Friday 31 December 2010
Saturday 25 December 2010
Tuesday 21 December 2010
Music and Snow
Wandering around this city, this city of London, during the snow, headphones on (layers, scarf and gloves too!), it has become clear to me that certain songs just seem to work better when set against the backdrop of these snowy conditions than others. Snow can be bleak, serene, cold, pure, sad, nostalgic, dark and lonely. Through mood and feeling, music can be too. I guess some songs just seem to sound a bit more "chilled" than others, and in more senses than one. Here are but a few...
Galaxie 500 - Listen The Snow is Falling
Luscious Jackson - Water Your Garden
Fever Ray - Keep The Streets Empty For Me
Whale - I'm Cold
Nick Drake - Northern Sky
Emily Barker & The Red Clay Halo - Nostalgia
The Verve - Weeping Willow
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Sweetheart Come
Blonde Redhead - Oslo
David Bowie - Wild is the Wind
Bjork - Hyperballad
Blur - Caramel
Au Revoir Simone - The Last One
The Clientele - Winter on Victoria Street
Elysian Fields - Diamonds All Day
John Lennon - Scared
Air - You Make It Easy
Cocteau Twins - Road, River and Rail
Minus 8 - Winter Blues
Jeff Buckley - Forget Her
Joni Mitchell - Blue
RZA - Flying Birds
Elliott Smith - I Ddidn't Understand
The Smiths - Meat is Murder
Spiritualized - The Ballad Of Richie Lee
Duke Ellington & John Coltrane - In a Sentimental Mood
Pale Saints - Hunted
David Bowie - Sound and Vision
Supergrass - Run
U2 - If You Wear That Velvet Dress
Kaki King - ...Until We Felt Red
Grizzly Bear - Ready, Able
King Creosote - Nothing Rings True
Modest Mouse - Willful Suspension of Disbelief
Thea Gilmore - Listen The Snow is Falling
Please note: Whilst compiling the above list, a non-christmas song approach was self-imposed!
~
Wednesday 15 December 2010
Sunday 21 November 2010
Sunday 14 November 2010
Monday 25 October 2010
Thursday 14 October 2010
Julee Cruise - Summer Kisses, Winter Tears
Summer Kisses, Winter Tears
Summer kisses, Winter tears
That was what she gave to me
Never thought that I'd travel all alone
The trail of memories
Happy hours, lonely years
But I guess I can't complain
For I still recall the Summer sun
Through all the Winter rain
The fire of love, the fire of love
Can burn from afar
And nothing can light the dark of the night
Like a falling star
Summer kisses, Winter tears
Like the stars they fade away
Leaving me to spend my lonely nights
With dreams of yesterday
The fire of love, the fire of love
Can burn from afar
And nothing can light the dark of the night
Like a falling star
Summer kisses, Winter tears
Like the stars they fade away
Leaving me to spend my lonely nights
With dreams of yesterday
Leaving me to spend my lonely nights
With dreams of yesterday
Summer kisses, Winter tears
(Words & music by Wise - Weisman - Lloyd)
~
Tuesday 12 October 2010
Solomon Burke (March 21, 1940 – October 10, 2010)
Solomon Burke (Philadelphia (USA) March 21, 1940 – Schiphol (Netherlands) October 10, 2010)
John Wilde of The Guardian Writes...
"Some things we can all agree on. The greatest footballer of all time? Pele. The greatest movie actor? Brando. The greatest boxer? Ali. When it comes to the question of the greatest soul singer, we will forever be arguing deep into the night. Sam Cooke or Clyde McPhatter? Marvin Gaye or Aretha Franklin? James Carr, Bobby Bland, Etta James, Percy Sledge, Levi Stubbs, OV Wright, James Brown, Bettye LaVette, Smokey Robinson, Dusty Springfield, Ray Charles, Don Covay, Tammi Terrell, Curtis Mayfield, Donny Hathaway, David Ruffin, Irma Thomas, Jackie Wilson, Roberta Flack … Whichever names are proposed, every last one of them has to reckon with the mighty, mighty Solomon Burke".
