Today is my birthday. Over my 25+ years on earth, I’ve learned many life lessons. Most of them came from songs. My birthday gift to you is a playlist of 100 songs offering advice as to what not to do.
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This week’s installment of A Hint of Mint consists of cover songs. It’s likely you are familiar with most or all of the songs on this week’s playlist, but I’m guessing you are not familiar with the versions presented here. Drawn primarily from soundtracks, compilations and CD singles, here are twenty remakes of popular tunes, performed by members of the LGBTQQISA populations. Included are Tegan & Sara covering Bruce Springsteen, Antony & the Johnsons covering Beyoncé, and Pansy Division covering Johnny Cash and June Carter.
Happy Sunday!
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The blogger in 1976
This week Tunes du Jour revisits the hits of 1976.
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“Lost inside adorable illusion and I cannot hide”
The first Broadway show I ever saw was The Magic Show, a musical with lyrics and music written by Stephen Schwartz, no relation to me, but a relation to some other Schwartzes, I assume.
My parents took me to the show for my eleventh birthday. I recall I was wearing green corduroy pants, a white turtleneck, and a New York Jets jacket. Or New Jersey Jets. No, I think they were from New York. They were a football team. Maybe they still are. I digress.
Magic was one of my main hobbies at that age, along with coin collecting and rock polishing. It was around that birthday that music overtook all other interests of mine.
At one point during The Magic Show, its star, Doug Henning, asked for a volunteer from the audience. I raised my hand. Henning pointed to me and asked me to come on to the stage. My job was to check that the chains that went around a trunk from which Henning was going to escape while inside a sealed sack were sturdy and locked. Who better to check their strength than a 67-pound boy in a New York Jets jacket? Or New Jersey. No, I’m pretty sure New York.
I checked the chains and gave the thumbs up for the trick to begin. Somehow, Henning escaped from the sack in the trunk and from the trunk itself! I was standing right next to the trunk. I could tell you how the trick was done, had I been paying attention. I was too caught up in the sets. My interest in magic instantly waned while my interest in performing rose.
What happens to a child after he makes his Broadway debut at age 11? Some end up depressed alcoholics who spend their rest of their days trying to recapture the magic but they can’t because they are no longer cute or bankable and their stage parents oh their stage parents alienated the artistic community and they have no option but to turn tricks for cash which is spent on drugs or would be spent on drugs except nobody wants to hire the porcine past-his-prime actor. Nobody except those who fetishize former “stars” and I put stars in quotes because come on, get real.
That’s not what happened to me. I became a stand-up comedian with a large record collection.
In my record collection one will find Blondie’s “Heart of Glass,” from which the lyric that opens this post is taken. The song was written by band members Debbie Harry and Chris Stein and had the working title of “The Disco Song.” Drummer Clem Burke said his part was inspired by the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive.”
Said Harry “When we did ‘Heart of Glass’ it wasn’t too cool in our social set to play disco. But we did it because we wanted to be uncool,” with the band’s keyboardist Jimmy Destri adding “We used to do ‘Heart of Glass’ to upset people.”
The song was included on Blondie’s Parallel Lines LP “as a novelty item to put more diversity into the album,” per Stein. The novelty song became the group’s first charted single and first #1, in 1979. Its success prompted John Lennon to send Ringo Starr a postcard advising to write songs like “Heart of Glass.”
Today Debbie Harry celebrates her 70th birthday. Here are twenty of her finest moments.
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Three albums I a&r’d are now available for purchase in the iTunes store.
The Essential Gladys Knight & the Pips: The Buddah & Columbia Years includes the classic “Midnight Train to Georgia,” plus the smash hits “I’ve Got to Use My Imagination,” “Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me,” “On and On,” “Try to Remember/The Way We Were” and “That’s What Friends Are For” (with Dionne Warwick, Stevie Wonder and Elton John). I also threw in some extended mixes, making their digital debut.
The Essential Evelyn “Champagne” King collects 30 tracks from one of the most successful disco/post-disco vocalists. The classic “Shame” is here, as are “I’m in Love,” “Love Come Down” and “I Don’t Know If It’s Right.” Plenty of rare mixes are what makes this collection essential.
The Essential Melba Moore includes the top ten disco hits “You Stepped Into My Life” (written by the Bee Gees) and “This Is It,” plus 28 other tracks from the Tony Award-winning performer.
Thanks to Jeff James at Sony Music for working with me on these releases. Get ‘em now!
Friday is dance day at Tunes du Jour. Today’s playlist consists of selections from these three Essential collections.
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Today is Bobby Brown’s 46th birthday. A former member of New Edition, Brown had his first solo hit in 1988 with “Don’t Be Cruel,” which reached #8 on the Hot 100. Though it shares its title with an Elvis Presley #1 hit from 1956, Brown’s “Don’t Be Cruel” is not a remake.
