random music thoughts

Bad design: Most music apps

But the one I’m going to highlight here is, of course, Apple’s. Apple makes itself such a juicy target because the company’s leadership extols its superior design aesthetic while charging a premium price for the experience.

Specifically, I want to highlight one thing about the interface of the iOS music app, which is pre-installed on every iPhone. You can see it in this screenshot:

First, let me acknowledge the prehistoric nature of the songs highlighted (the newest is from 1992). I am old as dirt, and so is the music I like. Plus, I was sampling some music Apple has highlighted that supports the Dolby Atmos spatial sound standard (more on spatial music in another post) and I didn’t recognize the majority of suggested tracks (again, due to being an out of touch dinosaur).

(Also, the fact that the time was 4:20 p.m. when I grabbed the shot is not some sly signalling that I love the mary-ju-wanna, it’s just a coincidence. Sorry, my BC buds!)

You can see the currently playing song at the top of the screen. It’s Blondie’s well-known classic, “Hanging on the Telep.” It’s “Telephone,” of course, but because the song title is too “long” (four entire words) for the UI, it gets truncated. Apple’s solution (as with nearly all music players) is to slowly scroll the title from beginning to end, allowing the music lover to eventually piece together the entire title of the track they are listening to.

Look at the rest of the music app and ask yourself, “Is there enough room here to fit the entire four word title of a song so it doesn’t have to scroll?” and you may find the answer is, in fact, yes.

And yet this is almost never done. The UI of the music app isn’t actively bad or anything (Apple has much worse stuff tucked away in other areas of iOS), but this tiny space for song titles has always baffled me, because when you’re listening to music this is always going to be the active part of the interface. It just grates on me, especially since there is enough room to easily manage any title of reasonable length. I mean, okay, I don’t expect a music app to properly display Pink Floyd’s “Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict”, but still.

A random list of favorite songs

These songs are all silky smooth pop confections. And old, like me.

  • Dreaming, Blondie
  • Vacation, The Go-Go’s
  • Don’t Answer Me, The Alan Parsons Project
  • Roam, The B-52’s
  • Good Vibrations, The Beach Boys
  • Got to Get You Into My Life, The Beatles
  • Get Through to You, Blue Rodeo
  • The Logical Song, Supertramp
  • Coming Home, Prism
  • New Sensation, INXS
  • Don’t Stop Believin’, Journey
  • Ray of Light, Madonna
  • Something About You, Level 42
  • Gemini Dream, The Moody Blues
  • Graceland, Paul Simon
  • Sean, The Proclaimers
  • Catapult, R.E.M.
  • More Than This, Roxy Music
  • Birdhouse in Your Soul, They Might Be Giants
  • End of the Line, The Traveling Wilburys
  • Buddy Holly, Weezer

Listening to music in alphabetical order

I should probably have been mentioning here that I ended my last week of vacation by going on roughly hour-long walks down the Brunette River trail in lieu of running (exciting heel update also coming soon). The weather has been fairly good for these brisk walks and I’ve resumed listening to music. I am now doing the walks immediately after work and they serve as a nice way to unwind from the day–and help get ye old blood circulating after spending most of the day sitting.

Normally I will listen to a specific album if I’m in the mood or just shuffle all songs and skip any that come up that I’m not in the mood for. Or just kind of suck, because let’s face it, not every album released is filler-free.

The last three walks I have done something different. I started listening to songs in alphabetical order. My song library consists of over 3,600 titles so it would take awhile to get through the entire alphabet (10 days if iTunes is right). That’s a lot of walking.

I am still on the letter A and it’s actually not a bad way to listen to music. I sometimes hear songs with the same title from different bands, I’ve discovered a lot of songs start with the word “All” and I’ve mostly not skipped any songs.

I may move to the B’s early, though, because I’d like to hear some other letters without having to necessarily commit to 240 hours of walking.

Lead vocalists I like even though they are not great singers

And by “great” I mean they do not have soothing, melodic voices or are obviously not professionally trained, but I love ’em anyway, because their voices have…yep…character.

