A tip of the hat to Jeff K for leading me to this newly released Kickstarter project.
On first glance you might think, "I hate all these songs and who the hell are these people singing them." But...these people are some of the finest power pop artists out there whether you've heard of them or not and these songs...some played straight/some given a clever spin...all sound better 30 years later, chunked up with big guitars, rock solid drums and killer harmonies.
Check out this cover from Burning Wood fave Michael Carpenter.
There really isn't much you can do with "The Pina Colada Song," other than run from it. But I guarantee you will be pleasantly surprised by most of this roster. The Michael Carpenter is a personal fave, as is Kelly Jones' gorgeous reading of the England Dan & John Ford Coley ipecac. This has been on heavy rotation all weekend. You can get it HERE. And I think you should. It's fantastic!
11 comments:
I watched the tune unfold, and when the tambourine came in I was thinking about pop craft and songwriting and why music is worse today. By halfway through the first chorus I remembered still hating the song. And it's at least a minute too long.
Good morning Buzz.
Run all you like from the "Pina Colada" song, it's reach is awesome and terrible. Much as I've tried to avoid it, I wound up just a couple of degrees of separation from it, by merit of being part of a Beach Boys fan project along with Carter Cathcart (and Michael Carpenter), who played on the original Rupert Holmes version.
There's no escaping "Escape" ...
thanks, sal. now I don't feel so bad for constantly playing this. I think it's great fun.
I'm sorry I wan't more clear. I dug the performance, their pop craft, and arrangement until the song wore out it's welcome.
I am pretty much a sucker for any project that Mike Viola gets involved in. While some of these songs suck so hard that a good performance cannot redeem them, there are a number where both the song is very solid and and the performance gives them it a new twist.
Here are some faves: Paul Bertolino - Just Remember I Love You ; Kelly Jones - I'd Really Love To See You Tonight ; Mike Viola - Steal Away; Popdudes - Magnet And Steel ; Bleu - Baby Come Back; The Sonic Executive Sessions - On And On
Lisa Mychols's Don't Give Up On Us Baby might be my favorite.
Dance with Me by Lannie Flowers is my favorite in this collection.
Willie Wisely's So Into You, a close second.
hpunch
Pina Colada was always a clever lyric, just cursed by being married to a lame melody and lamer production.
Of the 27 songs listed for this compilation, there are three I don't have on my iPod (under the ubiquitous 70s Mellow Gold playlist). I mean the originals, not these covers. Some of those are legitimately great pop songs and were recognized as such at the time. I don't really feel the need to have current pop-leaning artists confirm my tastes in 70s Top 40. I'd be more inclined to cherry-pick a few tracks from this, but I suspect most would pale in comparison to the originals.
This is what I was getting at earlier with the Tim Christensen post. What was often considered laughable or pure pop dogshit at that time -- the sort of goofy retro spin put on a covers collection like this today -- really wasn't that bad as pop music ... and actually took a certain level of talent that has been vaporized over the past few decades. For better and worse. I think punk's "anyone can do this" ethos pretty much erased a market like this, of talented artists putting out material of varying quality, but clearly made by musically-talented people.
Bands like Fleetwood Mac and Supertramp were the high end of that spectrum, whereas songs like what appear on this collection were the lower end. Well, punk eventually wiped out shit like "The Pina Colada Song." Not at the time -- the songs had it's chance to be a massive hit and took it (and I still kind of like it in that story-song way of the 70s). But punk, and then new wave, won by a war of attrition, bringing it down to basic talent levels, first on guitar, but far more on synthestizers, which have become the acoustic guitar of the millennium in terms of Top 40 pop.
I'm not really nostalgic for this stuff, but I do enjoy listening to it from time to time. And I can recognize bands like Supertramp or Fleetwood Mac no longer exist, no longer even have the chance to exist, because somewhere in the past few decades, the path of least resistance, the refusal to learn how to play music beyond a certain level, took root when it became hip to deem it so, and has from time to time produced good to great artists. But for the most part has put out a cavalcade of shit that makes England Dan and John Ford Coley come off like Brahms and Beethoven.
I've always been a proponent of pop music and I never consider any of this music a guilty pleasure.
But it is exciting to hear some of this stuff amped up a bit, or in some cases, toned down a bit.
@William Repsher...it's much easier to appreciate the songcraft of these original artists now, I think, because that artform is long gone.
I totally dig this. I've always been more of a 70s fan than 60s. And I'm a fan of radio pop. Yep, I'll actually buy this...
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