This one is ‘7 underrated songs.” Already published on MyVinylCountdown.com are 7 underrated artists and 7 underrated albums.
Full story with all the lists plus more will appear on AL.com over the weekend.
Smithereens ‘Behind the Wall of
Sleep’ This is just straight head rock and roll from a great band. But
while the song was played in its day (late 1980s), you don’t hear it much anymore.
It’s as good as rock and roll gets people.
UFO ‘Can you Roll Her’
UFO was called a heavy metal band because of the instant shredding guitarist
Michael Schenker could put forth at any given time. However songs off this
album such as Belladonna and Martian Landscape showed softer, tuneful, side. This
song ‘Can you roll her’ showed both a tuneful touch with the guitar power rock
that was the band’s staple.
Squeeze ‘Pulling Mussels
from a Shell’ This conjures up a summer beach setting, but there’s
something going on behind the chalet? I’m not 100 percent sure what it is or
what it has to do with mussels, but I have long liked the song. (And I love mussels
from a shell).
Tina Turner Better Be Good to Me Tina Turner was a longtime R&B singer with her husband Ike whom she said beat her and abused her. When she broke out in the 1980s with a solo album and the worldwide hit ‘What’s Love Got to Do with It,’ she was a superstar. But while Better be Good to Me was a hit, it seemed overshadowed by others including What’s Love Got to Do with It. ‘Better be Good to Me’ was the stronger song, powerful rock and roll sung by one of the best entertainers ever, who sang from real life pain and passion. Underrated? Many would say no. I say yes it is so.
Steve Harley’s ‘Make me Smile (Come
Up and See Me)’ I discovered this on a British Rock compilation and then
realized I had a live Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel double album obtained at a
flea market that had a live version of the song. What a great catchy song. The
pause for effect part is genius. The acoustic guitar solo is cool. The
over-the-top Dylan imitation is also groovy.
Waterboys ‘Whole of the Moon”
The Waterboys could have been on Underrated Artists list. They put out a really
nice body of water, er, work. Mike Scott was the driver of this band, which did
nice work with a core band that used a lot of violin, saxophones, trumpets and piano
in addition to guitar. Best album is probably ‘This is the Sea’ although I
really like ‘A Pagan’s Place’ as well, which really introduced the band as one
that plays ‘Big Music.’ “Whole of
the Moon,’ with its upfront piano, sounds like a timeless classic. Maybe it
already is.
Lou Reed ‘Strawman’ An angry sing-along about corruption in the world. Lou Reed is not underrated I’d say, but given his long career, he had few radio hits. Radio stations must be afraid of him. Of course there was the anomaly ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ which falls in the ‘Lola’ basket – it may be controversial but it has a tune that just won’t be denied.
TODAY: The Top 7 Most underrated artists in my collection of 678-plus records
I’ll say it out front. This is a list
story.
You know how much news sites love lists.
You know why?
Because you, my readers love lists. This
time we are going 7X7X7.
That means: Three lists, with 7 spots each. I feel lucky. I am starting No. 1 of 3 today on my blog. I will smooth it all into one long story for AL.com by the weekend end.
FRIDAY/SATURDAY: All lists in one story for AL.com
The collection I have been using on my
website, www.myvinylcountdown.com
to raise awareness to my fatal brain disease, Lewy body dementia. As I count them down, I stop now and again to
write something different or pull out a story like this. The rules are simple.
I make the picks. I can’t have any one artist on more than one list. John Hiatt
does not qualify because I wrote an earlier post pretty much anointing him the
most underrated artists of the 1980s.
I will provide links, please listen to the music, especially if you haven’t heard it. When we talk about underrated we are mostly dealing with folks that have lower name recognition but deserve better. But a band of renown could have an underrated song or album, for example. Also worth noting that since these are from my vinyl records, there’s a good chance that most will be older music from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, although there are some exceptions involving cases where I bought new vinyl. So here we go.
The Top 7 Underrated Artists from MyVinylCountdown.com
Tonio K. – Those who know me well won’t be surprised at this choice. Tonio K. aka as Steve Krikorian debuted with Life in the Foodchain, a punky, intelligent tour de force in 1978. It is a legitimate classic with the title song, Funky Western Civilization and H-A-T-R-E-D, <Note language in that song that may be objectionable to some>standing out. The rest of his body of work is excellent as he followed Foodchain with an almost equally angry album “Amerika’ and later some spiritually infused albums with songs like ‘You Will Go Free’ that, with exceptions, deep-sixed the anger — but let fly intelligent, socially conscious music elevated by great writing.
