Musical Guilty Pleasures
Most of these songs were derided as "just pop". Others are eccentric, or misunderstood.
At one time, I was ashamed that I liked them.
Karen Carpenter was a terrific singer (notice she played the drums too). Her brother was a very good arranger.
Carpenters
ABBA
I think what put a lot of people off with Abba is they looked “fake”, even by 1970s standards. Their songs, while pure pop, were musically good, and their arrangements very interesting.
BJ Thomas
The next song is by an artist that I think is misunderstood.
Hilary Clinton famously said “I’m not sittin’ here some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette. I’m sittin’ here because I love him and I respect him and I honor what he’s been through and what we’ve been through together.”
The irony is that Hilary called herself a feminist, but Tammy lived it. She was married at 17 (real name: Virginia Wynette Pugh), and lived in a shack with no running water. Later, as a divorced single mother, she supported her family as a hairdresser.
She moved to Nashville with no job, lived in a motel, and finally auditioned without an appointment at a famous producer’s office. She got the job.
She did not “stand by her man”, divorcing her alcoholic womanizer husband, George Jones.
Hilary is the one who “stood by her man.”
Listen to the words. That voice, wow, sung right from the heart.
Tammy Wynette
Terry Allen is Very eccentric. I don't know anyone who produces music like his.
p.s. Allen is a painter, and sculptor, with a number of notable bronze sculptures installed publicly in various cities throughout the United States. Listen, and you will see why I point this out.
Notice the violin becomes a fiddle, then a violin again.
Terry Allen
This one is derided by some as “stealing”, because it consists of samples of other people’s work.
Steinski
- Lesson 2
Like some of these others, dismissed by some as “just pop”. It is, but it is really, really good pop.