Kim Wilde

Kim Wilde is still beautiful. This is because she never moves her face except to blink or sing.

Still one of the amazing songs of the 80s, expressions aside.

Glen Phillips

You’ve  heard me mention him before.  You’ve listened to me gush about the man’s songwriting prowess.  You’ve heard me wonder aloud how Toad The Wet Sprocket wasn’t a bigger band in the 90’s than their contemporaries.  I just flat out dig his music.

He’s one of the hardest working musicians out there.  Besides his solo stuff and work with Toad The Wet Sprocket, he’s also currently working with three other musical projects — Works Progress Administration, Remotetreechildren, and Plover.  But let’s just concentrate on his solo work for now.

I was searching YouTube, trying to keep myself occupied when I came across a concert that he posted on his official YouTube Channel.  He’s sharing the stage with Jonathan Kingham, an up and coming singer-songwriter who was on tour with Glen Phillips and Jonatha Brooke during this footage (A tour that Lauren would KILL to see, probably). 

I’ve posted the link for the entire playlist here.  Enjoy the show and hopefully become a fan like me.

UPDATE:  The link now works.

So, I have a thing for J.R. Richards.

You guys remember “Counting Blue Cars,” right?   Most of the folks I know, being karaoke bar frequent flyers, will recall it as the song with the cab driver & all the different weirdo fares in the back seat.   I missed out on practically a decade of music videos because of my little tv boycott, & it wasn’t until recently I finally saw the actual video.

I looked it up after viewing “Somewhere In The Middle,” during which I realized, with some startlement, that not only was the lead singer of Dishwalla kind of hot, but he seriously did not have moves.   But it didn’t matter, because he had the most ridiculously sexy voice.

The Power Of Christ Compels You!

HOLY FUCKING SHIT, CREED’S BACK!

From People.com (with additional “commentary” from O-Dogg in bold)

After a six-year hiatus, multi-platinum selling Orlando-based rock band Creed have returned with a new record tentatively titled Full Circle. (Now I have the strength to go on living.)

“We never felt like we weren’t together,” says frontman Scott Stapp. “We’re not looking at this as a reunion. It’s more of a rebirth.” (Rebirth?  Could you be more of a douche!)

Though they stayed in touch through holiday cards and the occasional phone call, the group refrained from recording together in order to, “explore other creative outlets and build the main priority in all of our lives, which is our family,” says Stapp. (Also because Stapp is a no talent hack who had become a hardcore drunk.)

Ummm….

I’m not really sure what to make of this, or how pissed off I should be.  I’ll let you guys decide. I’ll comment later.

I’ve Been Waiting

I’m waiting for the 90’s to come back.  This market is dominated by all the “mostalgia” of 80’s dance music.  But I’m waiting for that trend to pass, and evolve into a longing for the music of the 90’s.  I don’t think we realized it, or fully appreciated it at the time, but the 90’s brought us the resurgence of the singer-songwriter. 

It was a time when people were a lot more open to different musical genres, the true hey-day of “alternative” music.  From the early grunge musings of Kurt Cobain, Eddie Vedder, Chris Cornell, and Scott Weiland to the sublime and quirky writing of Glen Phillips, Rob Thomas, Rivers Cuomo, Dave Matthews, and Stephen Jenkins, the 90’s brought us a slew of  diverse and talented songwriters. 

One of my faves, and often overlooked, is Matthew Sweet.  As far as the 90’s sound, I considered his style to be as close to the perfect pop sound for the decade.  All his songs had giant hooks, sweetly blended harmonies, and perfectly placed guitar solos. 

I was shuffling through my CD collection and decided to pop in Matthew Sweet’s Girlfriend CD.  I was instantly reminded why I was so enamoured with his music in the first place.  You just may enjoy him too.  Here’s my favorite song off the album:  I’ve Been Waiting.

P.S.  He also released a CD of cover songs with Susanna Hoffs called Under The Covers.  It’s a great listen and Susanna Hoffs is still hot.  I just wanted to mention that.

Grounds For Divorce.

I found this song by accident; I’m giving you a link instead of embedding a video because the video that was embeddable sounded crappy.

I can’t remember what I visited Amazon.com for; I must hit that site a few times a day looking for books & music I end up deciding I don’t really really need.   Yeah.   I only get the stuff I really really really need.

16 Songs That I Can’t Sing

But have tried to. Or still try to.

I’ve arranged these songs (done by the original artists, who CAN sing them) in a playlist for your listening pleasure. And then I’ve made a list of what happens when I try to sing them. Please click on the “Pop Out Player” button for the playlist, which should open in another window.

The Book Of Love

It’s one of those things. At the time, I could say that I wasn’t a huge fan. Now I look back and wonder why I wasn’t. A couple years back I got a “Greatest Hits’ compilation and popped it in my CD player to check out. Within a couple of tracks I realized that I flat-out love Peter Gabriel’s music.

MTV Plays Videos. What A Concept!

I turned on my TV one night and witnessed a phenomenon that, for the last four years or so, was a very rare sight –  music videos on MTV.  I had all but given up on MTV playing actual music videos on their network.  When I say “actual videos”, I mean the ENTIRE music video, not this two minutes-then-cut move that they were employing over the last two years.  But when I turned on my TV, I was reminded why I fell in love with MTV in the first place as a child. 

It was a chance to see bands of all genres that you don’t normally get to see.  It was bands that you love expressing their creativity in visual form, giving new life to the songs that they wrote.  And the occasional “Holy Shit!” moment when you see a video or hear a song that you hadn’t seen in a long time.  It was like comfort food for the eyes and ears.

Now, I’m not going to say that everything they played was great.  They still have to cut some songs short for time purposes.  They still have crap like Soulja Boy to play (Seriously, someone explain this no-talent hack’s appeal to me!).  And yes, you have to be up between the hours of 3 AM till 8 AM to see any of it.  But I’ll take the occasional crap they force feed us in order to get stuff like the videos below mixed in with ones I hold dear (This past week’s “Throwback Videos” included People Are People by Depeche Mode, Sunday Bloody Sunday by U2, Killing In The Name Of by Rage Against The Machine, Role Model by Eminem, White Wedding by Billy Idol, and of course, El Schorcho by WEEZER!). 

So keep up the good work MTV!  By the time I post this, you probably will screw it all up, but at least your are trying.

The following is a sampling of songs I’m glad MTV is playing.  Somebody has to.

Black Wedding – Meg & Dia

Sometime Around Midnight – Airborne Toxic Event

Be By Myself – Asher Roth Feat Cee-Lo

Daniel – Bat For Lashes

Panic Switch – Silversun Pickups