Recently in Nick Dedina Category

 
I actually spaced out on Bing Crosby's essential record, White Christmas, and his recording of "White Christmas" remains the biggest-selling single in all of pop history. But based on people's comments, the mighty Elvis Presley and the Jackson 5 still get pulled out the most when the snow starts to fall. I completely agree on the Elvis standing; he succeeds in making Saint Nick sexy and dangerous in "Santa Claus Is Back in Town." While there is just no denying the joy that the Jackson 5 bring to the holidays, I have to open things up to the entire Motown stable of blissful holiday music.

While you go over the list, feel free to listen to my Holiday Music Rhapsody radio station. Jazzers may want to go over to Cool Yule, while the college kids may want to check out Merry Indie Xmas! or share Rock and Soul Christmas with their families.

One of the pleasures of being a member of Rhapsody is getting to go nuts with holiday music one month out of the year. Thanks to Mike McGuirk, Eric Shea and Nate Cavalieri for donning elf caps and helping me out on a few of these.

Paul McCartney is now a monolithic musical institution, but back in the early 1970s the former Beatles giant was having a decidedly strange solo career.

McCartney's great solo sin was how cavalierly he often treated his vast talents and pop music genius. Macca's solo career could seemed like a lark, a bit of fun he did between tending to farm animals and raising a family. At the same time, he could be career-driven, competitive and a successful chart-topper, recording dozens of solo songs that — we now know — have stood the test of time. 

Macca had recorded his first album alone in his house; his second, Ram (which may be my favorite), kinda-sorta with his wife; and then he formed Wings and cut two more albums with this band. Quickly recorded, Wild Life has some fine tunes on it (including the soaring "Tomorrow"), but Macca frontloaded the album with odd, mumbled ditties as if daring people to question their false assumptions about the importance and power of rock 'n' roll. Then, Red Rose Speedway housed the huge hit "My Love" but was oddly forgettable for an album that was toiled over for a full year. In between it all, Macca became a devoted family man and went on small, informal tours. To illustrate his contradictions -- during this same period he also put out two singles that were banned by the BBC, cut a brilliant Bond theme and released a twee nursery rhyme.

Paul McCartney decided that it was time to focus and get more serious about a solo career that was actively (and understandably) spent trying to avoid the brilliant legacy of The Beatles. Eager to explore new vistas, he decided to record in Nigeria on a whim, losing two Wings members in the process, leaving only Denny Laine and Linda aboard (and Denny plus Linda basically equals Denny in the professional musician equation). Worse, going to Africa was something of a disaster — the promised state-of-the-art studio was basically an empty bunker, and Macca's demos were stolen.

Yet despite the odds, the resulting album, Band on the Run, won Macca rave reviews and kept growing in popularity throughout the 1970s, becoming one of the best-selling and most beloved albums of the entire classic rock era. The album holds all of solo Macca's strengths (melodies galore, sonic experimentation, technical prowess and borderless musical enthusiasm) and his solo weaknesses (some throwaway lyrics and a lackadaisical "hey, it's only rock" attitude). It helps that three truly great songs kick off the album (the title track; the brilliantly surging, nonsensical "Jet"; and the lovely "Bluebird") but the entire release has real "flow" that was missing from the first two Wings albums. It also ends with a bang — I've never understood how "1985" wasn't played often on FM radio. The song marries upbeat rock feel with a jazz clarinet (!), a full orchestra and synthesizers that ignore the lyrics and lend things a darkly futuristic feel suggesting a world that's starting to spin dangerously out of control.

Here is a snapshot of what was going around when Paul McCartney recorded Band on the Run.

Back in the late 1970s, every adult rock fan cried foul whenever one of their heroes released something with a dance beat. Today, almost all of the songs from that strange era actually hold up pretty well. The Bee Gees had already transitioned into an R&B outfit when Saturday Night Fever turned them into the biggest band on the planet. That said, they, like Rod Stewart, did not really survive the disco era with their reputations intact. I am not sure exactly why "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" was considered such an egregious sin that all of Rod's pure rock solo albums (and records with The Faces) suddenly became null and void.

