Tags
Amy Rigby, Coach Hop, Dancing with Joey Ramone, Fame, Famous People, I Like Taylor Swift, I Wanna Be David Cassidy, Johnny Horton, Jonathan Rundman, Ken Sharp, Lou Reed, She Hates the Beatles, Steve Ison
Ever since Bonnie Jo Mason first warbled “Ringo, I Love You” back in 1964 there’s been a regular outpouring of musical love for the famous. Some serious, most not, with a great deal of it amounting to little more than hopeful AM radio opportunism. Some are so clever, you can’t tell if the songs are sincere or mockery. Nick Lowe produced a lovely tongue-in-cheek tribute to one uber-famous teen sensation in the 1970s with his “Bay City Rollers, We Love You,” though, tellingly, he kept his name off the 45 (it was credited to the Tartan Horde). But another approach combines genuine admiration with a proper sense of fun. After all, loving the famous shouldn’t be taken too seriously!
I got started on this theme after hearing Ken Sharp’s fab new single, “She Hates the Beatles,” thinking I could whip up a post focusing on songs about the Beatles. But that went bust quickly. There weren’t that many songs, surprisingly, with most of the good ones written by ex-Beatles themselves! Heading back to the thematic drawing board, I decided to broaden the focus to include songs about the musically famous more generally, stopping short of Beethoven. Now I could gather a solid handful of tunes. Sharp led the pack with his aforementioned new single. 
This guy is one impressive dude: longtime music journalist, author of numerous books on great musical acts, and a not too shabby songwriter and performer. “She Hates the Beatles” is the product of challenge from producer Fernando Perdomo, who provided the title and push to turn it into a song. The result is a wonderful, definitely Beatlesque, pop song. The only real concern here is how the protagonist got into this clearly doomed relationship at all! Sharp also secured our number two position with his hooky homage to David Cassidy on “I Wanna Be David Cassidy.” This single hits all the Partridge Family marks, maybe better than the original. The amazing of-the-period-style artwork on these two singles is also worth mentioning.
The other contributions here run the gamut from straight-up hero-worship to giddy brushes with fame to reverent late night recollections to open admissions of strong feelings of ‘like.’ Steve Ison likes “Lou Reed” enough to write a whole song about just how cool he was. Ison recalls how he and his mates would “… steal and die to be cool but they’ll never be you.” And yes, there is a little Reed-iness in the vocals, but that can’t really be helped. Seriously, you can’t write a song about Lou Reed without vibing him a bit. Amy Rigby strikes just the right balance between awe and a pretty cool stance of her own on “Dancing with Joey Ramone.” The song is alternatively ragged and polished, the vocals bare and then super-harmony enhanced, the lyrics original as well as referencing a load of classics. Jonathan Rundman, by contrast, is sincerity’s straight shooter with a country/folk rumination about “Johnny Horton” and his spirituality, of all things. Pop country nationalism or amazing cross-over rockabilly, yes, I associate both with Horton but this theme is new to me. Last on our list is Coach Hop’s California punk/poppy paean “I Like Taylor Swift.” The song is so not Taylor Swift, which makes the understated vote of support often hilarious. The singer admits “I’ve only heard a couple songs” but that’s enough. He likes her, not as a guilty pleasure but as a “normal pleasure.” Really, this one is capital F fun, melodic in a guitar crunchy/occasional screaming sort of way.
Get on the “famous people, we love you” bandwagon. It’s a thing. You can check out Ken Sharp, Steve Ison, Amy Rigby, Jonathan Rundman and Coach Hop online and show the famous some vicarious love via your purchases.
It’s end-of-the-year ‘best of’ list time and we here at Poprock Record wish to join the almost evangelical rush to judgment that accompanies such proceedings, though with a twist. I mean, who am I to say whose records are the best? If I put them up on the blog then you already know I think they are pretty great and worthy of Beatlesque adulation. Still, I do feel like shining an extra light on a few songs that just screamed ‘hit single’ to my 1970s AM radio-trained ears. So instead of a ‘top ten’ list I’ve assembled a list of twelve ‘missing’ hit singles, songs that would easily top the charts in my alternate poprock universe.
Drop everything and focus your attention on these breaking tunes, hot off the musical presses! Get Inuit hail from the southeastern county of Kent, England where nary a real Inuit can be found. Undeterred, they have crafted a distinct, noisy kind of poprock. Give their latest single a chance to get through to the chorus and you will be rewarded with some solid hooks. “Teriyaki” kicks off with some cramped sounding vocals, which fatten up and take off into a soaring melody-drenched chorus.
Moving north, Birmingham, England’s Steve Ison defies easy labelling, melding folk, poprock, and indie sensibilities. Both “Boy” and “I’m Leaving” sound infused with a bit of Donovan 2.0, while “From the Morning” and “I Woke Up from the Dead This Morning” both are faintly reminiscent of the Lilac Time, vocally at least. Ison is a musical iconoclast whose songs never quite go where you expect them to, which is wonderfully liberating.
Over to New York City for the almost released debut album from the shamelessly rock and roll indie band Public Access T.V. who lament their musical genre’s end on their new single “End of an Era.” In fact, guitar rock and roll is clearly back with the success of bands like Vant, Catfish and the Bottlemen, and the Vaccines. So though the boys sing on this single that “the kids don’t like rock and roll anymore” don’t believe it. Never Enough is chock full of great new guitar poprock and drops in just three more days.
Poprock Record 