featured artists
Mood:  party time!
Now Playing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpE3CvD7lFo
Topic: soundtrack music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpE3CvD7lFo

   Wow, I get to see the Pretty Things -- only 45 years after it came out.  I'm so happy I was looking around on-line for British humor (and not simply very funny stuff.)  I had no idea I'd be treated to the Pretty Things, too.

more wikicrap written by R&R-despising non-native English speakers
Mood:  down
Top of the Pops (record series)  . . . anonymous cover versions of recent and current hit singles. The recordings were intended to replicate the sound of the original hits as closely as possible. The albums were recorded by a studio group comprising session musicians and singers who remained unaccredited . . .  . . . the studio singers and musicians usually tried their best. Dave Thompson for Allmusic says that "it becomes apparent that the trick is not to look upon the songs as straightforward attempts to copy the hit song, but as interpretations rendered in the style of the hit".
And so, before I had given up on Wikipedia for good, I carried on another "discussion" on their talk page.
"The recordings were intended to replicate the sound of the original hits as closely as possible." Having heard several, that is sure hard for me to believe. They were done in the same styles as the originals (unlike budget covers by many anonymous bands) but I cannot conceive of any listener having any difficulty distinguishing any TOP cover from the original recording.  me (talk) 15:59, 4 June 2010
    That wasn't the point. Back in the early 70s, there weren't compilation albums of current chart hits as there are now, these were trying to represent the songs that everyone knew. It was also a cheaper alternative when the 'proper' compilations did start appearing from the mid-70s onwards. --idiot#1 (talk) 01:51, 5 June 2010
? Then I take it that you are agreeing with me, that the line should be worded differently, as the recordings were not actually "intended to replicate the sound of the original hits as closely as possible." [I am sorry that I am not providing an alternative wording myself, as a Wiki-vandal is periodically removing all changes I make (after searching for my user name), and I find it simpler just to not bother contributing, except on talk pages.]  me(talk) 13:32, 9 June 2010
    I think the intention was for them to sound close to the originals (the arrangements and sound of the singers were similar), but obviously they were never going to succeed given time and budget constraints.--idiot#1 (talk) 15:06, 9 June 2010
        I think the statement "The recordings were intended to replicate the sound of the original hits as closely as possible" is accurate - that was the aim, to impersonate the hit singles. The degree to which they succeeded was a slightly different matter! But I think they wanted them to be as close as possible. They aren't cover versions in the usual sense - they try to reproduce each riff, vocal sound, drum pattern etc as accurately as they can - given time and money limitations and the scale of the task. —Preceding unsigned comment added by idiot#2 (talk) 16:13, 1 September 2010
In other words, if Ren & Stimpy tried to cover A Hard Day's Night by farting, idiots#1&2 would look upon them the same way, even though nobody who understands honesty would claim along with Wiki that they were intending to replicate the sound of the original hit as closely as possible.  Ah, the world of Wiki-language.

I think of these as "Live! at the Star-Club..." but these, too, were released under differing titles, again some discs' even differing from the covers' names.  Likewise the nationalities of release were confusing, many of the US LPs also incl. Canadian info, as if Canada's LPs were made in the US.
This bunch of LPs included widely varying collections of songs.  On top of that, the audio tracks were reformatted several times.  All those specific details however are too much info to cram into this little blog posting so that'll wait for another day.

Live! at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; 1962  1977  dbl
Holland  Ariola  28945 XBT  incl 13 never before released
UK  Lingasong  LNL 1  incl 13 never-before-released
USA  Lingasong  LS-2-7001  incl 15 never before released
Holland  Historic  HIS 10982  incl 15 never before released  as "Live"
USA  Pickwick  BAN-90061  as "Live  Vol. 2"  1978  [sngl]
USA  Pickwick  BAN-90071  as "Live  Vol. 3"  [sngl]
USA  Pickwick  SPC 3661  as "1st Live Recordings  Vol. I"  1979  [sngl]
USA  Pickwick  SPC 3662  as "1st Live Recordings  Vol. II"  [sngl]
USA  Pickwick  PTP-2098  as "The Historic 1st Live Recordings"  1980
UK  Phoenix  PHX 1004  as "Early Years (1)"  1981  [sngl]
UK  Phoenix  PHX 1005  as "Early Years (2)"  [sngl]
UK  Phoenix  PHX 1011  unreleased tracks  as "Rare Beatles"  [sngl]
Italy  Valentine  GSR 46  as "Birth of The Beatles"  [sngl]
[dup of previous Italian LP]

the ultimate Beatles collection
Mood:  energetic

LPs, 12" discs (incl. 12" singles), not 7" singles or EPs, not CDs

Hey, man, what's the dealio? I supposedly have quite a collection of Beatles albums. Howzabout some details? OK, I'm not gonna list them all today, let alone scan the covers & labels & inserts. But I shall start out by listing all my "Hey Jude" albums. Each of these is different, even if only very slightly. I think of these as "The Beatles Again" but the records call themselves Hey Jude, unless I note otherwise. Note that many of the discs' names differed from the covers' names.

