1 Hour of MTV Music Television from April 12th, 1982 with VJ Martha Quinn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4io6XaxVoHM
Amy Shafer: The Beatles, She Loves You – A Classical Musician’s First Listen and Reaction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIJeqK_3w1I
Colt Clark and the Quarantine Kids play “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)” by Billy Joel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPSJih9cnms
Colt Clark and the Quarantine Kids play “Sledgehammer” by Peter Gabriel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E7eJj-C2MY
Colt Clark and the Quarantine Kids play “Up Around the Bend” by Creedence Clearwater Revival
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi9ILrl88U8
Colt Clark and the Quarantine Kids play “Fool in the Rain” by Led Zeppelin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCg96Fksdg0
Colt Clark and the Quarantine Kids play “Low Rider” by War
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STwclN0xZoI
ChatGPT had the decency to admit that it had been wrong, and it even thanked me for correcting it
I requested the following from ChatGPT: “Present an argument that the Beatles were not the greatest rock band of all time.”
This was its response:
“Here is one argument that the Beatles were not the greatest rock band of all time:”
“While the Beatles were certainly a highly influential and innovative band in the history of rock music, there are other bands that could be considered as having a greater impact on the genre as a whole. For example, some might argue that bands like Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, or Pink Floyd had a greater impact on the evolution of rock music and made more innovative contributions to the genre.”
“Critics might also argue that the Beatles had a relatively short period of time in which they were actively creating new music and performing live, which was from the early 1960s to the late 1960s. By comparison, some other bands have had longer and more consistent careers, making a greater impact on the genre over a longer period of time.”
“In addition, some people might argue that the Beatles’ music is not representative of all of rock music, as their style was heavily influenced by British Invasion, pop, and folk music, and does not reflect the diversity of the rock genre as a whole.”
“In conclusion, while the Beatles are widely regarded as one of the most influential and innovative bands in the history of rock music, there are those who argue that they were not the greatest rock band of all time, due to factors such as the relatively short period of their active career and the limited scope of their musical style. Ultimately, whether or not the Beatles were the greatest rock band of all time is a matter of personal opinion.”
Then I responded with the following: “I disagree with your comment about diversity. The Beatles covered songs by black artists such as the Shirelles and Chuck Berry. Paul McCartney’s singing style in “I’m down” sounds a lot like the singing style of Little Richard. The Beatles were heavily influenced by black performers of rock and doo wop.”
ChatGPT had the decency to admit that it had been wrong, and it even thanked me for correcting it. This is what it said:
“You are correct, and I apologize for my previous statement. The Beatles did indeed draw inspiration from a wide range of musical styles, including black artists and performers in the rock and doo-wop genres. Your point about the Beatles covering songs by black artists such as the Shirelles and Chuck Berry and Paul McCartney’s singing style in “I’m Down” being similar to Little Richard’s style is evidence of this. The Beatles’ ability to blend a variety of musical influences into their own unique sound was part of what made them so innovative and influential. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.”
So ChatGPT had the decency to admit that it had been wrong, and it even thanked me for correcting it. I think that’s great.
I asked ChatGPT: “Has dynamic range compression ruined a lot of modern music?”
I asked ChatGPT: “Has dynamic range compression ruined a lot of modern music?”
This is the answer that it gave:
“The use of dynamic range compression in modern music production has been a topic of debate and discussion in the music industry. Some argue that it has led to a homogenization of sound and a loss of musical dynamic, while others argue that it has improved the listening experience and made music more accessible.”
“Dynamic range compression is a technique used to reduce the difference between the loudest and quietest parts of a recording. This can result in music that sounds louder and more consistent, but can also lead to a loss of musical nuance and energy.”
“However, it is worth noting that the use of dynamic range compression is a subjective matter and depends on individual preferences and the type of music being produced. Some genres, such as electronic dance music (EDM) and pop, often have a highly compressed dynamic range to make the music sound louder and more energetic. In contrast, some genres, such as classical and jazz, often have a wider dynamic range to showcase musical expression and nuance.”
“In the end, whether or not dynamic range compression has “ruined” modern music is a matter of personal opinion and cannot be definitively answered. What is clear is that dynamic range compression has become a common tool in the production of modern music, and its impact on the final product will depend on how it is used and the individual listener’s preferences.”
R.I.P. Christine McVie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0sha1XfHxw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU1ioGkL4pU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrFNSJguUos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqjXn2NflqU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9Hqn8x6a8s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hGhl7ki3HM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDCXuMtIaVw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrU1Zg0wugE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXWia0TWAMM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4qAxNEtQcc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg1t-fqhbf8
Christine McVie, Hitmaker for Fleetwood Mac, Is Dead at 79
As a singer, songwriter and keyboardist, she was a prolific force behind one of the most popular rock bands of the last 50 years.
