Music

[rhfarmer]

My favorite Beatles songs is basically Abbey Road.

Their best full album, in my opinion.

I love The White Album though. I know it's got more filler, but it has some of my favorite songs. And I just like the scope of the project. It has practically every genre of popular music.

Interesting. I'm not terribly familiar with the White Album as a whole, although there are plenty of familiar songs on it. My top 3 Beatles albums are Abbey Road, Revolver and Sgt Pepper's.

I don't really like their early stuff, although I understand it's importance in the rock/pop cannon.

I have a similarly narrow zone with the Stones.

Revolver is the one I don't really like, tbh. It's too straight ahead "rock-y" for me.

The White Album has While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Sexy Sadie, I'm So Tired, Happiness As A Warm Gun, Blackbird, I Will, Julia, Dear Prudence, and Helter Skelter. Those tracks alone would make for a masterpiece of an album.

As for the early stuff, it's best just to listen to the best 1-2 songs from each album. There is a lot of not-great stuff on there. Covers, cheesy originals, bad recordings, etc.

Dear Prudence and Black Bird are two of my all time faves.

 

[rome8180]

I would like to add how fantastic a songwriter Harrison was with the Beatles. Like, nearly all of his songs were stone cold masterpieces.

Unfortunately, John and Paul didn't fully respect him. It's because he developed later as a songwriter. And by that time, John and Paul were already the authors of multiple #1 hits. It was hard for him to break into their circle of trust. So they generally only gave him two songs per album. And they didn't spend a lot of time recording them.

John and Paul also shared a special connection in terms of their personal traumas. Both of their mothers died when they were young. And their sense of humor were similar. George was pretty serious (though he could be funny in interviews).

 

[rome8180]

I think he finally won them over right when they were breaking up. John said his two songs on Abbey Road ("Something" and "Here Comes the Sun") were the best songs on the album. I feel like if they'd stayed together he would have moved into a more equal relationship with them.

 

[rhfarmer]

"I didn't think it would be the last one. And nothing was said to indicate that, at least not to me": Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick on the recording of Abbey Road, track-by-track

RECORDING WEEK 2023: A classic interview with the band's late chief engineer – "You could really see the joy in their faces as they played; it was like they were teenagers again"

www.musicradar.com

@rome8180 check this interview out

 

[rome8180]

"I didn't think it would be the last one. And nothing was said to indicate that, at least not to me": Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick on the recording of Abbey Road, track-by-track

RECORDING WEEK 2023: A classic interview with the band's late chief engineer – "You could really see the joy in their faces as they played; it was like they were teenagers again"

www.musicradar.com

@rome8180 check this interview out

I recently read Geoff Emerick's book, Here, There, and Everywhere. It's entirely focused on his time recording the Beatles. I highly recommend it. It gets somewhat geeky about studio techniques, but not overly so. I've read three books about the Beatles and that was my favorite.

 

[torontoduke]

RIP Robbie Shakespeare.

Legendary musician/producer.

 

[rhfarmer]

Sly and Robbie had their hands in some great, great 80's music. Aside from Black Uhuru, their work on Nightclubbing by Grace Jones is spectacular.

 

[rhfarmer]

 

[torontoduke]

Christmas ruined by people sending me link to the recent Kid Rock song 'Don't Tell me what to do'

 

[TS9]

I've become really intrigued lately by Holly Humberstone. She's only 22 but is pretty musically mature. I guess "indie pop" is the best descriptor for what she does? I dunno. Apparently she's opening later this year for both Girl in Red and Olivia Rodrigo, so she's got a foot in both those worlds. She does the looping thing live, playing guitar and keyboard and a sampler, so she's got some chops in that regard. And a great voice.

 

[rome8180]

I've become really intrigued lately by Holly Humberstone. She's only 22 but is pretty musically mature. I guess "indie pop" is the best descriptor for what she does? I dunno. Apparently she's opening later this year for both Girl in Red and Olivia Rodrigo, so she's got a foot in both those worlds. She does the looping thing live, playing guitar and keyboard and a sampler, so she's got some chops in that regard. And a great voice.

Sort of in the same vein, this was one of my favorite songs of last year. She normally does more of an alt-country thing. But this song makes me very excited for her new album. The other single to come out so far is completely different but equally great.

She played on some talk shows recently. You rarely hear a "pop" song (even "indie pop") with this level of arrangement and harmony.

 

[rome8180]

The singer for this band died. A '60s garage rock cover band is not necessarily my thing, but she had a hell of a voice.

 

[rome8180]

How did I never know that Kevin Love is the nephew of Mike Love of the Beach Boys? I didn't learn that until the podcast I did with Ben Golliver where we got to talking about Pacific Northwest players and he brought it up. How as an NBA/Beach Boys fan didn't I realize that?

 

[aiw]

That is an excellent question

 

[rome8180]

Surprised this band wasn't much bigger than they were. This dude is an incredible singer and their music is extremely catchy despite being complex. I'm guessing it's bad timing. They got together a couple years too late and broke up too soon. They did eventually get back together, but by then it was 2010. Their later music is awesome, but it's definitely straight out of the late 90s.

 

[CK86]

How did I never know that Kevin Love is the nephew of Mike Love of the Beach Boys? I didn't learn that until the podcast I did with Ben Golliver where we got to talking about Pacific Northwest players and he brought it up. How as an NBA/Beach Boys fan didn't I realize that?

I remember when he was being recruited and it was mentioned in practically every article.

 

[rome8180]

How did I never know that Kevin Love is the nephew of Mike Love of the Beach Boys? I didn't learn that until the podcast I did with Ben Golliver where we got to talking about Pacific Northwest players and he brought it up. How as an NBA/Beach Boys fan didn't I realize that?

I remember when he was being recruited and it was mentioned in practically every article.

I didn't follow recruiting until John Wall. I guess as soon as he got to college people must have stopped talking about it, because I never heard it in all my years of watching Cavs games.

 

[torontoduke]

Surprised this band wasn't much bigger than they were. This dude is an incredible singer and their music is extremely catchy despite being complex. I'm guessing it's bad timing. They got together a couple years too late and broke up too soon. They did eventually get back together, but by then it was 2010. Their later music is awesome, but it's definitely straight out of the late 90s.

Ian Thornley is the singer. Really popular late 90s/early 00s Canadian band

 

[rhfarmer]

Like a cross between Triumph and Rush and Saga and Celine Dion with a sprinkle of Neil Young.

 

[rome8180]

Surprised this band wasn't much bigger than they were. This dude is an incredible singer and their music is extremely catchy despite being complex. I'm guessing it's bad timing. They got together a couple years too late and broke up too soon. They did eventually get back together, but by then it was 2010. Their later music is awesome, but it's definitely straight out of the late 90s.

Ian Thornley is the singer. Really popular late 90s/early 00s Canadian band

Yeah, I'm not saying they weren't popular. And they may have been more popular in Canada than here. But they weren't the massive band you would expect. Even looking at their Spotify plays is pretty underwhelming.

I personally had never heard of them, but by 1997 when they came around I was more into punk rock and indie. And then they broke up for a while just a few years later.