Search

Search only in certain items:

40x40

Craig David recommended track Show Me Love by Robin Schulz in Sugar by Robin Schulz in Music (curated)

 
Sugar by Robin Schulz
Sugar by Robin Schulz
2015 | Rhythm And Blues
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

Show Me Love by Robin Schulz

(0 Ratings)

Track

"This is a go-to tune for me whenever I'm doing any of my TS5 shows. I remember when I was playing out the original in the early ‘90s, but I prefer the remix of it, where the beat is a little tougher. “Show Me Love” is always guaranteed to go down. Anywhere I go, as soon as people hear the opening chords, they're like ‘That's a tune I can make memories to.' “And her voice! I got to meet her at Ibiza Rocks, where I do a pool party residency. I played the song in my set and I looked up on the balcony where she was standing, and it was this moment - I'm playing the song, Robyn S is up there mouthing the words to me. I'm thinking, “Should I jump off the stage and get a mic to her? Should someone get a memo to her to come down?” And she's sending me love heart signs from where she's standing. It's Robyn S! And I'm playing one of the most iconic dance tracks of all time. “Why does it resonate with people? Well, for one, the vocal range she's hitting grabs you from the start, like that long “Ohh” she hits at the top. It's also a very simple synth line, which it has in common with “Nightcrawler” too, and it has a simple chord progression. Everyone was trying to copy that kind of pattern, but her line just nailed it. “And lastly it's what she's trying to say, ‘Show me love’. Instantly you feel this euphoria, you feel uplifted. And it's kind of angsty the 'show me love' she's singing, like ‘you gotta show me love and pass all the nonsense’. But if you don't know the context of the story and you've just got your hands in the air, it’s like “ahhh”, you feel it"

Source
  
40x40

Tom Jones recommended Just as I Am by Bill Withers in Music (curated)

 
Just as I Am by Bill Withers
Just as I Am by Bill Withers
1971 | Rhythm And Blues
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I heard this on the radio in the States, and I loved the songwriting. He was coming up with something different, it was a soulful folk, so I went and bought the album in LA, I thought “I gotta hear what this guy does” and every bloody track on it is a gem. I’ve always loved the sound of an album, maybe as much as the songs themselves, you know the performance, the sound of it makes a big difference to me. And now you know you can get box sets with alternate takes, and you realise then how long it took them sometimes to get the final take. The first time they did it was good, but then all of a sudden - boom - and there it is. I think there’s a good learning process to listen to the ones they didn’t let go, where the producers said “not yet”, and they persevered until... there it is. When I’ve been in a club sometimes, I’ve gotten up [on stage] and they’ve been like, “Do ‘Delilah’!”, and I’ve said “Let me just do this, which I don’t normally do"". So it is, because when you’ve made big records - great onstage, the way you do your own show - but it’s great to do other stuff when you don’t have to do those things. Not that I don’t like them, you know ‘Delilah’’s a great record, but its nice to do other things. So when you hear someone like Bill Withers doing something like that and being successful, you think, “See, there’s room for that.” There’s room for all different kinds of records. They don’t all have to be the same, or in the same vein, or chasing some things just to get a hit record."

Source
  
Broken English by Marianne Faithfull
Broken English by Marianne Faithfull
1979 | Rock
7.0 (2 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I just think that it's a perfect record. The cover is exquisite; it's still one of the most iconic record covers of all time, so beautiful, mysterious and alluring. Every song on that record is great; it's a brilliant record. 

 That sort of worn-out sound of her voice felt very different to me than a lot of the female voices that you hear, even to this day. She's got this very distinct gravelly, worn-out, fucked-up voice that sounds like she's done it all and of course, she has.

 I just think she's a really interesting artist and she continues to take risks and never does the obvious which is something I've always loved about her. 'Why'd Ya Do It' is still one of my all-time favourite songs and it thrills me – this sort of vengeful, raging expression of total disappointment in somebody. I just really identify with that song for some reason. Her version of 'Working Class Hero' is gorgeous as is 'The Ballad of Lucy Jordan' – both are just amazing songs. 

 She's not been born with the greatest of voices and in this climate where everybody's a stage-schooled kid and everybody can sign multiple octaves – they've not actually got any soul in their heart – she's all soul and all desire to communicate through this fucked up voice that's full of frailty. I just think she's so exciting as a result. 

 She was born so beautiful that she could've easily cultivated a very sort of alluring, very traditionally feminine voice and yet she didn't: I'm so grateful to her for that. There's a lot of androgyny that comes out in her sound, which I really identify with."

