Color Me Badd, as if there aren't a host of bands with a colour in their name, Black Sabbath, White Stripes, Green Day, Blue Oyster Cult, Simply Red, Maroon 5, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry...
But here are songs involving colours rather than just the band names. Good and bad!
Enjoy
1) "Paint It Black" - Rolling Stones
Beatles or Stones? I was never really either, but I preferred the Stones' edge over the Beatles, though didn't really dig many of their songs. This however is a classic and has a real menace.
Honourable mentions:
"Black Candy" - Beat Happening
"Black Betty" Ram Jam
"Blackheart Man" - Bunny Wailer
"Black Night" - Deep Purple
Black Dog - Led Zepplin
Dishonourable Mentions:
"Men In Black" - The Stranglers makes David Bowie's "Laughing Gnome" sound meaningful
2) "Curious Oranj" - The Fall
Orange, the word that has no rhyme and therefore unlikely to lend itself to lyricism. Unless you're Mark E Smith, who echoed a 60s avant garde film from Yugoslavia and composed a score for a modern ballet (performed by Michael Clark's dance company) based on the colour divide in Northern Ireland. Barmy but fun.
Honourable mentions:
"Orange Crush" - REM
3) "Purple Haze" - Jimi Hendrix
'Scuse me while I kiss this guy'... Simply definitive song by the master. It's about drugs ya know? I see purple landing smoke canisters for helicopters in Vietnam whenever I hear this song. Like I say, definitive...
Honourable mentions:
"Purple Rain" - Prince
4) "All Cats Are Grey" - The Cure
After their debut album of low-fi pop pun, that difficult follow-up album was the doomy gloomy "Seventeen Seconds" from which this track was taken. It was the prelude to Smith's ridiculous White Rabbit meets Goth phase which was cartoonish in its sentiment, but this track represents them when they actually meant their angst.
Honourable mentions:
"Fade To Grey" - Visage
"Grey Day" - Madness
5) "Green Light" - Sonic Youth
From when Sonic Youth were still good and making interesting, discordant music. Although this song musically references another of their own songs "Death Valley 69" which is a bit cheeky methinks. There are many honourable mentions for this colour, the colour must conjure up lots of things. Note, rap artists singing about 'green' as in money were not considered for this category
Honourable mentions:
"Everything's Gone Green" - New Order
"Pretty Green" - The Jam
"Green Green Grass Of Home" - Tom Jones
"Green Onions" - Booker T & The MGs
6) "Golden Brown" - The Stranglers
I remember this with its whimsical harpsichord vibe getting into the charts. And yes it's about drugs. Colours... drugs, seeing a theme develop here.
Honourable Mentions:
"Golden Years" - David Bowie
"Fools Gold" - Stone Roses
"Brown Sugar" - Rolling Stones
"Don't It Make Your Brown Eyes Blue" - Crystal Gale
Dishonourable Mentions:
"Brown Girl In The Ring" - Boney M
"Gold_ - Spandau Ballet - always hated this song, even before it became the theme or motif music of 1001 quiz and sports' shows
7) "Blue Monday" - New Order
The Blues, well this colour clearly would have the most entries, but this is the daddy of them all.
Honourable mentions:
"Mr Blue Sky" - ELO
"Preaching The Blues" - Gun Club
"Gravedigger Blues" - Beat Happening
Dishonourable mentions:
"Mr Blue Sky" - ELO - sometimes it's just too damn cheerful for my mood. Music can be like that you know!
8) "Pink Turns To Blue" - Husker Du
A band of heavy guitar punk/new wave playing really muscular music, all three members of this power trio eventually coming out as gay which gave a whole new insight into their love songs. Fabulous.
Honourable mention:
"Pink Cadillac" - Natalie Cole
"Pretty In Pink" - Psychedelic Furs
9) "Violet" - Hole
I know it's heresy, but I actually preferred Mrs Cobain's band to Kurt's mob. If you'll excuse the implicit sexism, she had more balls in her music and lyrics than hubby.
10. "White Lines" - Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
Has this been bettered as early hip-hop? I don't think so. White, symbol of purity (and purity of powdered drugs) seems to be a very popular colour of choice in song titles. White noise? Don't you believe it.
Honourable mentions:
"White Rabbit" - Jefferson Airplane
"White Riot" - The Clash
"White Punks On Dope" - The Tubes
"Whiter Shade Of Pale" - Procul Harum
"Knights in White Satin" - Moody Blues
"Ride A White Swan" - T-Rex
10) "Silver Machine" - Hawkwind
Hawkwind were a band that divided (I mean check out this video for bubbles, flutes and strange mute women in astral make-up as to why) but still the greasers stuck to their preferred choice of music. I happen to be a punk who really likes this song.
