The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #139

#139: "Ya Ya Ya (Lookin' for My Baby)" (2005) - Detroit Cobras.

From imitations of life to dedications of other singers' songs to imitations of other singers' songs, we now come to the ultimate imitation: the cover band. Ain't no shame in being a cover band folks; almost every band you hear on the radio or on your mp3 player or on your turntable began covering other bands' songs. and like Robert Randolph sang, there ain't nothin' wrong with that. And like Detroit Cobra's lead singer Rachel Nagy has said, if you can't write songs as worthy as the ones you love, then might as well play the ones you love, but just play them better than anyone else can in hopes that others can be turned onto and into the music just as you were. If imitation is the sincerest form of exaltation, then the Detroit Cobras are the most sincere cover band in the history of cover bands. Sure, there's Weird Al and Me First & the Gimme Gimmes, but their covers are crack ups; what the Detroit Cobras do is find the heart of each song, push it to the fore, play the hell out of it, and leave you dancing and shouting for more.

The Detroit Cobras excel in taking obscure (obscure to the mainstream, and often even to aficianadoes) singles by soul artists (some well known--Otis Redding, Irma Thomas, the Shirelles--and some not so well known--The Oblivians, The Gardenias, Dori Grayson) and filling them with enough ferocious energy (without punkifying them) so that the songs sound not just updated but fresh, yet still sound like themselves. The catalysts for all this combustion are singer Nagy and guitarists Mary Ramirez, the self-styled leaders of the band whose live performances are known for their take-no-prisoners, belles-to-the-wall raucousness. Ramirez brings the rock by immersing her guitar in echo and flanger and feedback, and Nagy brings the sultry soul, coming across with the attitude of Joan Jett and the decadent heartache of (the Shangri-La's singer) Mary Weiss. An apocrphyal adade of Bob Dylan goes that he could sing the phone book and make it sound interesting; well, Rachel Nagy could sing the phone book and make you want to look up her number.

The band's song selection is choice, too. Sure, most of the songs are relatively unknown, many of them B-sides, many never-released album cuts, but all of them are quality songs that for one reason or another, never hit nationally. That classification applies to "Ya Ya Ya (Lookin' for My Baby." Originally titled "Lookin' for My Baby (Ya Ya Ya)," the song was written and recorded in 1954 by Doc Starke and His Nite Riders, a Philly doo wop & roll band. The song hit regionally was well received in certain cities where Starke and band toured, but in '54, this single had little chance of charting anywhere--even the R&B charts--because it's a rock and roll record, not a jazz record, not a blues record, not a doo-wop record (and soul records hadn't been invented yet). You know how many rock and roll records hit in '54, white or black? Not many. Ike Turner had a few (and started rock and roll himself in '51), and Joe Turner (whose pianist, Van Welles, played on the "Lookin' for My Baby" track) had a few, but...that's just about it. Fats Domino, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, and Ray Charles all had yet to debut (or fully develop) nationally, so Starkes had slim chance of having his record become a national hit, 'cause the music was just too raw and too new (if you can track down the original, then please do, 'cause it's great, and it's rock all the way, and it sounds like it came from easily five years later) to cross over.

I'm glad the Detroit Cobras knew about it, though...or else I never would have. The Cobras' take doesn't necessarily best the original, but it does stake its own ground, and because of nigh-tangible crackle they give it--especially Nagy's vocals--it's their best cut. They didn't write it, but it's theirs as much as it is the Nite Riders'. It takes a special type of talent to eke out a living as a professional cover band, one with a recording contract and a couple of national commercials using their versions of someone else's songs. Someone once termed them, "God's cover band," and I wouldn't doubt that assertion, for if one day the Cobras are in Heaven, I could see all the other artists sitting in a club, paying admission to hear 'em, calling out requests, and watching Nagy and company rip all to shreds, only stopping to sweat when Ronnie Van Zant giggles and shouts out, "Freebird!"