RIP
Thursday 7 October 2010
Thursday 30 September 2010
Monday 27 September 2010
Thursday 23 September 2010
Thursday 2 September 2010
Wednesday 1 September 2010
Sunday 29 August 2010
Friday 27 August 2010
Monday 23 August 2010
Sunday 22 August 2010
Saturday 21 August 2010
Thursday 19 August 2010
Tuesday 3 August 2010
Saturday 31 July 2010
Sunday 25 July 2010
Friday 16 July 2010
Tuesday 13 July 2010
Stevie Wonder's "Songs in the Key of Life"
After running off a rapid-fire string of hits and a shelf full of Grammy awards in the early Seventies, Stevie Wonder signed an unprecedented $13 million contract renewal with Motown Records — and then he made them wait. And wait and wait. Two-plus years passed after 1974's Fulfillingness' First Finale, an eternity in R&B. But when he delivered Songs in the Key of Life, a double-album with a bonus EP included, there was no doubt that the wait was worth it. It topped the charts for almost three months, and featured more true classics than even most great artists write in a lifetime. Celebrating childhood ("I Wish"), jazz ("Sir Duke"), and the beginnings of life itself ("Isn't She Lovely"), or reflecting on more serious issues like poverty “Village Ghetto Land”, and the desire for racial equality ("Black Man"), Songs in the Key of Life was a powerhouse — a rare moment when a master was faced with a new level of pressure, and responded by taking his game to new heights.
Tracklist:
Volume I
01. Love's in Need of Love Today
02. Have a Talk with God
03. Village Ghetto Land
04. Contusion
05. Sir Duke
06. I Wish
07. Knocks Me Off My Feet
08. Pastime Paradise
09. Summer Soft
10. Ordinary Pain
Volume II
11. Isn't She Lovely
12. Joy Inside My Tears
13. Black Man
14. Ngiculela - Es Una Historia/I Am Singing
15. If It's Magic
16. As
17. Another Star
18. Saturn
19. Ebony Eyes
20. All Day Sucker
21. Easy Goin' Evening (My Mama's Call)
Wednesday 7 July 2010
The Roots - How I Got Over
I recently acquired this album, and was instantly hooked. Three observations have since come to mind that I would like to briefly discuss, each one on their own usually being an indicator of a special album. How I Got Over by The Roots amazingly ticked all three boxes, which trust me, seldom happens.
1) Brand New Retro – An album that upon listening to for the first time instantly feels like something that you have owned for ages. Moreover, you can actually imagine playing it in the future, and looking back on ‘now’.
2) Allthewaythrougher – An album that you play from first to last track, and like or love every single track inbetween.
3) Thoughts of somebody past – an album that you associate with an old friend, knowing for sure that they would like it too. In this case – a special shout out to Jayman (Jamie Adam – The Ambassador of Phat Beats, and fellow Equation). Jah Love!
The Roots - How I Got Over
01. A Peace of Light - The Roots, Amber Coffman, Angel Deradoorian, Haley Dekle 1:50 02. Walk Alone - The Roots, Truck North, P.O.R.N., Dice Raw 3:54
03. Dear God 2.0 - The Roots & Monsters of Folk 3:51
04. Radio Daze - The Roots & Blu, P.O.R.N., Dice Raw 4:16
05. Now Or Never - The Roots & Phonte, Dice Raw 4:34
06. How I Got Over - The Roots & Dice Raw 3:36
07. DillaTUDE (The Flight of Titus) - The Roots 0:42
08. The Day - The Roots & Blu, Phonte, Patty Crash 3:44
09. Right On - The Roots & Joanna Newsom, STS 3:36
10. Doin' It Again - The Roots 2:24
11. The Fire - The Roots & John Legend 3:41
12. Tunnel Vision - The Roots 0:40
13. Web 20/20 - The Roots & Peedi Peedi, Truck North 2:46
14. Hustla - The Roots & STS 2:56
Saturday 26 June 2010
Friday 25 June 2010
Friday 18 June 2010
Monday 7 June 2010
Earthling - First Transmission
Earthling - First Transmission
I know who I am
I'm not who you think I am
I know who I am
I'm not who you think I am
I know who I am
I'm not who you think I am
I know who I am
I'm rock
I'm roll
Nat King Cole
Shostakovich drowning in a fish bowl
Earthling something you can never get a hold of
Baby took a load off
And then she strolled off
Whistling
Hummin'
Thumbin' a ride
"Driver won't you take me to the other side?"
