Favorite/Interesting Musical Tidbits and Trivia

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short ornery norwegian said:
Speaking of Springsteen, he does share one record -
"Born in the the USA" is one of only three albums that produced 7 songs that charted in the top 10.
Janet Jackson with "Rhythm Nation," (4 songs hit #1, 2 hit #2 and 1 hit #4)
Michael Jackson with "Thriller" (2 hit #1, followed by #2, #4, #5, #7 and #10.
and Springsteen. "Dancing in the Dark" hit #2; "Glory Days" #5, "I'm on Fire" #6, "My Hometown" #6,
"Cover Me" #7, "Born in the USA" #9 & "I'm Going Down" #9.

FWIW - Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" and Michael Jackson's "Bad" are the only albums to each produce 5 #1 singles.
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Van Halen played guitar on Jackson's Beat It.
 


coolhandgopher said:
Off the top of my head, here are R & R bands from '88 onward who have been producing high quality music that will be in my musical rotation for years to come: Wilco, Los Lobos, Old '97s, Black Keys, Kings of Leon, Pearl Jam, REM, Weezer (I realize some of these bands started before '88, but my point is their careers have been very relevant from '88 onward). Of course, outside of those bands that I listed towards the end, they never hit it big on the radio, they did not come up during the arena rock era, so they're not going to be featured on classic rock radio stations and many of these bands came into existence/relevance in the post-MTV video golden age, so they were not consumed by the masses or even the edge of the masses. Where would Nirvana be without Smells Like Teen Spirit video? Pearl Jam without Jeremy? Soundgarden without Black Hole Sun? REM-Everybody Hurts? I haven't seen any of those videos in years, but because of the pure repetition of their airplay (which coincided with my college years), I can envision those videos without giving it a thought.

The narrow specialization of everything that the internet brought to us has taken away the shared experience. You might have hated grunge or hair metal or hip hop or tear jerking ballads, but as a kid in the '80s and '90s, you knew Nirvana and Poison and Dr. Dre and Sinead O'Connor because it was inescapable. It may have sucked at the time, but there's a shared experience there that doesn't exist with music today, no matter how much better the music might be (and I'll again reference the bands I listed above, along with acts such as Chris Stapleton, Sturgill Simpson, Tyler Childers, who are working the outlaw country territory mighty damn well). It's easy to find your niche and stay inside that world today, unlike times past.

Finally, that Gene Simmons is positioning himself as the arbiter of quality music is rich. I don't have anything against Kiss, but they were considered a novelty back in their heyday and I don't think anyone could credibly argue that their catalog stacks up against the titans of the classic rock era.
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This is a fantastic post. You're a great writer. On that note, I tend to agree with Gene Simmons. Rock Music is dead, and by the 1990's it was on life support. I'm not as tuned in musically as some of you guys, but I can name endless bands, songs, etc from the period of 1958 through 1988, and count on two hands the bands from 1988 onward that I would put up against the earlier era. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Sublime, Green Day, Foo Fighters, White Stripes, Black Keys, is REM after 1988? Metallica after 1988?
 

I would suggest that one of the big changes in the music world was the fragmentation of radio.

When I was in HS (69-73), and even in my college years, (73-78 more or less...), there was still a lot of music on AM - especially top 40. I can remember being at New Year's Eve parties and you had to have the radio on as they counted down the top songs of the year, and everyone would debate over what the #1 song would be.

But the point is, you could listen to the radio and hear Led Zep, the Beatles, the Stones, etc - all the major rock acts, along with novelty songs and just weird stuff. (Zager and Evans - in the year 2525....)

FM at the time was in the 'free-form' era - before the consultants took over and instituted narrow formatting. When I was in college, KQRS played this completely wide-open format, run by the jocks, so that you could hear this crazy mix of hard rock, country rock, deep album cuts, new music, etc. You got exposed to different types of music.

then, AM gave up music and went to news and talk, while FM was taken over by the programmers and the consultants who clamped down on the jocks and forced everything into narrow playlists with no cross-over between genres. As a result, music was splintered into all these different camps with very little cross-over. it fragmented the music audience.

Today, I rarely if ever listen to the radio for music. If I'm not playing CD's in my car, I'm listening to games or sports talk.
 

coolhandgopher said:
That was a massive oversight on my part, yeah he is something special. Shout outs to the likes of Gilian Welch, Lucinda Williams, Valerie June, Margo Price, Kasey Musgraves also. I do believe it’s the genre of music where the highest quality is being produced these days.
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Another great list. Let's add Amanda Shires (wife of Jason Isbell).
 


