178. “Magic” by Olivia Newton-John
The only way this song could have been better is if Jeff Lynne had collaborated on it. Come on, people! He's doing the B-side of the record, which by the way has Newton-John as lead singer on the title track. Why not let him do the entire album!
While this 1980 wall-of-sound song doesn’t have the irresistible sing-along quality of a Bee Gees song, it does show off Newton-John's full range of considerable vocal talent, from her vibrating, whispered low notes to her lung-busting, full-volume high notes. Also, her video people were able to come up with an idea that is a little more interesting than walking in circles--lots of soft-lit closeups of a headband and a missing ear ring, and an italian restaurant with a cigarette smoking audience who all seem to be waiting on their food and drinks, and bulging crotch shots of guitarists in tight shiny pants. It's a recipe for video magic!
Olivia has had a lot of hits, some of them good, and some of them so ridiculously awful that it pains me to remember them, especially “Physical.” It was a gigantic hit for Olivia, but I think it cemented in place a public perception of her as the…ummm…how do I put this in language that would be acceptable in church…as the whore of Babylon. This, I believe, is unfair to Olivia. Yes, she sang a song jam-packed with not-so-subtle sexual innuendo, but she isn’t the one that ate the jam. We, the listening public, along with a lot of horny DJs, are responsible for making “Physical” such a big hit. I think it would behoove us all to remember that Olivia tried to make fun of the sex-goddess image she was developing in the…
Video to "Physical."
This is a simple story in which she works out with a bunch of old fat men who end up collapsing on the floor in exhaustion. Olivia goes off to take a quick shower with her headband. But when she returns to the workout room wearing a fresh headband, she finds all of the men have suddenly changed into super-toned muscle men in banana hammocks who, after flexing and primping in front of her, realize that they're gay and leave the gym with each other, at which point Olivia grabs an old fat guy and heads out to play tennis. That's the message Olivia wanted us to remember from the song--she's not a sex-goddess with the omnipotent power of seduction, but only a simple tennis fan with the power to make you gay.
Personally, I prefer to think of Olivia as the lovely country girl in a pure white dress who can't help but sing "I Honestly Love You!" From time to time, I also like to think of her as the faithful girlfriend who admits she's “Hopelessly Devoted To You.” And every now and then, I think of her as a young woman with high moral standards that shamelessly admits “You Light Up My Life.”
But back to “Magic.” It was a smash hit from the film Xanadu, which was about a place nobody dared to go that had lots and lots of neon lights. (Cleveland?) That’s it. That’s the story. At least the important part of it. There might be something in the film about a man and a woman struggling with inner conflict while, at the same time, struggling to resolve conflict with another person or the powers of nature. At least, that’s what my college literature teachers said most stories are about. I’m assuming something like that happened on the film. But I don’t really know for sure. All I know about the film I learned from the song lyrics. I don’t remember ever watching it, either in the theater or on video. However, I do remember that my father-in-law Max really liked it a lot when my beautiful wife (who is much more lovely than Olivia) made him sit down and watch it with her one day in our basement in Pocatello, while I studied for a graduate school class. Don’t know why I find Max’s enjoyment of the movie to be the most amusing piece of Xanadu trivia in my brain, but I do. The other piece of Xanadu trivia I know is that my high school friends and I used to replace the word “Xanadu” with our home town of “Arimo” whenever we sang along. And it sounded pretty bad when we strained to reach the high notes on the last word of the song:
“Aaaaarrrimmooh…Ooooh…OOOOOOHH! OOOoooohhhhh….
Yep. That’s the kind of wholesome fun we had in Arimo. No sexy girlfriends like Olivia. Of course, even if we had wanted to have meaningless sexual relationships with girls, we wouldn't have had the opportunity to do that in Arimo. All the young women in that town had very high moral standards like…well, you know…someone like Debby Boone. To find a woman with loose morals in a headband, we would have had to drive to a big city, like Malad. So, we stayed at home and drove tractor on the farm and spent our days thinking up new lyrics to songs on the Xanadu soundtrack. Good times…good times….
