The Saturday Morning Car-Tune News Report 07.11.09: We Want Your Sex. Signed, Bands You Love

Posted by Lucas Wesley on 07.11.2009

Star Power this week is the topic of musical sexuality along with news about artists such as Beck (again), Ringo Starr, Leonard Cohen, Snoop Dogg, Richard Hell, David Bowie, New Order, Lady Gaga and more!

Welcome to week three of The Saturday Morning Car-Tune News! I'm really not sure what to put in these forewords...I really must get on making that pretty photoshop.

- The death keeps rolling in: Allen Klein, legendary record company owner, with known ties to The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and others, passed away last Saturday at the age of 77. His life was kind of shady, and it's hard to say whether or not his business practices were always ethical. You may know him as the focus of George Harrison's "Beware of ABCKO," or as the reason The Verve don't see any royalties for "Bittersweet Symphony." Regardless of his business, an important figure has passed.



- From Joy Division comes New Order. From New Order comes Bad Lieutenant. With the departure of Peter Hook and the apparent shunning of Steven Morris (he plays on the record and will tour with the band, but as an unofficial member, for whatever reason), Bernard Sumner has teamed with Phil Cunningham and Jake Evans for this new band. The debut album is to be called Never Cry Another Tear, due out October 5. Going by the pattern Sumner takes when adapting to band changes, this will be more fun than his last project, but perhaps not quite as good.

- David Bowie is going to let you, yes you, remix his first true hit, "Space Oddity." Jointly celebrating the 40th anniversary of the song and the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, on July 20, the song will be re-released over iTunes along with various mixes, and the real selling point for remixers: eight stems of the song, for you to play with. Currently, it looks like this is only available in the UK, but Bowie's web site promises an update for US listeners is on the way.

- I've been writing here for three weeks, and every week, Beck does something new and awesome. After starting his album covering series and his DJ series, he's moved on to an interview series called Irrelevant Topics. The first irrelevant guest? Tom Waits. Beck hasn't done anything this cool since Midnite Vultures. As always, you can find all the latest in Beck at www.beck.com.

- Melvins are releasing a unique remix album. Unique in that instead of remixing single tracks, remix artists are going to be given full albums to play with and draw from. Sounds kind of Girl Talk to me, but then again, that's hardly a bad thing. Although, the appeal of Girl Talk was always variety and surprise...well, we'll see. Big name remixers include Merzbow and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth.



- Richard Hell along with guitarists Marc Ribot (Tom Waits), Bill Frisell and Ivan Julian (original Voidoid) will be re-releasing his band's second album, Destiny Street, with some...slight adjustments. Hell feels that he, like most punk and rock stars of the late 70s and early 80s, was simply doing too many drugs at the time to make a coherent album. After regaining the rights to the album in 2006, Hell purposely made the album out-of-print, and is now rerecording certain elements to better suit his original vision. The original rhythm tracks will be used, but apparently, new vocals and lead guitar tracks will be recorded. Destiny Street Repaired, as the reissue is called, will be released September 1.

- Mixtape master Wale, who recently released mixtape number five, Back To The Feature, finally has an official album release date: September 22. Titled Attention: Deficit, I wouldn't be surprised if his mixtapes and collaborations with Lady Gaga, TV On The Radio, Peter, Bjorn and John, Lil Wayne, The Roots and many others lead to this being one hell of a debut.

- Ringo Starr, the Beatle that time forgot still releases music, is allegedly already working on a follow up to last year's competent Liverpool 8. There's little information to be found yet, aside from the fact he has allegedly been working with Joss Stone and has received a private lesson from tabla player Tina Sugandh, who also is rumored to appear on the record. To answer your questions, yes. I did have to look up what a tabla was, and no, I'm still not quite sure what it sounds like, although I can tell you it's a type of hand drum. But it's certainly very Beatles of Ringo to learn and include new instruments this late into his career. Even if it is just a different type of the same instrument he's played all his life.


