The Swamp

mister d wrote:1. That dorky song where you can tell he wishes he was cooler.
2. That dorky song where you can tell he wishes he was cooler.
3. The one about masturbating.
4. That dorky song where you can tell he wishes he was cooler.

Captain Jack sucks, but good try

I am impressed with how high he puts Miami 2017 though.

1. Vienna
2. New York State of Mind
3. Shameless
4. Movin' Out
5. She's Got a Way
6. Tell Her About It
7. I Go to Extremes
8. Say Goodbye to Hollywood
9. Italian Restaurant
10. And So It Goes

I'm not a big fan, and obviously not moved by his later work. But these cuts are at least listenable once every few years or so. There's some sentiment attached to the last two, so it's not really a musical judgment.

1. Piano Man
2. Allentown
3. Captain Jack
4. Summer, Highland Falls
5. Goodnight Saigon
6. Miami 2017
7. New York State of Mind
7. Say Goodbye to Hollywood
8. Uptown Girl
9. Only the Good Die Young

I never bought a Joel record, only know and love these songs from the radio. First five, I associate with other acts.

1. NYSOM (Mark/Almond band)
2. Say Goodbye to Hollywood (Ronnie Spector)
3. You May Be Right (The Chipmunks)
4. Downeaster Alexa (Howard Stern's favorite Joel tune)
5. My Life (Kip and Henry, Bosom Buddies)
6. She's Always A Woman (medical school skit - "He's a person to you/But he's only a patient to me)
7. Piano Man
8. Big Shot
9. The Longest Time
10.She's Got A Way

God damn can we please get a new thread to discuss this piece of shit?

Best slow song: she's always a woman
Best song that is also grating: angry young man
Best karaoke song: my life
Best song post 1980's: i go to extremes (I guess technically 1989 but you know what I mean)
Best anthem/Best overall: miami 2017

The song I won't change the station away from if it comes on the radio:





(clearly a hater)

that All for Leyna isn't at least #2 is so wrong (Miami 2017 i would accept).

i'm hardly a diehard but i've got a few albums and was a fan as a kid but Leyna just kills me to this day. angsty-Billy. Plus it just rocks.


i really should waste 3 hours and make a Rush list like this.

Thanks for the Billy Joel link, Ryan. Fun read. I could talk about him all day, but I'll spare you and cut straight to the Top 5, after a brief diversion.

Favorite deep cut: Surprises. One of the songs from 'The Nylon Curtain' that sounds like a Beatles/John Lennon song filtered thru Joel. It was released less than two years after Lennon was murdered, and parts of this album sound like a tribute.

Favorite Piano Man song: Piano Man. Could be everybody's #1, I suppose. But it's its own thing, so I left it off the list.

5. Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)
4. My Life
3. Only the Good Die Young
2. Don't Ask Me Why
1. The Longest Time

Just stumbled upon this guy - his album Scandalous is on heavy rotation.

GZA + Tom Morello = a pretty damn good cover. Been too long since a GZA album.

I forgot how good Atmosphere was. Getting mad spun right now frogs

Sufjan's new album is quite good at first listen.

Love this news.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/03/10 ... red-lines/

You know, this case seemed so obvious right from the start. The first time I heard "Blurred Lines" I thought it was cool that they sampled "Got To Give It Up."

I have no idea who these hipsters are but holy shit do they nail Nicks and Petty.

Fucking hipster.

Look at those two jerkoffs with their solid color shirts!

My newest swamp pet peeve is when J-Lo grabs a video off deadspin and doesn't cite it.

Is the idea to replicate the original song? If so, this works nicely.

If not, it's no more than good Friday night karaoke to me. Like most rock/pop covers. Tribute albums. There are slight variations in arrangement and different singing voices which are actually well within the original range. This does almost nothing for me, even if I like the original.

I'm continually surprised and disappointed as to how timid most covers are, both in recordings and live performances. Perhaps that's what the pop/rock market really wants.

I'm more oriented towards the jazz tradition, especially in the 40s through the 60s, where covers ("standards") were very popular. But playing them "straight" would have been embarrassing. So, for example, there are many, many covers of the relatively trite pop song "My Favorite Things" that everyone knows from the Sound of Music. The song became popular during the run of the original broadway version in 1959. Jazz musicians immediately got all over this song, exploring new ground. Many version are virtually unrecognizable, except in the opening, as even being this song. That's what I like to hear musicians go for.



Another take, by Bobby McFerrin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDekX3ymVfc

Speaking of Sound of Music

Between 1960 and 1969 the soundtrack was the biggest selling album in the UK 3 times: 1965-66 & 68. The album that broke the dynasty? Sgt. Peppers.