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #140

#140: "I Found Out" (2004) - Nathaniel Mayer

From one cover song that bests the original to another, but this one's a more impressive feat, for as great a songwriter as Barry Gibb was, overall, he doesn't hold a candle (or a rhinestone-studded white leisure suit) next to John Lennon. Lennon wrote and recorded the original "I Found Out" (with Ringo on drums, Klaus Voorman on bass, and himself on guitar) for his landmark* album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band in 1970. For those of you who don't know, this album marked Lennon's complete departure and disavowel from the Beatles, swearing them--and numerous other idealistic concepts and structures--off forever.** The album was a musical manifesto and a personal one as well, Lennon stating and re-stating his creed and exorcising demons using only guitar, bass, drums, and piano.***Lennon left the Beatles forever, and he left his imagination behind, too; no more fantasy (single or double) for him. Reality was where it was at for John Lennon in 1970.

Reality was where it was at in 1970 for Nathaniel Mayer, too. There was no fantasy for him, either, as he--once Detroit's answer to James Brown--was out of recording work. Eight years previous, Mayer had landed a huge local hit (and #22 nationally, while top ten in New York, Chicago, and L.A.) with his soul/doo-wop/gutter rock**** record, "Village of Love" for Detroit's other soul label, Fortune Records. That record brought Mayer national attention. He followed it with several more great soul/doo-wop/gutter rock records, but, as goes the maxim about diminishing returns....Mayer had his last "hit" with Fortune in '66, and then left over contractual disputes. In '68, he traveled over to Norton Records, recorded the song, "I Don't Want No Bald-Headed Woman Telling Me What to Do," and the company didn't release it*****. Mayer then dropped off the map...for thirty-five years.*****

Where'd he go? I don't know, but (now ex-) Detroit Cobra bassist/guitarist Jeff Meier found him earlier this decade, and with the help of Meier (and others), Mayer was able to wow the crowd at the 2002 Detroit Legends Show. Meier (and others, including the Detroit band the Fabulous Shanks) was then able to help Mayer get a record deal at Fat Possum Records, which in 2004 released Mayer's first album since 1963.

The album--I Just Want to Be Held--is solid, but Mayer is fantastic. For once, and most surprising, he sounds very little like he did in '62 or '66. His voice is down an octave (maybe two), and his vocal chords sound as if someone shredded their outer cortex and replaced them with dull barbed wire. In fact, his voice sounds like an instrument, a guitar playing through a amp with a busted vacuum tube. His fuzzbox vocals don't reflect a shattered spirit, though, as Mayer's vocals--especially on "I Found Out"--are enlivening as they wore forty years ago, if not more so, and it's Mayer's vocals--along with his interplay with the guitar--that help his cover surpass Lennon's, and as wonderful and soulful and gutteral a singer as Lennon was, that's no small feat.

Here, Mayer takes Lennon's lyric and makes mincemeat out of it. The original record--like most of the songs from that album--sounds nowadays (or it does to me now, as I've heard it dozens of times) more like it was intentioned as a scaffold for Lennon's polemic than it does a record whose purpose and function is solely musical. That's not to denegrate the original, though, as even though the music on it may just be a scaffold, that music is one hell of a scaffold, as on the original Ringo's at his funkiest, and Lennon's distorted guitar cuts and slices, and--at times--Lennon's vocals are at his gutbucket best. On the verses, though, Lennon enunciates well because he doesn't want his message lost in the music. Mayer and his band here (Tino Gross on drums, Greasy Carlisi--oh, what a great name that is--on bass, and on guitar Dale Beavers, whose raucus work here is on a level with Mayer's) take the inverse: they play and Mayer sings so that the music doesn't get lost in the message.