Honourable Mention:
"Silver Rocket" - Sonic Youth
"Silver" - Pixies
Dishonourable mention:
"Silver Lining" - Stiff Little Fingers - what punk mutated to when they ran out of rage
Dishonourable mention - The colour red.
Red, colour of passion and flame and yet a strange paucity of songs honouring the colour. All I could think of was "Red, Red Wine", a ska reggae version by Tony Tribe which is pretty neat, but then later covered by UB40 which should have been named "Red, Red Whine".
Showing posts with label The Stranglers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Stranglers. Show all posts
Wednesday, 4 December 2013
Sunday, 2 June 2013
Never Mind The Jackson Pollocks - 10 Songs about artists
Lyricists namecheck their literary heroes often enough, but a few also honour their inspirational artists too. Here's 10 artists immortalised in song.
1) "Andy Warhol" - David Bowie
Written when Bowie went to New York and hung out at The Factory with the artist. Apparently Warhol was not best pleased with what Bowie saw as his tribute. God it was if Bowie had never heard the Velvet Underground's album. This live version of the song is bizarre in the extreme, starting out as jungle or dub step almost, before reverting to it's carnivalesque pub stomp from the original Hunky Dory album.
2) "Pablo Picasso" - Jonathan Richman And The Modern Lovers
Jonathan Richman goes to the heart of the matter and ditches Picasso's artistic merits, instead concentrating on the man's magnetism. And I love it. The track was used in the film "Repo Man"
3) "David Hockney's Diaries" - Television Personalities
The king of ice cool art here honoured by the British kings of indie lo-fi pop. Note, despite the proud/ironic boast of the cover art "They could have been bigger than the Beatles", the TVPs were so far ensconced in their niche that couldn't even be bigger than the Television Personalities.
4) "Born Toulouse Lautrec" - New Bomb Turks
Slightly odd alliance of US prole-punkers and fine art, but there you go.
5) "Vincent" - Don Maclean
Not only does Don dedicate the song title to the famous artist, the song proceeds to describe Van Gogh's paintings.
6) "Music For Jackson Pollock - Morton Feldman
because they not only knew each other, but the avant garde muso wanted to draw parallels with the revolutionary artist. A fertile period in US arts with the two art forms informing one another. Plinky plink music for slithers of dripping paint. A perfect symbiosis.
7) "Music For Marcel Duchamp" - John Cage
More plinky plink minimalism to honour the prankster godfather of the avant garde, he who recycled a toilet urinal and made it art, Marcel Duchamp. Cage wrote a piece of music without any notes or sounds at all. The "players" were still instructed to turn over the music score even though they weren't playing their instruments.
8) "(I Want To Be) Tracey Emin" - These New Puritans
Quite jaunty tribute to the queen of jaunty trash art aesthetic herself, la Dame Tracey. Their genre is described as "Art Rock" which is quite fitting really. Don't forget that many of the early punk rock bands in the UK were formed by art college students.
9) "Painting By Chagall" - The Weepies
An example of lazy writing. Why come up with your own metaphor when you can just reference the style of a proper artist like Chagall. Dreck.
10) "Goodbye Toulouse" - The Stranglers
And so Toulouse gets 2 songs dedicated to him in this chart. This song doesn't really work for me, the wistful lyrical description of the street scenes painted by Lautrec, propelled by an ultra modern bass thrum, that's more stampede than café flaneur.
1) "Andy Warhol" - David Bowie
Written when Bowie went to New York and hung out at The Factory with the artist. Apparently Warhol was not best pleased with what Bowie saw as his tribute. God it was if Bowie had never heard the Velvet Underground's album. This live version of the song is bizarre in the extreme, starting out as jungle or dub step almost, before reverting to it's carnivalesque pub stomp from the original Hunky Dory album.
2) "Pablo Picasso" - Jonathan Richman And The Modern Lovers
Jonathan Richman goes to the heart of the matter and ditches Picasso's artistic merits, instead concentrating on the man's magnetism. And I love it. The track was used in the film "Repo Man"
3) "David Hockney's Diaries" - Television Personalities
The king of ice cool art here honoured by the British kings of indie lo-fi pop. Note, despite the proud/ironic boast of the cover art "They could have been bigger than the Beatles", the TVPs were so far ensconced in their niche that couldn't even be bigger than the Television Personalities.
