Record Collecting for Girls: Unleashing Your Inner Music Nerd, One Album at a Time
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First, identify what you want to hear. Let's say, for instance, it's TV on the Radio. You like their sound, but you know their albums inside and out and are bored with them. It's time for something new. So you pull up their page on AllRovi and start looking around.
If you want to listen to a band that inspired TV on the Radio, go to ONE.
If you want to listen to music that sounds like TV on the Radio, go to TWO
ONE
TV on the Radio's profile page includes some fascinating content in the "influenced by" section. The list of musical influences here may be among the top ten weirdest things you will read on the site. It includes a mish-mash of bands, from the Pixies and Funkadelic to Public Image Ltd. and Peter Gabriel. If you didn't already know what TV on the Radio sounds like, this list would make them seem insane. Your eye is drawn to Pere Ubu, because you've heard of the band but never really listened to them. You click through to their discography to determine which album is arguably the best. You can decide strictly by the star ratings or you can click and read a review to be sure you're getting the best match for what you want to hear. You see that the first two records from the late 1970s have been crowned their "masterpieces" that straddle the border of art punk and just plain punishing to the ear. You have the easiest time finding a copy of their second album, Dub Housing, on Rhapsody and opt to listen to that. This album turns out to be an excellent substitute for listening to TV on the Radio's Return to Cookie Mountain. It has all of the disjointed, dark music and vocal yelping that suits the sort of art-rock aesthetic you were hoping to find.
If listening to Pere Ubu put you in the mood for more post-punk, go to THREE.
If you'd rather get back to the present and listen to a band that's a contemporary of TV on the Radio, go to FOUR.
TWO
At the moment you want to recreate the feeling you get from TV on the Radio's music, searching for something similar but less familiar. You see David Bowie listed as an influence for their Dear Science album, so you Google him. It turns out Bowie produced a documentary on Scott Walker that looks interesting. To find out what Bowie, TV on the Radio, and Scott Walker have in common, you decide to pull up the Walker Brothers' After the Lights Go Out: The Best of 1965–67. Scott Walker has a dark, swirling voice and you're curious to hear more of the vocal blending that must have happened on albums with all three Walker brothers.* AllRovi tells you this album is notable for some excellent songwriting by John Walker, who never achieved the kind of successful solo career that Scott Walker enjoyed. A click-through to his full songwriting credits reveals he was in a death-metal band in the late '80s and '90s called Cancer, which is a fascinating jump from the soft rock he played with the Walker Brothers. You also see that the Walker Brothers performed "Make It Easy on Yourself," a classic Burt Bacharach/Hal David song that's been interpreted by hundreds of artists, from the Carpenters to Cilla Black to Rick "I Rickroll You Not" Astley. It's been recorded enough times that you could easily listen to it for two hours without listening to the same artist twice.
If you want to listen to death metal from Cancer, go to FIVE.
If you want to listen to "Make It Easy on Yourself," go to SIX.
THREE
From Pere Ubu's AllRovi page, you click on "Post-punk" to get an overview of the key works in the genre. The first tier of the artist list is shockingly narrow, and you're familiar with everyone on it, so you go to the list of top albums instead. A few clicks farther down on AllRovi's list of definitive post-punk albums gets you to the Raincoats' self-titled album. You click to read more about the Raincoats and you notice a band called Sleater-Kinney listed as one of their "followers." This prompts you to Google "Sleater-Kinney and the Raincoats," and the first thing that comes up is a Pitchfork news item on Sleater-Kinney singer Corin Tucker's first solo album, 1,000 Years. She names as influences for the album, "the Slits, the Raincoats, the English Beat, and Sinéad O'Connor's The Lion and the Cobra." After playing the title track from Tucker's album, you debate whether you want to listen to Sinéad O'Connor's debut album in full or listen to some other girl bands.
If you would like to listen to The Lion and the Cobra, go to SEVEN.
If you would prefer to investigate other all-girl bands, go to EIGHT.
FOUR
Back to TV on the Radio's AllRovi page. One band listed as an influence whose music you're not super-familiar with is Funkadelic. You pull up a few of their albums in Rhapsody, get your funk on, and find there is a tenuous connection to some of TV on the Radio's more jammy songs. You know the work of all of their other influencers, so go to TWO and start again.