(pictured right)

- After a long legacy of the likes of Dr. Dre, Kurupt, Daz Dillenger, Nate Dogg and others, Snoop Dogg has a new rap collaborator: astronaut Buzz Aldrin. The two are teaming up for a track called "Rocket Experience," to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the original moon landing. Aldrin, at 79, makes his rapping debut with these lines: "I tell the story 'bout me time on the moon now/The sky was black even though the sun shine down/Moonwalking's such a trip, it's so fine/When you're walking in the lunar dust." Believe it or not, the idea was Aldrin's, who wishes to recreate America's interest in the space program. Quincy Jones produced the track, and Talib Kweli and Soulja Boy rap alongside Snoop and Aldrin. Says Talib, "Buzz Aldrin is so gangsta." Says Buzz, "I have only two passions. Space and hip hop." Honestly, I have no idea if this is real or not, since the source if FunnyOrDie, but it's great enough to report anyway.

- Leonard Cohen speaks on the continued success of Hallelujah: "I was reading a review of a movie called Watchmen that uses it, and the reviewer said, 'Can we please have a moratorium on 'Hallelujah' in movies and television shows?' And I kind of feel the same way. I think it's a good song, but too many people sing it." While I agree with him in the sense I've never heard a truly transcendent version of the song (sorry Jeff Buckley fans), despite the potential it has, I think it's more interesting that old man Cohen mentioned Watchmen like the audience wouldn't know what he meant. It's old man cool, it is. Let me also take this time out to reiterate that the particular scene in the movie Cohen is talking about was a hilariously poor choice of music.

- Kings Of Leon's drummer is arguing that Americans have bad taste in music. American music writer Lucas Wesley is arguing Kings of Leon fans have bad taste in music. It evens out in the end. Americans do have bad taste in music, though.

Star Power

Last week's Star Power started with a disclaimer; this week's Star Power is going to start with a confession. When I created this news report, the basis was Star Power. It was going to be my take on one of the most highly publicized stories in music, as I explained to the audience not two weeks ago. However, as I undertake this task, I'm learning that almost all musical stories are equally publicized. In fact, most music news publications use other music news publications as their primary source; there is no real "primary" source anymore. I have no real qualm with this on a technical level, but it does make it hard for me to decide what the biggest stories of the week are. Of course, now and again a Michael Jackson type story breaks out and that's obviously the biggest story of the week, if not month, we'll see year. However, it's hard to write about that again and again, week after week, without getting repetitive and unnecessary. So, from now on, Star Power won't focus on the biggest stories, since most stories are the same size. Instead, it will simply be the most entertaining or interesting--the ones I can write about. So, without further adieu, the topic of this week's Star Power.

Lady Gaga doesn't like to wear pants.

This strikes me as interesting for two reasons. First, her album was released almost a full year ago. It has had two number one singles and various others that hit the top five. She has been featured in Rolling Stone, Maxim, this very web site, and surely many other major publications. But I really just became aware of her in the past few weeks. Secondly, it seems that in every interview of hers I skim through, she seems to try and force us all into thinking that her Peaches-lite sexuality both makes her a) unique and b) better than artists who aren't hypersexual. I'm not going to stand on the moral right here and argue about why it's the opposite or whatever. No, I'm going to say that it's quite ridiculous Lady Gaga is out there campaigning to us that she's the first one to discover sex sells, at least in music.



I don't intend to imply that I know exactly when it started. I'm sure we could trace it to burlesque shows, and try to find the exact moment they entered the popular lexicon, but I'm going to go to a more tangible area. The earliest example of blatant sexuality in popular music that I readily thought of is picture above: the album cover to Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass' Whipped Cream & Other Delights. The album hit number one on the Billboard Top 200 in 1965 and again in 1966, when rock music was ruling the world. The cover is considered one of the most iconic of the era. Honestly, I don't think this is the first example of sex in pop music, but it might be the first example of it working really well. Not that jazz was out of style by that point, but for a jazz album to convert fans of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, not to mention the fact it wasn't by Miles Davis or John Coltrane, or a cool jazz musician, there needs to be some compelling factor. That album cover certainly compelled a fair amount of people.

After album covers, those rock musicians I just mentioned started getting a tad lascivious. I don't need to go down the line and tell you every artist that wrote or sang a song about sex in one vague way or another, we all know it was happening all the time. By 1973, Let's Get It On was an immediate, legendary, sexy hit. The same year, The Rolling Stones released a song called "Star Star," about groupies. Just a few years later, they also released "Some Girls," about what girls like to do. Black girls, for example, like to "**** all night." Of course, Marvin Gaye had already had earlier success with simpler topics like grapevines and ecology, and the Rolling Stones had earlier popularity for being, well, the Rolling Stones. So perhaps we weren't yet at the point where someone could come out of the blue, sing about sex in the most blatant and explicit ways, and become a star.



