Owner: Any Major Dude With Half A Heart URL:http://halfhearteddude.blogspot,.com Join Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 14:12:40 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: MP3 Blog Site statistics:Click here
Music for Bloggers Vol. 5 2008-04-26 12:40:00 Here's more love for blogs I enjoy (or, in two cases, massively enjoyed over the past couple of days, inspiring this installment in an occasional series). As always, if your blog isn't featured, but you think it should be, there will be more music for bloggers. I do enjoy an awful lot of blogs. Please open the links (in the red headings) by right-clicking and opening a new window or tab; I'd Read more:Music
Perfect Pop - Vol. 6 ('60s special) 2008-04-28 07:40:00 Looking over my shortlist for the Perfect
Pop series, I realised that the '60s column was much longer than that of other decades. I guess that pop might have been more perfect in the 1960s than in other decades because it had developed from the raw sounds of early rock & roll, but had not yet acquired that body of experience with which to complicate pop through technical innovation. That's why
Perfect Pop - Vol. 7 (more '60s) 2008-05-01 06:00:00 Here is the second part of the Perfect
Pop '60s Special. I think there are still enough songs for two or three more instalments in this series, with the '70s now having run a backlog.
Lovin' Spoonful - Summer In The City.mp3
This may be the quintessental summer song, at least as far as inner city life is concerned. It captures the claustrophic energy of a baking city; the song harries you,
Great Moustaches in Rock: David Crosby 2008-05-02 08:19:00 A site of Panini football stickers has highlighted some miscalculated experiments in hairgrowth among British football players in the mid-'80s. Check out drawn-on-with-cokey-tache boy Paul, Pablo Escobar, New Romantic Hitler, Old Surfer Hitler and REO Speedwagon Hitler.
These lads might have exhibited regrettable lines in moustaches, but they have also inspired a new series on this blog on the Read more:Great
, David
, Crosby
Intros Quiz - 1983 edition 2008-05-04 14:15:00 Continuing our anniversary theme, we travel back 25 years (oh my! It feels like the day before yesterday). As usual, 20 five-second intros to well-known hits, this time all from 1983. All were hits either in the US or UK. The regular reader will guess correctly that next month, we'll visit 1988.
I will post the answers in the comments section on Thursday. If you really need to know the answer to Read more:Intros
Great Moustaches in Rock: Village People 2008-05-05 15:08:00 Apparently half, or at least two, of the Village
People weren’t gay. One has to admire the putative heteros (with one exception) for not feeling threatened by a whole world thinking that they were homosexual at a time when same sex orientations were obscured even by some of the most flamboyant exponents of camp, by force of rampant homophobia. In the late’70s, Elton John would say he was bisexual Read more:Great
Perfect Pop - Vol. 8 2008-05-09 03:06:00 Here are a few more perfect pop records which brings the number of featured songs up up to 100 (by my rough count).
Stevie Wonder - You Are The Sunshine Of My Life.mp3
This song has been covered a zillion times and by some of the finest singers ever to commit their voices to record (Sinatra, Fitzgerald). And every one of these covers has failed to translate the sweet vitality of the original. Read more:Perfect
The Burt Bacharach Mix 2008-05-11 06:26:00 <!--[if !supportEmptyParas]-->Happy birthday, Burt Bacharach. The great man turns 80 on May 12. To celebrate, here is a mix CD-R of songs by Burt Bacharach and Hal David (right). <!--[endif]--> <!--[if !supportEmptyParas]-->It is probably redundant to deliberate at length about Burt’s life and massive influence, other than to point out how incongruous it is that there were times when it was
Pissing Off The Taste Police With Barry Manilow 2008-05-15 09:30:00 The first time I heard it I nearly fainted from the tectonic plate shift in my worldview. A member of the female persuasion confessed...no, it was not a confession. She said, lust blindingly gleaming in her eyes and reflecting off her rosy cheeks, that BarryManilow
is sooooo sexy. And normal, even attractive women -- not Hausfrau moms and bicycle-riding spinster aunts -- have confirmed the Read more:Police
, Barry Manilow
Great Moustaches in Rock: James Brown 2008-05-17 05:54:00 After a post on Barry Manilow, I think we need to get the funk on! So let's not worry ourselves about the fact that JB went through almost all of his very long career clean-shaven but recall the short period in the mid-70s when he sported a sub-pimp's moustache (to compensate for his tatooed eyebrows, possibly).