FIVE
Wow. Bracing choice. This decision was a musical dead end for you. Go to TWO and start again.
SIX
Rolling through the various version of this Bacharach/David composition you happen across an R&B version by Jerry Butler. His voice is smooth. Very smooth. So you pull up a playlist of popular Jerry Butler tracks on Rhapsody and read his AllRovi bio, where you discover that his nickname is "The Ice Man" and that he was in a choir with Curtis Mayfield. Before long you are totally seduced by "Never Gonna Give You Up." You've heard the Isaac Hayes version before, but never Butler's original. You read that the song was written by the famous songwriting team Gamble & Huff, who were the architects behind the '70s Philly soul sound. Googling the two turns up a plethora of credits for both songs you know and songs you've never heard by singers you know. A quick Rhapsody search leads you to an album called The Sound of Philadelphia that looks reasonably interesting.
If you'd like to listen to The Sound of Philadelphia, go to NINE.
If all this soul put you inexplicably in the mood for some Prince, go to TEN.
SEVEN
It doesn't get much more definitively strong-female than world-class vocalist and slightly crazy person Sinéad O'Connor. As you begin listening to her stellar debut album, The Lion and the Cobra, you Google the title to find out what it means. Turns out it's a reference to Psalm 91 in the Bible. This brings to mind O'Connor's bizarre anti-papal outburst when she performed on Saturday Night Live in 1992. Hearing her voice reminds you that her biggest single, "Nothing Compares 2 U" was written by Prince, who has also fallen into a kind of weird, hyper-religious place in the last few years. You Google the story of how the hell Prince knows Sinéad O'Connor, and it turns out he didn't. "Nothing Compares 2 U" was written for the Family, one of his side bands, but was never released as a single and went more or less unrecognized for a decade until O'Connor covered it. It's always entertaining to compare different recordings of a song, so you hunt down O'Connor's version, the Family's version, and the versions Prince recorded after the song became a hit. But everyone knows you can't listen to just one sexed-up Prince song; they're like Pringles potato chips. You must have more.
All of this makes you want to listen to some more Prince. Skip to TEN.
EIGHT
You decide that if you're going to listen to a girl group, you might as well go with the most-successful girl group ever: the Supremes. Sure, Diana Ross is a bit of a ruthless egomaniac, but there are some amazing harmonies to be found in Supremes records. You do some reading and learn that the songwriting team of Holland-Dozier-Holland wrote all their biggest hits—that, in fact, the Supremes without this team is just the Supremes doing Beatles covers. You're fascinated by this symbiotic relationship, and you find yourself listening to all the Holland-Dozier-Holland compositions for Martha Reeves & the Vandellas to see if they stand up to the ones the guys wrote for the Supremes. Once you exhaust their catalog, you realize you can either look for another interesting songwriting team, like Gamble & Huff, who, you find, penned the amazing "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me"—a hit single for the Supremes and the Temptations but originally recorded by Dionne Warwick—or you can listen to some more definitive girl songs.
To explore the legacy of Philly soul hit-men Gamble & Huff, go to NINE.
To further scratch your girls-singing itch, go to SEVEN.
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br /> NINE
This Gamble & Huff album, The Sound of Philadelphia, really blows your doors off. While listening, you light a few candles and consider seducing yourself, but you're clearly kind of a nerd, so instead, you read about Gamble & Huff's Philadelphia International Records. This imprint of CBS Records was backed by legendary record-industry man Clive Davis and was a competitor to Motown Records, home of the Supremes. Gamble & Huff were inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in the nonperformers category in 2008. After a cursory look through the other inductees, you see that Isaac Hayes was the first soul act inducted, in 2002. Prince was the second, in 2004.
Go directly to TEN.
TEN
All roads lead to Prince. The best way to end your musical journey is by putting on his self-titled 1979 album and having a small dance party of one. Shake that money maker until you tire yourself out and fall asleep. Sleep is the only exit from the music k-hole.
Acknowledgments
Thank you.
First of all, thanks to you for reading this book. Second, thanks to my agent, Laurie Abkemeier, for showing me the ropes, working incredibly hard to make this book a reality, and taking a chance on something I hope tickles her funny bone. To my editor, Meagan Stacey, who has massively indulged my artistic ego while simultaneously doing so much to make this book a million times better than I could have imagined it would be that words can't even express my thanks. And, naturally, thanks to everyone at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for their support.