You may disagree on the alleged vocal greatness of some of the people on this list, either thinking them good enough to not be on this list or maybe bad enough to not merit inclusion. I also did not set out to make an exclusively male list, but every female singer I like has a genuinely awesome-sounding voice. Women are just better.

  • Stephin Merrit (The Magnetic Fields). Merrit has this wonderfully rumbly bass that often feels like it’s on the verge of going off-key but never quite does. “Papa Was a Rodeo” from the album 69 Love Songs is a great example of it.
  • Roger Waters (Pink Floyd). I compare Waters’ vocals to the dialogue of David Lynch’s Dune, where everyone seems to either shout or whisper. Waters is very good at the shout/whisper thing. The period around his second solo album, Radio KAOS, is the “highlight” of this where he seemed to be especially struggling to just sing in a normal tone. But he is very good at getting across venom and anger.
https://youtu.be/l5MigxIKovI
  • Robert Smith (The Cure). I went to a Cure concert in 1987 with a couple of friends when they played at the Expo Theatre (RIP). At the time I had no idea who the band was, confusing them with The Cult. The show was pretty good, though I was not entirely sure why girls (and some guys) kept throwing themselves at the lead singer, an unimposing man who looked a bit like Edward Scissorhands minus the scissors. Smith’s vocals are well-suited to the goth dirges the band is famous for, but I especially like his takes on their lighter material like “Why Can’t I Be You.” The video below has a bit of everything, from the regrettable use of black face to Smith dressed as a proto-furry.
  • Bob Dylan. I’m not even going to explain this one. Everyone knows Bob. That said, his vocals on the two Traveling Wilburys albums are strong and he clearly had fun with the material. “Tweeter and the Monkey Man” remains a favorite of mine.

More to come.

Songs that got stuck in my head today

In no order:

  • “Puppy Love” by Donny Osmond. This evolved from a conversation about Barry Manilow coming out in his 70s. The song is kind of creepy in retrospect, and could easily be captured in video as such just by framing the vocalist in specific ways, changing nothing else about the song.
  • “Jesus Christ Superstar.” I have no explanation for this.
  • “Echo Beach” by Martha and the Muffins. Probably because I walked by a lot of beaches today. I can remember about ten words from the song, but fully remember the tune.
  • “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” by The Beach Boys. After describing the stellar quality of the film stock used to record a documentary about making the song back in 1966. How I came to describe the footage to begin with evolved from the observation of how pictures from digital cameras from only ten years ago look pretty bad today. Also, I had seen clips from the documentary this morning on YouTube so it was fresh in my mind. Bonus observation: The music and vocals on this song are pretty incredible for what would seem to be a simple pop tune.

This concludes my random sampling of music running through my head, and also concludes my posts for the month of June.

See you tomorrow on The Blog Hardly Anyone Knows Even Exists.

300 is a magic number

The Rolling Stones have started a summer tour, promising to play classic hits.

Their collective age is 300. Keith Richards alone is 200. He learned to play on a coal-fired guitar. Just kidding. He learned on a Stratocaster.

And he’s only 75.

I have to admire The Stones for heading out when they clearly don’t need the money—though they will make truckloads of it. Jagger just had heart surgery three months ago and yet there he was on opening night, prancing about the stage like he was only 50. Which is the new 30, I think.

He’s also 75.

I hope to be prancing about on a stage or at least somewhere that isn’t a retirement home when I’m 75.

Truckloads of money would be nice, too, though optional.

High definition video, low definition lyrics

Recently YouTube announced that it was updating a lot of classic or alleged classic music videos to HD versions. Better picture, better sound! What’s not to like?

I am an unapologetic fan of Lady Gaga’s video for the song “Bad Romance” (this is not exactly an exclusive club, the video has over one billion views). I think the director, Francis Lawrence, and Gaga did a fantastic job in fusing the music and imagery together, something so seemingly fundamental for a music video, yet so often eludes others. The action and camera move sleekly to the music and vocals, and somehow the abrupt shifts in style work. The choreography is quirky, fluid and occasionally a bit predictable (Gaga is fond of the “jack off” gesture).

