The Mighty Musical Observations Thread

General music discussion.
WestwayKid
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Re: The Mighty Musical Observations Thread

Post by WestwayKid »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
05 Oct 2021, 4:04pm
Oh c'mon, "Rock Around the Clock" is fun as hell.


It seemed to have been the soundtrack for people scared of Elvis.
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Flex
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Re: The Mighty Musical Observations Thread

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Dr. Medulla wrote:
05 Oct 2021, 4:04pm
Oh c'mon, "Rock Around the Clock" is fun as hell.
i like that song, but they released a bunch of other music too.

Faux edit: Bill Haley's pre-rock material is actually more interesting, imho. Music on the cusp of rock and roll.
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Re: The Mighty Musical Observations Thread

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matedog wrote:
05 Oct 2021, 3:59pm
Is this a common sentiment? Maj was just railing against him on the facebooks.
Maybe - I think he's viewed as someone who got lucky with one (good) song, and for Racism reasons got credited with inventing rock and roll to make sure black people weren't in the discussion. When left to try to come up with follow ups to his one good song, Haley turned out to not really have any creative juices.

Rock Around the Clock is good, but a lot of his material suggests a square who never really "got" rock and roll and was just a blind squirrel who stumbled on one nut.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a rolling hoop
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a ton of lead
Wiggle - you can raise the dead

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Dr. Medulla
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Re: The Mighty Musical Observations Thread

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Flex wrote:
05 Oct 2021, 4:17pm
matedog wrote:
05 Oct 2021, 3:59pm
Is this a common sentiment? Maj was just railing against him on the facebooks.
Maybe - I think he's viewed as someone who got lucky with one (good) song, and for Racism reasons got credited with inventing rock and roll to make sure black people weren't in the discussion. When left to try to come up with follow ups to his one good song, Haley turned out to not really have any creative juices.

Rock Around the Clock is good, but a lot of his material suggests a square who never really "got" rock and roll and was just a blind squirrel who stumbled on one nut.
I give them credit because of that. Sure, they were hustlers and jumping on something new for their career, but how many country/hillbilly acts wouldn't touch rock n roll because of its connections to r & b? It's very much a backhanded compliment, I guess, but rock n roll depended on those mercenaries as much as more sincere figures like Elvis.
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Re: The Mighty Musical Observations Thread

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WestwayKid wrote:
05 Oct 2021, 4:07pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
05 Oct 2021, 4:04pm
Oh c'mon, "Rock Around the Clock" is fun as hell.


It seemed to have been the soundtrack for people scared of Elvis.
Pre-Elvis by a couple years.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: The Mighty Musical Observations Thread

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Dr. Medulla wrote:
05 Oct 2021, 4:24pm
WestwayKid wrote:
05 Oct 2021, 4:07pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
05 Oct 2021, 4:04pm
Oh c'mon, "Rock Around the Clock" is fun as hell.


It seemed to have been the soundtrack for people scared of Elvis.
Pre-Elvis by a couple years.
Rock Around the Clock was released May 1954 and That's All Right came out in July 1954, though when did Elvis become a national sensation?
"They don't think it be like it is, but it do." - Oscar Gamble

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Re: The Mighty Musical Observations Thread

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Shit, he also had See You Later, Alligator and Shake Rattle and Roll. That's a solid grip of hits.
Look, you have to establish context for these things. And I maintain that unless you appreciate the Fall of Constantinople, the Great Fire of London, and Mickey Mantle's fatalist alcoholism, live Freddy makes no sense. If you want to half-ass it, fine, go call Simon Schama to do the appendix.

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Re: The Mighty Musical Observations Thread

Post by WestwayKid »

matedog wrote:
05 Oct 2021, 4:44pm
Shit, he also had See You Later, Alligator and Shake Rattle and Roll. That's a solid grip of hits.
I have a feeling Joe was probably a fan of Bill Haley, unironically.
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Re: The Mighty Musical Observations Thread

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WestwayKid wrote:
05 Oct 2021, 4:37pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
05 Oct 2021, 4:24pm
WestwayKid wrote:
05 Oct 2021, 4:07pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
05 Oct 2021, 4:04pm
Oh c'mon, "Rock Around the Clock" is fun as hell.


It seemed to have been the soundtrack for people scared of Elvis.
Pre-Elvis by a couple years.
Rock Around the Clock was released May 1954 and That's All Right came out in July 1954, though when did Elvis become a national sensation?
Elvis was a regional success until late '55 and really took off in '56. Thanks to its use in The Blackboard Jungle, "Rock Around the Clock" was the first rock n roll song to go to #1 (in '55).
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: The Mighty Musical Observations Thread

Post by Marky Dread »



Haley's version wasn't even the A side originally.
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Re: The Mighty Musical Observations Thread

Post by Dr. Medulla »

The other funny thing about "Rock Around the Clock" is that its popularity rested on being used in The Blackboard Jungle, a juvenile delinquent flick that made no connection to rock n roll (tho only music-related sequence, apart from the beginning, is the jd's destroying a teacher's jazz record collection), and it only got used because the producer(?) was going over a stack of records he'd received and liked RAtC. And the only reason the record was in that stack was Haley's label had a real hound of a promoter. Nothing deliberate, total luck. And then stories circulated of teenagers dancing in the aisles as the credits rolled, which were described as riots, giving the song an instant "I gotta hear this" quality. Fun song that benefited from luck and a delinquency-sensitive media.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: The Mighty Musical Observations Thread

Post by oliver »

19 albums Pitchfork would rescore if they could
https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-an ... -rescored/


Don't know about you, but I can finally sleep easy knowing that Moth by Chairlift has been bumped from 7.6 to 8.5.
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Re: The Mighty Musical Observations Thread

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oliver wrote:
06 Oct 2021, 9:42am
19 albums Pitchfork would rescore if they could
https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-an ... -rescored/


Don't know about you, but I can finally sleep easy knowing that Moth by Chairlift has been bumped from 7.6 to 8.5.
I must be so out of touch with musical trends, I can honestly say I've never heard a single one of those artists albums.
God, what a mess, on the ladder of success
Where you take one step and miss the whole first rung

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Re: The Mighty Musical Observations Thread

Post by Dr. Medulla »

oliver wrote:
06 Oct 2021, 9:42am
19 albums Pitchfork would rescore if they could
https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-an ... -rescored/


Don't know about you, but I can finally sleep easy knowing that Moth by Chairlift has been bumped from 7.6 to 8.5.
God, even pulling their head out of their ass, they still write like their head is up their own ass.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: The Mighty Musical Observations Thread

Post by Low Down Low »

oliver wrote:
06 Oct 2021, 9:42am
19 albums Pitchfork would rescore if they could
https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-an ... -rescored/


Don't know about you, but I can finally sleep easy knowing that Moth by Chairlift has been bumped from 7.6 to 8.5.
There's at least 10 of those i haven't heard of! But I can definitely relate to the Regina Spector reevaluation at least. Like nearly all her albums it takes a while to get into them but perseverance is rewarded. Her stuff has really grown on me last couple of years.

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