40 years ago today, October 8, 1980, was a great day for music.
On that day, Prince released his 3rd album, Dirty Mind. He wrote, produced, sang, and played everything (except for backing vocals on one song and keyboards on a couple songs).
Prince's first two [albums] established him as a doe-eyed romantic.… Nothing, therefore could have prepared us for the liberating lewdness of Dirty Mind.… Dirty Mind jolts with the unsettling tension that arises from rubbing complex erotic wordplay against clean, simple melodies. Across this electric surface glides Prince's graceful quaver, tossing off lyrics with an exhilarating breathlessness. He takes the sweet romanticism of Smokey Robinson and combines it with the powerful vulgate poetry of Richard Pryor. The result is cool music dealing with hot emotions.
Eddie Van Halen, the immensely influential guitarist whose band, Van Halen, was one of the most popular rock acts of all time, died on Tuesday. He was 65.…
Mr. Van Halen’s razzle-dazzle appoach made him the most influential guitarist of his generation. He structured his solos in roughly the same way Macy’s choreographs its Independence Day fireworks shows, shooting rockets of sound into the air that seemed to explode in a shower of light and color. His outpouring of riffs, runs and solos was hyperactive and athletic, joyous and wry, making deeper or darker emotions feel irrelevant.
“Eddie put the smile back in rock guitar at a time when it was all getting a bit broody,” his fellow guitar ace Joe Satriani told Billboard in 2015. “He also scared the hell out of a million guitarists because he was so damn good.”
Mr. Van Halen was most widely revered by his peers for perfecting the technique of two-handed tapping on the guitar neck. That approach allowed him to add new textures, and percussive possibilities, to his instrument, while also making its six strings sound as expressive as a piano’s 88 keys or as changeable as a synthesizer. He received patents for three guitar devices he had created. In 2012, Guitar World Magazine ranked him No. 1 on its list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.” ...
His showstopping solo piece ... “Eruption,” [from Van Halen's 1978 self-titled debut album,] showcased his finger-tapping technique, which set a new bar for guitar pyrotechnics. While other guitarists — notably Allan Holdsworth, a major influence — had used this approach before, Mr. Van Halen had noticed that “nobody was going more than just one stretch and one note, real quick,” he said in a 1979 interview that was published 20 years later in Classic Rock magazine. “I hadn’t really seen anyone get into it as far as they could.” ...
In his 1979 interview, Mr. Van Halen clarified his guiding principle for the band. “All we’re trying to do is put excitement back into rock ’n' roll,” he said. “A lot of people seem like they forgot what rock ’n' roll is about. We’re very energetic. We get up there and blaze.”
Here he is play "Eruption" live — a literal guitar “solo,” just him alone:
More from the obit:
“I’m always pushing things past where they’re supposed to be,” Mr. Van Halen told the educational website Zocalo Public Square in 2015. “When ‘Spinal Tap’ was going to 11, I was going to 15,” he said....
The zest in Mr. Van Halen’s playing paired perfectly with the hedonistic songs and persona of his hard-rocking band, Van Halen, whose original lineup featured his brother Alex on pummeling drums, Michael Anthony on thunderous bass and the singer David Lee Roth, who presented a scene-stealing mix of Lothario, peacock and clown.
He played the guitar solo in Michael Jackson's "Beat It" (starting a little more than 3 minutes in):
The New York Times on his early years:
Edward Lodewijk Van Halen was born on Jan. 26, 1955, in Amsterdam to Jan and Eugenia (Beers) Van Halen. His father, a struggling Dutch classical musician who played clarinet, saxophone and piano, met his Indonesian-born wife while on tour in Indonesia.
In 1962, when Mr. Van Halen was 7, his family relocated to the United States, driven away by prejudice against his mother and unfavorable work opportunities in the Netherlands. They settled in Pasadena, Calif. ...
In a new country, with a new language to learn, the Van Halen sons, Eddie and his older brother, Alex, turned to music as their lingua franca. Eddie first studied classical piano, which he excelled at despite a serious limitation.
“I never learned how to read music,” he told Rolling Stone in 1995. “I fooled my teacher for six years. He never knew. I’d watch his fingers, and I’d play it.”
