What Cuts Remind You Music is Fun?

[Rudy]

I'm such an avid Joe Jackson fan that it's hard for me to pick a sole favorite (obviously, I love all his biggest hits, especially "Breaking Us in Two," but I'm just as fond of some of his deeper cuts like "Happy Ending" or "One to One" or "Be My Number Two" or "Another World"), but nothing in his catalog is quite as playful and sparkling like "Steppin' Out" is.

There are tracks scattered on some of his albums that are fun or humorous--Look Sharp! has a few also, especially those with a catchy melody (like "Happy Loving Couples").

"Hey, and don't play that piano!" "Cancer" is also a fun track (probably because it hits so close to the truth)...

We might have to do a Joe Jackson thread here soon...

 

[AM Matt]

Besides Split Enz 1980 song "I Got You". Badfinger did a different song called "I Got You" (from 1981 "Say No More").

 

[AM Matt]

The Raspberries "Hands On You" (Scott McCarl & Wally Bryson on vocals) (from 1974 "Starting Over") Also 45 flip side single of "Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)".

 

[AM Matt]

Singer Daniel Boone "Beautiful Sunday" (1972) (extended 5 minutes)

 

[AM Matt]

Bachman-Turner Overdrive "Can We All Come Together" (from 1977 "Freeways").

 

[Mark-T]

Gotta love "September"- EW&F

 

[Harry]

While out and about today, I heard an old song that I hadn't heard in ages and it was fun to hear it. It's "Gold" by John Stewart feat. Stevie Nicks. Now I'm not a huge fan of John Stewart's singing, and Stevie Nicks always seems to be better when she's duetting with someone. This driving steady beat is infectious - and fun.



This song has a zillion misheard lyrics, too. Not being a left coaster, I had no idea it was "drivin' over Kanan" and many of the possibilities are listed here:

Misheard Lyrics

Misheard Song Lyrics, performed by John Stewart and Stevie Nicks. Misheard song lyrics (also known as mondegreens) are instances of when a song lyric can't be understood, and the mind substitues a new word for you.

www.amiright.com

And a lot of people hear "he makes two-fifty for an hour." Supposedly it's makes two-fifths for an hour." I always heard more precisely at "$2.54 an hour."

 

[Rudy]

I think half of Stevie Nicks' catalog is misheard lyrics!

 

[Mr Bill]

Not "real" music per se, but I have stumbled onto some interesting mash-ups created via AI. While I think (deep down) it's practically sacrilegious, It does remind me of the "mash-up" craze from a few years ago. But mash-ups took some degree of skill and mastering of specialized technologies by a person with some degree of musical knowledge to work well. With AI you just say what you want and the computer/AI program do all the work -- A mash-up with no human skill... Are we entering the time of the Markovians*?

Hank Williams covers NWA? Actually sounds good (and is pretty fun)


As a fan of both Frank AND Green Day, I wonder if Frank had lived long enough and covered "Bsket Case" it probably would've sounded much like this...


--Mr Bill
* a reference to my favorite SF series of books by the late great Jack L. Chalker

 

[jfiedler17]

While out and about today, I heard an old song that I hadn't heard in ages and it was fun to hear it. It's "Gold" by John Stewart feat. Stevie Nicks. Now I'm not a huge fan of John Stewart's singing, and Stevie Nicks always seems to be better when she's duetting with someone. This driving steady beat is infectious - and fun.

Great single! I listen to it periodically at home but can't even begin to remember when I last might have stumbled across it on the radio. [It's weird that, as wildly popular as anything by Fleetwood Mac remains on the radio, particularly classic-rock stations, you so rarely come across any side projects that any of the Rumours-era band members sang on and/or even produced - i.e. "Gold," Walter Egan's "Magnet and Steel," Robbie Patton's "Don't Give It Up," former bandmate Bob Welch's "Sentimental Lady" - or, for that matter, any of their solo records other than Stevie's first three singles from Bella Donna or "Stand Back" from The Wild Heart. It's been decades since I heard any of the stations in my area play any of Stevie's post-Wild Heart singles or anything at all from Christine (not even "Got a Hold on Me") or Lindsey (not even "Trouble".)]
I do have two or three of John Stewart's albums but will admit to liking him much better as a songwriter than a vocalist. (He also wrote my hands-down favorite Monkees single, "Daydream Believer," which I listen to even more often than I do "Gold.")
And I agree that Stevie Nicks always seems to sound better when she's duetting with someone. It's not even simply that there's another vocalist there to provide a counterpart, but, for some reason, she doesn't seem to sing in so raspy a fashion when she has a duet partner. Her verse on "Whenever I Call You 'Friend'," for instance, is almost unrecognizable as the same voice from "Edge of Seventeen." But I'm also a much bigger fan of Lindsey and Christine than I am of Stevie (who may have been back in the fold for Say You Will, but without Christine there, that album just felt rather off), so ... I may be a bit biased there.

