Some days I get horrible mashups of bad songs in my head, most recently from watching Todd in the Shadows‘ “One Hit Wonderland” series on yewchoob. Today I’m doing OK. Did you know that the milieu of Tenacious D’s demons and broadswords universe was once a real place, inhabited by people like Ronny James Dio and Judas Priest? Anyway, Judas Priest’s The Sentinel features a demonic revenant doing a throwing knife massacre. I love it.
Also on my mind is Prince’s Kiss. Neil Cicieraga did a remix of it which seems inspired by pure loathing, or perhaps misunderstanding that the funny aspects of the song were originally meant to be funny, and it comes off like he didn’t get the joke – a rare thing for Neil, who is a sharp musical wit. Or it might be that any recognition of Prince’s appeal was soured by his estate’s litigiousness, a trait which may be the reason I can no longer find a link for that.
This morning I was listening to The Sound’s album Jeopardy. I only got as far as the end of “Missiles” before I needed to tend some chore. The lead off track “I can’t Escape Myself” is the best bad self esteemin’ song ever, sad and terrible, but beautiful rock and roll. “Hour of Need” is a great companion to it. Every time I hear those songs I think of the sad goths in my life with affection. “Missiles” doesn’t have the most clever lyrics in the universe, but the late lead singin’ man’s voice elevates it to a passionate expression of frustration we all feel being in a world of nukes and war – shit regular people are nigh powerless to stop.
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The first video on that “one hit wonderland” is Right Said Fred. That song always sounded like Trio’s “Da Da Da” done at cut time. And the video looks like Trio’s members hit the gym, shaved heads and all.
The two oldies albums I listened to today: First, Yellow Magic Orchestra‘s 1978 self-titled debut. At a time when 8bit retro computing is bigger than ever, the instrumental tracks starting sides A and B stop sounding dated. Second George Thorogood’s “Bad To The Bone” (which turns 40 this week). I love 1950s Rock and Roll, and sometimes “hamburgers and beer” music covered in dirt is what you need.
As I mentioned elsewhere, Judith Durham died yesterday, age 79.
You know, I didn’t consider that people would use the comments to talk about songs that they are liking, but that’s a very good use for them. The George T song that pops into my head lately sometimes is One Bourbon One Scotch One Beer, don’t know why. On the 1HW videos, I still haven’t watched the Right Said Fred Video – not doing them in order of current list. The ones that killed my brain were Mungo Jerry and … mercifully I forget the other one at the moment, but I probably shouldn’t have said MJ’s name, like motherfucken Candyman.