A Carly Simon Album? What Has Happened To Me?!

[ggm1960]

Carousing through the recent lists of $5 mp3 albums presented by amazon e-mail notice what pops out at me but the Carly Simon Greatest Hits album. A few clicks later and it's added to my iTunes libraries and Cloud Player. It's playing now and I seem to be enjoying it!

This never would have happened as recently as 10-15 years ago when I had little tolerance for anything so soft and mushy. I must be getting old!

 

I guess there's nothing left to do but keep an eye out for Melody Gardot to show up on the mp3 album list.....

[Beck]

Nah, you're not getting old. You're just broadening your taste in music. I've always liked Carly Simon and I was younger then.

 

Try Carole King next!

[Lee Knight]

I guess I've been old my whole life

[nat whilk II]

Carly just rubs some people the wrong way - as far as I'm concerned she can rub on me anytime! Well, the younger Carly.

 

nat whilk ii

[Iamthesky]

I completely understand. In my case it was Hall & Oates. To research for an ongoing internet "discussion" smiley-lol I sat down and watched the video for "Maneater". Then suddenly I realized what an amazing musical arrangement was happening -- as soon as I ignored the cheezy lyrics and thought of it as a Jon Anderson-style voice instrument, the perfection of the sparseness of the keys and sax came through, and suddenly I was listening to a whole different song.

[nat whilk II]

Yeah, my high school self was a real biased prig when it came to lots of bands and performers. Part of it was peer-pressure. If some performer became the latest butt of the jokes, no one would have the nerve to stand up and say "jeez guys, I kinda like Mungo Jerry!"

 

Not that I liked particularly went wild for Mungo Jerry then or now...but you get the point.

 

Now I feel the idiot if I just can't get into something that a lot of other people seem to understand and enjoy. I can't pretend I like something when I don't - that would be the opposite error. But there is a real rush in finally getting it, finally tuning in, on something that I could never warm to before. Some people see this as lowering standards - I see it as expanding understanding.

 

nat whilk ii

 

 

[Vito Corleone]

What's not to like? Great songwriting, good performances.

 

I've liked Carly Simon since I first heard "Anticipation" being used for a ketchup commercial as a kid. I wanted to buy the No Secrets album when it came out but I was afraid my mom would see the album cover and not approve. But I've had her GH album since it came out in the mid 70s.

 

But I got into rock by liking soft stuff first. The first LP I ever purchased was "Baby I'm A Want You" by Bread. I was (still am) a big Carpenters fan.

[UstadKhanAli]

I'm not a huge Carly Simon fan, but what's wrong with listening to her? Or anything soft? I've listened to soft stuff - and hard stuff - since I was a little kid. Sometimes, I want to hear ambient music, Sade, Javanese gamelan, "Kind of Blue" or orchestral music. Other times, Metallica, Black Label Society, Tool, Prong, Judas Priest, or Iron Maiden.

[blue2blue]

I thought "You're So Vain" was a terrific song. I can't say my other recent listening touchdowns in her career measured up to that high water mark, but it can't be the only terrific song she's done. (Well, it can, I guess, but I'm thinking there are likely some other good things I haven't got to.)

 

Anyhow, I didn't know anyone else was aware of Melody Gardot but I've found I quite like some of her stuff. But I'm a long time listener to torch singers.

 

I discovered Gardot -- along with a lot of other artists -- through my streaming music subscription. (Currently Google All Access, which appears to be the best choice of services for me as a former MOGger and a current despiser of Beats Music, which is the horrible service that MOG was dismantled by new owners, Beat Electronics, to make room for.)

[Vito Corleone]

I thought "You're So Vain" was a terrific song. I can't say my other recent listening touchdowns in her career measured up to that high water mark, but it can't be the only terrific song she's done. (Well, it can, I guess, but I'm thinking there are likely some other good things I haven't got to.)

 

I don't know that she ever reached that peak again, but that was quite a peak. Few singer/songwriters have such an iconic, timeless song in their repertoire. Although I thought You Belong To Me (which she co-wrote with Michael McDonald) was pretty strong as well.

 

My recollection of the early 70s is that Carly, Carole and Joni were sort of the triumvirate of female singer/songwriters of the era with Carly leaning more on her sex appeal than the other two because well....why not, I suppose. She wasn't the hit-machine that Carole was nor the artist extraordinaire that was Joni, but far from a lightweight either.

[Lee Knight]

That's the Way I've always Heard it Shpuld Be Anticipation The Right Thing To Do Haven't Got Time For the Pain Nobody Does It Better You Belong To Me I think these are all great tunes...