I could never have written this book without certain people, all of whom have changed my record collection in their own ways. Gina Esposito, with whom I've been discussing music and ripping apart relationships for long enough to know better (and who kindly let me put her life all over this book, like a good girlfriend would). Arye Dworken and Russell Sanzgiri, who big upped the idea from the start and gave me kicks in the butt full of supportive love. The Denton/Dallas boys, Josh Venable, Daniel Reid, Alan Reid, Jared Hoke, Glen Reynolds, Zac Crain, Shawn Francis: your conversations and obsessiveness changed me forever. Steve Seddon, whose enthusiastic amusement at "the toppermost of the poppermost" came when I felt I couldn't go on. Rodrigo Perez, Amy Doyle, and John Loscalzo, who probably thought I was crazy but continued to insist this could be done anyway.
And everyone who offered feedback and support that was very important to me: Peter Berard, Alex Sherman, Veleta Vancza, Jacob Hurn, the Mishpucha, Susan Busch, Lacey Swain, Megan Jasper, Kerri Borsuk, Josh Legree, Liz Erman, Liz Hart, Adam Farrell, Kris Chen, Charlie Ebersbaker, Chad Ferman, Kristen Brown, Rawley Bornstein (still working on that chapter), Tricia Romano, Catonia Whalen, Miguel Banuelos, Colleen Quill, Michael Plen, and everyone who I forced to listen to numerous anecdotes about the Beatles and the Stones.
Special thanks to Kathy Valentine, Jane Wiedlin, and Charlotte Caffey of the Go-Go's, as well as Susanna Hoffs and Vicki Peterson of the Bangles, for taking the time to talk to me about being in girl bands (and Jenny Bendel and Taryn Kaufman for making sure those conversations happened).
And of course, thanks to my family, who are required to love and support me no matter what. Let's all remember that at Thanksgiving, okay?
Footnotes
* If you think that is an antiquated notion think again: in interviewing Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Go's for this chapter she told me it is still a problem for her.
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* Read more about this in the Romeo and Juliet section on page 51.
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* One good guilty pleasure outing deserves another, so I'll tell you: Gina's guilty pleasure is Sisqó, specifically "The Thong Song." Her assertion that the key changes in that song are quite difficult to sing is accepted by me as a valid argument in Sisqó's favor, but she is obviously still insane.
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* There's a chance your opinion could be wrong, as people continually tell me I am in my adoration for Chris Isaak, but I choose to willfully disregard them and insist he is cool, and one day you will all regret not listening to me about this.
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* Although I now think you are much creepier than I did when we started this conversation.
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* This is exactly why it is dumb for musicians to claim not to be role models. At the very least they are influencing social behaviors, more so among young fans. That is a big deal, no matter how ardently they may dismiss it.
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* Yes, I just quoted the Bible. I am as freaked out about it as you are.
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* Or you are 100 percent apathetic.
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* It was difficult not to include a multitude of inappropriate song choices that I think would crack my friends up, like Nouvelle Vague's cover of "Bela Lugosi's Dead" or Johnny Paycheck's "Take This Job and Shove It." You can't take the irony out of a Gen Xer, I suppose, even in death.
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* See: Pretty in Pink, Empire Records.
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† A young, attractive Christian Slater heavily inspired this; see Heathers and Pump Up the Volume.
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* During the editing of this book, in February 2010, Suze passed away.
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* Incidentally, the Walker Brothers were not brothers or even actually named Walker. It is very the Ramones.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Table of Contents
Copyright
RECORD COLLECTING FOR GIRLS
TOP FIVE LISTS
WHERE HAVE ALL THE GIRL BANDS GONE?
INTERLUDE
MAKING OUT WITH ROMEO AND JULIET
GUILTY PLEASURES
THE SMITHS SYNDROME
INTERLUDE
ARE WE BREAKING UP?
THE NEXT MADONNA
INTERLUDE
OUR SONG, YOUR SONG, MY SONG
THE DEATH OF THE RECORD COLLECTOR
INTERLUDE
ROCK 'N' ROLL CONSORTS
BEATLES VS. STONES
FINAL NOTE
Acknowledgments
Footnotes