To truly appreciate how insanely alien Duck Rock felt at the time, you need to place your ears in its historical context.

The idea of creating cut-up music and rhythms from records and charismatically, charmingly rhyme-chanting over them was still very new.  Rap and hip-hop were still barely more than rumors to most of the country.  Even as a teenager in relatively open & urban Berkeley, the hip-hop hits that bled out into our mainstream were more like novelty acts.  Grandmaster Flash was on auto-repeat in the school cafeteria, while Tom Tom Club and Blondie had fluke hits that played on hip-hop styles without actually committing to them.  But that was about it.  The great Def Jam/Run-DMC/Beastie Boys explosion of 1984 was still yet to come.

I would never go so far as to say Malcolm McLaren discovered African music, but for the 80s generation Duck Rock represented its introduction into their consciousness.  South Africa and apartheid were only just entering mainstream conversation in America.  None of the great boycotts had started.  Nelson Mandela was still in jail – and wasn’t he some kind of terrorist or something?  All we knew about him we learned about from The Special AKA.  Stevie Ray Vaughn and friends had not yet declaimed “I ain’t gonna play Sun City!”  Most critically to the success of Duck Rock, African music simply hadn’t made it over yet.  After the political convulsions of the late 1970s, Africa’s music industry was essentially gone.  Graceland wasn’t even a gleam in Paul Simon’s eye.  The Indestructible Beat Of Soweto was not on anyone’s radar, except perhaps Robert Christgau’s.

Finally, Duck Rock believe it or not is a critical early entry into the creation of the synth-y pop sound that dominated pop in the 80s and is a focus of today’s 80s revivalism.  Producer Trevor Horn was fresh off the successes of a couple of the best sounding and most influential post-punk synth-pop productions, ABC’s The Lexicon Of Love and Into Battle With The Art Of Noise, and yet to move on to the monolithic and silly manifesto-ism of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Welcome To The Pleasuredome.  It’s difficult to give the sense now of how new and modern Horn’s production style felt in the early 80s, especially coming out of a long period starting with punk where amateurism was so key to the aesthetic.  Crucially, the Horn style sounded great on Walkman headphones in the early days of personal stereos when little else did.  And whether on purpose or not, Duck Rock brought together several burgeoning genres – African, electronica, sampling and hip-hop – that sounded great on cheap portable headphones, even better when moving in virtual isolation through an urban environment – still a novelty in those days.

I think it also bears noting that there was – and should be – considerable controversy over the provenance of the songs. Connecting the dots between township jive and US inner city radio seemed pretty clever at the time and still gives a nice message that we’re all connected, baby.  But there’s also real reason to be uncomfortable with that message, especially in light of the songwriting credits that give all the rights to “Horn/McLaren.”  One listen and you’ll see strong reason to doubt that they really had much to do with songwriting.  While it’s true in the early days of sampling that credits were a bit less… stringent, the co-opting of others’ artistry – in particular from distressed urban areas around the world – reeks of the worst of cultural imperialism.   This is another crucial way that Duck Rock is a product of its time even as it stretched out ears into the future.

(Come to think of it, Malcolm had done something similar with another music project six years earlier.)

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Sell Out was The Who’s fourth LP and the band’s first attempt at a full-length concept album.  The schtick was that the album was really a radio show complete with interruptions for station IDs and commercials.  (This also made for a clever way to gloss over the production problem of the album’s schizophrenic body of songs – everything from Beach Boys pop to proto-metal.)  Underlining the “sell out” concept, many of the ads were for brands they loved with the hopes that Premier Drums and [ahem] Jaguar would shower the boys in the band with free product.

The album’s conceptual centerpiece is the track where it all comes together.  “Odorono” sounds like a sweet if overdone Byrds-y pop track with a curious narrative about a female singer’s big debut.  It’s not until the last line of the song that the curtain is pulled back to reveal that the whole 2+ minute song is an advert for deodorant.

