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Re: Opinion question thread

Question 1 : "I want you"/"Here comes the sun"/Because"/"You never give me your money"

Question 2 : "Cools for cats" - Squeeze

Question 3 : "The funeral" - Band of Horses

Question 4 : "I talk to the wind" (the flute solo) - King Crimson

Re: Opinion question thread

3. "Suicidal Thoughts", The Notorious B.I.G. The harrowing final track on READY TO DIE, presented as a late-night phone call by a down-and-out Biggie to an increasingly frantic pal, ending with a gunshot. Would be just as powerful even if Mr. Smalls was still alive today.

4. Serious answer this time: Eddie Jobson's phased electric violin solo at the end of Roxy Music's "Out of the Blue." Takes an already great track and hyperdrives it into one of the most exhilarating performances on record.

5. Whenever I buy a jazz album from the Sixties, if I see that either Freddie Hubbard (trumpet) or Eric Dolphy (alto sax, flute & bass clarinet!) played on it I look forward to listening that much more. Hubbard is pure excitement, often blasting more notes in one solo than Miles did on entire albums, while Dolphy is just otherworldly. Sometimes after a Dolphy solo, you can almost picture the other musicians staring at each other and thinking "... the f--- was THAT?!?"

New contribution: Name a really bad song on an otherwise great album. (Skits on hip-hop albums don't count, since they're always bad.)

Re: Opinion question thread

I think that "Fitter Happier" is terrible on OK Computer. Of course, some people tend to disagree.

Re: Opinion question thread

Question 1: “Mother’s Nature Son” / “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey” / “Sexy Sadie” / “Helter Skelter”. Nice contrasts here.

Question 2: In the White Album too: “Martha My dear” (it was about Paul’s dog).

Question 3: Lou Reed “The Bed” tied with Scott Walker “My Death” (or Jacques Brel “Ma mort” if you want).

Question 4: Mick Garson’s piano solo in David Bowie’s “Aladdin Sane” tied with Mel Collins flute solo in King Crimson’s “Cadence and Cascade”

Question 5: Eric Clapton from 1965 to 1970. Let’s see: The Yardbirds, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, Cream, Blind Faith, Delaney & Bonnie, Derek & The Dominos (and many other collaborations including “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”)

Question 6: “Saturn” in the excellent Stevie Wonder’s “Songs in the Key of Life”

Re: Opinion question thread

Honorio, "Saturn" is one of my very favorites on Songs in the Key of Life!

Re: Opinion question thread

So sorry, I find it overblown and pompous. A matter of tastes I suppose...

Re: Opinion question thread

1. MMT has been mentioned and Harold identified my favorite sequence from Revolver, so I’ll go to side 2 of Abbey Road, even if it is cheating:

Sun King/Mean Mr. Mustard/Polythene Pam/She Came in Through the Bathroom Window

(It would be almost as good to start with “You Never Give Me Your Money,” but I’d rather keep “Polythene Pam” and “Bathroom Window” as a unit.)

2. “Rock Lobster,” B-52’s
3. “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out,” The Smiths
4. Cannonball Adderley on “Freddie Freeloader,” Miles Davis
5. Let’s see, how about…Bootsy Collins’ work with everyone from James Brown to P-Funk to Deee-Lite.
6. Here’s an odd pick: I don’t think much of “Fire” on Are You Experienced.

My contribution:

7. Best cover version by a singer of a different gender than the singer of the original.
Besides Aretha’s “Respect.”

(Mine is Fun Boy Three’s cover of “Our Lips Are Sealed.”)

Re: Opinion question thread

Honorio, excellent picks, I second Mick Garson!

With Saturn, I couldn't figure out how it sounded. So I listened to it on the web and found that it sounded unknown to me as well. I picked up my LP (a collector's album including a bonus record and a 24-page lyric booklet, envious anyone?) and it turned out that "Saturn" wasn't on the original 2-LP, but on the bonus record (that I've probably never listened to, I guess I'm just a collector...!?).

