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One of my favorite subgenres of teen pop/teen movies of the '50s and '60s are the feeble attempts to force kids into adopting new crazes. In trying to mimic the success of "The Twist" and "The Loco-Motion," most of the pop songs had accompanying dances. The songs are always kind of pushy, because instead of simply introducing the new dance, they instead declare that the dances are already the next big thing that all the kids are doing. It's interesting also how much the songs must have depended on television appearances to ensure their popularity (though I guess I don't actually know what the "Loco-Motion" dance is). The teen films tended to exploit familiar fads (surfing, dragracing etc.), while also branching out to new ones. The Frankie & Annette Beach Party series was really good at this: Beach Blanket Bingo was all about skydiving, Muscle Beach Party had bodybuilding, and Pajama Party was about, uhh, pajamas.

There are countless examples of these, but I've been recently introduced to a couple really bizarre ones that I like a lot. One is the 1957 film Bop Girl Goes Calypso, which is about how a scientist with some fancy machine is "proving" that rock 'n' roll is on the way out, predicting that calypso will be the big new craze! There were a few films that came out at this time all with the same hypothesis, including Calypso Heat Wave which features Maya Angelou(!)

And in the music realm, how about this great song performed by Eddie Hodges, the child star best known as Huck Finn in the 1960 adaptation directed by Michael Curtiz? "Mugmates" suggests that what "everyone does" now to indicate they are going steady, instead of giving someone their pin, is simply have... matching coffee mugs.

Eddie Hodges - Mugmates [mp3]

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Brian Eno - Here Come the Warm Jets [mp3]

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Beulah - Emma Blowgun's Last Stand [mp3] (at 2:25)

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...the 21st night of September?

Buddy Holly - Everyday [mp3]

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Pavement - Silence Kit [mp3]

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Tears For Fears - Broken [mp3]

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The Clarissa Explains It All theme [mp3]

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The death of the era of the professional songwriters of Tin Pan Alley and the Brill Building also meant the death of something else: the standard. Particularly in the pre-rock period, songwriters explicitly wrote songs so that they would become ubiquitous, performed by everybody. Before the phonograph, the primary distribution method for pop music was sheet music, so that a home consumer in Middle-of-Nowhere, Ohio could pick up a song in the local store and perform it with their family and party guests in their parlor room. Even when the bulk of pop standards were written for specific characters to sing in musical theatre pieces, songwriters intentionally wrote them so that they would make sense out of context, hoping that as many singers as possible would pick them up and perform their own renditions.

The songs, then, did not "belong" to anyone. Though some artists may have arguably given definitive performances of certain songs, a song like "I Could Write a Book" or "Needles and Pins" was free to be interpreted by any number of performers. For example, within the span of three years, renditions of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" were released by major artists like Gladys Knight & the Pips, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, the Miracles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, etc. Time may have been kindest to Marvin Gaye's interpretation, but all of those performances were considered separate and equally valid.

The idea of standards is still widely known in the jazz world, codified by things like the Real Book and Ella Fitzgerald's series of 'Songbook' records. But in the rock and pop world, the notion of "standards" has been entirely replaced by that of "covers." In the contemporary listener's mind, songs are linked intrinsically to their original studio recordings by their original performers, which, for rock music today, almost invariably means the song's composer. If released today, the blogs and the YouTube descriptions would all be referring to Marvin Gaye's hit not as one of many renditions of Barrett Strong and Norman Whitfield's pop standard, but as his "Gladys Knight cover."

This has benefits, of course, for the songwriter. Because the best songwriters are now writing for themselves and not for others, they're allowed to create more personal expressions through their music. It makes sense, for example, for us to consider "Lithium" in the context of Kurt Cobain's life, the Nevermind album, and Nirvana's overall artistic output.

But that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with still listening to these songs as songs either. Jon Brion often talks about how useful it is to strip "Lithium" down to its bare essentials: melody, chords, and lyrics; revealing that above all, it's simply a gorgeous, tuneful piece of songcraft, even if someone else were to perform it without Cobain's specific anxieties.

I'm starting this series of posts, then, to examine songs like "Lithium" that ought to belong in the Great American Songbook, if the book were still accepting submissions for new standards. Some of these will be songs released within the past thirty-odd years, too late to become canonical. Others will be songs from the standards era that for some reason or other failed to become one, or else has dropped out of today's public conscious.

Soon, I'll begin with a song from the tail end of the standards era that is, appropriately, about a musician reminiscing about a song he had recorded back in the good ol' days: Randy Newman's early composition "Vine Street."

I just discovered a song on my hard drive seemingly written just for me and my superb sartorial statements.

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The Majorettes - White Levis [mp3]

And yes, I do find lampshades to be the best dance partners.

When rock bands play free concerts in Millennium Park, generally a bunch of old people and tourists will wander in and populate a good number of the seats near the front. Though unfamiliar with the band playing, they are excited to relax looking at Frank Gehry's beautiful design, their dogs barking after a full day of meandering at Navy Pier and the Harley Davidson store. After sitting uncomfortably for two songs, they shuffle out.

Last night, however, as The Feelies played their first show in Chicago in eighteen years, the tourists were bobbing their heads, asking their young neighbors, "What's the name of this group? The Feel-whats?" My point isn't that the reunited band now only appeals to geriatrics. It's that they appealed to everyone.

I expected to enjoy myself; I did not expect to be blown away. I expected the crowd to enjoy it; I did not expect them to go nuts. The Feelies are of course a revered band, but I don't think there's that broad of a popular awareness of them, comparatively. They only put out four albums, none of which sold well, and probably it's only their debut Crazy Rhythms that the majority of people are familiar with. Unlike the similarly reunited Pixies, they haven't had a Nirvana or, dare I say it, a Fight Club to really elevate their status among the masses. So how can you account for the response last night? My best answer: they just fucking tore it up.

They were the coolest looking old dudes and chick ever. They're the kind of band you look at and think, "I wish those were my parents." Lead singer/guitarist Glenn Mercer maintained a deadpan cool as he rattled off fiery lines on his Telecaster, but from the way he came to downstage and postured in front of the crowd, you could tell he was loving it. Bassist Brenda Sauter seemed genuinely appreciative as she thanked us for waiting twenty years. And it's amazing how much a traditional four-chord lead gtr-rhythm gtr-bass arrangement can be enhanced by an auxiliary percussionist.

The other thing about Millennium Park shows is that the audience generally sits in their seat or on the lawn quietly appreciating the music. There was a palpable tension as this show; I think everyone knew that sitting down wasn't right, but we were powerless to do anything about it. Then, during set-closer "Crazy Rhythms," a lone kid went up to the front of the stage and started spazzing out. A security guard slowly walked toward him to ask him to sit down, but the kid danced away as the guard approached, before suddenly turning and bolting. He apparently did a lap around the seats, and reemerged at the front from the opposite side, to applause from the audience. Then, spontaneously, the whole crowd got up out of their seats and rushed the front of the stage, dancing. It was glorious. They demanded two encores, and got them, including covers of R.E.M.'s "Carnival of Sorts," The Velvet Underground's "What Goes On" (the second this month I've seen!) and the Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black."

As they were leaving the stage, drummer Stan Demeski came down to the front and shook the hand of the spazzy dancing kid who started it all. A+, spazzy dancing kid.

Update: Looks like I'm not the only one...

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The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms

[photos by robert loerzel]

His finest hour. I just happened to be watching this last night too. Spoooooky!