LakevilleBro said:
I agree, but Simmons was discussing the music over the decades and not KISS.
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Boomers seem to be under this grand delusion that the music of their generation is the most important cultural contribution since Rembrandt, and everything since sucks. Some classic rock is good, but a lot of it is pretty terrible, as is a lot of 80s music.

This song is about a guy who's in love with a prostitute. But it's also how I feel we're all made to suffer classic rock.

 

coolhandgopher said:
That was a massive oversight on my part, yeah he is something special. Shout outs to the likes of Gilian Welch, Lucinda Williams, Valerie June, Margo Price, Kasey Musgraves also. I do believe it’s the genre of music where the highest quality is being produced these days.
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If you like female modern alt country, I really like Lillie Mae. Jack White enlisted her to play fiddle on his solo albums, and she's since released a couple solo albums on his Third Man Records label. We saw her open for The Raconteurs. Good stuff, and Jack White seems to agree with your assessment of the genre.

 

Stevie Wonder wrote the music for Tears of a Clown.

Smokey wrote the lyrics. Best Motown song ever, which by default makes it one of the best songs, period. That's my not so humble opinion.

 




tikited said:
Great song. You ever hear this version?
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I know you said you weren't a Pearl Jam fan, but one of my favorite parts of their live shows is when the play Better Man and segue into Save it For Later by The English Beat. Sometimes it's just a few verses or the refrain, but others it's pretty much a full cover. A full stadium chanting "Don't run away"...pretty cool.
 

Ope3 said:
I know you said you weren't a Pearl Jam fan, but one of my favorite parts of their live shows is when the play Better Man and segue into Save it For Later by The English Beat. Sometimes it's just a few verses or the refrain, but others it's pretty much a full cover. A full stadium chanting "Don't run away"...pretty cool.
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Had no idea. Interesting.
 





Ope3 said:
I know you said you weren't a Pearl Jam fan, but one of my favorite parts of their live shows is when the play Better Man and segue into Save it For Later by The English Beat. Sometimes it's just a few verses or the refrain, but others it's pretty much a full cover. A full stadium chanting "Don't run away"...pretty cool.
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Another trivia bit about Save it For Later. The tuning on the guitar is a mess. Dave Wakeling was trying for DADGAD tuning and couldn't get it right so it's some sort of other super exotic tuning he ended up settling for.

One day a call came in for him and a friend of his said it was Pete Townshend. Wakeling thought he was being pranked but took the call. It was Townshend who told him he loved the song but couldn't figure out how to play it. Not only that, Pete had Dave Gilmour with him and it had stumped him too. So by sheer accident he had baffled a couple music titans.
 

Frink said:
Another trivia bit about Save it For Later. The tuning on the guitar is a mess. Dave Wakeling was trying for DADGAD tuning and couldn't get it right so it's some sort of other super exotic tuning he ended up settling for.

One day a call came in for him and a friend of his said it was Pete Townshend. Wakeling thought he was being pranked but took the call. It was Townshend who told him he loved the song but couldn't figure out how to play it. Not only that, Pete had Dave Gilmour with him and it had stumped him too. So by sheer accident he had baffled a couple music titans.
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Frink said:
Cool to hear this one! That's a more full version than the one I was thinking of.
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The Townsend version make perfect sense as to why PJ tags it, given that Eddie reveres all things The Who so much.
 

Frink said:
Another trivia bit about Save it For Later. The tuning on the guitar is a mess. Dave Wakeling was trying for DADGAD tuning and couldn't get it right so it's some sort of other super exotic tuning he ended up settling for.

One day a call came in for him and a friend of his said it was Pete Townshend. Wakeling thought he was being pranked but took the call. It was Townshend who told him he loved the song but couldn't figure out how to play it. Not only that, Pete had Dave Gilmour with him and it had stumped him too. So by sheer accident he had baffled a couple music titans.
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Dave has/had one of the best singing voices. I wish he would have found some more success after The Beat and General Public.
 

Toni Tenille of Captain & Tenille fame sang back-up on Pink Floyd’s The Wall album. You can hear her on the tracks “The Show Must Go On” and “Waiting for the Worms”.
(credit to Eric Alper on Twitter for this tidbit-once I take a minute to figure out how to imbed tweets, it’ll be much easier for me)
 
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Nokomis said:
If you like female modern alt country, I really like Lillie Mae. Jack White enlisted her to play fiddle on his solo albums, and she's since released a couple solo albums on his Third Man Records label. We saw her open for The Raconteurs. Good stuff, and Jack White seems to agree with your assessment of the genre.

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And if your tastes run toward Western Swing and rockabilly, check out Rosie Flores.
 

One thing I found out recently was that Joni Mitchell's The Circle Game was a response to Neil Young's Sugar Mountain.


