Nirvana Unplugged--One of my favorite things

 

On this day in 1994 Nirvana released “MTV Unplugged in New York”

It is considered the greatest Unplugged ever made pic.twitter.com/iA6pymphBM

— 🎸 Rock History 🎸 (@historyrock_) November 1, 2024

I don't know if there is a single CD I got from Columbia Music House that I played more. I mean, I played Hole's "Live Through This" and NIN's "Pretty Hate Machine" a lot and some Tool also, but this one was special to me because it was issued so close to Cobain's unaliving and displayed Cobain's untapped range and what this whole band was capable of. 

I love the covers. To me, Nirvana's cover of "Man Who Sold the World" hits me better than Bowie's does in roughly the same way Guns'n'Roses' cover of "Live and Let Die" (and, to be honest, "Knockin' on Heaven's Door") give me more than the originals. The sheer haunting that is "Where Did You Sleep Last Night"!

This was that band. 

It was a mood in a way I don't think anything I ever heard before was. The songs were cultivated mood. The performance was an entire mood. 

I implore the children to hear it in the way I was cultivated to listen to the Doors and the Beatles. It is the good shit. You hear the good shit in your life one time, and it breaks you down and you can't accept the music that doesn't reach you that way ever again. You go and search "where is that good shit music"? 

You go and search your own Nirvanas, you beautiful rainbow children. But if your mom and dad came up on NKOTB and Britney Spears I do not know how to introduce so much funk into your life. 

I can point you to Black Sabbath, Genesis, the Commodores ("Night Shift" is CHURCH) and Lionel Richie. And Billy Joel. Mike McDonald. The good shit is out there. Billy Ocean. Sade. Public Emeny, The Clash and The Police. 

Metallica. Bonnie Raitt. The son of a bitchin' Rolling Stones.

The real-ass play from your heart vistas. I want you all to get it, experience it, know it. Blisters on the fingers. Blood on the stage. 

It even explains the life we are in. I am not making this up. It does. 

Beyonce Takes Us to Church

You know, there was this weird poll out of Iowa that 40% of likely GOP caucus participants thought that Beyoncé was "mental poison" following 2016 hopeful Mike Huckabee's very tacky slams of her relationship with her husband and her performing persona. I'm not sure what they'd make of that performance. Beyoncé is one of the most nominated and winning performers in Grammy history. It's true part of her stage persona is her sensuality. But I'd compare her to Elvis Presley in some ways--he "scandalized" America with his performances. But I'd say his gospel work was every bit as real. (And yes, it is very bizarre that I am talking 1950's folks shaming "the Pelvis" for his gyrations when talking about Mrs. Carter--which is I think more about how far some people have not, actually, come.) Artists are complicated. Maybe they don't appeal to all audiences--but "mental poison"?

So here's Elvis.

Except she nails it for me where Elvis seems tame.  I dunno. Comparisons are odious. But I don't like people putting down Beyoncé, that's all.

Sting and Lady Gaga--King of Pain

You all probably realized I love the hell out of Lady Gaga, but I also love Sting, like I can not adequately express. Coming across these two on Youtube  made my evening, people. Made it.

Knowing that Robert Downey Jr. who in roles like Tony Stark and Sherlock Holmes and Chaplin pretty much comes off as totally brilliant, himself, and not just playing brilliant people, is also a really good singer, is a nice lagniappe to a fun Youtube indulgence. Also, for some crazy reason I dig hearing Tom Hiddleston rap.

The NFL Feels Like Rihanna is a Problem

So, just looking at the recent maneuver by the NFL in a part of their "message-control" to actually decide that running with Rihanna's music is an unfortunate reminder that their most recent scandal has to do with domestic abuse--how sad are these people?

You know, refusing to partner with a domestic violence victim because of how it looks is a little like saying, well--isn't she to blame, a little, if associating with her made us look worse?

When the NFL, after all, seems to have the problem with not knowing what to do with employees who batter spouses and children. They have an issue with batterers, so, why should they penalize someone who has suffered some abuse?

It is because it looks bad? Is it because it makes them feel bad to consider what she suffered is just so much like what Janay Rice's face must have looked like, and, well--it makes them look bad?

There's a terrible ironic analogy to make here.

Anyone want to guess how many battered people don't leave their homes, or wear long sleeves, or make excuses for their injuries, all on account of how someone who excuses violence wants to manage them because they don't want to look bad? How many people out there are trying to make themselves invisible, so as not to compromise their abuser in order to not catch any worse treatment?  Excising Rihanna like she did something is like saying victims shouldn't be seen because they are a reminder of what can happen, and who wants or needs to talk about that? (I mean, except for people who might need to open up about their abuse or seek help or whatever.)

The NFL is revealing some scary attitudes about the degree to which opinion and image takes precedence over people. I haven't been a fan since I started getting the feeling that players were getting bad effects from head trauma (I was a fan of McMahon--he was a sharp character on and off the field at one time and was pretty ecstatic that he came to back-up QB for the Eagles for awhile) and the like and the industry was cleaning it up (I feel the same way--in spades--regarding the short lives of professional wrestlers). But understanding that this spin control, money over humanity, extends to families and violence, and colors even little things like wrongfooting a performer because of her history in this unfortunate way--makes me think the business is sick.

