Thursday, August 30, 2012

Big Girls Don't Cry

November–December 1962

Another Four Seasons entry, so soon after the first! Everyone should know this one.



Is it just me, or is this exactly the same song as "Sherry"? It's like, they found something that worked, so... let's do it again! You can literally put one of these songs on, and sing the other along to it. Go ahead, try it.

Anyway, you can hardly blame me for not getting too excited about the second Four Seasons song in just four entries. I would say that this actually works slightly better than their former hit. Just sounds a little more tightened up, and the song's big hook is a little bolder and catchier. I'll take it.

B

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

He's a Rebel

November 1962

I'm realizing more and more that in the early 60s, the girl group genre was truly at the forefront of advancing pop/rock music as an art form. For whatever reason, it seems the best songwriters and producers in the industry were working with these groups—the relatively faceless, interchangeable singers themselves had little personality of their own, but were skilled and adaptable enough to carry these songs. This hit by the Crystals is a great example of just how far this music had come.



The production here is just pure class through and through. Phil Spector's signature sound could make any ol' song sound great—rich, full, pseudo-orchestral. But this isn't just any ol' song, either. From a pure songwriting perspective, this is just a terrifically composed pop song—the chord changes are often unexpected and the melody is slightly tricky, but it all works and sounds totally natural.

I think this kind of thing isn't usually considered "rock," but when you think about it, it basically is. It has a much more lavish production than most rock music of the day, but that rock drum beat is there, unmistakable. And looking at the broader picture, the quality and inventiveness of this, and other contemporary girl-group songs, was certainly very influential on the British rock groups that would soon rise to fame. The very notion that one could write a pop/rock song that was not only catchy, but sophisticated—that idea itself is probably not much older than this very song. I'm sure a young Lennon and McCartney were listening closely, and when their turn came, great as they were, they were standing on the shoulders of giants.

We won't encounter them again on this blog, but the following year, the Crystals released two more top tens, "Da Doo Ron Ron" and "Then He Kissed Me"—both Spector productions, and great songs in their own right—but for my money I'll take "He's a Rebel," in my opinion one of the finest songs in a genre crowded with competition.

A+

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Monster Mash

October 1962

Mercifully, after the first year of the Hot 100 chart, Christmas songs were deemed ineligible and they were relegated to their own, separate chart. However, a Halloween song is still fair game.



The only hit by novelty act Bobby "Boris" Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers has been the victim of overexposure throughout the years, but man, when's the last time you sat and really listened to this song? It's hilarious. I don't think many people would call Bobby Pickett versatile or prolific, but it's clear he's spent a lot of time honing this shtick, and it works—his ridiculous puns and over-the-top delivery make me laugh.

It's important, I think, to acknowledge that "Monster Mash" was campy even in 1962. The lyrics are all in loving reference to the golden age of the big studio monster movies, which was arguably kicked off in 1931 with Dracula and had more or less run its course by the end of the 50s; so Pickett was definitely appealing to nostalgia here. It's easy to understand why people remember these films so fondly, and they still have a cult following even today. They were not exactly advancing the art of cinema (with a few exceptions—the first two Frankenstein films being oft-cited critics' favorites), but there is an irresistible charm about these hulking beasts, created with elaborate costumes and makeup.

So even though I've shown a general distaste for novelty hits on this blog in the past, I gotta say this song is pretty charming. It embraces the innate silliness of one of the curiouser American film genres, and I was getting sick of love songs anyway.

A-

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Sherry

September–October 1962

Now, I know that the Four Seasons are one of the most loved musical groups from this time period, but I've got to be honest, right up front: I find Frankie Valli's singing voice to be shrill, silly, and frankly annoying. There have been lots of songs I've covered by artists with enduring reputations, where I totally get the appeal—Elvis's charm is contagious, the layered sounds of Motown can be marvelous, and hey, I can even dig Neil Sedaka—but this is where I draw the line.



I guess some things just can't cross the generational divide. It's not like the Four Seasons were some flash in the pan group, either—"Sherry" is merely the first of five #1 hits the group recorded, and there are two more from Valli's solo career. Not having been alive in 1962, it's impossible for me to have a true sense of what this music sounded like to people at the time, but there must be some way to explain this kind of massive appeal. Certainly they have a unique, easily recognizable sound, due mostly to the lead vocals. Perhaps it's the boldness with which Valli lunges into this performance, flipping in and out of falsetto, giving it everything he's got, injecting it with a charming youth energy. At any rate, you couldn't accuse this group of sounding like anybody else. Whatever it was, people got it.

