Lots of good live bands floating around but nothing that’s going to change popular culture. Band wise in 2024 Oasis has the biggest selling and streamed album with Time flies Edit in the UK.
thrill was top of a play list that showed video where they looked to be playing. i watched a couple more.
Surreal moment when your brother in law pops up in an article on the completely unrelated football forum you use
Most bands are selling their new releases on cassette and vinyl, I just don’t get it. I can get the appeal of something like a vintage guitar or amp and can see a DJ playing an old school vinyl set but can’t see why people would want to listen to a cassette when they can just stick it on Apple Music for a completely clean, unadulterated listen.
i never bought music on cassettes as the cassette would end up getting chewed. far more sensible to get it on vinyl or cd and record it onto a cassette if necessary.
I remember sitting by the radio waiting for songs to play to record them into cassette. The first form of Napster. And the recorded off TV movie collection on VHS.
The fine art of making a mixtape - especially if it was for someone else. Could be make or break in certain situations. What to put on/what order and timing things right to avoid dead space or cutting off a track (my parents' hi-fi had a fader which was class for such) Used to love doing it.
I used to record long mixed tapes on a 10" reel-to-reel for parties in the late 60's and 70's. Always has to remember to add in a long track at around every 60-75 minutes to call for a toilet break (much vino and beer consumed in those days). Main track used for that purpose was Dylan's 10 minute+ " Desolation Row" - I used to annouce it as "Desperation Row". The ladies especially appreciated the "pause", the blokes the opposite as they lost out on "close dancing/groping" time.
So now you know If you thought that YMCA By the village people was a gay anthem, think again. According to Victor Willis, who wrote the lyrics, the famous song is entirely heterosexual – and anyone suggesting something to the contrary should “get their minds out of the gutter”. “Come January 2025,” Willis added on Facebook, “my wife will start suing each and every news organisation that falsely refers to YMCA, either in their headlines or alluded to in the base of the story, that YMCA is somehow a gay anthem because such notion is based solely on the song’s lyrics alluding to elicit [sic] activity for which it does not.” YMCA appeared on Village People’s third album, Cruisin’. It was an international smash hit, getting to No 1 in 17 countries on its release in October 1978. A much-loved staple at sports events, wedding receptions and student discos, it has sold 12m copies. In 2020 it was preserved for posterity by the National Recording Registry of the US Library of Congress as “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant”, and inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. That same year, Donald Trump started playing it at rallies, and has done so consistently ever since, often dancing to it and another Village People hit, Macho Man. While most musicians have reacted with horror to Trump using their songs, Willis says that YMCA has “greatly benefited”. Willis said on Facebook: “The financial benefits have been great … YMCA is estimated to gross several million dollars since the President Elect’s continued use of the song. Therefore, I’m glad I allowed the President Elect’s continued use of YMCA. And I thank him for choosing to use my song.” It had previously been assumed that the lyrics of YMCA advised young men who were new to a big city to head to the eponymous men’s hostel and gym, where they might find likeminded friends in the communal showers. However, Willis wrote that the line “You can hang out with all the boys” is “simply 1970s Black slang for Black guys hanging out together for sports, gambling or whatever. There’s nothing gay about that.” It is, however, undeniable that the Village People were put together in order to appeal to the burgeoning gay market as disco swept America in the late 70s. Their name comes from Greenwich Village, at that point New York’s most vibrant gay neighbourhood. In 1977, the French disco songwriter Jacques Morali made an album called Village People, on which Willis was the singer. When it was a hit, Morali, who died of Aids in 1991, recruited the band in New York gay clubs and via an ad which read: “Macho Types Wanted: Must Dance And Have A Moustache.” He dressed them as fantasy gay male archetypes including a cowboy, leather man, cop, Native American and construction worker. However, they rapidly crossed over to a mainstream audience. In 1979, the US Navy considered using their song In the Navy for a TV recruitment drive, and to this day another tune, Go West, is sung by Arsenal fans, the lyrics changed to “one nil to the Arsenal”. Perhaps all three Village People hits have returned to their heterosexual roots - although Willis added: “I don’t mind that gays think of YMCA as their anthem.
It’s almost as if he benefits from bigoted MAGRATS buying copies of it, so doesn’t want them being put off?
I watch this guy from time to time. Popped up On my Facebook this morning. Saying what I wanted to say but better. https://www.facebook.com/share/v/15JgQd5GiU/?mibextid=UalRPS
The House of Love still excellent live, in fact better than the last incarnation with Terry Bickers in. Went to see them last night in Brighton as London sold out by the time I got round to getting a ticket. The band that should have been bigger than Oasis ... with better songs.