Unlike some perpetrators of the 'tache in rock, Brown
quickly discovered that the Read more:Great
, James
, James Brown
Singing actors - Vol. 1 2008-05-24 08:34:00 The release of Scarlett Johannson's album of Tom Waits covers brings into focus again the question of thespians turning to the microphone, a career divergence usually as ill advised as the reverse direction. Here is the first of two mixes compiling vocal performances by actors
, most of them straight efforts at assaulting the hitparades, a selected few performed in character, a couple of them Read more:Singing
Singing actors - Vol. 2 2008-06-01 03:52:00 I am feeling a little guilty: among the many nice comments I’ve received over the past week was one expressing regret that I don’t update this blog more frequently. I think the average rate is a new post every 3-4 days; but just this past week I have been unusually busy at work trying to squeeze into one week what I normally do in three or four (and next week looks no better). So, after a litt Read more:Singing
, actors
Intros Quiz - 1988 Edition 2008-06-03 07:44:00 Another month, another quiz. As always, 20 five-second intros to popular songs from a year, this time 1988. All were single releases in Britain or the US, except one well-known song which was an album track in 1988 but was released as a single a decade and a half later. It is a bit of a classic though, so many should get it.
Some charting clues:
1. Everybody should know that one
2. ibid
3. Big Read more:Edition
, Intros
11 Football songs 2008-06-05 15:14:00 To mark the start of Euro 2008 on Saturday, here are a few random football-related songs
; all unrelated to Euro 2008. A couple are brilliant, some are rather interesting, and a couple are so horrible that any collector of bad music should experience ecstasy at the prospect of adding to their miscellany of horrors.
Luciano Pavarotti - Nessun Dorma.mp3
It is a cruel irony that football suddenly Read more:Football
Beatles - Album tracks & B-Sides Vol. 1 2008-06-08 09:06:00 My nephews, aged 18 and 16, surprised me over Christmas by suddenly taking an interest in the Beatles
, after years of my futile attempts to prod them in that direction. The catalyst for them was the Love album of remixes and mash-ups, which I found interesting rather than exciting. Their favourite tune, played ad nauseam, was Hey Jude; a typical portal kind of songs for people starting to get Read more:Album
, tracks
, Sides
Beatles - Album tracks & B-Sides Vol. 1 2008-06-10 02:10:00 (The Sharebee link I posted yesterday didn't work. I've re-uploaded the mix to trusty old ZShare, and it's working.)
My nephews, aged 18 and 16, surprised me over Christmas by suddenly taking an interest in the Beatles
, after years of my futile attempts to prod them in that direction. The catalyst for them was the Love album of remixes and mash-ups, which I found interesting rather than Read more:Album
, tracks
, Sides
Albums of the Year: 1987 2008-06-11 10:12:00 Some time ago I started a series of my favourite albums of the year, starting with round-ups of the '50s and the years 1960-65. It was a good idea, but the prospect of choosing ten albums from 1966 and writing about them somehow put me off. So I procrastinated in continuing the series. Then, this morning, it hit me: why the compulsion to follow the years in a rigorously tidy chronology? Surely I
Beatles - Album tracks & B-Sides Vol. 2 2008-06-17 09:51:00 This is the 1967-70 mix of Beatles
b-sides and album tracks
(and in one case a demo). The running order is roughly in the order in which the songs were recorded. While in the first mix that was not much of a problem -- the Beatles would often release songs within a couple of weeks of recording them -- it is a bit of a problem with tracks that came out after Sgt. Pepper's. Most glaringly, here Read more:Album
, Sides
Albums of the Year: 1972 2008-06-20 07:12:00 In September 1972 I started school, so I didn't know any of these albums at the time (in contrast to many of the hit singles of that year). Over time, music from all eras has accumulated in my collection, making it possible to compile top 10s for almost every year (though I would struggle to do so for some years in the ’90s). For 1972, it could have been a top 20 of albums I genuinely love. I
Intros Quiz: 1993 edition 2008-07-02 18:27:00 In our five-year interval intros quiz series we reach 1993. As usual, there are 5-7 second intros of 20 songs from that year, for you to guess. I must confess to having cheated a little bit: all were single releases in 1993, as far as I know, except one (number 12), which appeared on an album released in September that year, but didn't come out as a single until 1994. And even then it was not a Read more:Intros
The Beatles - Finally (1981) 2008-07-01 03:33:00 In our alternate Beatles
universe it is 1981. The final Beatles album had been recorded in November and early December 1980 at the Abbey Road studios in London, forcing John to leave his beloved NYC apartment in the Dakota, to which he returned on December 9. The album is released in February 1981.
