Re: Era of Perfect Singles
Great thread, Barry. I've always been mystified by the fact that my musical taste was shaped, in large part, by a complete stranger via 45s. When I was very young, one of my Dad's good friends distributed 45s to the jukeboxes around town. Before I can really even remember, I, apparently, used to play the hell out of my older siblings' records and this guy thought it was cute that such a little kid dug music so much. So he gave my Dad piles of extra singles and I used to play them all over and over again. Two of the ones I remember liking early on -- and I still have them at home -- are Glen Campbell's version of Wichita Lineman and CCR's Travelin' Band (w/ Who'll Stop The Rain on the flipside). Going back thru that stuff now, I'm amazed at the diversity -- Brenda Lee, Elvis, Tommy Dorsey, Marvin Gaye, and gimmicky stuff like Chopsticks, Rag Mop and The Ballad of Snoopy the Red Baron. Mainly, I remember digging Travelin' Band like nothing else. Like Joe describes with Like A Rolling Stone, the beginning kicks in like thunder and you're off for a 3-minute thrill ride. And I suppose Fogerty screaming "waah" before the guitar solos appealed to the three-year-old me as well. Another cool singles memory is of being in the seventh or eighth grade and having my pal Ernie come by with singles by some weird new guy named Prince (When You Were Mine and Controversy, I think). Dave *** Dave Purcell, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Northern Ky Roots Music: http://w3.one.net/~newport Twangfest: http://www.twangfest.com
RE: Era of Perfect Singles
Ah yes: A battered van careens westward bound; headaches abound, sleeping bag over my head to escape the smoke and the insistent chatter from the front seats, driver punching the radio tuner again and again as 90's crap-rock, depressing, moronic and slack-jawed beats relentlessly,overwhelming the dial, the bluegrass station having faded. Suddenly, a bright crackle of jangly guitars, and in the millisecond before dumbass changes the station, my brain scans the riff, the sound of a million songs, I just know it's one I want to hear, then the vocal, and me and the other old guy bark: "Hey the Rasberries, don't change the station". One of them perfect singles "I Wanna Be With You" and for the next 2 minutes and fifty seconds, that old van, dangerously on its last legs, with plates from another car and no registration, (as the PA cops discovered and 3/4's of the band! but that's another story) was a good place to be, and the sleeping bag came off the head and I lived a little...
RE: Era of Perfect Singles
The "era of the single" died when they stopped making 45's, IMHO. The switch to those horrid little cassette's in the mid 80's and then the "cd single" killed the single. I know, I know, a single is a song released to radio, but who cares anymore? The 45 stood on its own as a concept. They're still fun to buy: I just picked up some old James Brown singles on the King label (a purple label, and one with his face on it) and a couple Al Green on Hi. I don't even need to hear em: just to look at em is perfect. Who even sees "cassingles" on the market anymore? Who'd want em? Then again, maybe I'm getting old. -Original Message- From: BARNARD [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Saturday, April 17, 1999 7:25 PM To: passenger side Subject: Re: Era of Perfect Singles CK archly suggests: hope you're not suggesting that the list of 50's and 60's era singles are somehow superior to the singles of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Since that would be wrong. g No, but as several pointed out, the era in which the single ruled was drawing to a close in the 70s and early 80s. As a medium, as an institution (running out to buy 45 rpm records by major artists, actually playing them, etc...), as a way to conceptualize the writing, arranging, production, etc., of a piece of music, they really mark an era. In that sense, it's fair to say there was indeed an "era" of the single which is long over I certainly wouldn't suggest the music of one period is superior to that of another, but that there was a period during which the 45 medium dominated the airwaves and determined a lot of things about both the production and reception of pop music, I think there is little doubt. Smart-ass youngun! g --junior
Era of Perfect Singles