Other bands -- like ELO (who actually merged The Beatles with the Bee Gees a number of times), The Clash and Kiss -- could go disco at will and were always thought of as rock acts (or even punk rock acts!). As it stands, Kiss have the only song on the list that I actively dislike, and even its inflated ridiculousness, Giorgio Moroder-style production and attempted falsettos somehow make me happy that it exists. It makes Queen sound like Motorhead.

The world of Disney (and now Pixar) movie music is vast, but here are my choices for the 10 soundtracks that should enter your family collection first. The Jungle Book is the only Disney LP that I had growing up; the rest of these I discovered on Rhapsody. We have so many Disney and Pixar releases that they are even featured on their own Rhapsody radio station called Small Worlds & Magic Kingdoms.

If you read either of my Oscar blogs (one on Best Songs and the other on Best Original Music Scores), you'll know that Disney & Pixar are still leading the way when it comes to movie songs. If you ask me, Randy Newman alone definitely deserved to win for at least three Oscars his Toy Story tunes alone.

Don't forget: these and countless other soundtracks are yours to enjoy whenever and however you want with your Rhapsody subscription. If you don't have a subscription, click here to sign up for a free trial and see what we’re all about.

Have you seen the HBO show Treme? It does something that no other fictional TV show has done before -- it captures how music can enrich, enhance and give special meaning to life.

The show's setting, Tremé, is one of the oldest neighborhoods in New Orleans, the epicenter of American popular music, and therefore, global pop. It has long been a center for the city’s brass band tradition and a breeding ground for jazz musicians. The co-creators of Treme, David Simon (who is famous for using Baltimore as a setting in The Wire and Homicide: Life On The Streets) and New Orleans resident Eric Overmyer, concentrate on flavor, atmosphere and setting as much as they do on the narrative. The stories come out organically from this sense of place, which in turn affects the music the characters create and listen to. These are people who have decided to make their lives harder because they love New Orleans -- and music -- so much.

The show wisely casts local musical giants such as Dr. John, Donald Harrison, Jr. and the ever-dapper Allen Toussaint, though Kermit Ruffins, one of the founders of the Rebirth Brass Band, is the breakout personality of the bunch. We'll likely be seeing more of him on TV and film.

Many Rhapsody members seem to be taken with Treme; people like STGB are creating playlists filled with the fantastic, life-affirming songs heard on each episode. So I’ve picked out a few select albums from artists who are featured in the show (I assume that your Louis Armstrong hutch is all stocked, buffed to a shiny glow and set to follow you up into heaven). Professor Longhair is long departed but his influence will never end, while Trombone Shorty is a young star-in-the-making.

What a week for country music lovers. Rhapsody is bringing you brand-new music from some of today's hottest, most talked-about country stars a week before you'll hear it anywhere else. No kidding: we've got big names, bluegrass names and names you'll soon be acquainted with. So sit back, relax and let's listen to some music!

AMC's Mad Men is a show that people either love, hate or have never watched. We love it over here at Rhapsody's "all things 1950s and '60s" desk, and we even put together a playlist of songs from the show's first season, which was its most musically rich (so far). There are actually a couple of modern numbers mixed in here (including the show's theme song by RJD2), though mainly the playlist gives you a good idea of the E-Z listening jazz and pop that was a vital part of the early 1960s.

Play the Mad Men playlist now  and be sure to sign up for your free Rhapsody trial membership today.  

It is hard to think of one person who has shaped so much of popular music, in so many different ways, as the legendary Les Paul.

Since music was so central to Paul's life, we thought nothing would be more appropriate than a playlist of the great man's music to play as you read on.

Les Paul played beautiful guitar that influenced jazz, country, EZ listening, electronic experimentation and rock ’n’ roll. He invented the solid-bodied electric guitar (a massive seller, the Les Paul Gibson is still favored by many famous guitarists like Jimmy Page). Paul also helped create many modern recording techniques (including multi-tracking). He led a weekly television series with his wife Mary Ford (with whom he had dozens of hit singles) for most of the 1950s. When he shattered his arm in an accident, Paul had the nearly immovable limb set in the “guitar playing” position so he could still perform. He won two Grammys at age 90 -- for new material. Wow. Les Paul ruled!