Excerpt:‘ Funky Western Civilization’
They put Jesus on a cross; they put a hole in JFK; they put Hitler in the driver’s seat and looked the other way; Now we got poison in the water; and the whole world is in a trance; but just because we’re hypnotized don’t mean we can’t dance.
(Queue Dick Dale chicken scratch guitar and a river of melodic metal by Earl Slick and Albert Lee.)
(2) 10cc — A British band that walked a fine line between art school pretension and brilliant pop songs. The music is full of biting satire, irony and good playing. The album ‘100cc 10cc’ is a compilation of early songs that is top-notch from top to bottom, including Rubber Bullets and the Wall Street Shuffle. Later they had some well-known singles, ‘I’m Not in Love,’ ‘Dreadlock Holiday’and ‘’Things We Do For Love.’ But they never rose to levels expected given the talent here. They probably lost the cool crowd with the high charting bubble-gummy ‘Things We Do for Love.” They had to pay the rent you know, but some of their work such as the record ‘How Dare You’ experimented with jazzy, multi-layered sophisticated sound and sharp as a stiletto lyrics. Queen, though brasher and more theatrical, was influenced by this band.
(3) War — The band had some hits. Cisco Kid, Low Rider, Why Can’t We Be Friends. Those first two were some of the best songs on Top 40 radio at the time. ‘Friends’ was just kind of a ditty. Those who heard only the radio and didn’t get the albums were missing out on an extremely tight funk/jazz/rock band. I don’t think they ever got their due as true pioneers, perhaps overshadowed by Earth Wind and Fire, Parliament, and Sly and the Family Stone. But they could jam like the best of friends in songs like ‘Smile Happy‘ and ‘Four Cornered Room.’ BTW my two old War albums have terrific sound with a heavy bottom as this music needs.
(4) Gayle McCormick/A Group Called Smith
McCormick had the kind of voice that made you marvel where it came from, powerful as a bullhorn when she sang ballads and straight ahead blues and rock and roll. Despite her obvious break-out talent, with Smith (and a Group Called Smith after legal conflicts with another group — and, no it was not the Morissey group that came much later out of the UK.) The group and McCormick scored big with a song “Baby It’s You,” later picked by Quentin Tarantino to be used in ‘Pulp Fiction.’
She went on to record a couple of albums that are hard to find. I got a used copy of her first solo album which has some decent covers of popular songs such as ‘Superstar’ and ‘You Really Got a Hold of Me.’
The two Smith group albums, however, should be better known. There’s good hard rock and roll on these. Highlights: ‘Tell Him No,’ ‘Last Time,’ Let’s Get Together,’ ‘What Am I Gonna Do‘ and ‘Take a Look Around.‘ Oh and did I mention there’s some nasty organ and dirty horns on these, not to mention a bass player who gets under the songs and lifts..
(5) Peter Himmelman (Solo; Sussman Lawrence)
OK get the ‘newsy’ thing out of the way, his wife is Bob Dylan’s adopted daughter. On to the music which Catherine, my wife, and I would agree has been at many times the soundtrack of our lives — from Mission of my Soul to Rich Men Run the World ; from Woman With The Strength of 10,000 Men‘ to The Boat that Carries Us; From Raina (beloved Raina) to Angels Die.
When Peter learned I had Lewy body dementia, he sent me three vinyls of his music. Listening right now to ‘Fear is Our Undoing.‘ Brilliant song off of the brilliant record ‘There is no Calamity.’ )
A Minnesotan by birth now in California, Himmelman played in an indie band called Sussman Lawrence before going solo. He has been nominated for a Grammy for a children’s album and has written music for several TV shows. His songs are great and I can hear between the notes and words a search for that elusive truth that connects us.
(6) Ronnie Lane (Small Faces, Faces, solo)
Ronnie Lane was an elfin man with a lilting voice that worked to perfection when he was harmonizing, Lane embodied happy music, and yes probably happy hour music. He played his long necked electric bass like he was hugging a woman taller than he was.