That's an all-important distinction here. Mayer and Beavers and Gross and Carlisi turn Lennon's manifesto into their own blues/rock/funk masterwork, transforming Lennon's message (of the inner freedom and happiness that can be found--or that he found--by taking charge of his own world and relinquishing any other group's hold on him) into one that actually feels liberating. Mayer and the Fat Possum musicians exemplify Lennon's meaning in the music in a way that Lennon's cut never did; Lennon seemed too intent on explaining how he achieved his newfound intellectual and (ahem) spiritual independence, where Mayer mushmouths the lyrics--he doesn't need to explain his creed because his performance embodies it fully. The interplay of Lennon's guitar and vocals plus Voorman's bass and Ringo's drums seem perfunctory and (almost) stilted compared to the interplay between Mayer and his band, who work up some of the most wicked and raucus and bluesy funk n' roll of the past decade.

The lyric's not completley neglible, though. Lennon speaks of relinquishing the hold all others (except Yoko) have on him, as he takes responsibility for his place in the world and comes to rely totally upon himself (and Yoko) for fulfillment. What fills the void? The music. When Mayer's life had been in the down in the valley for years, it took music to rescue him, With a little help from his friends, Mayer found out.

NOTES

*John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band is most decidely a landmark album, but it's impact isn't what it used to be, where its subject matter and naked sound contrasted diametrically with the last Beatles album, the minutely produced Abbey Road. Methinks the album's influence will only grow lesser with time. It's just this side of didactic and pedantic, its personal politics saved only by the musicians, Lennon's voice, and the tough starkness of the production. Musicians are almost always woeful politicians, John Lennon notwithstanding.

**Much like Steve Ditko left fantasy for Ayn Rand's brand of Objectivism, pledging allegiance--as Lennon does on John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band--to reality, where A=A. They both made their departure at about the same time, and they left most of their best work behind them, as both were much better as artists than they were as philosphers or politicians or essayists.

Inversely, Ditko never left a demarcation line of departure; throughout the '70s and the '80s, he still returned to fantasy sporadically, though the more and more he published his creator-owned material, the more and more he seemed to lose what made him great in the first place (though his talent still shone through). Lennon--who completely refused to play the fantasy game anymore--returned almost fully, making great pop records, full of rock and soul and romanticism, all the stuff he had left behind, not so long ago.

***And wind. Yoko Ono is credited with creating that on the album. Oh, the jokes and irony in that credit....

****I call it gutter rock because neither the band nor Fortune's producers showcased half of the pristine talent that Motown put on wax, the Fortune sound often muddy, often terribly mixed, and the guitars--when they stood out--didn't sound smooth or clean--hell, even the distortion sounded distorted. Matched with (often) superb singing, this mixture provided an odd listening experience. Fortune's drummer--whoever he was--was great, though. How he--or they, but probably he, because Fortune, heh, didn't have much money--kept those records from falling apart is a testimony to the importance of the consistancy of a well-timed backbeat.

*****Not until 2002.

******There's a blip, though. Mayer did resurface once. He recorded "Raise the Curtain High" for Love Dog Records in 1980...the year Lennon died.

PS: Nathaniel Mayer died in November of last year.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #141

#141: "Run to Me" (2006) - Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs



I've listed several cover songs on this list, and this isn't the last one, but this is one that surpasses the original (by the Bee Gees), and this one almost solely by the strength of the one of the lead singers. Sweet's piano and acoustic guitar work are well-textured here, but he's not the star of the show. Hoffs is, and she's magnificient. Her voice has improved since she sang lead for the (much underrated) Bangles: she's not as tinny, her range seems to have somehow broadened (which usually doesn't happen at this stage of a singer's life), and she sings with more nuance than before. She showcases amazing timbre control, and her tone is spot-on, mixing breathiness, vibratto, and power with seamless grace.

