Arts and Lifestyle Wednesday Presented by Cinematic Visions-Guilty Pleasure Tunes and Tales
Mostly for the purposes of grilling sessions on the deck, I have created three Spotify playlists. While these are certainly made up of music that I like, I tried to also tailor them to others who might listen, particularly my wife. DC Deck 1, and DC Deck 2, use that model. But the one that just says DC 1, is reserved for when I am out there alone prepping, or cleaning up afterward. For instance, in a nod to my wife, that’s where the Billy Joel songs go because she can’t stand him, and where the hardest rock songs find a home, except for Queen’s of the Stone Age tunes, which are a surprising favorite of hers.
But it also houses some of the tunes that fall into the guilty pleasure category, songs, or acts, that I would never try to tout as classics or greats, but that I have fun with. Here’s a Top Ten list, with a link, a wink, and perhaps a little tale.
10. Driver’s Seat-Sniff and the Tears
This 1978 one-hit wonder is a catchy power-popish treat that starts off with a simple, but catchy, drum beat, and then introduces each other instrument in succession. It has a cool little lead guitar part that repeats throughout the song, which apparently isn’t about driving at all. Reaching number 15 on the charts, didn’t propel the band to greater success, although I’m sure they enjoyed their Number One spot they reached on the Dutch charts in 1991 when the song was featured in a car commercial. It also got a bump in 1997 after being used in the film “Boogie Nights”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SCzVEUlqqA
9. Let’s Get the Show on the Road-Michael Stanley/Band
Actually, I in this case I would try to convince others this is a great song by an artist who is a textbook case of someone who seemed tailor made for 1970’s success, but never achieved it. Michael Stanley’s solo debut album Friend and Legends, on which this song appears, was recorded in Colorado with a who’s who of musicians backing it. Joe Walsh, Dan Fogelberg, David Sanborn, Richie Furay, Kenny Passarelli, and others perform, and Sanborn’s signature saxophone sound is a big part of the eight-minute epic. Great lyrics, lots to offer for this buried treasure. Stanley would form a band, which was a regional success around Cleveland, where he eventually became the top disc jockey in town, and he still does it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq8ce--jsH8
8. Bang Bang-David Sanborn
Speaking of David Sanborn, and not the 2014 tune by Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj, this silly fun bit of fun was a remake of a 1966 song written by Joe Cuba, known as the “father of Latin Boogaloo”. It’s a simple tune which is really an instrumental with some shouted nonsense lyrics in English and Spanish, and pretty much just an excuse for Sanborn to wail. By the way, later in 1966, the writer Joe Cuba had a Number One hit with “Sock it to Me, Baby”, also falling into the catchy nonsense category.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WMdNzQhYzY
7. Here Comes My Baby-The Tremeloes, The Mavericks…and (suprise!)
As catchy as they come, in either of the hit versions, the big one the Top Ten in England and 13 in the U.S. 1967 version by The Tremeloes, or the 1999 Mavericks version of the tune written by………eighteen year old Cat Stevens. Both hit versions use a lot of yelling and background interchanges behind the undeniably catchy hook. Around the time of the 1967 version, quite a few hit songs used the kind of neat gimmick of people whistling, shouting, and clapping, creating a very live feel to the very studio songs. Here are the two links of actual records, and the original demo by Stevens.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQXbtlbQX70
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cos9y6Mfv6s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXtnhPpg7sY
6. 1234-Feist
Certainly what many might think is the lamest on the list, it is included for that very reason. Simple, lyrically and musically, it’s just the kind of thing that sticks in your head, and in a good way. The 2007 song was written by Australian Sally Seltman, who shelved the song for her band New Buffalo precisely because it sounded too much like Feist. But on a tour with her, she ran the song by Feist, who loved it, and the adaptation , with Feist also getting a writing credit, was a top ten hit in the US and UK. Not surprisingly, it was used as a counting song on Sesame Street.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABYnqp-bxvg
5. Find Another Fool-Quarterflash
