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The Sounds of Our Lives (formerly General Music Discussion)


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I'm not sure why this was okay.  Was this not a huge deal back then?   At work so didn't listen today but someone online said listen to the second verse.

 

First song:  Madonna, "Papa Don't Preach"  (1986)

 

 

Second song:  Suzanne Vega, "Luka" (1987)

 

 

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When Ariana Grande performed her new song "A Dangerous Woman" on Saturday Night Live last month I didn't understand how it's okay that she so clearly lifted another VERY recent hit, The Weeknd's "Earned It".  And it's not like "Earned It" isn't famous enough considering it was in 50 Shades of Grey and then nominated for AN OSCAR.  Warning:  I'm sure The Weeknd's video is NSFW.  I purposely searched for this comparison on Twitter, and somebody pointed out that "Earned It" is a rip off of "Impossible" by Christina Aguilera!  Who knows how far back this shit goes.  (First page of this thread, spaceytraci1208 remarks that Impossible is a rip off of an Arentha Franklin song.... My word!)

 

 

 

Edited by Ms Blue Jay
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(edited)

Okay, it is SO damn weird to stumble on a new video from this week that's labeled as coming from "the NEW Monkees Album". In fact the whole blurb confuses even more, because it's... well... here it is...

 

Quote

Published on Apr 28, 2016

Written by Weezer's Rivers Cuomo, "She Makes Me Laugh" is the first single of the new Monkees album GOOD TIMES!

The Monkees - "She Makes Me Laugh" [Official Lyric Video]

 

TIME Magazine explains what's going on though:  http://time.com/4312503/the-monkees-she-makes-me-laugh-weezer/

Quote

Earlier this year, it was announced that beloved 1960s pop outfit and television stars the Monkees were making a new album, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the group. Now, the first single “She Makes Me Laugh” has just been released and it puts the words of Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo into the Monkees’ sunny pop songs to great effect. The accompanying lyric video is equally fun, drawing the Monkees into anArchie-style comic.

Original Monkees members Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork, and Mike Nesmith (Davy Jones passed away in 2012) headed to the studio for Good Times! the band’s first new album in 20 years. The album pairs the Monkees with songwriters like Oasis’s Noel Gallagher, Brit rock legend Paul Weller, Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard, and XTC’s Andy Partridge, and was produced by Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne.

The album also features a handful of unreleased songs written for the band in their heyday, including contributions by Neil Diamond, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, and Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, along with the title track, whose name comes from a previously unreleased Harry Nilsson song.

The Monkees’ new album is due out 5/27 and the group will launch a 50th anniversary tour on May 18. 

So yeah. It's a bunch of old men going on tour. For real. Minus Davy, their default poster boy. Singing some old unreleased songs (one from Carole King? REALLY?) and some new ones written by big current names (well, I consider Oasis, Weezer, Fountains of Wayne, Death Cab for Cutie, and XTC to be HUGE names, personally). So yeah. Weird!

By the way, if the aim was to produce a good example of what eventually came to be called "Power Pop"? (which groups like XTC, Fountains of Wayne, Oasis and Weezer all performed variations of). Rivers Cuomo did a pretty good job with this songwriting. It's catchy in that classic Power Pop way, that arguably the Monkees were early pioneers of. And seeing it laid out in a Lyrics video is cool because it shows how complicated the lyrics actually are--it sounds like Bubble Gum but the lyrics are actually pretty complex.

Edited by Kromm
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She has trying my (our) patience these last few years with some of her stunts, but damn it, she's made some of my pop music on the planet, especially with her first few albums, and her status as an icon cannot be denied. Here is a place to discuss her career and music.

One of my favorite songs of hers, actually, is a non-single from her first album called "I Know It." I could listen to it forever.

 

As for her more recent music, "Ghosttown" is AWESOME. It is INSANE how she seemed to let "Bitch I'm Madonna" overshadow it. COME ON, Madge.

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On 5/1/2016 at 7:33 PM, Kromm said:

Okay, it is SO damn weird to stumble on a new video from this week that's labeled as coming from "the NEW Monkees Album". In fact the whole blurb confuses even more, because it's... well... here it is...

