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Pop Rock Nation

Author: David Middleton

  • FORTY-FIVE REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE #27: Sleepy Doctors

    Laurie Anderson's classic single "O Superman"

    LAURIE ANDERSON  “O Superman (For Massenet)”  b/w “Walk The Dog” (Warner Bros. Special Products #49876, 1981)

    On the rare occasions big publications canonize women in rock, Laurie Anderson usually gets stuffed down near the 100 mark, if not left off completely.  This is because few rock listeners were ever really able to understand where she was coming from (be it the pop world, the art world, or the pop art world), and understandably so.  It’s far easier for the average listener to laud Janis Joplin, in all her bluesy, boozy, downtrodden and junked-out glory, than the highly-educated and eloquent Anderson, oozing early-’80’s downtown New York cool and bony, quasi-masculine elegance.  Considered extremely minimalist even by post-punk standards, it seemed Anderson’s music was approached on the outset, as now, with a sense of fear and trepidation.  Astounding when you consider that, when all is said and done, Anderson is ultimately a storyteller, a master of the most ancient art in the world.

    Play O Superman (For Massenet) by Laurie Anderson

    “Have you heard that song?” a school friend asked when we read that “O Superman” had hit the top of the charts in the UK, “It’s just one note!” Well, maybe it is.  But once you’ve absorbed (or should I say been absorbed into) the full scope of this eight-plus minute track, you can see that it’s far more than just a one-note samba.  Paraphrasing a concept from Jules Massenet’s 1885 Napoleonic opera Le Cid and crafting a sonic bed inspired by the shimmering vocal cues from Phillip Glass’ Einstein On The Beach,  Anderson, clearly mirroring Cold War and Middle Eastern tensions, creates her own all-enveloping, claustrophobic universe in which a simple phone-call invokes the end of the world.  Of course, the machine is on and no one’s home.  Sound familiar?  Of course it does.

    Laurie Anderson's "Walk The Dog"

    Now, if all that sounds like a bit too much for you, just flip this disc (which plays at 33 & 1/3 RPM, by the way, obviously to allow for the lengthy A-side;  a 12″ version was also pressed, which spins at 45 RPM) and enjoy the gleeful, cacophonous “Walk The Dog.”  I may be incorrect, but I believe I once heard Anderson herself describe this track as a “country song,” which makes sense when you consider that it is a fiddle-based piece that both namechecks and paraphrases Dolly Parton, but holy shit…no country song ever sounded like this before.  Or since.  Can you imagine some Kellie Pickler-type trying to pull this off on America Idol?  I’d actually tune in.

    Play Walk The Dog by Laurie Anderson

    Both “O Superman” and “Walk The Dog” were parts of a bigger piece of Anderson’s titled United States I-IV.  Other highlights from that performance were boiled down to form 1982’s brilliant Big Science LP (learn about its recent reissue, plus Anderson’s current doings, here), a record so unique and mesmerizing that it has never left my turntable for very long over the past 27 years.  I’ve even heard little bits and samples from it pop up in electronica and hip-hop, which makes me think that younger generations are going to continue to discover Laurie Anderson, and will probably place her name higher in the future pantheons of rock.

    NEXT WEEK: Enjoy every sandwich.

  • FORTY-FIVE REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE #26: My Man Gottfried

    Prince Kiss 45

    PRINCE & THE REVOLUTION  “Kiss” b/w “Love Or Money” (Paisley Park/Warner Bros. Records #28751, March 1986)

    Knowing what we know now, it’s no surprise that one of Prince’s biggest, best-loved and most-often-covered hits came from one of his least-loved, most-maligned and all-around most misunderstood albums.  Few artists have toyed so recklessly with (some would say sabotaged) their hard-earned fame the way our paisley friend has and lived to tell about it, much less maintained three decades worth of entertaining, if not always satisfying, moments.  Regardless of context, this single was, as everyone knows, a very satisfying high point.

    Personally, my first exposure to Minneapolis’ sexiest midget came via the girls at music school, who clutched copies of his ’79 sophomore LP to their bosoms with the same fervor today’s jail-bait reserve for the latest Jonas Brothers ringtone.  Consider that other popular titles of the time included Cerrone IV: The Golden Touch and Peabo Bryson’s Crosswinds, and one can easily trace the trajectory of Prince’s projected path from R&B wunderkind to pop/rock hitmaker, mainstay and trailblazer.  However, at the time, upon first hearing “I Wanna Be Your Lover” on a little mono record player after theory class, my initial reaction was, “What the fuck??”.

    Over the next few years, it was a treat watching Prince break the chains of R&B, and then the boundaries of pop, concocting one groundbreaking, erotic, dirty-minded, controversial masterpiece after another.  And then finally, when Prince’s creativity and commercialism collided, culminating in the veritable orgasm of over-the-top, super-hyped multiplexposure that was Purple Rain (the album and the movie), Tipper Gore reared her ugly privates and it all came crashing down.  For everyone but Prince, that is.