It had been five years since the release of the previous Beatles album, Alone Again, because John Read more:Finally
Music for Bloggers Vol. 6 2008-06-27 11:16:00 I last bigged up some fellow bloggers two months ago. So I thought I'd showcase a few more today. I made a shortlist, which soon turned into a very long list. I managed to whittle the lot down to 11. But that is too much to handle in the little free time I have right now. So, five now, and the rest within the next couple of weeks. As always, just because your blog has not featured does not mean I Read more:Music
The Beatles - Alone Again (1975) 2008-06-25 21:19:00 Continuing our journey in the alternate universe in which the Beatles
did not break up, we reach the year 1975. As three years earlier, the four members brought their songs together for another double album. Of course, our four friends had grown musically; solo projects and collaborations with other big names had amplified each member’s distinctive style – except, perhaps, for Ringo. But even Read more:Again
On current rotation - June 2008-06-24 14:07:00 I'm not sure if 2008 is turning out to be a good year for music or not. A year ago, new releases by Wilco, Rosie Thomas, Bright Eyes and Brandi Carlile had me very excited. Sky Blue Sky turned out to be my album of the year, and I will be listening to it for many years to come. I'm not sure I've yet discovered my album of 2008, even though there are some albums I really like. But, none as much as
The Beatles - Alone (1972) 2008-06-22 08:28:00 Suspend your disbelief. Imagine, if you will, that the harmonious recording of the Abbey Road album had served to reignite the amity between the four Beatles
. Linda and Yoko became firm friends; George was finally accepted as an equal; Ringo was delighted with all of this and decided that being a Beatle was better than being famous for having been one. Apple Inc. was running well, and a manager
Mandela is 90 2008-07-17 06:03:00 In the late ’80s, the apartheid Security Branch raided my place a couple of times. That sounds more grandiose than it really was: my part in the destruction of the racist regime was minute. The fact that the SB was investigating at all me shows just how pervasive the bastards really were. I also hasten to point out that by the second raid, they had dispatched the intellectual rejects from the Read more:Mandela
Pissing off the Taste Police with John Denver 2008-07-14 06:11:00 The cover of his first Greatest Hits album tells you everything you already think you know about John Denver
. Looking like a feckless country boy (a status he thanked God for in song) dressed up like a scarecrow, wig and all, he does that boyish, goofy laugh which your granny found so reassuring. All that’s missing is the piece of straw clenched between his hick teeth. Released in 1973, the albu Read more:Police
Live Aid: 13 July 1985 2008-07-11 02:41:00 The music was mostly terrible, the artists tended to be self-servingly smug, we had shit seats right at the back of Wembley Stadium, and the legacy of the event is questioned by many. And still, Live Aid ranks among the best days of my life, at least in as far as concerts are concerned.
Indisputably, there were long stretches of tedium, watching wasters like Sting and Phil Collins being
Great Moustaches in Rock: Oates 2008-07-08 09:24:00 The great pantheon of frightful and stupid moustaches is populated by hairy scary guys like these geniuses:
And then there was John Oates
, modelling the porn school reject 'tache with perm combo:
It must have been hard for Oates to play second banana to the King of the '80s Mullet; harder yet if on the LP cover on which Hall & Oates went for the Agnetha and Anni-Frid look, the dude withou Read more:Great
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