By Jim Farber
November 30, 2022
Christine McVie, the singer, songwriter and keyboardist who became the biggest hitmaker for Fleetwood Mac, one of music’s most popular bands, died on Wednesday. She was 79.
Her family announced her death on Facebook. The statement said she died at a hospital but did not specify its location or give the cause of death. In June, Ms. McVie told Rolling Stone that she was in “quite bad health” and that she had endured debilitating problems with her back.
Ms. McVie’s commercial potency, which hit a high point in the 1970s and ’80s, was on full display on Fleetwood Mac’s “Greatest Hits” anthology, released in 1988, which sold more than eight million copies: She either wrote or co-wrote half of its 16 tracks. Her tally doubled that of the next most prolific member of the band’s trio of singer-songwriters, Stevie Nicks. (The third, Lindsey Buckingham, scored three major Billboard chart-makers on that collection.)
The most popular songs Ms. McVie wrote favored bouncing beats and lively melodies, numbers like “Say You Love Me” (which grazed Billboard’s Top 10), “You Make Loving Fun” (which just broke it), “Hold Me” (No. 4) and “Don’t Stop” (her top smash, which crested at No. 3). But she could also connect with elegant ballads, like “Over My Head” (No. 20) and “Little Lies” (which cracked the publication’s Top Five in 1987).
All those songs had cleanly defined, easily sung melodies, with hints of soul and blues at the core. Her compositions had a simplicity that mirrored their construction. “I don’t struggle over my songs,” Ms. McVie (pronounced mc-VEE) told Rolling Stone in 1977. “I write them quickly.”
In just half an hour, she wrote one of the band’s most beloved songs, “Songbird,” a sensitive ballad that for years served as the band’s closing encore in concert. In 2019, the band’s leader, Mick Fleetwood, told New Musical Express that “Songbird” is the piece he wanted played at his funeral, “to send me off fluttering.”
Ms. McVie’s lyrics often captured the more intoxicating aspects of romance. “I’m definitely not a pessimist,” she told Bob Brunning, the author of the 2004 book “The Fleetwood Mac Story: Rumours and Lies.” “I’m basically a love song writer.”
At the same time, her words accounted for the yearning and disappointments that can lurk below an exciting surface. “I’m good at pathos,” she told Mojo magazine in 2017. “I write about romantic despair a lot, but with a positive spin.”
‘That Chemistry’
Ms. McVie’s vocals communicated just as nuanced a range of feeling. Her soulful contralto could sound by turns maternally wise and sexually alive. Her tawny tone had the heady effect of a bourbon with a rich bouquet and a smooth finish. It found a graceful place in harmony with the voices of Ms. Nicks and Mr. Buckingham, together forming a signature Fleetwood Mac sound.
“It was that chemistry,” she told Mojo. “The two of them just chirped into the perfect three-way harmony. I just remember thinking, ‘This is it!’”
A sturdy instrumentalist, Ms. McVie played a range of keyboards, often leaning toward the soulful sound of a Hammond B3 organ and the formality of a Yamaha grand piano.
With Fleetwood Mac, she earned five gold, one platinum and seven multiplatinum albums. The band’s biggest success, “Rumours,” released in 1977, was one of the mightiest movers in pop history: It was certified double diamond, representing sales of over 20 million copies.
In 1998, Ms. McVie was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame along with various lineups of Fleetwood Mac, reflecting the frequent (and dramatic) personnel shifts the band experienced throughout its labyrinthine history. Ms. McVie served in incarnations that dated to 1971, but she also had uncredited roles playing keyboards and singing backup as far back as the band’s second album, released in 1968. Before joining Fleetwood Mac, she scored a No. 14 British hit with the blues band Chicken Shack on a cover of Etta James’s “I’d Rather Go Blind” for which she sang lead.
Christine Anne Perfect was born on July 12, 1943, in the Lake District of England to Cyril Perfect, a classical violinist and college music professor and Beatrice (Reece) Perfect, a psychic.
Her father encouraged her to start taking classical piano lessons when she was 11. Her focus changed radically four years later when she came across some sheet music for Fats Domino songs. At that moment, she told Rolling Stone in 1984, “It was goodbye Chopin.”
“I started playing the boogie bass,” she told Mojo. “I got hooked on the blues. Even today, the songs I write use that left hand. It’s rooted in the blues.”