 

Hey, the whole revival schtick worked to great effect for the (then) remaining three Beatles in 1995 with the release of the Anthology series/ABC special and the releases of "Free As A Bird" and "Real Love".

So why not try a similar formula for another popular retro '60s band?

Never got into the latter; loved the former. But good luck to the surviving Monkees all the same!

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I am so glad The Monkees anniversary hasn't been forgotten and having not only a new album but quality (from the two tracks I've heard so far) power pop that fits the group nicely.  Love how Mickey Dolenz hasn't lost his vocals (so many other singers his age often can't hack it anymore) and the tunes to me would be a great respite for all the rap/hip-hop/auto-tuned music that's been dominating the radio in recent years.  It's sounds so refreshing!!  Also a bonus to have current talent writing their new material - if anything, that's the spirit of Monkees music - great vocals and harmonies plus talented songwriters and producers.  

 

If only Davy could be here now....

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59 minutes ago, magicdog said:

I am so glad The Monkees anniversary hasn't been forgotten and having not only a new album but quality (from the two tracks I've heard so far) power pop that fits the group nicely.  Love how Mickey Dolenz hasn't lost his vocals (so many other singers his age often can't hack it anymore) and the tunes to me would be a great respite for all the rap/hip-hop/auto-tuned music that's been dominating the radio in recent years.  It's sounds so refreshing!!  Also a bonus to have current talent writing their new material - if anything, that's the spirit of Monkees music - great vocals and harmonies plus talented songwriters and producers.  

 

If only Davy could be here now....

What's great is that She Makes Me Laugh actually sounds LIKE a Monkees song... and yet also a Weezer song.. Both at once.

And "You Bring The Summer" probably actually IS an unrecorded XTC song that Andy Partridge dug out. And in this case, the voices of the singers involved ARE similar (unlike with Weezer).


 

But for all that it's virtually an XTC song, it's also not incompatible with The Monkees own catalogue (although those distortion sound effects we hear a few times during the song, particularly the end ARE pure XTC and nothing The Monkees ever did themselves--in fact XTC got it from The Beatles). 

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(edited)
On 5/6/2016 at 9:39 AM, Shannon L. said:

This is a lot of fun and I could myself getting lost in it for a while:  http://polygraph.cool/history/

(It says you need headphones, but I didn't have to use any).

Wow. Nice find. I don't have the hours now, but when I do and have a way to put it on while I do something else, I may let it run for more than the 2 minutes I just did.

Heh. I just clicked on an older year and I noticed that the stuff there has 1-2 second clips (whereas the stuff in the 90s I started with had like 30 second clips). I wonder if that's due more to rights, or just an assumption people will have more patience for the semi-modern music.

 

EDIT - it probably IS rights. I eventually started bumping into longer clips in 1975 (my first stab at an older period), as I left it on longer (whereas the 90s went to longer clips almost immediately).

EDIT 2 - Oh, now I get it.. The length of the clip represents HOW LONG it stayed at #1. The 1975 ones jumped all over the place because nothing stayed at #1 for more than a week.  In the 90s stuff stayed at #1 for longer. I was just in 1968 and saw "Hey Jude" stay at #1 for a LONG time and the clip keep playing.

Edited by Kromm
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Quote

Heh. I just clicked on an older year and I noticed that the stuff there has 1-2 second clips (whereas the stuff in the 90s I started with had like 30 second clips). I wonder if that's due more to rights, or just an assumption people will have more patience for the semi-modern music.

It might have something to do with how long those songs were number one? The day counter on top moves really fast, so the shorter amount of time the song is at number one, the less time there is to play the clip.

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(edited)
21 minutes ago, Shannon L. said:

It might have something to do with how long those songs were number one? The day counter on top moves really fast, so the shorter amount of time the song is at number one, the less time there is to play the clip.

It does. I just verified that.

It gets really funny at some points hearing big long clips for some questionable songs. For example, just heard a big long ass haul for "In The Year 2525" in 1969. A real head scratcher for a long #1 haul. But it happened.

