Journal

OK, I may be a child of the '60s, inasmuch as I was literally a child during the '60s, but I'm heavily influenced by early '80s music, including the Go-Go's and Fun Boy Three.

Inasmuch as "Our Lips Are Sealed" (a Go-Go's hit) was co-written by members of both bands, it stands to reason that the Fun Boy Three would cover the song.

And when I first heard their cover back in the day, I *hated* it. Compared to the original, the Fun Boy Three "cover" of the song struck me as lackluster and uninspired. When they sang "It doesn't matter anyway" at the end of the song, they MEANT it.

Well, I was listening to songs in the library of djwudi (Michael Hanscom), and this song came up this morning. And I was forced to admit, in the words of Jim Bakker, "I was wrong." Our Lips Are Sealed is, upon further review, a nice little track.

Or maybe it's just because I'm a quarter century older.

P.S. If you want to check out djwudi's library, it's at http://www.last.fm/user/djwudi.

I am no expert on Australian music. And it's questionable whether you can sum up "Australian music" as a singular item, especially when you consider the country is fully or partially responsible for artists as varied as Helen Reddy, the Bee Gees, Midnight Oil, Steven Hodson's favorite Flash and the Pan, and countless others.

But if I were to pick out a distinctively Australian artist, I'd go with The Church. I go back a long way with them; back when I was writing a music 'zine, there was another music 'zine called From Ears and Mouth that featured the Church and its members frequently - so frequently that I was waiting for the 'zine to feature an Under The Milky Way candy bar.

Well, this morning on my drive to work, I was listening to the Midnight Juggernauts CD (as usual; I just bought it) and happened upon the song Aurora. I know it's not an exact match, but the song hits me as a Church-like song - and thus distinctively Australian.

Your thoughts?

I just discovered that last.fm has a longer version of the Madness song Shut Up than I have on my Total Madness CD.

The longer version has an extended fade, with more of a piano solo.

Mike Barson rules.

I don't recall Anywhere Under The Moon being on last.fm before...but it's there now. Probably somewhat atypical for the band, which seems to spend more time in a more acoustic bent. But it's still a nice shimmering song.

P.S. And this gives me one more opportunity to lament the takeover of IMF by Ovation, and the subsequent loss of quality music programming on the One World show. I wrote about it once before. Actually, twice. Would you believe thrice?

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - Total Devo is one of my favorite Devo albums. I'm listening to Disco Dancer right now - not the remix, unfortunately - and basking in its greatness. However, some believe that Total Devo is the point where they succumbed to their own theory of de-evolution and became ninnies and twits. But what's wrong with a good dance song?

As I previously noted in a post in my mrontemp blog, I heard Jennifer Hanson singing "Thankful" at the Grand Ole Opry last Saturday night. I've just found the song on last.fm, and will listen to it again to see if it is as good as it sounded on stage.Thankful

During my sophomore year of college (1980-1981), there was a guy in the room next door who was from Greece. He had brought an LP (kids, an LP is kinda like a CD but bigger and easier to scratch) of the soundtrack to the movie "Lemon Popsicle." The soundtrack was an eclectic collection of 50s songs, including the haunting melody "Greenfields" by the Brothers Four. Another song in the collection was "Chantilly Lace," but NOT by the Big Bopper (who presumably wouldn't say "You know what Jerry Lee likes."

Greenfields
Chantilly Lace

This morning, I just heard the entire version of the song (rather than just a 30 second snippet) for the first time in years upon years. I owned the "Shout!" cassette soon after it came out, but no longer have it. This is one of the better songs on the album, juxtaposing a primarily synth sound with a guitar solo, and juxtaposing Devo lyrics with Dove (the band of love) music.