Saturday, June 20, 2015
179. 40 Fathoms
179. "How Deep Is Your Love" by the Bee Gees
I have always liked dance songs from the 70s that have a rich "wall of sound" with orchestral arrangements and choruses sung in harmony. The Bee Gees knew I wasn't the only one, so they wrote a slew of songs to try to satiate our desires for these kinds of songs. But they only made things worse, as our desire only grew with each disco hit that they churned out. We couldn't get enough of the Bee Gees in the 70s, and we discoed in excess, causing a negative cultural backlash against the boogie that even managed to spawn its own catchphrase, “Disco Sucks.” Today, even the Bee Gees themselves have become the subject of national ridicule by the likes of Jimmy Fallon, Justin Timberlake, and Barry Gibb on Saturday Night Live. Despicable!
SNL: Barry Gibb Talk Show
Well, well, well…we're paying the price now for our disco avarice, aren't we. But there is no use in crying over spilt milk. The damage is done, and the musical history of the 70s can't be rewritten, so let's just enjoy us some of that wall-of-sound Bee Gees music and let our minds go back to the day when all you needed for a music video was a single camera to film your heads while you and your brothers lip-synced straight on into the camera and walked your dogs in circles. You may now click on the link below and behold the somber faces and impressive walking skills of the Bee Gees!
YouTube: How Deep Is Your Love
I like this song for its smooth, full-bodied sound, especially during the chorus, which features some very nicely balanced layered harmonies that do not require a balls-in-the-vice-grip falsetto voice for the sing-along. Whenever I hear this song, I'm taken back to the days of my early youth, laying on my bed at night, looking at all that Bicentennial wallpaper in the lamp-light of a 40-watt yellow incandescent bulb, listening to this song on the little clock radio on my nightstand, and trying to figure out the question of how to measure the depth of love.
And only now, after over three decades of trying to come up with an answer on my own, I finally gave up and just Googled it. Turns out that the white-coated and bespectacled scientists that are in charge of defining the universal standard measurements for everything in existence have declared that the official way to measure the depth of love is in units called "fathoms." I guess it's all part of the metric system that those fools Mr. Divesti and Mr. Brown tried to ramrod down our throats in our 7th and 8th grade scientology classes. Why were they always trying to break us down when they all should let us be?
I have always liked dance songs from the 70s that have a rich "wall of sound" with orchestral arrangements and choruses sung in harmony. The Bee Gees knew I wasn't the only one, so they wrote a slew of songs to try to satiate our desires for these kinds of songs. But they only made things worse, as our desire only grew with each disco hit that they churned out. We couldn't get enough of the Bee Gees in the 70s, and we discoed in excess, causing a negative cultural backlash against the boogie that even managed to spawn its own catchphrase, “Disco Sucks.” Today, even the Bee Gees themselves have become the subject of national ridicule by the likes of Jimmy Fallon, Justin Timberlake, and Barry Gibb on Saturday Night Live. Despicable!
SNL: Barry Gibb Talk Show
Well, well, well…we're paying the price now for our disco avarice, aren't we. But there is no use in crying over spilt milk. The damage is done, and the musical history of the 70s can't be rewritten, so let's just enjoy us some of that wall-of-sound Bee Gees music and let our minds go back to the day when all you needed for a music video was a single camera to film your heads while you and your brothers lip-synced straight on into the camera and walked your dogs in circles. You may now click on the link below and behold the somber faces and impressive walking skills of the Bee Gees!
YouTube: How Deep Is Your Love
I like this song for its smooth, full-bodied sound, especially during the chorus, which features some very nicely balanced layered harmonies that do not require a balls-in-the-vice-grip falsetto voice for the sing-along. Whenever I hear this song, I'm taken back to the days of my early youth, laying on my bed at night, looking at all that Bicentennial wallpaper in the lamp-light of a 40-watt yellow incandescent bulb, listening to this song on the little clock radio on my nightstand, and trying to figure out the question of how to measure the depth of love.
