Popdose: Miley Who?: 30+ Reasons Why Tween Music Sucks Today
Mike
· 1 year ago
This was a pretty awesome read all around, but I think Jason got the most spit-take action here.
"Also, it’s further proof that I have the musical tastes of a 35-year-old gay man."
Dude, I resent that comment! I'm a 32-year-old gay man and your musical tastes are WAY gayer than mine! (NKOTB obsession aside).
eric
· 1 year ago
It appears that I'm older than y'all. Some biggies for me that I can recall: McCartney - Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey; James Taylor - You've Got A Friend; some Carole King to go with the James Taylor - Sweet Seasons; Elton's Rocket Man; and to complete my white bread list The Carpenters - Superstar. Honorable mention for Joan Baez's The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down and America - A Horse With No Name.
There was some interesting stuff on that first America album. Little hint of the Muskrat Love and other horrors to come.
MarlboroTestMonkey7
· 1 year ago
Maybe the enduring appeal of these songs is that they were not geared at teens, but adults. Today's teen/kids music suffer from a dumb down which is not in accord to the way kids think or perceive the world. On the other hand one could say it's how the game is played now. I remember staying late to catch and tape a song, it's an effort that bonded, helped to make it special. This sense of "aventure" is lost from today's experience, the kids are inmune to it even when the availability of material has grown exponentially. Their loss, (poor) little suckers!
Rebecca
· 1 year ago
Glad to see some love for Simon's One Trick Pony. My dad had the record and I played that thing all the time. Even did a horn arrangement of "Nobody" in college.
"John & Yoko" and Captain & Tenille, as well as the Moody Blues track aren't working. Always with the ampersands!
rwcass
· 1 year ago
I love the "One-Trick Pony" album. I need to watch the movie again to see what I'd think of it now -- I don't think I've seen it all the way through since 1992, when I bought the videocassette -- but I have listened to the songs again and again over the years, and I don't see why "Pony" is thought of as one of Simon's weaker albums. The songs stand up on their own but also work together as parts of a whole. "Nobody's" fantastic, and there's not a single clunker in the bunch. Apparently the 2004 reissue includes "Soft Parachutes," the big hit for Simon's movie character in the late '60s, but I can see why Simon left it off the original release.
eric
· 1 year ago
I'd almost say One Trick Pony was Simon's finest. I've probably listened to it more than any other. Perhaps because it is a bit more jazzy than the rest.
The movie? Saw it in the theater. Saw it on video. Never want to see it again. It didn't totally fail, but it was slow, depressing, and ultimately pointless. How a great album can accompany such a lackluster film is very strange.
MarlboroTestMonkey7
· 1 year ago
Um, is that photo on the Malchus' entry a group portrait of the Popdosers? ;)
rwcass
· 1 year ago
Yep! Jason, Jeff, and I are the black guy.
DwDunphy
· 1 year ago
Dammit, that makes me the baldy in pink... AGAIN!!!
Bruce
· 1 year ago
Great post here folks! Thanks for the memories....(Danny Wilson and Toto in particular)
el bandito
· 1 year ago
Can't believe no one has mentioned the scene in one trick pony in the bathtub - really the only reason to watch that movie....
rwcass
· 1 year ago
Big Mare Winningham fan, huh?
Dan
· 1 year ago
Carly Simon. No Secrets album. The songs are fine, but this 13 year old was really "influenced" by the album cover. I suppose that there aren't too many 13 year olds spending hours in their rooms with the door closed over an itunes download. Heh heh. Download.
Old_Davy
· 1 year ago
Actually, Jason, I'd say you have the musical tastes of a 35-year old lesbian.
For me, I guess the first stuff I bought that my mom enjoyed would be The Partridge Family. She hated the Beatles (my first musical obsession) because they did "all that screaming". When I discovered Linda Ronstadt later on, Mom liked her too.
I think the only rock song my dad ever admitted liking was Billy Joel's "Only The Good Die Young". It probably reminded him of his horny teenage years at a Catholic high school (my mom's name is Virginia, so do the math).
For the record, I have every Indigo Girls album in my collection.
MarlboroTestMonkey7
· 1 year ago
Charm the snake is broken!
jefito
· 1 year ago
Try it again!
MatthewBolin
· 1 year ago
Well, I was so busy trying to track down at least one of the tracks I wanted to include, and missed the deadline, so here' a quick writeup on what I would have done.
Thompson Twins - Hold Me Now. Probably the first "pop" song that came into my life that was current at the time. I remember seeing part of the video on Casey's Countdown show. Part of the fact it leeched into my head was the goth-esque delivery of the vocals. The other reason was that my father read the Tintin books to me constantly, and I remember hearing that the group was named after the detectives Thompson and Thomson in the series.
Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water. My father had the album on reel to reel, believe it or not, and I would have him sync it up and then play this song over and over again. One of the most beautiful songs ever written: so comforting and melancholy at the same time--kinda like me.