Certain kinds of music are more generationally specific than others, I think. Radiohead's album Kid A, widely regarded as a masterpiece of the millennial age, probably has limited appeal to the folks that made the Four Seasons popular (and who knows how the children of the future will hear it?). Its cold, fearful depiction of the brave new world of the computer age is something that is pretty damn specific to people in my demographic or thereabouts, who grew up experiencing the emergence of personal computers and the Internet firsthand, during our formative years. When Kid A is as old as "Sherry" is now, people might look back and wonder what all the fuss was about.

I guess what it comes down to is that music sounds different to different people, and that's that. A great many cultural and societal factors go into how someone perceives a given piece of music, and I'll never be able to hear the Four Seasons from the frame of the early 60s zeitgeist. I can only relate my totally subjective experience.

B-

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Sheila

September 1962

Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue" is one of those songs. You know? It's totally iconic, everybody's heard it a million times, and to us, it's one of the defining rock and roll songs of the 50s. And probably rightly so. It's a terrific song, simply written but with a fresh sound—the drummer's patter-patter rhythm on the toms, together with Holly's charming vocal eccentricities, make it really stand out from the pack of tired oldies.



In his short career, Buddy Holly cast a wide influence on many singers and performers. But "Peggy Sue" also cast a very specific influence on a guy named Tommy Roe, who is the singer of "Sheila," our #1 hit for today. Wikipedia states simply of "Sheila" that "the song is similar to Buddy Holly's 'Peggy Sue.'" Uh, yeah, you're not kidding. In fact, it's about as clear cut a rip-off as you'll find. Everything that made the former song stand out—the aforementioned drum beat and even Holly's weird singing style—are copied without shame. The subject matter and title—simply a woman's name—makes the connection even clearer.



Is this such a bad thing? Today's lawsuit-driven culture would seem to think so. Intellectual property is serious business, and people get sued for a lot of money for infringements on it, real or perceived. But a century or more ago, people would probably disagree. In fact, the very idea that when you write a piece of music, it's yours and yours alone; well, it's a fairly new concept in the grand scheme. Folk and blues singers of the early century would travel the country, collecting songs and adding them to their repertoires. Where do you think they got those songs from? From our modern perspective, we'd probably say they were stealing those songs from other singers. But from their perspective, things were different. Once a song or a piece of music was created, it belonged to everybody. A singer was free to make his own changes to a pre-existing song, and present it anew.

The concept goes way back. European classical composers constantly aped each other, and there were no hard feelings, to my knowledge. Mozart wrote a set of string quartets that sounded so much like those of his contemporary Haydn, that they are known as the "Haydn quartets." And yet, the two knew each other and were quite friendly in a professional capacity. Austrian law students do not study the historical case of Haydn v. Mozart.

But somehow this seems different, and I can't put my finger on why. Perhaps it's because our pop musicians are now superstars, with wealth and fame beyond anything Haydn or Mozart could have imagined. Maybe that is the reason we expect some degree of originality from them. Or maybe it's because the culture of lawsuits has affected our perception of what is ethical or appropriate in the performance of music.

So anyway, I can't really hear "Sheila" without comparing it to its forebear—once you know the relation between the two songs, you can't unknow it. And it's pretty clear which one stands the test of time.

C+

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

The Loco-Motion

August 1962

I'm not really sure how to "do the locomotion," but to be honest, it doesn't really matter. Thanks to songwriters Carole King and Gerry Goffin, a singer named Little Eva achieved her 15 minutes of fame, and America had another dance craze on its hands.



This is one of those songs that I heard tons of times growing up, since it was a staple of oldies radio (it's amazing how many of these songs aren't, considering their former popularity). It's a super catchy and very fun song, quite simple, and helped along by a stomping backbeat that isn't too far from the one in "The Twist." This is the Carole King most people don't think of when they hear her name. In fact, the song has such an enduring appeal that it has reached the top ten in three different decades, performed by three different artists. I'll talk about the cover versions in another post, since one of them reached, you guessed it... number one! (I'll give you a hint who sings it—it starts with "G,"and ends with "rand Funk Railroad.")

