Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Rhapsody playlist: Gorillaz' new Demon Days album: "It's the new Gorillaz album, dude. (Mainly this is a test post from Rhapsody 3.0 to the blog...)"

Monday, May 30, 2005

Cheapshot on Lionel

Evil Dave must've posted today - normally he's much more of a decent guy, but this was quite a cheapshot against Lionel Richie.
I was flipping channels last night and caught a profile of R&B star Lionel Richie, talking about what it's like to write a song. He says sometimes he's searching for the line that ties all the elements of a song together, he could be searching for weeks, and then it hits him like a thunderbolt -- boom -- mind bomb, that's it, and he can move on to the next project.
So far so good! But then:
Then I wondered if he actually wrote the songs, was he describing what it's like to have an idea, or what he thought it would be like if he ever actually had one. I have no idea if Richie is a creative guy or if he pays people to be creative, or if he rips people off and says their creativity is his without paying.
Geez, would that have taken 30 seconds to Google, Dave? Here you go: Lionel Richie songwriter. Then you'd know he's written "3 times a lady" and "Still" (The Commodores), "Lady" (Kenny Rodgers), "Say You, Say Me" "Dancing on the Ceiling" "All Night Long" "Hello" and quite a few more. (But let's just skip his co-writing credit on "We are the World", ok?)

(I'll add some Rhapsody links later, but c'mon, you know at least half of those songs, right? Sorry if I gave you an earworm infection....)

Check this out:
1987 saw Richie's nine-year streak of writing at least one number one single (a feat matched only by Irving Berlin) come to an end.
Now, granted, some of these songs may not be my cup of tea, but you won't catch me saying that Lionel doesn't know how to be creative. And you can make pedantic arguments that creating a #1 single is not a creative exercise but I'll sit out on that particular lecture if anyone cares to make it.

Every once in a while Dave gets snarky for no visible reason and behaves in a manner inconsistent with (what may be just my view of) his better nature. I guess this was one of those times.

Of course, my glass house is stone-proof.

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

A few musicians to check out

I'll have to go back and add Rhapsody links later. Tracy Grammer (Hey Ho), Stephen St. Clair (Stupid Game). And of course Haiku D'etat (Mike Aaron and Eddy).

Friday, May 20, 2005

Spamalot! (rhapsody link) - yes, it's true, Rhapsody has the soundtrack from the Eric Idle Broadway musical adaptation of Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail. Thanks for the tip Ryan!