The late 70s is particularly entertaining to leave on. Why? Not because you are getting just great songs, but because the #1 spot is in such a violent seesaw between great songs and awful ones. Just back and forth and back and forth between some of the best stuff ever put on record, to some of the worst, over and over again during that period. Although even that back and forth breaks up when suddenly... you get, ugh, 2 and a half months straight, in a row, of Debbie Boone being at #1. 

Even 2015 (which only runs to November 7th) is kind of interesting, because it shows how in that year how a mere 3-4 songs basically dominated the #1 spot for most of the year. 

Edited by Kromm
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I was looking for Cave's version of Henry Lee, which he performed as a duet with PJ Harvey, on Slacker.com, and found this first. For those of you who aren't familiar with his music, his voice is very dirge-y, but he usually picks songs that suit it. I've been listening to this repeatedly since yesterday, because it's just amazing.

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OK, I just went and listened to "Can't Stop the Feeling" based on the last two posts and towards the end of the song when he was riffing I started going "oooooh" in that way he does -- just being an asshole -- and sure enough he does that at the end! Man. I wish someone was here to have heard that. It's an alright song. It's less trend-setting than "Happy" by Pharrell, but maybe a bit more organic. JT needs to stop trying to be MJ, though. 

I came to post about "Dangerous Woman" by Ariana Grande. I don't know if she's having really good sex, or maybe her slight dip in popularity over the past year or so has her being a bit more real, or what, but she gets busy on that song. She's still a shade mannered, but she kinda gets inside the song in a way she's mostly avoided. She has a similar detachment that Rihanna has to much of her material. The difference is Ariana can really sing when she tries. But the first time I heard the song, I was listening to it on my phone and when she lays into the vocal towards the end, I literally looked at my phone and went, "alright then, Ariana. Shit." And it's funny because she performed it on SNL a few weeks ago and I literally sat and watched her sing it...with the sound off. I saw Larry David fuck up her name and I was like, "I...don't care." The same thing happened with Hozier when he was on SNL. I sat and watched him perform "Take Me to Church" with the sound off because I didn't care. Then when I heard it I was an instant fan. I...need to stop doing that.

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Not sure how good Alabama Shakes is, but I have written them because of her acceptance speech at the Grammys. They sat there and saw how they would play the quiet orchestral music when someone was taking too long at the podium, and when they won she got up there like, "We...came from a small town in Alabama and..." KDLSJFSOIEWSDFN! Just thank God and your mama and get off the stage, lady! Oh my God! Between them and Meghan Trainor winning Best New Artist, last Grammys sucked.

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Read: Meghan Trainor. Bart Baker's parodies can be normally very annoying, but his "No" parody was brutally honest about Meghan abandoning what made her unique and interesting to try and sound like some re-hash of something Britney Spears would have put out back in 2001:
 

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Yeah, both "No" and this new one she just released utterly and totally suck. They seem to have little to nothing in common with the songs that made her famous in the first place.

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(edited)
22 minutes ago, Rick Kitchen said:

How are they any different from "Dear Future Husband" and "Lips Are Movin'"?

Dear Future Husband was kind of a lame song, but Lips Are Moving and All About That Bass were genuinely good songs. And even Dear Future Husband had the same kind of sound--that kind of merging of Bubble Gum Pop, Doo-W** and Hip-Hop. These current songs have ditched the first two and are just straight up attempts at Hip-Hop, but not very good Hip-Hop. 

I could see her not wanting to be caught in a box, repeating herself, but all she did was ditch a unique sound (half throw-back, half modern) for a generic modern (but badly done) one.

This song, her latest, is even worse than "No'. I suspect we're supposed to think she's being ironic and witty with what sounds like self-aggrandizement in this, but it's wrapped in such a horrible package musically if there's any aspect of self-mockery in this it's totally overshadowed. Any sense this is supposed to be about self-belief or some shit like that is also lost, among the bad, generic sound of the whole song.

Edited by Kromm
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Now stack that up against this (admittedly one of her most "throwbacky" songs, with a bit less of the modern, but I'm posting it just to give the extreme opposite from that piece of shit above in terms of style with her voice.

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On 5/7/2016 at 0:53 PM, Kromm said:

It does. I just verified that.