    Watch the video for Kiss by Prince & The Revolution

    When the going got tough, when lesser artists let their material just lay down exhausted, flat and wan by the roadside in those fiery early days of the PMRC, our purple friend got creative.  Substituting such ungodly and offensive terms as “masturbating” with delightfully wholesome (though not necessarily original), family-friendly phrases like “playing my tambourine,” Prince managed to subvert the powers trying to undo him, while sticking a big middle finger up at them through his Corvette’s rear-view mirror and never looking back.  And when the overdone Sgt. Pepper-esque psychedelia of Around The World In A Day wasn’t enough, Prince scaled it back to a minimalist electric-guitar-and-drum-machine funk so pure it made your scrotum skin tighten.  Even if you didn’t have a scrotum.

    Prince Kiss 45 B-side Sleeve

    I don’t know about you, but I never liked that video for “Kiss.”  I always thought it should’ve been a minimalist black-and-white kinda thing to marry the record sleeve and the music to the whole concept, especially after the trippiness of his “Raspberry Beret” clip.  Nevertheless, he did attempt a large exercise in black-and-white minimalism with Under The Cherry Moon, the strange retro-noir tragicomedy meant to follow up his Purple Rain success with classic matinee-idol flair.  It didn’t, and seven years after music school I once again found myself reacting to Prince with a “What the fuck??”.

    Play Love Or Money by Prince & The Revolution

    Anyway, I still found Parade, the LP of music from the motion picture (very little of which actually appeared in the motion picture), and the extra tracks used to pepper the B-sides, totally stunning.  One of the best tracks of this era appears on the flipside here, the wildly underrated “Love Or Money” [written on the sleeve, in true Prince fashion, as “(Heart) Or (Dollar Sign)”].  This is one of the earliest instances of Prince using the device of speeding up certain parts of the track, like vocal lines or guitar licks, in an attempt to distance himself from the performer, like an actor playing a role within a role.  Most recording artists still used analog tape back then, so he probably achieved the effect by slowing the tape down, recording a part, then playing it back at normal speed.  One day, just for fun, I tried playing this side at 33 1/3 RPM, and lo and behold, the track took on a whole new sound.  If you own a copy of this 45, try it.  Now THAT’s the kinda fun you can’t have with an MP3, am I right?  Of course I am.

    I don’t need to tell you what kind of insane shenanigans our beloved Mr. Nelson pulled (or tried to pull) in the years following this single.  All I can say is that to this day, every time I pass the Stanley Theater, I expect to see his Rogersness out in front, handing out copies of The Watchtower and licking middle-aged ladies’ feet.  To which my reaction would probably be, “What the fuck??”.

    NEXT WEEK: “Air France…kin ah he’p ya?”

  • FORTY-FIVE REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE #25: Gentlemen Prefer Blondie

    sdp45

    STEELY DAN  “Peg” b/w “I Got The News” (ABC Records #12320, September 1977)

    As much as I love lo-fi bands that can’t play their instruments, I also go totally Star Trek for impeccably-produced prog and jazz acts with serious chops and boss material.  No American duo better encompassed this phenomenon, mixing in plenty of post-’60’s LA-outsider snark while at it, than Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, the core of Steely Dan.  Nevermind the details, “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” was hands-down the soundtrack to the summer of 1974, as I flailed apeshit on a rented raft with a snow-cone down at Oscar’s Beach on any given sun-soaked Saturday.  I can still smell the seaweed and coconut oil.  And I can remember staying up past midnight on a school night in late ’77, just to catch a special radio broadcast of their new LP, Aja, played front-to-back with no commercials.

    sdalp

    It all seemed so “adult” then, so mature…like I was peeking into a world I wasn’t supposed to see yet.  Maybe it was the somewhat sexy subject matter.  Or maybe I was just happy to hear something other than “Hotel California” on the radio.  Either way, I completely flipped over “Peg,” Aja‘s first single, much to the dismay of nearly everyone around me.  This 30-plus-year-old track is now a LiteFM staple the world over, so I don’t need to play it for you, but behold this incredible “behind-the-scenes” clip from YouTube.  Thoroughly entertaining.

    Watch The Making Of Steely Dan\’s PEG on YouTube

    That swing-poppin’ Rick Marotta/Chuck Rainey rhythm section, Jay Graydon’s Sol Hoopii-on-shrooms guitar slides, a mountain of Michael McDonaldses…no nerds on Earth could resist.  And resist they didn’t, as Aja sold millions and “Peg” spent 11 weeks in the Top 40, peaking at #11 first week of January.   1978 turned out to be a banner year for The Dan, as they placed two other tracks from Aja, plus their classic theme from the not-so-classic movie, FM, in the Top 40 by the time school was back in session in September.  And you said you were never going back there.

    “I Got The News,” a pumping, pulsating, and very funky album track (featuring a smattering of Larry Carlton and a smidge more Mike McDonald), rounds out this single’s B-side.  Listening to Aja today, it seems very brief, with a total of 7 songs clocking in at just a hair past 40 minutes.  Today’s magnum over-70 minute CD opuses and infinite MP3 playlists dwarf it by comparison, but quality over quantity is what makes The Dan great, and Aja a timeless (and heavily sampled) classic.

    Oh, and just for fun, here’s a link to one of my all-time favorite internet time-wasters, The Steely Dan Dictionary.

    NEXT WEEK: All I want is your extra time and your…uh…something…