The lyrics are not spectacular, though a lot of people probably miss the three Hitchcock references tucked into one verse, but there is a verse that goes like this:

Walk, walk fashion baby, work it move that bitch crazy
Walk-walk fashion baby, work it move that bitch crazy
Walk-walk fashion baby, work it move that bitch crazy
Walk-walk passion baby, work it I'm a free bitch baby

As you can see, the word “bitch” is used four times. Edgy! But that was 2011. In 2019 the word is not used in polite company anymore. It seems even ironic, self-claimed usage has fallen from favor. Gay men cannot say, “Bitch, please.” Women can not call each other by this term. It is, as a word, passe.

The HD version of the video has removed “bitch.” Or to be more accurate, it’s removed the last two letters. That’s right, the video now has Gaga very clearly saying “bit”:

Walk, walk fashion baby, work it move that bit crazy
Walk-walk fashion baby, work it move that bit crazy
Walk-walk fashion baby, work it move that bit crazy
Walk-walk passion baby, work it I'm a free bit baby

What does “I’m a free bit baby” even mean? Is Gaga now saying we are all machine-made designs, composed of nothing but bits and bytes, living our seemingly real lives in a perpetual virtual reality? And that she has, Neo-like, broken from the virtual chains, claiming her independence as a free bit?

Or could they just not come up with something that rhymed with “bitch”, still worked and decided “bit” was close enough. It is an exercise left to the viewer.

It’s also kind of silly, like Spielberg changing the guns the government agents had to walkie talkies in the 20th anniversary release of E.T. (this version of the film has been dropped in subsequent releases, with Spielberg regretting the change). I can see the argument to improve the visual presentation of a piece of work, whether it’s a film or a music video. For example, some of the special effects and exterior shots of the Enterprise and planets were either redone or made from scratch for a new version of the original Star Trek series, for a 2006 re-release. The effects were deliberately toned down, to keep them in line with the aesthetic of the original show. There are purists who would object to any changes, but in general most would see these changes as refinements on the original. The artists were not adding or removing content, nor were they changing it other than to simply improve the look of the admittedly cheaply-made visual effects of the time.

The Gaga lyrics change is a lot more like Spielberg’s walkie talkies, trying to take back an artistic choice and to that I say, just live with it and move on. Altering the video won’t change–or remove–the original. Either make a statement on the remastered HD version (“I would not use the same language today and regret the wording”) or provide two versions, the original and the altered (which Spielberg did in 2002 with E.T. before dropping the altered version entirely).

It’s a small thing and I mostly call it out because “bit” is a nonsensical substitution. Yet it calls to me, somehow, and so I claim that I am also a free bit, baby.

I like lists (of old songs)

As expected, my three month trial of Apple Music has turned into a giant Music Nostalgia Machine.

I’ve been adding songs to a playlist cleverly called Pop Stuff. If I Think of a song, I add it. Most of them were songs I liked but not enough to buy the albums they were on because I was cheap and/or picky.

Here’s the list so far because, as has been established, I like lists. The songs are in the order I added them, which is random.

