JONATHAN COULTON: This is NPR's ASK ME ANOTHER. I'm Jonathan Coulton. Here's your host, Ophira Eisenberg.
Thanks, Jonathan. We're playing games with the hilarious Richard Kind and Maria Bamford. Are you ready for another one?
EISENBERG: You won. You won. OK. So, Richard, last time you were on the show, we made you play a game about pop music supergroups and jam bands that you - may I say? - loved.
KIND: I loved. I got every answer wrong on the Has It Been To Space, and I loved that. So I did love it.
EISENBERG: But to - so to make it up to you, we wrote a game that we knew would be in your wheelhouse and hopefully Maria's, too - musical theater.
COULTON: Yes. So we - so in this game, every answer is the name of a stage musical but with one of the words in the title changed to a rhyming word. For example, if I sang a song from the musical "West Side Story" but the lyrics were changed to be about a piece of lemon peel used as flavoring - so I'm singing about lemon zest. It's from the musical "West Side Story." The answer is "Zest Side Story." Make sense?
EISENBERG: OK, well, it's - you're in good shape because you two are going to be working together on this.
EISENBERG: But I just - one other note about the answers in this game, Richard - they are all musicals that you have performed in.
COULTON: (Playing guitar, singing) White coveralls and veil protect my face. I don't want to get stung, so that's just in case while I harvest this sweet stuff made by all my bees.
Joan Armatrading: Joan Armatrading Album Review | Pitchfork
Each Sunday, Pitchfork takes an in-depth look at a significant album from the past, and any record not in our archives is eligible. Today we revisit the British folk-rock singer's 1976 album, a brilliant display of musicianship from a songwriter attuned to the mysteries of desire and heartbreak.
Joan Armatrading will render interior mysteries with such forthright clarity, attuned so sensitively to the rhythms of feeling, that she makes the most terrible depths of heartbreak seem, to start, bearable. And then she'll make you smile. "I am not in love," Armatrading began her exalted 1976 hit, "Love and Affection," "But I'm open to persuasion." Where in pop do openings get better? Armatrading spent the 1970s affirming her status as one of the finest singer-songwriters of her generation: a woman of fierce intelligence and self-effacing wit who never stopped reading your mind or keeping you guessing.
In an industry inhospitable to opinionated women, Armatrading mastered the art of saying no. Speaking with the UK women's liberation magazine Spare Rib in 1974, the singer-songwriter made this irrefutably clear. She had said no to men who suggested she change her androgynous look, no to men who told her to be nicer on stage, no to male producers who tried to control her sound. She said no to critics who argued that her lyrics must be drawn from personal experience (they were composites) and no to the male-prescribed dictum that women ought to "sing pretty." With every "no," Armatrading went with herself, and invited others to do the same. "I think it is possible to be yourself and get on in pop music," she told The Guardian in 1976. "I intend to go on trying."
Born on the Caribbean island of Saint Kitts, Armatrading was 7 years old when she boarded a plane alone from the West Indies to Birmingham, England, to reunite with her parents and two older brothers, from whom she'd been separated for four years. As one of six kids being raised in a small flat, she spent much of her time in the Midlands of England seeking solitude. She would hide at the library, reading Shakespeare and Dickens. "I was on my own a lot… I had a weird childhood," she told Melody Maker , "and that's probably been the strongest influence on my character." Learning young that to be a loner does not necessarily mean being lonely, that in some cases being separate from a crowd brings you closer to yourself and then to everything, Armatrading became a keen observer of others.
She had started writing songs on a pawn shop acoustic guitar and the neglected household piano in her mid-teens. Her inquisitive vision of folk-rock was tinged with the music she grew up around—jazz and soul, gospel and rock'n'roll, Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding —especially in the depth of her smoky alto, which voiced the highest heavenly feeling of love as well as its lowest void. Like her idol, Van Morrison —still one of the few influences she'll point to—her songs have unconventional structures, whether raving up into fiery epiphanies or floating on daydreams. Armatrading didn't so much bring a Black British identity to the '70s singer-songwriter tradition as offer proof that a Black British woman played an active role in its creation.
After their stint in Hair , Nestor and Armatrading headed for London. When Nestor attended the 1971 Glastonbury Festival—where she recalled seeing exactly one other Black person—a fellow festivalgoer encouraged her to take their demos to the publisher Essex Music, which then represented the likes of T. Rex and Black Sabbath. They signed with Essex, and then to Cube Records for Armatrading's 1972 debut Whatever's for Us —recorded with Elton John's producer, Gus Dudgeon—but it soon became clear that the label wanted to market Armatrading as a solo artist, pressuring the partners to go separate ways. Their breakup casts their raw collaborations, like "Whatever's for Us, for Us" and "Spend a Little Time," as extraordinarily bittersweet. During the process of recording and promoting her follow-up, 1975's Back to the Night —Armatrading's first album for the easy listening establishment at A&M—she was so disillusioned by the process of navigating male egos in the studio that she basically checked out.
