I Want You Back

Certain Songs #686: The Jackson 5 – “I Want You Back”

October 31, 2016 by Jim Connelly

Album: Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5
Year: 1969

One of the greatest career openers ever starts with a piano glissando that explodes instantly into a guitar/bass/piano standoff that’s easily as dramatic as the climax of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Then, as the percussion and the strings come in and establish what they’re going to do for the rest of the song, that voice — neither young nor old, neither male or female, but utterly bursting with enthusiasm and soul — kicks in, and a star is born.

Certain Songs #617: Hoodoo Gurus – “I Want You Back”

August 9, 2016 by Jim Connelly

Album: Stoneage Romeos
Year: 1984

Here’s what I’m hoping: there is somebody reading this — maybe one of those Millennials that are all in the news these days — who has never heard of the Hoodoo Gurus, and will click on this post and hear this song and fall in love with it the same way we all did back in 1984.

Perfectly straddling the line between power pop and garage rock, Australia’s awesome Hoodoo Gurus felt like a breath of fresh air; in the 30-odd years since then, they’ve never stopped churning out high-quality rock ‘n’ roll.