Blast from the Past: Positively Perfect Pop Songs!

Pop music gets very little respect from music fans. For those of us who like it, it's just a fun confection, an enjoyable lark. From "real" music fans, pop music is disposable, meaningless, without artistic merit. The equivalent of Stephen King or Dean Koontz in the fiction genre. Well, you know what? I dig King and Koontz! And I dig pop music too!

There are numerous pop songs that just strike me as pop confection perfection. And this is my list of some of the best of the best.

1. Misery - Maroon 5 - This group, headlined by The Voice's Adam Levine, is one of the most successful acts at crafting pure pop perfection. Usually, they include a little profanity to add a little street cred. But their songs are just little balls of perfectly crafted song candy. Misery is one of the best, making an abusive relationship sound fun and bouncy! Yay! I'm in misery!

2. Express Yourself - Madonna - It would be impossible to narrow down Madonna's discography to find the best, most perfect pop song. That's why I didn't, and there is more than one. This one isn't just perfect, it has alternate versions that are equally perfect! And that shouldn't be possible!



3. Mony Mony - Billy Idol - This is an eighties version of a sixties song, that is largely meaningless. But it is absolute perfection in what it sets out to do: set dance floors on fire, and make people happy for no reason. Its recent inclusion in a Nissan Sentra ad is just proof.

4. Steal My Sunshine - Len - Usually, when an act samples parts of another song to put into their own, the result is derivative, uninspired and something of a retread. In this case, one-hit-wonder Len achieves pop perfection, using Andrea True's More, More, More disco tune as a foundation.



5. Just Can't Get Enough - Depeche Mode - You can tell when even an "alternative" band has become mainstream when their old tunes not only get mixed in on "80s and More!" radio stations, but get put into GAP ads. This song might be from a band with a heavy artistic cred, but the song is a pop meringue.

6. Vogue - Madonna - Leave it to Madonna to take an underground gay dance craze, and turn it into mainstream success. And then, make it enough of a classic that if you played it on any dance floor 20+ years later, it would still draw a crowd.



7. Waterloo - ABBA - I am of the opinion that ABBA's catalog--almost all of it--could be released today, and be successful. Many, if not most of their hit songs are masterpieces of pop music. Songs like Ring, Ring and On and On and On should be re-released, just to see what happens. But Waterloo, to me, is a perfect pop song.

8. A Little More Love - Olivia Newton-John - This one might seem like a stretch, but hear me out. Pay attention to Olivia's change-ups in melody. Notice that she changes the note structure in each lead-in to the chorus, and each chorus itself. Much like Adam Levine does in Maroon 5, Olivia plays with the notes, going all over the place, but always in tune, and sounding perfect.




Okay, kids, that's my bit for this week. Hope you had a great Easter and/or Walking Dead finale weekend! Have a great week, and happy Monday!

Blast from the Past: Perfect Pop Songs

Pop music gets very little respect from music fans. For those of us who like it, it's just a fun confection, an enjoyable lark. From "real" music fans, pop music is disposable, meaningless, without artistic merit. The equivalent of Stephen King or Dean Koontz in the fiction genre. Well, you know what? I dig King and Koontz! And I dig pop music too!

There are numerous pop songs that just strike me as pop confection perfection. And this is my list of some of the best of the best.

1. Misery - Maroon 5 - This group, headlined by The Voice's Adam Levine, is one of the most successful acts at crafting pure pop perfection. Usually, they include a little profanity to add a little street cred. But their songs are just little balls of perfectly crafted song candy. Misery is one of the best, making an abusive relationship sound fun and bouncy! Yay! I'm in misery!

2. Express Yourself - Madonna - It would be impossible to narrow down Madonna's discography to find the best, most perfect pop song. That's why I didn't, and there is more than one. This one isn't just perfect, it has alternate versions that are equally perfect! And that shouldn't be possible!



3. Mony Mony - Billy Idol - This is an eighties version of a sixties song, that is largely meaningless. But it is absolute perfection in what it sets out to do: set dance floors on fire, and make people happy for no reason.

4. Steal My Sunshine - Len - Usually, when an act samples parts of another song to put into their own, the result is derivative, uninspired and something of a retread. In this case, one-hit-wonder Len achieves pop perfection, using Andrea True's More, More, More disco tune as a foundation.



5. Just Can't Get Enough - Depeche Mode - You can tell when even an "alternative" band has become mainstream when their old tunes not only get mixed in on "80s and More!" radio stations, but get put into GAP ads. This song might be from a band with a heavy artistic cred, but the song is a pop confection.

