It is with a heavy heart that we must suspend the Ruby Tuesday feature indefinitely. But fret not, gentle readers. We hope to resurrect the series in the not-too-distant future. Until then, enjoy that Lilac Time track while you can, because it’s coming down a week from now. D’oh.
Category: Downloads (Page 12 of 13)
The ’90s were flooded with a ton of UK-based bands who made precious little impact on the U.S. charts…mostly because the few of them who scored Stateside release for their debut albums rarely got a chance to build an audience by getting to put a second album on our shores. But if it was bad for the British bands who were just getting started, you can imagine how rough it was for the artists who’d already been around for awhile and still couldn’t get an album released over here.
Such was the case for Mega City Four, the pop/punk/grunge band who got rolling in the late ’80s and went on a three-year streak of releasing an album a year – Tranzophobia (’89), Who Cares Wins (’90), and Terribly Sorry Bob (’91) – yet with none of them finding American distribution. Finally, in 1992, high-profile indie label Caroline Records cut the band a break and delivered Sebastopol Rd. onto our nation. Were we grateful? Not so much. Those who actually heard the album were thrilled; unfortunately, their numbers were few, and that was the last America heard from Mega City Four. (The Brits, meanwhile, were gifted with two further studio albums, a live record, and a collection of the band’s Peel Sessions.)
One of the highlights of Sebastopol Rd. was a unique love song, one sung to – of all people – Mrs. Mel Brooks, a.k.a. Mrs. Robinson herself, Anne Bancroft. We’ve all had an unrequited and ultimately pointless crush on a movie star at some point in our lives, but MC4 frontman / songwriter Wiz put pen to paper and, in three and a half minutes of bouncy pop bliss, captures the feelings that might happen if you never had that inevitable realization, “I am never, ever going to actually meet this person.”
To put it into prose form…
I get some second looks, but they can’t hold a candle to you.
Your photo’s in my book.
I’m wearing it out.
I gaze into your eyes.
The distance gets me down; I just want be around you.
My friends think I’m a fool, keeping it up for such a long shot, but I don’t care who knows it: I’m right here waiting for you.
My latter years are strewn with broken dreams and delusions; I hope like any fool, but this time I’m sure it’s coming true.
I don’t care who knows it: I’m right here waiting for you.
I don’t care who knows it: I’m right here waiting for you.
Alas, Wiz isn’t waiting any longer: he passed away from a blood clot on the brain on December 6, 2006. But if there’s any justice in the afterlife, he and Ms. Bancroft have already had a good laugh over how she inspired one of the finest moments of his songwriting career.
Radiohead’s releasing their new album as a digital download through their site, and they’re letting the buyers determine what they’re willing to pay.
You know, I’m not even really that big a Radiohead fan, but I’m very seriously considering going online and buying a copy at a reasonable price – y’know, $11.99 or something – just to show my support for the mere idea of such a huge band going out of their way to avoid the major labels.
Anyone else…?
Back in 1989, when Cameron Crowe rounded up John Cusack, Ione Skye, and John Mahoney and produced one of the greatest teen romances of all time (duh, of course we’re talking about “Say Anything…”), he also found time to compose a rather memorable soundtrack as well. The film’s money shot, of course, belonged to Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes,” but songs from The Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Replacements were used to great effect as well. Hiding way, way at the end of the soundtrack album, however, was a song that I fell in love with about as hard and fast as anything I’d heard in awhile: “Keeping the Dream Alive,” by Freiheit…or, as they’re more commonly known in their native Germany, Münchener Freiheit.
I didn’t know the first thing about Freiheit when I discovered “Keeping the Dream Alive,” but, damn, that song was such a gorgeous, sweeping ballad of ELO-sized proportions that I immediately knew that I’d have to seek out more of their material. As it happens, there wasn’t anything else to seek out…well, not in the U.S., anyway. Not long after, however, the band’s debut American release, Fantasy, found its way onto shelves and, almost immediately thereafter, into my collection. To this day, I’m still surprised that it never scored much in the way of success; it’s a highly enjoyable pop album that owes as much to Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus as it does Jeff Lynne. The only real explanation I’ve ever come up with is that it’s a bit heavier on synths and electronic drum beats than the kids were listening to at the time, but it still features heavily in my regular playlist even in 2007.
Unfortunately, Fantasy remains out of print in the U.S., and since that was the only Stateside release of the band’s career, Freiheit’s profile remains woefully low on our shores. Even the usually helpful All Music Guide gives them short shrift, with the bio in their entry simply reading, “This German band (orig. Munchener Freiheit) played power-pop music from 1982 to 1988.” That’s it. Talk about your inglorious retrospectives!
If you’re curious about the band, there are several import best-of collections available via Amazon, but you should be prepared to find them almost completely free of English-sung material. If you don’t speak German as fluently as the members of Freiheit, however, here’s a song from Fantasy that you might appreciate a bit more:
Feeling warm and/or scratchy? Doesn’t matter. Adult Swim has 14 tracks available for free download, including such cooler-than-thou bands as TV on the Radio, Les Savy Fav, Broken Social Scene and The Good, The Bad & The Queen. Man, this almost makes up for them canceling “Home Movies.”
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