I'm a book
A poem
By Leonard Cohen
Son of the dice man
And I won't stop throwing
I'm Boris Karloff
The man they could not hang
I'm a roughneck romantic
Talkin' that slang
I'm Jesus Christ superstar
Driving around in an old yellow car
I'm jumping on the balcony
Landing on a bigger man
I can fly
I fly to Japan
Hail stones falling on my dreads
Reminding me of something Hendrix said
Tunes from the room
Come back on many levels
Sounds from the earthling swing and dishevel
I'm Pollyanna in the way that I portray
Poo poo
La la
I kiss you on a good day
Hey little beetle
Sliding in my bath
When you flip on your back
You really make me laugh
I used to kill worms when I was a kid
Like Mr. McLaren, someday I'll kill Sid
Crazy how my girl wants a simple life
She's a simple schizophrenic but we get along fine
I'm a young Parisian,
Maybe I'm mistaken
Maybe I'm Cuban
Maybe I'm Jamaican
I know who I am
I'm not who you think I am
I know who I am
I'm not who you think I am
I know who I am
I'm not who you think I am
I know who I am
I never say "never"
I always say "more"
I know the score
I know what to look for
I know who I am
I'm not who you think I am
I know who I am
Kickin' like a kung-fu Shakespeare
Another girl another planet
On the corner, just wasted
Oh gosh
Oh gosh
Oh Juliette Binoche
I'm on my way to Babylon, by bus
I'm a big bloke
When I smoke, I don't choke
"Hi Malachi" let's talk about hope
In the beginning
Head spinin' make me dizzy
I'm the mirror man
So don't ask who is it
London is my city
Jamaica's my country
Africa's my history
It ain't no mystery
How I came to be
Earthling-free
Sitting in Ilford watching TV
Where's Uhura
On an adventure
Did she touch your sexual centre?
Cursing
Never seen an earthling
Never seen a microphone
Microphone
Now i'm all alone
Lost in my head
On the road until tomorrow
I'm double demented
Like William Burroughs
P to the I to the M P
Pimp
Sako Urinocho reading Iceberg Slim
I'm Marcus Garvey
I'm Harvey Keitel
I'm the ghost of a dog chasing d Brickell
It's crazy perplexing
I'm hexing like a Haitian
I'm an Arowak Indian
Picking pockets like Fagan
I know who I am
I'm not who you think i am
I know who I am
I'm not who you think i am
I know who I am
I'm not who you think i am
I know who I am
I never say "never"
I always say "more"
I know the score
I know what to look for
I know who I am
I'm not who you think I am
I know who I am
I know who I am
I'm not who you think I am
I know who I am
I'm not who you think i am
I know who I am
I'm not who you think i am
I know who I am
I know who I am
I'm not who you think i am
I know who I am
I'm not who you think i am
I know who I am
I'm not who you think i am
I know who I am
I'm Michelangelo working on a totem pole
I'm Galileo studying Shinto
I'm the rest of the earth giving birth to a baby
Grasshopper, tell me about slavery
I'm in a sauna, watching television
Yeah, Tripitaka gave me permission
I'm that man in 1686
Saying black people come from Venus
Yeah
I saw her reading poetry
Practising verses
What's the meaning of 33 degrees in the morning?
It ain't easy man
It ain't easy.
~
It's 1995, and we are at the zenith (as well as the depth) of Trip hop (interestingly, a counter culture to the 'height of BritPop' - more on this to follow at a future date...), and a Bristol three piece band named "Earthling" release a virtually unknown, ground breaking/mind bending album entitled "Radar". This is the first track on the album, and indeed, its "First Transmission". Absolutely awesome!
Thursday 27 May 2010
Wednesday 28 April 2010
Video: Blonde Redhead - Top Ranking
Song: Top Ranking
Artist: Blonde Redhead
Video Directed by: Mike Mills
Wednesday 21 April 2010
Bob Dylan's "Hurricane": A prime example of "Documusic"
| Bob Dylan - 01. Hurricane .mp3 | ||
 | ||
 | Found at bee mp3 search engine |  |
~
Pistol Shots ring out in the barroom night
Enter Patty Valentine from the upper hall.
She sees the bartender in a pool of blood,
Cries out, "My God, they killed them all!"
Here comes the story of the Hurricane,
The man the authorities came to blame
For somethin' that he never done.