The production is excellent, mirroring the production of the decade after which the song was written, adding a chorus effect, which--especially in the beginning of the song--gives Hoffs voice the sound of some voice from the hereafter, a goddess offering reassurance from the heavens, maybe even the voice of a mother, the voice of unconditional love, a muse, like Kate Bush in Peter Gabriel's "Don't Give Up," a voice telling us that Tom Wolfe was wrong, that we can come home again, the voice of the image of the mother running through the fields to embrace her son in A Trip to Bountiful; Hoffs surpasses the purely romantic notions of the lyric and elevates the song into something more all-encompassing, as when she's singing the verses mean nothing, as the only words that matter are in the chorus, the words that she surrounds with elegance and compassion and steadfastness and blessed assurance, the words that promise shelter from the storm, that can assuage primal fear, by encircling us in loving arms and voice, a voice that lets me know that though doom may be sweeping down upon the world, that I'll be safe, that my world won't end, that when the bough breaks--and it will, 'cause in that song, it always does, doesn't it--and the cradle falls, that she'll be there to catch me, big beard and all.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #142

#142: "Slow Jamz" (2003) - Jamie Foxx, Kanye West, & Twista

I've been deejaying for over twenty years now, and I love spinning other people's records as much now as I did when I first started, but every now and then, certain members of the audience can make for a frustrating gig, especially when they decide to request songs that they--or their paramour--want to hear that either doesn't jibe with whatever mood I'm serving at the time or makes no dance sense whatsoever. Let me cite a few memorable moments from the request line:

• A young man asked me to play Hank Williams, Jr.'s "Women I've Never Had" and letting him introduce the song by saying on the mic "This one goes out to all you [women] I ain't [loved] yet. Well...yo' time is comin'!"
• A six-foot-seven behemoth with a John Deer mesh cap told me to "quit playing that [African-American] [excrement] and start playing some [expletive] Skynyrd," or he was going to "beat my [expletive] [derriere]"
• A young woman asked me to "start playing some [African-American] [excrement] and quit playing that [Caucasian] mess 'cause it's making my sides hurt laughing at them [Caucasians] thinking they can dance."
• As I was playing Ciara & Missy Elliot's "One, Two Step" at a junior high dance in the spring of 2005, a girl in her early teens asked me, "Sir, uh, do you think you could play some newer music, 'cause we don't like to hear old stuff like that anymore." That song "One, Two Step" had been released not quite six months prior.
• Same junior high dance, a boy in his early teens asked me, "Hey...can you play 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' or 'In the End?'" I told him I could, and he said, "Really! Aww, man, thanks! Me and my friends wanna slam dance and get all bloody and hurt each other!"
• About five years ago at a company orientation for employees who were mostly teenagers, the head honcho told me three separate times--before I ever started playing--not to play any "any urban songs, any hip-hop songs, any rap songs, any new R&B song, any new hard rock songs, any heavy metal songs, or any song with lyrics that glorified, mentioned, or even suggested sex, making out, body parts, violence, rebellion, or non-conformity." He first dropped this on me about thirty minutes before I was to start playing. I asked him what he wanted me to play, and he said, "Play some Beach Boys. Everybody likes them, right? Just don't play anything that anybody would ever find offensive, and make sure the music's all peppy and upbeat and fun...you know, stuff these kids like." About three-fourths of the way through the program, the orientation script called for me to play a song while the head honcho entered. I asked the head honcho if he was sure he wanted me to play that song, and he said, "It's in the script, isn't it?" and walked away. Well, when the time came, I played it. The song: "Back That Ass Up."
• At a wedding reception about fifteen years (or so) ago, a group of about four or five college kids asked me to play the B-52's "Channel Z." I asked them why that B-52's song, and one of the guys said, "Play it for the Earth! Play it for the people! Dedicate it to the Earth!" And I did.
• A man twenty-five years my senior wanted to hear some Percy Sledge because "that's good slide yo'self up against that [woman] music."

That last request is indicative of the most common type of request I get from older (meaning post-college and/or married) men: they want to hear a love song so that they can rub on their women on the dance floor...and they want to do this because they know that slow dancing in public is a precursor to horizontal dancing in private. Often, the love songs are the only songs that will lure men to the dance floor. Even the most stolid and stoic of men will aquiesce to a slow song, for I believe intrinsically all men know that women want to be held in public (if the venue is acceptable).