Her songs could be breathtakingly vulnerable. But what she left out said a lot. Few songs on Joan Armatrading are addressed from "I" to a gendered lover, leaving room for queer identity. (She didn't come out for decades, though a 1978 Melody Maker profile did note that she had a copy of lesbian classic 1973 novel Rubyfruit Jungle on her bookshelf. ) On "Down to Zero," Armatrading lays bare a breakup that's left brutally unexplained. She sings of a "brand new dandy" who "takes your man," and later we hear a woman singing about another woman, who "took the worry from your head" and "put trouble in your heart instead." Armatrading offers sage-like consolation not just in her lyrics, but in her resolute singing, in her hard strums, in the elegant steel guitar, the sound like Laurel Canyon folk-rock more syncopated. In the face of longing and lack that make no sense, it's all a kind of armor.
Armatrading was constantly compared to Joni Mitchell , which, for 1976, made some sense. To borrow a phrase from Mitchell, they were " women of heart and mind ," writing the highest caliber of hypersensitive song, and both fought to manifest their musical identities. The comparison still wasn't wholly accurate. Armatrading's lyrics were broader in scope, while Mitchell tended toward the granular. If Mitchell's brilliance was in her details, then Armatrading's was in her angle, at a smart remove, like a caring friend watching on with the clarity of distance. It gives Armatrading's writing a useful sweep. Two years prior, Mitchell sang, on her biggest single, "Help me." Armatrading had another idea for floundering, inadequate, unthinking lovers: "It would help me more if you helped yourself."
Armatrading was 25 when she opened "Love and Affection" with those 10 beguiling words about imagining a way out of loneliness. "Love and Affection" begins like a mystic English folk ballad and ends with a proclamation of "Love, love, love"—13 loves, all of them persuasive—that reaches gospel-sized grandeur. She said it was like two songs put together, which makes sense, because it's about holding two conflicting truths: a desire for love and an inability to feel it. "If I can feel the sun in my eyes/And the rain on my face/Why can't I feel love?" she sings. It's tempting to read into the potential confusion underpinning such a lyric. But in 1976, it was a question with no answer. If Armatrading's writing did share something with Mitchell, maybe it was her very willingness to look straight in the eye of the unresolvable, to hold uncertainty at the heart of her biggest song. Armatrading knew that the purpose of love was to feel changed as it took shape, and the song shape-shifts throughout, transforming like the moment of infatuation. The soulful bass vocal and sax affirm as much. It's triumphant.
‘1971: The Year Music Changed Everything’ Filmmakers Interview – Contenders TV
It was also a time of groundbreaking popular music—records that went beyond merely reflecting the moment to actually shaping it. That feeling of an artistic eruption in the midst of a society in crisis comes through in 1971: The Year Music Changed Everything , an eight-part documentary series from Apple TV+.
Carole King released her album Tapestry in 1971. Marvin Gaye came out with What’s Going On in May of that year. The Beatles had already broken up, but John Lennon was writing vital, socially engaged music on his own. The Rolling Stones were holed up in the south of France, working on what would become the classic double album Exile on Main Street .
“I mean, every major artist—male, female, group, individual—seems to almost a complete level deliver their masterworks that year,” executive producer James Gay-Rees said. “Then you sort of ask yourself the question, ‘Well, why? What was going on in the culture and in society that gave birth to so much brilliant music?’ which is still completely iconic today.”
Director James Rogan hadn’t been born yet in 1971, but he knew the music and he did his homework on the era.
“John Lennon would literally sit in bed and read the news and then write a song like ‘Gimme Some Truth,’” he said. “The [songs] were a direct response to the conservative post-war generation and the issues of the time. And so there’s a huge sense of release of inhibition and a sense of freedom that can only be channeled out through this new, relatively still quite young medium of pop music. And that’s why you just get this explosion of songwriting and just extraordinary songs.”
The series seamlessly weaves between what was in the news in 1971 and what was on the radio and record players.
King, Gay-Rees and series director Asif Kapadia also collaborated on the 2015 Oscar-winning documentary Amy , about the late singer Amy Winehouse. That film was covered wall-to-wall with archival material—no “talking heads” appeared on camera. For 1971 , the team adopted a similar approach.
