So, what have you been listening to lately?

[uwe]

It's funny how these two - Leo & Gilbert - always get lumped together (even by me!). Same era, diminutive frames (though Gilbert is a full five inches taller than Leo - him sitting at the piano you just never really noticed - and not really that small), both pop singer-songwriters, curly/wavy hair.

I like Leo's work too, it's mostly love songs, but that's ok. Never thought the lyrics of "When I Need You" too bad, but then that was an Albert Hammond song (another guy with curly hair!) who was always good with lyrics, his "It Never Rains In Southern California" has a cinemascopic text.

[Pilgrim]

Yes, people suddenly getting offended by a song that's been around for generations.

I do not enjoy the trend of taking music and literature of decades or centuries past and demeaning its worth based on current social standards.  Granted, we feel that we are more enlightened today, but that's not a reason to deny the worth of a creative work that was in tune with the social customs and mores of its time.  Petruchio "tamed" Kate, not vice versa, and they didn't have to go to couples counseling to work it out in a non-gender-biased way.

[Dave W]

I had never heard of Eric Hisaw until today, when a friend who knows him posted on FB that he and his wife had been hit by gunfire in Austin in an apparent random drive-by. She was grazed, he was shot in the calf and will have to miss work until the end of the year.

https://www.erichisaw.com/site/

[westen44]

It sounds like something that might happen in Atlanta.  I hear Atlanta stories maybe more than I'd like. 

[westen44]

Olivia Rodrigo looks like somebody yanked her out of her dressing room before she had completely finished dressing.  Despite that and despite her singing partner (Alanis Morissette) cancelling, she does pretty well here.  After watching that, I watched a documentary about her on Disney+.  She is just starting out but is serious about songwriting.  She said she gets her inspiration from country songs because of their specificity and authenticity.  Her songs, of course, are pop, but not so vapid as is all too common with pop music in general.  There was one song on the documentary that sounded more like rock than pop, but I can't find it now.  I still haven't seen her Tiny Desk Home Concert which was mentioned earlier in the thread, but definitely will when I can. 

[Basvarken]

RIP Terry Hall

[uwe]

Olivia Rodrigo looks like somebody yanked her out of her dressing room before she had completely finished dressing.  Despite that and despite her singing partner (Alanis Morissette) cancelling, she does pretty well here.  After watching that, I watched a documentary about her on Disney+.  She is just starting out but is serious about songwriting.  She said she gets her inspiration from country songs because of their specificity and authenticity.  Her songs, of course, are pop, but not so vapid as is all too common with pop music in general.  There was one song on the documentary that sounded more like rock than pop, but I can't find it now.  I still haven't seen her Tiny Desk Home Concert which was mentioned earlier in the thread, but definitely will when I can. 

I'm too old and too much a fan of Frau Simon for faux panty hose stockings, a mini dress with waist cut-outs and a mannered lascivicous/jailbait delivery (that totally grates with the song) to impress me. Carly was 29 when she wrote and sang that song, Olivia is 19 and has "ex-Disney+ child actor slowly leaving adolescence behind" written all over her. But You're So Vain is a song for a woman, not a girl. Olivia would do a more convincing job covering Tiffany's I Think We're Alone Now, there is a time for everything.

But then even her performance is better than the abysmal guitar solo which sounds like a guitar solo must sound to you if you absolutely hate guitar solos. Noteworthy in its angular unmusicality and tone-deaf string bending, yuk.

I see Steven Tyler in the audience, did he have a day off from rehab?

[westen44]

I'm too old and too much a fan of Frau Simon for faux panty hose stockings, a mini dress with waist cut-outs and a mannered lascivicous/jailbait delivery (that totally grates with the song) to impress me. Carly was 29 when she wrote and sang that song, Olivia is 19 and has "ex-Disney+ child actor slowly leaving adolescence behind" written all over her. But You're So Vain is a song for a woman, not a girl. Olivia would do a more convincing job covering Tiffany's I Think We're Alone Now, there is a time for everything.

But then even her performance is better than the abysmal guitar solo which sounds like a guitar solo must sound to you if you absolutely hate guitar solos. Noteworthy in its angular unmusicality and tone-deaf string bending, yuk.

I see Steven Tyler in the audience, did he have a day off from rehab?

I'm not familiar with Olivia Rodrigo's Disney background.  I took note of her when @Psycho Bass Guy posted a performance by her earlier in this thread.  Considering she seems to be a pop singer, I was a little surprised she did that well on the song.  I read through the comments, and it's clear she is a very polarizing figure.  People seem to like or dislike her immediately.  But I did hate that guitar solo which totally sucked.  I'm not a prude by any means.  But I did think that outfit Olivia Rodrigo wore was unnecessarily risque.  I'm sure it wasn't her idea, but I'm also sure she might have suggested that she be allowed to wear something a little more refined.  Prior to @Psycho Bass Guy's post, I actually had watched a few minutes of her documentary on Disney +.  But it was only much later that I finished watching all of it.  I did know who Olivia Rodrigo was, but just barely. 

