I remember hearing this late one night in a friend’s car back in 1989 and immediately bought the “Doolittle” CD when the record store opened the next day. While many quibble about what the best Pixies album is, I’ve never heard a negative thing said about “Doolittle.” And thanks to my undergraduate film class I was able to catch the Luis Bunuel reference in the lyrics and for five minutes, I felt smart and cool.
In an otherwise laudatory review of David Fincher’s 2010 film “The Social Network,” Garry Mulholland offers this astute observation: “… (the film) plays one of the oldest Hollywood tricks in the book: the capitalist comfort-food trick. You know the one. You’ve spent your last pennies entering the cinema. All you can think about is your s–t job and whether you can afford the mortgage and you kids’ new shoes this month. And the next couple of hours of pictures puts an arm around you and tells you what you need to hear in order to just keep going until someone finally pays you a pitiful pension and consigns you to final years of visiting stately homes and being horrible to your family. It tells you the Rich aren’t happy. That they’re not as nice as you. That the reason that they have everything is actually because they’re not as nice as you … And this one has real legs, because it’s about real millionaires who are still alive and didn’t sue anyone when they were portrayed as bitter, greedy, elitist, misogynist a–wipes. So it must be true. Ergo, the reason you must accept your lot and play the game is because people don’t get money and power in this world unless they are soulless monsters. So accept your place, and like it. Because you’re nice.” Ouch!
By the way, Mulholland’s book on teen films (where this observation comes from), “Stranded at the Drive-In” is one of the most brilliant collections of cultual criticism I’ve seen in a long time. If you have any remote interest in this subject, pick this up IMMEDIATELY!!! And (yes, yes), it’s available in Kindle format.
From PT Anderson’s 1999 film “Magnolia,” the audacious scene where all of the lead characters (who are experiencing incredible emotional trauma) sing along to Aimee Mann’s tremendously emotional song “Wise Up.” A brilliant and artistically ballsy scene and one of the reasons PT Anderson is our generation’s greatest filmmaker.
Continuing the Walter Hill thread from the last post is this seminal R&B song prominently used in Hill’s 1982 film “48 Hours” The film featured Eddie Murphy’s debut as a film actor and 30 years later, is still one of the most electrifying debut performances in movie history. The song is amazing and the Bus Boys, a tremendously underrated R&B / rock band from the early 1980s, were like the Blasters, albeit with more of a Stax-Volt feel. Another great band that didn’t fit into any prescribed niche and therefore, slipped through the cracks commercially.
OK, I’m blaming the selection of this guilty pleasure on my daughter’s theater group doing “Les Miserables” this week. Let’s just say I’ve been feeling a little “Fosse” the last few days and if you give me any s–t about it, I will post Neil Diamond’s horrendously inappropriate cover of “I Dreamed a Dream” to punish you. Don’t think I won’t do it.
Anyway, I’ve always liked this song and the movie it came from (“Streets of Fire”). Arguably, Jim Steinman’s finest hour as a writer/producer. And even if you don’t like it, you can see Diane Lane strutting her stuff (NEVER a bad thing!), while Michael Pare, Willem Dafoe, Robert Townsend, Mykelti Williamson, and Lee Ving (from the beyond politically-incorrect punk band Fear) do their thing in the background.
Mott the Hoople’s 1974 album “The Hoople” is a great, but uneven collection of songs that shows the band at a crucial, albeit schizophrenic crossroads. Many the songs seem written for a rock and roll Broadway musical, while others (the Marilyn Manson/Alice Cooper-like “Crash Street Kidds”) seem to be anticipating punk a few years later. “Marionette” is from the Broadway end of things, albeit creeping towards the Cooper/ Manson side. Somewhere Meat Loaf and his producer/collaborator Jim Steinman are taking notes.
An unusual, but wonderful cover of the Peggy Lee classic from 1969 that Harvey recorded for the soundtrack of Julian Schanbel’s wonderful biopic on Jean-Michel Basquiat from 1996 (“Basquiat”).
Continuing the melodramatic early 1970s piano/strings ballad vibe, comes this remarkably gorgeous ballad from 2010. I just heard this for the first time today and it reminded me of the type of song that would not have been out of place on a Harry Nilsson or Badfinger album back in the day. I think the accompanying video leaves much to be desired, but the song is a winner.
From the infamous “lost weekend” album that Lennon recorded with Nilsson (“Pussy Cats”) in 1974, comes this lush, melodramatic ballad that makes “Without You” sound like “We Got the Beat.”
The stunning opener from O’Connor’s debut album “The Lion and the Cobra.” It’s the song that hooked me when someone played this album in the record store I was hanging out in during the winter of 1987-1988. Even 25 years later, it still puts chills up my spine.
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