Very few if any of the songs I like get played on the radio, and I don’t really listen to the radio at all anymore, but there is definitely one artist I’ve never heard on the radio, who is uber-talented and incredibly overlooked. She’s got an incredible vocal range (think Anne Murray dueting with Kate Bush and you’ll come close: I kid you not), is a gifted songwriter, a talented guitarist and keyboard player, and uncompromising when it comes to her music. I would be thrilled to hear any of her songs on the radio, but this one in particular would be really cool as you don’t hear many songs about architecture that also mention the word “underwear.”
And about her voice again? Seriously, this song focuses mainly on her lower register, but you do get a taste of her upper register toward the end, but until you’ve seen her perform live and see how effortlessly she flips back and forth between her you will probably think it’s studio tricks. Believe me, it’s not. So now, please welcome Happy Rhodes with Building the Colossus.
And for good measure, here is a live version of my all-time favorite Happy Rhodes song, Save Our Souls. It’s just beautiful.
Okay, now I can’t stop. One more, the spellbinding cover of Kate Bush’s And Dream of Sheep. It’s astounding. She’s a talent, and I miss her music.
I don’t actually listen to the radio very much, so it’s rare when I hear a song “often” on the radio. There was a time recently however when I did seem to hear Florence + the Machine’s The Dog Days Are Over several times in a very short time span, which is okay, since I enjoy the song, and I had just seen the band live in concert. So here’s Florence singing her big hit.
Of course, the one radio show I do tend to hear quite often is “Standing Room Only,” WERS’ weekend musical theatre show. They do tend to repeat themselves pretty often… from the slightly obscure, like Unworthy of Your Love from Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins, to this song, the ubiquitous Defying Gravity from Wicked.
Nothing terribly exciting here… but honestly, that’s what radio is all about.
Okay, so I got this one backwards. It’s supposed to be A song you used to love and now hate, and I’ve been spending the last day or two trying to think of a song I used to hate and now love. So rather than rethink this, I’m changing Day 16 to the more positive point-of-view that ends up with a song I love. I mean really, as I’ve said several times already, why would I want to post songs I hate on my blog?
Anyway, there are a few songs that ran through my mind for this one. In the end, I had to go for two songs, because one I wanted to include here because it’s from my favorite band, and the other is too cool to leave out. The first comes from Fleetwood Mac, my favorite band. Despite being my favorite band, there was a time when Lindsey Buckingham annoyed me. After the amazing feat of pop mastery that is Rumours, Tusk took everyone by surprise by it’s experimental wackiness embodied in the studio hijinks of Lindsey Buckingham. Christine McVie has always been my favorite of the three principal songwriters, and back then, I was a huge Stevie Nicks fan as well. I loved Buckingham’s work on Fleetwood Mac and Rumours, but the direction he moved in for Tusk was very hit and miss for me. It wasn’t the strangeness that bothered me; I loved Tusk, Not That Funny, Walk a Think Line… but songs like Save Me A Place, my first pick for a song I used to hate and now love, really annoyed me. Now, as I look back, I see how much of what made Fleetwood Mac great was the result of Lindsey’s talent to take the songs of the other two and turn them into masterpieces. I also have a new appreciation for some of Lindsey’s songs that I formerly detested (Oh Diane is another one) and Save Me A Place in particular I find to be just beautiful. This crappy recording of the Mac performing the song live during the Tusk tour is especially fun as it features Christine McVie on guitar!
Another song that I used to hate and now love comes from the same timeframe as Save Me A Place (which came out in 1980). I really enjoyed Sweet’s three earlier singles, Little Willy, Barroom Blitz and Fox on the Run, but in 1978 they came out with a song that I just thought was stupid. Love is Like Oxygen seemed to be a nod to the disco era, which was raging at the time, and it really turned me off. Now, of course, years later, when I rediscovered Sweet, I can’t resist the infectious goofiness of this song. They were truly an underrated band in the glam scene, and I adore all their stuff now. I was just going to go with the Mac song until I watched this video… then I couldn’t resist including Love is Like Oxygen as well.
As I have stated in the past, I can usually find something I like in most genres of music, but I’m not really a fan of rap. But with the onslaught of Rap music in the 90’s even I found something to like. Not surprisingly, the rap that I gravitated to came from Salt ‘N Pepa, whose forthright, sexy, girl power rap appealed to my gay, quasi-feminist sensibilities (I said quasi). Their videos were fresh and sassy, and they had such distinct personalities. Salt was smart and sexy, Pepa was tough (and frankly a little scary) and sexy, and Spinderella was soft-spoken, sweet, and quite honestly, kind of dirty listen to her verse in the song I chose. So while some people are probably aware that I’m a fan of Salt ‘N Pepa, there are probably a lot of people I know who would be surprised to learn that I own a couple of their albums! (Of course, I probably could have surprised as many people with the fact that I own a Queensryche album, and as mentioned below, not one, but TWO Corey Hart albums. (I do not own the abysmal Sunglasses at Night.)
Anyway, for Salt ”N Pepa, and the song no one would expect me to love, I’m choosing Whatta man. How can you not love this sexy, fresh, homage to good men and relationships, while representing a strong sisterhood. They’re even backed vocally by the all-girl En Vogue. It’s a slightly raunchy video, but it’s all in good fun, there’s some fine dance moves, and those ladies made some great videos.
Guilty pleasures are interesting things, and I’m old enough not to actually feel to guilty about music I like. I could have gone with some obvious answers like ABBA or some mid-70’s schlock, but now that 70’s music is nostalgic, it’s kind of cool. Also, as I’ve stated before, the point of this exercise for me, is to post about some good music, so the song and band I have chosen I would defend as being good music. I went through a phase in the 80s of liking some unabashedly poppy stuff fronted by “pretty boys” and my guilty pleasure pick comes from one of those. I think I could have picked guiltier pleasures (I do own a couple of Corey Hart albums, and here comes a guilty admission… I was a member of the Glass Tiger fan club… as an adult!) but I’m sure some people will think I have plenty to feel guilty about regarding this band.
The band is Cutting Crew, primarily knows for their hits, (I just) Died in Your Arms Tonight and I’ve Been in Love Before. Cutting crew got the guilty pleasure rap largely I think because of that, “Ah, ha” sung before the line, “I just died in your arms tonight,” and the fact that lead vocalist Nick Van Eede was quite the pretty boy (hey, Scot, doesn’t he remind you a little of Daniel from Days of Our Lives?). But along with Mr. Van Eede (who still performs using the band name Cutting Crew) was lead guitarist and co-songwriter Kevin MacMichael, who happened to be Canadian, played with Robert Plant on one of his solo albums, and was pretty deft with the melodic, rock guitar lick. Tragically, Kevin has passed away in 2002 as a result of lung cancer. The song I’m choosing is one that probably a lot of people never heard It was the fourth single from their debut album Broadcast and didn’t crack the Top 100, although this video did get some airplay on MTV. It’s called Any Colour, and I really love this song still to this day. It’s got some great melodic guitar licks (see above), has nice lyrics, has a great tune, a nice video and gotta confess, I like Nick’s voice and he’s wearing an awesome pair of boots. Hope you enjoy!