I'm rarely around my friend who is the Aerosmith fan.  So I don't much keep up with anyone in the band, although I do like Tom Hamilton and Brad Whitford.  I don't have much use for anyone else in the band.  So I didn't pay much attention to Steven Tyler being there. 

BTW, I forgot to add something.  I mentioned Alanis Morissette.  But I ran across more details after that.  She was supposed to be there singing with Olivia.  She even rehearsed with her.  But at the last minute she cancelled, saying the production team was sexist and disrespectful.  That left Olivia Rodrigo with a sudden added responsibility of doing everything herself.  I thought she handled it like a trouper.  You could tell she was a little unsure about things, especially, of course, her vocals.  But I think she came out pretty smoothly. 

[Psycho Bass Guy]

I don't like "You're so Vain" anyway. (The melody always makes me think of "Two Outta Three Ain't Bad" which has a less stilted structure, like Meatloaf heard it and "fixed" it a few years later.) It's definitely NOT a song suited to Olivia, but she did better with it than I expected. Her album is basically a giant middle finger to an ex that was older and dumped her, so I'm sure that's where the idiot producers got the idea to recast her as Carly Simon against an older "anonymous" suitor who spurned her. Likewise for Alanis, whom I imagine would do even worse with it. Dave Coulier is no Warren Beatty. If nothing else, Olivia was a professional. Gotta give it to the mouse; his graduates are seldom slackers. And yes, that guitar solo was awful. Not too crazy about the horns either. That's not a song that calls for bombast.

Her wardrobe choice is pretty consistent with how she is dressed for awards show performances lately and it looks like to me that her image consultants are trying to offset her small chest while still trying to show it off. Or she could just be a 19 year old who knows she is pretty and likes to show off her body. Her sex appeal doesn't sell me anyway. I like her voice and attitude. I expect that she's got some great music in her future. Here's her video that I like so much:



..and it's even funnier in the context of the Beavis and Butthead episode which featured it.



I absolutely cannot see the original video and not laugh now.

[uwe]

For the record: It wasn't the notes Olivia sang or did not sing (she did fine in that department), Olivia probably has a better range than Carly ever had, who wasn't the most athletic female singer on earth even in her heyday (she just had a pleasant voice with a nice timbre). Olivia basically sang the song phonetically - she might as well have sung Sweet Home Alabama without knowing what "Neil Young", "Southern Man", "the governor in Birmingham" and "Watergate" mean. I don't think she had any grasp of what the words

You had me several years ago when I was still quite naive
Well you said that we made such a pretty pair and that you would never leave
But you gave away the things you loved
And one of them was me
I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee clouds in my coffee

feel like to a grown woman who meets a former lover years later, that mix of wistful longing and kicking yourself for ever having succumbed to the guy's charm.

Whether Olivia also has a nice voice (like Carly), I can't really tell from her "Paramore meets Taylor Swift with a generous dose of Britney"-vid and the overproduced audio track. And tell me, liebe Amerikaner, is being a cheerleader (or not being one) still such a national obsession with you as all these vids featuring young women artists seem to indicate?  In the Year Of Our Lord 2022, it strikes me as something so archaic and wholly untouched by the feminism discussion of recent years and decades (which wasn't all bad, you know), I kind of wonder and scratch my head. Playboy Bunny and flight attendant have gone somewhat out of style as career choices for women, but the cheerleader really seems to hold on fast. What would only Daria & Jane say?!

[uwe]

RIP Terry Hall

63 is young - may he not rest in peace, but dance the skank in blissful trance forever.

I've never been a Ska guy, but The Specials even I could appreciate - if perhaps not for the duration of a full album! Ska elements can sound great to spice up a song like here at 0:52 ...



but to me it's a spice to be used sparingly.

[uwe]

I was wondering why Carly didn't show up at her RRHoF induction (she intended to). Now I know:

In October 2022, Simon lost both of her sisters to cancer within a day of each other. Joanna Simon died on October 19, 2022 from thyroid cancer and Lucy Simon died the following day from metastatic breast cancer. Her brother Peter Simon previously died from lung cancer on November 18, 2018.

Talk about a devastating personal tragedy.

[Dave W]

Charlie Gracie has passed at 86. One of the earliest white rockers and maybe the first from Philadelphia. Always seen with his big Guild X-350. He became a footnote here but he did an annual UK tour for many years.

On Ed Sullivan, 1957



London, 2017

[Dave W]

I can relate to the lyrics.



Add a little cowbell and it's reminiscent of this.

[uwe]

Are you missing the New Braunfels sun, lieber Dave?









These guys are pretty darn good, Dave has Winter depressions and I get to discover an excellent new band!

But I know how you feel, by the time we have January/February, I'm always starved for UV light here too and lap it up with the first rays like some drained lizard.