Some Songs Considered

“Never Gonna Give You Up” – Rick Astley
(Words/music: Matt Aitken/Mike Stock/Pete Waterman, available on Whenever You Need Somebody, RCA 1987)

Yes, it’s April Fools’ Day.  Let’s do this in bullet points.

• Today at Popular, the rundown of every number one single in the UK, Tom Ewing’s post on “Never Gonna Give You Up” (both the tongue-in-cheek perfect 10 and the clarification in the edit) touches on the point that the internet has changed the meaning of the song.  He has some fun with it, but there’s a touch of truth even in the hyperbole.  If nothing else, this is an example of context turning a song upside down.

• The comments on the Popular post are excellent too, and they discussed the point I considered in the car this morning (before reading Tom’s post) – why did this catch on like wildfire?  My apocryphal theory is that the video mirrors the practice of Rickrolling.  Specifically, it’s an exercise in “what you see isn’t what you’re going to get” – the same way that a link to an album leak or a cat video leads to the video, the awkwardly dancing redhead in the video doesn’t match the voice singing the track.  This has always been part of the novelty of the song, and it only compounds the surprise when sent as a tinyurl link.

• Finally, the ultimate answer to the “why” question comes back to the song.  Rickrolling went on for so long (still goes on?) because we’re drawn to the song.  Whether it’s a blast of nostalgia, a mini dance break in your cubicle, or just a guilty pleasure, “Never Gonna Give You Up” is generally more pleasant than grating.  I know I’ve been sent the video and let it play far longer than I realized.  Now, after being sent the video for the tenth time in a weekend, that’s a different story.

More on Rick Astley: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Suspicious Minds” – Elvis Presley
(Words/music: Mark James, available on RCA Single 1969, Elvis: 30 #1 Hits, BMG 2002)

When I was young, my mom would quiz my brothers and me on the performers of songs we’d hear on the radio.  However, she really only did this with The Beatles and Elvis Presley, so after a while if she asked, one of us would guess the Beatles and one would guess Elvis.  I suppose it was her way of giving us a basic musical education, as one might make the case that Elvis and the Beatles were the two biggest forces in pop music.  This, for the most part, is the only story I have attached to Elvis Presley’s music.  I’ve admired him from afar and read about how he fits into the history of popular music – for example, “Ed Sullivan” would be my immediate free-associative response when Elvis comes up.  I’m not proud of this gap in my knowledge (and I’d appreciate any non-Greatest Hits starting suggestions if you have one). 

Somehow, either on one of those mid-ride quizzes in my parents’ minivan or on a jukebox somewhere, “Suspicious Minds” stuck with me.  This isn’t the young, rebellious Elvis most people picture when thinking of him.  Instead, this is Elvis the Pop Star, fresh off his 1968 televised comeback special, surrounded by horns, backup singers, and a jangly guitar.  Still, it’s Presley’s distinctive voice that commands the spotlight.  I especially love the way he distorts the word “love” with a couple extra syllables thrown in.  It’s appropriate, as love gets distorted by jealous feelings and accusations in the song.  Ultimately, it’s the breakdown in the middle where Presley shows off his chops as a vocalist.  The band slides into a gentle half-time feel while he belts out a couple key lines.  It’s Presley’s assertion that even if he needed to reclaim the spotlight on television, he was capable as ever this second time around.

More on Elvis Presley: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Build Me Up” – Rhymefest f/ Ol’ Dirty Bastard
(Words/music: Michael d’Abo/Tony Macaulay/Mark Ronson/Che Smith, available on Blue Collar, RCA 2006)

Somehow, it’s appropriate that the ODB’s final recording before passing would be a goofy hook based on a classic pop song.  Dirt’s legacy lies in his absurdity, and it’s this inherent ridiculousness that makes something this goofy work so well.  Even if he’s far more clever than this, “Build Me Up” more or less captures the ODB’s enduring legacy as a partly absurd, partly comedic presence.  To laugh at Russell Jones is only to acknowledge the tip of the iceberg – although, to be fair, he doesn’t exactly do himself favors by seeking out opportunities to show off his skill for wordplay.

That being said, it’s Rhymefest’s premise that makes this track a winner.  Our narrator has girl problems, so he writes a letter to the ODB – a decision of questionable logic that yields endless comedic results.  It also affords Rhymefest, who tries his best to milk the “blue collar” work ethic off of Kanye West’s coattails, the opportunity to cut loose and be ridiculous.  Sure, it yield’s some clunkers, but on a track where the hook is a pop song interpreted by a man who once asked to be called Big Baby Jesus, Rhymefest sounds downright clever.  In any case, it offers ‘Fest the chance to make a reference to When Harry Met Sally and air out his lady problems in as many creative ways as possible, knowing that the ODB will be there to out-ridiculous him nearly a minute later.  It’s a playful side that Rhymefest would later mute, outing himself as a proud homophobe on a later mixtape, but for one fleeting moment it felt like he was having fun at his own expense.  Even if he went back to taking himself (too?) seriously, “Build Me Up” makes it impossible to stay stoic when the ODB starts in on the hook.