6. Vogue - Madonna - Leave it to Madonna to take an underground gay dance craze, and turn it into mainstream success. And then, make it enough of a classic that if you played it on any dance floor 20+ years later, it would still draw a crowd.



7. Waterloo - ABBA - I am of the opinion that ABBA's catalog--almost all of it--could be released today, and be successful. Many, if not most of their hit songs are masterpieces of pop music. Songs like Ring, Ring and On and On and On should be re-released, just to see what happens. But Waterloo, to me, is a perfect pop song.

8. A Little More Love - Olivia Newton-John - This one might seem like a stretch, but hear me out. Pay attention to Olivia's change-ups in melody. Notice that she changes the note structure in each lead-in to the chorus, and each chorus itself. Much like Adam Levine does in Maroon 5, Olivia plays with the notes, going all over the place, but always in tune, and sounding perfect.




Okay, kids, that's my bit for this week. Hope you had a great Easter and/or Walking Dead finale weekend! Have a great week, and happy Monday!

Blast from the Past: Dirty Pop! (Naughty Songs)

I got to thinking of this topic when walking today, hearing two songs with the word "fuck" in them, one over 20 years old, the other over 30. It isn't unusual these days for pop songs to have curse words or racy material in them, though they are often edited on the radio. But, I'll bet kids today would be surprised that Roger Daltry was cursing on the radio in 1978.

1. Who are You? - The Who - This is the one that got the ball rolling for me. "Fuck" can be heard--if you believe Wikipedia--twice, but I think it's in there more than that. Now, it's just the theme song to CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

2. Unbelievable - EMF - Though a one-hit-wonder, this song continues to get airplay, and I've never heard the many (many, many) "what the fucks" get edited out on the radio.


3. Strokin' - Clarence Carter - This jukebox favorite only contains one bad word, "shit." But the subject matter, and other words that are alluded to? Fabulously filthy!

4. Closer - Nine Inch Nails - I once saw two lipstick lesbians dancing to this one at a gay bar. I'm a gay guy, but whoa, they were smokin'! I don't even know why they try to play this one in edited form.

5. Human Nature - Madonna - Sure, Madonna has always flirted with profanity (some might say too much), but this one--which contained the line, "I'm not your bitch, don't hang your shit on me," was radically altered for radio. Even this clip edits out "shit" with a thump.

6. Relax - Frankie Goes to Hollywood - There isn't any swearing in this song. But the words, the sounds, the implication? "When you wanna suck it to it, when you wanna come?" Filthy!

7. Makes Me Wonder - Maroon 5 - It seems like Adam Levine can't sing a single that doesn't include something that needs to be bleeped on the radio. Makes Me Wonder if all of those tattoos and swearing is "tough guy" compensation for turning out so pretty? Hah! I can't find an uncensored version, but you get the idea.

8. Sugar Walls - Sheena Easton - It doesn't take much imagination to figure out what she's singing about, and even easier when you figure out that Prince wrote it.

9. Fuck You - Lily Allen - We'll finish with a pair of songs with the dirty right in the titles, first this one with it plainly spelled out, and plainly directed at George W. Bush and the like-minded.

10. F-Me Pumps - Amy Winehouse - And this one, with the word only implied but the meaning clear, the late Amy Winehouse brings this edition of Blast from the Past to a close.

And now that you're feeling all Tourette's Syndrome-y, let's start a new week. Happy Monday!

Adam Levine to Fox "News": Stop Playing My Music

Too sexy to be conservative. Adam Levine,
from source, Rolling Stone.

Who can blame him? Anyway, why would FOX "News" be using music from anyone other than Ted Nugent or, I don't know, Herman Cain?

[Excerpt]

Adam Levine to Fox News: Stop Playing My Music

Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine went on Twitter earlier this afternoon to demand that Fox News stop playing his band's music. "Dear Fox News, don't play our music on your evil fucking channel ever again. Thank you," he wrote. It is unclear what exactly prompted this public outburst. When reached by Rolling Stone, Levine's representative declined to comment. . . 

Read more at: Rolling Stone

Favorite Songs: Maroon 5's "Won't Go Home Without You"

Here's a little break from the holiday-themed posts (not to mention the politics). One of my favorite groups over the past few years is Maroon 5. I'm aware that whenever I like a group, inevitably they're considered "lame" by a bunch of people, but I don't care.

I don't listen to music on the radio very much, so when I happen upon an album I like, it is there that become familiar with it. The first time I heard this song, I thought it should be a hit. It's not often that the first listen of any song catches my fancy, but this one did.

From a cursory look at a few Google hits, it doesn't look like this song is catching fire--but maybe it's just too new. Anyway, I like it, and hey, this is my blog right? So here it is, Maroon 5's "Won't Go Home Without You."