 

Here's kind of an odd one -

Three musicians who were born in Minnesota have each won 7 Grammy Awards.

they are - Bob Dylan - Prince - and Maria Schneider. Schneider is a jazz composer and leads her own large jazz ensemble. She is originally from Windom in SW MN. In addition to her work in jazz, she has done some classical music, but she also collaborated with David Bowie on a song on Bowie's retrospective album "Nothing has Changed."
 

The power pop group The Smithereens wrote A Girl Like You for the movie Say Anything. Seems obvious when looking at the lyrics in hindsight. The producers rejected it for the soundtrack, yet the band got a modest hit out of it anyway, releasing on their album 11.

 

Ope3 said:
The power pop group The Smithereens wrote A Girl Like You for the movie Say Anything. Seems obvious when looking at the lyrics in hindsight. The producers rejected it for the soundtrack, yet the band got a modest hit out of it anyway, releasing on their album 11.
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My favorite quotes from this movie:

Lloyd:
"I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that."

And...

 

tikited said:
My favorite quotes from this movie:

Lloyd:
"I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that."

And...

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I love the future career path and the "bitches" line, but I think the bigger payoff is the next dialog:

Lloyd Dobler: I got a question. If you guys know so much about women, how come you’re here at like the Gas ‘n’ Sip on a Saturday night completely alone drinking beers with no women anywhere?

Joe: By choice, man!

Also, I would say Cameron Crowe made the right call by having Pater Gabriel playing on the boombox in the iconic scene instead of Pat DiZinio (or whatever else was being considered).

Additionally, Crowe made good use of The 'Mats Within Your Reach. The last observation is as good of an excuse as any to post this clip:

 

If one likes interesting musical tidbits on the Fab 4, I suggest checking out Sirius XM as they are counting down the fans Top 100. Peter Asher is hosting it, called All Together Now, and virtually every song I have heard I find something interesting.

Just 2 good examples:

- George played the bass on She Said She Said. Apparently John and Paul had got into a a bit of a row that day. I am stunned this song was rated so low, I think it was #81.

- The French horn solo was played by a talented session musician, Alan Civil. The standard rate for hired guns was 9 pounds, but Civil demanded to be payed the rate he would get for a recital, 50 pounds. EMI gave in. No idea what that was worth in dollars then or now, but that was cash well spent.


 

David Letterman's favourite song (as well as mine) is Everlong by the Foo Fighters. Played five(?) times on his show as well as on his final show as a send off:



Interesting fact about Everlong. Written about Louise Post of Veruca Salt.....who are also great. Their debut, American Thighs is a legit excellent album start to finish. Hard to notice, but she does backing vocals during the chorus. She was supposed to record them in studio, but due to scheduling conflicts, she had to record them remotely over the phone.
 

Ope3 said:
If one likes interesting musical tidbits on the Fab 4, I suggest checking out Sirius XM as they are counting down the fans Top 100. Peter Asher is hosting it, called All Together Now, and virtually every song I have heard I find something interesting.

Just 2 good examples:

- George played the bass on She Said She Said. Apparently John and Paul had got into a a bit of a row that day. I am stunned this song was rated so low, I think it was #81.

- The French horn solo was played by a talented session musician, Alan Civil. The standard rate for hired guns was 9 pounds, but Civil demanded to be payed the rate he would get for a recital, 50 pounds. EMI gave in. No idea what that was worth in dollars then or now, but that was cash well spent.
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I made it through the entire show thanks to Sirius XMs podcast. Really fun. I would guess of the 100 songs, there were less than 5 that I don't really care for, maybe another 20 that were just ok and all the rest just flat out great songs. Once it gets into the Top 50, pretty much all classics.

Chosen by the listeners Top 10:

10. Strawberry Fields
9. Yesterday
8. Let It Be
7. Abbey Road Medley
6. Something
5. A Day In the Life
4. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
3. Hey Jude
2. Here Comes the Sun
1. In My Life

Tough to argue with any in the Top 10, though surprised that Penny Lane didn't make it, but at what song's expense? It was #11 just behind it's single flip side.

My favorite song that did not even make it in the Top 100 is I'm a Loser.

Incredible that George has 3 songs in the Top 6, given how few songs he was credited with in the catalog.
 

Thought I'd revive this thread, like Bleed did for the Top 5.

None of the members of Lynyrd Skynyrd, perhaps best known for their song Sweet Home Alabama, are actually from Alabama. :LOL:
 

Nokomis said:
Thought I'd revive this thread, like Bleed did for the Top 5.

None of the members of Lynyrd Skynyrd, perhaps best known for their song Sweet Home Alabama, are actually from Alabama. :LOL:
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Similarly, John Denver co-wrote/sung Country Roads prior to ever setting foot in West Virginia.
 

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