R.I.P. Burt Bacharach

A giant of 20th century songwriting died yesterday... the brilliant Burt Bacharach, along with Hal David, wrote so many hit songs for so many artists in the 60s and 70s--and 80s(!), it is hard to name all the masterpieces...

Photo: Michael Ochs Archives

R.I.P. Burt and thanks for the tunes.

"Blue Moves" by Elton John

In the space of three years, between 1973 and 1975, Elton John released five career-defining albums. He and lyricist Bernie Taupin were at the height of their powers, creating the double album "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" featuring the iconic "Candle In The Wind" and "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting," the album "Caribou" with the unforgettable "The B*itch Is Back" and the epic, tragic "Ticking," the autobiographical album "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy," and finally "Rock of the Westies" which felt a little like a continuation of "Captain Fantastic." They were all stellar albums full of great songs and #1 hits. I was a kid then, and a huge Elton John fan... each of those albums was bought for me for Christmas or my birthday (thanks mom and dad!). But the album immediately following, 1976's "Blue Moves" was in a way, a sort of crown on the previous run of albums. It is moody, dense, and a culmination of the songwriting that came before it. It remains an underrated album (with its cover by British artist Patrick Proctor, previously here) but I think one of his best. Like the cover, the entire album is an intriguing, layered oil painting. Here are some marvelously crafted and orchestrated tracks that stand out for me.

https://www.eltonjohn.com/

"Career Day" by Keaton Henson

Brand new trembling beauty from Keaton Henson (previously here), just released day before yesterday.

"Career Day."

I am devastated by this. Slain.

I'm an astronaut, baby
I work in the night
I'm a certain kinda crazy
I live in my mind

I'm a deep sea diver
I find ways to breathe
I'm deep undercover
I don't look like me

I'm paper-thin
Just break me in

I'm a part time mortician
I cannot shake death
And I'm an aging physician
Ain't got much healin' left

I'm a character actor
I feed myself wine
But it leaves me pretty good at
Pretending I'm fine

I'm paper-thin
Just break me in

I'm a struggling comedian
I can't find the laughs
I'm a poor mathematician
I do things by halves

I'm a weekday dancer
Can't kick the movement from my shoes
I'm a heartless casino
I win when you lose

I'm paper-thin
Just break me in

http://keatonhenson.com/

R.I.P. Florian Schneider

I am saddened to hear of the death of Florian Schneider, founding member of the pioneering electronic German group Kraftwerk. He died after a short illness, aged 73. I am lucky to have seen Kraftwerk perform in the late 1990s.

Here is a marvelous article by BBC music reporter Marc Savage about the reach and influence of Kraftwerk.

How Florian Schneider and Kraftwerk influenced five decades of music

The US and the UK are often considered the twin crucibles of pop music but, thanks to Kraftwerk's visionary synth music, Dusseldorf has at least an equal claim on the title.

In the mid-1970s, the band's allegiance to what they called "robot pop" set the sonic template for everything from hip-hop to dance music.

In some quarters, they were called "the electronic Beatles", and it's hard to disagree.

Electronic music had existed before - from the musitron solo on Del Shannon's Runaway to the mind-expanding Doctor Who theme, recorded by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in 1963.

But Kraftwerk developed a new musical vocabulary, sculpting hypnotic, low-frequency sounds that celebrated Europe's romantic past and looked forward to its shimmering future.

'Circuitry and soul'
On albums like Trans-Europe Express and Man Machine, the quartet connected "the coldness of circuitry and the warmth of the soul", wrote music critic Garry Mulholland, "reminding us that machines are, after all, the product of the dreams of humans".

Among those who took notice were David Bowie, who borrowed their industrial atmospherics on Low; and Afrika Bambaataa, who lifted the icy riff from Trans-Europe Express to power one of rap's earliest anthems, Planet Rock.

In turn, those records spawned the New Romantic, synth pop and hip-hop movements of the 80s, which later bled into trance, house and EDM.

"They started it all," said Pet Shop Boy Chris Lowe in 1990.

Kraftwerk emerged from the same German experimental music community of the late '60s that spawned Can and Tangerine Dream.

Founders Florian Schneider and Ralf Hütter met as students at Dusseldorf Conservatory, but rebelled against the constraints of classical music.

"We don't want to end up playing Mozart and Beethoven at our local concert hall," Hütter said. "The question is, 'What does Germany sound like today?' That's where we started."

They adopted the name Kraftwerk, meaning "power plant", and described themselves as "klangchemiker" - or sound chemists - immersing themselves in the possibilities of emerging new technology.

Schneider even invented some instruments of his own, including an electronic flute and a vocoder-style synthesizer called the Robovox.

Kraftwerk's first three albums were free-form improvisations, largely played on traditional instruments, and are not considered by the band to be part of their "official" discography.