Source
  
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway by Genesis
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway by Genesis
1974 | Pop, Rock
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"This album is a real folly. I don't want to defend Phil Collins for a second, and when I see footage of the Slipperman [a naked lumpy monster with inflatable genitalia who emerged onto the stage by crawling out of a giant penis - Ed] I just chuckle at the thought that it just didn't make any sense to Phil Collins and it really pissed him off. He didn't like seeing Peter Gabriel in this costume. Gabriel didn't give a fuck though, he just wanted to do this piece of theatre. Just round the corner from here is the Palace Theatre, and that's where I saw them do The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, two nights running, when I was 15. We just used to sneak into all the gigs, me and my mates. We were desperate to get into this one because we'd seen them on the Whistle Test but we couldn't get in for love nor money. We were stood outside and the guy who ran Virgin Records on Lever Street was there. I used to go to that shop three or four times a week to buy all my albums, and at about five to eight he came to the door and he recognised me from the shop because I used to ask him for advice, and he beckoned me over and put a ticket in my hand. It was sixth row from the front, and I was just blown away by it. It was one of the greatest things I've ever seen. It was presented as theatre. There were a lot of props. There was a big mesh cage that Gabriel performed in, there were a load of strobes going off. How did they represent a wall of nothingness sweeping across Times Square? Just a bit of smoke I think."

Source
  
Murder in the Bayou Boneyard
Murder in the Bayou Boneyard
Ellen Byron | 2020 | Mystery
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Graveside Murder
In an effort to increase bookings at her family’s Louisiana bed and breakfast during October, Maggie Crozat has come up with the “Pelican’s Spooky Past” promotion. Five of the area B & B’s are teaming up and offering historical crafts, food, and other promotions to tie in to the season. Someone else has gotten into the act since guests keep siting a rougarou, a local legendary monster. One of the events during the month is a play being staged at a nearby dilapidated graveyard. The first couple of weekends, the play goes well, but then at one performance someone in a rougarou costume stumbles onto the stage and dies. As cross jurisdictional strife heats up, Maggie and her family find themselves caught in the middle as prime suspects. Can Maggie clear their names?

Reading this series always makes me want to visit Louisiana in person, and this book is no exception. I also appreciate how we learn something about local customs, legends, and food while we read. The plot is strong with plenty of twists and action to keep us engaged and guessing. I do have a couple of niggles with the climax, but they are minor overall. The characters are as wonderful as ever. I love seeing the regulars again and watching them and their relationships grow. Meanwhile, the suspects are just as strong as the series regulars. Those looking for some Cajun flavor in their life will enjoy the five recipes we get at the end of the book. Fans of the series will enjoy the latest book, and if you are new to the series, this will make you go back and read the books you’ve missed.
  
Children of a Lesser God (1986)
Children of a Lesser God (1986)
1986 | Drama, Musical, Romance
Unfortunately doesn't come out entirely unscathed from stage to screen, a touch too long and a touch too slow for this to be consistently potent - and some segments are a bit too writerly even for me as well as the occasional Broadway banality here and there that sort of brings this to a lull in the middle. But all the same, this is surprisingly complex and fragile filmmaking on the subject for 1986. On a technical note the music and visuals are hushed rhapsody together, and I particularly admire how there's an expressive intimacy in the conversations Hurt has with deaf characters whereas there's this palpably cold distance in the ones he has with hearing ones - an aspect that seems almost intrinsic. And on that note I also have to appreciate how it confronts Hurt's fixer mentality *as well as* Matlin's resistant anger rather than making the deaf character ultimately bend to the will of the 'virtuous helper' 'for their own good'. William Hurt is sensational, and Marlee Matlin is in one of the top-tier greatest performances of the 80s - the fact that they self-gratifyingly gave her their pity award and then immediately refused to cast her in much else is evidence #18,000 on why the Oscars are rancid bullshit. On top of all of that it's packed with awesome scenes and it's just a damn good romance... though if I have one more quibble: do the hearing characters really need to repeat aloud every fucking thing the deaf characters sign to them to absolutely no one at all but themselves like they're talking to a toddler? This really couldn't have been subtitled? But I digress, I still cried multiple times so we aight.
  
40x40

LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated Joji Presents: The Extravaganza (2020) in Movies

Nov 27, 2020 (Updated Nov 27, 2020)  
Joji Presents: The Extravaganza (2020)
Joji Presents: The Extravaganza (2020)
2020 | Comedy, Music
Not as good as Hair Cake. In seriousness, as someone who firmly believes that FIlthy Frank was perhaps the single greatest online entertainer who ever lived - something this casual was always going to seem like a downgrade for me as opposed to his former persona's caustic, over-the-top antics. But I also really enjoy Joji and feel he's similarly unique in a different way - one of which I dig quite a lot. Ballads 1 and Nectar have some *banger* songs on them that I regularly put on repeat so I was fully ready to have fun with this. But what was marketed as a dark spin on a circus stage performance meets a lite version of The Eric Andre Show ended up being a rather low-energy, repetitive slog that stretches at barely over an hour. I'm still not even sure what the point of this was, the only half-inspired bit was Run (and maybe Sanctuary yet it seemed so telegraphed) but other than that it's a collection of confusingly samey (though never bad) live renditions of songs that you get no benefit of seeing performed here as opposed to hearing/seeing them on the albums or music videos. Joji's downtrodden, walking broken heart persona (which - by the way - I love) tries to mix with this high-energy would-be attention grabber and truthfully it doesn't work or come even close to justifying the ticket price. The costumes and songs are still rock-solid even though two or three of them just feel like the same track. It makes me happy to see George's newfound success in something he's so passionate about, but this was a misfire imo. Alas, not even Joji performing Tick Tock as a 𝘋𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘔𝘦 minion can save it. God-tier ending, though - why wasn't the whole thing more like that?