Thursday, October 15, 2015

Original Rock n Roll: A Continuing Series

Sure, the music I find most satisfying and interesting is classical, but there is the occasional pop song that, yes, rocks my world. Here is one of my favourites:


For some reason I never encountered that when it came out in 1971--probably because I stopped listening to pop music from sometime in 1970 until the early 80s. I heard this song for the first time on an episode of House, MD. Great song for a lot of reasons. It is truly original. It doesn't sound like any other song, even ones by The Who. It is a brilliant early use of a synthesizer.
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8 comments:

  1. Christine LacroixOctober 16, 2015 at 7:14 AM

    Wow! That was fantastic!

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  2. Bryan TownsendOctober 16, 2015 at 8:03 AM

    Isn't it! Pop music doesn't have to be dreary and repetitive. Though sometimes I suspect that the dreary and repetitive makes more money, which is why they do it.

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  3. Christine LacroixOctober 16, 2015 at 12:13 PM

    They were talking about this on the radio in France the other day. I had never heard or iit. Apparently it became a hit in early 80s. Weird and repetitive https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH2x5pARGdE

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  4. Bryan TownsendOctober 16, 2015 at 3:57 PM

    I was a bit of a Laurie Anderson fan back when this came out. Apparently it was partly inspired by an aria from a Massenet opera. But Laurie Anderson is NOT pop music.

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  5. AnonymousOctober 16, 2015 at 5:28 PM

    Correction: There's no synthesizer in this tune.

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  6. Bryan TownsendOctober 16, 2015 at 9:30 PM

    Not according to Wikipedia, but yes according to the notes to the album The Who: The Ultimate Collection. Mind you, I suppose it depends on how you define synthesizer. He certainly didn't use a Moog, instead a Lowrey Berkshire Deluxe TBO-1 organ using its marimba repeat feature. It is an early example of a sequenced track, however it was created.

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  7. Christine LacroixOctober 17, 2015 at 11:15 AM

    I don't know a lot about music but I knew Laurie Anderson wasn't pop! I was just reminded of it because you said you didn't know how you had missed the Who piece....and I wondered how I'd missed the Laurie Anderson piece, though it's not so surprising since I hate the radio and I don't have a tv. Anyway I'm amazed that you liked it. I thought it was perfect for the musically challenged like me!

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  8. Bryan TownsendOctober 17, 2015 at 12:54 PM

    Wait, did I say I liked O Superman? I guess I did. Laurie Anderson has a certain uniquely eerie quality that is hard to put into words. But it is definitely interesting. Laurie Anderson was never that widely known, though I probably heard about her first on CBC radio.

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