Save a Prayer. Duran Duran’s weirdly soothing mix of synths and guitars is both very 80s and yet timeless.
Don’t You Want Me. This was notable in being the first all-synth song to go #1. That seems positively quaint today, but in 1981 it was the first taste of what was to come.
The Safety Dance. The video is silly, the song is silly, the name of the band is silly, but it’s just so catchy. Also, synths because the 80s.
Ray of Light. From 1998, this may be Madonna’s best song. Effervescent, propulsive and vocally exciting.
Got to Get You Into My Life. I always liked this Beatles song. I think the brassy horns did it because as a kid I didn’t know what brassy horns were, I just knew I liked them.
Something About You. What lifts this song is both the soaring falsetto of keyboardist Mike Lindup and the funky bass of Mark King. The video features King as this weird pantomime character that turns seriously creepy toward the end of the song. I have no idea what they were going for.
Beat It. Never had enough interest in Jackson to commit to his albums, but really liked “Beat It.” The start of his vocal tics doesn’t diminish it.
Billie Jean. More tics and as David Letterman pointed out in 1982, he totally says “chair” instead of “child.”
Voices Carry. This song doesn’t hold up as well as I thought it would, but the chorus is still sweetly sung.
Radio Ga Ga. A guilty pleasure of sorts. The video, which intercuts clips from Metropolis, doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it’s fun to watch, especially the bits with the band in the flying car. Most of them look vaguely uncomfortable.
Under Pressure. This song is a lot weirder than you probably remember. Freddie Mercury vamps it up while Bowie treats it Very Seriously.
We Will Rock You. Queen enters arena mode. And it works.
We Are the Champions. Arena mode, but quieter.
We Belong. Pat Benatar turns nice and this is a nice song.
White Rabbit. Amusingly subversive, the way Grace Slick’s vocals build to a crescendo is still really effective.
I Want You to Want Me. A fellow student was constantly playing Cheap Trick in Drawing & Painting class, so I pretty much knew their first two albums by heart. This song is even slighter than I remembered. Surrender is better.
Heat of the Moment. Asia was one of those “supergroups” that had the unfortunate luck of peaking with their debut, making everything after a bit of a disappointment. This song is still catchy and serves as a kind of template for what some call the widescreen music of the 80s.
Beds are Burning. Peter Garret has a weird voice and dances like a chicken, but this song delivers its message about the plight of Australian aboriginals in a slick package. Also the other band members were all really hot. I’m just sayin’.
A Horse With No Name. The lyrics are silly (“the heat was hot”) but the layered vocals are as smooth now as they were in 1971.
The Reason. The jewel robbery of the video bears no relation to the content of the song, but that’s okay. There’s nothing outstanding here, but it all fits together so well it doesn’t matter. Plus more hot band members. Just sayin’.
She Loves Everybody. One of the newer songs on the list. I don’t recall how I came across Chester French, the short-lived duo, but this song (and video) are amusing and catchy. I like catchy music. I need to find a synonym for “catchy.”
Skyfall. As Bond themes go, this is one of the best. It’s theatrical, Adele’s vocals lend it the proper gravitas, and the orchestration works perfectly. The lyrics range from opaque to silly, fitting with Bond, really.
Empty Garden. Elton John’s tribute to John Lennon. This one really takes me back to 1981.
(Just Like) Starting Over. The above inspired me to get this, Lennon’s fun take on renewal, which gleefully changes style throughout, not to mention Lennon’s occasional riffs on Elvis. Enough time has elapsed that listening to it no longer makes me feel sad.
9 to 5. Short, catchy and perfectly calibrated to the movie that it served as the theme for. In the 1980s Dolly Parton could do no wrong.
Can’t Smile Without You. Barry Manilow came out as gay at the age of 73. I hate to tell you this, Barry, but we kind of knew. This is classic Manilow–big, schmaltzy, but also kind of irresistible.
Waiting for a Girl Like You. My favorite Foreigner song. I love the icy keyboards.
Can’t Fight This Feeling. Another guilty pleasure. A bit too slick for its own good, this REO Speedwagon hit is terrific in small does.
Angel of the Morning. I love the brief martial drum in Juice Newton’s cover.
Africa. I know there’s some Toto song I really liked back when they were big (around the time of Toto IV). I thought this was it, but listening to it, I’m not so sure. Maybe it was Rosanna?
Take On Me. Everyone remembers the video, but I’m still impressed at how lead vocalist Morten Harket climbs through the octaves during the chorus.
Hold Me Now. Not sure if guilty pleasure. But dare I say it–catchy? The Thompson Twins also serve as an early example of inclusiveness.
Some Like It Hot. Power Station was another supergroup that debuted big, then disappeared (they did do a second album about a decade later). The song opens with big, crunchy percussion and Robert Palmer growls and croons his way through this with aplomb.
Sledgehammer. Everyone remembers the video, but the song itself is an amusing delight all on its own.

The paralysis of choice: Streaming music

If you ask someone to choose between three things, most will not find the task difficult. Expand those choices to ten and it requires more thought and investment in time, but most could still make a final selection using appropriate criteria.

Further expand those choices to, say, a hundred, and now you’re looking at a take-home assignment. And the person asked to choose may drop your class before reaching a decision.

This is the paralysis of choice.

I signed up to the three-month trial of Apple Music, mostly because the iOS 11.3 update seemed to add annoying pop-ups to the music app, bugging me to really try Apple Music, seriously, you’ll love it. So many songs. So much music.

