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Pop Rock Nation

Category: People

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  • Friday Throwback – Mentirosa

    I’m sure you all have been there. You’re working, or just hanging out and all of a sudden for some reason that you can’t even describe, a song just sticks in your mind. It doesn’t even have to be a song you’ve heard recently, or in the past 15 years. Mentirosa is that song for me. Why? I have no idea. Here’s what I remember.

    I went to Tower Records with my dad and all of a sudden saw two albums with singles that were on the radio. One was Mellow Man Ace’s album, which featured Mentirosa. The second was by this guy named Louie Louie, who had a single Sittin’ In The Lap Of Luxury. I’d love for the story to end with me looking at both albums and putting them down and walking out of Tower Records. But I think I got dad to buy Louie Louie, which was a terrible album.

    So why is Mentirosa in my head today? Who knows? Maybe someone lied to me. But I doubt it. I think it’s just one of those things that you can’t explain, but if I don’t make this the Friday Throwback, it might never leave my head.

    Check this out baby.

    – I really had no idea that Mellow Man Ace not only still recorded, but was also in Cypress Hill before they came out with an album.

    – “He told me you was drinkin’, and wasted my dinero.”

    – The problem with this song is the idea that he thinks his girl is a liar and a straight skeezer, but then still thinks of her as the possible woman for him. At what point are you looking for someone else? Oh at the end of the song.

    – Let’s be serious here about something though. The reason this song caught on had more to do with sampling Santana than anything else.

    – “Today you tell me something, y manana otra cosa.” Greatest line of all time.

    Now, that song is out of my head.

  • Kanye West – New Profile on the inside!

    Money Mike profiles Kanye West on the inside of the site tonight.  Included are a very cool picture from a show this year, a discography and even background on how Kanye West became simply Kanye.  Check it out!

  • Infatueighties: #81: “State of the Heart”

    I could have sworn there was a video for this, but I can’t find it on Youtube. Anyway.

    When folks think of Rick Springfield, 9 out of 10 think “Jessie’s Girl”. However, that was far from his only hit single, and good as it is, it’s certainly not his best. He scored a fairly lengthy string of Top 20 singles from 1981-1985, with “State of the Heart” serving as almost the end of the line (he scored one top 40 hit three years later with “Rock of Life”.

    A synth-pop ballad, “State” bears a resemblance to John Waite’s “Missing You” (itself a knockoff of The Police’s “Every Breath You Take”). The fortunate thing, of course, being that “Every Breath You Take” was so good a song that even a second-generation knockoff is good stuff.

    While I don’t know how many vocal sweeteners there were in 1985, something tells me at least a portion of his vocal is computer enhanced. When he performed at Live Aid that summer, he dropped the song down a full octave so he could hit the notes. So while there wasn’t an Auto-Tune, his vocals were either run through an Emulator of some sort OR simply sped up (I’m voting for the latter). Trickery aside, it’s a great song with a hilariously unhinged synth/guitar solo.

    Since I couldn’t locate the actual video and I don’t care much for the Live Aid version, here is Rick lip-synching performing it on a hit Eighties’ TV show.