The bass player was a founding member of Small Faces and Faces, two highly influential rock bands. ItchyKoo Park and All or Nothing were sizeable hits, at least overseas. And Ooh La La is a classic.
Listen to his music and try not to smile. You’d follow him out to the country side and he would lead like the pied piper to his dilapidated country farm. When Steve Marriott left Small Faces, Rod Stewart joined. Because the band’s name was based on Lane’s and other group members’ stature — they were all under 5-foot-5, they dropped the ‘Small’ when the 6-footer Stewart joined. Faces.
In addition to his fabulous singing and writing and playing with both Faces incarnations, he also had successful collaborations with Ron Wood (Mahoney’s Last Stand) and Pete Townshend solidifying his status as a top-notch collaborator and creator. The songs ‘Stone,’ ‘The Poacher’ and ‘Brother Can you Spare a Dime’ are standouts on his Ronnie Lane’s Slim Chance album, which I have. (I also have Mahoney’s and Rough Mix plus lots of Small Faces and Faces, including the experimental concept album Ogden’s Gone Nut Flake.) The beautiful song ‘Annie‘ was one of the best on his Townshend project ‘Rough Mix. After battling Multiple Sclerosis for 21 years, Lane died in 1997 at 51.
(7)Joseph Arthur (Solo, Joseph Arthur and the Astronauts)
It’s hard to describe this prolific musician other than to say he’s been writing some of the best songs of the millennium. But there seems to be a million of ’em. His latest — or probably not latest at this point — but a recent one teaming up with REM’s Peter Buck. The album, ‘Arthur Buck,’ approaches ear weevil stages at about the fourth listen. It’s good and gets better the more you listen and figure out what’s going on. Arthur has a good two decades behind him. I’ve seen him in concert a couple of times in the SF Bay Area and he’s the real deal. As I said, he has so many great songs including, ‘In the Sun,’ in which he recorded several versions, one featuring REM’s Michael Stipe and the other featuring Coldplay’s Chris Martin — all for Hurricane Katrina relief. Other songs that he’s known for include ‘Honey and Moon,’ ‘Temporary People,‘ and ‘The Smile that Explodes, ‘I Miss the Zoo‘ and ‘Say Goodbye.’ Albums include. ‘Nuclear Daydreams,’ ‘Redemption Son,’ and ‘The Ballad of Boogie Christ.’ He is well worth exploring because even if you run into songs you don’t like if you keep looking you’ll find something that will change your life — or, at least, your week. And one close to my heart, a tribute to Robin Williams.
I found a 31-year-old mixtape playlist made by me in the 1980s recently.
This was a list of songs on one side of the 90-minute cassette. The list below represents the other side.
I don’t have the tape but this list, tucked into the inner folds of my wallet, is eye opening because it chronicles musically a particular time in my life. I will comment briefly on the songs below but first. some background.
I was about 27 or 28 and had left the Birmingham News after five years. I went to work at the Orlando Sentinel. I was living in Leesburg, FL, for my first reporting job at the Sentinel. And that’s where I think I assembled a tape to send to my colleagues back in the Birmingham News newsroom. We had a running game to see who could find the best songs no one had heard of.
I wrote a list of the playlist to keep for myself and I’m not sure why except perhaps anticipating sometime in the future we would open this time capsule and talk about the tape, see how our tastes have changed or rediscover lost music from my past. Prescient, I think I can say in retrospect.
It’ an eclectic bunch of songs heavy on rock, alternative, New Wave, and what we call now Classic rock. I think I made the tape the old fashioned way with vinyl, turntable and cassette deck — although some of these cuts I believe came off CD’s which were starting to get a toehold in the market, and I was an early adopter. I took pride in mixtapes. I still know these songs but some I haven’t played in dozens of years. And some I’m not sure I have or where I got them.
How did it stay in my wallet all this time? I have changed wallets since then but not much. I have a rotating set of wallets and I think I went back to an older one right around the year 2000. The older one had stuff in it that I must have just let ride in wallet — business cards, receipts I think I should keep but don’t really need to.