"The Locomotion" was Little Eva's only big hit, and the rest of her career is not really worth mentioning. But there is something else related to her that is notorious, and I can't pass up discussing it here. Eva apparently provided the inspiration for another lesser-known King/Goffin song, performed by a different group, the Crystals (whom we will get to soon enough on this blog). The story goes that King and Goffin had somewhat of a personal relationship with Eva. When they saw her one day, she had been battered by her boyfriend, and was badly bruised. When, instead of being angry, she expressed feelings of forgiveness and devotion to him, the songwriters were inspired to write what is, in my opinion, one of the most deeply disturbing pieces of music in popular history.



When Slayer sang about Auschwitz in the 80s, it was with a wry smirk, and an obvious intention to shock. In contrast, "He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)" is fascinatingly devoid of any discernible irony whatsoever. It is so unsettling a song that I can hardly believe it actually exists. The pounding, hypnotic rhythm and weird, chanting backup vocals build with the lush orchestration to produce a bleakly dark, almost nightmarish effect. In case you were wondering, Phil Spector is the producer on this; perhaps in retrospect, it's not surprising he was drawn to the song, given his own sordid history.

Lest we think "oh those were different times in the 60s," it's important to note that the single was pulled soon after its release due to public objection. I would imagine it's quite hard these days to find an original 45 of this song, but thanks to the Internet it is immortal.

All that aside, this post is supposed to be about "The Loco-Motion," so—

A

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

August 1962

Neil Sedaka is one of those names I've heard a lot, but I never really had a clear idea of who he was, and I think I've been confusing him with Neil Diamond. But of course I know this song—I just never could put a face to it.



I'm not gonna lie, as corny as it is, I think this is a great song. Sure, this topic has been done a million times—singer begs for S.O. not to leave him—but musically it's totally fresh and likable. The song's selling point is the recurring vocal riff, doubled on guitar throughout the song. It drives the song and gives it a sort of main idea, over which the details are lain. Another thing that strikes me here is the strong echo of the Everly Brothers in those vocal harmonies. And maybe, as a New Yorker myself, there's just something endearing about this Brooklyn Jew. His world is not too far from my own.

Although Howard Greenfield is listed as co-writer for this, and many other of Sedaka's hits, it is my impression that Greenfield was the lyricist, while the music was written by Sedaka; not an uncommon way to organize a songwriting team. They had a number of hits around this period, although I won't bother linking to them since they are, unfortunately, disappointing in comparison. The most notable thing about them is that they seem to be weirdly preoccupied with 16-year-old girls, which was pretty common in songs from around this time, but still a little uncomfortable, being that both songwriters were in their mid 20s.

Anyway, Neil Sedaka is going to disappear from this project until his comeback in the 70s, where he has a couple more entries. Also, in 1975 he released a different version of this very same song, which hit #8, but lost the things that made it good in the first place. I'll stick with the original.

A-

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Roses Are Red (My Love)

July–August 1962

 As I did with Connie Francis, I am going to further expose my naiveté with this post. When I saw the name Bobby Vinton come up on the list, I thought, well, this sounds like another one of those one-hit wonders, like Joey Dee or something. Turns out I was wrong; this guy was very successful throughout the 60s, and this song is the first of four times he was able to top the charts. Shows what I know. This was not only his first #1, but his first hit—he was unknown before this song came out.



This reminds me a bit of a previous song I've covered, "Little Star;" both rely on a trite, familiar rhyme for the chorus, and the song depends on the irony of hearing those lyrics in a pop song context. However, "Roses Are Red" is clearly the better song of the two.

It was not uncommon in these days to tell a narrative story of two star-crossed lovers in a pop song like this. Remember the one where the girl got hit by a train at the end? This one's less violent, but it's the same idea. In this one, the high school sweethearts grow apart, and eventually live their separate lives, but they still retain some sort of wistful sentiment towards each other.

Ho-hum. I can't say I'm looking forward to the rest of this guy's #1s (although one of them is a much more well-known song). I think it's a little funny the way he says "gawd" like a televangelist.

C

Thursday, July 12, 2012

The Stripper

July 1962

Stripper is just about the last word I would have expected in a #1 song title from the conservative early 60s, but here it is (and yes, it means what you think it means). It's one of those sleazy sounding, big band striptease numbers—perhaps the definitive one, written and performed by bandleader David Rose.



