Venus In Furs - The Velvet Underground (1967)
Okay, everyone, time to get a little dark.
Listen to the song here.
But first, some history.
Having got their start in all the local clubs around New York City in the early 60's, they started a regular gig at the Cafe Bizarre, and gained the attention of none other than Andy Warhol. He became their manager and was able to get them a record deal and insisted they use German singer Nico on some of their tracks. However, he and the band parted ways after just the first album. This one, and the remaining 3 albums were released between 1967 and 1970. An incredibly impressive output.
The Velvet Underground is an incredibly influential band. As Brian Eno once said, "The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band." All 4 of their albums were listed in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time with their debut album (which includes Venus in Furs) at number 13. They were inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.
Now for the song we're reviewing today.
Venus in Furs is a song influenced by the book of the same name by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. The book, in a very quick nutshell is about a man named Severin who meets and falls in love with a woman named Wanda. But instead of a traditional love affair, he wants and convinces her, to take him as her slave, complete with emotional and physical abuse. The relationship ends when Wanda finds a man that she would like to have treat her the same way. It is because of this book that we have the word masochism.
To be honest, this song really doesn't do anything for me. I find Lou Reed's vocals to be completely dull, the use of the viola grating, and the entire song to be uninspired. However, this is NOT to undermine the band, or their influence. There are several other songs to listen to even off their first album that are infinitely better than this one. Especially Heroin and Run Run Run. But please..feel free to skip any of the songs that Nico sings.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Mad About The Boy
Mad About The Boy - Dinah Washington (1961)
Ah sweet diversity, how I love thee.
Listen to the song here.
Originally written in 1932 by Noel Coward for the revue Words and Music, this song tells of a longing for the actor on the silver screen. Bluesy, torchy, jazzy all rolled into one, this version of the song shows off Dinah's charisma.
While covered by numerous other people through the years including Marianne Faithfull, Lena Horne, Jessica Biel, and even Miss Piggy, Dinah's version has seemed to stand the test of time and gained in popularity from it's use in a popular Levi's commercial. The song was re-released in 1992, and was able to crack the UK singles chart.
Dinah was born in 1924 as Ruth Lee Jones. After winning a talent contest at 15 years old, she was able to grab the attentions of such musicians as Fats Waller and Lionel Hampton and quickly rose to popularity. While not always appreciated by the critics, one can't deny her appeal with her fans. In the span of 7 years she achieved 27 top 10 hits on the R & B chart with several crossovers into the Pop chart. Impressive by any standard to be sure.
Unfortunately, she passed away from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills at the age of just 39 in 1963. She was honored with an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.
My feelings on the song:
In researching her, I listened to several of her other tracks, and while I like this song, I believe she's done better. Her versions of What A Difference A Day Makes, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, and Is You Is, Or Is You Ain't My Baby are some of the best renditions I've heard.
So check this out, as well as her others. I don't believe you'll be disappointed.
Ah sweet diversity, how I love thee.
Listen to the song here.
Originally written in 1932 by Noel Coward for the revue Words and Music, this song tells of a longing for the actor on the silver screen. Bluesy, torchy, jazzy all rolled into one, this version of the song shows off Dinah's charisma.
While covered by numerous other people through the years including Marianne Faithfull, Lena Horne, Jessica Biel, and even Miss Piggy, Dinah's version has seemed to stand the test of time and gained in popularity from it's use in a popular Levi's commercial. The song was re-released in 1992, and was able to crack the UK singles chart.
Dinah was born in 1924 as Ruth Lee Jones. After winning a talent contest at 15 years old, she was able to grab the attentions of such musicians as Fats Waller and Lionel Hampton and quickly rose to popularity. While not always appreciated by the critics, one can't deny her appeal with her fans. In the span of 7 years she achieved 27 top 10 hits on the R & B chart with several crossovers into the Pop chart. Impressive by any standard to be sure.
Unfortunately, she passed away from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills at the age of just 39 in 1963. She was honored with an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.
My feelings on the song:
In researching her, I listened to several of her other tracks, and while I like this song, I believe she's done better. Her versions of What A Difference A Day Makes, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, and Is You Is, Or Is You Ain't My Baby are some of the best renditions I've heard.
So check this out, as well as her others. I don't believe you'll be disappointed.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Dead Souls
Dead Souls - Joy Division (1980)
This is why I wanted to start this blog in the first place: finding out about bands and songs that I've never heard of before, and spreading the knowledge to you.
See a live performance here.
Joy Division formed in 1976 after 2 founding members,Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook , friends since elementary school, both attended the second ever concert of the Sex Pistols and became inspired. And if you don't know who they are, stick around, they'll be featured later on. They quickly got the other two members of their band Stephen Morris and Ian Curtis.
After a few years of local touring in the UK and their self published EP , they caught the attention of the independent label Factory Records and released their first album Unknown Pleasures in 1979. Then, Ian, their front man and primary lyricist, was diagnosed with seizures and his health began to diminish.
On the eve of their first American tour, Ian Curtis committed suicide.
They released their second album Closer after his death which gave them their highest chart success with Love Will Tear Us Apart.
This brings us to the release of the song Dead Souls. A rare single titled Licht und Blindheit gave us the songs Atmosphere and Dead Souls.
My own take on the song is this: I like it. Yeah, that's a bit of a quick
review, but it's accurate.