Beloved by fans and (especially by) his fellow musicians, Les Paul played a weekly club gig until he passed away at age 94. If you need a life to serve as an example, you may want to ask yourself, “What would Les Paul do?”

Welcome back to Frank's World, where I get to bore complete strangers by waxing rhapsodic about the vast Sinatra universe.

There have been some news items up recently about Apollo 11 landing on the moon 40 years ago. Probably not enough headlines -- we could all use some good news right now, even about something that America did four decades ago. We could use some good music now, too. Sinatra fan and all-around man's man Buzz Aldrin played Frank Sinatra and Count Basie's stellar version of "Fly Me to the Moon" on the actual trip to the moon. The Apollo 10 astronauts also played the song when they orbited the moon. Bottom line: astronauts, like jazz musicians, dug Sinatra.

The tune can also serve to show how special Sinatra's knack was for bringing his own style and musicality to his material. The English composer Bart Howard wrote the number in the '50s, and it was recorded by a number of vocalists. Everyone from Nat "King" Cole to Peggy Lee, Bobby Darin and Annie Ross cut readings of it (here's June Christy's version).

Here's the difference: everyone before Sinatra's definitive recording sang the tune the way the composer conceived it -- as a very sincere and kind of drippy love song. On the surface, Sinatra changed the ballad into a romantic swinger. But, he also changed the entire approach of the lyrics and the entire feel of the song.

Everybody else sang "Fly Me to the Moon" like it was about the dreamy way you feel when you're really falling in love. With Sinatra, the song becomes about the ridiculously great way you feel when you fall for somebody -- it's so good, in fact, that maybe it's not even real. Whatever happens, enjoy the ride while it lasts -- which in this case is 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

And Sinatra is perfectly in synch with Quincy Jones' sublime arrangement and the Basie Band's euphoric playing. Everything comes together on this one. Can you imagine actually flying to the moon while listening to a song that makes you feel like you're flying to the moon?

To listen to these songs and thousands more by Sinatra, Basie, Q and their pals, go directly to Frank's World, my superlative Rhapsody Radio station.  

Welcome back to Frank's World, where I get to bore complete strangers by waxing rhapsodic about the vast Sinatra universe.

It also looks like I sometimes get to anger some of Frank's legion of fans. When I stated that I preferred the thin, well-coiffed Democratic to the old-fat-bald-Republican I received the following note from a reader:

"I saw Frank live as an fat old bald guy and he was brilliant. I was feeling apolitical at the time so maybe I caught a break."

Now, I was probably too young  to see Sinatra in concert. But this guy tells the truth -- the OldFatBaldGuy could still bring it in concert. I have a mess of official releases and a furlong of bootlegs to prove this. The 1970s, '80s and (especially) the '90s could kind of be heartbreaking for Sinatra. When he was on fire in concert, I wish he would've just run into the studio with a casual jazz combo and cut an album. When his voice is in tatters, it's like watching an aging Muhammed Ali try and hold it together in the ring (and that's if Ali was smoking and drinking and staying up all night and then dragging himself to the ring to box all over again). But, overall, Sinatra was a masterful performer.

I just wish he went into the studio more when he was on fire like this.

Call it what you will -- folk-pop, blue-eyed soul, lite/jazz/yacht rock, whatever -- but soft rock ruled the airwaves during the 1970s. Scaling back the endless guitar solos and putting the song front and center, this oft-maligned genre came from noble roots, with songwriters following in the wake of Dylan, the Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, soul and L.A.'s country rock scene. Sometimes soft rock was just escapist fun, but the best music often contained '70s confusion, emotional grit and (at times) bitter lyrics -- Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan, Fleetwood Mac, Paul Simon and Elton John describe the decade as well as any author or filmmaker. Lasting art aside, you can just dip into soft rock as if it were the condo Jacuzzi from the singles community of your dreams.

Click here to explore my Top 25 list, along with albums reviews from me and the rest of the crack Rhapsody staff.