I have something very uninteresting to say about thsi threadwhich is that there were great rock and roll singles when they cared about having them. (yes; yes;m Im know there have been dance singles since, etc; blah blah... I wanna be clear) ...but a Perfect Single has a sort of obvious definition: It has to explode at you and grab your attention in low fidelity from AM radio while wind is blowing past your convertible. It does it a lot of times. It has to open up a new world in 3 notes. So the beginning, and sometimes the ending, is very important. By that definition, these were some great singles--and like somebody already said, if this gets you to put some of these on, and listen to any one of them just like you've never heard them before--well, you'll see. Uninteresting list really, because they did work with a lot of people when that was the point. I don't even have to name the artists! It has nothing to do with generations. But check out these mono singles' beginnings... Jailhouse Rock All Shook Up What'd I Say Roll Over Beethoven Tutti Frutti Be Bop a Lula She Said Yeah Wake Up Little Susie Peggy Sue Papa Got a Brand New Bag Higher and Higher Twist Shout Having a Party Quarter to Three The Wanderer On Broadway Rescue Me You Can't Hurry Love Be My Baby Uptown Help Me Rhonda I'll Take You There You Really Got a Hold on Me In the Midnight Hour My Girl Signed. Sealed, Delivered Like a Rolling Stone Satisfaction Out of Time Honky Tonk Women She's Not There You Really Got a Hold on Me Hold On I'm Comin Ticket to Ride Eight Days a Week Gloria You Really Got Me Gimme Some Lovin Wooly Bully Try a Little Tenderness and River Deep, Mountain High..and.. It's Over (some know how to end em too!) Barry M.
Re: Era of Perfect Singles ETC.
don't know how this got me started thinking about literally life-changing hooks. Probably that in spring cleaning I found my paperback deep blues which I must've started reading a year ago and then lost track of so although I have missed the entire thread, I'd like everyone to ponder a minute Muddy Waters' stop time (Willie Dixon gives credit to the whole band for this one) Hootchie Cootchie Man and Elmore James' Dust My Broom. By the way, Miss Deanna Varagonna has some kinda stunning blues feel I must say. Great show the other night with Mike Ireland, whom NO ONE should miss on this li'l tour with just Dan Mesh. Who needs a band? Linda, who thinks the opening of Matthew Sweet's Girlfriend stands up right nicely, if that has anything to do with anything
Re: Era of Perfect Singles
actually, Mazor, I thought your subject line might indicate promising news for the new millenium. Linda
Re: Era of Perfect Singles
Barry Mazor wrote: ...but a Perfect Single has a sort of obvious definition: It has to explode at you and grab your attention in low fidelity from AM radio while wind is blowing past your convertible. It does it a lot of times. It has to open up a new world in 3 notes. So the beginning, and sometimes the ending, is very important. Like a Rolling Stone Kimmie and I needed a car beside the Band Van so we stumbled across a used Mazda Miata. I had driven MG Midgets and Austin Healey Sprites and Triumph Spitfires in my 20s so I am obviously a candidate in my old age for a two-seater, and this Miata was a low-miles $13,000 steal, so we got it. One day I'm driving along in the Austin sunshine, top down, radio on loud, and the first splash of "Like A Rolling Stone" comes on the radio and I crank it up to speaker-cone shred volume, jam the car a gear lower, stomp it up to 85 and hold it way up there close to the redline and it feels like musical sex. This is what music is supposed to do to you. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Re: Era of Perfect Singles
...the first splash of "Like A Rolling Stone" comes on the radio and I crank it up to speaker-cone shred volume, jam the car a gear lower, stomp it up to 85 and hold it way up there close to the redline and it feels like musical sex. This is what music is supposed to do to you. Joe Gracey Exactly; exactly, exactly, exactly. . With a great single you're far frot alone.. (Even for the new millenium, Linda!) (I notice these responses come from several othger P2 members who, based on previous converstaions, have reaosn to have experienced the Age of Perfect Singles.) PS: There's NEVER been an age of perfect albums! Barry
Re: Era of Perfect Singles
In a message dated 4/17/99 11:04:58 AM Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: ...the first splash of "Like A Rolling Stone" comes on the radio and I crank it up to speaker-cone shred volume, jam the car a gear lower, stomp it up to 85 and hold it way up there close to the redline and it feels like musical sex. This is what music is supposed to do to you. Joe Gracey not so much about sex as driving but this puts me in mind of a time I was driving a rental convertible across the bridge to Coronado Island and "Summertime" came on the radio. Can't remember who did it, but you know the one, summertime, summertime, sum-sum-summertime. One of life's perfect driving music moments. Ha! My daughter always used to whine, "how come you always turn the radio UP when it's a song YOU like?" Linda, happy to be the mother of a perfect woman
