I have to admit - I’m a shameless sucker for all things synthesized. My favorite synth tracks are the ones where the synthesized melodies are as important (if not moreso) as the vocals. I chose these 19 tracks because I think they’re some of the best examples of how synth can be the musical glue that holds a song together. Some of them are cheesy, some of them are epic, and some of them are just a little bit overdramatic, but I have a soft spot for all of them, and thanks to the magic of the Internet, you can listen to them while you read my obnoxious comments!
Did I leave any of your favorites off the list? Please feel free to leave your favorite picks in the comments!
Yeah, it’s true — this is my first time ever using Northern California’s premiere word: Hella. But it was the only thing I could think of that rhymes with Coachella other than Nutella, so you can certainly understand why I had to make the choice I did.
Tomorrow I depart with Ernie and his friend Adam to meet up with Eric and his posse (or harem, perhaps) of what are certain to be tendy, beautiful SoCal boys so that we can party our asses off poolside at a luxurious Palm Springs vacation home, inbetween dancing our asses off at Coachella, SoCal’s most fabulous music festival.
The schedule is jam-packed for Saturday and Sunday and I’m going to get to see some artists I’ve never seen live, one that I have, and potentially a lot more that I’ve never even heard of. Here are some of the acts that have me nearly wetting myself:
Depeche Mode - I can’t believe that I’ve never seen them live! Along with Erasure and the Pet Shop Boys, DM is one of those bands that has completely defined my taste musically, and for whatever reason, I’ve been missing them every single time I’ve had the chance to go.
Madonna - Stereotype police! The reality is that Madonna puts on one hell of a show, and even though I’m going to be seeing her in San Jose in May, seeing her in the Sahara Dance Tent (a smaller venue for certain) is going to be as close to having her in my own living room as I will ever get without chloroform and duct tape.
Scissor Sisters - *swoon* I’ve loved them since I first heard their album and their tracks are probably at the absolute top of every playlist I’ve ever made. And Jake Shears (a.k.a. Jason Sellards) shall someday be mine. It can’t come quickly enough.
Mylo - I just recently discovered this DJ. His infectious song In My Arms samples Waiting for a Star to Fall by Boy Meets Girl, and Bette Davis Eyes by Kim Carnes. Any song that mixes these two cheesy 80s staples has got to be by someone who kicks some serious ass. And he went deaf briefly this year. How dramatic and deliciously tragic!
She Wants Revenge - This band reminds me of Dead or Alive. Dark, a little bit dancey, and a tiny bit pained-sounding. I haven’t listened to most of their album, but the tracks I know are really intriguing.
Bloc Party - I don’t need to elaborate on this one. New wave retro rock is still fashionable, no matter what anyone tells you.
The Like - What I Say and What I Mean is the track by these hot rock chicks that got me really interested in their music. Girls who aren’t afraid to sweat and play guitar are hot.
There are also a few more artists I might be seeing (lord knows there are enough to choose from) but I will save that for after the show is over, the sweat stops flowing, and the porta-potty line shrinks to a manageable size.
It’s Valentine’s Day. Even when I was in a long-term relationship I didn’t really do much to celebrate this day, because my ex and I always felt like it was an overly commercialized holiday. Besides, to me, the elements that really make up abstract concepts like “love” are far more complex and rooted in the things that happen every single day in my life.
To me, love is…
Spending the entire day cleaning up the vomit that your partner conveniently left in the bathtub while throwing up drunk the night before, all while nursing his hangover between plunging and Drain-O sessions
Knowing when something isn’t right before he says it and being a source of comfort even when it’s not requested
Sitting next to him all day as he is pumped full of electrolytes at the hospital to rehydrate him after a bad bout of food poisoning
Learning to appreciate even his quirkiest, least desirable features, simply because they make up part of a larger whole that wouldn’t be complete without them
Considering how every decision you make in your life will affect him
Staying with him the entire day at the airport when he misses his flight, just so that he won’t have to wait for the next flight alone
Candy hearts and flowers are all fine, I suppose. But love isn’t necessarily as easy to define as a Hallmark card. It isn’t always pretty, it’s rarely shiny, and it certainly doesn’t always taste or smell good.