"Lawyers and doctors, they're still 'practicing' — they ain't got it down yet, you know? It's music theory, not music fact. There are no rules. I never learned how to read music. Maybe that's why I'm so twisted and unorthodox. But if I would've taken guitar lessons … I wouldn't do all the silly stuff that I do."
Nine Inch Nails’ sound is dominated by clanging synths and sardonic, shrieking vocals. But Reznor stretches that industrial-strength noise over a pop framework, and his harrowing but catchy music has taken the college charts by storm.
The conventional wisdom might be that the downward spiral is the magnum opus of NIИ. But for me, their greatest has always been pretty hate machine — the original expression of NIИ in its most raw purity. (“i gave you my purity...”)
Today I listened to the remastered version of the whole album with headphones. NIИ sing about how there’s “nothing quite like the feel of something new,” but there’s also nothing quite like returning to something that hasn’t been new for a long time but still has the capacity to shock and invigorate.
“head like a hole” starts the album by signaling from the first words that this song and this album are going to be about power and control: “god money, i’ll do anything for you. god money, just tell me what you want me to...” The song later seems to become more political, with lines like: “god money, let’s go dancing on the backs of the bruised...”
That song ends with a disorienting segue to the next song, “terrible lie,” which has been a powerful opener to NIИ’s famously great live shows. The singer’s obsessively dependent refrain is: “don’t take it away from me, i need someone to hold on to...” (the equivalent to the downward spiral’s “nothing can stop me now, ‘cause i don’t care anymore.”)
“down in it” has trent reznor (who the liner notes helpfully tell us “is” nine inch nails) rapping over eerily atmospheric samples. To be a NIИ fan is to know the lyrics to this by heart. (“kind of like a cloud...”)
“sanctified” is one of many songs in which reznor grapples with religion. (“heaven’s just a rumor she’ll dispel, as she walks me through the nicest parts of hell...”)
“something i can never have” is the “hurt” of pretty hate machine, and possibly even more hauntingly beautiful. A quintessentially self-effacing NIИ line: “grey would be the color ... if i had a heart.”
“sin” is an anthem of power and control. The song keeps coming back to a “shah” sound that bounces back and forth between the left and right speakers, as if to beg us to listen with headphones. The song reaches some of the most intense moments of the album after the second chorus, when the instruments steadily build up to a heavy synth riff over a wall of guitars.
“the only time” reveals a funkier and more comical side of NIИ. (“my moral standing is lying down...”)
Some of the other, poppier songs on the album are less memorable, but they remind us that while we might think of nine inch nails as ‘90s alternative music, NIИ started in the ‘80s.
I'm glad to hear this string quartet interpretation of "Come On Eileen," with all parts played by the same person ("Nick"). The music alone, with its dramatic key and tempo changes, expresses a level of joy that transcends the song's "Gee, you sure are attractive" lyrics.
Does it also work as a ska song, sung by a woman? Does it ever!
(Save Ferris is the band.)
Of course, Dexys Midnight Runners' original is still great:
Michael Jackson died exactly one year ago today.Over here, the Washington Post's critics and commenters are making lists of their 10 favorite Michael Jackson songs. The main surprise is that many people (including all the critics) include "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)," which to me is one of the low points of the Thriller album.
Here are mine (I'm following WaPo's rule: no Jackson 5, only solo songs):
1. Billie Jean
I'm not generally putting this list in any particular order, but this is his best.
2. Leave Me Alone
The message of the song is ridiculous, but I wish he had done more music in this style.
3. The Way You Make Me Feel
4. The Man in the Mirror
This is unbelievably maudlin and self-aggrandizing, but it does exactly what it's trying to do.
5. Black or White
Like "Leave Me Alone," the message of this song is impossible to take seriously given the messenger, but it's good music.
6. Don't Stop Till You Get Enough
The Off the Wall album has a cult status that his others don't have, but it's actually weaker than Thriller, Bad, or Dangerous. This song is the exception.
Unfortunately, each one starts with a minute or more of ads for beer and coffee. Also, the announcer has an oddly unenthusiastic delivery that seems to be popular on the web. For some reason, people announcing things on TV go completely over the top, but this would seem inappropriate on a website. Does sitting closer to a screen somehow make an audience more conscious of people overexerting their voices?
Anyway, as far as the music, here's a good one (although you might want to mute the volume on your computer till the band starts): Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, covering . . .
. . . Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World."