And only now, after over three decades of trying to come up with an answer on my own, I finally gave up and just Googled it. Turns out that the white-coated and bespectacled scientists that are in charge of defining the universal standard measurements for everything in existence have declared that the official way to measure the depth of love is in units called "fathoms." I guess it's all part of the metric system that those fools Mr. Divesti and Mr. Brown tried to ramrod down our throats in our 7th and 8th grade scientology classes. Why were they always trying to break us down when they all should let us be?
Thursday, June 18, 2015
180. Where's the damn salt!
180. "Margaritaville" by Jimmy Buffett
I'm a sucker for a song that tells a depressing story well. And Jimmy Buffett did it perfectly with "Margaritaville." A guy is wasted again because he's feeling bad about losing his woman. At the beginning of the song, he says "it's nobody's fault." In the middle, he starts to doubt himself and thinks "it could be my fault." And at the end of the song, he says he knows "it's my own damn fault." In the end, there's only one thing colder than the realization that he's the source of his own misery--a frozen concoction to help him hang on.
If I were a drinking man, this song would probably be in my top 20, but since I'm a total teetotaler, it ranks a lot lower on the list. But I have to give Jimmy props for taking this song and making a life-long career out of helping others become depressed and drunk on a beach. "Margaritaville" used to be a figurative name for that state of mind where you have basically given up on doing anything with your life, and you just live day-to-day as a bummed out drunkard. There is now an actual physical place--or rather places--named "Margaritaville," and it's all been built by, you guessed it, Jimmy Buffett. Want to visit, click the link below and book your trip today!
Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville
Normally, I'd be a quite upset about the unrestrained commercialism surrounds this song, but the problem is that every time I hear it, I start to chill out and I stop caring and I just want to lounge on the beach all day drinking lots and lots of cold beverages. The song is that good. And yes, it is Jimmy Buffet's fault.
Sometimes, just for fun, I imagine this song being sung at a Star Trek convention by Jimmy Buffett dressed as Captain Kirk, and the woman he's singing about is really a telepathic Salt Vampire. That would certainly explain why he can't find that lost shaker of salt.
I'm a sucker for a song that tells a depressing story well. And Jimmy Buffett did it perfectly with "Margaritaville." A guy is wasted again because he's feeling bad about losing his woman. At the beginning of the song, he says "it's nobody's fault." In the middle, he starts to doubt himself and thinks "it could be my fault." And at the end of the song, he says he knows "it's my own damn fault." In the end, there's only one thing colder than the realization that he's the source of his own misery--a frozen concoction to help him hang on.
If I were a drinking man, this song would probably be in my top 20, but since I'm a total teetotaler, it ranks a lot lower on the list. But I have to give Jimmy props for taking this song and making a life-long career out of helping others become depressed and drunk on a beach. "Margaritaville" used to be a figurative name for that state of mind where you have basically given up on doing anything with your life, and you just live day-to-day as a bummed out drunkard. There is now an actual physical place--or rather places--named "Margaritaville," and it's all been built by, you guessed it, Jimmy Buffett. Want to visit, click the link below and book your trip today!
Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville
Normally, I'd be a quite upset about the unrestrained commercialism surrounds this song, but the problem is that every time I hear it, I start to chill out and I stop caring and I just want to lounge on the beach all day drinking lots and lots of cold beverages. The song is that good. And yes, it is Jimmy Buffet's fault.
Sometimes, just for fun, I imagine this song being sung at a Star Trek convention by Jimmy Buffett dressed as Captain Kirk, and the woman he's singing about is really a telepathic Salt Vampire. That would certainly explain why he can't find that lost shaker of salt.
 |
| What Kirk thought was happening. |
 |
| What was really happening. |
 |
| Quick question everyone. If I can suck salt through my fingers, then what the hell am I supposed to do with these vampiric teeth? |
 |
| No! I don't want a tasty salt tablet! Dammit, Jim! I'm a doctor not a…whoa!…I never felt that on a woman before…it kind of feels like a salt shaker?…. |
181. Lesson #27: If you want to make the ladies swoon, you've gotta dress like a Smurf.
181. "Kiss You All Over" by Exile
If you find exposed belly-buttons on album covers entertaining, then I apologize for the disembodied heads and hands on Exile's 1978 album "Mixed Emotions." I cannot spy a single belly-button anywhere. Gone also are any chest hair or nipples. Just floating noggin's and fingers. Sorry.
