Today’s playlist remembers the late Betty Davis and commemorates the February 10 birthdays of Roberta Flack, The Ventures’ Don Wilson, Ral Donner and Peter Allen, and the February 11 birthdays of D’Angelo, Gene Vincent, Sheryl Crow, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Peter Hayes, Brandy, Sergio Mendes, Bobby “Boris” Pickett, Kelly Rowland, First Choice’s Rochelle Fleming, Lou Johnson, Leon Haywood, City Girls’s Yung Miami, and photographer Lynn Goldsmith (a/k/a Will Powers).
Throughout 2022 I’ll be counting down my 100 favorite albums, because why not. I’m up to number ninety-four.
“You always wanted a lover. I only wanted a job.”
Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield, “What Have I Done To Deserve This?”
In the summer of 1984, before heading off to my senior year of college, I wanted a lover and a job. The latter got taken care of when I landed summer employment at Lipton, where I spent most of my days in a large room with two dozen senior citizens taking Cup-A-Soup packets, putting eleven croutons in each and heat-sealing them. You thought a machine did that? Nope. It was yours truly and the cast of Cocoon, sitting at a long table in a brightly-lit room that had a transistor radio, a source of several conflicts, all but one of which were started by “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before,” by Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson, with most of the women taking the pro-Julio position and most of the men taking the anti-Julio position. There’d be shouting and name-calling and occasionally croutons flew through the air like ICBM missiles set to destroy those who didn’t take to worshiping at the Iglesias. The one conflict that wasn’t brought about by this song came from one by John Denver. One afternoon his song “Hey, it’s good to be back home again” came on, which so angered Lipton’s answer to Wilford Brimley. He got up from his chair and yelled “I CAN’T TAKE THIS ROCK AND ROLL!” and when angrily reaching for the power dial he knocked the radio off the table, breaking it and putting an end to the bellicose effects of Julio Iglesias-Willie Nelson duets. Rock and roll causes such violent reactions, kids.
How is it I’m spending the summer of my 20th year counting croutons with people 100 times my age? (I excel at math, btw.) Why am I at a place where the threat to decency is Johnny Rotten Denver and not somewhere using my intellect? What have I, what have I, what have I done to deserve this? I didn’t feel I belonged there, my stellar crouton-packing quota notwithstanding.
The feeling of being somewhere I don’t belong is a feeling I’ve experienced often:
in elementary school, where Ellen Baker and Michelle Somethingoranother told skinny me I look like a shriveled up piece of bacon;
in the public high school I attended for ninth and tenth grades, where a fellow student nicknamed me Professor simply because I knew from latitude and longitude;
in the private high school I attended for eleventh and twelfth grades, where our typing teacher whispered a racial slur in my ear, and where the student body was full of wealthy white snobs, one of whose murder years later was the basis for a Lifetime TV movie starring John Stamos;
in college, where I didn’t drink or get high or go to the games and root for the home team. To this day I don’t know if my university even had games or teams;
at the Passover Seder table, as I’ve been an atheist since my Sunday School teacher first told us about God, plus in my twenties and thirties my siblings and cousins conversed about which friends were getting married (my friends weren’t), who was having babies (my friends weren’t), and the latest goings on at Melrose Place and Beverly Hills 90210 (I was never a big TV watcher);
at the gym. If you’ve ever been to a gym in a gayborhood, you know that most everybody there doesn’t need to be there as they are already in perfect shape while those of us who should be there shouldn’t be there lest we want to feel like a shriveled-up strip of bacon;
on Facebook, as I rarely feel like anything that happens in my life is noteworthy, nor do I think any of my connections cares about what music I listen to or what TV shows I watch, nor do I wish to engage in discourse with folks who think a simple act that may stop the spread of a deadly virus is an assault on their freedom.
At my workplace, post-Lipton, was where I often felt I belonged. The music business was perfect for the kind of guy prone to making a list of his favorite albums. My first job out of college was at CBS Records, in their Accounts Receivable department. (I excel at math, remember.) Most of the people with whom I worked were nice, though I also worked with a Karen. An actual Karen, not a 2020s pejorative Karen. Being in the same department as Karen meant being in the wrong place. I’ll tell you why via an anecdote. There was a coffee shop in the lobby of the building where we worked. Every day they offered a free cup of coffee if you could answer the day’s trivia question. One day the question was “What four presidents were assassinated while in office?,” to which Karen answered “I know Lincoln was, and Kennedy was, and I think Reagan was, but he’s still alive.” (Reagan was still president at that time.) She had to pay for her coffee. I had to get out of that department.
