I interrupt my interruption to bring you twenty new(ish) songs that are rocking my world these days. Let me know which ones hit you.
Regular blogging will resume at some point this year.
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In 1979, Giorgio Moroder, famous mostly for his production work on Donna Summer records, composed the score for the film American Gigolo. He asked Stevie Nicks to sing the movie’s theme song, for which Moroder wrote the music, but she had to decline for contractual reasons. He next turned to Deborah Harry of Blondie.
Harry write the lyrics to the song that became “Call Me,” the second #1 single for her band. Of her experience with Moroder, she told Billboard “He’s very nice to work with, very easy, (but) I don’t think he has a lot of patience with people who fool around or don’t take what they do seriously. I think he’s very serious about what he does and he’s intense and he’s a perfectionist and he’s very talented, so I think that people who are less talented or less concentrated bore him quickly…you really have to pay attention.”
Said Moroder of working with Blondie, “There were always fights. I was supposed to do an album with them after that. We went to the studio, and the guitarist was fighting with the keyboard player. I called their manager and quit.”
Moroder did end up working with Deborah Harry again years later on another soundtrack song, producing “Rush Rush” from Scarface, and in 2004 remixed Blondie’s single “Good Boys.”
Tunes du Jour’s Throwback Thursday playlist this week spotlights the best of 1980, kicking off with Blondie’s “Call Me.”
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July is National Cell Phone Courtesy Month. Seriously. I didn’t make that up.
The fact that we need a National Cell Phone Courtesy Month says a lot about our country. Cell phones are ubiquitous. People are self-centered sphincters. You need to be courteous for only one month per year.
We use cell phones to text people we don’t feel like talking to. We use them to show the world what food looks like. We use them to film police officers murdering unarmed black citizens. Sometimes we use them as phones. Naomi Campbell has been known to use hers as a weapon.
Here are some cell phone courtesy tips:
Don’t use your cell phone during business meetings! Those meetings are set by executives who need their egos stroked by having people gather in a room to hear them bloviate and accomplish nothing. How can they adequately waste your time if you’re getting things done on your cell phone? That’s cheating. Put the phone away, unless you’re one of the senior execs who need the ego stroking. Then by all means check your phone while people sit in the conference room waiting for the meeting to be over. They already think you’re rude, so why not take that as far as you can? Sphincter!
Reply to your text messages promptly! Don’t keep someone in suspense who needs to know what you think of their alleged witticism. Send an emoji. They’ll probably then respond with a different emoji, meaning you’ll have to answer that as well. Next thing you know, the whole day is shot, you got nothing done, but the insecure person who initiated the text conversation feels a little bit better about themselves, so it’s all worth it. If you’re at a meeting when a text message comes in, don’t respond right away! Wait until the egomaniacal sphincter who called the meeting isn’t looking at you, which will be most of the meeting as his only concern is the sound of his own voice. Hold your phone under the table and reply. That works every time.
Don’t use your phone while on a date! That is so rude! Someone is taking the time to get to know you and try to enjoy a meal with you. Not paying attention to them demonstrates your complete lack of manners. There are exceptions to this rule. If the person bores you to tears, text your best friend and tell him to call you with a made-up emergency. If your best friend doesn’t reply promptly (rude!) and your date is droning on and on about how “all lives matter” or how great the band Chicago is, break the monotony of his or her blather by photographing your food and showing the pic to your date. He or she will be astonished at how much the food in the photo looks like the food on the table in front of him or her, and for a moment, will cease his or her otherwise endless babble. If that doesn’t work, just run out of the restaurant. What do you care? You have no intention of seeing him/her again anyway. Don’t forget to block them on your phone so they can’t text or call you again.
Set your phone to silent or vibrate while in a movie theater, a Broadway show, or a house of worship on your wedding day. Do the same thing if you die. It’s so awkward to be at a funeral and hear “Thong Song” emanate from the deceased. Mourners won’t know if it’s okay to laugh, and that song will be stuck in everyone’s head for the rest of the day, just like it will be stuck in yours for the next few hours. That thong-th-thong-thong-thong.
Don’t be staring at your cellular device while walking on a crowded sidewalk or while in a shopping mall with a large fountain. I take that back. Stare at it in the mall. I can never get enough of that video of that woman who fell into the mall fountain while staring at her device. Remember her? Then she sued the mall! LOL! If you see someone at the mall who is so busy staring at their device that they’re about to fall into the fountain, PLEASE, take out your phone and film it! Post it on the Internet. Humiliate them so they learn proper cell phone etiquette, but only do so if it is July.
I hope these tips help you avoid being a complete sphincter while out in public.
Friday is dance day at Tunes du Jour. Our weekly dance party kicks off with the Lady Gaga/Beyoncé collaboration, “Telephone.”
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Tears for Fears, the duo consisting of Roland Orzabel and Curt Smith, released their debut album, The Hurting, in 1983. In their native England the album spawned three top five singles, “Mad World,” “Change” and “Pale Shelter.” In the US, their most successful single, “Change,” peaked at #73 on the Billboard Hot 100.
When it came time to do their second album, they wanted to break the US market. Needing one more song to round out the record, the duo’s producer, Chris Hughes, suggested Orzabel flesh out a song sketch he brought into the studio. Orzabel did so, and while he didn’t think much of the finished piece, Smith and Hughes thought this is the song that would change their fortunes stateside.