On the other hand, we were close to that day. Sure, Prince's first few albums were not terribly successful. They all charted and he had moderate success on the R&B charts with such sexy titles as "Soft and Wet," now a euphemism for sex, "I Wanna Be Your Lover," a number one R&B hit, "Dirty Mind," about having one, and "Controversy," about making it. By this point, Prince was on album four, and was making strides to the Billboard charts. His sexuality intrigued major artists such as Rick James and the aforementioned Rolling Stones (who knew they'd show up a lot in this sexy piece), who brought him on tour with them. The manly Stones audience didn't much care for the little guy, but it gave him the audience to release 1999, a top ten Billboard album. A shining light in sexuality in music, though the singles from the album were rarely the sexy ones, the sexy ones definitely existed. I recently argued that a line from "Let's Pretend We're Married," which actually was a single, albeit not one of the more successful ones, will never be matched in awesomely blatant sexuality: "I don't mean to be nasty, I sincerely want to **** the taste out of your mouth." Now Prince is a Jehovah's Witness, lover of God, who censors his own albums by will. But back then, Prince was the greatest purveyor of sex as musical expression, and this album showed it.

Since then, we haven't had that many ultra-sex performers. Occasionally it would pop up, pun ex post facto intended, such as in the number 2 George Michael hit "I Want Your Sex" or Color Me Badd's (also number 2) "I Wanna Sex You Up." Perhaps no one was quite as explicit as Prince, but we had chart topping numbers, not about the euphemistic "getting it on," but simply going up to a lady and saying the musical equivalent of "nice shoes, wanna ****?" In fact, in just a few more years, we'd get to using that word, one songs like Nine Inch Nails' rock hit, "Closer." Liz Phair had the female equivalent, long before Peaches or Lady Gaga, with songs like "Flower," where she expounds upon a certain act at which she's the queen, or "**** and Run," which, although a regretful song, talks freely about one night stands. Lady Gaga's joy of disco sticks almost seems tame when you look at history. During this period, Beck took somewhat of a tame choice, merely explaining to the world the logic of all "Sexx Laws," still a rather sexual song, and perhaps the only usage of the term "hepatitis contact lens," a term I like so much I added this sentence to this article, in popular media.



Today the trend continues. Akon and Snoop Dogg had a number one single with a song that may have tricked some radio stations into playing it, but we all know the real title is "I Wanna **** You." As I type this, there's a song called "Birthday Sex" rocking the R&B charts, and doing quite well on the pop charts. Not to mention Peaches, who is the true leader of modern hypersexual music, perhaps evidenced by the fact that she'll never really hit mainstream, despite her latest album, tamely titled I Feel Cream, peaked on the Billboard chart at 160. Lady Gaga might not wear pants, but she's hardly the first to do so, and she really needs to stop acting like she's at the helm of some movement because she admits she's a girl who likes sex in 2009.

But whatever, "Just Dance" is a fun song.

Farewell Song

The year this week is 1960. 1960 is an interesting year, in that it is the only year of the entire 52 that I'm doing where I couldn't decide on a clear winner. Not because there were too many great songs and I couldn't choose, but quite the opposite - there was a definite lack of songs I felt comfortable calling the best of anything. So, from 1958 to 2009, this is the only time I'm settling. However, I'm settling on a fantastic performer, so I'm not too upset that the song isn't quite up to snuff. If this happened in, say, 1973, I wouldn't feel so bad, as that would be months into the experiment, and you would see there's really only one year that I have this problem in. Unfortunately, that year is this early, and it's quite lonely. Appropriately, this week's song is by Roy Orbison, and it's called "Only The Lonely."

Typically I've been posting a video along with the song, but this week, since I've down talked the year a bit too much, I won't do it the indignity. Also, I could only find live versions and videos that didn't work, two things I was hoping to avoid. Oh well.

Thanks for joining us once again, and I hope to see you next week for another stirring edition of the Saturday Morning Car-Tune News!