It gets really funny at some points hearing big long clips for some questionable songs. For example, just heard a big long ass haul for "In The Year 2525" in 1969. A real head scratcher for a long #1 haul. But it happened.

The late 70s is particularly entertaining to leave on. Why? Not because you are getting just great songs, but because the #1 spot is in such a violent seesaw between great songs and awful ones. Just back and forth and back and forth between some of the best stuff ever put on record, to some of the worst, over and over again during that period. Although even that back and forth breaks up when suddenly... you get, ugh, 2 and a half months straight, in a row, of Debbie Boone being at #1. 

Even 2015 (which only runs to November 7th) is kind of interesting, because it shows how in that year how a mere 3-4 songs basically dominated the #1 spot for most of the year. 

This was so much fun. Some years seem to have a new number one every week, and other have songs that dominated the top spot for months.

Going through the late 80's/early 90's right now. 1989 was pretty much dominated by Paula Abdul, but very few stuff seemed to stay number 1 all that long.

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Paula was the queen back at the end of the 80s! Her first album was dance hits and critics totally wrote her off so she released her next album and filled it with ballads and the public loved those too. It's strange to think that someone so important at the time has mostly been forgotten (by other people obviously.)

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(edited)
16 hours ago, Kromm said:

Yeah, both "No" and this new one she just released utterly and totally suck. They seem to have little to nothing in common with the songs that made her famous in the first place.

 

I honestly love "NO", different direction of music or not (and she didn't want to do the same thing again, which I understand completely). It's a feminist anthem WITHOUT the unfortunate connotations of "All About That Bass", which I admittedly still enjoy, in spite of all its flaws. 

I know she can be obnoxious, but there is something about her that just find so likable, PLUS she can sing live. Some of the criticism around her is legitimate, but some of it is so nasty--and in many cases, directly tied to her body type--that it makes me VERY uncomfortable. God forbid a pop singer show up that doesn't look exactly like Taylor Swift (although, given that Taylor now looks like an aging 40 something porn star failing miserably to look like Debbie Harry while coming off a three day coke binge with bad plastic surgery and scarecrow like blonde hair*, that's probably a GOOD thing).

*Yeah, I REALLY don't like her new look. It doesn't flatter her AT ALL. It just ages her VERY VERY badly. Her "I'm stalking Anna Wintour" haircut was better than this, and it made her look like a helmet head! SMH. 

And unlike Taylor, Meghan always seems to me like someone who doesn't get her delicate little fee fees tied into a knot every time tells the slightest joke about her/gives her the slightest bit of criticism, "Shake It Off" be damned (and some of it, again, has been DISGUSTING). I like a lot of things about Taylor, and a lot of her music, but it's pretty clear that it's difficult for her to laugh at herself, UNLESS she's making the joke herself/she knows the person joking about her is a fan. God forbid someone who doesn't kiss her feet joke about her.

Meghan, meanwhile, just seems to ignore it all and keeps on smiling. There is valid criticism that might be good for her to take, but she seems able to ignore the stuff she needs to ignore.

3 hours ago, vibeology said:

Paula was the queen back at the end of the 80s! Her first album was dance hits and critics totally wrote her off so she released her next album and filled it with ballads and the public loved those too. It's strange to think that someone so important at the time has mostly been forgotten (by other people obviously.)

 

Paula's great, as you certainly know. ;) 

I still hear her 80's hits on the radio every now and then, and "Rush Rush" too.

Edited by UYI
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15 hours ago, Kromm said:

Now stack that up against this (admittedly one of her most "throwbacky" songs, with a bit less of the modern, but I'm posting it just to give the extreme opposite from that piece of shit above in terms of style with her voice.

 

THIS is the kind of thing she's good at--showing off her voice. Her new album has a few songs like this, too, and I TRULY hope she releases at least one of them as a single. Again, I still like her, but she would DEFINITELY get more positive attention if she emphasized songs like this more often. 

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(edited)

My new favorite thing is Sirius Radio Limited Edition channel 18 - Road Trip Radio.

It is as though somebody compiled a list of every mainstream song I've ever mildly enjoyed at some point in my life, put it into one gigantic playlist, and then let a cat walk over a keyboard to select the order in which they are played.