The more I moved up, the more I felt more like I fit in. There was a time in 2006 when my company sent me to Geneva to do a presentation for our foreign affiliates. That’s where this strip of bacon sizzles. I’m very comfortable giving presentations, perhaps because it’s a situation over which I have control, for the most part. This Geneva convention coincided with the Montreux Jazz Festival, taking place about an hour away. A bus was rented for conference attendees to head off to Montreux, spending the afternoon at the home of the festival’s founder, Claude Nobs, before going to the concert. Nobs’s home was a gorgeous multi-house chalet atop a mountain that overlooked Lake Geneva. Jac Holtzman, founder of Elektra Records, joined us there, and I made him laugh with several of my stories. A helicopter landed and out stepped Lyor Cohen, the founder of Def Jam Records and at that time the Chairman and Chief Executive of Warner Music Group. He was with new signing Paolo Nutini, who had magnificent facial bone structure. Paolo and I engaged in conversation and shared a lot of ha-has, about what I have no idea due to his thick Scottish accent. Still, I felt uplifted seeing a beaming smile emanate from his magnificent facial bone structure. The view from the top of this mountain, even when I wasn’t looking at Paolo, was spectacular. In a snap, shy awkward Glenn realized he had arrived, being at a chateau overlooking Lake Geneva with Jac Holtzman and Lyor Cohen and Paolo Nutini and Paolo’s magnificent facial bone structure and Claude Nobs and his all twink staff. This is where I belong.
It’s not a feeling I now feel 100% of the time, but more often than before I feel comfortable in my own skin – at work, at the gym, and, non-existent one help me, at a Passover Seder. It’s progress, which is welcome as I draw closer to the age where I should be putting croutons in Cup-A-Soup packets and railing against rock and roll.
Continuing along those lines, one of the two New Year’s resolutions I made for 2022 is to spend more time on Facebook. There are things in my life worthy of sharing, and linking to these essays about my favorite albums is my way of keeping that first resolution. My other resolution is to watch more TV, a goal I’ve had for years, mostly so I could get my money’s worth from my cable TV bills. 2021 was the first year I really made a dent there. The best thing I watched was It’s a Sin, a five-episode series set during the first few years of the AIDS epidemic, which delved into the feelings of shame people experienced about who they are – from their peers, their families, their co-workers, society, and their own internalized feelings of insecurity. Named after a song from Pet Shop Boys’ Actually, the show impressed me with its top-notch acting, directing and writing, which resonated with me deeply and remains resonant. A year later I still cry when I think about the show, which I do whenever I listen to the song. The song “It’s a Sin” is not about AIDS, but rather the feeling of shame from believing you’re always doing the wrong thing. Based on PSB Neil Tennant’s Catholic school education, the lyrics reverberate with this atheist.
The album’s other big hit in the US was “What Have I Done To Deserve This,” performed by Pet Shop Boys against their record company’s wishes with Dusty Springfield. Like It’s a Sin the series, this song boasts great writing – lyrics and music – and perfect performances. I won’t go as far as NME calling it “possibly the greatest pop song in history,” though as duets go, it certainly tops “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before.” Put down that crouton, Jessica Tandy.
Elsewhere on the album you get a song with the refrain “I love you, you pay my rent,” a Hallmark card waiting to happen, and you know what? Those three songs alone are enough for me to consider this album great, though “Shopping,” “Heart,” and “King’s Cross” are also worthwhile.
There was a weekly dance party I attended when I lived in New York City. Whenever they played Pet Shop Boys, which was several times a night, the dance floor would fill up, and I found myself part of a large group of like-minded people, sharing this joyful experience. I wasn’t shunned for being too skinny or too smart of too different. I found a place where I could let loose and be me and experience happiness. I deserve this.
There are more from Pet Shop Boys and from Dusty Springfield to come on this list.
Today’s playlist commemorates the February 7 birthdays of King Curtis, Sammy Johns, Chris Rock and Eddie Izzard; the February 8 birthdays of Daft Punk’s Guy Manuel, Anderson .Paak, Mötley Crüe’s Vince Ceil, Tom Rush, England Dan Seals, Bessie Banks, James Dean, Larry Verne and Miquel Brown; and the February 9 birthdays of Carole King, Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Holly Johnson, The Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt, Barbara Lewis, Barry Mann and Major Harris.
