http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN5XDwsj0TI&feature=related
Music
Obscure Today – Tarkus
The local River North restaurant Rockit uses former album covers as binders for their menus. I was surprised one day to see Tarkus by Emerson, Lake & Palmer.
While Tarkus would be an obscure album today (the average person who is familiar with classic rock might know “Lucky Man” and a couple other songs) it is hard to think that in 1971, when this album came out, it reached #1 on the billboard charts in the UK (and #9 in the US). According to wikipedia, this album landed between “Sticky Fingers” by the Rolling Stones and “Bridge over Troubled Water” by Simon & Garfunkel.
To put this in context – “Sticky Fingers” was one of the run of 4 fantastic albums that put the Rolling Stones in the pantheon of rock – they were 1) Beggars Banquet 2) Let it Bleed 3) Sticky Fingers 4) Exile on Main Street. And everyone knows Bridge over Troubled Water.
And yet Tarkus, and mostly Emerson, Lake & Palmer, is completely and utterly unknown. Nowadays Tarkus would be viewed as a niche product, un-commercial for radio / MP3 singles but perhaps capturing a tiny but devoted market. The song Tarkus takes up a whole side, and is over 20 minutes long, a series of sub-songs linked into one big song. If you even thought about releasing a jazz / semi-metal / progressive rock album (CD) like this today you’d get laughed out of the record executive’s office (if they have offices anymore).
At least I was entertained seeing Tarkus as part of my lunch menu. To think that one day long ago that this would be more than a minor trivia item, or a piece of kind of ugly artwork, is almost unthinkable.
Cross posted at LITGM
The Art of the Remake, VII
Remember the standard: “If you are going to cover a song, rip it apart a bit and make it your own.”
Coldplay, in tribute to the recently departed MCA of Beastie Boys.
Just Because I Like It
The prospect of terminating Barack Obama’s employment inspired Bookworm and her commenters to link various breakup songs.
Which reminded me of this great song: Goodbye to You!
Irritating 10-second ad at the beginning, but it’s worth it.
Singer/Songwriter Appreciation: Tom Russell
From an Amazon customer review of one of Tom Russell’s albums:
Twice in my life, while driving in heavy freeway traffic, I’ve heard songs so good on the radio that I had to pull off the road and collect my thoughts. Turns out Tom Russell wrote both of ’em.
I’ve never had to actually pull off the road, but there’s no denying that TR’s songs pack a considerable emotional punch…indeed, I think Russell is one of the most talented singer/songwriters working today. I’ve been meaning to write a review of his work for some time, and was stirred into action by L C Reese’s post Grasshoppers and Frost, which reminded me of some lines from Russell’s song Ambrose Larsen:
The blackbirds and the locusts, destroyed our corn and wheat
The hawks they ate the chickens, the wolves our mutton meat
With traps and dogs and shotguns loud, we fought this old wild ground
Our children caught the fever, but no doctors were around
(listen here)
The above is from TR’s album The Man From God Knows Where, a song-cycle about the American immigrant experience based in part on the lives of his own Norwegian and Irish ancestors. “Concept albums often fall flat because they are too explicit” noted an SFGate review of this work, “…but The Man From God Knows Where triumphs by laying out the story of one man’s family in intimate detail while developing general themes that inform all our lives.”