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.
Three bodies lyin' there does Patty see
And another man named Bello, movin' around mysteriously.
"I didn't do it," he says, and he throws up his hands
"I was only robbin' the register, I hope you understand.
I saw them leavin'," he says, and he stops
"One of us had better call up the cops."
And so Patty calls the cops
And they arrive on the scene with their red lights flashin'
In the hot New Jersey night.
Meanwhile, far away in another part of town
Rubin Carter and a couple of friends are drivin' around.
Number one contender for the middleweight crown
Had no idea what kinda shit was about to go down
When a cop pulled him over to the side of the road
Just like the time before and the time before that.
In Paterson that's just the way things go.
If you're black you might as well not show up on the street
'Less you wanna draw the heat.
Alfred Bello had a partner and he had a rap for the cops.
Him and Arthur Dexter Bradley were just out prowlin' around
He said, "I saw two men runnin' out, they looked like middleweights
They jumped into a white car with out-of-state plates."
And Miss Patty Valentine just nodded her head.
Cop said, "Wait a minute, boys, this one's not dead"
So they took him to the infirmary
And though this man could hardly see
They told him that he could identify the guilty men.
Four in the mornin' and they haul Rubin in,
Take him to the hospital and they bring him upstairs.
The wounded man looks up through his one dyin' eye
Says, "Wha'd you bring him in here for? He ain't the guy!"
Yes, here's the story of the Hurricane,
The man the authorities came to blame
For somethin' that he never done.
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.
Four months later, the ghettos are in flame,
Rubin's in South America, fightin' for his name
While Arthur Dexter Bradley's still in the robbery game
And the cops are puttin' the screws to him, lookin' for somebody to blame.
"Remember that murder that happened in a bar?"
"Remember you said you saw the getaway car?"
"You think you'd like to play ball with the law?"
"Think it might-a been that fighter that you saw runnin' that night?"
"Don't forget that you are white."
Arthur Dexter Bradley said, "I'm really not sure."
Cops said, "A poor boy like you could use a break
We got you for the motel job and we're talkin' to your friend Bello
Now you don't wanta have to go back to jail, be a nice fellow.
You'll be doin' society a favor.
That sonofabitch is brave and gettin' braver.
We want to put his ass in stir
We want to pin this triple murder on him
He ain't no Gentleman Jim."
Rubin could take a man out with just one punch
But he never did like to talk about it all that much.
It's my work, he'd say, and I do it for pay
And when it's over I'd just as soon go on my way
Up to some paradise
Where the trout streams flow and the air is nice
And ride a horse along a trail.
But then they took him to the jailhouse
Where they try to turn a man into a mouse.
All of Rubin's cards were marked in advance
The trial was a pig-circus, he never had a chance.
The judge made Rubin's witnesses drunkards from the slums
To the white folks who watched he was a revolutionary bum
And to the black folks he was just a crazy nigger.
No one doubted that he pulled the trigger.
And though they could not produce the gun,
The D.A. said he was the one who did the deed
And the all-white jury agreed.
Rubin Carter was falsely tried.
The crime was murder "one," guess who testified?
Bello and Bradley and they both baldly lied
And the newspapers, they all went along for the ride.
How can the life of such a man
Be in the palm of some fool's hand?
To see him obviously framed
Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land
Where justice is a game.
Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties
Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise
While Rubin sits like Buddha in a ten-foot cell
An innocent man in a living hell.
That's the story of the Hurricane,
But it won't be over till they clear his name
And give him back the time he's done.
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.
~
An example of 'Documusic' - that is to say, music that documents a true life series of events, as a documentary does.
Hurricane is track number 1 on Bob Dylan's 1976 release, “Desire”. The song, co written by Jaques Levy, was dedicated to Rubin Carter, and formed a powerful protest against his wrongful imprisonment.
Tuesday 6 April 2010
Sunday 28 March 2010
Beth Gibbons - Out of Season
Out of Season is a studio album by Portishead frontwoman Beth Gibbons and former Talk Talk bassist Paul Webb (under the pseudonym Rustin Man). It was released on 28 October 2002 in the United Kingdom and on 7 October 2003 in the United States. Out of Season is largely a folk album with jazz leanings, with Gibbons and Webb drawing more directly on the influences of Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, and Nick Drake, at which Portishead's work in trip-hop only hinted. Out of Season also features contributions from Gibbon's fellow Portishead bandmate Adrian Utley. The first track of the album, "Mysteries", appears on the original soundtrack of the French movie Les Poupées Russes (The Russian Dolls).