Today’s playlist commemorates the February 5 birthdays of Jon Spencer, Barrett Strong, The Standells’ Larry Tamblyn, Spin Doctors’ Chris Barron, Bobby Brown, The Dream Academy’s Nick Laird-Clowes, Three Dog Night’s Cory Wells, actor Christopher Guest, musician Al Kooper, and Guns N’ Roses’s Duff McKagan, and the February 6 birthdays of Guns N’ Roses’s Axl Rose, Bob Marley, Jens Lekman, Kate McGarrigle, The Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie, Rick Astley, Natalie Cole, and Dave Berry.
Today’s playlist commemorates the February 3 birthdays of The Temptations’ Dennis Edwards, The Kinks’ Dave Davies, Melanie, Daddy Yankee, Johnny “Guitar” Watson, Johnny Bristol, Johnny Cymbal, and Nathan Lane, and the February 4 birthdays of Alice Cooper, The 5th Dimension’s Florence LaRue, James’s Tim Booth, Natalie Imbruglia, Cam’ron and Clint Black.
Commemorating the February 1 birthdays of The Everly Brothers’ Don Everly, OutKast’s Big Boi, MGMT’s Andrew VanWyngarden, X’s Exene Cervenka, Rick James, Jason Isbell, Dennis Brown, Harry Styles, Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show’s Ray Sawyer, Monty Python’s Terry Jones, Chris Clark, and Barnes & Barnes’s Bill Mumy, and the February 2 birthdays of Crosby, Stills & Nash’s Graham Nash, Stan Getz, Shakira, Honey Cone’s Edna Wright, The Bellamy Brothers’ Howard Bellamy, Mayer Hawthorne, France Joli, and Dana International.
Today’s playlist commemorates the January 30 birthdays of Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship’s Marty Balin, Small Faces’ Steve Marriott, Genesis’s Phil Collins, American Music Club’s Mark Eitzel, Kid Cudi, Dorothy Love Coates, and Shalamar’s Jody Watley, and the January 31 birthdays of Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten, Justin Timberlake, Lloyd Cole, Chicago’s Terry Kath, KC, The Dells’ Marvin Junior, Chuck Willis, Music Explosion’s Jamie Lyons, and Carol Channing.
Todays playlist commemorates the January 28 birthdays of Rakim, Cypress Hill’s DJ Muggs, Soft Machine’s Robert Wyatt, Sarah McLachlan, Rick Ross, Backstreet Boys’ Nick Carter, McFadden & Whitehead’s Gene McFadden, NSYNC’s Joey Fatone, Acker Bilk, The Gaslight Anthem’s Brian Fallon, Hidden Cameras’ Joel Gibb, Peter Schilling, Steps’ Lee Latchford-Evans, and Anthony Hamilton, and the January 29 birthdays of The Ramones’ Tommy Ramone, Aztec Camera’s Roddy Frame, The Dictators’ Dick Manitoba, Amii Stewart, Bettye LaVette, Uriah Heep’s David Byron, Adam Lambert, and John Raitt.
Throughout 2022 I’ll be counting down my 100 favorite albums, because why not. I’m up to number ninety-five.
Being Jewish, my family celebrated Hanukkah. We ate latkes – yum! We exchanged gifts for each of the holiday’s eight nights. From ages eight to 38, when someone decided we were no longer deserving of gifts, I always asked for albums by Diana Ross or Elton John or Aretha Franklin. For several years, my family also celebrated Christmas. We didn’t go to midnight mass, we didn’t drink egg nog, we didn’t throw a special type of log in the fireplace. (I have no idea what makes a Yule log yuley). We placed tinsel on the living room ficus, ate candy canes – yum!, and exchanged small but practical gifts. For example, one year I gave my mother a roll of scotch tape, part of which I used when wrapping it.