Love is a measure of what level of discomfort you’re willing to put yourself through for the sake of someone whom you care about so much that it hurts.
As my own little tribute to that intensity, my recurring Music Tuesday series features a track by former Toad the Wet Sprocket frontman Glen Phillips. The track is called Easier (mp3), and I think it really conveys the almost physical pain and desperation that love can cause:
And if you said you were going away
I would run on the tarmac and I would lay down in front of the plane just to get you to stay
The track is from Glen’s amazing 2005 album Winter Pays For Summer, available through iTunes (link: ). The album has lots of other really thoughtful and well-written songs, and includes guest backing vocals on Courage from my favorite piano-wielding genius, Ben Folds. Do me a favor — if you like the tracks I feature, please consider buying the album on iTunes (or clicking an AdSense link!). The tiny affiliate checks just might pay for the hosting. And that could be one more definition of love — caring about someone enough to finance his web hosting.
Okay, I will admit it. I’m a remix fiend. Some of my favorite versions of songs by the artists that I love are remixed. However, I’m pretty picky about the remixes I like.
For instance, if you’re going to remix Into the Groove, don’t waste my time by just looping Madonna saying “…and you can dance!” over and over again. The measure of a good remix, in my opinion, is whether it maintains enough of the original song to be recognizable, and whether it is musically engaging. Placing a cappella Cher vocals over a tribal beat does not qualify. However, take those same vocals and rework them over some Spanish flamenco guitar, and we might just talk.
Future Retro, a compilation that was released today, is a pure synthpop new wave masterpiece. It is one of the rare discs that follows the magic formula of combining amazing artists (Erasure, New Order, Depeche Mode, Morrissey), songs that were great to begin with (A Little Respect, Bizarre Love Triangle, Suedehead), and retooled versions by remixers who are actually talented (Tiga, Richard X, The Crystal Method).
The best part of this album is that the remixes are very true to the synthesized new wave roots of the songs. Instead of awkwardly forcing these classic gems into awful uptempo Dance Dance Revolution-style Europop mixes performed by boring stock vocalists (case in point: DJ Sammy’s Heaven), these productions, many of which are down-tempo, feel organic and natural. There’s none of that frequent feeling of disappointment I get with remixes: “I really like the song, but it just wasn’t meant to be remixed!”
Standout tracks include the synth-heavy Jaded Aliiance remix of A Little Respect, a totally glam rock remix of Book of Love’s Boy, and a minimalistic (yet still melodic) remix of New Order’s Bizarre Love Triangle.
Track List (from Amazon)
1. Walk (Infusion Mix) — The Cure
2. Situation (Richard X Remix) — Yaz
3. Lips Like Sugar (Way Out West Remix Edit) — Echo and the Bunnymen
4. Need You Tonight (Static Revenger Mix Edit) — INXS
5. Shake the Disease (Tiga Remix) — Depeche Mode
6. Little Respect (Jaded Alliance ‘Electrospect’ Remix) — Erasure
7. New Song (Peter Black & Hadrock Striker Mix Edit) — Howard Jones
8. Forever Young (Hamel Album Mix) — Alphaville
9. Bizarre Love Triangle (Crystal Method Extended Mix) — New Order
10. White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It, Elite Force Mix) — Grandmaster & Melle Mel
11. Girl U Want (Black Light Odyssey Mix) — Devo
12. NoWhere Girl (Adam Freeland Mix) — B-Movie
13. Boy (DJ Irene Rockstar Mix) — Book of Love
14. Suedehead (Sparks Remix) — Morrissey
Last night I went with Jenny and Josh to King of Clubs in Mountain View for the first time to enjoy a lively night of karaoke. I’ve never actually been able to get anyone to go to a karaoke bar with me, because all of my friends back on the east coast were a little bit too… polished… to be caught dead in one of those places.
Thankfully, out here, it seems that people are a little more shameless. Case in point: a lovely anonymous drag queen that decided to wow us with her rendition of Superstar, by the Carpenters. Can you see her uncanny resemblance to Karen Carpenter?