 

my "Hey Jude"s 1970/1979

USA  Apple  SO-385  as "The Beatles Again" only on label, "Hey Jude" on cover

USA  Apple  SO-385  as "The Beatles Again" only on (diff.) label, "Hey Jude" on cover + HEY JUDE sticker on cover

USA  Apple  SW-385  + HEY JUDE sticker on cover

USA  Capitol  SW-385  Gold Record Award

Canada  Apple  SO-385  as "The Beatles Again" only on label, "Hey Jude" on cover

Canada  Apple  SW-385

Canada  Capitol  SW 385

France  Apple  2C 062-04348  as "The Beatles Again" only on label, no name on cover

German  Apple  1C 062-04 348

Italy  Apple  3C 064-04348

Japan  Apple  EAS-80570  + 4-sheet liner w/ lyrics

Uruguay  Apple  SAPL 30509  paper cover, not cardboard

UK  Parlophone  PCS 7184

  What the heck is going on with Tripod's blogging program?  When I hit keys on my keyboard, it sometimes shows up as rather the opposite of what I keyed in.  This on top of my having to attempt literally dozens of times to copy in stuff I've written on my computer, rather than on-line, makes for a miserable experience.

 

You have to sing rock to be a rock singer!
Mood:  irritated
This mis-use of the English language isn't unique so it's about time I comment on it.  Hey, people, "rock singer" is not a generic term meaning any type of musical singer.  It means someone who sings rock & roll music.  That's all there is to it.  You may imagine that pop singer or r&b singer or disco singer aren't hip enough terms to use when referring to some film character but, if the person referred to does not and never has sung rock music, then she just plain is not a rock singer.  That's all there is to it.  The end.  You may try to use wiki-logic and claim that you've seen others refer to singers of non-rock as rock singers but that proves simply that there are scads of dolts out there besides you.  So what?  Only singers of rock are rock singers.
 
A film about Tina Turner's career is being shown on tv.  I looked to IMDb to see what it's about, as I couldn't tell simply from the title.  (The tv listings didn't mention Tina.)  IMDb's description refers to it as "The story of rock singer Tina Turner . . .".  Hey, IMDb, Tina Turner is not and never was a rock singer.  I assume Tina never considered herself a rock singer but that doesn't even matter.  The point is, she never sang rock so was not a rock singer.  What next?  A horror film about a cannibalistic psycho-killer gets listed as the story of an imaginative cuisine experimenter?  A documentary on North Korea's dictator is styled an asian slant on the Barack Obama story?  A video of a rock blogger is seen as a biography of a future pulitzer prize winner?

Topic: street names
http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2013/01/airport-names
I'll believe it when I see it.  ['See my earlier post.}
http://www.lincoln.tripod.com/androll/index.blog/1808279/rockin-roads/

re: Genesis "how'd I forget them?"
Mood:  accident prone
What I meant by that comment in my personal rock albums listing of them is that I am quite a fan of theirs.  (Yes, I realize that they are an exception to my musical taste being only for rock.)

Free Pussy Riot
After reading about Пусси Райот being claimed to be a Russian female punk band, I was quite pleasantly surprised to find that they actually do play punk rock.  'Quite catchy.  I'd appreciate the Russian government leaving them free so they can record more music for me to enjoy.

"You can only skate[board] to Alice Cooper so many years."

Rage: 20 Years of Punk Rock, West Coast Style  --  I wouldn't have turned to a show with such a name for the story of punk but actually this is an insightful doorway into punk music.  'Finally a rock video with interviewees who do know whereof they speak and filmmakers who do care about punk.  Not much rage but I'll forgive them that.

 

the unhipness of accuracy

Gee, it has just soaked in on me.  There is a contingent which does not want to know how to use our English language the way us old-timers used it. 

I had figured that those video documentaries I was finding on-line, obstensively about different segments of rock music, were misdefining those old terms simply out of laziness and no interest in the subject covered, but those English words are being used differently on purpose.  Garage rock, indie rock, punk rock -- each of those had an actual, specific meaning.  Now they are being redefined by desire rather than simply out of ignorance. 

While there are several people who made a point out of using the English language differently than me within several topics I used to be interested in on Wikipedia, I now see that they were not some rare exceptions who believed in that wikireality.  I was not hip to it but there are people who do not wish to know the truth of things. 

Since the beginning of rock and roll, there have been those who wanted to be outrageous.  How silly of me to not earlier cotton to today's rockers speaking about rock music itself outrageously.  How silly of me to expect drug-addled drop-outs to believe in a reality the same as the one I take an interest in. 

I see the difference between non-fiction and fiction as the difference between fact and make believe.  The more hip of us do not see things that way.  Rock is about creativity.  Writing about rock is about making things up.  Don't knuckle under to the man.