Click here to listen to a soft rock sampler and -- in case you haven't seen it yet -- you should check out Mike McGuirk's picks for the best classic rock albums of the '70s.

Welcome back to Frank's World, where I get to bore complete strangers by waxing rhapsodic about the vast Sinatra universe.

Sinatra was in the middle of a protractive career nosedive when he started recording for the artist-owned indie Capitol Records in 1953. His first single for the label did O.K. but it failed to dazzle. It was his second Capitol single, "I've Got the World on a String," that truly gave him a new voice, a new sound and a new attitude.

The new voice came from the fact that an overbooked Sinatra sang so much that he hemorrhaged from the throat (I'd like to see Celine Dion try that. Really, I would) and lost his voice for awhile. When he got it back it sounded rougher, deeper and darker.

The new sound came with help from the great arranger Nelson Riddle (more on him in a later post).

Sinatra was also now hitting up rhythm tunes as often as ballads. "String," a wonderful Harold Arlen song, was recorded a few times before Sinatra covered it, most notably by Louis Armstrong.

To listen to Frank's early Capitol singles, check out This Is Sinatra!, which has just been reissued in the digital age for the first time. Or, better yet, check out literally thousands of songs by Sinatra and his friends on Frank's World, my superlative Rhapsody Radio station. 

I was thinking about summer songs, and one that has nothing to do with beaches, lakes, waterfalls or convertibles popped into my head -- "Bicycle," Queen's immortal ode to physical education. This number rules.

It's only three minutes long but Freddie and the boys build it into something that feels like "Bohemian Rhapsody," only the lyrics bring up cycling, Star Wars, cocaine and Vietnam (Mercury doesn't seem to like two of these things very much). But I'll tell you what Freddie does like -- he likes riding his bicycle. He also enjoys riding it where he likes.

The song is from the Queen album Jazz and its other highlight is the awesome (almost Southern rocking) "Fat Bottomed Girls." This has what I like in a summer rock tune -- those slamming, simple hand-clapping glam drums and a great guitar riff. Freddie brings up bicycle riding in this one too but I think he may be inferring something else.

As a child I just took lyrics at face value and I'd still like to think that Mercury was just so into cycling when he cut this album that he just keeps bringing it up all the time.

When I bought the Jazz LP as a kid it came with a poster that combined the two songs with a photo of voluptuous ladies riding bicyles.

Even as a green elementary school student I questioned the hygiene of cycling naked, but after all of these years both songs still sound like summer to me.

If you want to hear many more sun-stroked songs, why not check out my Summer radio station? 

Welcome to Frank's World, where I get to bore complete strangers by waxing rhapsodic about the vast Sinatra universe.

That means you'll get to hear acres of superalitve tunes and dig into the work of some of Frank's favorite vocalists, songwriters and jazz musicians.

And, just so you don't confuse me with the great, sadly departed Bruno Kirby in Spinal Tap, I can say negative things about Sinatra, too.

For instance, like my mother, I prefer the skinny Democrat to the fat, bald Republican. 

Also, I can safely live another 1,000 years and never hear either "Strangers in the Night" or "My Way" again.

But take "Strangers." At least Sinatra built a nifty little jazz album around what was just a cheesy hit. Here's my Rhapsody album review of Strangers in the Night:

The title track was an era-defining description of how the sexual revolution was actually started by confused, recently divorced parents rather than their hippie offspring. Sinatra tired of the tune quickly, so he grabbed Nelson Riddle and built a quality album around the hit. Here, Riddle and Sinatra are in Count Basie mode, with a jazzy organ fronting a sleek big band. "Summer Wind" and "All or Nothing At All" are heralded classics, though the wondrous "On a Clear Day" may be the single most underrated tune in the entire Sinatra songbook.

"On A Clear Day (You Can See Forever)" clues you in to the fact that adults were taking their shoes off, walking on the grass (and perhaps smoking it too) way before rock music came of age or the hippies showed up and stopped taking showers.

The tension created by Sinatra's voice and the band in this one is incredible.