4) "Born Toulouse Lautrec" - New Bomb Turks
Slightly odd alliance of US prole-punkers and fine art, but there you go.
5) "Vincent" - Don Maclean
Not only does Don dedicate the song title to the famous artist, the song proceeds to describe Van Gogh's paintings.
6) "Music For Jackson Pollock - Morton Feldman
because they not only knew each other, but the avant garde muso wanted to draw parallels with the revolutionary artist. A fertile period in US arts with the two art forms informing one another. Plinky plink music for slithers of dripping paint. A perfect symbiosis.
7) "Music For Marcel Duchamp" - John Cage
More plinky plink minimalism to honour the prankster godfather of the avant garde, he who recycled a toilet urinal and made it art, Marcel Duchamp. Cage wrote a piece of music without any notes or sounds at all. The "players" were still instructed to turn over the music score even though they weren't playing their instruments.
8) "(I Want To Be) Tracey Emin" - These New Puritans
Quite jaunty tribute to the queen of jaunty trash art aesthetic herself, la Dame Tracey. Their genre is described as "Art Rock" which is quite fitting really. Don't forget that many of the early punk rock bands in the UK were formed by art college students.
9) "Painting By Chagall" - The Weepies
An example of lazy writing. Why come up with your own metaphor when you can just reference the style of a proper artist like Chagall. Dreck.
10) "Goodbye Toulouse" - The Stranglers
And so Toulouse gets 2 songs dedicated to him in this chart. This song doesn't really work for me, the wistful lyrical description of the street scenes painted by Lautrec, propelled by an ultra modern bass thrum, that's more stampede than café flaneur.
Saturday, 30 June 2012
Ace Of Bass - 20 top bass driven tunes
It's always the lead guitarists who get all the muso-glory. Drummer get the jokes made about them, singers do the interviews and bassists? Well bassists are like the invisible man of the band. Here's a list of 20 songs to partly redress the balance. They may not all be bass licks by musical virtuosos, but the song wouldn't be the same with a lesser bassline.
1) Buzzcocks - "Whatever Happened To?"
How's this for a bass intro? The instrument really came into its own with punk, since the limited musical abilities of the early punkers meant that the primitive sounds just merged into a noisy squall. But solo bass intros allowed some separation out at the beginning of the song and there were many punk bassists who suddenly stepped more into the limelight than in previous musical eras.
7) The Ruts - "Love In Vein"
Part of punk and New Wave was a formal link up and experimentation with reggae and reggae musicians. Ruts were out and out punk but had very close local ties to roots reggae band Misty and the two shared many bills on the Rock Against Racism tour. Here the crossover is clear in one of the most achingly sad and beautiful songs by a punk band.
8) The Jam - "Funeral Pyre"
By now punk had gone all mainstream and bands like the Jam were having regular singles in the Top 10 of the charts. This song is unusually heavy and free-form for what was a tight threesome and everyone normally remembers the drum solo closing out the song, but actually bassist Bruce Foxton was also allowed off his tight leash to twiddle and thump away. Powerpop.
9) The Cure - "A Forest"
The Cure were never punk. A bit low-fi pop on their debut album and soon to move into stadium Goth. But in between was their second melancholy album and this track showing a bass also driving a song, but without the bluster and pose of songs with harder edge. The sound of a higher end bass. Who'd be a bassists though? The Cure's Laurence Tolhurst went to Court to sue over lack of royalties saying he contributed ineffably to the Cure sound. He lost.
10) Dead Kennedys - "We Got a Bigger Problem Now"
Hopping back over the pond and New Wave had taken the reverse journey and morphed into punk, thrash and hardcore. Progenitors of that were San Fransisco's Dead Kennedys with Klaus Flouride on bass. Here he has a little lounge music lick to satirise the right wing's music of choice. This song was a reworking of their earlier hit "California Uber Alles" written about the right-wing Governor Jerry Brown. But with californian Ronald reagan ascending to the Whitehouse, the US did as they say, have a bigger problem than that now... The West coast can do its own rather nice line in paranoia too.
11) Minutemen - "Anchor"
But US punk wasn't all thrash. The Minutemen were a trio whose musical abilities allowed them to include folk and jazz elements to their tightly blended mix. Guitar and bass alternated duties as leading songs and the band introduced Mike Watt, bass guitarist supreme upon the world.