“It’s a difficult thing to pull off,” King admitted. “And with Amy we really only had one small cast of characters—Amy herself and those around her. 1971 we’ve got a huge, huge cast and so it threw up challenges of who’s speaking and which voice are we going to pick out of the many that we interviewed. The ultimate goal was to stay in the moment…If you cut away in the middle of any of that action from 1971 and see any of those people now, suddenly it’s nostalgia and that’s not what we’re about.”
Remember when Justin Bieber compared his music approach to that of Michael Jackson?
Back in 2015, Justin Bieber was trending on the internet when he compared his approach to pop music to that of Michael Jackson. During his appearance on Radio 1's Breakfast Show with Nick Grimshaw on October 27, 2015, Justin Bieber had told the host that he "always wants to stay pop". He had further explained that he did not think that 'pop' was an inappropriate or dirty word but just meant that "the majority of people like it".
Talking about the same, Justin Bieber had told Nick Grimshaw, "I think pop music isn't necessarily cheesy, it's just how you make popular music. You take what's popular in the world right now and you flip it and make it your own". He had further added, "I think that's something awesome that Michael Jackson did. He always took something so relevant at the time, like funk and techno". "I just want to collaborate with the best and make good music," Bieber had shared.
Justin Bieber's next tour was slated to begin on June 2; however, the event has now been pushed into 2022. As mentioned in Variety, a source told the portal that the official announcement is likely to come soon. According to the source, the event will occur in an indoor setting, where COVID restrictions may remain more stringent. The tour was scheduled to open in San Diego and have some of its other initial dates in California. The source also shared that the officials have not yet made any announcement as they are facing challenges in rescheduling the dates.
This is the second time, Bieber's tour has been postponed. It was originally scheduled for July 2020. However, Justin announced that it was being pushed back to May, June, July and August of 2021. He had announced, "Looking forward to seeing you all when it is safe". In 2021, the officials announced that the show has been pushed from May to June. The tour originally included stadiums as well as arenas. Opening acts Kehlani and Jaden Smith dropped out as the tour shifted from '20 to '21.
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21 songs that turn 20 in 2021: from Destiny's Child and Jennifer Lopez to Shakira and Kylie
It was the year we were introduced to a talented singer called Alicia Keys and seasoned Colombian artist Shakira.
It was when Destiny's Child got their revenge and strong women dominated the charts individually – or collectively as they sang Lady Marmalade.
The year 2001 was also when Apple introduced the game-changing platform iTunes, RnB was a commercial force, Enrique Iglesias became a pop prince and Atomic Kitten began to implode.
Let's take a trip down memory lane and revisit, in no particular order, 21 songs that turn 20 in 2021.
Released to radio in 2000, it only premiered on the charts in February 2001 and hung around long enough to achieve tremendous sales without ever reaching number one.
With commercial RnB riding strong on the airwaves at the time, Janet Jackson switched lanes with this euphoric slice of pop music.
While, let's face it, Jackson's voice has never been her strongest point, regular producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis surrounded her with sun-kissed production owing as much to vintage disco as contemporary soul.
Their make-or-break second album, also titled Drops of Jupiter, was their last shot. Luckily, the lush power ballad did the trick and established Train as a leading pop-rock band of the 2000s.
Chatting with The National in 2013, singer Patrick Monahan expressed mixed feelings regarding the hit and rued how the money generated was swallowed up in a previous divorce.
'Any Man of Mine': The Story Behind Shania Twain's Playful Warning
Shania Twain put men in their place with her hit single "Any Man of Mine." The Canadian country-pop star laid down the law when she released the song in 1995 as the second single off her record The Woman in Me. The song became Twain's first No. 1 on country radio and her second Top 40 on the pop charts.
Twain wrote the song with her then-husband and producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange . Twain credits the gutsy song for a lot of her success.
"'Any Man of Mine' was a risky song to release," Twain told CMT Insider . "At the time, a lot of people were afraid of it. It was way too edgy for what was going on. Everybody was kind of leery about releasing it. And I remember when I went on the radio tour to introduce all this new music, it was so amazing getting a reaction to that song. Some people just loved it. They just fell in love with it right away. And other people it really did scare. I don't know whether they just didn't like it or whether they thought, 'Whoa!'"
" That's the song I think that really, really broke me in a big way, because it was so different," she said.
How could she not with the song earning Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance nominations during the 1996 Grammy Awards? The song also won Single of the Year at the Canadian Country Music Awards in 1995.