All songs written by Beth Gibbons and Paul Webb, except where noted otherwise.
"Mysteries" – 4:39
"Tom the Model" – 3:41
"Show" (Gibbons) – 4:26
"Romance" – 5:09
"Sand River" (Webb) – 3:48
"Spider Monkey" – 4:10
"Resolve" – 2:51
"Drake" – 3:54
"Funny Time of Year" – 6:48
"Rustin Man" – 4:20
~
Tuesday 9 March 2010
Lee "Scratch" Perry - Dub Wizard
Lee Perry
In the early 1970s, Perry was one of the producers whose mixing board experiments resulted in the creation of dub. In 1973, Perry built a studio in his back yard, The Black Ark, to have more control over his productions and continued to produce notable musicians such as Bob Marley & the Wailers, Junior Byles, Junior Murvin, The Heptones, The Congos and Max Romeo. With his own studio at his disposal, Perry's productions became more lavish, as the energetic producer was able to spend as much time as he wanted on the music he produced. Virtually everything Perry recorded in The Black Ark was done using basic recording equipment; through sonic sleight-of-hand, Perry made it sound unique. Perry remained behind the mixing desk for many years, producing songs and albums that stand out as a high point in reggae history.
By 1978, stress and unwanted outside influences began to take their toll: both Perry and The Black Ark quickly fell into a state of disrepair. Eventually, the studio burned to the ground. Perry has constantly insisted that he burned the Black Ark himself in a fit of rage. After the demise of the Black Ark in the early 1980s, Perry spent time in England and the United States, performing live and making erratic records with a variety of collaborators. It was not until the late 1980s, when he began working with British producers Adrian Sherwood and Neil Fraser (who is better known as Mad Professor), that Perry's career began to get back on solid ground again. Perry also has attributed the recent resurgence of his creative muse to his deciding to quit drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis. Perry stated in an interview that he wanted to see if "it was the smoke making the music or Lee Perry making the music. I found out it was me and that I don't need to smoke."
In 1998 Perry reached a wider global audience as vocalist on two tracks of the Beastie Boys' album Hello Nasty.
Perry now lives in Switzerland with his wife Mireille and two children. Although he celebrated his 70th birthday in 2006, he continues recording and performing to enthusiastic audiences in Europe and North America.
~
King Tubby - Dub Creator
King Tubby
King Tubby's production work in the 1970s would see him become one of the best-known celebrities in Jamaica, and would generate interest in his production techniques from producers, sound engineers and musicians across the world. Tubby built on his considerable knowledge of electronics to repair, adapt and design his own studio equipment, which made use of a combination of old devices and new technologies to produce a studio capable of the precise, atmospheric sounds which would become Tubby's trademark. With a variety of effects units connected to his mixer, Tubby was able to 'play' the mixing desk like an instrument, bringing instruments and vocals in and out of the mix (literally 'dubbing' them) to create an entirely new genre known as dub music.
Using existing master tapes—his small studio in fact had no capacity to record session musicians—Tubby would re-tape or 'dub' the original after passing it through his 4 channel MCI mixing desk, twisting the songs into unexpected configurations which highlighted the heavy rhythms of their bass and drum parts with minute snatches of vocals, horns and Piano/Organ. These techniques mirrored the actions of the sound system selectors, who had long used EQ equipment to emphasise certain aspects of particular records, but Tubby was able to use his custom-built studio to take this technique into new areas, often transforming a hit song to the point where it was almost unrecognizable from its original. One unique aspect of his remixes or dubs was the result of creative manipulating of the built-in highpass filter on the MCI mixer he had bought from Dynamic Studios. The filter was controllable by a large knob—aka the 'big knob' -- which allowed Tubby to introduce a dramatic narrowing sweep of any signal, such as the horns, until the sound disappeared into a thin squeal.