Ms. McVie studied sculpture at Birmingham Art College and for a while considered becoming an art teacher. At the same time, she briefly played in a duo with Spencer Davis, who, along with a teenage Steve Winwood, would later find fame in the Spencer Davis Group. She helped form a band named Shades of Blue with several future members of Chicken Shack.
After graduating from college in 1966, Ms. McVie moved to London and became a window dresser for a department store. One year later, she was asked to join the already formed Chicken Shack as keyboardist and sometime singer. She wrote two songs for the band’s debut album, “40 Blue Fingers, Freshly Packed and Ready to Serve.”
She was twice voted best female vocalist in a Melody Maker readers’ poll, but she left the band in 1969 after marrying John McVie, the bassist in Fleetwood Mac, which had been formed in 1967 and had already recorded three albums. That same year, she recorded a solo album, “The Legendary Christine Perfect Album,” which she later described to Rolling Stone as “so wimpy.”
“I just hate to listen to it,” she said.
Joining the Band
Her disappointment in that record, combined with her reluctance to perform, caused Ms. McVie to put music aside for a time. But, in 1970, when Fleetwood Mac’s main draw, the guitarist Peter Green, suddenly quit the band after a ruinous acid trip, Mick Fleetwood invited her to fill out their ranks.
Initially, she found the invitation to join her favorite band “a nerve-racking experience,” she told Rolling Stone. But she rose to the occasion by writing two of the catchiest songs on her first official release with the band, “Future Games” (1971). That release found the band leaning away from British blues and toward progressive Southern Californian folk-rock, aided by the addition of an American player, the singer, songwriter and guitarist Bob Welch.
The band fine-tuned that sound on its 1972 set “Bare Trees,” which sold better and featured one of Ms. McVie’s most soulful songs, “Spare Me a Little of Your Love.” The band’s 1973 release, “Penguin,” went gold. The next collection, “Heroes Are Hard to Find,” was the band’s first to crack the U.S. Top 40. But it was only after the departure of Mr. Welch and the hiring of the romantically involved team of Ms. Nicks and Mr. Buckingham, for the 1975 album simply called “Fleetwood Mac,” that the band began to show its full commercial brio.
Ms. McVie‘s song “Over My Head” began the groundswell by entering Billboard’s Top 20; her “Say You Love Me,” reached No. 11. After a slow buildup, the “Fleetwood Mac” album eventually hit Billboard’s summit.
Just over a year and a half later, the group released “Rumours,” which generated outsize interest not only for its four Top 10 hits (two of them written by Ms. McVie) but also for several highly dramatic behind-the-scenes events within the band’s ranks, which they aired out in the lyrics and openly discussed in the press.
During the creation of the album, the two couples in the band — Ms. Nicks and Mr. Buckingham and the married McVies — broke up. Ms. McVie’s song “You Make Loving Fun” celebrated an affair she was then having with the band’s lighting director. (At first, she told Mr. McVie that the song was about her dog.) The optimistic-sounding “Don’t Stop” was intended to point her ex-husband toward a new life without her.
“We wrote those songs despite ourselves,” Ms. McVie told Mojo. “It was a therapeutic move. The only way we could get this stuff out was to say it, and it came out in a way that was difficult. Imagine trying to sing those songs onstage with the people you’re singing them about.”
It helped dull the pain, she told Mojo, that “we were all very high,” adding, “I don’t think there was a sober day.” And the album’s megasuccess gave the members a different high. “The buzz of realizing you’ve written one of the best albums ever written; it was such a phenomenal time,” Ms. McVie told Attitude magazine in 2019.
But the group yearned to stretch creatively. The result was the less commercial sound of the double-album follow-up, “Tusk,” released in 1979. Though not a success on anything near the scale of “Rumours,” it sold more than two million copies and produced three hits, including Ms. McVie’s “Think About Me.”
Into the ’80s
The group moved smoothly into the new decade with the 1982 release “Mirage,” which hit No. 1 aided by Ms. McVie’s “Hold Me,” a Top Five hit that was inspired by her tumultuous relationship with the Beach Boys’ Dennis Wilson. Two years later, Ms. McVie issued a solo album that made the Top 30, while its strongest single, “Got a Hold on Me,” broke the Top 10.
In 1987, the reconvened Fleetwood Mac issued “Tango in the Night,” which featured two hits written by Ms. McVie, “Everywhere” and “Little Lies.” (“Little Lies” was written with the Portuguese musician and songwriter Eddie Quintela, whom she had wed the year before. They would divorce in 2003.) Mr. Buckingham left the group shortly afterward, shaking the dynamic that had made their recordings stellar. The 1990 album “Behind the Mask” barely went gold, producing just one Top 40 single (“Save Me,” written by Ms. McVie), while “Time,” issued five years later, was the band’s first unsuccessful album in two decades.
