Entertainment For Lively Minds
If it hadn't been for that bit, it would be great!
Posted by Andy Mackenzie on 11 November 2011 - 3:30pm.
I was listening to my iPod on shuffle the other day when the song 'Lofty Skies' by T-Rex came on. A really good tune, nice guitar, and fine backing vocals from Mickey Finn, but around 15 seconds in Marc sounds like he's coughing up a fur ball. Because of this it sadly stays as a good record and not a great one. Any other good tunes that are held back from greatness by a moment of oddness?
- More from Andy Mackenzie.
- Login or register to post comments
-
Hey Jude
a great song right up to the point when all that 'Na Na Na' stuff ruins it.
I think the problem is
to much na na na na-ing. Forty-five seconds and a fade out would have been okay.
You're forgetting
this was 1968, the time of the Maharishi, when every pop star worth his Surrey mansion was exploring the delights of transcendental meditation. As usual, The Fabs were at the vanguard of all this new-found self awareness malarky, of course.
So the coda of Hey Jude was deliberately extended far beyond anything which had ever been heard before on a pop single in a deliberate attempt to produce a kind of hypnotic, endless musical mantra.
I think it succeeded rather well in that respect.
And you're forgetting
that in the spring of 1968 MacArthur Park was a hit and had a really long playing time 8:21. I'm sure there was another very long hit around the same time. I've always assumed that Hey Jude's length was due to McCartney saying "we gotta do that" in response.
It's not the total playing time
it's the long repeated mantra-like coda that made Hey Jude so different.
Breaking Into Heaven
The finest track on The Second Coming is tarnished by the 4 minutes of pointless noise that precedes it.
Not to mention the 45 minutes of pointless noise that follows it. Arf.
I used to think that the quirky piano solo...
...in Thunderclap Newman's 'something In The Air' was a bit of an aberration, but really it's a masterstroke. It belongs there. Trouble is, from what I recall of their album, andy Newman played pretty much the same trick (and the same solo) in the middle of all their songs.
Noddy Holder's iconic belch (yes, yes - TMFTL) in the middle of the quiet section of Slade's fabulous arrangement of 'Darling Be Home Soon' (on Slade Alive!) might be another marmite moment in listening pleasure.
Misty in arrrrppp
On Misty in Roots' otherwise impeccable Live At The Counter Eurovision 1979, there's also a colossal onstage burp just as the announcer finishes introducing the band and seconds before the first number kicks off.
One time
The Fugees fell off my radar because of 'One time' being uttered every ten seconds.
To be fair
It's not as if the two blokes were completely useless. They sometimes said 'two times' as well.
Anyway, Wyclef Jean is due back anytime now so I'm outta here.
Manic Street Preachers - The Everlasting
It would be lovely except for the bit where James DB presents a frankly bizarre pronunciation of the word "genuine".
"In the beginning... when we were winning... when our smiles were JEN-OOOO-IN"
See for yourselves:
I've raised this before
But many folk pointed out that gen-o-wen is the way that South Walians pronounce 'genuine'. Now it no longer annoys me.
The drums in
Bridge over Troubled Water. The demo version's far better
Glossing it up in search of a hit
Dare I mention the name Howard Jones? (I just did)
Jones's 1985 album 'Dream Into Action' contained the song 'No-one Is To Blame' - a simple piano & voice track with a touch of slight melancholy thrown in for good measure. Best thing on the album, and probably the best thing he ever did.
The song is plucked from the album and released as a single. I mention to friends who haven't heard the album: "Listen to this song, it's brilliant!"
Single comes out - background electronic burble, glossy production, sounds like the single is aimed squarely at the American soft rock/AOR market (it probably was) - song ruined (in my opinion), and me left looking like a total wotsit
Doors "Hello I love You"
is super-dumb garage pop worthy of The Standells or even The Seeds, but it has that key-change "boing" sound-like something out of a Hanna Barbera cartoon-half way through. Ridiculous.
The Red Telephone
every bit of Forever Changes is frankly ace until the "we're all normal and we want our freedom. Freedom. Freedom" bit. sound like some kind of student amateur dramatics brechtian production (and I should know I as involved in a few of those!)
It's annoyed me since I first heard it.
Save the children - Marvin Gaye
"What's Going On" is a sublime album that even progressive/ fusion types like me appreciate - and then the "save the babies" bit in "Save the Children" - boak.