Though I no longer celebrate Christmas, I have a major jones for Christmas music. I’m saying Christmas music, not holiday music, because there aren’t many good Hanukkah songs. There’s “I’m Spending Hanukkah in Santa Monica” by Tom Lehrer, in which Tom tells us where he spent past Jewish holidays. He spent Shavuos in East St. Louis, Rosh Hoshana in Arizona, and Yom Kippur in Mississipper, but none of those place would thrill him as much as Santa Monica, where amid the California flora he’ll be lighting his menorah. There’s “The Little Drum Machine Boy” by Beck, which opens with the Hanukkah robot saying a prayer in Hebrew and goes into Beck yelling something about the Hanukkah pimp. Chances are you’re not familiar with the holiday’s robot and pimp, due to the well-publicized war on Hanukkah. There’s the song “Hanukkah Rocks” by Gefilte Joe and the Fish, the album Hanukkah Rocks by The LeeVees, Adam Sandler’s “Hanukkah Song,” soul singer Sharon Jones’s “8 Days (of Hanukkah),” rapper Too $hort’s “Hanukkah (Favorite Time of Year),” and “Dreidel Dreidel Dreidel” performed by the cast of South Park, who added some lyrics (I don’t think lusting after Courtney Cox was in the original composition), which is included on Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics, another assault in the war on Hanukkah.
When I say I love Christmas music, I don’t mean groups of people singing “O Little Town of Bethlehem” at my front door. As Blink-182 sing in “I Won’t Be Home for Christmas,” “Outside the carolers start to sing / I can’t describe the joy they bring / ‘Cause joy is something they don’t bring me.”
I own many more Christmas records than any atheist Jew probably should. We’re talking hundreds of ‘em.
My collection isn’t big on Christmas classics performed by middle of the road singers such as Celine Dion, Michael Buble, Kenny G (sell-out Jew), Neil Diamond (sell-out Jew) or Barbra Streisand (sell-out Jew). Frank Sinatra shows up only in a duet with Cyndi Lauper and Bing Crosby shows up only in his duet with David Bowie.
Including the Crosby/Bowie version, I have 77 renditions of “The Little Drummer Boy” in my library, by a diverse list of artists including Johnny Cash, the Temptations, Joan Jett, Bob Dylan, Iggy Pop and RuPaul, who, by the way, lived in the same building as me in West Hollywood.
I have 70 versions of “Winter Wonderland,” and that’s not counting the cross-dressing parody “Walkin’ Round in Women’s Underwear,” not performed by RuPaul, who, by the way, never said “Hello” when you rode the elevator with him. Werk, jerk!
I have “Christmas in Love,” “Christmas in Jail,” “Christmas in Prison,” “Christmas in the Yard,” “Christmas in the City,” “Christmas in the Jungle,” “Christmas in the Congo,” “Christmas in America,” “Christmas in Washington,” “Christmas in Chicago,” “Christmas in Cali,” “Christmas in L.A.,” “Christmastime in the LBC,” “Christmas in Vegas,” “Christmas in Hollis,” “Christmas in Harlem,” “Christmas in Herald Square,” “Christmas in Dixie,” “Christmas in Waikiki,” “Christmas in Viet Nam,” “Christmas in Capetown,” “Christmas in New Orleans,” “Christmas in Heaven,” “Christmas in Hell,” “Christmas in Space,” “Christmas in the Stars,” “Christmas in July,” “Christmas in September,” “Christmas in My Heart,” “Christmas in My Soul,” and “Christmas at the Zoo.”
I have Christmas songs by most of my favorite artists of all-time, including The Beatles, Prince, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Stevie Wonder, R.E.M., Elvis Presley, the White Stripes, Kanye West, Ike and Tina Turner, Chuck Berry, Lady Gaga, Kate Bush, Liz Phair, Simon & Garfunkel, James Brown, James Brown, James Brown, James Brown, and Radiohead.
I have John Denver’s festive “Please Daddy (Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas).” Verse one opens with a couplet for the arithmetically-challenged: “Just last year when I was only seven / Now I’m almost eight you can see.” Santa needs to bring John some flashcards. The next two lines create a holiday image that is less Norman Rockwell and more John Waters: “You came home at quarter past eleven / And fell down underneath the Christmas tree.” Daddy may wish to consider attending a meeting with the title character of Fishbone’s “Slick Nick, You Devil You,” who came down the chimney with a keg of brew and spilled Jack Daniels all over the drapes.
I have Sarah Silverman’s joyous “Give the Jew Girl Toys,” in which she taunts Santa by singing “You have a list / Well, Schindler did to / Liam Neeson played him / Tim Allen played you.” Ouch!
Then there’s the classic “Fairytale of New York” by the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl, named by VH1 UK viewers as their favorite Christmas song of all-time. The jolly song evokes the holiday spirit with the line “You scumbag, you maggot / You cheap lousy faggot,” something yelled at me every year by Salvation Army Santas. Its music video stars Matt Dillon – yum!