The song goes for about 2 minutes before the
first word, making me think upon first listen that it was an instrumental. The
melody itself has a touch of emotion to it, but in my opinion it's not
depressing at all. Then the lyrics come in: "Someone take these dreams away /
that point me to another day." This invokes in me the darker feelings that Ian
had inside of him - his concerns about his health (he was experiencing
increasingly serious epileptic seizures), his inability to sleep, and his
worries about his relationship with his wife - were closing in and leading to
his eventual death.
I can definitely see their influence, even though
they weren't around long. Before "Alternative" was a musical style, they were
doing it. Their influence is still felt today from bands like Smashing Pumpkins
and Nine Inch Nails who did a cover of this very song for the soundtrack of The
Crow.
Definitely a song worth checking out.
This is why I wanted to start this blog in the first place: finding out about bands and songs that I've never heard of before, and spreading the knowledge to you.
See a live performance here.
Joy Division formed in 1976 after 2 founding members,Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook , friends since elementary school, both attended the second ever concert of the Sex Pistols and became inspired. And if you don't know who they are, stick around, they'll be featured later on. They quickly got the other two members of their band Stephen Morris and Ian Curtis.
After a few years of local touring in the UK and their self published EP , they caught the attention of the independent label Factory Records and released their first album Unknown Pleasures in 1979. Then, Ian, their front man and primary lyricist, was diagnosed with seizures and his health began to diminish.
On the eve of their first American tour, Ian Curtis committed suicide.
They released their second album Closer after his death which gave them their highest chart success with Love Will Tear Us Apart.
This brings us to the release of the song Dead Souls. A rare single titled Licht und Blindheit gave us the songs Atmosphere and Dead Souls.
My own take on the song is this: I like it. Yeah, that's a bit of a quick
review, but it's accurate.
The song goes for about 2 minutes before the
first word, making me think upon first listen that it was an instrumental. The
melody itself has a touch of emotion to it, but in my opinion it's not
depressing at all. Then the lyrics come in: "Someone take these dreams away /
that point me to another day." This invokes in me the darker feelings that Ian
had inside of him - his concerns about his health (he was experiencing
increasingly serious epileptic seizures), his inability to sleep, and his
worries about his relationship with his wife - were closing in and leading to
his eventual death.
I can definitely see their influence, even though
they weren't around long. Before "Alternative" was a musical style, they were
doing it. Their influence is still felt today from bands like Smashing Pumpkins
and Nine Inch Nails who did a cover of this very song for the soundtrack of The
Crow.
Definitely a song worth checking out.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Welcome!
Well. I've started a blog.
For those of you who know me, you would have never thought this would happen, but there were a few things that have happened the last few years that have brought this idea to light.
The first thing happened one fateful 4th of July when I got a call from my good friends Josh and Annie. Without getting into a tremendous amount of detail and potential embarrassment, we'll just say that I found out during that call that Josh didn't know very much about Classic Rock music, which is something that is very near and dear to me.
I resolved to teach him about the music that I loved so much, so I set about to make him several Cd's that ranged from the beginning of Rock and Roll until the end of the 80's. Instead of just handing him a bunch of songs with no context behind him, I created liner notes for each song which detailed title, artist, year of release and a little tidbit related to each song. That tidbit might be about the song itself, the artist, or perhaps something personal to me about the song.
In creating these liner notes, I discovered many things that I never knew. And I considered myself fairly knowledgeable about the subject, but by no means an expert. Researching these songs created in me another eventual reason for this blog, the enjoyment of learning so much more about one of my favorite things.
Now, the final piece that brought this idea into my head, was the discovery of a book called 1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die And 10,001 You Must Download. In looking through that book, I saw many songs that I was completely unfamiliar with, so therefore, my thirst for more knowledge was piqued. Having just bought the book, I really haven't looked through it all that much, but came up with the idea for this blog on my way home.
My plan for this blog is to get a random number from Random.org between 1 and 1001, listen to whichever song is represented by that number, then post my thoughts and maybe a bit of information about that song in the hopes that you, whoever you may be, will want to check them out yourself.
This may work, this may not work, it's very possible that nobody will care, but oh well. I think it'll be fun, and I'm nothing if not self-indulgent.
For those of you who know me, you would have never thought this would happen, but there were a few things that have happened the last few years that have brought this idea to light.
The first thing happened one fateful 4th of July when I got a call from my good friends Josh and Annie. Without getting into a tremendous amount of detail and potential embarrassment, we'll just say that I found out during that call that Josh didn't know very much about Classic Rock music, which is something that is very near and dear to me.
I resolved to teach him about the music that I loved so much, so I set about to make him several Cd's that ranged from the beginning of Rock and Roll until the end of the 80's. Instead of just handing him a bunch of songs with no context behind him, I created liner notes for each song which detailed title, artist, year of release and a little tidbit related to each song. That tidbit might be about the song itself, the artist, or perhaps something personal to me about the song.
In creating these liner notes, I discovered many things that I never knew. And I considered myself fairly knowledgeable about the subject, but by no means an expert. Researching these songs created in me another eventual reason for this blog, the enjoyment of learning so much more about one of my favorite things.
Now, the final piece that brought this idea into my head, was the discovery of a book called 1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die And 10,001 You Must Download. In looking through that book, I saw many songs that I was completely unfamiliar with, so therefore, my thirst for more knowledge was piqued. Having just bought the book, I really haven't looked through it all that much, but came up with the idea for this blog on my way home.
My plan for this blog is to get a random number from Random.org between 1 and 1001, listen to whichever song is represented by that number, then post my thoughts and maybe a bit of information about that song in the hopes that you, whoever you may be, will want to check them out yourself.
This may work, this may not work, it's very possible that nobody will care, but oh well. I think it'll be fun, and I'm nothing if not self-indulgent.
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