Top 100 singles of all time: The B52s, Kate Bush, Aerosmith, Run DMC and the Sisters of Mercy

The B52s - Rock Lobster

What’s the word I’m looking for? Congruence? Confluence? A meeting-point where the weird and the popular align. I’ve been impressed by that a lot lately – how curveball acts like Dutch Uncles and Everything Everything have become as commercially successfully as they are acclaimed.  Even so, even 35 years on, there has never been anything quite like Rock Lobster. Continue reading

#musicmonday : Dutch Uncles – Flexxin

Dutch Uncles pic from MySpace via Wikipedia

A lot of the best music these days dabbles in weird time signatures and is influenced by Steve Reich. That is not unusual. To hear those influences with such easy-on-the-ear pop melodies is unusual. They’re as into Talking Heads as they’re into … well, the weird stuff, and the result is as breezy as a May morning.

It’s the sort of song you’d called “endearing” – all plucked strings and the sort of earnestly cheerful vocals that befit a radio hit from the 1980s – if only it wasn’t for those peskily abrupt time changes. Then again, that never did Sparks any harm*.
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