The End of Blink-182?

The newest blog post from Frank Macari!

Most people haven’t really thought much of pop-punk group Blink-182 since the early 2000s.  But it looks like their days as a formerly popular band are done for.  Not due to some hit record, but rather because of a feud in the band that’s threatened to break them up for good.  It all started on Monday, when bandmates Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker said that they were going to perform at the upcoming Musink Tat Fest in March without bandmate Tom DeLonge, since, according to them, he had quit the band once again.  Then, however, Tom posted a note

saying that he was shocked by the news, since he had never quit.  Then, he reportedly reposted (and then deleted) a tweet claiming that he and Hoppus were thinking about firing Travis at one point.

According to Tom, back in 2013, he and the band had thought about booting Travis out of the band after he refused to fly for their Australian tour due to being uncomfortable about being in a plane after he survived a deadly 2008 plane crash.  Even though the band found a good replacement drummer, it didn’t stop Travis from getting into a Twitter battle with the tour’s promoter.  Tom, upset about that, talked about throwing Travis out of the band, but according to Hoppus, it was never serious, and a month after the fact he decided he had no desire to replace him.

However, it seems like this fight might be the last one for Blink-182.  The other bandmates have realized that from what Tom’s done, as well as what they’ve heard from Tom’s manager, it’s clear that he no longer wants to be in Blink-182.  According to them, Tom never left the band, he just didn’t want to do anything ever again.  While this is kind of a strange contradiction, band members seem convinced that this is the end of Blink-182.  Out of “all the small things” to end this band, it’s interesting that this was the one that did it.

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2015 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees Announced

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Across the sea in Cleveland, Ohio, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has officially announced their inductees for 2015: Lou Reed, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, Green Day, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and Bill Withers.  In addition, Ringo Starr will be given the Award For Musical Excellence and the 1950s R&B group the “5” Royales will be receiving the Early Influence Award.  The induction ceremony will be held at Cleveland’s Public Hall on April 18th, 2015.

An artist is eligible to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25 years after the release of their first album or single.  Green Day, whose debut EP, “1000 hours”, came out in 1989, are entering during their first year of eligibility.  And they never hit mainstream audiences until 1994, with the release of their smash-hit album, “Dookie”, a major milestone in the 1990s pop-punk scene.  When asked about how he feels, Armstrong said that he was “shocked”, and is thrilled to join the ranks of many of his heroes that have been inducted.

Like Armstrong, Jett was blown away by the news.  Indeed, it’s very surreal to hear that you’ll be inducted into the Hall of Fame for anything, especially Rock and Roll.  It’s almost like the culmination of everything you’ve dreamed about doing as a musician.  Starr was already inducted in 1988 as part of The Beatles, although his three other bandmates have since entered the Hall of Fame as solo artists.  And Withers, who has been fairly absent from the music scene in the past 30 years, was surprised to hear the news, and might even agree to a rare performance that evening.

Reed was inducted in 1996 as a member of the Velvet Underground, and is being posthumously honored for his solo work, much like Stevie Ray Vaughan.  The annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony tends to end with the night’s inductees jamming together.  If this does end up happening, one song that could really set the mood for the night would be Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock and Roll”.

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Hibernian FC Beats Dundee

The newest blog post from Frank Macari!

Cody Mulhall, who really shone this match.

Earlier today, Lewis Allan scored a memorable hat-trick during the Hibernian FC’s under-20s’ exceptional Development League win against Dundee at Ainslie Park.  Sam Stanton, substitute Cody Mulhall and Jake Sinclair also got a chance to participate, as the young team got a solid win against Dundee.  From the start of the match, Hibs were able to dominate and create a series of well-worked attacking moves that were able to catch their Dundee opponents off guard.

The scoring opened after Stanton smashed a loose ball into the net following enterprising build-up play involving both Sinclair and Alex Harris.  Striker Allan scored the second with an exceptional finish, as he ran onto a throughball before he was able to drill a shot into the far corner of the net.  These goals continued to flock thick and fast, and the men of the Hibernian FC were able to move the ball around with speed, accuracy and purpose throughout the match, making it an entertaining spectacle for all.

However, the undisputed masterpiece of today’s match was without a doubt Mulhall’s work, which was able to deceive both the Dundee keeper and the crowd and Ainslie Park.  Irish forward Mulhall, who had earlier replaced midfielder Scott Martin during the first half, let fly from a distance and his shot, which at first looked like it was going wide, was able to swerve wickedly and end up in the net via the post.  All in all, it was an excellent win for Joe McBride’s team, and Allan made it seven with a close-range finish.  Nonetheless, the match was rather one-sided, as Dundee didn’t stand a chance during the match.