Here’s my song-by-song thoughts:
Eleventh Dream Day“Rose of Jericho.” Underrated band alternative hard rock with female vocalist. Good band. I actually like. with its rock harmonies, the song “It’s All a Game’‘ better than Jericho.
Dreams so Real “Rough Night in Jericho” another good alt-rock song from the Athens, Ga., scene.
I see I scratched out Green on Red “Zombie for your Love.” Too bad, that’s a good one but I think i had this on CD not vinyl.
Mekons “Club Mekon” I just reviewed this one for My Vinyl Countdown. i have speculated that this was the last vinyl record I bought during this eral
Soul Asylum “Cartoon.” This band received some success on MTV with a song called “Runaway Train” about runaway teens.
Pylon “Stop It” Athens Ga., band tried to catch a ride on the attention brought to the college town by REM and the B-52’s. This one is a real screamer, cathartic for Vanessa Briscoe.
Alex Bradford “Lord Lord Lord” Some good old fashioned gospel.
Darden Smith “2000 Years” And some new fashioned gospel.
Here’s the list for the other side of the cassette:
Flaming Groovies“Shake Some Action.” A garage 1970s band that played music 1960s music. Home base was San Francisco. Camper Van Beethoven covered this great song.
Posies “Golden Slumbers” A band from the Northwest that played tuneful alternative songs with hints of a Beatles/Byrds influence.
Big Star“Ballad of El Goodo” Band that famously didn’t make the big time featuring Alex Chilton who belted out “The Letter” as lead vocalist of the Box Tops when he was only 16.
Blackgirls “Happy” I’m going to have to go back to listen to this one because I have no memory of it.
Love “Alone Again or …” Classic 1960s band and song coming from the classic album “Forever Changes.” Covered by Suzanna Hoffs and Matthew Sweet in one of their covers records.
Quicksilver Messenger Service “Fresh Air” Another California Bay Area rock, a little psychedelic with kick butt guitar playing on this one.
Camper Van Beethoven “Pictures of Matchstick Men.” Cover song of a Status Quo psychedelic-era song. Well done.
Toad the Wet Sprocket “Come Back Down.” Another one I remember nothing about. What’s a wet sprocket?
Lee Michaels had a big hit: Do you know what I mean?
“It’s been 14 days since I don’t know when, I just saw her with my best friend. Do you know what I mean?”
This is strange on several levels.
It’s better than I remember it. I knew I bought it as a teenager for the hit song ‘Do You Know what I Mean.’ It came out in 1971 and I remember turning up the car radio when I was about 12 and living in Indiana. No, I wasn’t driving. (It was in my corning cars heyday.)
As years rolled by I didn’t play this album in its entirety very much. Michaels has a half-decent soulful voice. There’s a drum and a little electric organ (Hammond?). The instrumentation is almost minimalist with the organ shouldering most of the music. And Michaels can play that organ.
Interesting because it doesn’t really feature or sound like most rock bands at the time. There’s a gospel choir on several tracks as Michaels may be showing us where his roots lie. Merry Clayton, the soul belter who made the Rolling Stones’ ‘Gimme Shelter’ send tingles down your spine (in a scary way) makes an appearance on ‘Keep the Circle Turning.’
Well, I’m not going to be the one to give Mozart anything less than a 5. And the sound is good, digitally remastered from newly remixed original master tapes.
So I was on the front row in ’83 and he came out impeccably dressed, running around the stage with a wig and make-up. Wait a minute that’s David Bowie.
But. I never saw Bowie live here. Must have been Roger Daltry of the Who. His long curly blond hair seemed like a wig anyway.
And of course I never saw Mozart alive. It was 1762 when this prodigy was 6-years-old and leaving people talking about the Next Big Thing. The liner notes say this kid from Austria could play any instrument, violin, piano, harpsichord and vocals. Vocals? Never knew that.
He could hear a song he didn’t know and could play it back note-for-note. At 17, he had already written 150 works of ‘incredible variety,’ the liner notes say. After that came 500 compositions, many considered masterpieces.
. But i think I may have to change the wording of my Motown post where I called Michael Jackson’s early work as the best music ever by an 11-year-old performer.
This album was actually played by me many times. And it’s not just easy listening music with its orchestral presentations of grandeur and pomp.
