Just because it's Saturday I'm posting two somewhat rare Brian Wilson productions up on Buffistarawk.
Guess I'm Dumb by Glen Campbell. Brian wrote this is as a thank you to Glen when he went out on the road with the Beach Boys after Brian had a breakdown. It's from smack in the middle of Brian's Pet Sounds era and it's a very Pet Sounding song, except its got Glen's lead vocals. Gorgeous song and production.
The One You Can't Have by The Honeys. Seeing as Brian was obsessed with Phil Spector it was inevitable that he'd toy around with girl groups, and he did with the Honeys, which included his wife Marilyn on vocals. Great song, with lots of distinctive Brian-ish touches.
Chilton looks stoned out of his mind.
Paging Sophia: Panic's new video. Ridiculously happy and charming.
I swear, Panic are making videos solely to make me giggle.
Thank you! It is so cute! They are so cute!
Awww, Ellen Willis was one of my favorite rock critics. Her piece in
Stranded
is the best in the book, and really started me into the Velvet Underground.
I actually like to do stuff like that. Okay, admittedly, I don't actually play out, but I work up clearly sexist songs like Jet's "Are you gonna be my girl?" to perform with the gender reversed.
We actually had a disagreement about this with Deb on facebook. She wanted to reverse gender for a specific song, that resonated about a specific individual for her. I felt that she should leave it, and perform it with the original gender intact and that people would understand the inference. Out of respect to the original songwriter, you know?
So I would only change the gender on a song that I intended to lambaste the author, in that kind of context, one that illustrated the sexism of the original.
I have to take issue with some of the comments to that essay. Taylor Swift's "You Belong with Me" works reasonably well with the genders reversed (if you switch the cheerleader-girlfriend to a quarterback-boyfriend). The song makes a case that the girlfriend is not the right fit for the guy -- even though she's a Prize Catch, she's also bringing him down, maybe even verbally abusive. It also makes a case that the singer is the right fit -- similar tastes in music, and he feels comfortable with her.
Compare to Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend." No particular reason that the girlfriend is bad or the singer is good. She wants him, girlfriend is in the way, and that's that.
Although maybe the comments on YBWM say something about what the audience for mainstream pop expects from male vs. female singers. As in, it's more acceptable for a woman to wear her heart on her sleeve.