The Hibernian under-20s included Sean Brennan, Callum Crane, Sam Stanton, Aaron Dunsmore, Tom Gardiner, Neil Martyniuk, Alex Harris, Jordan McGregor, Jake Sinclair, Lewis Allan and Alex Harris.  The used subs included Cody Mulhall replacing Martin, Jordan Sinclair for Harris and Taylor Hendry for Stanton.

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Top 10 Alt-Country Albums of the 90s

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Back in the late 1980s and 1990s, country music began to take off in the United States (and around the world) like never before.  Acts like Garth Brooks, Shania Twain, Billy Ray Cyrus and Toby Keith burst out of Nashville into the mainstream, giving the radio a lot more “twang” than it ever had before.  But at the same time, a lot of aspiring country musicians, such as Robbie Fulks, became disillusioned with the Nashville scene as they failed to get their big breaks.  That’s where the alternative country scene got big.  It started out simply enough, as college friends formed bands, but throughout the 1990s, various alternative country bands developed a cult following, although none of them ever hit the mainstream.  Recently, Bloodshot Records, one of the most well-known and well-recognised alt-country record labels, celebrated their 20th anniversary with a double album.  In honour of this release, I thought that I would compile a list of my 10 favourite alternative country albums from the 1990s.

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1. Too Far to Care, The Old 97’s (1997): Considered by fans to be the band’s best work, “Too Far to Care” comes out of the gate roaring, with a tight guitar lick for the song “Timebomb”, and ends with some explosive drumming on “Four Leaf Clover” accompanied by the haunting vocals of singer Exene Cervenka.  Over the course of the 13-track album, there are zero weak points, and the topics covered in the lyrics range from natural disasters to burning down nightclubs.

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2.Hollywood Town Hall, The Jayhawks (1992): Before the release of “Hollywood Town Hall”, the Jayhawks had been recording for 6 years, but it’s with this album that they truly came into their own.  The easygoing vocals and simple-yet-intriguing instrumentals of this album make it a genuinely enjoyable listen.

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3. I Feel Alright, Steve Earle (1996): Steve Earle had some moderate success in the 1980s, but legal trouble and excessive drug use looked like they would ruin his career forever.  However, after getting clean, Steve Earle released “Train a Comin’” in 1994, proving that he was still capable of making good music.  But it was “I Feel Alright”, released two years later, that showed he still could truly bring down the house.  Even as Earle has gone on to release truly great material, this may very well be his finest work.

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4. Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, Lucinda Williams (1998): A notorious perfectionist, Lucinda Williams spent six years recording “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road”, as fans were left wondering if she would ever release anything new.  However, when the album came out, everybody realised that it was well worth the wait.  An alternative country landmark, the album is beautiful in its simplicity, and Williams’ vocals are able to bring so much complexity into every track.

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5. The Brooklyn Side, The Bottle Rockets (1995): When it comes to creating colourful characters, no alt-country band comes close to this Missouri-based group.  Indeed, many of their songs read like short stories, filled with characters that are both human and humourous, whether they’re an overly enthusiastic police officer (“Radar Gun”) or a single mother (“Welfare Music”).

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6. Strangers Almanac, Whiskeytown (1997): Whiskeytown’s debut album, “Faithless Street”, had established that this band had potential, and just needed to prove themselves.  It was with their second album, “Strangers Almanac”, that they were able to do that perfectly.  Without missing a beat, Whiskeytown’s frontman/main songwriter Ryan Adams churned out great guitar riffs, catchy choruses and longful lyrics about broken hearts and wasted lives.  Unfortunately, Whiskeytown would only end up recording one more album before they broke up, although Ryan Adams went on to have a very successful solo career.

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7. Short Man’s Room, Joe Henry (1992): Joe Henry’s magnum opus is able to blend country, folk and rock in a minimal yet strongly effective manner, and his haunting lyrics are able to convey emotion and vivid detail like no other.  A personal favourite song of mine is “King’s Highway”, about a robber reminiscing about a man he killed.

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8. Let’s Kill Saturday Night, Robbie Fulks (1998): Robbie Fulks is one of those musicians who is able to perfectly balance alternative and country, with a style that fits perfectly under each genre.  His “Let’s Kill Saturday Night” is arguably where he does this best, with tracks that will make you want to keep playing them on repeat until you get sick of them (spoiler alert: you never do).  The title track, for example, is a great song for getting pumped up before going out, and is just a fun listen.

