ambushed by unexpected soundey-likey

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

maxi priest ("close to you"*) and elvis costello!
[yes yes i know i always think ppl sound like elvis costello -- THIS IS BECAUSE WHEN I SAY THEY DO THEY DO so bug-off deffo]

anyway you can reveals yours in the comments

*george benson song i believe

Comments

maxi priest is a bit rubbish, isn't he?

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

(the full name of this review project is "what do records i can reach from the new position of my desk now that i also have a working record-player i can use without leaving my typing chair sound like eh?" btw)

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Kings of Leon's Kick The Bucket = Kenickie's People We Like (1 guitar line only)

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised actually you didn't say that the Tom Petty song in this week's Pop Open round sounds like EC. Because IT DOES!

[thenipper.livejournal.com]

I recently noticed that glitchfolk types Tungg occasionally sound *just like* Jona Lewie.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Kat and I had one of these on Tuesday! Nicole Scherzinger, vocally, is Taylor Hanson. It's not her fault that he never wanted anyone to loosen up his buttonz.

One I always remember is how the holler of "HOLD ME DOWN!" in 'Hounds Of Love' reminds me of how Teedra Moses sings the line "I need you to hold me down" on 'Complex Simplicity' - in both cases it's the central moment of the song, and there's this kind of beyond-words rush to the way Kate and Teedra sing them.

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

Ah shit, you're right. My mother always thinks Pink is Hanson, too, especially on the pre-chorus / chorus of "Just Like a Pill."

[koganbot]

Celine Dion's "Taking Chances" sounds uncannily like Platinum Weird's "Taking Chances." (Nia, did you see last Tuesday's Celine discussion?)

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

I'm mad that you thought of that and I didn't.

(Yes, did you see the long-ass email I sent you and now I have nothing left to say about Celine?)

[koganbot]

You mean the one where you said, "Kara sounds like she's trying to stand back up on the strength of her voice alone"? Yes, I saw it, but was hoping you might want to share your ideas with other people around here too.

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that one. Okay, fine, shared! Satisfied?

Celine Dion is the real Clash

[koganbot]

Yes, Nia, and of course you did have plenty more to say, e.g., "the way she growls back into her throat a little on 'you don't know about my past.'" Dion's middle and lower registers are under-reported.

(You listen with much greater concentration than I do. I just sort of walk around with impressions of what's going on in a song, without usually knowing how the songmakers pulled it off. I remember when I was in bands, when it wasn't my own song, I often would never get to the point where I knew how many verses were in a song, I just could tell from various cues when we were going into the break and when the song was ending etc. I'm not so inattentive to other things, but music... maybe in my heart I was afraid of demystifying it.)

Celine's "hell to pay" doesn't have nearly enough hell in it, compared to Kara's.

But what I want to say to Mark, as this is his thread, is that CELINE DION IS THE REAL CLASH! The Clash sang, "No Elvis, Beatles, or the Rolling Stones," but Celine, unlike the Clash, really succeeded in singing as if Elvis, Beatles, and the Rolling Stones never happened, and she did so without even trying! (Well, it's remotely possible that she picked up some vocal thises and thats from Elvis, but certainly nothing of his sensibility.) I mean, she's not even setting herself in opposition to them or anything they represent. Just kind of... nada.

Re: Celine Dion is the real Clash

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

Meanwhile, why do you start conversations with me and then never reply?

I'm inattentive to just about everything else, possibly because I have no musical talent at all and can't demystify it, but...how do you like it if you don't know what it is? What is it that you like, when you like a song?

Re: Celine Dion is the real Clash

[koganbot]

Because I had a column to write, and then another, and then another after that... But yeah, I get frustrated by the exact same thing, my saying something in response to someone and never getting a response back. It's the way things happen around here. But sometimes something you say will percolate in my brain even when I don't respond, and then six years later I will say to you, "Nia, remember when you said..." and I'll give a long, convoluted reply, and you'll have no idea what I'm referring to or going on about. (I no doubt pass over lots of interesting things you say without taking them in, but if you say them I might well go back and find them, at some point.)

how do you like it if you don't know what it is? What is it that you like, when you like a song?

I often don't know. Just as I often don't know what I like when I like a face, or a personality. If I have the time to think hard, I might get an idea; or if other people start talking about the song/face/personality and why they like/dislike it, sometimes through their words I'll get a better idea of what I'm seeing/hearing and why I like it (and also might come to see and hear it a lot better).

Re: Celine Dion is the real Clash

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

Are you saying that work is more important than the Internet? That's just crazy talk.

Re: Celine Dion is the real Clash

[koganbot]

Hey, we're going to be more famous than the Internet!

Re: Celine Dion is the real Clash

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

Al Gore invented us!

Re: Celine Dion is the real Clash

[epicharmus.livejournal.com]

There is plenty of Phil Spector in her, though.

I know (I think) the Clash didn't target Spector by name but perhaps he (and everyone else) is kinda implied since "No Elvis/Beatles/Stones" strikes me as a bit...limited. Not quite ambitious enough for a band trying to eat the world

Re: Celine Dion is the real Clash

[koganbot]

You know, I never altogether understood what the Clash meant by that statement, and they may not have, either. But I don't think that they were saying, "Elvis/Beatles/Stones no longer have an impact" or even "Elvis/Beatles/Stones no longer have an impact on us"; probably more like, "We no longer can take what they do (did) as providing much of a pathway for what we will do, even if we do sound somewhat like them and even though we employ their strategies, including their strategy of denying the past." Maybe that's giving the Clash credit for more insight than they actually had. Also seems to me that the Stones in '63-'64 were way more of a break than the Clash and Pistols '77, who came on very much like the Rolling Stones.

Seems to me that when Celine Dion employs Spector - or if she were to do a melody that sounded Beatlesque, for that matter - she's just using it sonically, something for her palette. Which is fine, it's just way farther away from embodying the social impact of rock 'n' roll than the Clash were, and it was the social impact that the Clash were - I think - calling a dead letter.