I gave in and signed up to the trial and it’s true. There is a whole lot of music.

And I have no idea what to listen to because there is too much to choose from.

There are radio stations and playlists, but these just underscore how out of touch I am with current pop music. I recognize some of the names, but not all or even most of them. And these are for the music genres I like. I suppose exposing myself to new artists and the sounds they make is all part of this grand experiment, so I’ll give it a shot.

But really, my first pick was playing a song from the Styx album Kilroy Was Here. Not an auspicious start.

Also, I have some thoughts on the Apple Music interface as it relates to iTunes (PC and Mac versions), but it’s challenging formulating my impressions without lapsing into a rant, so I’ll need more time to gather those complaint-y thoughts into a more reasoned look at how Apple integrates its streaming service into the much-loved* iTunes software.

 

* ho ho

My Top 10 Albums of 2017

Or “Why I don’t know anything about the current state of pop music.”

I apparently only bought seven albums this year. That may actually be higher than average compared to most album buyers, since the album format is either dead or dying (or just on a temporary downward trend if you’re feeling less doom and gloom about it).

The albums I bought fall into these categories:

  • Albums previously owned but purchased for the sake of having them in digital format: 1
  • Albums bought because a friend had them and I liked them and they were on sale: 2
  • Albums that were cheap and had at least one song I liked so I figured why not: 4
  • Albums I bought that were released in 2017: 0
  • Albums I bought that were released in the 21st century: 0
  • The year each of the seven albums were released:
    • 1976
    • 1978
    • 1982
    • 1983
    • 1984
    • 1986
    • 1992

So really, this was an exercise in 1980s nostalgia. Not surprising since that was the formative decade for my taste (or lack thereof) in music. The seven albums are:

  • Hotel California, The Eagles. I’ve heard the title track a billion times and somehow I am still not tired of it. The rest of the album holds up well given its age and Don Henley’s cynicism is just as appropriate–or moreso–in 2017.
  • The Cars, The Cars. The Cars! This album got played endlessly in Drawing and Painting class in junior high but I didn’t mind because it’s a crazy good pop confection.
  • Vacation, The Go-Go’s. Worth it for the title track, “He’s So Strange” and “Worlds Away.” Not quite as catchy as their first album but pretty close.
  • Eliminator, ZZ Top. For some reason I can never bring myself to listen to the whole album, just the singles that I’m familiar with like “Sharp-Dressed Man” and “Legs.” I have no buyer’s regret.
  • Welcome to the Pleasuredome, Frankie Goes to Hollywood. What an improbable success. A friend had this on that newfangled CD format and it’s a bizarre mix of covers, ersatz prog rock, dance music and ballads. Somehow it works, in no small part due to Holly Johnson’s commanding presence.
  • Crowded House, Crowded House. A lovely pop album with one of the most essential songs of the 80s, “Don’t Dream It’s Over.”
  • Harvest Moon, Neil Young. The title track is a sweet ballad and the rest of the album is similarly soothing as Young gets quiet instead of weird or angry.

Maybe one of my resolutions for next year will be to buy an album released next year. Hey, it’s happened before! (Last time in 2014.)

The limits of nostalgia

Nostalgia is one of those inevitable things you get pulled into as you get older. Some give into it entirely, refusing to embrace anything new in favor of yelling at clouds and acting as if everything from their youth was better.

The reality is some things were better. Prices were lower. I can remember candy bars costing as little as 10 cents each. They cost more than ten times that now. Is that progress? Yes, if you sell candy bars. But they’re bad for you, so it’s difficult to get overly upset about that bit of inflation.

The reality is also that some things were bad. They are not worth remembering fondly. They are maybe not worth remembering at all, except as cautionary tales to warn future generations.

Fashion comprises almost all of the things in this category. Every decade has its fashion tragedies. Big hair. Acid wash jeans. Parachute pants. Running gear from 1975. You’d think it would be hard to screw up something as basic as a shirt and shorts. Then you see this:

Image courtesy of Up and Humming – A Running Blog

This looks like a publicity still from a 1977 gay porn film. Marathon Men. And what was the deal with tucking in your shirt? At least they’re not wearing those socks. Which socks? These socks:

Yes, I had socks just like these.