On another note, speaking of more songs that remind me music is fun, I was reminded of this joyful song the other day that I hadn't heard on the radio in an extraordinary long time and had to go back and put on the turntable when I got home:


This song's just so happy and nostalgic, it's impossible for me not to love it. Gosh, this guy was so underappreciated!!! I so seldom hear his name come up in conversation with fellow music-buff friends of mine, but he made such incredibly tasteful, infectious, and often quite beautiful adult-contemporary 45s during his time - "Cool Night" and "I Go Crazy" being the most well-known, of course, though even those seem to have totally disappeared from FM radio in my area over the last two decades. Even as a little kid, I used to gravitate like a magnet towards any 45 he would put out. In later years, I'd realize he either wrote and/or produced a lot of other songs I loved, like Nigel Olsson's "Dancin' Shoes" and "Little Bit of Soap" (which I like even better than the original Jarmels version), Lorrie Morgan's "Back in My Arms Again," Tanya Tucker's "Down to My Last Teardrop," or Dan Seals' "Bop" (which, in retrospect, I should have known Davis had some involvement with since that chorus sounds like it would have fit right at home on Cool Night had Paul opted to record it himself.) I so miss his songwriting style!

 

[Rudy]

Compiling my 1980s playlist, I remembered that Thomas Dolby had quite a few fun songs in his catalog, things that were off-kilter and sometimes wacky enough to induce a few chuckles. "Europa and the Pirate Twins," "Windpower," "Hyperactive," "One Of Our Submarines," "She Blinded Me with Science"...all good stuff, and quite an imagination to write songs like this.

 

[Rudy]

And decades ago prior to the Calypso craze, Harry Belafonte had a tongue in cheek approach to a song like this, one I grew up with:



The version from his Calypso album is updated with lyrics that are slightly more spicy, at least for later 1950s audiences. "Take her home thinking she's alone/open the door and find her husband home" (as opposed to ..."find her mama home").

 

[Mark-T]

Compiling my 1980s playlist, I remembered that Thomas Dolby had quite a few fun songs in his catalog, things that were off-kilter and sometimes wacky enough to induce a few chuckles. "Europa and the Pirate Twins," "Windpower," "Hyperactive," "One Of Our Submarines," "She Blinded Me with Science"...all good stuff, and quite an imagination to write songs like this.

Always liked "She Blinded Me with Science". And as a Epcot fan, it reminded me of Dreamfinder in the Imagination pavilion.

 

[rockdoctor]

The Art of Noise with Duane Eddy doing Peter Gunn is a great video that was filmed live and they are having so much fun performing.
Another one that feels like fun is Starbuck's Moonlight Feels Right. It sounds like they had fun recording it with the bits of laughter.
Of course, we cannot forget Brasil'66 with Upa, Neguinho.

 

[Moritat]

When I want to have fun, there's always "Tropical Hot Dog Night" by Captain Beefheart!

 

[jfiedler17]

Another one that feels like fun is Starbuck's Moonlight Feels Right. It sounds like they had fun recording it with the bits of laughter.

Oh, I love that one!!! Fun record, I'd agree. (Especially seeing as that you don't run across too many other pop records with vocals that have marimba or xylophone solos on them. Always a fun little twist.) I don't hear that song nearly as much as I wish I did. Underrated band, too. (And also not the one-hit wonder they're so commonly mislabeled as; their song "Everybody Be Dancin'" was a Top 40 hit as well.)