13) Gang Of Four - "To Hell With Poverty"
The funk is introduced to New Wave. George Clinton and other funk bands were perhaps the only other precursors of punk who might bring the bass into the foreground. Since Gang Of Four's guitar sound was so choppy and intermittent, they needed a bass sound to carry the weight of some songs and fill in the gaps.
14) Beastie Boys - "Gratitude"
Hip hop could sample any sound it wanted. Yet when the Beastie Boys went back to their live instruments and punky roots, they brought delicious distortion to their bass sound. Ramp it up! RIP Adam MCA Yauch.
15) Birthday Party - "Mutiny In Heaven"
Punk, New Wave, Goth, what did any of it mean anymore by the mid-80s? There was a flowering of indie bands each pursuing their own underground tracks. The Birthday Party from Australia were one such blossoming that couldn't really be pigeonholed. But bassist Tracy Pew with his cowboy hat and biker fashion, sadly now dead from his grand mal seizures, was always driving the band forward with their off beat drum section, sometimes one drummer, sometimes two which he had to compete with as well as compliment. A bass rumble truly to soundtrack the rhythms of Hell!
16) Gun Club - "Sexbeat"
Psychobilly (UK) or swamp blues (US) was creative another offshoot and here the bass truly lends a quality of swampy sludge even as it drives the blues throb along in its train-driving manner.
17) Jesus And Mary Chain - "Sidewalking"
Meanwhile from Scotland, a band who wanted to be the surfer punks, the Beach Boys with a lot of reverb on top. I kind of liked their schtick, but the bass was always prominent among the feedback squall of the lead. It had to be, to keep it all together.
18) Cop Shoot Cop - "Shine On Elisabeth"
Two basses no guitars, this is a no brainer. 1 hi-end bass, one low-end bass, a heavnely heavy duty throbbing racket. This is my bass nirvana I think (the Buddhist ideal highest state of non-being, not Kurt Cobain's outfit).
19) Thee Johns - "White Boy Engineer"
There was a fashion for rock bands having drum machines instead of live drummers which definitely changed the vibe. Drum machines always sounded a bit tinny and brittle, so the bassist had to inject the weight into the musical grooves to compensate.
20) White Denim - "Let's Talk About It"
And so to the present day. I don't much about this band but we seem to be still where we were with permission for the bass sometimes to grab the glory in a song. Even with a geeky looking guy on bass like this one! Thanks for listening
1) Buzzcocks - "Whatever Happened To?"
How's this for a bass intro? The instrument really came into its own with punk, since the limited musical abilities of the early punkers meant that the primitive sounds just merged into a noisy squall. But solo bass intros allowed some separation out at the beginning of the song and there were many punk bassists who suddenly stepped more into the limelight than in previous musical eras.
2) The Stranglers - "Nice'N'Sleazy"
This was the band who maybe made me really fall in love with the instrument. Jean-Jacques Burnel's bass was just so dirty sounding, as befit their lyrics. Yeah there were persistent rumours that he couldn't actually play and the keyboardist Dave Greenfield was actually playing the riffs, but Burnel was a classically trained musician so I don't buy it. The lowest of low-end bass!
3) Wire - "Like a Heartbeat"
Wire were always more arty purveyors of punk rock, musically stripped down. the bass pulse as a heartbeat, what could be simpler than that? Stunningly effective. Suddenly it was the upfront bass sound that people could dance to, just like in reggae.
4) Talking Heads - "Psychokiller"
Meanwhile, over in New York where New Wave preceded punk unlike in Britain, there were some accomplished musicians showing a punk attitude but with musical virtuosity to boot. If I wanted to look like JJ Burnel, I wanted Tina Weymouth to be my girlfriend. Quite simply a psychokiller of a bass intro.
5) Pere Ubu - "Heart Of Darkness"
And just to emphasise New York's primacy of the accomplished New Wave sond, comes Pere Ubu and another paranoia-suffused bass intro. Both these tracks have the bass as the more primary instrument and don't they sound all the better for it? New York in the early 80s must have been one messed up city.
6) Public Image Ltd - "Poptones"
The brief flare that was punk rock was quickly replaced by New Wave in Britain with similar values to those in the US. Arch musical experimentalists PIL had the musical genius that is Jah Wobble on bass, heavily influenced as his name suggests by bass-heavy dub reggae. A bass sound that is both dense and fragile at the same time. Outstanding.
Part of punk and New Wave was a formal link up and experimentation with reggae and reggae musicians. Ruts were out and out punk but had very close local ties to roots reggae band Misty and the two shared many bills on the Rock Against Racism tour. Here the crossover is clear in one of the most achingly sad and beautiful songs by a punk band.