A real phenomenon in the world of popular music is the “not quite just a one-hit wonder”. A band will have a big hit, and their followup drops off a bit, maybe they scrape a third, but they avoid music history’s dustbin of one-hit wonder. Quarterflash is in the upper end of that category. Their 1982 self-titled debut album, and first hit “Harden my Heart”, made it to the Top Ten. The Oregon based band’s core was the husband and wife team of Marv and Rindy Ross, the latter a vocalist who also played the saxophone, giving them their slightly different sound. “Harden my Heart” was a mid-tempo tune, but the followup “Find Another Fool” was a pop-rocker I fancied a bit more. Their music was featured in the hit movies “Night Shift” and “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”, but alas they would be an early 80’s phenomenon, although the band is still playing to this day. The video is about as 80’s as you can get…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcICuFnkxe4
4. Year of the Cat-Al Stewart
This one usually boils down to either you really like it, or it makes you gag. I fall heavily into the first category, enjoying the story, the film references, the lyrics, and even Stewart’s gentle whisper-singing. Off of the 1976 album “Time Passages”, it is produced by Alan Parsons, and I also very much like the title track, which is even gentler and potentially even more gag-inducing.. Although people remember lyrics like the opening “On a morning from a Bogart movie…..”, over four minutes of the 6:40 track are instrumental, and feature elaborate production from Parsons. The top ten song still gets plenty of airplay today, likely to the consternation of some.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak_MTXQALa0
3. Stacy’s Mom-Fountains of Wayne
You can probably make your own list of songs that realllllllllly benefit from the video, but this 2003 tune certainly is right up at the top. The song is catchy right from the extremely Cars-like single chords at the start, (exactly what the band was going for) but it certainly gets elevated by the teenage fantasy video, which makes it almost seem like they did the video first and then wrote the song. There are several Cars nods in the video, which certainly isn’t hurt by the presence of Rachel Hunter as Stacy’s mom. Song and video make the mark here…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZLfasMPOU4
The final two entries are actually tied for first for me. I love these songs very much, but I never am going to try and tout them on a top one hundred list or something. They both are dreamy love songs in their own way, and they are most definitely guilty pleasures of mine, but perhaps deserve better than that designation.
1B. Love is All Around-The Troggs and R.E.M
From the opening bass lines and tick-tock percussion, The Troggs Reg Presley’s song hooks me every time. From the opening line “I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes” to the final “C’mon and let it show”, I’m in. The Troggs original 1968 version has a lot of lush production in it but it’s simple pleasures still come through, stripped down as in R.E.M.’s “MTV Unplugged” 1991 version with Mike Mills singing the lead and Michael Stipe doing the “bup, bup, ba” it is equally great. On this tune at least I have plenty of company. The song has been used so many times, and in so many variations, in film that in 2013 it was named Number One in VH1’s Ultimate Movie Soundtrack Top 100. Wet Wet Wet’s version for the film “Four Weddings and a Funeral” is okay, but far too elaborate for me, although it was a monstrous international hit, Number One in the U.K. for fifteen weeks, and was played so much the band requested radio stations stop. A very clever and fun use was in the 2003 film “Love Actually” as a holiday tune “Christmas Is All Around”, fueling a comeback by Bill Nighy’s character.
I’ll say it. More times than not I get a little misty, or more, on the “C’mon and let it show” run out. So there.
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut5uC91FcbI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=em2VG7lHmR8
1A. Fantasy Girl-38 Special
There are things to argue about, and things not to, and music mostly falls into the latter category. It is too personal, and songs or bands that grate on your nerves, make other people’s lives rich. 38 Special cranked out plenty of hits, and garnered a modicum of respect, but they were too pop for Country Rock, too rock for pop, hard for people to put in a box. I like several of their songs, but I hardly ever listen, or listened back in the day, to an album. But there are few songs that have graced my ears more than “Fantasy Girl”. It has personal connections, it has milepost connections. For the upwards of two years I was gritting my way through factory work, I would wind down, scrub off, and clean up for the evening to the entirety of Dire Straits “Making Movies” album, and then head out the door with the soaring guitar solo finale to “Fantasy Girl” ringing in my ears.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENB23nsplOE
I could certainly roll out a hundred more. These challenging days, making fun lists like this can give you a smile or ten, and I hope that it did for you. Maybe it will be something you can toss around with friends with your own guilty pleasures. A little embarrassing maybe, but what the hell.
C’mon and let it show.
.