They have a lot of wrong-headedness to sort out. But victim-blaming, even if accidentally, means they aren't yet actually seeing the real problem that they have.

Linda Ronstadt: Blue Bayou

Very sad news from one of the great voices. I think this is one of the best songs I associate with her--and for some reason I've had it in my head all week.

RIP Ray Manzarek, Founding Keyboardist of the Doors

Very sad news. The Doors' music was probably the first music I heard in the cradle. Manzarek's at turns jangling and haunting organ did a lot to shape their unique sound. He'll be missed.

RIP Chrissy Amphlett

I remember the video for "I Touch Myself" making my jaw drop just a little. That was just so hot, and 53 is just too young. Amphlett had just such an amazing rock persona. She'll be missed.

Notorious B.I.G. calms crying baby.

Smart baby--her face is like, "What are these delightful beats?" My parents had to drive me around with the car radio on when I was a fussy wee one so I don't doubt they tried a lot to figure out what she liked!

Heavy D 1967-2011. He'll be missed.

Rest in peace overweight lover.

56K Modem Speed--

I dunno how I never heard this one until recently:



I ditched my 56K like, a half dozen years ago, but this takes me back.

Culture Club--War Song

You'd have to be made of stone not to groove a little to this.

Strange Meetings--Pavarotti and Tracey Chapman

This works for me right now:

Appropos the previous, Lady Gaga has Explained her Attire--

Lady Gaga Says She's "Not a Piece of Meat":

"If we don't stand up for what we believe in and if we don't fight for our rights, pretty soon we're going to have as much rights as the meat on our bones," Lady Gaga, 24, told talk show host Ellen DeGeneres on her TV program broadcast on Monday.

"And, I am not a piece of meat," she added.

There. That's been said. And I think she has a really great point there--we aren't just objects. We think, we feel, we want things--and we are too often objectified, carved into who we ought to be according to someone else's ideas of what our "select" parts are. That makes me say this: I am not your Filet Mignon. I am the whole heifer. And my happiness lies in kicking down human veal pens, personally.

That was insanely metaphorical. But I hope my drift carried.

Anyway, I stole fair-use "borrowed" this picture of Gaga hugging Cher, I love Cher. She's been like, a constant source of awesomeness for me, ever since the Sonny & Cher Show which I was riveted to as a kid, and I honestly sang along to her greatest hits like a weird loner throughout my adolescence, acting out karaoke-style performances. She is iconic and one of my favorite folks.



For what it's worth, I appreciate that Gaga represents all of her "little monsters". She's young, but her heart is totally in the right place--and no, not just a piece of meat.

Orinoco Flow--Celtic Woman

This is totally pretty.

Okay--Roland Gift Appreciation Society, here.

The Fine Young Cannibal's version of "Suspicious Minds":




You might have to put it on "pause" and let the thing download a little--I did. But it was a fun video.

Jingle-riffic! I just want to go on about jingles.

Some of them are really good pieces of music--and some are just capricious, burrowing ear-worms. I thought I'd litter the brain of my casual wanderer-in with some memorable jingles.


First, I have to single out the work of Barry Manilow. There is not a single jingle-writer on this planet, to my mind, who was better or more influential. You can take or leave "Mandy". But you can not deny the influence of these:

State Farm:



(The "Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there" is his--iconic. Used for years.)

Band-aid:

Like so many of these things, you can't find the good, original ad--the one with a very young John Travolta. Here's an '80's version:


Same song, basically.

I think it's actually disputed whether he was the Dr. Pepper jingle-writer on the internets--Wikipedia says Jake Holmes wrote the actual song. Anyway, it was a kick-ass jingle, so enough about Manilow:



He also didn't do the "You Deserve a Break Today" McDonalds' jingle, but it's still interesting:




how just the "You deserve a break" bit could be inserted in differently-themed jingles.

Here's just a really neat iconic ad:



Now, it pre-imagines the "Real thing" campaign, it's multi-national, it's hippie-riffic, and in a way, it tingles the same "universality bone" that this Youtube thingie "Where the Hell is Matt?" did. It's water with caramel coloring, sugar, citric acid, caffeine and flavoring, and just incidentally tastes awesome with rum or whiskey. It's not going to give us world peace. But still, nice ads.

Here's one that always gets to me:



Aaron Neville, give me back those sentimental tears you jerked out of me over undie-fabric! This jingle is the equivalent of "Sunrise, Sunset" from Fiddler on the Roof. It makes me unaccountably misty.

Yeah, Richie Havens, you too:



Are we selling the brotherhood of man, or clothes that you will totally "f" up in the laundry inside of five washings, amirite?

One more:



The fabric of my life is spandex. Let's just keep that straight. Lots of elastic and spandex.

Anyway, let's devolve to the obvious:



Have you ever seen a Weinermobile on the road? I have! It makes one so weirdly satisfied: I have seen a Weinermobile. Now I can die, fulfilled. You wouldn't actually die right then. But still. It's like a four-leaf clover or something. You wish you could make a Polaroid of the Weinermobile just to have it wash out in thirty years like many of my baby pictures did. It's a big f'ing deal.

Anyway--that was me, reminiscing about jingles. One of the things that occupy my brain.