In 1974, they settled on their definitive sound with Autobahn, a 22-minute synth symphony intended to evoke the feeling of a long journey on Germany's motorways.

Edited down to three minutes, it earned the band a top 40 hit on both sides of the Atlantic - and they later appeared on BBC technology programme Tomorrow's World to demonstrate their "machinemusik".

But not everyone was impressed. In the era of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, the music press treated the pioneers with a sneering suspicion.

"For God's sake, keep the robots out of music," wrote Melody Maker's Keith Ging.

"They sound so detached," complained the NME. "The kind of guys who could blow up the planet just to hear the noise it made."

Their cold, sleek image only fuelled the fire, but critics often missed the sly humour at work in the band's music.

Take, for example, Showroom Dummies from 1977's Trans-Europe Express album - a deadpan riposte to their portrayal as emotionless machines. They took the joke to its logical conclusion on 1978's The Robots.

In 1982, they scored their biggest hit, reaching number one in the UK with The Model - a searing takedown of the fashion industry. But by that point, their sound had become mainstream.

Gary Numan scored a number one hit in 1979 with the synth-heavy Are 'Friends' Electric, paving the way for bands like OMD, Depeche Mode and The Human League, who took Kraftwerk's sounds and transposed them to the industrial cities of England.

Bowie was also a fan, describing their sound as the "folk music of the factories", and paying homage on his classic Berlin album Heroes with the track V-2 Schneider. Kraftwerk returned the favour by namechecking him and Iggy Pop on Trans-Europe Express.

As their output slowed in the 1980s, the band's sound became the bedrock of early hip-hop. In subsequent years, their music has been sampled by everyone from Dr Dre and The Chemical Brothers to Justin Timberlake and The KLF.

Even Coldplay lifted elements of the band's song Computer Love as the central motif to their 2005 song Talk.

Three years later, Schneider left the band - but by that point their legacy as the forefathers of electronic music was assured.

"They are in the psyche of modern pop, whether there is an awareness of it or not," Underworld's Karl Hyde told The Telegraph in 2013.

Martin Gore of Depeche Mode added: "For anyone of our generation involved in electronic music, Kraftwerk were the godfathers."

http://www.kraftwerk.com/

R.I.P. Ric Ocasek

R.I.P. Ric Ocasek.

The Cars tunes were catchy and fun but "Jimmy Jimmy" was a great, meaningful song that didn't get much attention.

http://www.ricocasek.com/

The Poetry of Rock n' Roll: "America"

In honor of National Poetry Month, once a week I will be featuring lyrics of rock n' roll or pop songs that also double as exquisite poetry.

To begin with, let's examine a piece by a prolific songwriter. Paul Simon wrote this song "America" for him and his partner Art Garfunkel to sing on their 1968 concept album "Bookends." Rock journalist Bud Scoppa said, "the record is a meditation on the passage of life and the psychological impact of life's irreversible, ever-accumulating losses". The stunning song cycle also describes the life and death of the romantic ideal of the American Dream and this song addresses that theme with brevity and grace. There was a tremendous amount of social change and dissatisfaction at that time (the Black Panthers formed two years earlier, the Summer of Love was happening, the Altamont riots happened the following year, and the Kent State Shootings would happen two years later), a groundswell of young people questioning a rather empty way of life they were simply expected to inherit and follow, and be quiet about it.

As usual, I am presenting this song (and all songs this month) with lyrics only since that is what I am focusing on. But this is a song where the music--a gentle and naïve melody, and a quirky arrangement that is playful but world-weary--is necessary to get the complete picture. Do Google it and give it a listen.

America
by Paul Simon

"Let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together
I've got some real estate here in my bag"
So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner pies
And we walked off to look for America

"Cathy," I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh,
"Michigan seems like a dream to me now
It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw
I've gone to look for America"

Laughing on the bus, playing games with the faces
She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy
I said, be careful, his bowtie is really a camera

"Toss me a cigarette, I think there's one in my raincoat"
"We smoked the last one an hour ago"
So I looked at the scenery
She read her magazine
And the moon rose over an open field

"Cathy, I'm lost," I said though I knew she was sleeping
"And I'm empty and aching and I don't know why"
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They've all come to look for America
All come to look for America
All come to look for America

http://www.paulsimon.com/

"Bird of Flames" by David Lynch and Chrysta Bell

"Bird of Flames" by David Lynch and Chrysta Bell directed by Chel White.
Wow.

https://chrystabell.com/
http://www.chelwhite.com/

Speaking of "wow" and Lynch, are you watching "Twin Peaks: The Return" (Chrysta Bell plays Special Agent Tammy Preston)? Episode 8 was one of the most frightening things I have ever seen in my life.

http://www.sho.com/twin-peaks

And to tie it all together, here is Chrysta Bell performing a marvelous, darker version of "Falling," the original "Twin Peaks" theme.