Lambchop Flansburgh

Yeah, I threw out "Arms of Orion" by Prince, which was from the right decade, but was nowhere near a hit. I love the song "Southern Cross" too, dad gummit.

I would like to announce that I'm only going to get 9 right this month at the most, and also that it's pronounced "burg" as in "iceberg." It's the last name of one of the 2 lead singers in my favorite band.

I can't believe I missed "Vertigo"! Argh. And Ice Cube! I knew I should've just checked imdb.com. Ah well, on to next month!

Jakob Dylan is the lead singer for The Wallflowers. Bob Dylan is his father. Jakob named the band after one of his dad's songs. How can you give more credit to Judas Priest than The Wallflowers? That doesn't even make sense.

I have one too! :: The cool thing would be to have two though. Does anyone have TWO??

Paul McCartney is one of the most innovative bass players ever to play rock and roll. I think he's incredibly underrated as a musician. Yeah, a lot of what he's written has been dreck (even much of his Beatle stuff), but man, listen to what he does with his bass. Almost nobody plays melodic bass lines the way he does. He never just plunks the old 1 - 5 - 1 thing like 90% of rock bass players. Granted, technique-wise he's no John Entwistle (almost no one is), but in terms of creativity he's tops.

Oh man, I'm on such an Emmylou Harris jag right now. She is flat-out amazing. If you don't own the album "Red Dirt Girl" and you like the country-rock stuff, you need to go out and find it. Dave Matthews guests on it, and Sarah McLachlan called it "the most perfect album ever made." I love Blue Rodeo's song "5 Days in May" too. Can you recommend anything else by them that I really need to hear? Oh, and this might be a stretch for this category, but I've always had a soft spot for Nanci Griffith. Some of her stuff is pretty countryfied, but when she does the folkie thing it's really beautiful.

Oh, and along the same lines there's "Missing You" by John Waite. Great song, and it also has that whole ironic denial of one's feelings.

This isn't directly on the topic, but I love this song, and it's pretty close to what's being discussed. More like someone you used to have but don't anymore... MOST OF THE TIME by Bob Dylan Most of the time I'm clear focused all around, Most of the time I can keep both feet on the ground, I can follow the path, I can read the signs, Stay right with it, when the road unwinds, I can handle whatever I stumble upon, I don't even notice she's gone, Most of the time. Most of the time It's well understood, Most of the time I wouldn't change it if I could, I can't make it all match up, I can hold my own, I can deal with the situation right down to the bone, I can survive, I can endure And I don't even think about her Most of the time. Most of the time My head is on straight, Most of the time I'm strong enough not to hate. I don't build up illusion 'till it makes me sick, I ain't afraid of confusion no matter how thick I can smile in the face of mankind. Don't even remember what her lips felt like on mine Most of the time. Most of the time She ain't even in my mind, I wouldn't know her if I saw her She's that far behind. Most of the time I can't even be sure If she was ever with me Or if I was with her. Most of the time I'm halfway content, Most of the time I know exactly where I went, I don't cheat on myself, I don't run and hide, Hide from the feelings, that are buried inside, I don't compromise and I don't pretend, I don't even care if I ever see her again Most of the time.

This is too much fun. I decided to see what the American Idol people have generated in the way of bad/funny. From a review of Kelly Clarkson: "I have to say the first time you hear since you been gone, its pretty powerful but then after you buy the CD and watch the video you are so sick and tired of it you never want to listen to Kelly Clarkson again. Also, in the video, she's recking her ex-boyfriends apartment. Sure its inspiring, but what 12, 13,14,15 or 16 year old (the age the musics targeted towards) is going to actually go over to their ex's house and reck it! I wouldn't (and I didn't)! Its not that easy! Sure you argue that she an adult and all that but is that really realistic? Also it switches from his apartment to a club where she is singing. Shes trying to head bang and they are trying to make it so there is a mosh pit down front, but moshing to pop isn't easy (take it from me, I'VE TRIED). " From Clay Aiken's debut CD: "Clay Aiken's debut album is the best! Clay gives 110% to this product, and you won't be disapionted. Ruben Studdard may have been crowned American Idol, but Clay's album is selling like Clay really one. So are we sure Clay Aiken didn't win American Idol? We're sure, but if it was up to the record sales, Clay would win. Once again, a five star album. If you are a Claymate, or know a Claymate, who doesn't own this C.D. yet, BUY IT!" (is a Claymate one of those Claymation animals from the 70's?) and finally, Ruben Studdard gets his comeuppance: "this c/d is okay, but not worth purchasing, as i admit i didn't i just borrowed it. ruben's voice is good, but i agree with the others who said that you can hear as good or better in ANY black church. just now i saw a large black guy on the church channel that had a 1000 times better voice."

Roger, The fact that you say the Beatles were "poppy and bubblegum" in 1964 is a complete misinterpretation on your part long after the fact. Try listening to some, nay ANY, of the other Top 40 stuff from the early '60's. The Beatles took pop in a completely unique direction, even on those early songs. Listen to the harmonies, man. The weird chord changes. Even some of the early lyrics are earth shaking compared to nearly everything else on the radio in those days. Yeah, it's easy to look back 40 years later and say "Oh, the Beatles weren't all that great," but there would truly not have been any Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin without them. It may not look that way from this far off, but trust me, the Beatles were THE influential band. Now, if you want to say the Stones were grittier and rocked harder, I'll go with that. But to say Pink Floyd were somehow better than the Beatles because they "went deeper" misses the whole point. They only went deeper because they had a place to dig from. Dig?