If you have never sung along to this song, then I pity you. I also admire your high level of self-discipline and self-respect. I wish I was you. But you cannot deny that this song is filled with irresistible sing-along moments, from the deep tones of the opening breathy line--"When I get home, babe, gonna light your fire"--to the high-pitched falsetto of the chorus line--"Till the night closes in!" You don't even have to have a decent singing voice to get into this song, as is proven in the following Happy Gilmore clip.
Full disclosure--I've sung the falsetto line a lot worse than Adam Sandler. My love of playing flugelhorn in the pep band isn't the only thing that kept me out of the MarVals.
Like other late 70s songs, this one has some very entertaining lip-synched and live performances captured on TV for future generations to mock. But this is one of the most copyright protected songs I've ever seen on YouTube, so you'll have to work for it if you want to see them. If you dare click the links below, keep your eyes peeled for the choreography of the long-haired lead singer. I call him the Sultan of Squat.
TopPop lip-sync version. After the Star Wars Meco song spectacle, I really expected more craziness from this Dutch television production. But there are some very nice moments in it. Squatty, squatty, squatty. Love my little squatty. Squatty, squatty, squatty, rock n roll!
https://youtu.be/gNo29v4ERqk
Midnight Special 5- minute live version. The Sultan really likes touching his microphone. And swaying his hair side to side. And the feel of a skin-tight blue jumpsuit.
https://youtu.be/mpiBdB6yJC8
I wanna watch these all over. And over again. I wanna watch these all over. Till the night closes in!
If you find exposed belly-buttons on album covers entertaining, then I apologize for the disembodied heads and hands on Exile's 1978 album "Mixed Emotions." I cannot spy a single belly-button anywhere. Gone also are any chest hair or nipples. Just floating noggin's and fingers. Sorry.
 |
| Everyone else is so happy, and I'm so miserable. Why did I have to be the one to grow the serious mustache?! |
If you have never sung along to this song, then I pity you. I also admire your high level of self-discipline and self-respect. I wish I was you. But you cannot deny that this song is filled with irresistible sing-along moments, from the deep tones of the opening breathy line--"When I get home, babe, gonna light your fire"--to the high-pitched falsetto of the chorus line--"Till the night closes in!" You don't even have to have a decent singing voice to get into this song, as is proven in the following Happy Gilmore clip.
Full disclosure--I've sung the falsetto line a lot worse than Adam Sandler. My love of playing flugelhorn in the pep band isn't the only thing that kept me out of the MarVals.
Like other late 70s songs, this one has some very entertaining lip-synched and live performances captured on TV for future generations to mock. But this is one of the most copyright protected songs I've ever seen on YouTube, so you'll have to work for it if you want to see them. If you dare click the links below, keep your eyes peeled for the choreography of the long-haired lead singer. I call him the Sultan of Squat.
TopPop lip-sync version. After the Star Wars Meco song spectacle, I really expected more craziness from this Dutch television production. But there are some very nice moments in it. Squatty, squatty, squatty. Love my little squatty. Squatty, squatty, squatty, rock n roll!
https://youtu.be/gNo29v4ERqk
Midnight Special 5- minute live version. The Sultan really likes touching his microphone. And swaying his hair side to side. And the feel of a skin-tight blue jumpsuit.
https://youtu.be/mpiBdB6yJC8
I wanna watch these all over. And over again. I wanna watch these all over. Till the night closes in!
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
182. Group hug!
182. "Still the One" by Orleans
If you find exposed belly-buttons on album covers entertaining, then I apologize for the group-hug cover on Orleans' 1976 album "Waking and Dreaming." I cannot spy a single belly-button anywhere. Oh, there's lots of chest hair and a handful of nipples. But no navels. Sorry.
