Post by rayge on May 22, 2019 13:43:23 GMT
A – Cyndi Lauper is a wonderful vocalist, one of the best US white pop singers, and She's So Unusual is a tremendous album as albums go, largely because it's full of killer singles. I don't know the Prince original of this track, and frankly I don't see how a mustachioed midget in a leather thong and raincoat should be taken any more seriously than our Cyn. That said, this isn't one of the blockbuster tracks on the album. Although I do like the faintly dolorous synths, it's just not a very good song, despite La Lauper's attempts to yelp some life into it. 6 / 10
B - This is the B-side of one of old Duane's singles with the Blossoms, Guitar Man or Boss Guitar, and is one of those that formed, then confirmed my insight that some American artists – Duane and the Everlys come to mind, but it was also true to some extent with Brenda Lee, say – would put all kinds of vaguely experimental and off the wall material, almost always a contrast, rather than a complement, to the A side, on their B-sides. Of course, back then in the USA, juke box - and maybe radio - plays counted towards a record's chart position, and it was entirely possible for both sides of a single to chart separately. Spector hated this, which is why he always put throwaway Wrecking Crew instrumentals on his B-sides .
Not long after this came out, I went on holiday with my parents, and the holiday camp we were staying in had Boss Guitar (I just looked it up) on the jukebox in one of the rooms there, and the box was really loud, so I played this side, and was so entranced by that deep reverb thunder that I played it another half-a-dozen times (I was the only person in the room, I hasten to add). I didn't know it was blues, or boring, I just found the way that that descending (bowed-bass?) line shook my adolescent self to the core was awesome. And than in roared the harp/mouth organ and sax, all the other evocative instrumental textures for a short solo. I'd never heard their like before; listening to it again 55 years later, I'm still not sure what instrument's being played some of the time. And of course, Duane's guitar sound then was unique to him.
I've often dissed stuff in these cups on the grounds that I was the wrong age to have appreciated it when it came out, and here's an example of the reverse effect: where others can only hear a pedestrian blues jam (which is maybe what it 'actually' is), I'm still (non-jukeworthiness of the youtube sound aside) yanked back into that blissful sonic epiphany, when I realized that music had colours, too, and that recorded sound had the power to move me physically, as well as to evoke atmospheres and imagery. If it hadn't been called The Desert Rat, I might not have been imagining enervating heat, haze rising from rocks, dust kicked up by scuffed boots, scuttling wildlife, and cowboy drifters in Arizona, where Duane grew up; but it was, and I did.
And it's one of the very first great production/arrangement gigs by Lee Hazelwood. 7.5 / 10
For me, tie of the Cup so far. Sorry A and indeed Cyn, but that's
B
B - This is the B-side of one of old Duane's singles with the Blossoms, Guitar Man or Boss Guitar, and is one of those that formed, then confirmed my insight that some American artists – Duane and the Everlys come to mind, but it was also true to some extent with Brenda Lee, say – would put all kinds of vaguely experimental and off the wall material, almost always a contrast, rather than a complement, to the A side, on their B-sides. Of course, back then in the USA, juke box - and maybe radio - plays counted towards a record's chart position, and it was entirely possible for both sides of a single to chart separately. Spector hated this, which is why he always put throwaway Wrecking Crew instrumentals on his B-sides .
Not long after this came out, I went on holiday with my parents, and the holiday camp we were staying in had Boss Guitar (I just looked it up) on the jukebox in one of the rooms there, and the box was really loud, so I played this side, and was so entranced by that deep reverb thunder that I played it another half-a-dozen times (I was the only person in the room, I hasten to add). I didn't know it was blues, or boring, I just found the way that that descending (bowed-bass?) line shook my adolescent self to the core was awesome. And than in roared the harp/mouth organ and sax, all the other evocative instrumental textures for a short solo. I'd never heard their like before; listening to it again 55 years later, I'm still not sure what instrument's being played some of the time. And of course, Duane's guitar sound then was unique to him.
I've often dissed stuff in these cups on the grounds that I was the wrong age to have appreciated it when it came out, and here's an example of the reverse effect: where others can only hear a pedestrian blues jam (which is maybe what it 'actually' is), I'm still (non-jukeworthiness of the youtube sound aside) yanked back into that blissful sonic epiphany, when I realized that music had colours, too, and that recorded sound had the power to move me physically, as well as to evoke atmospheres and imagery. If it hadn't been called The Desert Rat, I might not have been imagining enervating heat, haze rising from rocks, dust kicked up by scuffed boots, scuttling wildlife, and cowboy drifters in Arizona, where Duane grew up; but it was, and I did.
And it's one of the very first great production/arrangement gigs by Lee Hazelwood. 7.5 / 10
For me, tie of the Cup so far. Sorry A and indeed Cyn, but that's
B