 

[Mark-T]

OK, I'm kind of taken with this song. Perfect 60s girl group pop for today's audience:

 

[AM Matt]

The Monkees "Band 6" (from 1967 "Headquarters") Trying to rip off "Looney Tunes" cartoons!!!

 

[AM Matt]

The Monkees "Zilch" (from 1967 "Headquarters")

 

[Rudy]

Classical can be fun as well, at least for the musically inclined.



The second movement of the Concerto for Orchestra ("Giuoco delle coppie: Allegretto scherzando") is musically fun as Bartók featured instrumental duos (two bassoons, two oboes, two trumpets, etc.) with each playing different intervals. Bassoons play a minor sixth apart, oboes a minor third, etc.

The second movement of Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta ("Allegro") is fun, in the sense that it sounds like a lost soundtrack for a Warner Brothers cartoon. "Kiww da wabbit?" Rabbit of Seville, perhaps? Yeah, I see Elmer Fudd chasing Bugs and/or Daffy around with this playing. It's a dizzying work, and fun to hear the various passages being handed off seamlessly between sections. On a really good system, set up properly, the quality of this 1958 recording is stunning, as you can place the entire orchestra left to right and front to back with depth cues.

 

[Mark-T]

I can so picture the cartoon!

 

[Rudy]

Of all things, I found the playlist of a YouTuber who has just completed restoring a 1982 Toyota Celica Supra--it features 80s songs to go along with the car, which is being given away.

Naturally, there was a track by Huey Lewis & The News, and I'd forgotten what a blast their album Sports was. The videos that went along with the hits were also winners. The News hit a nerve back in 1983--they were a hard-working pub rock band that didn't take itself too seriously.

It's ♥ still ♥ beatin' ♥...

 

[jfiedler17]

Naturally, there was a track by Huey Lewis & The News, and I'd forgotten what a blast their album Sports was. The videos that went along with the hits were also winners. The News hit a nerve back in 1983--they were a hard-working pub rock band that didn't take itself too seriously.

Gosh, those guys were a fun band! (And a tight one, at that. Their live performance on Fridays of "Workin' for a Livin'" is amazing. They extend it beyond the arrangement on the record and throw a bunch of solos in there, but it never sounds the least bit sloppy or self-indulgent and instead just ends up sounding like a hungry band out to prove themselves.) Their records and videos just consistently exuded fun, even in the slower moments. My favorite of theirs is Picture This, which admittedly has fewer hits than Sports but is chock-loaded with surprisingly catchy "filler" like "Giving It All Up for Love," "Tell Me a Little Lie," "Whatever Happened to True Love," and "Change of Heart." The hooks on that album never quite let up.

For not being an A&M band, they're also remarkably closely linked to one: they shared a manager (Bob Brown) with Pablo Cruise and would often crop up on each other's records - Huey co-wrote the title cut of Out of Our Hands; News guitarist/sax player Johnny Colla pops up on that same album on "Talk to Me Right"; David Jenkins would later return the favor by singing backup on Huey's Number One hit "Jacob's Ladder," and TWO separate Cruise alumni would ultimately end up joining the News in later years, John Pierce and Stef Burns.

 

[Rudy]

My favorite of theirs is Picture This, which admittedly has fewer hits than Sports but is chock-loaded with surprisingly catchy "filler" like "Giving It All Up for Love," "Tell Me a Little Lie," "Whatever Happened to True Love," and "Change of Heart." The hooks on that album never quite let up.

"Is It Me" is my favorite on that album, right up there with "Workin' for a Livin'" (which has to be one of the ultimate pub band party songs).

...but it never sounds the least bit sloppy or self-indulgent and instead just ends up sounding like a hungry band out to prove themselves.

I think that is what appeals to a lot of listeners, even if they don't realize it. I know on the Small World album, it felt forced since they were probably trying to reach too hard for another album of hits. But other than that, they've always come across as a band just "doin' the thing" and having a blast doing it, trying to be nobody but themselves.

 

[jfiedler17]

"Is It Me" is my favorite on that album, right up there with "Workin' for a Livin'" (which has to be one of the ultimate pub band party songs).

"Is It Me" is definitely an overlooked gem. Might actually be the best ballad they ever recorded.