Now, women like to have their game trophies as well as men, and the women want all the other women to see it, to see them dancing with that man, because this dancing signifies a singular dedication to that woman, meaning that--at least for the course of one song--no other woman can have him. He's hers. She's captured him, and she wants all the other women to see it. Van Morrison said that all the girls dress up for each other, and he was right, but all the girls also dance with their men for each other, too. The man's just there. He holds no special place other than that of object. He's a placeholder, and it's her place.

It's her place, though, that the man wants to go after the dance is over, and if that man is smart, then he'll go up to the DJ and request some special songs, songs that have the ability to transform the man from object to subject because the songs' singers can make those songs personal, where the voice and presence transcend the lyric, where--if the sound system and recording are of high quality and the volume loud enough--the singers' vocal prowess and style can resonate at such a level that the walls of inhibition crumble so that--and I know this is going to sound like malarky (if it doesn't already), but it's true--both dancers stand revealed as individuals to themselves and one another, and this personal revelation leads to intimacy, on the dance floor and maybe beyond. Someone once stated that all great art is personal, and it is, but it can also be communal as well.

Kanye West and Jamie Foxx understand this. In "Slow Jamz," they present us with a woman who'll love her man, but only if he--or the DJ--plays records by a lauded list of soul singers. They oblige, and form follows function: they name drop a handful of great balladeers, and the duo make a record worthy of the best of Marvin Gaye or Luther Vandross or RFTW. West keeps the music slow and steadily pulsing, giving us atmosphere as aphrodisiac; and Foxx uses his velvet vocals for sensual seduction. The party starts swinging, the couple start dancing, and he's hers, and all the gals see it, and West's and Foxx's song is so good at what it does that she lets him take her home, and as long as the music plays, then she'll play, too.

Where does Twista come in during all of this? In the bedroom. Not all the action--dance floor or boudoir--can be a slow jam. Someone's got to up the tempo at some point. Your request for another slow song so you can grab your man will have to wait for a little while, m'am. I take all requests, yeah, but I only play some, but don't worry. Yo' time is comin'.

The Tournament of Metal: Results for Round One, Bracket Two

The third week of the first round continues! Look to the sidebar to the right and rock the vote!

The results from this past week, with the winning songs in red text, and the final tally following:

Enuff Z’nuff
“Fly High Michelle” v. “New Thing” 5-1

Europe
“The Final Countdown” v. “Rock the Night” 8-0
“Carrie” v. “Cherokee” 7-1

Extreme
“More Than Words” v. “Hole Hearted” 9-0

Faster Pussycat
“Bathroom Wall” v. “House of Pain” 6-2

FireHouse
“Don’t Treat Me Bad” v. “Love of a Lifetime” 7-2

Kix
"Don’t Close Your Eyes" v. "Girl Money" 3-2

Lita Ford
“Kiss Me Deadly” v. “Close My Eyes Forever” 5-2

Loudness
"Crazy Night" v. "Like Hell" 3-0

Frehley’s Comet
“In the Night” v. “Rock Soldiers” 4-2

Giuffria
"Call to the Heart” v. “I Must Be Dreaming” 4-1

Great White
“Rock Me” v. “Once Bitten, Twice Shy” 7-2

Guns N’ Roses
“Welcome to the Jungle” v. “Mr. Brownstone” 6-4
“Sweet Child O’ Mine” v. It’s So Easy” 9-1
“Paradise City” v. “Rocket Queen” 6-4
“Patience” v. “One in a Million” 7-3
“Used to Love Her” v. “You’re Crazy (Acoustic)” 5-4
“You Could Be Mine” v. “November Rain” 7-2
“Don’t Cry” v. “Civil War” 5-3

Sammy Hagar
“Heavy Metal” v. “Three Lock Box” 3-2
“I Can’t Drive 55” v. “Your Love Is Driving Me Crazy” 8-1