[Vito Corleone]

Yes, those are all great songs. I don't believe she wrote Nobody Does It Better but still a good one.

[blue2blue]

That's the Way I've always Heard it Shpuld Be Anticipation The Right Thing To Do Haven't Got Time For the Pain Nobody Does It Better You Belong To Me I think these are all great tunes...

Yeah, those are precisely the tunes that cut my Carly Simon re-appreciation sojourn rather short. I looked at a greatest hits or two and recognized a lot of tracks like those and thought, oops, no need to go there.

 

But "Vain" is a great song in its way, a clever and fun central conceit, I suspect we can all agree on that.

 

Also very fond of the dreams/clouds in coffee line... because it so economically paints the scene of an outdoor castles in the air lover's conversation and the implied meltdown/letdown.

 

I like a song that really packs a lot of story in. That said, the gavotte thing, I dunno. Who ever knew what the heck a gavotte was? (Some kind of courtly line dance, right? Anyhow.) That said, because I had not a clue, I'd always just assumed the line was as you watched yourself go by -- functionally the same (but if I knew why the heck rich, hip Hollywood types were dancing gavottes in 1972 maybe it would be a richer experience, I guess)...

 

 

[Vito Corleone]

I suspect we can all agree to appreciate the album covers as well....

 

[sailorman]

I'm not a big fan of Carly's popular works, but watching/hearing her sing "Close Your Eyes" with James Taylor or "Times They Are A Changin" at the No Nukes concert with Taylor, David Crosby are both 'chills down the spine' moments for me. She had the pipes singing with others, just not that enamored of her own stuff.

[Phil O'Keefe]

That's the Way I've always Heard it Should Be Anticipation The Right Thing To Do Haven't Got Time For the Pain Nobody Does It Better You Belong To Me I think these are all great tunes...

 

Absolutely. I have no qualms about admitting to liking a lot of her 70s era stuff. I liked it then, and I still appreciate it today.

[Folder]

Yeah, my high school self was a real biased prig when it came to lots of bands and performers. Part of it was peer-pressure. If some performer became the latest butt of the jokes, no one would have the nerve to stand up and say "jeez guys, I kinda like Mungo Jerry!"

 

 

There's a substantial amount of music that I loved in high school that I can hardly stand to listen to today. I guess you could say I was a little bit of a prog-rock snob, although I also loved 70's pop and still do.

 

In 1980 I moved to Athens Georgia and experienced a huge musical culture shock. I was at R.E.M.'s third gig (At least I think it was their third gig. There is some conflicting information on the internet. It might have been their second or fourth gig.) After living in Athens for a while my taste in prog-rock diminished greatly.

 

My musical tastes have always been changing and expanding and even contracting. I might have liked a certain song, then didn't like it, then liked it again, then didn't like it, then liked it, etc.. etc... Sometimes I might stop liking something because of over exposure but sometimes I don't even know why I might not like something.

 

I never really liked Simple Minds "Don't You Forget About Me". I like just about everything else I've heard by them and I don't think "DYFAM" is a bad song but for some reason I don't like it. (Something about the vocal phrasing maybe?) The first 8-track I ever bought was Lynyrd Skynyrds "Second Helping" but during most of the 80's and 90's I would change the channel whenever "Sweet Home Alabama" came on the radio. Just couldn't listen to it. Now I think it's a well crafted pop record and I like to listen to it when ever I hear it.

 

As far as Carly Simon's songs, I liked the ones I heard on the radio as a kid but I'm not sure I really knew who was singing them. I did like a lot of soft rock though. One of my first albums was the Carpenters Album with "Rainy Days and Mondays" on it. Of course there was a time in my teens when I would have never admited to liking them and I probably didn't like them at the time.

 

One thing I've discovered as I've gotten older is that there are certain qualities (regardless of the time period in which it was made) in most of the music that I like. Things like melody, groove, soul and dynamics.

[blue2blue]

I always stood up for Mungo Jerry's "In the Summertime," which, trust me, got loads of derision from my pals. But they all had their feet of clay. Everybody's got their guilty pleasures. We never made fun of each other's parents or girl friends or cars -- but we were merciless when we perceived a hipness advantage over a pal's tastes. Obviously, not everyone could play.

[Vito Corleone]

 

I never really liked Simple Minds "Don't You Forget About Me". I like just about everything else I've heard by them and I don't think "DYFAM" is a bad song but for some reason I don't like it. (Something about the vocal phrasing maybe?)