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9. Anodyne, Uncle Tupelo (1993): The fame of Uncle Tupelo, formed by a group of friends from college, mostly comes from the fact one of their members (Jeff Tweedy) went on to form Wilco.  Anodyne, their fourth album, was the only one on a mainstream record label, and the band broke up shortly afterwards due to personal differences between bandmates.  Over the course of their time as a band, Uncle Tupelo worked to get the perfect balance of dusty production, electric guitar and a folksy sound, and Anodyne is arguably where they found it.

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10. I Guess I Was Hoping For Something More, Tarkio (1998): Originally started by a group of friends at the University of Montana in Missoula, Tarkio was Colin Meloy’s band before he went on to found “The Decemberists” in Portland.  While they had achieved a loyal cult following in western Montana, they never hit the mainstream, breaking up as the bandmates graduated from college.  It was only after the success of “The Decemberists” that people once again started to recognise Tarkio.  This was the only album that they released while in Missoula, but it’s got a whole lot of great material on there.  Some personal favourite tracks include “Sister Nebraska”, “Neapolitan Bridesmaid” and “Helena Won’t Get Stoned”.

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Roger Daltrey Complains

The newest blog post from Frank Macari!

Now at the age of 70, Roger Daltrey looks a lot different than he does in this picture.

Back in 1965, The Who frontman Roger Daltrey exclaimed “I hope I die before I get old” as part of the song “My Generation”.  Now, at the age of 70, Daltrey claims that he’s lived long enough to witness a music scene that has no purpose.  In a recent interview with the Daily Mail, Daltrey lashed out at contemporary music, and you can say that he’s got a point.  If you look at the state the world is in, between Ebola, ISIS, Ukraine and countless other things, the music that’s popular (such as “One Direction” and Rihanna) seems grossly out of place.  Back in Roger Daltrey’s days, there were plenty of movements revolutionising music.  Now, however, that’s a lot more difficult.

While I do think that Roger Daltrey’s argument is somewhat valid, and there’s not much new music coming out these days that can stand to some of the classics, that’s not to say that there isn’t good music still coming out, or that everything from Daltrey’s days was brilliant.  There was plenty of awful music back in the 1960s and 1970s, the only thing is that it’s since been forgotten, leaving only the great stuff behind.  When you’re listening to classic rock, you’re able to cherry-pick the best music from that time.  On the other hand, modern stations have to play whatever’s come out in the past 6 months or so.  This means that there’s a sort of filter applied to the old stuff.  There’s still plenty of good music out there, it’s just changed a lot since Daltrey’s time.

In contrast, Daltrey’s bandmate Pete Townshend, the main songwriting power behind the Who, doesn’t seem to mind “One Direction” too much.  Many people have drawn similarities between the boy band’s “Best Song Ever” and the Who’s “Baba O’Riley”, but Townshend has shrugged it off, not considering it too big a deal if they were to rip him off a bit.  Townshend and Daltrey are the only two remaining members of the Who, after the premature deaths of their bassist and drummer, Keith Moon and Jon Entwistle respectively.  The Who will soon be releasing a new compilation, “The Who Hits 50!”, featuring their first new song since 2006.  Next year, they’ll be launching a 50th anniversary tour as well.

 

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Jack Bruce Dead

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Several days ago, Jack Bruce, most famous as the singer and bassist for legendary rock band Cream,

passed away at the age of 71.  He left behind three living children and several grandchildren.  No other details have been revealed by the family, although it was reported that he suffered from a liver disease.

Back in 1966, legendary guitarist Eric Clapton, who had already been a part of the Yardbirds and John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers, formed Cream alongside Jack Bruce (who had previously been in Manfred Mann) and drummer Ginger Baker (who was part of the Graham Bond Organization).  Considered the first rock “supergroup”, Cream ended up recording four albums over a span of three years.  3 out of those 4 albums landed on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.  Their style of British blues was later a major influence on the hard rock movement, with both Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath’s first albums have a real “creamy” feel to them.

Despite the band’s collective talent, there was constantly tension between the members of the band, particularly Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker.  The band members would stay in separate hotels while touring, and Bruce and Baker spent all of their time either avoiding each other or fighting, only agreeing to play together because they recognised each others’ talent.  Eric Clapton made the decision to break up the band after reading a bad review of the band on Rolling Stone magazine, feeling that their sound had gotten “boring and repetitive”.  They have since played together only three other times: once for Clapton’s 1979 wedding, once for their induction into the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame in 1993 and a third time for a 4-show reunion tour in 2005.

While Cream remains his most well-known project, Bruce remained musically active up to his death.  Following the breakup of Cream, Bruce started a long solo career, releasing over a dozen solo LPs over the next 45 years, along with just as many albums collaborating with other artists.