I have “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” recited by Liberace. I don’t know if he was a scumbag or a maggot, though I do know that once Liberace sued a newspaper for claiming he was gay, and he won. Years later, that same newspaper claimed Tom Cruise was gay. He sued, and he won. Just saying.
Liberace’s rendition of “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” doesn’t hold a candle to Aretha Franklin’s version, in which she takes some liberties with the words. Liberace performs it straight, so to speak: “A bundle of toys he had on his back / And he looked like a peddler opening his sack,” while the Queen of Soul says “A bundle of gifts he had and what did I get? / As I squealed, opening the package, ‘the same old shit’.” I also have Snoop Dogg’s reading of the famous poem, a poem which clearly transcends all demographic boundaries. Like Christmas ‘Reth, Snoopzilla puts his own spin on the words. I could be wrong, but I don’t think Clement Clarke Moore’s poem said about Saint Nick “He ate and he ate and that fat motherfucka ate.” The rest of Snoop’s words are less family-friendly than that line. Even his “ho ho ho” takes on a different meaning.
More mirth and merriment can be found in “Macarena Christmas.” I LOVE “Macarena.” Who doesn’t? “Macarena Christmas” celebrates the birth of our lord and savior Baby Macarena by taking the chorus from the hit single and uncleverly inserting it repeatedly into a medley of Christmas songs, a la “Joy to the world, the Lord has come / Da le a tu cuerpo alegria Macarena, Que tu cuerpo es pa darle alegria y cosa Buena / Da le a tu cuerpo alegria Macarena Eeeeeh, Macarena – ay / Jingle bells jingle bells jingle all the way.” Sound effects of what sounds like an infant with the hiccups are thrown in. It makes no sense, y me gusta mucho.
I own a catchy ditty called “I Found the Brains of Santa Claus,” a smooth jazz version of “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer,” and a you-must-hear-it-to-believe-it rendition of “Sleigh Ride” performed by C3PO and R2D2.
Some Christmas songs really aren’t Christmas songs at all. “Frosty the Snowman,” “Let It Snow Let it Snow Let It Snow,” “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” “Deck the Halls,” “Jingle Bells,” “Sleigh Ride” and “Winter Wonderland” don’t mention the baby Jesus or Santa Claus or presents or a bullied reindeer with a skin ailment. Still, the Gentiles have claimed them in the never ending war on Hanukkah.
Like the lump of coal I’m giving RuPaul this year, let me wrap this post.
My #95 album is Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics. Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo is my favorite Christmas character. He’s not the first piece of shit to release an album; Ted Nugent has him beat by 30 years. In case you are unaware, Mr. Hankey, a character from The Bible’s Book of DooDooteronomy, brings presents to all the boys and girls who have a lot of fiber in their diets. This album is built around a South Park episode that was first televised on 1997. I love Mr. Hankey so much that one year I asked for a Mr. Hankey doll for Hanukkah. If you are better at math than John Denver, you’ll know that puts me in my thirties when I asked for this gift. And your point would be what?
Christmas is a singles genre. Typically, Christmas albums are spotty at best. That’s partly because they lack imagination. Everyone does the same old songs the same old way. I already own 57 versions of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” Unless you have a new spin on it, leave it be.
Some artists create new Christmas songs. New joyless dour Christmas songs. One such song on an album? Fine. But to sustain an entire holiday album, you need holly jolly, not melancholy.
Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics works because it combines new twists on classics such as “O Holy Night,” “Carol of the Bells” and “O Tannenbaum” with cheery originals like “Merry Fucking Christmas,” “The Lonely Jew on Christmas” and “The Most Offensive Song Ever,” which lives up to its title. The song is a duet between Mr. Hankey and Kenny, who, as you may know, mumbles, so Google the lyrics to be completely offended.
There is more Christmas music to come on this list.
Today’s playlist commemorates the January 26 birthdays of Eddie Van Halen, Lucinda Williams, Soul II Soul’s Jazzie B, Anita Baker, Wham!’s Andrew Ridgeley, Huey “Piano” Smith, Jean Knight, Technotronic associate Ya Kid K, and James D-Train Williams, and the January 27 birthdays of Tricky, Faith No More’s Mike Patton, Bobby Bland, Fuck Buttons’ Andrew Hung, Elmore James, Cowboy Junkies’ Margo Timmins, David Seville, Boys Town Gang’s Cynthia Manley, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Amy Rigby.
