Category: songs

by The Jayhawks

~ Songs from commercials ~

I remember The Jayhawks from their appearance on the Sweet Relief benefit album back in the early ’90s. They were sort of an alt-country band before Wilco and Old 97’s made the format more generally acceptable. There were a couple of songs I liked but then they dropped off the map for a few years and I didn’t go looking for them.

Then VH1 had a series of commercials promoting the channel’s attempt to get back to actually showing videos, which, in the days before YouTube, was kind of needed. One of the songs was “Grazing in the Grass”, but unfortunately for VH1, Old Navy was using that song in an ad campaign of their own and they sort of canceled each other out.

One of VH1’s other commercials was this one, which used the chorus about “gonna be a big star” over a variety of lesser-known acts. I recognized the singer’s voice, but it sounded a little too peppy to be The Jayhawks and I was surprised to find out that it was in fact them.

by Trigger Hippy

~ Hang on, now who’s singing? ~

Ok, nice guitar groove to open up. Good funky little drum track too, which you would expect from Steve Gorman.

Strong Southern rock male voice lead vocal for the opening line. Got it.

Next line is so deep in borders on self parody? Uh, ok.

Third line of the song and we’re up to our third singer? What the hell is going on here?

What’s going on is that Steve had to rebuild Trigger Hippy after Jackie Greene went back to a solo career and Joan Osborne didn’t want to move to Nashville. So we lost one of Southern roots-rock’s supergroups after only one album and you’ve got the former drummer for the Black Crowes left trying to regroup as his current band is breaking up and his old band is trying to get back together. So he and his bassist go out and give their second guitarist more of a singing role (even if he doesn’t quite have Jackie’s guitar chops) and find a gal who can wail, and package it all together into a whole new band with the name everyone already knew.

by The Beastie Boys

~ A flute? Yes, a g-d flute ~

People forget how groundbreaking the Beasties were. Sure, some drunk idiot wearing his frat pin at 53 is going to talk about the crunchy metal guitars on their debut, but that’s because he didn’t know about all the samples & cuts they pulled in from everywhere they could on Paul’s Boutique. To say there’ll never be another album like it is no exaggeration: they changed the copyright laws after it was recorded and it would be insanely, prohibitively expensive to ever consider making a record like that again.

So they pivoted – again – and started playing more of their own instruments, like the churning bass on “Sabotage”.  On this album, they ended up blending a bunch of ’70s-style synthesizer sounds with some ’80s club beats on a live drum kit. There’s some stray guitar here & there and the usual rolling basslines, but there’s also off-the-wall instruments throughout the album, which is how you get one of the catchiest hip hop riffs of all time being played on a flute. Yes, a g-d flute.

by Andy Taylor

~ Generic Soundtrack Rock ~

’80s movie soundtracks totally rocked. They were the famous ones like Footloose and Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Top Gun, and the not-so-famous ones like this one from American Anthem – a mediocre movie about Olympic gymnasts that happened to star a couple of former Olympic gymnasts trying to make the transition to acting.

Where the song is a perfect soundtrack song is that it’s a sing-along chorus and a nice little radio-friendly riff but with an utterly forgettable set of lyrics and a feel that makes you comfy when you’re hearing it but not so memorable that you’re tracking it down on iTunes.

It’s like Brad Pitt told Matt Damon in Oceans 11, “…he’s got to like you then forget you the moment you’ve left his side…” and that’s what Duran Duran guitarist Andy Taylor gives you right here.

by Black Star Riders

~ Clone, tribute, continuation, or abomination? ~

The Black Star Riders grew out of an attempt to get Thin Lizzy back on the road. Scott Gorham* rounded up some of the usual suspects but had a problem – who the hell is going to sing?

Enter Ricky Warwick.

The dude is seriously a dead ringer for Phil Lynott’s voice. And after a couple of tours playing Thin Lizzy covers, they started writing some original material. Fortunately, they came to the very good decision to not release those songs as Thin Lizzy tunes but instead changed the name to Black Star Riders for the new original material. So even though it sounds just like Thin Lizzy updated for the ’90s, it’s not quite the same.

The one place where it’s definitely differentiated from Thin Lizzy is that the production is a thousand times better. Aside from a couple of times that Tony Visconti was on the production board, much of Thin Lizzy’s work was mangled in the studio. The Black Star Riders albums actually have a competent hand guiding them in the studio and it makes all the difference in the world.

* edited – thanks, Bryan!

by Amaranthe

~ the song that makes you a fan ~

Everyone has that first song that you heard by a certain artist that made you a fan of that artist. This one is mine for these guys. Satellite radio gives you way too many options. Sort of like cable TV, only easier to dial around and harder to look ahead on the guide. But every now and then, you dial into another station that has a song you like, and then you stay there for a few more, and then something like this comes on.

Heavy staccato intro, nice guitar riff, and then HOLY SHIT THAT GIRL CAN SING. She just peels the paint off the car as you’re cruising around and you wish you had a repeat button to hear it all over again. You end up snapping a cell phone picture of the display screen so you don’t forget how to spell the band’s name, and then hit YouTube when you get home to put the song on repeat.

The death growl vocals need to go away. They’re not charming and they’re not enjoyable. But otherwise this is a great tune they could turn anyone into a fan

by Whitesnake

~ back when they were more blues than metal ~

There are definitely two parts to this song as the lush 12 string guitar arrangement at the beginning gives way to a more traditional blues rocker with no real change in the lyrics. It’s almost like David Coverdale had two different arrangements of the same song, couldn’t decide which one to do, and rather than release both, he just mashed them together.  GNR did this 8 years later when they released two different versions of “You’re Crazy”. Coverdale just made one song and stretched it out.

Whitesnake got famous later in the ’80s for much heavier tunes, but their bluesier roots from the late ’70s until about ’82 (basically, from Coverdale’s solo discs “Northwinds” and “White Snake” through to about the “Saints & Sinners” album) showcased better songwriting and a wider array of musicianship with fellow Deep Purple refugees Roger Glover and John Lord along for the ride. The MTV version of Whitesnake was built around virtuoso guitar players. The live touring version of Whitesnake playing heavy blues tunes was built around an entire band that had space to play in the songs.