 

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Bob Dylan Lyric Contest

The newest blog post from Frank Macari!

Writing scientific reports all of the time can get pretty boring.  A lot of the topics that scientists write about aren’t that interesting to begin with, and

many of these reports are written in a way that ensures you’ll never forget it.  However, a group of Swedish scientists have spent the last 17 years trying to find a way to make writing these reports more fun, by sneaking the lyrics of Bob Dylan songs into them.  The game began back when two professors at Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute published a study about fats entitled “Nitric Oxide and Inflammation: The Answer Is Blowing in the Wind”.  Later on, the authors of the paper went on to saek “the times, they are a-changing” into an article.

This competition took aff after a librarian alerted the two scientists about another pair of medical professors at the same school who had published an articled entitled “Blood on the Tracks: A Simple Twist of Fate”.  The group then formed a contest, opening it up to anybody else interested and ended up recruiting another scientists who published “Tangled Up in Blue: Molecular Cardiology in the Postmolecular Era”.  Whoever had the best Bob Dylan reference in their paper would then get lunch at a restaurant in the town Solna.  While these scientists would much rather become famous for their scientific research than for slipping Bob Dylan quotes into dry scientific papers, all of them seem to be having fun with the project.

Like with any artist, Bob Dylan’s music isn’t for everybody; his singing isn’t the best in the world (and hasn’t gotten any better as he’s aged), and not everybody is a fan of folk music.  And as he’s gotten older, the quality of his music seems to have suffered, and from what I’ve heard, his concerts aren’t that great any more.  That being said, however, you can’t deny the influence that Bob Dylan’s had on popular music, and he commands respect from all music fans.  And even if not everybody likes Bob Dylan, he nonetheless has a large fanbase, as evidenced by this amusing little story.

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10 Most Annoying One-Hit Wonders

The one-hit wonder may very well be the most back-handed compliment in the music industry.  Getting a hit is one thing, but taking that one hit and making something more out of it is another thing entirely.  Across the globe, acts appear out of the woodwork with a hit song that takes the world by storm, only to fade into obscurity in a matter of months.  A lot of these one hits are great; songs like “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” by the Proclaimers and “No Rain” by Blind Melon are genuinely good songs.  But there are other songs that, almost against all odds, become hits.  Despite how annoying these songs are, the radio can’t play enough of them before the artist’s 15 minutes is over.  Here is a list of what are, in my opinion, the 10 most annoying one-hit wonders.

10. “Gangnam Style” by PSY.  I didn’t put this higher up on the list because while yes, this song can get irritating, it’s still astoundingly catchy.  Previously, PSY had had a string of hits in his native Korea, but this was his only real international hit.  And boy, what a hit it was.  For several months, this song, accompanied by its wild music video, was all that people were talking about.  With over 2 billion views, the “Gangnam Style” music video is the most viewed video in YouTube history.  It’s a one-hit wonder, but with an emphasis on the “wonder”.

9. “U Can’t Touch This”, by MC Hammer.  Filled to the brim with swagger, after this song came out, it seemed like MC Hammer had to justify the talk behind it.  The hit made Hammer obscenely wealthy almost overnight, and he began to spend so lavishly that he was burning through around $1 million a month.  As the parachute pant-wearing MC failed to match the success from “U Can’t Touch This”, the excessive spending caught up with him, and he ended up millions of dollars in debt.

8. “Ice Ice Baby”, by Vanilla Ice.  As one of the first white rappers to hit the mainstream, one could argue that Vanilla Ice is historically significant.  But when you realise that this fame comes from a song as awful as “Ice Ice Baby”, calling Vanilla Ice “historically significant” suddenly makes you feel like you’re giving him a lot more credit than he deserves.  The song’s chorus is nothing more than the rapper singing his name over and over again, in case you forgot that you were listening to Vanilla Ice, and the rest of the lyrics are cliche rap fodder at best.  After the hype around Vanilla Ice had died down, it would be another 9 years before another white rapper, Eminem, would hit the mainstream once more.

7. “Barbie Girl”, by Aqua.  Barbie dolls have recently garnered plenty of controversy for their unrealistic portrayal of the female figure, but if there’s one thing that will get them taken off the shelves of toy stores, it’s this Norwegian dancepop song.  While some view “Barbie Girl” as an interesting piece of social commentary about the over-importance of sex appeal in modern pop culture, any meaningful insight this song has to offer is outweighed by the vocalist’s painfully screechy voice, since it’s really impossible to gather any meaning from a song if you can’t even listen to all of it before common decency forces you to turn it off.

