The underground: every iconoclast has his day

The underground: every iconoclast has his day

This week’s installment is an experiment of sorts. While I have
a million opinions about music bouncing around in my head, not
every one merits the space that a good-sized column demands. Who
wants to read an involved, studied attack on Wilson Phillips?
Imagine how I’d feel writing it.

So consider these scraps of attitude a good laugh, fight fodder
and a convenient way for me to avoid coming up with a concrete
thesis for this week’s column. Comments are appreciated (should I
appropriate this format again?); death threats must be forwarded
through my secretary.

The 11th-Worst Cover Version TLC’s context-free version of
Prince’s "If I Was Your Girlfriend," on their new record Crazy Sexy
Cool. It’s bad enough that they steal the Purple One’s arrangement
note for note, but they also gloss over the sexual implications of
the original. In Prince’s version, he’s asking a woman friend (and
former lover) why she treats him differently than her girlfriend (a
platonic friend or lesbian lover, depending how you read the song).
TLC fails to change the gender of the song (imagine "If I Was Your
Boyfriend," and you’ll realize what a revolutionary opportunity
they wasted), thus sucking out all the meaning of what, in Prince’s
hands, was a great song.

Please note that I don’t blame TLC themselves for this atrocity.
I’m sure they did exactly what their (male) producers told them to
do.

Excerpt from Michael Tatum’s forthcoming book, "One Thousand and
One Reasons to Hate Depeche Mode, # 548" If you’re going to write
bubble gum music for 14-year-old girls, for heaven’s sakes, don’t
be pretentious about it.

Rich Kids Can’t Rock Wilson Phillips is yesterday’s news by now,
as I always knew it would be. But their final album, Shadows And
Light, remains a fascinating artifact because it illuminates how
these privileged (read: spoiled) daughters of famous rock stars
finally got found out ­ pop fans hate to hear two singing
stars brag about how wealthy they are. On this record, Chynna
Phillips asks a third party (her estranged Dad, former Papa John
Phillips? her talent-free boyfriend, Billy Baldwin? her
hairstylist?) if he would fly from New York on a moment’s notice to
see her. Hey, aren’t most great rock songs about not having enough
money to see the object of your affections?

This is small potatoes compared to the rank "Goodbye Carmen,"
quite possibly the most offensive song ever to be commercially
issued to the record-buying public. In it, they say goodbye,
farewell to their Mexican maid, who presumably is about to be
deported. "Goodbye Carmen," they emote blandly, pouring on the
syrup, "Hasta mañana, or who knows when" ("Who knows
when?").

This context leaves little doubt in my mind that the Wilson
Phillips women voted against Proposition 187. They need someone to
wash their dishes for them, after all.

Dead Flowers From a musical standpoint, I hate the Gin Blossoms
no more than I do Toad the Wet Sprocket. Both are pretty much
lightweight poppers who owe less to the Beatles than they do the
Bay City Rollers. Imagine R.E.M. members with lobotomies and you’ve
summed up these bands.

But for ideological reasons, the Gin Blossoms deserve to be
thrown to the bottom of a well. Before they got famous, they kicked
original member Doug Hopkins out of the band for being a
self-destructive drunk. Only problem was, he had written a number
of songs for the band’s new album, so his former friends coerced
him into giving up a major portion of the songwriting
royalties.

Then, what do you know, two of Hopkins’ songs, "Hey Jealousy"
(the only great song this band will ever record) and "Found Out
About You" became huge hits. Hopkins, devastated the band was
having success without him (and with his songs), sunk further into
the depths of his alcohol-drenched depression. He ended up taking
his own life later that year.

But wait, here’s the good part. The Blossoms’ lead singer, Robin
Clark, expressed the expected "grief" over Hopkins’ passing,
claiming to Rolling Stone that for their next album, the band would
dig deeply into Hopkins’ trunk of unrecorded songs, as a homage to
their lost comrade.

Hey kids, can you say necrophilia?

Incest Is Best And hey, speaking of screwing the dead, how about
Natalie Cole’s Unforgettable, one of the most calculated
exploitations of recent years? Natalie knew she wouldn’t get
noticed churning out yet another helping of the sentimental pop
slop she had been serving for years. So, she decided to record
songs made famous by her Dad, the late, great Nat "King" Cole.

Never mind that she copped her Dad’s original arrangements note
for note (better to reel in the nostalgia crowd, right?). Never
mind that she had zero interpretive skills as a vocalist, and even
less range (something she proved to hilarious effect at the Oscars
later that year, when she tried to be Whitney Houston and
embarrassed herself on national television). And nevermind the
title track, a cynical, manipulative ploy that enabled Natalie to
duet with her father.

Is it just me, or is that sick? Can you imagine, in 2014,
Frances Bean duetting, through the "magic" of digital technology,
with Kurt Cobain on "All Apologies?" Of course you can’t. Rockers
may be rude and rebellious, but they have the soul to know where to
draw the line.

Chairman of the Bored Now that we’re on this subject, let’s talk
about Frank Sinatra’s Duets, and its stupidly superfluous sequel
(creatively titled Duets II). Young people lapping up this record
reminds of me of the way sycophants mindlessly flock to the
Hallmark-card inspired Phantom of the Opera and Sunset Boulevard.
Because the music involves written notation and "real" musicians,
people somehow think that it’s aesthetically superior to music made
by silly kids with electric guitars who don’t know a treble clef
from a cheeseburger. People associate this music with culture and
class, and think that by buying this music, by extension, they have
culture and class too.

Sinatra (getting back to the point) may have been a great singer
in his Tommy Dorsey days, but nowadays he’s a washed up lounge act
with delusions of grandeur that he stopped earning the right to
have 30 years ago.

The Duets monstrosities prove my point. Since Sinatra these days
sings like an emphysema patient, the producers on this project had
to go to previously recorded versions of old songs (songs that,
mind you, Sinatra has been singing for years), erase half of
Frank’s vocals, and put the duet attraction’s contributions on
top.

Boy, if that’s not artistic achievement, I don’t know what is.
Give that man a Grammy!

Yeah, But You Should Be Dead When it got into the news that
odious singer-songwriter Jackson Browne allegedly beat up his
longtime girlfriend, actress Daryl Hannah, it verified how much a
creep I always thought Browne was (Hannah, incidentally, never
pressed charges). My suspicions were confirmed when Browne released
his next album I’m Alive, on which he portrayed himself in much the
same way he would portray himself in his subsequent interviews: as
a survivor.

What a crock of shit. If there’s any truth to the rumors
surrounding Browne and Hannah’s relationship (and I think there
is), Hannah is the real survivor of this story. All Browne had to
endure were the media attacks that he no doubt deserved.

Let’s End On A Positive Note, Shall We? The last album from
Arrested Development (a.k.a. Rap For Sting Fans) was a total flop,
critically and commercially. Best new artist, eh?

If Michael Tatum was a hitman for the mob, his first targets
would be the Eagles. His column appears every Wednesday.