Ms. McVie didn’t tour with the band to support “Time.” But the early 1990s brought broad new attention to her hit “Don’t Stop” when it became the theme song for Bill Clinton’s successful presidential campaign. In 1993, Mr. Clinton persuaded the five musicians who played on that hit to reunite to perform it at an Inaugural ball.
They came together again in 1997 for a tour, which produced the live album “The Dance,” one of the top-selling concert recordings of all time. Yet by the next year a growing fear of flying, and a desire to return to England from the band’s adopted home of Los Angeles, inspired Ms. McVie to retire to the English countryside.
Five years later, she agreed to add some keyboard parts and backing vocals to a largely ignored Fleetwood Mac album, “Say You Will,” and in 2006 she produced a little-heard solo album, “In the Meantime,” which she recorded and wrote with her guitarist nephew Dan Perfect.
Finally, in 2014, driven by boredom and a growing sense of isolation, she reunited with the prime Mac lineup for the massive “On With The Show” tour. In its wake, Ms. McVie began to write lots of new material, as did Mr. Buckingham, resulting in an album under both their names in 2017, as well as a joint tour. The full band also played shows that year; even though Mr. Buckingham was fired in 2018, Ms. McVie continued to tour with the group in a lineup that included Neil Finn of Crowded House and Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. In 2021, Ms. McVie sold publishing rights to her entire 115-song catalog for an undisclosed sum.
Information on her survivors was not immediately available.
Throughout her career, Ms. McVie took pride in never being categorized by her gender. “I kind of became one of the guys,” she told the British newspaper The Independent in 2019. “I was always treated with great respect.”
While she always acknowledged the special chemistry of Fleetwood Mac’s most successful lineup, she believed her role transcended it.
“Band members leave and other people take their place,” she told Rolling Stone, “but there was always that space where the piano should be.”
Kermit the Frog and Debbie Harry sing Rainbow Connection
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOMsz-ru2g8
Billboard’s top 5 songs from July 31, 1982. This is my favorite top 5 from any week.
These are Billboard’s top 5 songs from July 31, 1982. This is my favorite top 5 from any week.
https://top40weekly.com/1982-all-charts/
1 Survivor – Eye of the Tiger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btPJPFnesV4
2 Toto – Rosanna
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmOLtTGvsbM
3 John Cougar – Hurts So Good
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dOsbsuhYGQ
4 Fleetwood Mac – Hold Me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0sha1XfHxw
5 The Steve Miller Band – Abracadabra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY8B0uQpwZs
Check out all these awesomely beautiful songs by Mickey and Sylvia!
I’m So Glad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMf30eoU22c
Se De Boom Run Dun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0frF4kPQIE
Forever and a Day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vH1aC-Qh4I
Rise Sally Rise
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVkZBBgbaXw
Love Is Strange
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35eBlOs6DOQ
I’m Going Home
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk6jE514gOU
There Oughta Be a Law
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yycfhrcuULA
Dearest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4bq9LneZ9s
Love Will Make You Fail in School
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcwK3WoFY1g
Let’s Have A Picnic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIop-8SeG3I
There’ll Be No Backin’ Out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXxaL_EPauI
Peace Of Mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlMFX5qlEek
Who Knows Why
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erx4cSwIVZU
Say The Word
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFvsbYDa9tY
Too Much Weight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4veTz_FSwA
A New Idea on Love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M8KE9xX9fE
I’ve Got a Feeling (In My Heart)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZPDEnPccKg
Can’t Get You On The Phone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySM2cdPoBys
Oh Yeah! Uh Huh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjKJ9EancJk
What Would I Do
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9Kqhd0Ze54
Film of PRINCE at age 11 Discovered at Archival Footage of 1970 Minneapolis Teachers Strike
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik8Np8Jt8gY
Here’s a 17 minute analysis of “Blister in the Sun” by the Violent Femmes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDpcVKtxB4g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE-dqW4uBEE
Before the Eagles were the Eagles, they were Linda Ronstadt’s backup band. Here they are performing Desperado.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDB6qQmDi9Y
The English Touring Opera has just fired 14 of its musicians because they are white
The sacking of white members of the English Touring Opera shows how woke will destroy the arts
I for one would never go to watch an orchestra just because it had been lauded for diversity
By Zoe Strimpel
September 19, 2021
As a child and teenager in Boston, USA, I played in various orchestras. I didn’t much like it, largely because I found it boring, thankless and tiring. Rehearsals were long. Sometimes I didn’t like the music that had been selected: why had the conductor chosen another obscure piece by César Franck? But one thing that I had the luxury of never having to worry about was the ethnic makeup of the players and my own fate auditioning as a young white girl. As it happened, in the youth orchestra scene back then, the top symphonies and seats were dominated by children whose parents were Russian or Chinese. This was not a source of much comment; it’s just how it was.