This song, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” was the first single released in the US from Songs from the Big Chair. It went to #1. The song that was the album’s first single in much of the world, “Shout,” was the second US single from the album, and the duo’s second #1.
Today, Curt Smith of Tears for Fears turns 55 years old. Tunes du Jour’s weekly dance party kicks off with a song on which Smith sings lead, Tears for Fears’ #1 breakthrough hit “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.”
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In the early 1990s a demo of a song written by four men circulated through Warner Bros. Records. Though people at the label appreciated the song’s chorus, nobody wanted to record it.
Thinking that with some work the song may be good for Cher, whose last top ten pop hit was 1989’s “Just Like Jesse James,” Warner sent the demo to London’s Metro Studio, where two additional songwriters took a stab at improving the composition. Producers Mark Taylor and Brian Rawling created a dance track for the revised song, which they presented to Cher. She liked it.
She recorded the song. She and her producers played with a new technology called Auto-Tune, which added a robotic sound effect to her voice. When Warner heard that, they asked that it be removed, but Cher was adamant it stay.
In October of 1998, more than a half-decade after the composition’s original incarnation, Warner released Cher’s recording of “Believe.” On March 13, 1999, the song, the first pop tune to feature Auto-Tune, became Cher’s fifth #1 single in the United States, making her, then age 52, the oldest woman to top the US charts. It was her first #1 single since “Dark Lady” in 1974, the longest span ever between #1 records. It was the biggest-selling single stateside of 1999.
The record hit #1 in the UK, where it became the best-selling single of all-time by a female artist. It also topped the charts in Germany, Canada, The Netherlands, Australia, France, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, New Zealand and Ireland.
Today the woman born Cherilyn Sarkisian turns 70 years old. Our weekly dance party kicks off with “Believe.” Have a superb weekend!
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In 1982, Carole Ann Wilken of London sent photos she took of her 16-year-old daughter wearing lingerie to the newspaper The Sunday People as part of an amateur modeling contest. The girl, Samantha, placed second. Newspaper The Sun took note of the pics and, with her parents’ permission, soon published topless photos of the teenager on page three of the paper. News. England.
Before long Samantha Fox became a household name in the United Kingdom. In 1986 she released the single “Touch Me (I Want Your Body),” which went to #1 in 17 countries. In the U.S. it peaked at #4.
Her music career graced us with four top 40 hits stateside and nine in her home country. England.
For my money, her best single is easily 1989’s “I Wanna Have Some Fun,” which hit #8 in the U.S., but only reached #63 in the U.K. It was her last solo single to chart there.
In 2009, Fox announced her engagement to her longtime girlfriend/manager, Myra Stratton. Stratton lost her battle with cancer last summer.
Today Tunes du Jour celebrates the 50th birthday of Samantha Fox. Our party playlist should kick off with her best track, “I Wanna Have Some Fun.” However, that track is not on Spotify. Spotify. England. Sheesh.
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Blondie’s hit single “Heart of Glass” 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’s Throwback Thursday playlist spotlights twenty of the best tracks from 1979, kicking off with Blondie’s upsetting disco novelty.
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Last week my close friend Laura forward to me a link to Rolling Stone magazine’s “100 Greatest Artists” and asked for my impression.
My 100 Greatest Artists list includes many of the same acts as Rolling Stone’s list; however, there is a large handful of acts on my roll that are not on that publication’s slate.
I won’t disparage their choices (but seriously, Aerosmith at #59?). Instead, I will share with you music from twenty artists that made my roster but are not among Rolling Stone’s top 100.
Feel free to share your choice acts in the Comments section.
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There’s a dead bird on my balcony. I don’t know the bird. I don’t know how he or she died. I raised the shades on Tuesday morning and saw the bird underneath one of the two lounge chairs I bought at Ikea ten years ago.
I don’t know what to do with the dead bird. I’d like to alert his or her family, who for all I know are keeping a vigil, hoping to see their loved one come home to roost, or whatever non-chicken birds do when they return home. More so, I’d like the dead bird off my balcony, as it makes me sad to see him or her whenever I have the shades up. Dead bird aside, I like to have the shades up.
It would be great if a huge breeze came along and blew the dead bird off of my balcony and into a neighbor’s backyard, where he or she would no longer be my problem, but that seems unlikely. We were promised that El Niño would hit Los Angeles in mid-January and wreak havoc through mid-May, also bringing about some much-needed rain to our drought-ridden state, but our hopes for miserable weather have been dashed. Yesterday was sunny and in the mid-seventies with nary a breeze in sight (in feel?), and today is a mere five degrees cooler.
If I were still living on the east coast, I’d be preparing for a huge blizzard right now, one in which dead birds are blown far away, or at the very least covered in snow, where they can’t be seen when one raises their shades. Count your blessings, east coasters. Each and every morning I’m forced to face a dead bird, and by extension my own mortality, while you get to lock yourselves up inside your tiny apartments, never to again set foot outdoors. Lucky.
You may be wondering what all of this has to do with the late Michael Hutchence, who was born on this date in 1960. I’ll tell you. Michael Hutchence was the original lead singer of INXS, and New York is expecting INXS of ten inches of snow over the next twenty-four or so hours.
If you’re in New York, or elsewhere on the east coast where blizzards are expected, stay inside and dance. If you’re on the west coast, where dead birds mysteriously show up on your balcony beneath one of the two lounge chairs you bought at Ikea ten years ago, stay inside and dance. Everyone else should stay inside and dance. Here is your Michael Hutchence-inspired Friday dance playlist.
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