Call me crazy, but I can't hear this without thinking of the finale music to the 1990 video game Super Mario World:



The similarity is most striking near the end, starting at about 3:27. I would not be surprised at all if the game's composer, Koji Kondo, used "The Stripper" as a reference for this passage. Behind the cheap-sounding MIDI instruments and repetitive structures that define the medium of video game music, Kondo is one of the very best, for what it's worth: classic themes like this one have inspired a generation.

Anyway, I'm not sure what to make of the David Rose track in question. It's well done for what it is, but it's certainly a curve ball. Maybe I'm feeling generous today.

B

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

I Can't Stop Loving You

June 1962

It's no secret that the great American musical traditions are mostly divided along racial lines. Blues, jazz, and (later on) R&B and rock and roll were products of American blacks, descendants of West African slaves—on the other hand, folk and country music were the domain of whites, descendants of European colonialists. Both groups had their own stories to tell, and both created hugely rich musical traditions, to express themselves. But crossover was always relatively rare, and still is—it's at least rare enough that when it happens, it's notable.

Quick, name a black country singer! Time's up. It's okay, I couldn't think of one either. A cursory web search turned up one Charley Pride, who, for about 15 years starting in 1969, produced a staggering string of country hits (but never broke the mainstream top 10—country music, for all its popularity, has never been the dominant popular form, with the exception of a few crossover hits here and there).

And I can't help but think that someone like Charley Pride owes a huge debt to someone we've covered a couple times before during this project: Ray Charles. The great R&B musician, known for popularizing the sounds of gospel and soul that he grew up with, suddenly blindsided the American public in 1962 with a record called Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. Calling it a "country album" is probably a misnomer—it's filled with blues scales, syncopated rhythms, and jazzy horn sections, not to mention a slick, pop production—but it's country enough to be a noticeably different venture for Charles. But the man himself didn't necessarily consider it such a drastic change. In his own words, "You take country music, you take black music, you got the same goddamn thing exactly."

The record's lead single is the #1 hit in question here, a cover of a 5-year-old country song called "I Can't Stop Loving You."



The song, which tells a familiar story of its subject unable to move past a lost love, was originally written and recorded by Don Gibson, and has been covered by many artists over the years, but most would consider Ray Charles's version the definitive one.

As is often the case with #1 hits, the track is not even all that representative of the album as a whole, or of where Charles was musically at this point in time. But it was the most palatable to the hoi polloi, and so here we are. I'm more partial to the more upbeat numbers, where Charles seems most at home, such as this leadoff track to the album. At any rate, this post was a refreshing departure from the rather long stretch of middling songs I've had to cover lately. It also is the last of the three songs by Ray Charles I'll be covering—his popularity waned as tastes changed gradually throughout the 60s, but he left us with some great stuff.

A-

Monday, July 2, 2012

Stranger on the Shore

May 1962

Including this one, we've now seen six instrumental tracks on this list so far—can't really call them songs, since nothing's being sung. While it's cool that instrumental music had chart-topping power in those days (it doesn't anymore), only the two from the 50s were any good at all. Acker Bilk's "Stranger on the Shore" marks the fourth instrumental in a row that falls into that sickeningly safe genre that we call "easy listening."



Considering all that, this one really isn't so bad. Behind the sappy string arrangement there does lie a rather nice little tune. Bilk, a British clarinetist, has a pretty unusual approach to the instrument, playing deep tones with a huge vibrato. The song is a little light on substance, though.

To me, this kind of thing sounds like the inevitable conclusion of the "cool" jazz movement, pioneered by, among others, Miles Davis (who quickly abandoned it). Jazz, an incredibly popular genre back in the swing days, had become cerebral and difficult in the 40s, as musicians like Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk eschewed danceability in favor of virtuosic streams of consciousness. In that decade, the music gained an intense following and respect among musicians and serious music listeners, but the masses weren't interested in such complex expression. Cool jazz tried to change that by slowing down the tempos and emphasizing catchy melodies, and while it wasn't necessarily a bad thing at first, it ultimately led to the sort of thing Bilk is doing here. The new, trendy components of cool jazz are here, but the jazz part isn't. It has been lost in the pursuit of accessibility.

