Old Music Tuesdays: The Beatles 1968

by Bob Boilen

Long before MySpace, there were fan clubs. You could send a letter, maybe using a coupon in a teen magazine, to sign up. One benefit of signing up might be a free record.

They were usually flimsy discs about as thin as a magazine page. From 1963 to 1969, The Beatles sent a Christmas message to their fans on one of these flexidiscs. The idea came from Tony Barrow, a press officer for The Beatles, who thought it was a great way to deal with the thousands and thousands of pieces of mail the band would receive.

Listening to all the holiday messages, you can hear the arc of the band. This one, from 1968, marks the first time they did the messages separately. It also includes Paul McCartney's "Happy Christmas," John Lennon's "Jock and Yono" poem and Tiny Tim's rendition of "Nowhere Man."

What a hoot!
Happy Holidays

11:08 AM ET | 12-18-2007 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post

 

Old Music Tuesdays: Best Novelty Song?

by Bob Boilen

I was digging through my 45 collection and found this.
I won't spoil it for you, just listen.

I love a good novelty number, how about you?
Got a favorite?

6:00 PM ET | 12-11-2007 | permalink | comments (11) | e-mail post

 

Top Five Most Embarrassing Songs on My iPod:

by Robin Hilton

Fellow NPR Music producer Stephen Thompson says there's no such thing as "guilty" pleasures when it comes to music. Anything we like, no matter how sappy or vapid, is simply a pleasure. That said, if anything ever happens to me, these are the five songs I'd like a close friend to delete from my iPod before anyone at NPR finds them:

1. "All By Myself" by Eric Carmen: Coworkers say I'm dead inside and don't have a sentimental bone in my body. The truth is, I'm a "sensi" and still cry every time I see E.T. I think this song rules.

2. Theme to E.T. The Extra Terrestrial: John Williams wrote the soundtrack to my youth. As such, I find his music very evocative. If this track pops up, I'm back in the theater, scrunched in my seat with wide eyes. All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen loathes John Williams. But we'll save that for another post.

3. "The Crawdad Song" by Andy Griffith: Andy Griffith was another childhood hero. The sheriff without a gun! Every now and then he'd serenade a girlfriend with his guitar, or the Darling family (played by real-life bluegrass band The Dillards) would come down from the mountains for a jam session. I thought the music was pretty awesome. So I bought this collection of Andy Griffith hits.

4. "Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins: Honestly I don't know how this one ended up on my iPod.

5. "I'm Not in Love" by 10cc: I think I read about the ridiculous origins of the band's name and subsequently downloaded this song from iTunes. The truth is, no matter how cheese-tacular this song is, it's a pretty remarkable studio feat. Recorded in 1975, the track includes multiple choral overdubs by the band, each singing the same, continuous note, creating a total of 256 voices. This was obviously before computer sampling and loops.

Runner Up: "Logical Song" by Supertramp. So embarrassing it might actually give me street cred by having it on my iPod

Second Runner Up: "Freedom" by George Michael. He was everything I hated about '80s pop. Then he released this song in 1990 and I couldn't believe how much I loved it. I still can't believe how much I love it.

Sigh.

Consider this a tree of trust where you can confess everything. What do you hope no one ever finds on your iPod?

1:04 PM ET | 12-10-2007 | permalink | comments (36) | e-mail post

 

The Year's Best Album Covers

by Justin Fernando

As the All Songs Considered intern, I've spent the past three months filtering through bins of CDs for use on the show, and on Second Stage. I've seen tons of great and intriguing artwork and also some horribly ugly artwork. Robin Hilton and I have discussed this a few times, and agree there's a direct connection between an artist's album cover and their sound, and usually can tell what a CD will sound like just by looking at the artwork.

One of the first albums I remember purchasing solely because of the cover was Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation. It featured a photo of a single, lit candle in a dark room. It seemed so mysterious to me I had no choice but to buy it and find out what this music was about. The album ended up introducing me to a whole new level of weirder, more challenging music.

First impressions are critical when going through CDs. Maybe it's all in my head, but I'm usually drawn more to albums that look cool as well as sound cool. If it doesn't look good, I'm less inclined to listen.

So, it makes sense that some of my favorite albums from 2007 also had some pretty awesome artwork. My top ten album covers of the year:

Deerhunter: Cryptograms


Yeasayer: All Hour Cymbals


Chromatics: Night Drive


Of Montreal: Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?


David Shrigley: Worried Noodles


Sunset Rubdown: Random Spirit Lover


Justice: Cross


Battles: Mirrored


Gui Boratto - Chromophobia


Animal Collective: Strawberry Jam

3:54 PM ET | 12- 7-2007 | permalink | comments (8) | e-mail post

 

In Under the Wire

by Robin Hilton

Every year while compiling a list of the year's best CDs there's inevitably a gem I completely miss... and kick myself for missing. Last year it was Shearwater; in 2005 it was the Shout Out Louds. Arcade Fire's Funeral would have been my number one CD for 2004 if I'd heard it earlier. Same with Juana Molina's Segundo in 2003.

This year, I'm hoping I avoided a painful miss by being lucky enough to hear, at the 11th hour, a band called Le Loup. They released an album in September, but I only heard it a week ago... and immediately loved it. The more I've listened, the higher it's crept up my list for the year's best.

If you like Animal Collective or Panda Bear or any other band that shreds traditional pop and rock formulas (and reassembles the pieces in startling arrangements), then you'll love Le Loup. Their CD is the so-obviously titled, The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly.

You can hear the cut "Planes Like Vultures" from our recent Second Stage profile of the group.

10:48 AM ET | 12- 5-2007 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post

 

Old Music Tuesdays: The Move

by Bob Boilen

They were one of my favorite bands in the early '70s. They were big in England, but finding their music in the States wasn't easy. Fortunately, I was the import buyer at a record store back then.

The Move had that Beatles-y British pop sound I loved so much. I liked their music best when it got a lot heavier, however. That's about the time Jeff Lynne joined the band. You probably know/love/hate Jeff Lynne from ELO or the Traveling Wilburys. I knew his music from a group called the Idle Race, and like The Move, they were another Birmingham pop band with a love for The Beatles.

The song I'm playing here is from the final Move LP called Message from the Country. I've always thought of this song as a cry for help from Mother Nature, but I'm not sure.

It is steeped in the sounds of "Paperback Writer," and while I keep bringing up The Beatles here, the group was a bundle of original talent. The three core members went on to create Electric Light Orchestra, and their first record was brilliant. Roy Wood's next band Wizzard would turn out to also be a bit of genius and the most densely produced rock 'n' roll I can think of. I'll save that for another Old Music Tuesday.

11:34 AM ET | 12- 4-2007 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post