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Tag: Elvis Presley

  • The Sunday Seven: I Love Girls, Girls, Girls, Girls

    Money Mike has been looking for some volunteers to do their own Sunday Seven column and I raised my hand this week. I’m actually anticipating what’s going to come up because I bet there are going to be songs that pop up that I haven’t heard in forever or songs that are a part of full albums that I may not even like. Since I only buy music from the iTunes store now, my iPod is full of entire albums and thus, stuff that I don’t even really listen to since I’m a big play list guy.

    For those who don’t know, the idea of this column is to take your iPod (or whatever else you use to listen to your music electronically) and put it on shuffle. The next step is to list the first seven songs that come on and list them here.

    Here goes:

    Track 1: The Water Bottle by Bill Cosby

    Aha! The first track isn’t even music. It’s a quick skit by Bill Cosby from his album I Started Out As A Child about children drinking from the water bottle when their parents aren’t home and then leaving just enough in the bottle so they don’t have to refill it. The track is less than a minute long and let’s just say that it’s not his best skit. I have a ton of Cos on my iPod.

    (By the way, I love the fact that on my iPod they actually have “Shuffle” as one of the selections from the main menu. I used to hate having to click a few times to get the shuffle going.)

    Track 2: Let’s Be Friends (Skin To Skin) by Bruce Springsteen

    I love his post 9/11 album The Rising so much that before every semi-pro baseball game after it came out, I listened to it on the way to the ball park. I’m not sure if Bruce only wants to just be friends or not with the skin to skin reference, but hey, he’s Bruce.

    Track 3: Not Gon’ Cry by Mary J. Blige

    From the soundtrack to the movie Waiting To Exhale, this song captures the feeling of the Angela Bassett character Bernadine Harris (thanks IMDB) perfectly. Yes, I think I’ve seen the movie at least once.

    Through sickness and health ’til death do us part
    Those were the words that we said from our hearts
    So now when you say that you’re leaving me
    I don’t get that part

    Word.

    Track 4: Don’t Cry by Jordan Knight

    A few years ago, Jordan Knight released The Fix which was an EP that I only saw on iTunes. It wasn’t bad. But this wasn’t necessarily one of the better tracks. It’s an uptempo song that features, “Don’t cry mama, shake that mama,” as a part of the hook. And that’s one of the better parts of the song. I won’t tell you about the part of the song where he starts talking about her thong.

    Track 5: Girls, Girls, Girls by Jay-Z

    I love girls, girls, girls, girls, girls I do adore. I love this song for all the one liners. From his most famous album, Blueprint, he raps about all kinds of different girls. It’s a fun track, even if he stereotypes them all.

    I got this ho that after twelve million sold
    Mami’s a narcoleptic, always sleepin’ on Hov’

    Track 6: Just To Be Close To You by the Commodores

    The iTunes program that grabs the album art thinks this is supposed to be on the Jackson 5 The Ultimate Collection album. You know it’s a good day when Lionel just starts talking in his songs. He just lays down a soliloquy at the top in a funny accent before saying that he was a lonely man without direction or purpose and no one to love. Of course, that was before he found the girl who made his jagged edges smooth. I have one word that describes this song. Outrageous!

    Track 7: Little Sister by Elvis Presley

    Remember that Elvis hits album that came out several years back and sold like hot cakes even though anyone and their mother who even liked Elvis just a little bit had almost all the songs? Well, they released a sequel called 2nd To None that didn’t sell as well. This song is on the second album. The song is catchy as hell. Elvis, as the mack daddy of all mack daddies, is singing to the little sister of someone he used to date. He used to pull on this girl’s pig tails. But instead of singing her a love song, he’s scolding her.

    Little sister, don’t you kiss me once or twice
    Then say its very nice and then you run
    Little sister, don’t you do what your big sister done

    Thankfully this isn’t the Sunday Eight or else I would’ve had to write about the WWF version of The Land Of 1,000 Dances where the Iron Sheik says that you have to learn to move like the Sheik. That might’ve been a bit embarrassing. Also, I’m going to lose some street cred by only having one hip hop song on here. Sorry guys, I swear I have a ton.

  • Here’s Something That’s Really Off The Wall: Michael Jackson Turns 50 Today

    The cover of Michael Jackson's iconic 1982 album "Thriller"
    The cover of Michael Jackson's iconic 1982 album "Thriller"

    I’ve spent many hours over the last several years typing article after article about not only Michael Jackson‘s influence on me, but his influence on pop culture as a whole.

    Despite the fact that he’s viewed (rightfully) as a egomaniacal, plastic surgery-addled, creepy train wreck these days, there’s no disputing that Michael was one of the largest (and the longest-running) pop phenomena in history (or HIStory). Sure, he himself was a product of a group of influences (Jackie Wilson and James Brown chief among them), but Jacko blazed (or at least helped to blaze) more trails than just about any contemporary artist. He certainly rewrote the rule book for black artists, breaking MTV’s embargo on R&B music (contrary to popular belief, MTV did play the occasional black rocker prior to “Billie Jean”) and rewriting just about every sales and chart record in existence. It should go without saying that a quick scan through today’s pop music scene reveals tons of artists, from Kanye West and Akon to Fall Out Boy and Rihanna to Usher, Justin Timberlake, Chris Brown and Ne-Yo: all directly crib from the rule book that Michael wrote. There weren’t Elvis sightings all over the Billboard chart in 1980, 25 years after his debut. However if you look at a Billboard chart from earlier this year, 25 years after “Thriller” took over the world, you’ll see that not only was a re-jiggered version of the album itself nestled securely at the top of the charts (not to mention an album by his sister that danced up and down the charts simultaneously), but songs like West’s “Good Life” and Rihanna’s “Don’t Stop the Music” directly referenced songs from the album. Regardless of what you may think of the man himself, to have that much direct influence so long after entering the music scene is a feat in and of itself. Public image be damned, this man deserves his rightful place next to The Beatles, Dylan, Stevie and James Brown…and that’s seriously not hyperbole at all. While I’ll wave my flag all day for MJ as a musical icon, I’m not one of those creepy uber-fans who lashes out at the media for being “ignorant” (sorry-just had a flashback to “South Park”‘s brilliant skewering of him) or even thought for a second about camping out at the trial site. Hell, I don’t even think the man has a skin disease.

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