In the 70s, if you had asked me what music group made up entirely of men that was most likely to pose topless on an album cover, I would have said, "What the hell?! Why are you asking me such a weird question? Pervert!"
Although this is not my favorite album cover in the world (I might need another top 200 list to figure that out), there is one visual treat on this cover that I do enjoy immensely--a bearded, non-balding George Costanza! If only Elaine were on the cover, too....
What puts this peppy Bicentennial chart-topping pop song on this list, besides the obvious triggering of memories of my early youth in Arimo, is the sing-along factor. It's lots of fun to sing the melody, but it's even more fun to sing harmony on the chorus, especially the bass part when they sing a cappella toward the end. I also have to admit that the main sentiment expressed in the song is pretty much exactly how I feel about my wife today--even after all these years together, she's still the one I want to scratch my itch. Especially in the morning just after waking up. Oh, yeah...to the left, to the left...up a little more...a little more...THAT'S the spot!
If you find exposed belly-buttons on album covers entertaining, then I apologize for the group-hug cover on Orleans' 1976 album "Waking and Dreaming." I cannot spy a single belly-button anywhere. Oh, there's lots of chest hair and a handful of nipples. But no navels. Sorry.
 |
| My eyes are closed because I'm trying not to look at your.... |
Although this is not my favorite album cover in the world (I might need another top 200 list to figure that out), there is one visual treat on this cover that I do enjoy immensely--a bearded, non-balding George Costanza! If only Elaine were on the cover, too....
What puts this peppy Bicentennial chart-topping pop song on this list, besides the obvious triggering of memories of my early youth in Arimo, is the sing-along factor. It's lots of fun to sing the melody, but it's even more fun to sing harmony on the chorus, especially the bass part when they sing a cappella toward the end. I also have to admit that the main sentiment expressed in the song is pretty much exactly how I feel about my wife today--even after all these years together, she's still the one I want to scratch my itch. Especially in the morning just after waking up. Oh, yeah...to the left, to the left...up a little more...a little more...THAT'S the spot!
183. Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.
183. "Star Wars Theme / Cantina Band" by Meco
When I was 11, I saw the movie Star Wars at a drive-in theater in Pocatello. Now, sitting in the front seat of a Ford LTD with a mono speaker hanging on the window right by your ear is not the best way to see Star Wars. But that didn't matter. I wasn't really "watching" the movie anyway. No, I was IN the movie--totally immersed in this alternate reality created by George Lucas and, let's admit it, John Williams. Without Williams' music, the movie wouldn't have been half as good. The music is what sucked you in emotionally and energized the scenes. That's why when little kids play Star Wars, they're usually singing or humming the music in the background.
Having studied psychology in college a bit, I know that even though as adults we may feel like we have left the joy of childhood behind us and that childhood fantasies no longer have a place within our minds, there still exists within each of us an 11-year-old that finds joy in indulging in childhood fantasies. And that 11-year-old's name is Phillip. And the only way to get rid of Phillip completely is through a series of lengthy auditing sessions in which you hold an electropsychometer in your hands and answer trivia questions about L. Ron Hubbard. I don't know how it all works. I only minored in psychology.
But I embrace my inner-Phillip completely, and together we remember the awesomeness of Meco's disco version of the "Star Wars Theme / Cantina Band." Whenever this song came on the radio, I turned it up and would yell at everyone in the car (or truck) to be quiet so that I wouldn't miss the lasergun blasts and R2-D2 beeps. During the summer of 77, this song was the ultimate in musical entertainment. Today, I think the only way this song could be more entertaining is if a Dutch pop music TV show used this disco masterpiece in a space-cowboy dance routine.
Yep. That definitely made the song even more entertaining! And if you don't agree with me, then you must be a lasso-hating, shoulder-shrugging, hog-riding Nerfherder!
When I was 11, I saw the movie Star Wars at a drive-in theater in Pocatello. Now, sitting in the front seat of a Ford LTD with a mono speaker hanging on the window right by your ear is not the best way to see Star Wars. But that didn't matter. I wasn't really "watching" the movie anyway. No, I was IN the movie--totally immersed in this alternate reality created by George Lucas and, let's admit it, John Williams. Without Williams' music, the movie wouldn't have been half as good. The music is what sucked you in emotionally and energized the scenes. That's why when little kids play Star Wars, they're usually singing or humming the music in the background.