Tubby engineered/remixed songs for Jamaica's top producers such as Lee Perry, Bunny Lee, Augustus Pablo and Vivian Jackson that featured artists such as Johnny Clarke, Cornell Campbell, Linval Thompson, Horace Andy, Big Joe, Delroy Wilson, Jah Stitch and many others. In 1973, he built a vocal booth at his studio so he could record vocal tracks onto the instrumental tapes brought to him by various producers. This process is known as 'voicing' in Jamaican recording parlance. It is unlikely that a complete discography of Tubby's production work could be created based on the number of labels, artists and producers with whom he worked, and subsequent repressings of these releases sometimes contained contradictory information. His name is credited on hundreds of b-side labels, with the possibility that many others were by his hand yet uncredited, due to similarities with his known work.
By the later part of the decade, though, King Tubby had mostly retired from music, still occasionally mixing dubs and tutoring a new generation of artists, including King Jammy and Scientist. In the 1980s he built a new, larger studio with increased capabilities, and focused on the management of his own labels, Firehouse, Waterhouse and Taurus, which released the work of Anthony Red Rose, Sugar Minott, Conroy Smith, King Everald and other popular musicians. He has been cited numerous times as influential to modern musicians including Animal Collective's Panda Bear (Noah Lennox) and The Mars Volta's Omar Rodriguez-Lopez.
King Tubby was shot and killed on February 6, 1989 by an unknown group of people outside his home in Duhaney Park, upon returning from a session at his Waterhouse studio. It is thought that the murder was probably an attempt at robbery.
1971, where Dub (and therefore modern dance music) is Born!!
In 1971 King Tubby and Lee Perry create the template for modern dance music
Osbourne Ruddock, aka King Tubby, was an engineer who experimented with echo and tape delay as far back as the mid-Sixties when he ran one of Jamaica's many mobile sound systems. His innovation was to strip a song down just to the bass pulse, then fade the vocals and instrumentation in and out at will, leaving space for the toasters - or DJs - to extemporise over the top. Dub was born and found its most innovative producer in Lee Perry, who is as influential in his way as Brian Wilson or Phil Spector. Modern dance music as we know it begins right here.
~
Thursday 25 February 2010
My Favourite Songs (That Have No Singing) *
| Marvin Gaye - T .mp3 | ||
| | ||
| Found at bee mp3 search engine | |
Marvin Gaye - T Plays It Cool
Pale Saints - Porpoise
Kaki King - Goby
The Smiths - Oscillate Wildly
Supergrass - Coffee In The Pot
Paul Weller- Heavy Sould (pt 2)
Massive Attack - Weather Storm
Sade - Siempre Hay Esperanza
Nick Drake - Introduction
Santana - Song Of The Wind
John Martyn - Glistening Glyndebourne
Paul McCartney - Momma Miss America
Silent Poets - Moment Scale
Curtis Mayfield - Junkie Chase
Fleetwood Mac - Albatross
* subject to current memory, and excluding the following genres; non-vocal jazz, classical and dub.
~
Sunday 21 February 2010
Video: Sade - Nothing Can Come Between Us
Song: Nothing Can Come Between Us
Artist: Sade
Video Directed by: Sophie Muller
Saturday 20 February 2010
What's Going On? There’s a Riot Going On!
| Sly and the Family Stone - It's a Family Affair .mp3 | ||
| | ||
| Found at bee mp3 search engine | |
Named in direct response to Marvin Gaye’s soulful, anguished questioning of the socio-political landscape, "What’s Going On?" (released a few months earlier), "There’s a Riot Going On” (1971), another example of a Transtemporal album, was the fifth studio album by American funk and soul band Sly & the Family Stone, released on November 20, 1971. In contrast to their previous studio work with psychedelic soul, hand-claps, and ‘loved-up’ grooves, as featured on Stand! (1969), "There’s a Riot Goin’ On" embraces a darker, more foreboding funk sound, while also rejecting the band's successful melodic formula that was featured on their previous hit singles.
The original cover art for Riot featured a red, white, and black American flag with suns in place of the stars. No other text or titles appear on the cover. Stone later explained the album cover's concept in relation to Riot's theme, stating "I wanted the flag to truly represent people of all colors. I wanted the color black because it is the absence of color. I wanted the color white because it is the combination of all colors. And I wanted the color red because it represents the one thing that all people have in common: blood. I wanted suns instead of stars because stars to me imply searching, like you search for your star. And there are already too many stars in this world. But the sun, that's something that is always there, looking right at you.