It reminds me of the dreamy way that Count Basie handled a ballad like "Li'l' Darlin'." "Summer Wind" takes this approach, too. Sinatra was always listening and learning even as he was loving and losing. 

To listen to these Sinatra songs and literally thousands more like them check out my Rhapsody radio station Frank's World.

We are all fallible. Remember that.

A week back, I wrote about the old synth-pop hit "Safety Dance." I may even have said that the song is "basically retarded."

Then, I returned to my ancestral home of San Diego, CA. The family ventured from Imperial Beach up north to the luxurious city of La Jolla for a seaside picnic. Towards the end of the day, I was standing on a cliff with my 11-year old nephew watching his older brother body surf over treacherous rocks. Yes, I was much too cowardly to go in and tempt death on those rocks. This timid nature helps explain my chosen profession of rock critic. We are a meek, bespectacled bunch.

In general,  I don't know what you do when confronted with a relative defying death amidst a setting sun. Cry for help? Pray? Perhaps conquor by demons and dive in and drag the child out of the sea and suggest a game of cards instead? 

That day, I discovered what I would do. It turns out, in times of crisis, I start to sing "We can dance if we want to/ We can leave your friends behind..." -- Yes,  the opening lyrics to "Safety Dance."

I have no idea why I broke into robo-song, but here is the beautiful part. My nephew didn't miss a beat, he picked it up with "Cause your friends don't dance/And if they don't dance/Well, they're no friends of mine."

Four Legacy Edition remasters of fantastic jazz albums recorded in 1959 have just come out. Last week, Rhapsody had an exclusive preview of the Dave Brubeck Quartet's Time Out (the second biggest selling jazz album in history). This week sees era-defining masterworks by Miles Davis, Charlies Mingus and Tito Puente given the Legacy treatment. 1959 was a blessed year for jazz experimentation and big mainstream sales. Paradoxically, adventurous records like these ultimately changed the public perception of jazz. What was once commercial pop and dance music was suddenly seen as outsider "art" music. But these brilliant (and entertaining) works still resonate and the Legacy editions come packed with must-have bonus discs and superior sound.

You know the drill. I take two complementary songs and let them duke it out in my brain until one song emerges triumphant and the other slinks off defeated.

In the early '80s, you could do pretty much anything as long as you danced to it. Take Men Without Hats' immortal 1983 No. 3 hit "Safety Dance." This song is about dancing safely. Attaining this level of safety, the lyrics tell us, entails ditching your nondancing friends. Man, nondancing friends are the worst -- they grow up to be rock critics.

That same year, Re-Flex took "The Politics of Dancing" to No. 24 on the U.S. charts. It's kind of hard to figure out what this one is about. Dancing to politics and feeling good about it, I guess. The lyrics ask authoritatively, "Is this message understood?" Don't question it ... just start dancing to politics and feelin' good!

Hmmm. This is a tough one.

"Safety Dance" has safety on its side. I have a fear of pain so that makes safety good. But, it's also by a Canadian band, which would now be a big plus but back in 1983, this was considered a minus. The song is also basically retarded. Yet, when you add a couple of decades to "retarded" you get a good thing ("Safety Dance" now sounds like Kanye West minus the vocoder).

"The Politics of Dancing" made rock critics and college students mad because it actually has nothing to do with politics. I guess that should be a bad thing, but nobody but rock critics and college students actually cares about the political content of songs. It also sounds halfway between the Fixx and the new edition of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (minus the Neanderthal haircut and the misplaced coolness factor).

I'm kind of leaning toward Re-Flex because I've been listening to both songs on "repeat" for a good while now and "The Politics of Dancing" is somewhat less annoying. I also like it when the singer asks "Is the message understood?" a whole lot -- it reminds me of getting lectured by my father about how to hang his tools back up in the garage.

Listen to both 37 more times and have an epiphany.

So, the loser is (drumroll) ... The Killers' "Human."