Natalie Cole - Someone That I Used to Love. I put this one here, because I learnt it when I first took piano lessons. Even played it at a recital while someone else sang it. I know I've heard the original version of it on the radio, since it came out in 1980, and was a lite-FM staple through the first half of the 1980s, though I'm still really most familiar with it via the sheet music. A very beautiful tune, it deserves placement here for personal experience.
Toto. Africa - Another song that bore itself into my head via my family: My father's favorite song. True story: about ten years ago, my father and brother were at a car auction at a fairgrounds or some such place, and before it begins, the loud speakers attached to the phone poles are playing music. Suddenly, Africa starts playing, and my father (surrounded by hundreds of people) immediately gets a crap-eating grin on his face, and starts dancing in place while shaking his arms like he's holding maracas. My brother immediately starts sidestepping in the other direction, like "I do not know this person. Please ignore the resemblance we bear to each other."
Peter Paul & Mary. Paultalk - From PPM's In Concert double album, this was a 12-plus minute comedy routine by Paul Stookey that closed side three. My father was big into folk music, and played an awful lot of Peter Paul and Mary. I also listened to his Bill Cosby records, and occasionally to his Bob Newhart and Shelley Berman records. I still listen to Cosby and Newhart. Paultalk, very clean and limited to generic routines about sports, cars, and teens seems pretty dopey in my thirties, but at the time it I loved it.
Eric S.
· 1 year ago
Most of you hit at least one of my favorites, but all of Dunphy's resonated in one way or another. To this day, I will instinctively turn up the radio and sing along when "Fox On The Run" comes on. Actually, I'll sing along to all of them. In fact, I did vocals on "The Breakup Song" for a dorm talent show. You don't really need to sing, you can kind of speak the lyrics in a low voice. It's a great song for the vocally challenged.
J
· 1 year ago
Yay, Kiss on my List made the cut! I loved that song when I was a tweenish person. It was on the AM radio in our car ALL.THE.TIME.
mojo
· 1 year ago
This group never ceases to impress, and spew music I don't have in my collection that I "needed" but would never seek out myself. Pilot "Magic?" Sly Fox? Check and check.
Having just rounded the bend around 40, I was starting to feel old until I saw Ted's list. Whew. Although it looks like he had the same setup as me--older sibling/s with 8-tracks...crankin' it till those cheap 1970s speakers thumped the screws loose in their housings...
rwcass
· 1 year ago
I almost listed "Could It Be I'm Falling in Love" myself, David, because I first remember hearing it and loving it when I was ten. The Spinners had so many good songs, especially when Philippe Wynne was in the group; one of my all-time favorite pop-music moments is near the end of "Could It Be," when Wynne ad-libs "I used to sing 'Fa fa fa fa,' but right now I feel so good I sing 'La la la la.'"
"Wham! Rap '86" sounds like it'd be a train wreck, but it's more of a Vespa fender bender. It works better than it should.
WHarrisBullzEye
· 1 year ago
Seeing Dw.'s link on Facebook and spotting Matthew's comment below, I figure I might as well throw in the five picks I would've included if I, too, hadn't missed the deadline:
1. The Little River Band, "Reminiscing" - I can still remembering the soothing harmonies of this song washing over me as it wafted forth from my old-school clock radio. 2. Barry Manilow, "A Linda Song" - In retrospect, my mother was possibly not as huge a Manilow fan as I always presumed, but she did at least own "Even Now" on cassette, and as a result, Obviously, the radio hits - "Copacabana," "Somewhere in the Night," "Can't Smile Without You", and the title track" - were not lost on me, but of the album cuts, the one that made the most impact on me was this one, which I still think is a great concept:
3. Johnny Cash, "Dirty Ol' Egg-Suckin' Dog / Flushed from the Bathroom of Your Heart" - I wouldn't begin to guess the number of times I listened to "Live at Folsom Prison" in my dad's Ford pick-up, but I suspect that triple digits would be involved in the figure.
4. Joey Scarbury, "Theme from 'The Greatest American Hero' (Believe It Or Not)" - It was the theme from a show about a superhero, and I was 11. You do the math. It was possible that tweeners in 1981 were the only ones who EVER thought Joey Scarbury was cool...and even then, it was only because MTV hadn't really taken off yet, so we didn't know what he looked like.
5. Queen, "Don't Try Suicide" - My pre-teen fascination with the verboten nature of obscenities were inflamed by Freddie Mercury's reckless use of the word "damn" in the chorus to this "Another One Bites the Dust" B-side. It was genius. Damn hell ass genius.
All Comments
"Also, it’s further proof that I have the musical tastes of a 35-year-old gay man."
Dude, I resent that comment! I'm a 32-year-old gay man and your musical tastes are WAY gayer than mine! (NKOTB obsession aside).
There was some interesting stuff on that first America album. Little hint of the Muskrat Love and other horrors to come.