Re: Era of Perfect Singles
Nice post, Joe! And yep, Barry, it requires a certain age bracket... Several of these "perfect singles" I recall hearing for the first time *on the radio* and sometimes on the car radio. Especialy Stones singles, for me. I distinctly recall hearing "Honky Tonk Women" for the first time on a radio in a dorm room and going nuts And immediately putting down everything and driving to a *wholesale* record distribution warehouse to find it because none of the record stores in town had it yet. That drum lead-in is still amazing. Got it with that cool picture cover g. --junior
Re: Era of Perfect Singles
In a message dated 4/17/99 11:22:52 AM Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I distinctly recall hearing "Honky Tonk Women" for the first time on a radio in a dorm room and going nuts And immediately putting down everything and driving to a *wholesale* record distribution warehouse to find it because none of the record stores in town had it yet. That drum lead-in is still amazing. Got it with that cool picture cover g. jeez. are we old farts or what! I remember dragging myself to the car to go take my GMATs in the District. I was living in Reston and the damned test started at 7:30 fragging a.m. I had nearly an hour's drive on a Satuday morning with Leesburg Pike and the GW parkway all to myself and remember the whole trip to this day for the fact that some godsend DJ chose that time period to debut "Some Girls." Linda
Re: Era of Perfect Singles
At 09:08 AM 4/17/99 -0400, The Mazor wrote: ...but a Perfect Single has a sort of obvious definition: It has to explode at you and grab your attention in low fidelity from AM radio As I've said elsewhere before, I feel really lucky to have gotten in on the tail end of this era as it peaked (says me) in the early to mid-70s, then dribbled out into the 80s. The greatest singles almost always ANNOUNCE themselves. You know it's I Want You Back, or Mama Tried or I'll Take You There or Go All The Way or The Wonder Of You or Let's Stay Together or Day After Day and on and on, almost from note one. Like Linda, I wish barry's subject line was more prognostication than historical desctription. --david cantwell
Re: Era of Perfect Singles
Great thread, Barry! So Gracey wrote, One day I'm driving along in the Austin sunshine, top down, radio on loud, and the first splash of "Like A Rolling Stone" comes on the radio and I crank it up to speaker-cone shred volume, jam the car a gear lower, stomp it up to 85 and hold it way up there close to the redline and it feels like musical sex. This is what music is supposed to do to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah (oh hey, that reminds me of a single)... but it doesn't have to be fast, hard dangerous -- GUYS, jeez g. It's not a single, that I know of (how about that for a thread: not singles but should be), but the beginning of "If You Were A Bluebird" by Joe Ely, with its cascade of shimmering notes, makes me feel *deliciously* shivery all over. Then, the song builds, and builds, oh my my! Actually, "Treat Me Like A Saturday Night" on the same album does that too, but it starts slowly, builds and builds, then goes all er, soft at the end -- sort of including the afterglow, you know what I mean? They always talk about how the old "cock rock" songs build to a climax, just like GUY sex supposedly. But what about songs like "Eleanor" by the Turtles? That song climaxes several times... and ends in an "ahh." Heh heh. Hevvins, my palms are getting sweaty. One thing about the Era of Perfect Singles (yeah, I Wuz There, with a cheap transistor radio glued to my ear) was how *many* of them fade out at the end. And of course the DJs talked over the fade-out. But for great endings that END, you can't hardly beat James Brown's "I Feel Good." I watched that Temptations TV-Bio (the first part with guilty-TV-viewing pleasure, the last part like a train wreck) and -- wasn't the (brilliant) beginning of "Papa Was A Rolling Stone" kind of *unusual* for transistor-radio radio? Seems to me I thought so at the time. Getting all nostalgic here, I remember the demise of my red transistor radio -- I was taking a bubble bath, with the radio perched on the side of the tub. I reached over to tune it in better and knocked it into the water, right in the middle of "Incense and Peppermints." For an agonizing second there I thought I was gonna be electricuted, but all that happend is that the Strawberry Alarm Clock went "glub glub glub." --Cheryl Cline
Re: Era of Perfect Singles