Listen: The Who – The Who Sell Out

Of course that’s all performed as a sly joke.  But recent events have brought product placement in pop songs into the spotlight as a legitimate brand-builder.  Most notably Chris Brown’s “Forever” was revealed to be a jingle for Wrigley Doublemint Gum only after the track had already launched into the Top 10.  (Perhaps we should have noticed earlier because of the chorus: “Double your pleasure/double your fun”). “Forever” also shows in the most dramatic way possible the pitfalls and opportunities inherent in latching your brand to a pop song.  As anyone who has passed through a supermarket checkout lane in the last five months would have seen, Brown’s reputation is now tattered following a domestic violence incident with his then-girlfriend, Rihanna, and Wrigley subsequently pulled his spots out of rotation.

Out of the blue, “Forever” was hijacked by a viral video that has become one of 2009’s biggest hits, “JK Wedding Entrance Dance,” now standing at over 25 million views and providing Brown’s song an unexpected return to the iTunes Top 10 singles chart.  Reflecting on how the private lives of artists impact their professional output is often a fool’s game, so we should probably look past using a love song by a convicted girlfriend-beater for a wedding.  But one wonders if Jill & Kevin were aware how much of a role Wrigley played at their (now very public) nuptials and how much free publicity they would be giving the gum.  (Or do they work for Wrigley?  Nowthat would be brand dedication: product placement at your wedding.)  One thing’s for sure: Google noticed – and turned “JK Wedding Entrance Dance” into a case study for monetizing YouTube content.

Def Jam, meanwhile, is taking a different tack by reminding publishers that its products often have many more eyeballs than famous magazine and web brands.  To that end, Mariah Carey’s new album will include a 34-page mini-Elle magazine – while Elle will feature a 14-page spread about the album.  “We sell millions of records, so you should advertise with us,’ ” said Antonio “L.A.” Reid, IDJ’s chairman. “My artists have substantial circulation–when you sell 2 million, 5 million, 8 million, that’s a lot of eyeballs. Most magazines aren’t as successful as those records.” And, he might add, hit records have a lot more shelf life.  Just ask Chris Brown.  Or The Who.

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Think of 15 albums that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life or the way you looked at it. They sucked you in and took you over for days, weeks, months, years. These are the albums that you can use to identify time, places, people, emotions. These are the albums that no matter what they were thought of musically, shaped your world. When you finish, tag 15 others, including me. Make sure you copy and paste this part so they know the drill. Get the idea now? Good. Tag, you’re it!

When I sat down to write this, I thought in terms of the albums that helped me learn how to listen, to form a critical opinion, or opened new worlds avenues & possibilities and so forth. By its nature, then, these 15 albums may not necessarily represent desert island discs, favorite artists, or even the best of a particular artist. In a couple of cases, I don�t even particularly enjoy the album any more though I can still catch the whiff of thrill I felt when I first heard it.

I started with about 50 albums and ruthlessly edited until only 15 remained. Most of the late scratches were albums where I felt that the one that made the final list already epitomized something in common between those albums; examples include �Power Lies and Corruption� edging out �Seventeen Seconds� and �Remain In Light.� (I didn�t say it made sense, I just said it was.)

And so, in rough chronological order�

THE ROLLING STONES, Their Satanic Majesties Request – It�s absurd and in points unlistenable, but to a 4-year old with a close-n-play it�s mysterious and full of whimsy, from the playful idolatrous cover art to the nonsense psychedelia of the songs. I would listen closely, scrutinizing every note cough mumble; it seemed so important to decode it. Though just a curiosity today, it has some of the Stones� loveliest pop songs before they went on to become the raw, bluesy world-beating band they were over the next 10 years.
PS The remaster sounds amazing.

THE WHO, Tommy � It�s full of filler and the story is absurd, grotesque and more than a little offensive. For me, though, it unlocked the idea that rock could tell a story and that the different instruments could be expressive of character and ideas. On that basis, it beat the hell out of the �Young People�s Guide To The Orchestra� or �Peter & The Wolf.� And the playing still knocks me out. I�ll put Underture up against anything as one of the great instrumental performances.

THE BEATLES, The White Album (for this is what it should be called) � This list would not be complete without any Beatles, a band that I devoured well into my teens. I don�t think is their best nor is it my favorite � it contains the very worst efforts by all four of them – but its very density makes it the one that I still find the most fascinating � a real songwriters� battle royale. Oddly, I think my two favorite Beatles albums today may actually be solo albums: Ram and All Things Must Pass. (Bing! Snooty rock critic alert!)