Hanoi Rocks
“Boulevard of Broken Dreams” v. “Don’t You Ever Leave Me” 4-1

Helix
“Rock You” v. “(Make Me Do) Anything You 1Want” 4-1
“Gimme Gimme Good Lovin’” v. “Heavy Metal Love” 4-1

Helloween
“Halloween” v. “I Want Out” 4-1

Honeymoon Suite
“New Girl Now” v. “Feel It Again” 2-1

Billy Idol
“Rebel Yell” v. “Catch My Fall” 9-0
“White Wedding” v. “Flesh for Fantasy” 10-0
“Eyes Without a Face” v. “Mony Mony” 6-1
“To Be a Lover” v. “Rock the Cradle” 5-2
“Dancing with Myself” v. “Hot in the City” 8-0

Iron Maiden
“Run to the Hills” v. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” 5-1
“The Number of the Beast” v. “Trooper” 3-1

Jackyl
“The Lumberjack” v. “Down on Me” 3-2

Judas Priest
“You Got Another Thing Coming” v. “Freewheel Burning” 5-1
“Living After Midnight” v. “Breaking the Law” 6-2

Junkyard
“Hollywood” v. “Hands Off” 2-1

Keel
“The Right to Rock” v. “Because the Night” 3-1

Kiss
“Lick It Up” v. “All Hell’s Breaking Loose” 6-0
“Heaven’s on Fire” v. “Tears Are Falling” 4-3
“Crazy Crazy Nights” v. “Let’s Put the ‘X’ in Sex” 3-1
“Reason to Live” v. “Forever” 3-2

Krokus
“Headhunter” v. “Screaming in the Night” 3-0

L.A. Guns
“Sex Action” v. “Rip and Tear” 2-1
“Ballad of Jayne” v. “Never Enough” 6-0

Lillian Axe
“Misery Loves Company” v. “Show a Little Love” 3-1

Love/Hate
“Blackout in the Red Room” v. “Why Do You Think They Call It Dope?” 3-0

Lynch Mob
“Wicked Sensation” v. “River of Love” 2-1

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #143

#143: "Imitation of Life" (2001) - R.E.M.

Here I am, up late at night, and for the first time since my initial college days, trying to decipher Michael Stipe's lyrics. Many years ago, I'd given up that practice for a few reasons: 1). I was no longer in college, 2). I suspected that Stipe was being deliberately obtuse--he was an obscurant lyricist, the meaning of the words resting rather in the effect the sounds the words made rather than the words themselves, and 3).Stipe's style evolved--he bacame a more personal, more pointed lyricist. Whether this change in writing style was the cause or effect of massive monetary success, I'm not sure--maybe a bit of both.

In the late '90s, R.E.M.'s drummer Bill Berry left the group for health reasons, and eve since, R.E.M.'s career has taken a significant downward turn. Their album release have grown more sporadic, their albums spottier, their sound softer (with more techno-influenced beats to make for Berry's absences)--and sales have plummeted. Their singles are still sublime, though, as is the case with "Imitation of Life."

Built on a baroque bed of contemporary chamber pop and dressed in linens of Peter Buck's ringing and chiming guitar arpeggios, spacey synth sounds, minor-key piano chords, Beatles-esque string arrangements, and a mid-tempo beat laid down by a drum machine and a trippy tambourine, the music here is ear candy of the finest quality, buffeted by Stipe's commercial-catchy melody and coarse, soaring tenor. When the verses rise to the chorus, R.E.M. sneds us flying through the clouds of sugar cane, ciannamon, lemonade, and hyacinth. While we're floating up here--what about those lyrics I was trying to understand earlier? Well--let's not worry too much, shall we? Let's give in to the moment, to the music, for no one can see us cry. Who cares if the end of the world as we know it? I feel fine! You should, too! This is who we are, this imitation of life. Forget all our real troubles! Who needs 'em? Who needs the real thing when the copy's this good?