Anyway, the best 4 Beatles songs in a row are Martha My Dear - I'm So Tired - Blackbird - Piggies (with songs stretching over both sides of an LP I would go with Dumbangel's answer though) and no other songs ruin a great record more than "Yellow Submarine" and "Dr. Robert" from Revolver.

Re: Opinion question thread

"Question 2: In the White Album too: “Martha My dear” (it was about Paul’s dog)."

Nice


6. Revolution 9. Although Henriks suggestion of Yellow Submarine is a great suggestion. How did that song get so famous? :/

7. Joan Jett - I Love Rock n Roll

Re: Opinion question thread

Thanks, Henrik, Garson solo is awesome.
About “Saturn” two things: I didn’t know that it wasn’t in the original album (it seems that it was part of an additional EP but in the CD edition that I own the EP songs were added at the end of every CD) and maybe I’ve been too harsh (after all the song is quite charming and, according co-author Mike Sembello, initially it came from a mistake, he typed “Going Back to Saturn” when Stevie was singing “Going Back to Saginaw”, his hometown).
So I change it by “Ngiculela – Es Una Historia – I Am Singing” from the same album (I can’t stand these cheap-hotel lounge keyboards).

Re: Opinion question thread

Schleuse -

You get points from me for picking Bootsy... don't forget his own Rubber Band, which makes for some fun listening. I wasn't thinking about him when I asked the question, but I think I'd have to go along with your pick.

But you lose points from me for mentioning "Fire," which is my favorite song by the Experience. In large part because it is a track where they really sound like a cohesive band, rather than Jimi and his sidemen. And I like "Dr. Robert" also. My pick...

6. "That Was Your Mother" on Graceland

7. "Jolene" by the White Stripes

Re: Opinion question thread

7. "It's My Party", from Bryan Ferry's "THESE FOOLISH THINGS". He doesn't change the lyrics, which turns the song from a teen love-triangle lament into an anthem of wounded-but-defiant gay pride.

Re: Opinion question thread

Schwah, I admit "Fire" wasn't a great pick--it's not a "really bad" song, just one I don't care for.

Perhaps I should have stuck with my initial impulse, which was to name "Theme from Retro" from Blur's s/t. That one IS a really bad song--a baggy, gormless slog which I think is the only thing that keeps the album from being flawless.

The only reason I didn't use that is that it would have felt like cheating, since I probably hold that album in higher esteem than anyone else here.

Re: Opinion question thread

1. I'm So Tired - Blackbird - Piggies - Rocky Raccoon

2. Georges Brassens : "Le Gorille", or how a judge that just sentenced a man to death is raped by a gorilla

3. Blind Gary Davis : "Death Don't have No Mercy"

4. Robert Wyatt : "Sea Song" (vocal solo)

5. French artist encore : Serge Gainsbourg, for everything he wrote for others

6. « Something In The Way » : i don’t like that song, it drags its feet on the floor

7. Bessie Smith : "The Saint Louis Blues" (original by WC Handy)

Re: Opinion question thread

1. I'm not the right person to answer this!

2. Patti Smith- "Land"

3. Prince- "Sometimes It Snows in April"

4. Someone already mentioned Garson's piano solo on David Bowie's "Aladdin Sane", so I'll go with the synthesized saxophone solo of Roxy Music's "If There Is Something".

5. Music video director David Fincher

6. Yazoo- "I Before E Except after C" on Upstairs at Eric's

7. Sinead O'Connor- "Nothing Compares 2 U"

New contribution: What do you think of Prince's Lovesexy album?

Re: Opinion question thread

The 'best' songs I would have to put way more thought into than I have time for right now, so I'm going to jump around.

Best about death: Neil Young - Tonight's The Night
Bad song on good album: Beatles - O Bla Di

Best song heavily involving animals: Out of songs that jump to mind right at this present moment, Blitzen Trapper - Furr.

Best cover of a song by a different gender singer: Fairport Convention - Million Dollar Bash

My contribution: Best song you'd hesitate to admit you like.