That brings us to today’s playlist, which I call The Song Retains the Name. It consists of different songs with the same title. I initially planned to include twenty such songs, but more kept springing to mind. Before I knew it, I passed 100 entries. There are plenty more, so I decided to open this up to my reader(s). If you have songs that share titles you’d like to add, feel free to do so.
(NOTES: I included The Jacksons’ “This Place Hotel” because when it was released in 1980 its title was “Heartbreak Hotel.” Thought he didn’t have to, Michael Jackson, the song’s writer, later changed its name to “This Place Hotel” to avoid confusion with the Elvis Presley song “Heartbreak Hotel.” Whitney Houston didn’t feel the need to make the same Hotel accommodation.
Also, though it is listed on Spotify as “The Best of My Love,” the Eagles track does not have a “The” on the 45 or the band’s On the Border album.)
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Today is Australia Day, unless you are in Australia, in which case it was yesterday, because by the time I post this it will be tomorrow there, which is their today but our tomorrow. Therefore, our today is Australia Day, which makes no sense, really, as the holiday is celebrated in Australia, where, as I pointed out, today is tomorrow, the day after Australia Day.
Australia Day commemorates the day the British proclaimed sovereignty over the eastern seaboard of the country/continent, or at least that’s what someone entered in Wikipedia.
Today’s playlist is made up of twenty acts that hail from Australia. Before anyone asks, AC/DC’s music is not on Spotify, hence their exclusion.
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Lead vocals on most of the Bee Gees’ hits were handled by Barry Gibb; however, some were sung by his younger brother Robin, while Robin’s twin, Maurice, occasionally took the role on album tracks.
Though not the lead singers, Robin and Maurice co-wrote most of the trio’s hits with Barry. They also did a lot of extracurricular producing and writing.
Marking the birthday of Robin and Maurice Gibb, today’s playlist consist of Bee Gees tracks on which one of them sang lead, plus outside recordings Robin and/or Maurice worked on. As much of their work for other acts was done with their older brother, I steered clear of duplicating songs that were on the playlist for Barry Gibb’s birthday.
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On the night of December 31, 1977, Grace Jones rang in the new year with a performance at New York City’s Studio 54. She invited Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of the band Chic, whose hits such as “Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)” were often played at the club, to catch her show. The guys went to the stage door, where the doorman told them to “Fuck off!” They went to the front entrance and told the doorman there they were personal guests of Jones. The doorman told them they weren’t on the list and refused them admission. Though all dressed up, they went back to the apartment where Nile was then staying. Several bottles of champagne and a little cocaine later, the two musicians started jamming on a song they improvised, inspired by the first doorman. “Awww, fuck off – fuck Studio 54 – fuck off.”
Bernard was impressed with the riff they created, though both knew they wouldn’t get radio airplay for a song that went “fuck off.” (How times have changed!) They changed “fuck” to “freak,” though “freak off” sounded lame. Then Bernard suggested changing “off” to “out.” Nile responded “Like…when you’re out on the dance floor losing it, you know you’re freaking out,” to which Bernard replied “Yeah, plus they have that new dance called ‘the Freak.’”
“Le Freak” debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 in the fall of 1978. In December it hit #1, though it got knocked from the top a week later by Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond’s “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers.” One week later “Le Freak” went back to #1, but one week after that it got knocked out by Bee Gees’ “Too Much Heaven.” Two weeks later “Le Freak” returned to #1, staying on top for four more weeks. It went on to sell approximately twelve million units worldwide, becoming the best-selling record ever for Atlantic Records.
In 1979 “Le Freak” was included on a compilation album entitled A Night at Studio 54.
All sorts of freaks and monsters will be out today/tonight for Halloween. This week’s dance party is inspired by the holiday.
Ebola is now in the US. Isis is on its way. Unarmed civilians are getting shot by law enforcement officials. Civil wars, mass kidnappings, volcanoes, a new Lenny Kravitz album. It’s a scary world!
I got my flu vaccination earlier this week, so I have one less thing to worry about. There is a movement against the flu vaccine, but the flu is mighty unpleasant and can lead to death. I’d rather go on living and enjoying my life with a little mercury in my system than deal with chills, fever, a runny nose, a sore throat, muscle pains, a severe headache, coughing, and/or fatigue. If I wanted to be in that much pain I’d listen to the new Lenny Kravitz album.
Though I get my flu shot every year, the needle always scares me. This year the doctor used a very small needle. I barely felt it and I’m happy to say I suffered no side effects. I feel great and energized, which is great because it’s Friday and I need to dance.
The cover art can be obtained from Warner Bros. Records.
We’ll kick off this week’s dance playlist with the only Fleetwood Mac song to make the US dance chart, “Big Love.” The track was written, co-produced and sung by FM’s Lindsey Buckingham, who turns 65 today.
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