Twain knew that with every great song, there must be a great music video. She uploaded a video on her Youtube channel called Behind The Video . There, the superstar reminisced on the location of the shoot, working with John and Bo Derek, and how she ended up being the fashion director on the set.
Her department store fashion didn't come without a cost, though. In the video, the star wears a pair of denim jeans, a denim vest, and a white t-shirt that does not cover her midriff. THE AUDACITY! A woman in country music not dressing modestly was nearly unheard of at the time.
CMT's Chet Flippo wrote , "Twain's allure was greatly enhanced by her videos, which truly were revolutionary for the time for country music. She was hectored at the time of the 'Any Man of Mine' video, with its belly button barrage, for ruining country music by exposing her navel. But that's about all she ever really did show, when you look back at her video work. She slyly hinted at the rest. And six months after that video midriff revelation, you couldn't walk down Music Row without encountering seeming hordes of midriff-baring babes with their navels hanging out."
Twain was revolutionary in country and pop music. Her strong personality set her apart from those around her and made her a music and fashion icon. Twain's songwriting brought her these greatest hits: "If You're Not In It For Love," "You're Still The One," "That Don't Impress Me Much," "Man, I Feel Like A Woman," and "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under."
Many music legends are rocking out long past retirement age | Features | yoursun.com
Roger Daltrey, left, and Pete Townshend of The Who play at the Desert Trip music festival Oct. 9, 2016, at Indio, California. Daltrey is 77 and Townshend turns 76 on May 19.
You think I'm over the hill/ Think I'm past my prime/ Let me see what you got/ We can have a whoppin' good time
Bob Dylan performs at the Roskilde Festival on July 3, 2019, in Roskilde, Denmark. Dylan turns 80 on May 24.
Bob Dylan was a comparatively young man of 65 when he recorded his gently swinging "Spirit On the Water" 15 years ago. Now, as his 80th birthday approaches on May 24, he is among a number of rock legends who are still going strong.
Some of the others turning 80 this year range from David Crosby and Martha Reeves to guitar great Steve Cropper, Art Garfunkel and Temptations singer Otis Williams, who is the sole surviving original member of that fabled Motown singing group.
"It seems quite plausible to be a musician in your 70s or 80s now," said Jethro Tull founder Ian Anderson, 73. His 54-year-old band is now completing a new album, its first in 18 years. Jethro Tull's ninth album, released in 1976, was titled "Too Old to Rock 'n' Roll: Too Young to Die."
"We can continue to be productive and die with our boots on," Anderson continued, "which is a lot better than being spoon-fed in an old-folks home."
While Paul Simon (who turns 80 in October) and Bob Seger (who turns 76 on May 6) have officially retired in recent years, a significant number of pop music veterans are still recording. They are also poised to resume touring after the COVID-19 pandemic is sufficiently in check to make being on the road safe again. One is Elton John, 74, whose multiyear farewell tour is scheduled to resume in January in New Orleans.
The Big Bank Holiday Quiz: From politics to pop music and sport to science
Raise a glass to surf & Western band Tremolo Beer Gut
Copenhagen, Denmark, is a city that apparently knows how to have a good time. They've got beaches, they've got nightclubs, they've got craft breweries. And they've got at least one world-class surf band in the Tremolo Beer Gut.
Formed in 1998, the band has a unique take on surf music, informed by the film soundtracks of Ennio Morricone and John Barry, and also by guitar-heavy alt-rock (they name our own Pixies as a favorite). They've hit Boston a few times, including a memorable show at the Copenhagen Beer Festival on City Hall Plaza five years ago.
This led to plenty of sweat in the studio, Reginal says. "We are already a band that insists on recording in an old-fashioned way. We do several takes to get the great one where everything is flowing and there is a special vibe. But I'll tell you, some of the songs got brutal the sixth or seventh time through. It felt like, 'Ugh, can't take anymore!' Certainly gives you a bit of a pressure to perform."
Their musical style was carefully planned at the outset. "When we started this band we wanted to come up with something that sounded like the golden era of pop music, like the Beach Boys on their symphonic albums. We liked surf music but we liked the sound of spaghetti Westerns, so we invented something we called surf and Western. We're doing surf completely the wrong way, but it's still recognizable because it's built on some great rock and roll history."
The band's sense of a great concept has informed a few of their moves, including their releasing the first 2000s album recorded in mono: "It came out that January, and we thoroughly checked that nobody else had done it."
In another high-concept move, they have put the very same band photo on the front cover of every one of their 14 albums, singles and digital releases. Asked to explain that one, their guitarist known as the Great Naina jumped in: "It's a good photo. We look young."
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