The entire record featured a dampened, dub-like sound as the result of Sly's extensive re-recording and overdubbing, which matches the burnt-out, frustrated, drugged tone of Sly's lyrics and vocals. Riot finds Sly reveling in drug-induced euphoria ("Luv n' Haight"), praising himself ("Poet") and declaring that the good times and high hopes of 1960s are over, and the bad times (the 1970s) are here ("Africa Talks to You 'The Asphalt Jungle'").
"Thank You For Talking to Me Africa" is a slower, ghastly, yet still forceful version of the previously released "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)". The song's lyrics, like many of the themes on the album, feature the concept of the disillusionment of the soul. Critic Matthew Greenwald praised the song's concept, writing: The closing track on "There’s a Riot Goin’ On" is perhaps the most frightening recording from the dawn of the 1970s, capturing all of the drama, ennui, and hedonism of the decade to come with almost a clairvoyant feel. The original song was itself a terrifying look at urban tension, couched in a blues-gospel motif, and this extended (and again, much slowed down and bluesy) version reminded listeners that, indeed, "the dream was over" as the '60s drew to a close.
"Runnin' Away" deals with the paranoia and poverty, casued by incessant drug taking. The jolty, perky guitar strumming and vocals deceptively masking a desperate narrative, keen to escape. To juxtapose, "(You Caught Me) Smilin'" is simply a hymn to getting high. Thom Jurek wrote of this track: "It is introduced by a slow, wispy soul that sounds like it's drifting in from a distant radio somewhere... Sister Rose's voice is all sweet, and at first so is Sly's, but as the horns and bassline come stepping in, Sly's voice gets heavy and is distorting in places deliberately. The delicate keyboard lines, luxuriant and in the pocket as they are, cannot keep the voice contained. There's a minimal instrumental break in the tune and it suddenly fades just as it emerged. Side one technically concludes with the album's title track, which is silent, and listed as being zero minutes and zero seconds long." Sly Stone later explained that the song had no running time because "I felt there should be no riots."
Upon release, "There’s a Riot Goin’ On" received mixed reviews from fans and critics who were not used to the album's general mood and lyrical content, despite achieving commercial success with two hit singles and debuting at number-one on the Billboard Pop Albums and Soul Albums chart. While Sly Stone's previous body of work consisted of mostly optimistic R&B and psychedelic soul music, some major music publications praised this new, darker direction and composition. Music critic and writer Greil Marcus cited "There’s a Riot Goin’ On" as "Muzak with its finger on the trigger."
Vince Aletti wrote... "Maybe this is the new urban music. It's not about dancing to the music, in the streets. It's about disintegration, getting fucked up, nodding, maybe dying. There are flashes of euphoria, ironic laughter, even some bright stretches but mostly it's just junkie death, oddly unoppressive and almost attractive in its effortlessness. Like going to sleep very slowly. The music has no peaks, no emphasis, little movement; it seems to fall away like a landslide in a dream (you falling slowly too, not panicking) or merely continue, drained of impetus, self-destructing. Smack rock... But once you get into the haze of it, it can be rather beautiful: measured, relaxed, hypnotic... At first I hated it for its weakness and its lack of energy and I still dislike these qualities. But then I began to respect the album's honesty... It's hard to take, but "There’s a Riot Goin’ On" is one of the most important fucking albums this year."
Writer Robert Christgau cited the album as "Despairing, courageous, and very hard to take, this is one of those rare albums whose whole actually does exceed the sum of its parts... The inspiration may be Sly's discovery that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow doesn't mean shit, but what's expressed is the bitterest ghetto pessimism." Many years later, he concluded "1969's Stand! Revealed the magnificence of which this band would all too briefly be capable... Sly Stone had 'Made It'. But its temptations and contradictions ate him up. The result was the prophetic 1971 "There’s a Riot Goin’ On", recorded in anarchic, druggy torpor over a year, or was it two, Stone didn't know the difference. Its taped-over murk presaging Exile on Main St., its drum-machine beats throwing knuckleballs at Miles and JB, it was darker than the Velvet Underground and Nico and funkier than shit, yet somehow it produced two smash hits, including the stark, deep "Family Affair".