More on Rhymefest: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Vicious” - Lou Reed
(Words/music: Lou Reed, available on Transformer, RCA 1972)

When we talk about Lou Reed as an innovator, whether as a solo performer or as a part of the Velvet Underground, it’s in the context of rock music.  Rightfully so, as the Velvet Underground (and Reed’s subsequent solo material) helped to make rock music more than a louder version of the blues.  By integrating different artistic strains (free jazz, performance art, etc.), the Velvet Underground helped establish rock music as its own artistic medium.  I only mention this because of word choice – it’s usually “rock” music and not “pop” music (somewhat surprising since “pop” was a word associated with Andy Warhol) associated with the band, when these genre-blending experiments influenced many different genres in addition to rock.  Moreover, the Velvet Underground crafted pop songs – granted, they stretched, chopped, and scrambled them often beyond recognition.  Still, most of the great VU songs rely heavily on elements of pop music.  Perhaps the label escaped the band because they were not popular, but the band relied on the same conventions as pop music as their starting point.

Much of Reed’s solo material went away from the pop song, but many of his early solo compositions (“Walk on the Wild Side,” “Satellite of Love,” etc) masterfully combined pop song structure with experimental twists.  “Vicious” takes the standard verse-chorus structure of the pop song and adds in two distinctively non-pop elements.  First, Reed turns the lyrical content upside down – most pop songs   have heartbreakers as villains, but Reed’s narrator has a sinister and violent relationship with the other person in the song.  It might not sound as sensational in a post-Eminem music world, but I can’t think of any murder fantasies before “Vicious.”  Reed, ever the cool presence, delivers these lines about swallowing razor blades in his deadpan vocal style, suggesting either detachment from the narrator or another level of dementia in his narrator’s violent tendencies.  Reed’s narrator goes through his screed while harmonies, cowbell, and a familiar guitar riff (I can’t place it, it might just be from listening to “Vicious” six times today) build a compellingly catchy arrangement.  Then, just like the narrator’s id shining through, that wonderful distorted guitar comes in and plays that scrambled riff (and later, a wonderfully unhinged solo).  It’s the only musical hint at his narrator’s troubled personality, yet it strangely fits in with the rest of the arrangement; it calls attention to itself, but no more than a perfectly played lead part might do under other circumstances. Both the guitar song and the lyrical content seem to play off each other, turning this otherwise normal sounding pop song into something far more interesting.

More on Lou Reed: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Stars” – Hum
(Words/music: Hum, available on You’d Prefer an Astronaut, RCA 1995)

It’s simple math – there’s lots of music out there worth hearing and not enough time to listen to all of it, so there will be songs, bands, albums, and occasionally genres that I don’t know as well as I should (or as well as I would like to know).  Still, I’m bewildered when there’s a song that it seems like everyone else know that I don’t know.  This happened my first month at college – “Stars” kept popping up places and I didn’t really understand why.  At the time, I was fairly sure that I knew most of the late-90s alt-rock radio staples – so when a wide variety of people kept bringing up “Stars” as a favorite – my first college radio show partner, a friend I took my first college road trip with, and other new acquaintances – I didn’t really know what happened.  Yes, “Stars” was a modern rock radio success, but it’s not like it was a Green Day like mega hit.

Naturally, I assumed “Stars” must have been something new, and to a degree it sounded like something that could have been on the radio around the turn of the millennium.  When the song starts chugging along during the second minute, the chugging riff sounds like it could be one of the better riffs produced by those faceless nu-metal bands with those screaming singers.  However, “Stars” runs deeper than this drop-D riff – there’s a gorgeously distorted melody line beneath that loud rhythm guitar attack, and even though the drums are aggressive and cymbal-heavy, they’re recorded superbly.  A lot of the derivative alterna-metal bands over mix the drums to the point where they sound like they were recorded in a box, but “Stars” keeps the drums balanced in the mix without yielding any intensity.  Then there’s the vocals – shy, understated, and content to let the music carry the muscle; while many of the bands that came after Hum concerned themselves with cultivating an angst-ridden image (I’m thinking that “I hate everything about you” song that still gets played on the radio from time to time), it always seemed like the obvious and literal lyrics were over-compensation – the kind of thing sending the message of “I’m not sure you’ll understand how I feel unless I directly scream it at you.”  It’s kind of odd to say that a song with as blunt of a riff as “Stars” is “subtle,” but there’s a lot going on underneath all of these distorted layers.

More on Hum: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm