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Pop Rock Nation

Category: People

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

  • He Wants You! He Wants You! He Wants You To Know He Still Exists!

    Like the National Biscuit Company and Kentucky Fried Chicken before them, the Young Men’s Christian Association, heretofore known as the YMCA, has adopted the popular abbreviation of their official corporate identity as their official official corporate identity. The group will now simply be known as the Y. This change, of course, has serious ramifications for disco lovers and wedding reception attendees around the world. If YMCA (the organization) is now to be known as just “The Y”, whatever will become of “Y.M.C.A.” (the Village People song). I mean, “It’s fun to stay at the Y”? What about those three remaining syllables in the chorus? What are we supposed to sing there? What dorky dance moves are we supposed to do now? And most importantly, what about the children?

    A mock-up of the revised cover art for the Village People’s 1978 hit single, produced prior to Victor Willis’s statement.

    Thank heavens for Victor “Hot Cop” Willis, the group’s original lead singer, who took time out of his busy day to ISSUE. A. STATEMENT. reassuring the confused masses that the name of the song will not change thereby averting pop-cultural panic on a grand scale. What’s that I hear? Oh, that must be the collective sigh of relief heaved by the executives at Casablanca Records knowing that they would not have to put the 1978 album Cruisin’ back in print in order to correct the title of the group’s most (in)famous hit single. (Or maybe it was the collective sigh of relief from the Y’s Board of Directors that after more than 30 years of trying to distance the organization and distinguish its mission from the homoerotic double-entendre offered up in the song’s lyrics, they’ve finally stumbled on a tactic that has a small chance of actually working.)

    In related news, The Escape Club have confirmed that they will not be changing the lyrics to their 1988 hit “Wild Wild West” in order to reflect the prevailing wisdom that we are no longer heading for the 90s or, in fact, living in the 80s. Also, a representative from the James Brown estate issued a statement earlier today that the title of the Godfather of Soul’s 1985 single “Living in America” will remain the same despite the fact that Brown is, y’know, dead.

    {Personal note to Mr. Willis: Dude! I love Village People, okay? Especially Victor Willis-fronted Village People. I mean that. In totally unironic ways. When people ask me what my Top 10 favorite albums of all time are, Macho Man is there right between Pet Sounds and Doolittle (and the 1977 self-titled debut is probably in my Top 20). And when people ask me who my Top 10 favorite frontmen are – dude, you’re there, right between Freddie Mercury and Prince. I mean that! Okay? So, speaking as fan: don’t do this. It makes your legacy look like a bigger joke than most people already regard it as. It hurts. Deal? Thanks, man.}

  • First Impressions: Sons of Sylvia

    Hey! Remember this show? Remember the band who won it? Maybe not. It was three years ago, after all, and unlike the American Idol which all but guarantees an annual outlet for its past winners and finalists to remind their fickle-by-design audience that they still exist, the Next Great American Band has not since returned to the airwaves. (I’m actually still holding out hope for Season 2 of Bands on the Run! Flickerstick Rulz!!!)

    Moreover, where Idol winners often have an album assembled and rushed out to the market in time for Christmas shopping, Next Great American Band winners The Clark Brothers seemed to drop off the face of the earth, leaving the few of us who watched the show and fell in love -err mild infatuation with the Appalachian trio’s thrilling (for prime time) acoustic conflagrations of bluegrass, pop, and classic rock to wonder, y’know, wha’happen?

    The Clark Brothers “Gimme Shelter”

    Sometime between then and now, the Clark Brothers – Adam, Ashley, and Austin – were signed to a major label, and then got dropped by the label in a bit of corporate re-shuffling. At which point, they changed their name to Sons of Sylvia, signed with 19 Entertainment and Interscope, and showed up on a duet with Carrie Underwood called “What Can I Say”. Now, the band is on tour with Underwood in support of their long delayed debut album Revelation.

    Carrie Underwood with Sons of Sylvia “What Can I Say”

    Though the Sons of Sylvia had previously, along with three more of their brothers, recorded and even charted a Top 20 Country hit 10 years ago as the Clark Family Experience; and though the instruments they play (fiddle, mandolin, slide guitar) look and sound a little, y’know, bluegrassy; and though they are touring with Carrie Underwood, it becomes clear listening to Revelation that Sons of Sylvia are no more a country music band at this point than OneRepublic, whose lead singer-songwriter (and one of 19 Entertainment’s favorite go-to hit-writers) Ryan Tedder co-wrote and produced the group’s debut single “Love Left to Lose”. As with many of Tedder’s other hits, the song boasts a big, open-air sound with a full-throated campfire folk sing-along of a chorus, making it an immediate winner when you hear it on the radio.

    The band carries that bigness with them throughout Revelation, almost to the point where it becomes a little too much of a pretty good thing, both in the record’s anthemic sound, but also in lyrics (see the title track) that seem to be reaching for the spiritual profundity of Bono, circa 1984. The album opens with “John Wayne”, a gorgeous statement of devotion that gets oversold by Ashley’s trying-too-hard shouty high vocals on the chorus, and ends with a strange assemblage of sounds (is there a song in this?) called “The War Within”.

    There’s no question these guys are talented, and that they’re passionate music-makers. But the fire and brimstone they brought to that cover of “Gimme Shelter” on TV a couple years ago seems to have been compromised in the band’s quest to come up with a great pop/rock record. I’m not one of those people who believes that the words “greatness” and “pop/rock” are mutually exclusive; I think what Sons of Sylvia have attempted with Revelation is admirable, promising, and totally listenable. (I mean, seriously: pop music with actual stringed instruments, people! How awesome is that in 2010?) But listening to Revelation is like watching someone trying to start a fire by rubbing sticks together, generating occasionally thrilling puffs of smoke, but never quite acheiving something we might be able roast marshmallows over.

    Sons of Sylvia “Love Left To Lose”

  • R.I.P. Allyn Ferguson 1924-2010

    Among many other fine, eminently respectable achievements – many Emmy nominated scores for TV movies of literary classics; arrangement credits on records by some of the pre-eminent pop singers of the 50s and 60s, etc. – Allyn Ferguson will forever be remembered as the composer of The. Greatest. TV Theme Song. Ever. Seriously. The awesomeness of this bassline simply cannot be overstated. If for nothing else, thank you, Mr. Ferguson, for these 40-or-so seconds of badass TV theme music. Rest in funky, funky peace.