PUBLIC IMAGE, LTD, Metal Box / Second Edition � How did we get there from here? Coming in a bit late for punk, this was my one of my first pick-ups of the genre. But really it couldn�t be further from punk; the trebly in-your-face pop-based guitars replaced by a dominant dubby danceable beats. It was scary and invigorating to hear something so released from pop form but still essentially fun to listen to. I�m sure this set me up for both techno and reggae as I discovered them later.

BRIAN ENO, Ambient 1: Music For Airports � I bought this off the in-store turntable at Leopold�s. (What strange self-absorbed 12-year old does that? [raises hand] That would be me.) But this album was freeing in so many ways. Free from composition & structure. Free from noise. Free from pop and conventional song structure. Yet it was peaceful and engaging. Plus it came with instructions for setting up your speakers properly.

GANG OF FOUR, Entertainment! � Even though the songs, polemics and unique performances are this album�s most obvious attributes, the affirmation I got from Gang Of Four came from what people � especially Greil Marcus � wrote and felt about them. I started reading Marcus in my parents� copies of New West magazine while he was plowing through many of the same touchstones I was running into working at Universal Records in Berkeley. From this experience � and kudos to my mother the Art History major, too � I learned about art criticism and how it could add value to my experience to be a critical listener, question the narrator�s motivation and look for themes in the music that go beyond the obvious strands of plot. Who needed English class?

KRAFTWERK, Computer World � It seems so tame now in the face of the booming techno genre, but when this came out in 1981, absolutely nothing sounded like this. All synthetic and machinist, yet hinting at underlying humanity. It bespoke a world of machines whispering too each other constantly night day, sharing our secrets. I remember a day in 1993 temping for a bank when I realized that all the machines were secretly connected. The buzz of the wires suddenly seemed alive to me. Kraftwerk foresaw all that and more on this album. Plus, funky as all get out.

NEW ORDER, Power, Corruption & Lies � A transition out of the dark post-punk noise and stifled emotion back into passion and pop. Not to mention my cassette had Blue Monday tacked on as a bonus, the pinnacle sonic achievement of the whole early 80s era without doubt.

ELVIS COSTELLO & THE ATTRACTIONS, Get Happy! (Part 2 here) � 20 perfect pop songs sung & played furiously by a drug-fueled genius with sparks flying out of his head every which way. Most importantly, though, Get Happy led me to explore the album�s true roots, the sounds of classic soul. I dove deeply and found a rich vein of Americana that still remains one of my easiest sources of joy..

MARVIN GAYE, Anthology � Which leads me here. Even singing silly love songs, was there ever a more compelling voice? I thought I could sing � I still think I can sing a bit � but this just humbles me. It humbles everyone! There was a night in freshman dorm when a friend and I got stoned and put on �I Heard It Through The Grapevine.� We were totally halted in what we were doing, compelled as the voice crashed in, forcing us to Stop and…just listen. I don�t think any other singer ever did that to me so convincingly.

PREFAB SPROUT, Two Wheels Good / Steve McQueen � I was 19 and scared of life, it�s about being 19 and scared of life. (A recent Pop Matters essay guesses that it�s secretly a failed concept album about masculinity.) And as pop songwriting goes, it�s perfection, on par with any you can think of. Light and deep at the same time, as all great pop trifles should be

MILES DAVIS, Kind Of Blue � It�s nothing but a clich� to say that this, the most popular jazz album of all time, opened me to the genre (see, for example, the stoner brother chapter of �Sometimes A Great Notion�). It�s embarrassing, like saying �I love reggae, yeah, I�ve got Bob Marley�s Legend and UB40. What, Bob Marley had other records? Sly & who? � But you know what? Kind Of Blue is that good. PS In A Silent Way was a late scratch for this list, but I thought Brian Eno and Miles Davis together did enough to fill the same intellectual spot on the list.

PUBLIC ENEMY, Fear Of A Black Planet � Taking the formula of tight James Brown beats and infringing chaos as far as it could go, this album brought down the curtain on the first great age of sampling and hip-hop. It�s a mess, but for sheer sonic inventiveness it�s a pinnacle of the form. Not to mention that in a time of great urban strife, Fear Of A Black Planet sounded like a sonic representation of the horrible crack epidemic striking at the cities I lived in and a bellwether for the shocking racial incidents to come in the next few years.