Following initial mixed reaction to the album, "There’s a Riot Goin’ On" has earned a legacy as one of the greatest and most influential albums ever recorded. It is also considered one of the first instances of the type of funk music later popularised by George Clinton and Funkadelic, the Ohio Players, and similar acts. “There’s a Riot Goin’ On” , as well as the follow-up efforts Fresh, and Small Talk are considered among the first and best examples of the matured version of funk music, after prototypical instances of the sound in Sly & the Family Stone's 1960s work. The album's unique sound also influenced legendary jazz musicians Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock to crossover to the jazz-funk genre. From the 1970s on, Riot's songs have been extensively covered and sampled. Among the artists who have covered or reworked songs from Riot include Iggy Pop, John Legend, Lalah Hathaway, De La Soul, The Beastie Boys, Gwen Guthrie, and many others. The funk music genre in general, including the works of Sly & The Family Stone and James Brown & The J.B.'s, had great influence on pioneering hip hop acts, such as Afrika Bambaataa, DJ Kool Herc and many others who have sampled their music
"Luv n' Haight" – 4:04
"Just Like a Baby" – 5:13
"Poet" – 3:02
"Family Affair" – 3:08
"Africa Talks to You 'The Asphalt Jungle'" – 8:45
"There’s a Riot Goin’ On" – 0:00
"Brave & Strong" – 3:32
"(You Caught Me) Smilin'" – 2:56
"Time" – 3:05
"Spaced Cowboy" – 3:59
"Runnin' Away" – 2:57
"Thank You for Talkin' to Me, Africa" – 7:18
What’s Going On? There’s a Riot Goin’ On! Indeed.
~
Saturday 13 February 2010
Transtemporal Albums: as one decade of music ends, another begins. But when precisely does this change actually happen?
So here we are, more than a month into a brand new decade. Recently, I have been trying to reflect upon some of the most popular albums of the last decade (I accept that in this digital age, the very concept of "album" is becoming more and more obsolete, but they do, I believe, just about still exist –no doubt more discussion about this at a later time), in a foolhardy attempt to create a set of thematic trends and labels, with which one could paint the music of the "noughties".
This task was no doubt born out of the undeniable truth that although this past musical decade is closest to where I am now in terms of time, in other more meaningful ways, it is actually (relatively) quite far from where I actually am. A chance to discover brand new worlds on my very own door-step. Knowing from personal experience that some of the best holidays turn out to be the ones that you really didn't want to go on.
However, the complexity of the task and seemingly impossible resolution of the stated aim became all too apparent from the outset. And in any event, even the hidden rationale for the project was flawed to its core, for the truth is... there are quite a few "noughties" albums that I love. And so (quite naturally) I decided to give up - and focus my energies on other things.
Whist formulating the initial plan, and voyaging back through musical history to see what thematic colours are emblazoned upon previous decades, I stumbled upon an interesting paradox... some albums can both simultaneously signal the end of an old decade as well as herald the beginning of a new one.
Moreover, these 'Transtemporal' (for want of an actual word) albums can be created and released at the end of the decade that they are bringing to an end (before the start of the decade that they are set to influence), or they can be created at the beginning of the decade after the one that they are symbolically bringing to an end.
Cases in point: "Abbey Road" (1969) and "The Stone Roses" (1989) can be seen as significant departures from the sounds of the respective decades in which they were released, as well as directly influencing scores of albums made afterwards in the 1970’s and 1990’s.
Conversely, David Bowie’s "Scary Monsters [and Super Creeps]" (1980) and Marvin Gaye’s "What's Going On?" (1971) defined complete waves of music that were to follow, and yet bore hardly any resemblance to what had preceded them, both from their respective creators or creators’ contemporaries.
Transtemporal Albums: As one decade of music ends, another begins. But when precisely does this change actually happen? Well, obviously, there is not a single change. There are a vast multitude of changes. Most of these changes are subtle, many are medium in size. Some however can be described as 'seismic', and when these seismic changes take the form of an entire album, then that album can indeed be described as 'Transtemporal'.
To put it another way; a couple of years either side of the actual 'nexus' date where one decade moves into the next (December the 31st of a year that ends with a nine), a series of musical doors are being opened and closed. Some albums, released either side of this nexus, are simultaneously opening and closing these doors. Transtemporal Albums. I have named a few. Can you?
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