Archives for January 2018

Certain Songs #1096: Marvin Gaye – “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”

January 11, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: I Heard it Through The Grapevine
Year: 1968

You wanna know just insanely stacked Motown was in the late 1960s? They sat on Marvin Gaye’s version of “I Heard it Through The Grapevine” for over a year before they released. A year!

Written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong in 1966, “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” was originally recorded that year by the Miracles but nixed as a single — and listening to it now, you can tell why: it was a skosh too fast, and not slinky enough — and then recorded by both Marvin Gaye and Gladys Knight in 1967, but only Gladys Knight’s version was released that year.

Certain Songs #1095: Martha and the Vandellas – “Dancing in the Street”

January 10, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Dance Party
Year: 1964

Initially conceived as a basic dance party track, “Dancing in the Street” has instead become a cultural touchstone used for purposes far beyond its initial reason for existing.

Co-written by Marvin Gaye (who also provided some dynamite drums), producer William “Mickey” Stevenson & songwriter Ivy Jo Hunter, what initially set “Dancing in the Street” apart was its inclusiveness: it wasn’t about dancing alone to the radio, it wasn’t about you and me dancing, or even all of us at the club dancing, it was about everybody everywhere dancing.

Certain Songs #1094: Martha and the Vandellas – “Heat Wave”

January 9, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Heat Wave
Year: 1963

Oh man, “Heat Wave,” a song that is such a primeval force of nature that I’ve probably taken how important it is for granted. It might not have been first single from the Motown record machine, but it was absolutely one of the very first full-blown Motown sound singles, and its importance to what came after cannot be understated. Even now.

Want a hit? Figure out how to do a variation on the “Heat Wave” rhythm. Ask Outkast or Janelle Monae or even Portugal.The Man.

Certain Songs #1093: Marshall Crenshaw – “Don’t Disappear Now”

January 8, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Life’s Too Short
Year: 1991

If “Better Back Off” set a tougher tone for Marshall Crenshaw’s 1991 Life’s Too Short album, then then second song, “Don’t Disappear Now,” was the indicator that was going to be the direction that permeated the whole record.

Opening with a long, snaking Crenshaw guitar line over a Lou Reed-y rhythm as set by drummer Kenny Aronoff and bassist Fernando Saunders, “Better Back Off” is the story of a relationship that burnt hard and bright abd begins with one of my favorite opening lines to any song.

Certain Songs #1092: Marshall Crenshaw – “Better Back Off”

January 7, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Life’s Too Short
Year: 1991

After Field Day, I lost track of Marshall Crenshaw for the rest of the 1980s. For whatever reasons, I never got around to listening to either 1985’s Downtown, 1987’s Mary Jean and 9 Others or 1989’s Good Evening.

Hey, the second half of the 1980s were a complicated time for me. So, assuming each record made it to KFSR, all I can assume is that I dropped the needle on a few tracks, but never found anything that I liked enough to justify spending money on a whole record.

Certain Songs #1091: Marshall Crenshaw – “What Time Is It?”

January 6, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Field Day
Year: 1983

If Marshall Crenshaw’s 1982 debut was a skosh too retro to fully connect to me, then 1983’s follow-up suffered no such issues. As produced by Steve Lillywhite, Field Day positioned Crenshaw as a contemporary artist simply by giving brother Robert Crenshaw the same big echoey boomy drums as he gave U2 or Big Country.

It probably shouldn’t have worked, and definitely sounds the most 80s of all of Crenshaw’s early records, but at the time, I loved the contrast between Crenshaw’s songs and Lillywhite’s production, especially on songs like “Whenever You’re On My Mind,” “For Her Love” and “Hold It.”

Certain Songs #1090: Marshall Crenshaw – “Someday, Someway”

January 5, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Marshall Crenshaw
Year: 1982

For 35 years I’ve wondered why Marshall Crenshaw’s self-titled album — instantly acclaimed at the time, and now universally considered a classic — has never quite fully resonated with me the way it did with the rest of my power-pop peers.

And I think it’s because that most of the power-pop I loved took its cues from the British Invasion and U.S. garage rock — my wheelhouse — where as Crenshaw’s touchstones were more late 50s. So the rhythms were slightly bouncier, the guitars & vocals drenched in reverb and the whole thing slightly less tough that I liked in 1982.

Certain Songs #1089: Margo Price – “Hands of Time”

January 4, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Midwest Farmer’s Daughter
Year: 2016

A weird little rare thing I love is when an artist introduces themselves on the opening track of their record.

“Hey world, this is who I am, and how I got here.” You know, like The Hold Steady on “Positive Jam,” Art Brut on “Formed a Band,” Freedy Johnston on “Trying to Tell You I Don’t Know” or Emimem on “My Name Is.”

Add to that Margo Price on the opening track of her 2016 debut, Midwest Farmer’s Daughter.

Certain Songs #1088: Maren Morris – “80s Mercedes”

January 3, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Hero
Year: 2016

With her first major label album, Hero, Maren Morris straddled the line between traditional country and slicked up 2010’s pop country with verve and alacrity, and while there were several fine songs on Hero, especially the “music as religion” powerhouse “My Church,” it was the slicked-up pop of “80’s Mercedes” that ended up getting me.

Songs about driving around in cars, of course, have been around as long as cars existed, so the sentiments expressed in “80s Mercedes” aren’t all that new: we’re young, we’re cool, we’re driving around in a classic convertible.

Certain Songs #1087: Manic Street Preachers – “Interiors (Song for Willem de Kooning)”

January 2, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Everything Must Go
Year: 1996

Few albums had as weird of a backstory as the fourth album by Manic Street Preachers, Everything Must Go.

On the first three of their albums, they had an interesting way of divvying up the songwriting: all of the lyrics were by bassist Nicky Wire & rhythm guitarist Richey Edwards, and all of the music was by drummer Sean Moore & lead singer & guitarist James Dean Bradford. Using this combination, they had become quite big in the U.K., though I don’t know how much exposure they got here: I’m pretty sure that I’d read about them, but hadn’t heard them (though the cover art of their debut, Generation Terrorists, looks incredibly familiar, so maybe I bought it and didn’t like it?)