Picking this record up was part of my record buying strategy of getting a sample platter before ordering the entree. After this I joined a Classical music record club and actually have a nice collection of about 30 classical CD’s, wherever they may be.
If you have nothing on the Motown label, this is a great record to get a taste of Motor City’s hit factory. These days, I don’t listen to this much. It was a good primer for me and led me to explore artists. But I’m more likely to pull out an album by Marvin Gaye or my Smokey Robinson two-record set then listen to this hits compilation.
Although if I suddenly have a hankering to hear ‘Keep on Truckin’ –– which does happen sometimes — I’ll grab this one because I don’t think I have that great bit of 70s dance music on anything else.
The ABC album by the Jackson 5 was one of my first full length LPs. And the Jackson 5 song ‘I Want You Back ‘ is the world’s best song led by an 11-year-old lead singer.
You cannot not dance to ‘I Want You Back.’
This two record specially priced set (when it came out anyway) hit some key figures but is hardly definitive.
Of the 20 songs on here Diana Ross (with and without the Supremes) has four slots; Jackson 5 and Michael Jackson have four slots; and Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye have three slots each. The Temptations, Eddie Kendricks, the Commodores and Smokey Robinson and his Miracles round out the list of very familiar (and mostly great) songs.
I think their hits, many from the Boyce/Hart songwriting tandom, sound pretty good. I especially like (I’m not) Your Steppin’ Stone’..
In a 2012 interview, Dolenz described The Monkees as being “a TV show about an imaginary band… that wanted to be the Beatles that was never successful.”
Looking back I find it kind of weird — the show I mean. It was almost like pre-psychedelia TV effects (sped-up action, filming in reverse, the in and out camera lens thing. I’m sure there was some backmaskinggoing on. “Mom, what’s in those Fruit Loops?”
I was about 9 and 10 years old, and a big fan. I remember it coming on about 11:30 and it usually capped off a full morning of cartoon watching. (Superceded sometimes by chores my mother would give us). So end of the Monkees or Johnny Quest would be a signal to the beginning of a long afternoon outdoors. Had to be home by sundown.
This is a trailblazer in mixing orchestral music with rock music.
Here it is the Moody Blues and the London Festival Orchestra conducted by Peter Knight, All molded into a dramatic and pretty song cycle. It was deep music for the 1967 contemplative hippie. To my ears now it sounds like music from the Bambi soundtrack featuring spoken word poet Rod McKeun. Next comes lyrics like: ‘cold hearted orb that rules the night.’
The two album-cut hits are Nights in White Satin and Tuesday Afternoon. I had a hippie foster sister for a while as my parents were helping somebody out of a jam.
Kathy loved the Moodies. The album ‘Question’ is their best in my opinion. Besides the title epic it also had a simple sad refrain called ‘Melancholy Man.’
Samba! Brazilian! bossa nova? Organ music? Slightly psychedelic on the Sergio Mendez platter Gentle Rain.
Sergio was the unusual example of a Brazilian artist whose work was nearly exclusively done in the U.S. And is not all that well known in Brazil, according to Wikipedia. On my anecdotal accounts, there’s a lot of his work sadly sitting in bargain bins. He spent a career introducing Brazilian music to the U.S. and beyond: He’d take a Bacharach song like ‘Do you know the way to San Jose?’ and completely samba-ize it [patent pending, not to be confused with Simonize].
So Walter Wanderly, sometimes billed as Brazil’s No. 1 organist, was on the Gentle Rain album with Sergio and multiple musicians. Of these two I have, Wanderley’s Rain Forest is the one I would purchase. At times it sounds like the organ music played when hockey games cleared the ice between periods. Or mall music, sprightly yet warm. But then you start listening, really listening, it’s like a hypnotic.
Don’t need that second beer. Just flip the switch to Wanderley. It’s electric organ like a banjo always playing bright and happy music, only more soothing. The effect is rolling waves of controlled improv tightly harnessed by song structures.
I’m not kidding, I Iike this a lot. Happy Mall Music or old time skating rink music in 2/4 time it’s its own jazzy thing. There are lots of folks who collect Brazilian music and I can see why. But I can’t get lost down that rabbit hole though. Need to stay focused.
You may have wondered why Wanderley is here in the middle of the M’s alphabetically. It’s because he’s being ushered in along with Sergio Mendes.