6. “Blue (Da Ba Dee)” by Eiffel 65.  Any song whose title unironically contains the words “da ba dee” is going to be pretty awful.  And in this aspect, Eiffel 65’s one hit does not disappoint.  Most of the chorus sounds like nothing more than baby babble, probably because the writer couldn’t think of anything to say other than how blue he was.  While a lot of one-hit wonders are decent the first time you hear them, but then get worse with every following listen, “Blue” is unique in that it’s awful the first time, and remains awful no matter how many times you hear it on the radio.

5. “I’m Too Sexy”, by Right Said Fred.  This just isn’t a good song.  It’s stupid.  The lyrics are dumb, the music is flat and everything about it is bad.  There’s not much more to say about it.

4. “Dragostea Din Tei”, by O-Zone.  While meant to be a dance song, this Moldovan song isn’t even that danceable, making it a massive fail.  The vocals are a reason enough to ban auto-tuning, and the only part of the song that’s even vaguely danceable is the chorus, which makes your ears bleed every time you hear it.  I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that this song’s popularity was nothing more than an elaborate prank by the music industry.

3. “Hey There Delilah”, by Plain White T’s.  It might be unfair to call the Plain White T’s a “one hit wonder”, but this is undoubtedly their biggest hit, and it absolutely needs to be included in any list of annoying hits.  Not a terribly recognisable song on its own, this “ballad” was only made popular because its soft lyrics sounded somewhat meaningful and it was pretty easy to play on a guitar, making it the perfect song for wannabe Romeos to play in an effort to impress girls.  Due to this stereotype, however, most girls know to be wary of fellows who strum this song on their acoustic guitars, so that “Hey There Delilah”’s one practical use has since been negated.

2. “Friday”, by Rebecca Black.  It’s kind of unfair to beat up on Rebecca Black too much, since this song wasn’t supposed to even be released to the public, let alone become a “hit”.  It was put out by the ARK Music Factory, an American company that lets young teenagers record songs, accompanied by a music video (for a fee, of course).  While “Friday” was only meant for Rebecca Black and her friends, it quickly became an Internet sensation after it was discovered on YouTube, since its obnoxious autotuning and idiotic lyrics (it’s literally about nothing more than the days of the week) naturally attracted ridicule.  Unfortunately for young Rebecca, the infamy generated from this song will most likely follow her around for the rest of her life.

1. “Who Let the Dogs Out”, by the Baha Men.  Without a doubt, this is my least favourite of the one-hit wonders out there.  Despite this song’s dumb lyrics, annoying hook and foolish video, the radio couldn’t stop playing it, and escaping from it was nearly impossible.  It wasn’t until the entire world was absolutely sick of hearing the question this song’s title posed that it was finally put where it deserved to be in the first place, a footnote in the dark side of popular music’s history.  While the music industry definitely isn’t what it used to be, I think that music fans across the board can agree that we’re a lot better off without this song being played on the radio.

Taylor Swift Returns

The newest blog post from Frank Macari!

When Taylor Swift first appeared on peoples’ radars some 5 years ago, her sound was unmistakingly country.  True, she didn’t have the “twang” that so many other country stars have, but she definitely wasn’t another pop princess.  Over time, however, the young singer-songwriter has worked to distance herself from the country image, but was still “officially” a country artist.  However, she’s recently announced that her upcoming album, 1989, will be her “first documented, official pop album”.  She first spoke about the album, which is scheduled for an October 27th release, in an event on Monday.  She also premiered the album’s first single, “Shake it Off”, a song about her “shaking off” criticism in an effort to embrace her true self.

The video for “Shake it Off” includes Taylor Swift dressed up in different costumes, surrounded by talented dancers in different genres, such as ballet dancers and twerkers.  Backed by these talented dancers, Taylor herself does a series of goofy dance moves that work to convey the image that the singer does whatever she wants, without worrying about what other people think.

While Taylor Swift has remained in the spotlight, the public’s opinions on her vary.  Her down-to-earth attitude appealed to countless music fans, who saw her style as a welcome break from the excessive glamour and “p’zazz” of famous pop princesses such as Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Jessica Simpson.  However, this fame came at a price, as she became a favourite of the American paparazzi.  Her high-profile relationships with various actors and musicians were feverishly documented by the media, and at the end of 2013, it seemed as if she had fallen from grace.  However, there’s a chance that this album will put her back in the limelight in a positive manner.  I’m interested to see where Taylor’s career goes over the next few years, and it looks like “1989” could be a major turning-point in the young artist’s career.

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