Since then, we have sunk into such a quagmire of identity politics that even orchestras are now selecting players not because they are the best, but because of their skin colour. The English Touring Opera (ETO) has dropped 14 white musicians in order to increase the ‘diversity’ of the company. Aged between 40 and 60, they’ve been told their contracts will not be renewed because of ‘diversity guidance’ from Arts Council England, which gives the ETO £1.78 million a year.
Arts Council England, one of the most woke funding bodies in the land, protested lamely, arguing that it never meant to get players sacked. “We are now in conversation with ETO to ensure no funding criteria have been breached,” it said. Err. Perhaps this has been a valuable wake-up call for the Arts Council: what did it expect? If you insist on exporting the warped logic of critical race theory, pressuring arts organisations to prioritise skin colour over all else, you can hardly be surprised when they respond like this. If the ETO’s policy of race-based contract non-renewal smacks of the kinds of policies my own grandparents faced in post-Nuremberg Laws Germany, then that is entirely the fault of the institutional bigwigs slurping away at the woke Kool-Aid.
The hideous optics of the ETO debacle offer a particularly stark reminder of how in the era of wokedom, the arts are doomed. Sure, the arts have a social component, but they are fundamentally rooted in creativity and talent, and they must delight, rivet or intrigue. They are not meant to be primarily didactic. I for one would never go to watch an orchestra just because it had been lauded for diversity. I would never read a book because it had been commissioned as part of a ‘diversity and inclusion programme’ and I would never admire a work of art simply because it had emerged from a person of the right colour. Yet such ideas are gaining popularity: earlier this summer, Labour MP Janet Daby, a former shadow minister for faiths, women and equalities, put to then-Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden the merits of issuing “mandatory diversity quotas” for artists that appear in publicly funded galleries like Tate Britain. Thankfully, that quota hasn’t yet been mandated, but under a different government it might well be.
If the ETO rejig seems particularly shocking, the arts have in fact been at it for ages. Back in 2018, Penguin Random House sent a stern email round to agents and employees: the new commissioning policy would have to fall into line with diversity targets, with diversity defined by sexual identity, skin colour and whether one was able-bodied or not. The “company-wide goal” was “for both our new hires and the authors we acquire to reflect UK society by 2025”. Aside from the utter madness of assuming that the percentage of people able to write excellent books should map onto the demographic makeup of British society, this dictum showed that from now on, the narrowest, most box-ticking form of ‘diversity’ – what you are rather than who you are – would determine Penguin’s contribution to literature.
The sprawling diversity and inclusion drives our funding bodies, arts organisations and publishers, who have fallen over themselves to instigate from part of a broader domain of deranged and misapplied moral virtue. One aspect of this became particularly apparent during #MeToo, when man after man found to have a polluted past was chopped from ballet companies, films and comedy careers. I can see why men who sexually molest women might be kicked out of offices. But films? Ballet shows?
A couple of years ago I did a debate at the Oxford Union, arguing that art should not be judged by the biography of the artist, because on that score, there would be no art at all from any time before about five minutes ago. But also because it’s simply wrong: it flattens creative work, with all its many and unpredictable interpretations, into something chilly, Manichean and moralistic.
We won the debate, but only just: there were many who were adamant that art was indistinguishable from the moral virtue of its creator. For today’s arts institutions, virtue and the skin colour of artists have become one and the same thing. Not only is this an immoral equation, as the ETO clearout showed with crystal clarity, but it’s a death knell for the very notion of artistic quality.
FSO – Star Wars Episode IV – “Here they come!” (John Williams)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJaz5XhSjwc
John Williams & Wiener Philharmoniker – “Main Title” from “Star Wars: A New Hope”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54hoKbTWon4
WASTED ON THE WAY – CROSBY, STILLS, AND NASH (Kudyapi Band Social Distancing Cover)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovoXNhuds7s
Billy Howse and his friend perform “Abracadabra” by the Steve Miller Band
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0GtJl2rDiI
Colt Clark and the Quarantine Kids play “Fortunate Son” by Creedence Clearwater Revival
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MQ10Dq410I