koven j. smith dot com

Well, what can I say? Shock. Distinctly remembering multiple birthday parties in fourth grade in which Thriller was the only album we played; once we got to the end of a given side, we’d just flip that rekkid over and listen all over again.

My favorite moment of yesterday, though, came at the end of the Femi Kuti concert at the Prospect Park bandshell. As everyone began filing out, the sound guy had the bright idea to play “I’ll Be There” over the soundsystem. Several thousand people suddenly stopped in their tracks, and started singing together:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

It was a beautiful moment, and one that sent actual chills down my spine. I wish you could hear the singing better in the recorded excerpt above, but you get the idea.

Koven appreciation, music michael jackson

I just learned this morning that Levi Stubbs, lead singer of the Four Tops and easily my all-time favorite Motown vocalist, passed away on Friday at the age of 72. Levi was just the absolute fucking best. It’s really easy to take the Four Tops for granted, given their ubiquity on oldies radio and the fact that, in many ways, they exemplified the sound of the Motown production machine more than somewhat more idiosyncratic acts like Marvin Gaye or Smokey Robinson. But goddamn, you listen to Levi on prime Tops tracks like “Bernadette,” “Shake Me Wake Me (When It’s Over),” or even late-period inconsequentialities like “Are You Man Enough” (from the soundtrack to Shaft In Africa), and you realize the man just sang with absolutely everything he had all the time. Nobody sounds more real, more heartbreaking, than Levi Stubbs. I miss him.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Four Tops singer Levi Stubbs dies at 72
• Levi Stubbs, R.I.P. [Obituaries]

Koven appreciation Four Tops, Levi Stubbs, motown

Image via WikipediaSo this is an internet meme that’s been out there for a while, but I’m only just now finally getting my contribution in (how typical). I first discovered this on the excellent music blog Idolator; the idea is that you choose one, and only one, album for every single year you’ve been alive. I’m not at all sure why, but this proved to be an utterly riveting exercise rather than an exhausting one. It’s strange what limiting you to only one album per year does–it forced me to choose Outlandos d’Amour, my least favorite Police album, because 1978 didn’t have nearly the competition for slots that 1982, the year of my favorite Police album (Ghost In the Machine), did. Certain years were particularly painful to do (2003 and 2006 were especially heartbreaking), with four or five amazing albums gunning for the top slot, while some years were so thin with competitors that a wild card like Weird Al’s Dare to be Stupid could make it in. Anywayz, here’s my list. Derisive comments, as always, are welcome.

1975 – Miles Davis, Pangaea
1976 – Joni Mitchell, Hejira
1977 – Fela, Zombie
1978 – The Police, Outlandos d’Amour
1979 – Gang of Four, Entertainment!
1980 – XTC, Black Sea
1981 – Mission of Burma, Signals, Calls, & Marches
1982 – Michael Jackson, Thriller
1983 – Men at Work, Cargo
1984 – Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense
1985 – Weird Al Yankovic, Dare to be Stupid
1986 – Paul Simon, Graceland
1987 – John Adams, Nixon In China
1988 – Public Enemy, It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back
1989 – Tone Loc, Loc’ed After Dark
1990 – Living Colour, Time’s Up
1991 – Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blood Sugar Sex Magik
1992 – PJ Harvey, Dry
1993 – Sting, Ten Summoner’s Tales
1994 – Jawbox, For Your Own Special Sweetheart
1995 – Pie, Strictly Seance
1996 – DJ Shadow, Endtroducing…
1997 – Stereolab, Dots and Loops
1998 – Fugazi, End Hits
1999 – The Dismemberment Plan, Emergency & I
2000 – Faraquet, The View From This Tower
2001 – Bjork, Vespertine
2002 – Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
2003 – Jay-Z, The Black Album
2004 – The Bad Plus, Give
2005 – The Books, Lost and Safe
2006 – Matmos, The Rose Has Teeth In the Mouth of the Beast
2007 – Caribou, Andorra

Koven appreciation, music Police, Weird Al Yankovic

Image via WikipediaI’ve of late become a regular reader of “Music Matters“, an excellent blog on music cognition written by Henkjan Honing, an Associate Professor in Music Cognition at the University of Amsterdam (that’s him on the right in the picture). The blog is utterly fascinating, as it focuses on the search for answers that most musicians (myself included) have only begun to ask about why do we, as humans, process music the way we do. You should go there yourself and check it out, but there’s also an excellent introduction to the study of music cognition and Honing’s approach to it in the form of a 10-minute episode of the University of Amsterdam’s series The Fascination (De Fascinatie). Really, really interesting stuff. Enjoy!

Koven appreciation Henkjan Honing, music, music cognition

Image via WikipediaThis is one of those things that’s such a fine idea that it’s hard to imagine that no one has done it before. A magical being named Tim Bormans has created a YouTube/Last.fm mashup that creates a streaming video channel based on your Last.fm artist list. Last.fm, for those of you who aren’t yet hanging, is a nice service that keeps track of your listening habits and allows you to do all sorts of interesting things with that information (Last.fm powers the “recently listened to” playlist and the radio station in the sidebar on the right of this page). Anyway, the mashup is pretty cool. In just the first few moments of playing with it, I’ve discovered some sweet Tortoise rehearsal footage, an old Stan Kenton performance, and a from-the-audience video of Unwound performing in 1999. Awesome. Here’s my channel: http://tv.timbormans.com/user/fiveeasypieces/

Have a good weekend, everybody!

Koven appreciation Last.fm, mp3, music, Radio, Streaming