Honestly, what kind of station plays Rush - Spirit of Radio, Fountains of Wayne - Stacy's Mom, and Tom Petty - Running Down a Dream back to back?  

Edited by JTMacc99
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I think Meghan had to become more mainstream in order to stay relevant. The whole "dumpy white chick who sings pop songs in an off-Jamaican accent" thing was going to get old. It's already old.

I think "No" is a decent throwback pop song, but I kind of wish it would've gone to a better singer who needs a radio hit. It could've been a good comeback single for someone like Jojo or a legit hit for Tori Kelly.

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On 5/24/2016 at 4:12 PM, UYI said:

I honestly love "NO", different direction of music or not (and she didn't want to do the same thing again, which I understand completely). It's a feminist anthem WITHOUT the unfortunate connotations of "All About That Bass", which I admittedly still enjoy, in spite of all its flaws. 

I don't really get how the song "No" can say one thing, but the video is promoting the exact opposite, imo.

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I think "No" is a decent throwback pop song, but I kind of wish it would've gone to a better singer who needs a radio hit.

That's why it helps to be a songwriter - one gets first pick of your own songs. Trainor was a songwriter for others before she was a successful singer - she and her co-writer shopped around "All About The Bass" and nobody wanted it, so she decided to record it herself.

If a song-writer doesn't want the song themselves, they will typically try to sell it to a current star and then work their way down the line. Celine Dionne said that when she first came to LA, she couldn't get anybody to give her a good song until she had hits with a bunch of covers. Now that Trainor has a few hits under her belt, she's going to keep her better songs for herself (and focus on writing good songs for herself). She has co-writing credits on all the songs for both albums.

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5 hours ago, Hanahope said:

I don't really get how the song "No" can say one thing, but the video is promoting the exact opposite, imo.

I don't really get how she went from "Dear Future Husband" with lyrics like this 

"Take me on a date
I deserve it, babe
And don't forget the flowers every anniversary
'Cause if you'll treat me right
I'll be the perfect wife
Buying groceries
Buy-buying what you need"

To "No" with lyrics like this

"I think it's so cute and I think it's so sweet
How you let your friends encourage you to try and talk to me
But let me stop you there, oh, before you speak"

Which I think is a really mean spirited song. Did she have a really bad breakup in between songs?

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5 hours ago, GaT said:

I don't really get how she went from "Dear Future Husband" with lyrics like this 

"Take me on a date
I deserve it, babe
And don't forget the flowers every anniversary
'Cause if you'll treat me right
I'll be the perfect wife
Buying groceries
Buy-buying what you need"

To "No" with lyrics like this

"I think it's so cute and I think it's so sweet
How you let your friends encourage you to try and talk to me
But let me stop you there, oh, before you speak"

Which I think is a really mean spirited song. Did she have a really bad breakup in between songs?

Actually, according to Meghan herself, she hasn't had a boyfriend at all since she became famous. She's gone on a few dates, but that's it.

Part of me still wishes she and Charlie Puth were a real couple, even though I'm too damn old to be wishing for such things, LOL.

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14 hours ago, UYI said:

Actually, according to Meghan herself, she hasn't had a boyfriend at all since she became famous. She's gone on a few dates, but that's it

I almost have to wonder if after all the infamy ex-boyfriends/husbands get from their ex-singer-songwriter-girlfriends/wives, (e.g. Adele, Taylor, Alanis, Katy, Beyonce?), who go one to write hugely successful songs after the break-up, many men are a little wary about becoming the boyfriend of a female singer-songwriter.

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There must have been some reason they couldn't play the songs.  The attorney talks about that the jury had to look at a piece of paper.  I assume that paper contained the written music notes?  Maybe the jury compared the written music of the two and saw that they weren't the same.

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(edited)

I don't believe that particular article mentioned it, no.  (Rather than the recordings of both songs being played on acoustic guitar that the jury heard, the plaintiffs wanted them to hear the original recording of Taurus, and that's what the attorney is referring to by saying the jury didn't hear the music.) 

The L.A. Times has a more comprehensive article.

Edited by Bastet
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