GUIDED BY VOICES, Bee Thousand � The album that launched me to a thousand shows, or so it seemed like. But really for me it was a return to rock after years & years away. Buried under the fuzz and half-baked ideas, a great classic rock band struggled to break free � which indeed was what happened when they performed live. In a renaissance period for American indie rock, this was the album that led me back to it.

ALVA NOTO & RYUICHI SAKAMOTO, Vrioon � There�s a weird moment during power cuts when the silence blooms and you realize how much static & white noise you are forced to live within, both from the environment and from within. This album expresses both the silence and the buzz � and does both with beauty and surprising emotiveness.

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A number of commentators have remarked that these CDs may represent the last great CD release, a tombstone for a dying format.� Based on Aerosmith�s phenomenal success with Guitar Hero, which made the band more money than any of their albums, the CDs are not the real reason we�ll be seeing this push.� In that case, why not just put out The Beatles Rock Band out this year and then create another major marketing push for the CDs (or DVDs or downloads or what have you) in 2010?

My hunch is that The Beatles currently available CDs � rushed on to the market with barely a remix in the late �80s � were too lo-fi as they stood to be released on to machines providing high-fidelity experience like Xbox 360�s or PlayStation 3�s.� All of my friends who play Rock Band-like games have their consoles hooked to their stereos, not just their tiny TV speakers.� And when played after the loud, bright, often surround mixes demanded by these environments, The Beatles recordings will sound at best mid-rangy and at their worst completely colorless.� Through 1966, all the vocals were on one channel, the instruments on the other, which means that all the new Stereo and Surround mixes to come will be 2009 inventions.

So as the sonic quality comes up to par, expect not just a Beatles marketing blitz, but perhaps a whole re-evaluation of their work and ability as musicians – not to mention, a huge online war between the purists who think the 2009 stereo remastering paints a mustache on Mona Lisa and others who feel like �we�re hearing The Beatles for the very first time.�� (Another rank unfairness against their brethren like the Rolling Stones and The Who, both of whom put out fantastic-sounding remasterings chock full of extras earlier this decade to little fanfare.)

Another prediction: expect new respect for Ringo�s contributions.

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I missed the original posting of the MP3s at Dogs Are For Blogs, but Plays My Cards Right re-posted them all with (bless him) all the tags fixed! That just saved me four hours of tweaking out on something I’ll use three-times ever. Play My Cards Right / Pitchfork Top 200 of the 60’s

One note of caution: The files are hosted in three parts at Sendspace, which may require some patience on your part.

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Oooooh I’ve been looking forward to this one. Il est temps pour Jacques Dutronc!

Even though he’s inexplicably passed over in Wikipedia’s “Music Of France” entry, Dutronc was one of France’s two or three most popular French-language acts of the 1960s. Married to Francoise Hardy and a collaborator of Serge Gainsbourg, his debut album “Le Cactus” was a million-seller in 1966 and his career took off from there.

He is often likened to Ray Davies for his ironic songs and name-checked as part of the roots of Freakbeat. According to Bardot A Go Go, which also fills in some biographical details and links to lyrics of his witty and sarcastic songs:

What makes Dutronc great for many non-French speakers is the driving psychedelic sound of his rockin’ tunes. The driving buzz saw guitar of Les gens sont fous les temps sont flous strips down The Kinks’ You Really Got Me riff to a bare one note minimum with maxi affect.

RFIMusique nails the allure of Jacques Dutronc:

The singer’s nonchalant stage persona and the ironic, almost insolent way in which he delivered his lyrics proved an instant hit with the French public who adored Dutronc’s openly provocative style. Dutronc’s sartorial elegance also made a great impact. In an age where most pop stars were growing hippy beards and dressing in Afghan coats and bell-bottom jeans, Dutronc’s tailored suits and chic silk ties were guaranteed to make him stand out from the crowd.

Wow, kinda like (the stereotype of) France! Check out a few of his hip-swingin’ tunes:

Jacques Dutronc – Les Gens Sont Fous, Les Temps Sont Flous.mp3
Jacques Dutronc – Les Cactus.mp3
Jacques Dutronc – J’ai Tout Lu, Tout Vu, Tout Bu.mp3

Slipcue has some recommendations for further listening.

