Which one is your favorite? - XXV -

I guess songs from the 80s bring back good memories since I was a teenager in that era. This one is coming from 1982 from a British new wave band. It reached Number 1 in UK lists and Number 2 in USA.  At first, the band leader didn't want this released as a single because it was such a personal song for him (he later admitted that he wrote the lyrics about his relationship with their drummer Jon Moss).

Here is the song for this week;

"Do You Really Want To Hurt Me"

Culture Club wrote this song for their first album "Kissing To Be Clever". The song rose rapidly in the UK charts after the group's first appearance on Top of the Pops, which resulted in George's androgynous style of dress and sexual ambiguity making newspaper headlines. The group were only asked to appear on Top of the Pops the night before the show, after Shakin' Stevens pulled out.

The band came up with the soft reggae beat and put the song together when they found they had some spare studio time during a recording session for the Peter Powell show on BBC Radio One. Their bass player Mikey Craig brought a Caribbean influence to the band's sound.

The concept of the video was Boy George as an outsider, getting kicked out of different places in various historical settings. It was directed by Julien Temple, who came up with the idea of jurors dressed in blackface. This was a shocking image for American audiences, who long associated blackface with racism, but in England it was far more accepted as part of their music hall tradition.

Here are the versions I picked for you;

• Rita Coolidge - "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me"

• Violent Femmes - "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me"

• Akira Mitake - "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me"

Now the floor is yours, go ahead and make your comments (here, Instagram, Facebook wherever you feel like...).

nb. Please note that I intentionally do not include the original versions of the songs as it would be a little unfair to the artists covering the songs, and I am sure that sometimes you will be surprised to see that the songs you thought were the originals are just covers.

Five Songs for the Weekend - LXV -

On one side, saddened by the death of David Roback, co-founder of Mazzy Star. On the other side, news about coronavirus spreading all over the world...Today isn't the day to feel great but let's try to feel a bit better with the healing power of music.

As Robert Fripp once said;

"Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence."

Here is the list for this weekend;

• Mazzy Star - "Look On Down From The Bridge"

• The Wailing Souls - "Jah Jah Give Us Life To Live"

• Gene Ammons - "Don't Go To Strangers"

• Calexico - "The Ballad of Cable Hogue"

• Morrissey - "Bobby, Don't You Think They Know?"

Hope you have a great weekend.

nb. You can open the actual youtube page by clicking the name on the upper left side of each video.

Which one is your favorite? - XXIV -

This week our song is coming from the 60s. It is a song that was written by English composers Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse for the musical The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd. It was first performed on stage in 1964 by Cy Grant on the UK tour and by Gilbert Price in 1965 with the original Broadway cast. However, the song became a trademark for Nina Simone and she was the first to sing it off stage, that is why I did not include her version among the choices below...

Here is the song for this week;

"Feelin' Good"

Nina Simone's version, arranged and produced by Hal Mooney, was recorded in New York in January 1965 and appeared on her album I Put a Spell on You. It was not released as a single at the time. In 1994, Simone's recording was used in a British TV commercial for Volkswagen, and became popular. Released as a single, it reached no. 40 on the UK Singles Chart in July 1994. Five years later it was used in an advert for Comfort Silk fabric conditioner.

Simone's version was remixed by Joe Claussell in 2002 for the first volume of the Verve Remixed series.

Here are the four versions I picked for you;

• Muse - "Feelin' Good"

• Michael Bublé - "Feelin' Good"

• Randy Crawford & Joe Sample Trio - "Feelin' Good"

• George Michael - "Feeling Good"

Now the floor is yours, go ahead and make your comments (here, Instagram, Facebook wherever you feel like...).

nb. Please note that I intentionally do not include the original versions of the songs as it would be a little unfair to the artists covering the songs, and I am sure that sometimes you will be surprised to see that the songs you thought were the originals are just covers.

Five Songs for the Weekend - LXIV -

Good news coming in and immediately followed by bad news; strange times we are living in... Politics have really changed during the last 25 years or so and ramified so fastly that it is nearly impossible to follow or understand unless you are in it. I guess this is a way to depoliticize the people but in any case decency, honesty and freedom will prevail all over the world...

As the great Frank Zappa once said;

"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible."

And here is this week's list;

• The Housemartins - "Happy Hour"

• Zita Swoon - "L'Opaque Paradis"

• Monaco - "What Do You Want From Me?"

• PJ Harvey feat. Thom Yorke - "This Mess We're In"

• Ambrose Akinmusire - "A Blooming Bloodfruit In A Hoodie"

Hope you have a great weekend.

nb. You can open the actual youtube page by clicking the name on the upper left side of each video.

RIP: Jon Christensen

Norwegian drummer and one of the most popular members of the ECM sound has passed away yesterday.

In the late 1960s, Christensen played alongside Jan Garbarek on several recordings by the composer George Russell. He also was a central participant in the Jazz band, Masqualero, with Arild Andersen, and they reappeared in 2003 for his 60th anniversary. He appears on many recordings on the ECM label with such artists as Keith Jarrett, Jan Garbarek, Terje Rypdal, Bobo Stenson, Eberhard Weber, Ralph Towner, Barre Phillips, Arild Andersen, Enrico Rava, John Abercrombie, Michael Mantler, Miroslav Vitous, Rainer Brüninghaus, Charles Lloyd, Dino Saluzzi and Tomasz Stanko. He, along with Jan Garbarek and Palle Danielsson, was a member of the legendary Keith Jarrett "European Quartet" of the 1970s which produced five excellent jazz recordings on ECM Records.

His drumming style was rather interesting as he liked to describe his rhythm concept not in linear terms but rather as a wave — with the implication that it could accommodate all manner of ebb and flow.

Here is a beautiful recording of him with the "European Quartet" I mentioned above...

RIP Jon Christensen, thank you for the music...