But what I’m here to talk about now is music.

I was not an experimental type when it came to listening to music in my teens (time-wise this was around 1977-84). While friends grooved to Dylan, Bowie and Lou Reed, I listened to The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Bee Gees and Blondie. Pretty much any band that started with the letter “b.” Now, all of the groups I’ve mentioned are fine and I still enjoy listening to them today. And The Beatles (and even to an extent Blondie) pushed the boundaries on rock music. But for the most part these were safe, mainstream choices.

Below these bands were choices that were perhaps less likely to win armfuls of Grammys, like Boney M. Still, I eventually repurchased Boney M’s seminal Nightflight to Venus on iTunes. It even embraces its retro-ness by including album art that is literally a photo of the CD cover. And I’ve repurchased other albums of yore that were not exactly showered with critical acclaim but that I enjoyed too much to resist–Queen’s The Game, Duran Duran’s Seven and the Ragged Tiger and so on.

But there’s a line I won’t cross, where I have to admit the music I liked way back then was actually pretty bad.

So while I happily reacquainted myself with The Police’s Synchronicity, I could not do the same with Styx.

Sorry, Styx.

I bought two of their albums, 1981’s Paradise Theater and 1983’s Kilroy Was Here.

Paradise Theater is actually a pretty decent album and I loved the concept and even the album art. I liked the album enough to pick up their next, Kilroy Was Here. This was another concept album, about a fascist government (one in the future, not the one the US has now) that outlaws rock music. There was a mini-film and most people who were around back then probably remember the oddball hit “Mr. Roboto.” But here’s the thing. It’s a terrible album.

There are some good songs, like Tommy Shaw’s shimmering “Haven’t We Been Here Before?” but “Mr. Roboto” is cringe-inducing and the concept, which seems to be mocking the Moral Majority, is played completely straight, which makes it all the more ridiculous.

Nostalgia can’t bring me to buy either of these albums, and I played both quite a bit when they were new. I can still quote the (awful) lyrics from “Mr. Roboto.” But there are lines that cannot be crossed, so while Duran Duran, Boney M and the soundtrack for Grease get a pass, Styx does not.

Seasons in the Sun, now with more bees

What if the Terry Jacks classic song had been about bees and dying, instead of love and dying?

Bee-sons in the Sun

Goodbye to you, my trusted friend.
We’ve known each other since we were nine or ten.
Together we’ve climbed hills and trees.
Learned of love and ABC’s,
skinned our hearts, got stung by bees.

Goodbye my friend, it’s hard to die,
when all the bees are buzzing in the sky,
Now that the spring is in the air.
Killer bees are everywhere.
Think of me and I’ll bee there.

Had no joy, and got stung, we ran from hornets in the sun.
But the hills that we climbed
were just beehives out of time.

Goodbye, Papa, please pray for me,
I brought the bees back to the family.
You tried to teach me right from wrong.
Too much wine and too much song,
and the bees all stinging strong.

Goodbye, Papa, it’s hard to die
when all the bees are buzzing in the sky,
Now that the bees are in the air.
Children screaming everywhere.
When you see them I’ll be there.

Had no joy, and got stung, we fought hornets in the sun.
But the wine and the song,
like the bees, have all gone.

Had no joy, and got stung, we fought hornets in the sun.
But the honey and the bong,
like the bees, have all gone.

Goodbye, Michelle, my little one.
You gave me love and helped me find the sun.
And every time that I was down
you would always come around
until the bees put me in the ground.

Goodbye, Michelle, it’s hard to die
when all the bees are buzzing in the sky,
Now that the bees are in the air.
With the flowers they don’t care.
Just to sting us here and there.

Had no joy, and got stung, ran from wasps in the sun.
But the houses we could reach
were just wall to wall with bees

All our lives we would run, we faced hornets in the sun.
But the hills that we climbed
Were just beehives out of time….

Okay, that’s pretty bad, but I somehow feel better having written it. Also, I tried to rhyme “reach” and “bees”, which illustrates my mastery of poetry and songwriting.