If you were to try find the one thing that "killed" jazz, you'd be wrong to point the finger at something like this. The music continued to be vital, and some of its best and most adventurous material was produced in the decade still to come. Think of "Stranger on the Shore" and its ilk as a misguided offshoot. I can't call it good music, but it's not outright offensive like Bert Kaempfert's or Lawrence Welk's contributions. Meh.

C

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Soldier Boy

May 1962

Oh, the Shirelles. How far you've fallen. You'll recall that this is the very same group who brought us such great classics as "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" and "Tonight's the Night." Often cited as the first girl-group, they certainly were not the most prolific. Among their small handful of hits was this curious little number.



It's a little shocking, really, how poor of an effort this is, compared to the Shirelles' other material from around the same time. Musically it's trite, and lyrically it's hardly inspiring. Historically it makes sense, though, as the years 1961 and 1962 saw a dramatic escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, and I suppose the sentiment of a woman waiting at home for her soldier was one that resonated with the public. When we think back on Vietnam-era popular music, we tend to remember the anti-war protest side of things, and it's easy to forget the more mainstream songs like this one. It's totally complacent with the war, even optimistic—a very real attitude that is underrepresented in most nostalgic views on this time period. You'll note that "Blowin' in the Wind" did not chart at all on the singles chart.

But oh boy, "Soldier Boy" just has not aged well at all. Even on the level of production values, it just sounds cheaper compared to the Shirelles' other major hits. There always is a certain random element that decides which songs become #1 and which ones don't. Maybe there wasn't much else out at the time to compete with this one? At any rate, the group's hits from the previous year were much stronger musically, my personal favorite being the wonderfully catching "Mama Said." And when I think of this group, that's the kind of song I'll think of, not this unfortunate disappointment.

D

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Good Luck Charm

April 1962

Believe it or not, we are almost done with Elvis Presley on this blog, now that we're up to the sixth (of seven) songs on the list. It's funny because all the Elvis songs I've written about were more or less new to me at the time—funny because he has so many songs that are famous to the point of being cultural staples; but you must remember that the likes of "Jailhouse Rock" fell before the August 1958 start of our timeline. And although the start date of the Billboard chart is arbitrary, there is a certain stylistic change in Elvis's music that happens around this time. In the 50s, he did his share of crooning, but it was always offset by raucous, noisy rock and roll songs. As he got older (well, relatively—he's still only 27 at this point), he mellowed out significantly.



It's not a bad track—pretty good, really, and a welcome respite from the mediocrity of most of March and April of this year. But doesn't it seem like a bit of the fire has gone from Elvis's belly? This is about as upbeat as Elvis gets, this far into his career. Compare it to "Hound Dog" and it's like listening to two different performers.

But he's not exactly phoning it in, either. Hairstyles and controversial dance moves aside, the one thing that always set Elvis apart, and the reason he's still remembered so fondly today, is his voice. And what a voice he had—his control was flawless, and his stylish inflections inimitable. Sure, it's a silly little song, but it's not like he wasn't doing these in the 50s (how about "Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear"?). The song would be pap for most singers, but Elvis makes it his own.

How much of this style change was due to Elvis's own personal decisions, and how much to pressures from the industry to take his music in a more accessible direction? It's impossible to know, but I like to think that this kind of thing was part of a maturing process for him. He wasn't a kid swinging his hips anymore, and he took it gracefully. This more subdued, mature style is reflected in the other hits that followed this one. The other top-tens he released later in 1962 showed similar characteristics—both "She's Not You" and "Return to Sender" are good songs, but neither strays too far past a sort of mid-tempo shuffle.

However, this comfortable groove that Elvis seemed to have reached would be short-lived. The next year, 1963, produced another two top-tens, "(You're the) Devil in Disguise" and "Bossa Nova Baby", but this was apparently the beginning of the end—a sort of Vegas-rock style started to creep into his sound at this point, a marker of empty commercialism for many fans. The former song is still quite good (and was the earlier, and more successful of the two), but the latter hints strongly at the tired stagnation Elvis would display throughout the mid-60s.

After that, Elvis just sort of went away. He was getting older, his voice wasn't what it used to be, and his style was increasingly old-fashioned in the face of a rapidly changing 1960s zeitgeist. For five long years following the songs I just mentioned, the former juggernaut of hits didn't score a single top-ten. (Technically, you might note, there is an exception—the strongly personal, and overtly religious "Crying in the Chapel". It charted very well around Easter of 1965, but in fact was an archival recording, dating from 1960.)