In a message dated 4/17/99 12:40:20 PM Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: But for great endings that END, you can't hardly beat James Brown's "I Feel Good." the little girls know. . .heh heh YEEOOOWWW! Linda
Re: Era of Perfect Singles
Like Linda, I wish barry's subject line was more prognostication than historical desctription. --david cantwell Well, hey--if they WANT to do that again, they will. And for all we know right now, an oncoming era of download quality stereo singles from the Net may do just that, given kids (and old farts) will be no doubt asembling their own downloaded DVD-ROM segues or something...The only question will be how to get everybody to HEAR 'em, with all those isolated ears so..atomized..and if they'll concentrate on the sound insteda of the look! The 70s cuts David just mentioned are just as good to me, too..And they ARE "in" just under the cut--'cept they often got to be heard in FM stereo! And the 8-track, right? Ms. Cline, as always, has reminded us just in time that there's uh, more than one way to skin a cat. Also just reminded me how much I like those Joe Ely cuts she's quivvered up...Does this mean something? Has anyone ever divided out "front seat" vs. "back seat" car songs? (Single entendre there, please--no anatomical references implied.) ... Does it matter? PS: I haven't counted, but I don't think ALL those "perfect single" candidates I reeled off play it hard and fast and build to a full White Rabbit. But they do start! PPS: Papa Was a Rolling Stone was remarkable in every way, including that opening, which was unprecedented for that genre. Whatever that genre is! It always brings me a peresonal visual: I was helping kids in a foster home north of New York with their homework nights at the time that came out, and the Temps showed up on a TV doing this live as the kids were finishing up one night ...There were soon 20 of 'em doing every move, and every note, unrehearsed, I think.. Of course, they're all about 36-37 now! Bet theey still know those moves. Barry
Re: Era of Perfect Singles
Hey there, Junior cheers... Nice post, Joe! And yep, Barry, it requires a certain age bracket... And to that 'age bracket' thing is say, "Feh!" and "Feh!" again. I surely hope you're not suggesting that the list of 50's and 60's era singles are somehow superior to the singles of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Since that would be wrong. g Later... CK ___ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]
Re: Era of Perfect Singles
CK archly suggests: hope you're not suggesting that the list of 50's and 60's era singles are somehow superior to the singles of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Since that would be wrong. g No, but as several pointed out, the era in which the single ruled was drawing to a close in the 70s and early 80s. As a medium, as an institution (running out to buy 45 rpm records by major artists, actually playing them, etc...), as a way to conceptualize the writing, arranging, production, etc., of a piece of music, they really mark an era. In that sense, it's fair to say there was indeed an "era" of the single which is long over I certainly wouldn't suggest the music of one period is superior to that of another, but that there was a period during which the 45 medium dominated the airwaves and determined a lot of things about both the production and reception of pop music, I think there is little doubt. Smart-ass youngun! g --junior
Re: Era of Perfect Singles
It would be nice if the perfect singles of this era--and there are more than a few--were played on the radio, but unfortunately, they aren't. And since MTV wouldn't know M if it fell onto its face and wiggled, what's a modern single lover to do? It's as if the mass media outlets of today avoid these songs for fear of catching herpes. So, if the era of the "perfect single" was the '60's and early 70's, it could be because these songs were written for (and digested by) a mass audience (i.e. allowed to be "singles"). You can't tell me that "New Madrid" or virtually anything off of Built To Spill's There's Nothing Wrong With Love are anthems-in-waiting, but the only people hearing them are the choir to which preaching is unnecessary. Lance . . .
Re: Era of Perfect Singles ETC.
At 11:47 AM -0400 on 4/17/99, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: By the way, Miss Deanna Varagonna has some kinda stunning blues feel I must say. This wasn't at all there when she opened for Vic Chesnutt, although she's got a really nice voice. She might have varied both her material and her delivery for the two audiences, but I can't make the leap from what I heard to anything resembling blues. Bob