Of course, it would not be fair for me to embarrass some poor drag queen on my blog if I didn’t take a little bit of time to embarrass myself. Josh sang Maybe This Time, by the lovely Liza Minnelli, but I was warned by Josh that if I were to place the video on my blog, he would never speak to me again. Hardly seems worth the risk.
So now, for your uncomfortable viewing pleasure, here is my karaoke performance of Hold On, by Wilson Phillips. This is a lovely motivational song, but for some reason the karaoke video features Jesus and the crucifix and the Virgin Mary. If there is some sort of religious undercurrent in what I thought to be a secular pop song, I would love to hear more about it. Anyway, feel free to leave your best Simon Cowell American Idol comments on my blog. Here we go!
I’m afraid to say that my iPod might be trudging down the same dark path that sealed the fate of my XM Satellite Radio. No, not being stolen from my glove box through the smashed window of my car in San Francisco on Thanksgiving. I fear that the overwhelming amount of content on my iPod (8,793 songs and counting) could eventually spell doom for the device in the same way that I was compelled me to stop paying for my XM subscription several months ago (prior to the above mentioned robbery).
When I purchased my XM tuner, the draw was that I would have a massive selection of commercial-free music channels so that I would never get bored with what I was listening to. The iPod successfully eliminated my interest in satellite radio music, because I could have thousands of songs in my car or in my pocket, and my programming choices were far more tailored to me, because I became the program director of my own commercial-free radio station. In fact, while I can’t prove it for sure, I would imagine that my libary, which could get me from New York to Los Angeles by car and then back again without ever repeating a single song, is probably more complete than the one they’re using at any given Top 40 radio station in America.
So it’s easy to see why XM music is useless to me. However, I kept paying my $10 per month for the sake of listening to Air America Radio and XM’s “extreme talk” station in my car and at work. Talk radio became an addiction, and for that reason I decided to keep paying the bill.
So when am I listening to these 8,793 songs? Rarely. Maybe when I’m running on the treadmill, or walking around at the mall trying to be standoffish and avoiding making eye contact with people. In fact, I’ve only listened to 7,813 of the tracks currently on my iPod. The rest remain untouched. You do the math.
The cause behind this is MOAD, or Media Overload Anxiety Disorder. While not officially recognized by the American Psychiatric Association as a mental illness, its effects can be incredibly crippling. Symptoms may include the endless need to rate and categorize songs, micromanagement of playlists, the impulsive fast-forwarding of a song to the end prior to skipping it merely for the sake of ensuring that the play count is properly incremented, along with various other classic anxiety symptoms.
I propose that the mind’s way of dealing with this painful and life-altering syndrome is to regress into a more simple way of life. Much in the way that the Amish renounce technology, or the Republicans renounce ethics, a MOAD sufferer will eventually renounce the need to categorize and organize thousands of songs by sustaining him or herself almost solely on volatile content that needs no rating, remains fresh on a daily basis, and is fully disposable after it has been consumed.
In a nutshell: the podcast.
Each day, the podcasts I have listened to are deleted automatically from my iPod, and new ones are automatically synchronized. I don’t have to rate episodes, or put them into special genres, or distinguish between 18 different remixes, because they’re just daily shows. That’s it. End of story. I remain entertained and happy, barely even paying notice to the Chumbawumba and Vengaboys tracks lurking deep in the cavernous pit of unplayed songs on my iPod.
While there is no cure for MOAD, it’s definitely possible to treat it through education and prevention. I would imagine that this involves only carrying around music that I actually intend to listen to, and letting the useless crap clutter my hard drive at home where it belongs.
Please remember this new acronym, because like all good acronyms it certainly deserves to be the subject of numerous conferences, websites, books, and media events. Please contact me in person to schedule speaking engagements.
