Archives for November 2019

Certain Songs #1683: Queen – “Modern Times Rock ‘N’ Roll”

November 19, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Queen
Year: 1973

. . .

Hi, my name is Jim, and I have a terrible confession to make: I’m not really much of a Queen fan.

I’m not sure why, but for some reason all of things that everybody loves about them — the bombast, Brian May’s utterly unique guitar tone, Freddy Mercury’s equally unique howl, the stacked vocals — never did it for me.

Certain Songs #1682: The Pursuit of Happiness – “Hard To Laugh”

November 18, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Love Junk
Year: 1988

. . .

Gonna be a bit of a contrarian here. Obviously the big single — and good lord is “big” used relatively here — by The Pursuit of Happiness is the cynical late-20s drum-fueled anthem “I’m An Adult Now,” in which the narrator realizes that his youth is coming to an end and is suddenly in a blind panic about how to deal with it.

It’s a pretty funny song, no doubt, but even then, I wasn’t really down with all of the conclusions it came up with, and I’m not sure it ever fully resolved the contradiction of being a loud song that took the stance that it was now bad to listen to loud songs. No doubt that was part of the joke, and I’m thinking way too hard about it.

Certain Songs #1681: Public Image Ltd – “Rise”

November 14, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Album
Year: 1986

. . .

But of course, Johnny Lydon was too damn restless to stay in any place for very long, and so after Jah Wobble left, 1981’s The Flowers of Romance, was less bass-heavy, and 1984’s This is What You Want…This is What You Get, where Lydon wiped Keith Levene from the finished tracks and added shitty horns, and while it sported a relative hit, that relative hit was the dreadful “This Is Not A Love Song.”

So imagine my surprise a couple of later when Lydon released my favorite song of his entire solo career, the unlikely “Rise”, which somehow melds one of the greatest jazz drummers in history with one of the most overplaying guitarists with an old Irish folk saying and utterly anonymous mid-1980s production.

Certain Songs #1680: Public Image Ltd – “Poptones”

November 13, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Metal Box
Year: 1979

“We’re not a band, we’re a company”

In late 1979, Public Image Ltd released their second album, initially called Metal Box after the packaging, and later called Second Edition when it was released in a slightly more, er, accessible format. They also made two amazing appearances on American TV; one somewhat expected, and the other so far beyond the pale that it still defies explanation.

Certain Songs #1679: Public Image Ltd – “Public Image”

November 12, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Public Image: First Issue
Year: 1978

. . .

After the Sex Pistols broke up following their U.S. tour — wait, that’s not right. Start again.

After Johnny Rotten left the Sex Pistols following their U.S. tour, he almost instantly formed a band while his former bandmates caroused with bank robbers, made films and did smack, desperately trying to get their focus, which, of course they never did. Because they’d lost it.

Certain Songs #1678: Public Enemy – “Brothers Gonna Work It Out”

November 11, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Fear of a Black Planet
Year: 1990

. . .

You can use a lot of words to describe the music that Public Enemy made on in the late 80s & early 90’s — “hard,” “revolutionary,” “banging” all come to mind — but “catchy” probably isn’t one of those words. For the most part, they didn’t worry about people singing along with their songs; they’d much rather have them chanting those songs while marching in the street.

But “Brothers Gonna Work It Out,” which was essentially a duet between Chuck D and Flavor Flav, is well and truly catchy, deploying all kinds of vocal samples the same way, say, Prince would deploy guitar and keyboard riffs, my favorite one being:

Certain Songs #1677: Public Enemy – “Welcome To The Terrordome”

November 10, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Fear of a Black Planet
Year: 1990

. . .

Now they’re just showing off.

With every single measure, every single beat utterly exploding from your speakers, “Welcome To The Terrordome” just might be the pinnacle of the art of the Bomb Squad, the insanely creative production team that featured Chuck D, Eric “Vietnam” Sadler, and Keith & Hank Shocklee. It’s not so much a wall of sound, but a wave of sound that forces you to either ride or drown. And either one is cool.

Certain Songs #1676: Public Enemy – “Fight The Power”

November 7, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Fear of a Black Planet
Year: 1990

I still remember going to see Do The Right Thing during an empty matinee at the UA at Barstow and Blackstone. At the time, there was a clearly racist hysteria that the film’s incendiary ending could somehow instigate rioting, but there certainly wasn’t any reaction but minds being blown.

Or at least mine was: I’d enjoyed She’s Gotta Have It and watched School Daze, but Do The Right Thing was a complete and utter leveling up, a smart, funny and morally ambiguous look at race, class, capitalism and everybody going crazy from the fucking heat.

Certain Songs #1675: Public Enemy – “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos”

November 6, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back
Year: 1988

. . .

“Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic.” That’s the name of the Isaac Hayes song — from his 1969 album Hot Buttered Soul — from which the piano sample that fuels what is probably my favorite rap song: the titanic “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos.”

Certain Songs #1674: Public Enemy – “Bring The Noise”

November 5, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
Year: 1987

. . .

Holy fuck, this song!!

Public Enemy’s second single in the run-up to It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back as well a cornerstone of the Less Than Zero soundtrack, “Bring The Noise” is so chock full of great lines and great beats it’s actually kinda overwhelming. I’m tempted to just quote the lyrics, and let it go at that.