Listening to his music, it’s easy to imagine Dutronc ogling mini-skirted young women who in turn flirt with semi-shaven semi-showered strangely-hip Frenchmen. You know, the 60s existential France of Godard and Delon. In fact, I think I can see it right here:

Jacques Dutronc – Mini Mini Mini video at YouTube

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After yesterday’s unfortunate loss to France, it seems appropriate to show a sadder side of one of the Cup’s participants. Carlos Paredes, "The Man With A Thousand Fingers," was the master guitarist of Fado, a traditional Portugese music that has its roots in Moorish times. Alternately playful and mournful, Fado evokes the country’s strong relationship with the sea and its feudal past. Paredes himself was an exemplar of the form. The son of another Fado master, Artur Paredes, Paredes was himself something of a tragic figure: jailed in the 50s and 60s as a Communist sympathizer, and forced to spend the last eleven years of his life unable to play because of a nerve disorder. He passed away in 2004.

The first track is from Paredes’ debut album called, naturally, Guitarra Portuguesa. The second is from his 1990 collaboration with Charlie Haden, recorded shortly before Paredes’ disability ended his playing career.

Carlos Paredes – Divertimento.mp3
Carlos Paredes & Charlie Haden – Danca de Camponeses.mp3

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After the dominant performance in the Group Round and with “The Hand Of God” as personal cheerleader, I figured Argentina was a sure thing for the Final. But always beware playing the home side!

Astor Piazzolla was the master of 20th century tango and one of its great composers — touring, recording and composing ceaselessly for nearly 50 years before his death in 1992. He was about as close as you can get to a country having a National Musician; thankfully for Argentina and its musical reputation, Piazzolla was more Mozart than Salieri. (Or, to torture a simile, perhaps more Duke Ellington than Nelson Riddle.) Any description of Piazzolla’s music seems to have the phrase “not your Grandfather’s tango” attached, and really I have no idea what that means because I’m not sure I’ve heard much tango that’s not by Piazzolla. I think what’s being referred to was his triumph in getting tango out of the brothels and into concert halls & cafe society. I guess people don’t think much of their grandfather’s reputation.

Here are recordings of Piazzolla playing original compositions in two entirely different settings, the first with his nonet shortly before he passed away and the second a piece he commissioned for Kronos Quartet:

Astor Piazzolla – Milonga Del Angel.mp3
Kronos Quartet & Astor Piazzolla – Anxiety.mp3
Lots more Piazzolla and tango recordings are housed at piazzolla.org

Meanwhile, with Tango now the hoity-toity music of Argentina, Cumbia villera (“shantytown cumbia”) is now the dominant popular music form among the underclass. According to Wikipedia, “Many bands were propelled into fame when emerging football stars from the shantytowns (such as Carlos T?vez) proclaimed their allegiance” so I guess this is what you might have heard if you walked into the Argentine locker room before the game.

Imagine gangsta rap played with Casiotones on the latin rhythm setting just al little too slow setting. You can hear several examples and read about the genre (in Spanish) at this site. And, as always, seek on YouTube and ye shall find.

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Fahrn fahrn fahrn down the Infobahn! You have just two days left to bid on Kraftwerk’s vocoder.

eBay: prototype VOCODER of german 70s Electronic Pioneers (item 300001522431 end time Jul-05-06 11:17:07 PDT)

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Another country with music I know way too much about. Plus I work for Brits — – and I’ve got the challenge of trying to avoid rawther obvious use & abuse of Mojo’s recent “50 Best British Songs” list. Hmm, better step carefully here.

OK, how ’bout:

Fairport Convention – Come All Ye.mp3
XTC – Respectable Street.mp3
Peter Sellers – A Hard Day’s Night.mp3

Covered by these three songs: minstrelsy, “England’s green fields,” folk tradition, proto-prog, music hall, classism, comedy, post-war suburbia, Britpop Mark 1, art school, The frickin’ Beatles, guys who want to sound like the frickin’ Beatles, post-punk, post-punk pop, eccentrics that can’t tour because of stage fright.

Things missed: Manchester, Madchester, bedsit, immigration & imperial fallout, Britpop Mark 2, punk, prog proper, Victoria Beckham and her friends, Pop Idol, mods, rockers, The frickin’ Stone Roses.

Well, I tried. I’ll meet you at the Cemetry Gates.

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