Soundtracks actually were the biggest selling album 5 of the years with South Pacific and West Side Story also selling big in 1960 and 62.

My fifth graders have been singing "We Didn't Start the Fire" for their music class.

EdRomero wrote:My fifth graders have been singing "We Didn't Start the Fire" for their music class.

Teacher doing gods own work.

Holy shit...this is awful.

My take on rock bands is that the weakness is almost always in the singer. It's hard to find vocalists with any amount of unique personal style who are also technically adequate. Sometimes -- as in this performance -- you find neither. It's like the singer didn't show up so they had the guy in charge of merch stand in. That, or the drugs were no good.

The band, and especially the lead guitar player, are much better. But really, this is just another cover where nothing unique is added, and something significant is subtracted.

The result? MBK (More Bad Karaoke).

I can't listen right now, but in general I was a Smith Westerns fan.

Halfway through "The Album About Nothing" form Wale. This is crazy good.

I like the new Death Cab and Courtney Barnett releases. 2015's off to an awesome start when you consider Ryan Bingham, Decemberists, Modest Mouse among others.

someone posted this on deadspin concourse in the comments about song of the summer. not the usual fare for this thread, but, this sound has infected my brain.

Great new compilation of some old-time heavy roots reggae by Jimmy Riley just came out.



It is fantastic.

I try to say open to new stuff by reserving CDs from the 'newly arrived' list at our public library. Every week or so, I check out a dozen at a time. Almost every one gets a very cursory listening and then is sent back. Maybe once a month I'll find something worthy of a second spin.

But a few times a year, I am shocked into recognizing that not all recorded music is crap these days. Just 99.9%. But there is that .1%.

Right now I'm listening to a CD for the third time, and still love it. I have never heard of the band, or any musician in it. And it is one of the most improbable combinations I can imagine -- a band with horns and latino rhythm section doing Black Sabbath covers.

No joke.

I'm only mildly interested in the Latino/Tejano/Tex-Mex music I've heard over the past 30 years. Since the days that Carlos and Flaco were youngsters, I can think of only one other band that I recall enjoying for more than a couple songs -- Los Lonely Boys. And although I'm old and they were a thing in my era, I hated Sabbath with a passion. Originally I just disliked them. But I once spent two weeks working construction around a floor refinishing crew of three brothers that played nothing but this on their boom box. They thought it was great to crank the Sabbath so they could hear it even when running a sander and get high on the fumes of the floor varnish. I had to endure way too much of both.

Anyways, this CD is tremendous. Even though it's a band playing a style of music I don't like covering the songs of a band I have hated since the '70s.

This group appears to be inauspiciously named Brownout. The album title is BrownSabbath. As I type this, one of them is doing a Sabbath lick on trombone, and killing it. This century may have at least one thing going for it after all.

That is surprisingly, almost shockingly, good!

Apart from this band, what do you think of Sabbath, or latino rock?

Not a big Sabbath fan. Only "Paranoid" is on my regular playlist.

Need to learn more about latino rock - especially if it's punchy like these guys.

All I have is a couple of Los Straightjackets cds.

I'm a Los Straightjackets fan. Saw them last winter, touring with Nick Lowe. But while they were the stage garb and have Los in the name, this seems to me to be a pretty straightforward rockabilly/surf band. Not much latino or tex in their sound.

Sounds like you're not a Sabbath hater like me, but not enough of a fan of them, or the latino sound, that Brownout appeals to you via these routes. Curious. It will be interesting to see if they find a fan base with this approach. Though I imagine they won't cut a second Sabbath album. it's amazing that they cut a first one. I haven't had time to look into who these guys are, but there must be an interesting story to explain what they're up to.

Giff wrote:I like the new Death Cab and Courtney Barnett releases. 2015's off to an awesome start when you consider Ryan Bingham, Decemberists, Modest Mouse among others.

The new Sufjan Stevens is amazingly good. Like stunningly good....and incredibly moving. Its called "Carrie and Lowell" and its about his mom, who died a few years ago from cancer, and struggled with addiction and mental issues and abandoned Stevens when he was a child.

Blue Traveler has a new album.....Wow...guessing that is not going to set the charts on fire
http://www.billboard.com/articles/colum ... -interview" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Getting closer to Faith No More's new stuff, May 19th. Not sure how many of you guys follow but I Care A Lot. Probly too much.

Denis wrote:Getting closer to Faith No More's new stuff, May 19th. Not sure how many of you guys follow but I Care A Lot. Probly too much.

But what is it?