Having studied psychology in college a bit, I know that even though as adults we may feel like we have left the joy of childhood behind us and that childhood fantasies no longer have a place within our minds, there still exists within each of us an 11-year-old that finds joy in indulging in childhood fantasies. And that 11-year-old's name is Phillip. And the only way to get rid of Phillip completely is through a series of lengthy auditing sessions in which you hold an electropsychometer in your hands and answer trivia questions about L. Ron Hubbard. I don't know how it all works. I only minored in psychology.
But I embrace my inner-Phillip completely, and together we remember the awesomeness of Meco's disco version of the "Star Wars Theme / Cantina Band." Whenever this song came on the radio, I turned it up and would yell at everyone in the car (or truck) to be quiet so that I wouldn't miss the lasergun blasts and R2-D2 beeps. During the summer of 77, this song was the ultimate in musical entertainment. Today, I think the only way this song could be more entertaining is if a Dutch pop music TV show used this disco masterpiece in a space-cowboy dance routine.
Yep. That definitely made the song even more entertaining! And if you don't agree with me, then you must be a lasso-hating, shoulder-shrugging, hog-riding Nerfherder!
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
184. Welcome to D-Qwon's dance grooves, are you ready to get your groove on?
184. "Canned Heat" by Jamiroquai
This was a favorite song of mine while I was going to graduate school and working at Utah State. I often listened to several Jamiroquai albums while I typed out HTML code for my work projects. Jamiroquai has a lot of outstanding music, and I actually started to like his other songs more than this one. But then something completely unexpected happened in 2004 that not only made this song my favorite Jamiroquai song, but also thrust it into top 200 territory--Napoleon Dynamite.
Napoleon Dynamite is the only film in which I experienced genuine shock at the high school flashbacks I had while watching it. I'd been in Preston High School for various sports and drama events, and on the inside it looked pretty much like Marsh Valley High School. The clothes looked like ones we would have worn in high school. The people they rounded up as extras looked like the people I had known in my youth. And the outdoor scenes of the homes and the fields triggered memories of Arimo that were so vivid that the film kind of felt a bit surreal the first time I watched it.
The climax of the film is when Napoleon helps Pedro become student body president by dancing to "Canned Heat" in front of the whole school. He only dances to the first part of the song in the film, which was kind of a disappointment since it was such a funny scene. I really wanted to see more of that Dynamite boogie! Fortunately, some enterprising fans have figured out how to make Napoleon dance for the entire song.
Yeah, it looks pretty sweet. It looks awesome. That dance, it's... it's incredible.
This was a favorite song of mine while I was going to graduate school and working at Utah State. I often listened to several Jamiroquai albums while I typed out HTML code for my work projects. Jamiroquai has a lot of outstanding music, and I actually started to like his other songs more than this one. But then something completely unexpected happened in 2004 that not only made this song my favorite Jamiroquai song, but also thrust it into top 200 territory--Napoleon Dynamite.
Napoleon Dynamite is the only film in which I experienced genuine shock at the high school flashbacks I had while watching it. I'd been in Preston High School for various sports and drama events, and on the inside it looked pretty much like Marsh Valley High School. The clothes looked like ones we would have worn in high school. The people they rounded up as extras looked like the people I had known in my youth. And the outdoor scenes of the homes and the fields triggered memories of Arimo that were so vivid that the film kind of felt a bit surreal the first time I watched it.
The climax of the film is when Napoleon helps Pedro become student body president by dancing to "Canned Heat" in front of the whole school. He only dances to the first part of the song in the film, which was kind of a disappointment since it was such a funny scene. I really wanted to see more of that Dynamite boogie! Fortunately, some enterprising fans have figured out how to make Napoleon dance for the entire song.
Yeah, it looks pretty sweet. It looks awesome. That dance, it's... it's incredible.
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