8) The Jam - "Funeral Pyre"
By now punk had gone all mainstream and bands like the Jam were having regular singles in the Top 10 of the charts. This song is unusually heavy and free-form for what was a tight threesome and everyone normally remembers the drum solo closing out the song, but actually bassist Bruce Foxton was also allowed off his tight leash to twiddle and thump away. Powerpop.
The Cure were never punk. A bit low-fi pop on their debut album and soon to move into stadium Goth. But in between was their second melancholy album and this track showing a bass also driving a song, but without the bluster and pose of songs with harder edge. The sound of a higher end bass. Who'd be a bassists though? The Cure's Laurence Tolhurst went to Court to sue over lack of royalties saying he contributed ineffably to the Cure sound. He lost.
10) Dead Kennedys - "We Got a Bigger Problem Now"
Hopping back over the pond and New Wave had taken the reverse journey and morphed into punk, thrash and hardcore. Progenitors of that were San Fransisco's Dead Kennedys with Klaus Flouride on bass. Here he has a little lounge music lick to satirise the right wing's music of choice. This song was a reworking of their earlier hit "California Uber Alles" written about the right-wing Governor Jerry Brown. But with californian Ronald reagan ascending to the Whitehouse, the US did as they say, have a bigger problem than that now... The West coast can do its own rather nice line in paranoia too.
11) Minutemen - "Anchor"
But US punk wasn't all thrash. The Minutemen were a trio whose musical abilities allowed them to include folk and jazz elements to their tightly blended mix. Guitar and bass alternated duties as leading songs and the band introduced Mike Watt, bass guitarist supreme upon the world.
12) World Domination Enterprises - "Asbestos Lead Asbestos"
If lead guitars can carry you along highways or out into space, the bass nearly always roots you back into the urban city. Here World Dom with their dub reggae penchant utterly nail the grime of their West London roots. Guitars are wielded like axes or played over the heart and chest, or even teasing over their sex, but bass guitars are always low-slung, closer to the ground. And of course they have a longer fretboard, to keep other people further at arms length...
The funk is introduced to New Wave. George Clinton and other funk bands were perhaps the only other precursors of punk who might bring the bass into the foreground. Since Gang Of Four's guitar sound was so choppy and intermittent, they needed a bass sound to carry the weight of some songs and fill in the gaps.
14) Beastie Boys - "Gratitude"
Hip hop could sample any sound it wanted. Yet when the Beastie Boys went back to their live instruments and punky roots, they brought delicious distortion to their bass sound. Ramp it up! RIP Adam MCA Yauch.
15) Birthday Party - "Mutiny In Heaven"
Punk, New Wave, Goth, what did any of it mean anymore by the mid-80s? There was a flowering of indie bands each pursuing their own underground tracks. The Birthday Party from Australia were one such blossoming that couldn't really be pigeonholed. But bassist Tracy Pew with his cowboy hat and biker fashion, sadly now dead from his grand mal seizures, was always driving the band forward with their off beat drum section, sometimes one drummer, sometimes two which he had to compete with as well as compliment. A bass rumble truly to soundtrack the rhythms of Hell!
16) Gun Club - "Sexbeat"
Psychobilly (UK) or swamp blues (US) was creative another offshoot and here the bass truly lends a quality of swampy sludge even as it drives the blues throb along in its train-driving manner.
17) Jesus And Mary Chain - "Sidewalking"
Meanwhile from Scotland, a band who wanted to be the surfer punks, the Beach Boys with a lot of reverb on top. I kind of liked their schtick, but the bass was always prominent among the feedback squall of the lead. It had to be, to keep it all together.
18) Cop Shoot Cop - "Shine On Elisabeth"
Two basses no guitars, this is a no brainer. 1 hi-end bass, one low-end bass, a heavnely heavy duty throbbing racket. This is my bass nirvana I think (the Buddhist ideal highest state of non-being, not Kurt Cobain's outfit).
19) Thee Johns - "White Boy Engineer"
There was a fashion for rock bands having drum machines instead of live drummers which definitely changed the vibe. Drum machines always sounded a bit tinny and brittle, so the bassist had to inject the weight into the musical grooves to compensate.
20) White Denim - "Let's Talk About It"
And so to the present day. I don't much about this band but we seem to be still where we were with permission for the bass sometimes to grab the glory in a song. Even with a geeky looking guy on bass like this one! Thanks for listening
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