One of my favorite bar trends is the ever-so-tasty Internet jukebox, which allows bar patrons to choose songs from pre-selected tracks, or download tracks from a library of 140,000 songs. This obviously can be a blessing or a curse because it makes the musical experience at the bar completely hit or miss. There are certain expectations that gay men have when it comes to nightlife and its accompanying soundtrack. Classics like Vogue and It’s Raining Men fall into the acceptable category, but the freedom that the Internet jukebox introduces to the evening means that at some point the evening is likely to be interrupted with Enya or Barry Manilow.
On Saturday evening, my friend Andy and I took a trip to a local San Francisco bar, where I dropped $10 in the jukebox (with my debit card, naturally) and proceeded to manipulate the evening’s music. I’m used to having to wait for over an hour for my songs to come up, but that particular evening I was incredibly lucky, since I was barely through one cocktail when my first song came up.
The highlight of the evening was when Private Dancer played (Andy’s choice) and a lovely overweight drag queen straight out of a John Waters film, with bushels of chest hair overflowing from her natural cleavage, proceeded to perform a stunning lip sync routine to the song. A gaggle of queens sauntered into the bar mouthing the words and quietly singing to themselves and Andy looked at them with a sparkle of self-satisfaction in his eyes, feeling personally responsible for creating this moment of magic.
Because I’m a control freak, the opportunity to force everyone else to endure my selections of Cyndi Lauper, Erasure and the Pet Shop Boys almost guaranteed that I would stay at the bar long enough to hear all 14 songs that my $10 bought. The only thing more intoxicating than my vodka and lime on the rocks was the thrill of controlling the bar’s playlist. It’s obvious that in the wrong hands, the jukebox could easily send an evening into chaos. One moment we could be dancing to Madonna, and the next moment we could be deafened by the shrill, banshee-like moans of Yoko Ono.
This, however, is the risk we take for having the opportunity to play DJ, if only for a night. How else can you get that special feeling that can only come from seeing an overweight middle-aged man in a blonde wig tapping his hairy, happy feet to your song of choice? Who says the American dream is dead?
The other day I saw a repeat of Saturday Night Live from 1997 on E! where the Spice Girls performed. They weren’t really that great live, but at least they sang — and unlike Britney Spears, they weren’t afraid to sing with their own banshee-like voices because the power of 5 buxom British women of various ethnicities and hair colors in various states of undress used to be enough to sell music — SCREW TALENT!
Well, it looks like the founders of the Girl Power movement are going to be making an attempt at a come-back with a reunion tour (but — *drat!* — no new material)! How will they stand up in today’s changed world? I have a few predictions:
* “Baby Spice” will change her name to “Fetus Spice” as a nod to the religious right’s battle to overturn Roe v. Wade. What better way to show people the beauty of an unborn child than to put it in a skimpy Gucci number and make it sing “zig-a-zig-ah”?
* “Scary Spice” will change her name to “Successful Black Businesswoman Spice” because in 2005 we don’t think black people are scary anymore.
* “Sporty Spice” will shed her Pumas and put on some high heels with pointy toes to smash the stereotype that all lesbians look like her.
* “Ginger Spice” will wear a dress on the tour made completely of melted down copies of all her solo albums that she wished someone had purchased. In a cross-promotion, AOL will include three copies with each “15493 FREE HOURS!” disc they mail out.
* “Posh Spice” will bring her husband, metrosexual soccer star David Beckham, on tour with her for fear that the press won’t show up at any of their gigs unless *someone* famous is there.
And finally …
* The new Spice Girls “best of” disc will be sold exclusively at the concert for $19.98, making it the most expensive 3-track CD ever produced.
It can’t come quickly enough.
New wave retro rock is still fashionable, no matter what anyone tells you.
Okay, I will admit it. I’m a remix fiend. Some of my favorite versions of songs by the artists that I love are remixed. However, I’m pretty picky about the remixes I like.
The other day I saw a repeat of Saturday Night Live from 1997 on E! where the Spice Girls performed. They weren’t really that great live, but at least they sang — and unlike Britney Spears, they weren’t afraid to sing with their own banshee-like voices because the power of 5 buxom British women of various ethnicities and hair colors in various states of undress used to be enough to sell music — SCREW TALENT!