"Human" reminds me of Ultravox's "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes," another 1983 song about dancing, this time while crying your eyes out (very hard to do safely and even harder to do while feeling good). Plus, if you are going to ape Ultravox, you might as well go for the superior "Reap the Wild Wind" (what a great song!) and not "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes." The final factor to make the axe drop is that the Killers' "Human" actually dares to ask the question "Are you human or are you dancer?"

That could be the lamest song lyric I have ever heard in my entire life.

Come home, "Safety Dance" and "Politics of Dancing" -- all is forgiven.

Every week I look over the finest jazz releases and lay some key tracks down into one place. Usually, I mix it up but when Concord dropped a mess of long out-of-print sides from Ray Charles, I knew who the week belonged to.

Brother Ray excelled at jazz, R&B, blues, standards, soul, pop, country, whatever. Truly great artists are genres of one and Ray is one of history's best.

The finest interpretive singers bring out new dimensions to songs you think you know. Take Ray's masterful cover of Paul Simon's "Still Crazy After All These Years." Ray takes the line "It's all gonna fade" and makes it the devastating centerpiece of a     tale about the passing of time and the fragility of life. This cut and the 14 others give you  a pretty good idea of the breadth of Ray Charles' work.  

The unflappable Palmer seemed to lead a charmed life. He even managed to avoid various hairstyle crimes throughout the 1970s. No other pop-star coiffure survived that decade unscathed.

One editor in the Rhapsody office has pointed out that perhaps Palmer just thinks bikinis are funny. He says that there is no real evidence that there are supermodels behind him. This is merely evidence that that editor's life blows in comparison to Robert Palmer's.

Maybe he hadn't yet ramped up to supermodels; Palmer seems to be taken with a blind or drunk or blind drunk lady with a questionable perm.

Rumors abound as to the identity of this (possibly abducted) female. Some say it is a pre-fame Laraine Newman, while others have speculated that it is Jackie O, hiding out from the hirsute shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis.

Either way -- your life blows next to Robert Palmer's blessed existence!

This may fall into the "too much information" category, but the strangest mix of magazines is to be found in the Rhapsody lounge. Farm Friendly, Dental Hygiene, Wireframe Weekly -- what do any of these rags have to do with music?

So, it was with great relief that I got to cozy up with a copy of Billboard last week. Man, you learn all kinds of stuff reading that magazine. For instance, Billy Joel will be celebrating his 60th birthday soon, and Dolly Parton is rocking with Cracker Barrel (the restaurant, not the Southern rock outfit).

The thing that really caught my eye was a sidebar to the Dave Matthews Band cover story. It lists the artists who've sold the most albums since 1991. The Beatles (bless 'em) still lead with over 57 million. Metallica are No. 2 two with almost 52 million. Pink Floyd have shifted over 35 million. U2 have racked up almost 34 million.

No. 9 on the list is the Dave Matthews Band -- they've sold almost 30 million albums. Add in Matthews solo and you get 33 million. I had no idea they were that massive. I can't tell you the title of one Dave Matthews song. Nothing against them, but I don't hear them often.

Here's what I've been thinking about -- U2 and the Dixie Chicks (rounding out the Top 10 with almost 27 million albums sold) get played on the radio all the time. But I can't think of the last time I heard either Metallica or Dave Matthews on FM rock radio.

Growing up, if any rock band sold over a million records they'd be played on FM and AM radio -- Pink Floyd and KISS played in between cuts by the Commodores and Kenny Rogers, for example.

Why have bands such as Metallica and Dave Matthews been banned from radio if they obviously have tens of millions of fans?? I don't know the answer to this, but it's probably an example of why terrestrial radio is dying. It's also an example of how much of a fan base touring can give you.

Green Day actually broke the curse of dying CD sales in 2004 with American Idiot (11 million and counting). Fantastic album, though they did it with plenty of help from radio. With CD sales decreasing every year, it'll be interesting to see the sales numbers for Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown after it's released this month, even if it's the huge hit it's expected to be.

Will Green Day knock Dave Matthews off the list? Matthews has a new album, Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, coming out next month. 

It's possible that the two acts share a lot of fans -- you'd just never know it by listening to the radio. 

Dave Matthews fans who are totally into it and one lady (far right) who is just kinda into it.