(no subject)

[jawnbc]

I love pop music. The really good stuff and the really cheesy stuff. And I’m one of those guys whose brain either runs incessantly or shuts down entirely. So over the weekend I was ruminating over what are my favourite singles/hits of all time. And it was bloody difficult, but here goes.

Jawn’s top 10 countdown

10. Alone again, naturally - Gilbert O’ Sullivan
9. One, U2
8. Forever Young - Alphaville
7. Pop Muzik - M
6. Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen
5. I Want you Back - Jackson 5
4. Nothing Compares 2 U - Sinéad O’Connor
3. American Pie, Don McLean
2. First time ever I saw your Face - Roberta Flack
1. Pour que tu m’aimes encore - Céline Dion (from d’eux, aka The French Album)


Obviously this is subjective and includes some songs folks haven’t heard of. So post yours as a reply to mine!

Comments

[bearchow.livejournal.com]

*running around in circles screaming* ... Céline!!!!!

[schillerium.livejournal.com]

I'm such a hopeless music junkie that I don't think I could stop at ten songs if I tried. (Hey, there's a reason that High Fidelity didn't surprise me when I took the John Cusack quiz!)

[jawnbc]

Of course! And I reserve the right to change the list on a whim or impulse...c'mon, give it yer best shot!

:)

[schillerium.livejournal.com]

Um, okay...gonna have to think long and hard, though.

[guywithmonsters.livejournal.com]

Pop Muzik - M

Definitely.

I friend you (was too dazed to friend you back before).

[art-thirst.livejournal.com]

I'd love to give you a list but, I don't love pop music. I don't like pop music. I guess if a person realized who Sun Ra was (I mentioned him a few days ago) my reply would make sense.

My short list of music not, or rarely played on the radio. Some newer music is being made but in Miami, FL I'd be hard-pressed to hear it unless I wanted to stay up until 2am on Sat. nights. All the music on my list has been influential but, one would never know it unless a person did music research... *sigh*

links to allow some sampling...
1) Sun Ra and his Interglactic Arkestra (composer, musician)
2) Cecil Taylor (composer, musician)
3) Ornette Coleman (composer, musician)
4) Eric Dolphy (musician)
5) Bela Bartok (composer, musician)
6) John Cage (composer, musician, visual art, thinker)
7) Kronos Quartet
(arbitrarily listed: 1-4, avant garde, freeform, jazz; 5, "classical"; 6, if you don't know John Cage, he has done everything; 7, in a class of their own.)

[art-thirst.livejournal.com]

Okay, here is number 8, 9, and 10 (sorry for the delay).
8) Herbie Hancock (if I were a musician, composer this is who I'd be)
9) Miles Davis
10) Thelonius Monk
11) John Contrane (can't leave him off any list)

Yes, that's eleven... oh well, that's how the mind works.

[jawnbc]

you're relentless! Awesome!

[art-thirst.livejournal.com]

Does that mean you still like me? :-)

[jawnbc]

Ja!

[theotherqpc.livejournal.com]

WHOO! a John Cage fan! marvellous

i studied a little bit of Bartok a while back, but i honestly can't recall much of it.

now, who's John Contrane? ;)

Re:

[art-thirst.livejournal.com]

I misspelled it, John Coltrane, the man who expanded and changed the saxophone and what we knew as jazz improvisation. John Cage had such a brilliant mind I don't think many people understood what he was talking about and accepting him as a novelty, i.e. 3'33". If I'm teaching art appreciation and get to 60's pop, one cannot bypass Warhol, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Merce Cunningham, and John Cage. They all hung out and interacted in NYC with one another. Since Cage also has done visual art that give him another dimension. Sun Ra was there too but, more on the spiritual level than the scientific, although chance operations according to Cage did have a spiritual connection. :-)

Wow.

[singerbear.livejournal.com]

was looking at that to see what I recognized. We must be about the same age, as I recognized most of that. By the way, that last one is called Ma Vie en Rose (I think. the lyrics look right for the first verse.) I LOVE Ms Flack, too. :)


Chris

Re: Wow.

[jawnbc]

Thanks for the reply :)

If you mean the Céline song, it's not La Vie en Rose (sung by Piaf, Grace Jones, the cleaning lady, drag queens the world over). It's a song about obsessive love, not being able to let go, and the lengths to which one can demoralize themself to regain a lover's affection. It's dark, in other words.

Should be easy to download off one of those bad, bad file sharing things. Let me know if you find it and like enough to get the lyrics (and a translation).

The Flack song, interesting enough, was written by Ewan MacColl, a feisty socialist folk singer from England...it describes his love for Peggy Seeger (Pete's sister), for whom he left his first wife. Most of his other songs are bitingly political--my favourite is one called "legal/illegal" and Frances Black does a kick-ass version of it. Acapella.

I could go on and on and....but nah, that'd be tedious!

hugs,

J