I remember staying late to catch and tape a song, it's an effort that bonded, helped to make it special. This sense of "aventure" is lost from today's experience, the kids are inmune to it even when the availability of material has grown exponentially. Their loss, (poor) little suckers!
"John & Yoko" and Captain & Tenille, as well as the Moody Blues track aren't working. Always with the ampersands!
The movie? Saw it in the theater. Saw it on video. Never want to see it again. It didn't totally fail, but it was slow, depressing, and ultimately pointless. How a great album can accompany such a lackluster film is very strange.
I suppose that there aren't too many 13 year olds spending hours in their rooms with the door closed over an itunes download.
Heh heh. Download.
For me, I guess the first stuff I bought that my mom enjoyed would be The Partridge Family. She hated the Beatles (my first musical obsession) because they did "all that screaming". When I discovered Linda Ronstadt later on, Mom liked her too.
I think the only rock song my dad ever admitted liking was Billy Joel's "Only The Good Die Young". It probably reminded him of his horny teenage years at a Catholic high school (my mom's name is Virginia, so do the math).
For the record, I have every Indigo Girls album in my collection.
Thompson Twins - Hold Me Now. Probably the first "pop" song that came into my life that was current at the time. I remember seeing part of the video on Casey's Countdown show. Part of the fact it leeched into my head was the goth-esque delivery of the vocals. The other reason was that my father read the Tintin books to me constantly, and I remember hearing that the group was named after the detectives Thompson and Thomson in the series.
Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water. My father had the album on reel to reel, believe it or not, and I would have him sync it up and then play this song over and over again. One of the most beautiful songs ever written: so comforting and melancholy at the same time--kinda like me.
Natalie Cole - Someone That I Used to Love. I put this one here, because I learnt it when I first took piano lessons. Even played it at a recital while someone else sang it. I know I've heard the original version of it on the radio, since it came out in 1980, and was a lite-FM staple through the first half of the 1980s, though I'm still really most familiar with it via the sheet music. A very beautiful tune, it deserves placement here for personal experience.
Toto. Africa - Another song that bore itself into my head via my family: My father's favorite song. True story: about ten years ago, my father and brother were at a car auction at a fairgrounds or some such place, and before it begins, the loud speakers attached to the phone poles are playing music. Suddenly, Africa starts playing, and my father (surrounded by hundreds of people) immediately gets a crap-eating grin on his face, and starts dancing in place while shaking his arms like he's holding maracas. My brother immediately starts sidestepping in the other direction, like "I do not know this person. Please ignore the resemblance we bear to each other."
Peter Paul & Mary. Paultalk - From PPM's In Concert double album, this was a 12-plus minute comedy routine by Paul Stookey that closed side three. My father was big into folk music, and played an awful lot of Peter Paul and Mary. I also listened to his Bill Cosby records, and occasionally to his Bob Newhart and Shelley Berman records. I still listen to Cosby and Newhart. Paultalk, very clean and limited to generic routines about sports, cars, and teens seems pretty dopey in my thirties, but at the time it I loved it.
Having just rounded the bend around 40, I was starting to feel old until I saw Ted's list. Whew. Although it looks like he had the same setup as me--older sibling/s with 8-tracks...crankin' it till those cheap 1970s speakers thumped the screws loose in their housings...
"Wham! Rap '86" sounds like it'd be a train wreck, but it's more of a Vespa fender bender. It works better than it should.
1. The Little River Band, "Reminiscing" - I can still remembering the soothing harmonies of this song washing over me as it wafted forth from my old-school clock radio.
2. Barry Manilow, "A Linda Song" - In retrospect, my mother was possibly not as huge a Manilow fan as I always presumed, but she did at least own "Even Now" on cassette, and as a result, Obviously, the radio hits - "Copacabana," "Somewhere in the Night," "Can't Smile Without You", and the title track" - were not lost on me, but of the album cuts, the one that made the most impact on me was this one, which I still think is a great concept:
http://www.mp3lyrics.org/b/barry-manilow/a-linda/
3. Johnny Cash, "Dirty Ol' Egg-Suckin' Dog / Flushed from the Bathroom of Your Heart" - I wouldn't begin to guess the number of times I listened to "Live at Folsom Prison" in my dad's Ford pick-up, but I suspect that triple digits would be involved in the figure.
4. Joey Scarbury, "Theme from 'The Greatest American Hero' (Believe It Or Not)" - It was the theme from a show about a superhero, and I was 11. You do the math. It was possible that tweeners in 1981 were the only ones who EVER thought Joey Scarbury was cool...and even then, it was only because MTV hadn't really taken off yet, so we didn't know what he looked like.
5. Queen, "Don't Try Suicide" - My pre-teen fascination with the verboten nature of obscenities were inflamed by Freddie Mercury's reckless use of the word "damn" in the chorus to this "Another One Bites the Dust" B-side. It was genius. Damn hell ass genius.