However, the King did not fall quite yet. We will return to him later in this project, to deal with his late-60s comeback. Until then, let's move along.

B

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Johnny Angel

April 1962

How unfortunate that since my return to this project, several songs in a row have been so mediocre. It makes for a rather limp restart, but rules are rules, and I'm doing the songs in order. The next one is by Shelley Fabares (rhymes with "cabaret"), another lame one-hit wonder.



One interesting thing to note about these songs is the demographic groups that were responsible for pushing them to the top. Someone like Connie Francis probably appealed to younger people, but also had a strong popularity among the adult age groups—I think it was this breadth of target audience that allowed her to generate such a massive number of hits. Think of the most successful acts of the recording era, the likes of Elvis, the Beatles, Madonna, Michael Jackson. All of them had an appeal that attracted teenagers and adults alike. (Notably, the over-40 section of the population, although a huge demographic group, is largely not a concern of the artists that I am covering.)

Shelley Fabares, on the other hand, had a much more limited appeal—"Johnny Angel" is clearly designed for teenyboppers only. The song's lyrics express a sentiment that only a middle or high schooler could possibly sympathize with: "Johnny Angel, how I love him, he's got something that I can't resist / But he doesn't even know that I exist." Few mature people would identify with the idea of falling in love with someone you don't even know, but this is of course a huge phenomenon among the newly pubescent—who didn't have a crush or two in their younger years?

And indeed, the singer herself was only 18 when this song was popular. Probably a little past the age of most of her fans, but closer than most. But anyway, it's not like teenyboppers are some obscure, niche group. They were, and are, an enormous and influential section of the consumer base of popular music, for better or for worse. They were able to get Shelley Fabares to the top of the chart, but they couldn't keep her there. Of her few other attempts, the only one that even made a blip on the radar was a sequel to "Johnny Angel," released a few months later, called "Johnny Loves Me." Johnny may have finally loved her, but her fans gave her up.

D+

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Don't Break the Heart That Loves You

March 1962

And so at last we return to Connie Francis, the once-tremendous and now-mostly-forgotten star. This is her third (and last) number-one hit.



The song is carried by a similar method of Francis harmonizing with herself via double-tracking that we found with her previous entry, "My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own." It's also characterized by a similar mid-paced, slightly shuffling, very white-bread sort of rhythm that hasn't aged well at all. She reminds me of Patsy Cline, only not as good. Cline was too country to ever make it to number one, but Francis had that magic formula of pop crossover that rocketed her to mega-stardom. But now who has the greater legacy? Sure, Francis had a pretty decent singing voice, but too much of her music starts to get tiresome. Go ahead, see how many Connie Francis songs you can make it through in a row:

The 43-Minute Francis Test

The above is a chronological playlist of all of the singer's top-ten hits, an impressive 16 of them from 1957–1962. That's a huge number; I don't believe any artist I've covered yet has had that many, excepting Elvis. Perhaps I've given short shrift to her five years of massive success; but a short five years was all she had in her. Maybe it's because these songs are so damn dreary, one after the other. The exception that proves the rule is "Lipstick on Your Collar," which actually threatens to be danceable.

I feel like I should have more to say about someone who hit the number-one spot three times, but I just don't. This is not music that inspires me to great heights of writing. I am having trouble conveying the immensity of her popularity while not really being all that enthusiastic about her.

So if you only take one thing away from this, it should be the spot at 2:09 in the video: "Hhhhhhi don't know what I'd do..."

C
 

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Hey! Baby

March 1962

Dear reader, you may have noticed that it's been over a year since my last update. I never intended to abandon this completely, but between work and grad school, I have been just too busy to maintain a project like this. However, having recently completed my master's, I feel suddenly freed up, and I'd like to I get this thing going again.

There is also a good reason that this particular song by Bruce Channel (pronounced like "Chanel") was the one that acted as the catalyst for my extended hiatus. Well, listen for yourself:



What can I possibly say about this song? It's... okay. It's a pretty safe, easy rock and roll one-hit wonder from the early 60s. The most profound statement I can make about it is that it gives us a glimpse of a time when white people hadn't really gotten the hang of rock music yet.

You see? Such are the troubles I face. But there is a lot more interesting stuff coming up! I promise.

C+