Grrrr. I got 9 out of 10 and sent the quiz, but now I KNOW the answer to the one I missed. I wonder if I can go back and re-do it... Grrr.

Yeah, I didn't even bother finishing this one -- it was way too tough. The new one is tricky and very clever. I think I got almost all of them though.

OK, yeah, true love, but listen to the Diana Ross version as opposed to the earlier Marvin Gaye version. She has this whole spoken word vibe going, which ends with "the day you set me free." So in her true-love scenario, she's not even with the guy anymore, but she's still willing to cross any geographical barrier to be there for him. Dude.

So now that Blower's Daughter was in the movie 'Closer' and it looks like that's going to get some Oscar nominations, will Damien get bigger in the U.S.? Stay tuned, huh?

Night Flight aired on WTBS out of Atlanta, which was a "superstation" because it was syndicated to local cable outlets across the country. But if you want to go way back, in the '60's and '70's, bands would make promotional videos to send to talk shows in lieu of actually appearing on these shows. The Beatles did it with Strawberry Fields Forever and a few other songs. The Monkees clip mentioned would be another example. But really, making a promotional video for a song is much older than that. Cab Calloway, Louis Jordan and others made short films of "performances" (often lip synched) to be shown before the feature film in movie houses. Or so I'm told. Really all of this was before I was born. Really....

It sounds like it could easily be something someone made themselves on a loop program like Garage Band or Fruity Loops. The clip is so short and the instrumentation is so cheesey, I'd guess it's something homemade rather than an actual song.

Hm... Reading this thread makes me wonder what defines a "rock" or "rock & roll" song. Having read a lot about Dylan, including his autobiography, I'm aware that he played in R&B and Rock & Roll bands before he became a folkie in the early 60s. I've always considered Highway 61 Revisited a Rock album. The song itself uses two electric guitars, electric bass, drums, piano, organ & harmonica. It has a fairly complex chord progression, which most folk songs do not. The singing is loud, angry & raucous (for 1965). So why do we call it "folk rock"? Because Dylan made some folk-sounding records for four years prior to this one? I'm just curious about what defines a Rock song. Any thoughts?

Your post quotes Petty, but your signature is Dylan. Where does one start with the cool/funny Dylan lines? Romeo, he said to Juliet, "You got a poor complexion. It doesn't give your appearance a very youthful touch!" Juliet said back to Romeo, "Why don't you just shove off If it bothers you so much." (from "Floater") ::

You're right about the CD not touching the live experience. He's an amazing songwriter and singer, and he's got Lisa Hannigan as well. The voice of an angel. Not to mention Vyvian on cello! I have several live recordings, and last spring I got to see a show from backstage! My daughter & a friend were underage, but they had met and chatted with Lisa the night before, so she talked their road manager into letting them sit backstage. Such nice folks, too. I think it's unfortunate that more people don't appreciate Damien's stuff, but then again, it's fun to have him remain something of a "cult" artist here in the U.S.

This really is a subjective opinion. It depends on what you're in the mood for. Yeah, my records pop and hiss, but the sound IS "warmer" dammit, whatever that means. It may just be nostalgia, or it may be that there are EXTRA sounds in an analog recording that get filtered out when the signal is processed digitally. And yeah, that computer and/or computer geek doing the editing sees those extra sounds as extraneous, but maybe Miles wanted that trumpet squeak in there. Anyway, I still listen to more CDs than vinyl albums, but a CD is a terribly inferior medium -- they scratch and break easily, they're made on the cheap, and people handle them as if they were frisbees; hence, they get scratched and chipped etc... At least with records we KNEW not to put our fingers on them or scratch them up. When CDs came out, they told us they were "indestructable" (I still recall the Phillips commercial where the guy smears a CD with honey and - gasp - it still plays!). Bulls**t. CDs skip more than records do. You can say "digital is better" all you want, but the truth is we've moved to a technology that is more convenient, but not necessarily better. Cell phones, digital television, DVD's -- are these things really "better" than what came before? They're more convenient, yes, but the quality is not improved, and in many cases it's worsened.

Paul Carrack makes a fantastic cameo on Squeeze's "Tempted" (of course, Difford and Tillbrook sing on it as well).

Doesn't the Cure's "Just Like Heaven" qualify?

John Linnell of They Might Be Giants recorded an interesting song called "On Earth My Nina." He took one of the band's other songs ("Thunderbird", which is on the album "The Spine"), listened to it backwards over and over again, and learned to sing the song backwards. When "On Earth My Nina" was released, there was no explanation for it, and "Thunderbird" hadn't even been released officially, so it just sounded like he was singing a bunch of nonsense words. But they did sound like WORDS. There's a part that goes "say the sparrow wants a morbid arrow, here's a quarter that's the one I wanted." When you play "On Earth My Nina" backwards, it really is the tune and words of "Thunderbird." I thought it was a great experiment, but it seems to prove that you can find "hidden messages" in anything you play backwards.

Both Elvis Costello ("Accidents Will Happen") and Blues Traveler ("Hook") use the infamous "Canon in D Major" chord progression written by Johann Pachelbel. It's a pretty funny reference in "Hook" because the song is about writing a song with a "hook" in it that will stick in the listener's head. Anyone who has heard Pachelbel's Canon has probably gotten it stuck in their head for at least a few minutes!