, they're pushing the boundaries!", etc. Yes, but it's still awful.
ReplyDeleteWhen Abbey Road came out, my college classmates and I practically burned incense to it. But gosh, there were some pretty awful songs on that album. What were we thinking?
Not to mention that we all assumed that the lyrics contained such deep-deep meaning, but that we were too uncool and too stupid to figure out the point.
DeleteNow we know better -- turns out we were too smart for those awful lyrics. (The Lennon-McCartney ones, anyway; the lyrics of the George songs are pretty good, and fit the music nicely.)
When Abbey Road came out, my college classmates and I practically burned incense to it. But gosh, there were some pretty awful songs on that album. What were we thinking?
DeleteJim Morrison lyrics: when you're 15 they're profound, when you're 25 they're cringe worthy, and when you're 35 you deny owning the albums in the first place.
And that's discounting the lyrics he copied straight from William Blake poems.
The thing is that if you are wildly successful you can produce some pretty awful stuff...
ReplyDeleteIn addition, if you are married to someone wildly successful, you can produce some really awful stuff and get it on national TV so long as you bring the Beatle along.
Here's my favorite example (I've probably posted it here before, but it's worth another listen). From the bridge at 3:35 to the end is extra special. And Shirley Maclaine's shameless fawning afterwards proves Pauli's point.
P.S. This should of course be the "Y" entry should Pauli's alphabet of '70s rock and roll start up again.