Favorite Music Friday: Beastie Boys

A much-delayed tribute to Adam Yauch. Thanks for all the great music, MCA... and thanks to Nathanial Hörnblowér for the excellent videos.

Music from my D&D years

A special Thursday edition of Favorite Music Friday: embedded below are videos for a few songs I remember on the radio or on MTV while playing Dungeons & Dragons -- or reading the rulebooks, or flipping though issues of Dragon -- during my high school years. I distinctly remember hearing the last song in this list on the radio during the first (and so far only) time I played the AD&D Battlesystem mass combat rules.











Ratt - Round and Round (this one can't be embedded) http://youtu.be/0u8teXR8VE4

Favorite Music Friday: "Every Breath You Take"

In this edition of "Favorite Music Friday", I want to spotlight one of the great songs of the '80s. This is a song that I wanted to talk about eventually, but the subject came up recently. Two weeks ago, in fact, when we were talking about The Police before the LV game.

I have many favorites, whether it's music, or books, or movies, but I haven't made the conscious decision to list any of them in order, as a "top ten" or "best of", or sort them out in that way. There are usually so many greats to choose from that it's difficult for me to narrow it down. At some point I'll post about my favorite movie, The Maltese Falcon, but that list gets scattered after #1.

One that I'm sure of: "Every Breath You Take" is my choice for the Best Pop Song of All Time.

I know, it's a song about a stalker. Sting himself has said that it's "very sinister and ugly". I understand that. However, musically, it's beautiful. The video is elegant in its simplicity.

Having said that, I actually like my runner-up choice better: "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic". The only reason "Every Breath You Take" edges it out is because it was a bigger commercial hit.

As a film buff, I love that it's obviously shot using film. There's speckles and pops, and a film tear at 0:15 seconds into the video:

At the first listen, it's deceptively simple. In the video the band does a silly dance in the recording studio. But when you really listen (headphones, not earbuds), there's a great deal going on in the song -- the layers, the changes. What I mentioned before, about the music telling a story, is found here. It really brings up a host of emotions for me.

I wanted to include the "official" MTV versions of these videos, but their player is very jerky and stops to re-buffer. Here are the links; you may have better luck:

http://www.mtv.com/videos/the-police/18169/every-breath-you-take.jhtml#artist=1143

http://www.mtv.com/videos/the-police/9671/every-little-thing-she-does-is-magic.jhtml#artist=1143

Favorite Music Friday: "Come Dancing"

This is a special Sunday edition of "Favorite Music Friday." I had planned to spotlight this song eventually, but I was reminded of it last night.

"Come Dancing" is among my favorite songs of the 80s, and my favorite song by The Kinks.

Even though there is a touch of sad nostalgia in it, which could be read as a corresponding "loss of innocence", I don't see it as sad and melancholy. Overall there's a feeling of optimism in the song; looking back at past good times, but also a celebration of those days and the present, from the organ notes at the beginning to the brass section that cranks up near the end. I love the sound of an organ and brass instruments in rock songs.

Being a fan of all things British, too, I love this look at a slice of post-war life in England. The song takes on added meaning when you find out that there was a ballroom dancing competition show on the BBC named "Come Dancing" -- I didn't know until now.

When Mrs. Kaiju and I were at Borders yesterday, I flipped though an new book by the Onion A/V Club titled Inventory, a book of pop-culture lists. I was pleased to see that they recognized "Come Dancing" in their list of "Songs That Work As Short Stories". This will be a topic I come back to, but I love songs that tell a story, whether that's literally through the lyrics, or sonically when the actual music takes you on a journey.

Favorite Music Friday

Welcome to the first of what will hopefully be an ongoing regular feature here at Kaijuville. Partially to keep track of these things, partially because of feeling nostalgic recently, and inspired by VM's New Wave Saturday posts, I thought I'd offer up a few of my favorite songs along with some commentary about them and what they mean to me. It might be the song itself, or maybe an association with something else at the time. Our opening act is Pat Benatar from 1982:



Great song, but I also like the World War II "commando raid behind enemy lines" storyline. I can't resist any story about sneaking into Nazi castles (see also Where Eagles Dare or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). Bonus movie trivia: look for Judge Reinhold at 0:58.

The other thing going on here is something that I'll elaborate on further later, but for now I'll just mention the idea of seeing what people were nostalgic about at that time. I remember a general vibe of '40s and '50s nostalgia in the early '80s, probably started by American Graffiti and Happy Days in the 1970s.