Friday, February 19, 2010

Falling




Billie Holiday - Stars Fell on Alabama
Chet Baker - I Fall in Love Too Easily
Laura Lee - It's Not What you Fall For It's What You Stand For
Ken Parker - My Whole World is Falling Down
Dylan - A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall
M Ward - Headed For A Fall
B&S - The ROllercoaster Ride
Radiohead - Black Star
UNcle Tupelo - Watch Me Fall
Uncle Tupelo - I Got Drunk
Yo La Tengo - Here to Fall
White Stripes - Fell in Love with a Girl
Decemberists - O Valencia
Blackalicious - SKy is Falling
Kanye West - All Falls Down

18 comments:

tincanman said...

One of these has an early lead for dond of the week.

steenbeck said...

Don't toy with my emotions, man of tin!!! You know that now you have to at least include one of these somewhere in the list or I will be very very disappointed. Is songs that you put in dropbox a clue? No, don't tell me. Your methods should remain mysterious, like your musical taste.

tincanman said...

there's two on so far and they're staying

.. and i didn't see you jumping up to defend my Michael Jackson pick last week!!!!!!!!

steenbeck said...

Tinny, I'm not a fan of Mr. Jackson. I count him in the large number of people that the 80s killed for me. I'm trying to reassess, based on RR nominations, but when I was a teenager in the 80s (I'm almost ashamed to say) my first taste of Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock...well there are quite a few. Gotta go to the roller skating...

tincanman said...

I'm not either. I just pick what I think is the best song.

steenbeck said...

Well, there's some early Jackson 5 that I've always liked, since I heard it. But...liking Michael Jackson in the 80s was like liking Van Halen or sting. You couldn't see past the hype to the talent, and I was so brand new to popular music of any kind.

And THAT is why your donds are so important to me, Mr. Tin - you're not thinking about who nominated them, or whether you traditionally liked the artist. It's more about the song and the subject. I can't do that. Respect. As they say

Ok, really gotta go to the rollerskating.

nilpferd said...

Obviodonds for Billie Holiday and Chet Baker, while the Radiohead surprised me by starting off quite like a Verlaines/Straitjacket Fits song (admittedly before sort of fizzling out into my definition of stadium rockery..)
Liked the drunken Uncle Tupelo song, the Yo La Tengo and the lightness of the Decemberists, and Blackalicious' falling sky hits a chord as I'm currently reading Mara the collected adventures of Asterix.

tincanman said...

Oh I have my blind spots like everyone else steen

ejaydee said...

I've been thinking about the mighty Prince, MJ, Madonna trident for a while now, but said thoughts aren't really finished yet. It's only recently that I realised the influence they've had on music today. I wonder if the three of them were seen in the same light back then, or was Prince maybe slightly apart from the other two, despite Purple Rain?

nilpferd said...

As I remember it, Prince had a bit more of an edgier image, whereas MJ and Madonna were more sanitised. Prince didn't get nearly as much commercial radio airplay as the other two where I was growing up. Maybe Prince's music was more "in your face" with its R&B elements; Madonna and Michael Jackson had a blander pop/dance focus and extremely smooth production in the early eighties; the fact that Madonna's lyrics were often sexually provocative seemed to go unnoticed, like page 3 girls, whereas with Prince I think people were a bit "scared" of the music or his persona. There was probably an element of racial prejudice in this too, though I don't really want to open up that can of worms.

tincanman said...

That is exactly what I meant by my ''if Prince had done it'' dond of the week comment. It coulda been a Prince song, and if it was it would have been taken as seriously as it deserved.
But Prince is considered an artist and MJ and Madonna performers, and that labelling informs how we think about their songs.
Doesn't mean everything Prince didn't try to sell records at times or that performers have nothing to say musically. Well MJ anyway; I remain to be convinced about Madonna.

steenbeck said...

Thanks for listening, Nilpferd. My boys like that Blackalicious track a lot. They do a funny, slinky dance to it. I like it a lot too. It's so unexpected. Well, to me anyway.

Tinny - I realized last night after I shut the computer off that I completely missed your point, which was that I should listen to the MJ because somebody had recommended it and somebody else had singled it out, not because I am or am not a fan. Sorry. Last weekend was one of those too-busy weekends...Malcolm was home 6 days (blizzards and holidays), I had to work a few days, and Monday, which is always my catching up day we had friends come stay for the day. WHich is a long way of saying that every once in a while I have to tell myself not to try to listen to anything, and last weekend was one of those.

And I just woke up, so I have to give it a bit of thought, but I think Madonna, Prince and MJ all received a similar amount of airplay, (well, MTV play), with Thriller-era MJ being by far the most popular. As I've mentioned before, I started listening to popular music in the mid-late 80s with very little exposure to it before that, like a visitor from another planet, and all 3 were, to my ignorant ears, just very popular, very pop-y pop stars. Although I think people had the idea that Prince was quite innovative, whereas Madonna sang catchy tunes that other people wrote. I remember quite a bit of hoopla about her taking singing lessons and writing "part" of...shoot what was that song, it was from a sean penn move. Dunno.

Coffee...

tincanman said...

It was more by way of a gentle tease Steen. I actually nearly backspaced over it because I'd hate for anyone to think they have to listen to me or I'll get petulant. And if I felt I had to be infallible, I'd choke under the pressure and stop enjoying it.

Hey, ... infallible; unable to fall; fallible ... nope, doesn't bring any new topic ideas to the fore.

l8er all

steenbeck said...

I know how you meant it, TIn. I just hate when I finally catch on to a conversation hours after it happened. I'm soooo sssllloooooooowwww.

lambretinha said...

Interesting thread...

Something nilpferd said made me think, how Madonna could sing sexual, provocative lyrics without causing much of a stir, while Prince would get into a bit more trouble when he was doing the same.
Thinking back, I think you're quite right about it, but in my opinion, the reason had more to do with gender than with race. For instance, Madonna could "get away with" adding lesbian imagery into her shows, because men don't find that offensive. But Prince, or any other major male star, couldn't have dreamed of doing the same thing with gay imagery without being labelled. Of those three, clearly Madonna was the one with clearer understanding of what a pop star in the eighties could and could not do, which explains that, in spite of being a less talented performer, and in spite of working with lesser material (both in good-filler ratio, and in the strength of hit songs) is seen as MJ's or Prince's equal by most people.

tincanman said...

Hey, steen is right on top of all the latest. I was looking up info on Fell in Love With A Girl and found out Rolling Stone magazine (the U.S. bible on music') named it one of the 40 most influential rock and roll songs. Which might be a stretch, but still.
Also, apparently the U.S. Air Force Reserve aired a TV commercial during the Super Bowl a few weeks ago with music sounding uncannily like the song. It has now been pulled.

Fell in Love with an ad

Other upset rockers

Shoegazer said...

OOh, lot's of classics in here. Still not quite convinced by Uncle Tupelo, but very fine picks as usual.

Luke-sensei said...

finally getting a little bot of Spill time...I liked the M Ward a lot and Uncle Tupelo are a new entity to me (although I knew the name) but they sound good on this evidence..