Re: Opinion question thread

Best song about death : LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great
Bad song on good album : #1 on Strawberry Jam
Best song heavily involving animals : i don't know if bulls on parade and war pigs can be considered as involving animals, so I'll take TV on the Radio's Love Dog, one of my favourite songs of 2008
Best cover of a song by a different gender singer: Electrelane - the Partisan (leonard cohen cover)
Best song you'd hesitate to admit you like : Gunther - the ding dong song

New question : Is there a song which is the most acclaimed of its album while you consider it as the worst (or your less favourite) of the album ?

Re: Opinion question thread

Time for a bump... this was a fun topic for a bit.

I'll take the last three questions that killed the thread:

Opinion of Lovesexy: Don't kill me Moonbeam, but I have yet to listen to it. It is truly one of the most awe inspiring album covers of all time, though.

Best Song I Hesitate to Admit I Like: There have been periodic discussions of the "guilty pleasure" on this forum, and whethr such a term should exist. I'll admit to hiding my enjoyment of Train's "Drops of Jupiter" though. I already feel like I should not have admitted that.

Most acclaimed song on album that I think is among the album's worst: Title track to "Sign 'O the Times"


Okay, and I've got new questions for 2010:

a) What's your favorite song extolling or honoring a specific politician?

b) What's your favorite song decrying or vilifying a specific politician?

Re: Opinion question thread

Schwah
Best Song I Hesitate to Admit I Like: There have been periodic discussions of the "guilty pleasure" on this forum, and whethr such a term should exist. I'll admit to hiding my enjoyment of Train's "Drops of Jupiter" though. I already feel like I should not have admitted that.


I kind of like "DoJ" too, Schwah, if only for the best pronunciation of "atmosphere" since Patti Smith.

I have a soft spot for certain cheesy hits of the alt-rock era, like "Inside Out" by Eve 6 ("I would swallow my pride/I would choke on the rinds/But the lack thereof would leave me empty inside") and - shudder - Third Eye Blind's "Semi-Charmed Life."

Ke$ha's inescapable current smash "Tik Tok" is, of course, pure horrorshow (and not in the CLOCKWORK ORANGE sense, either), but I can't turn it off. Maybe because of its rampaging awfulness, maybe because of her sheer ballsiness - but probably mostly because there's something refreshingly bizarre about a young woman in the year 2010 invoking Mick Jagger as her benchmark of sexiness. WTF?!?

Schwah
Okay, and I've got new questions for 2010:

a) What's your favorite song extolling or honoring a specific politician?

b) What's your favorite song decrying or vilifying a specific politician?


a) Hmm. Hard to come up with one, since most songs about politicians come down hard on the b) side of that equation. Maybe the Byrds' cover of the folk standard "He Was a Friend of Mine", rewritten as an elegy to JFK.

b) No shortage of riches here. I'll go with Stevie Wonder's matched pair of barbed anti-Nixon anthems: the smooth stiletto of INNERVISIONS' closing track "He's Misstra Know-It-All," and the more overtly angry "You Haven't Done Nothin'", a #1 hit from FULFILLINGNESS' FIRST FINALE.

Re: Opinion question thread

Honorio
About “Saturn” two things: I didn’t know that it wasn’t in the original album (it seems that it was part of an additional EP but in the CD edition that I own the EP songs were added at the end of every CD) and maybe I’ve been too harsh (after all the song is quite charming and, according co-author Mike Sembello, initially it came from a mistake, he typed “Going Back to Saturn” when Stevie was singing “Going Back to Saginaw”, his hometown).
So I change it by “Ngiculela – Es Una Historia – I Am Singing” from the same album (I can’t stand these cheap-hotel lounge keyboards)


I always enjoyed Saturn and thought that Ngiculela – Es Una Historia – I Am Singing was at least passable. As I recall, Saturn and perhaps All Day Sucker were included in the original vinyl version of Songs in the Key of Life as a separate record having the dimensions of a 45 rpm record. I'm not sure, but I think you played the separate record at 33 rpm.