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Pop Rock Nation

Category: People

all-about-musicians-and-the-people-who-help-them-make-music

  • Infatueighties #67: New Year’s Day by U2

    From an instrumental standpoint, New Year’s Day is one of the best U2 singles in a career filled with great singles hell, and great abums too!). It’s insistent as all hell. Adam Clayton’s bass bears down on the track and The Edge’s piano gives the song an eerie feel. According to Wikipedia (man, this countdown would not exist if it weren’t for Wikipedia), the song was inspired by the Polish solidarity movement, although Bono initially began to write it as a love letter to his wife. Either way, it’s the centerpiece of U2’s first truly great album (War), and one of the greatest songs from the legendary band’s first decade.

    New Year’s Day has always been my personal favorite holiday, because I’m weird of the promise of a clean slate. Amid the insistence of the instrumentation and the emotion of Bono’s vocal, there’s a glimmer of hope for a better tomorrow that peeks through and makes the song extra special.

  • They Put Me In The Mix – JS5 (JSlow 5)

    When I starting creating these slow jam tapes, really, they were to be about slow and inspiring music about love and relationships. I think I made a wrong turn at Albuquerque. This is the wackiest JSlow I’d ever done and probably will ever do. There are many songs that don’t make sense at all as to why they are on here. But away we go.

    JS5 (circa 1999)

    1. Could – Brian McKnight
    2. Say It – Voices Of Theory
    3. It Seems Like You’re Ready – R. Kelly
    4. They Don’t Know – Jon B.
    5. Do Your Thing – 7 Mile
    6. Your Body’s Callin’ – R. Kelly
    7. Brick – Ben Folds Five
    8. Gone Till November – Wyclef Jean
    9. All In Love Is Fair – Stevie Wonder
    10. And Our Feelings – Babyface
    11. I Don’t Want To Ever See You Again – Uncle Sam
    12. Never Is A Promise – Fiona Apple
    13. When Can I See You – Babyface
    14. I Don’t Wanna Go On – Innerlude
    15. The Only One For Me – Brian McKnight
    16. Sweet Thing – Mary J. Blige
    17. The Sweetest Thing – Lauryn Hill
    18. Baby You Are – Uncle Sam

    Why were there two R. Kelly songs on there were like 4 years old? No clue. Looking back, I think I just wanted to put another tape together and just found any slow song that I hadn’t already used, even those that weren’t about love or heartbreak. And this was before my ban on R. Kelly music.

    • I was definitely in Brian McKnight fan mode at this point and The Only One For Me still does it for me.
    • Whatever happened to Voices Of Theory?
    • Whatever happened to 7 Mile (one of Mariah Carey’s first and only signings on her now defunct label)?
    • I loved Brick and while it’s not the typical love song, I still enjoy it.
    • The shades and shadows undulate in my perception – enough said Fiona, enough said.
    • Even though All In Love Is Fair is the most depressing Stevie Wonder song ever, I still had to add it
    • I was buying everything during this time, even Uncle Sam, who was a once protege of Boyz II Men
    • Innerlude? Don’t ask.
    • Remember when Lauryn Hill used to be The Sweetest Thing?

    JSlow 6 would be my first since my oldest son was born, so you can imagine what’s on that one.

    Previous JSlows
    Jam Slow
    JSlo 3
    JSlow 4

  • Friday Throwback – Everything’s Gonna Be Alright

    I had nothing today. I couldn’t think of anything for the Friday Throwback and all of a sudden, for some reason unbeknown to even me, the name Father MC just popped into my head. This is random y’all.

    – Look at K-Ci and JoJo looking like a couple of young bucks.

    – Damn, were they wearing those black Sox hats even back then?

    – When you hear the song you think Sugar Hill Gang, but you should really think Chic.

    – Father, make up your mind. Wear your sun glasses or don’t, but you shouldn’t change it in every other scene.

    – “Now I sign a couple autographs, take a few flicks, order Don Perignon and lay back with my chicks.” I want to be that man.

    – I kind of miss this haircut.

    – Do dat dance, do dat dance baby, do dat dance, let’s work it out.

    – Did he just name drop Andre Harrell?

    – Why is JoJo wearing a towel over his head?

    – Don’t tell me it’s a hood.

    – It is a hood.

    No matter what, that song is a party starter, even if it’s about 16 years old.