 

Might be because it isn't really their song. The writers offered it to both Bryan Ferry and Billy Idol (who later did cover it) who turned it down before they took it to Simple Minds. The vocal phrasing likely comes from the original songwriting demo who probably recorded it with Ferry or Idol in mind. (You can certainly hear elements of both of them in the styling.) Simple Minds apparently didn't think that much of the song either. They recorded it and then pretty much forgot about it (no pun intended) until it turned up to be a huge hit after the movie came out and they were essentially forced to embrace it.

 

As far as musical tastes changing, yes I think we all go through that to one degree or another. I certainly like a much broader range of music now than I did in my youth. A lot of stuff I liked when younger I eventually just lost any real connection with or use for. REM is a good example. I used to really, really like that band. Especially the earlier IRS stuff. I don't DISlike them now, but I don't ever listen to them or feel any reason to do so. It just doesn't connect to me anymore.

 

Some of my earlier "guilty pleasure" type bands come and go. As a kid I loved ELO and Journey. Then went through a period where I really couldn't stand either band, but now really appreciate them again. OTOH, two bands that I used to love and then couldn't stand and still don't have any love for are Styx and REO Speedwagon.

[ggm1960]

Part of it may be that I'd recently seen a couple youtube clips of her performing live with a kick ass backup band, it looked like on a boat dock. I've often developed a better appreciation for performers after having seen them doing live performances.

[Folder]

Might be because it isn't really their song. The writers offered it to both Bryan Ferry and Billy Idol (who later did cover it) who turned it down before they took it to Simple Minds. The vocal phrasing likely comes from the original songwriting demo who probably recorded it with Ferry or Idol in mind. (You can certainly hear elements of both of them in the styling.) Simple Minds apparently didn't think that much of the song either. They recorded it and then pretty much forgot about it (no pun intended) until it turned up to be a huge hit after the movie came out and they were essentially forced to embrace it.

 

 

Wow, when I was driving home yesterday the DJ on the radio was talking about how Billy Idol had turned down "Don't You Forget About Me" and had regretted it, then recorded his own version. I had never heard that story before and that was the reason I thought about the song when I saw this thread. Then he played the Billy Idol version but I didn't really like it either because it had the same vocal phrasing. LOL !!!

 

 

As far as musical tastes changing, yes I think we all go through that to one degree or another. I certainly like a much broader range of music now than I did in my youth. A lot of stuff I liked when younger I eventually just lost any real connection with or use for. REM is a good example. I used to really, really like that band. Especially the earlier IRS stuff. I don't DISlike them now, but I don't ever listen to them or feel any reason to do so. It just doesn't connect to me anymore.

 

 

 

I certainly liked the Bill Berry era better than the later stuff although I really like the song "Lotus" from Up. I had Accelerate which was one of their last ones and I thought a lot of the songs on it were good but the production ruined it for me. Way too much compression and even distortion. I can't imagine what went wrong. I suppose it was in the mastering stage. .

 

 

Some of my earlier "guilty pleasure" type bands come and go. As a kid I loved ELO and Journey. Then went through a period where I really couldn't stand either band, but now really appreciate them again. OTOH, two bands that I used to love and then couldn't stand and still don't have any love for are Styx and REO Speedwagon.

 

I also heard "Mr. Roboto" on the radio yesterday. When that song came out it seems like everybody hated it and I remember trying to defend it. I started to mention it in my post yesterday but then I thought might be too embarrassing. LOL !

[Lee Knight]

Truth be told, though... she never was a stellar performer. She's admitted as much throughout the years. She never really got comfortable with performing. And that includes performing for a studio mic as well. I think you can hear that in her work. An awkwardness that some find unsettling. I like it.

 

In the late 70's, a friend and engineer on our early demos worked on an album of hers. In his words, "Her vocal tracks are cobbled together and wouldn't exist without extensive comping and punching in." He wasn't talking about perfecting the track. This was to get it to exist in any way, shape or form.

 

The above is not to pile on Ms. Simon. I'm a fan of her 70s hits. But it does bring some light to her nature as a performer.

[nat whilk II]

Makes me think about Carole King and how it was only James Taylor's support and urging that got her out of the composer's closet and out onto the stage and into the studio.

 

And the biography about Woody Allen that Netflix is streaming - about how he absolutely hated performing, fought his managers who pushed and prodded him to try standup when all he wanted to do was submit jokes in written form. That's a good bio by way....

 

And Nick Drake's difficulties with performing. And Andy Partridge - and Robbie Robertson - Glenn Gould - lots of folks.

 

nat whilk ii

 

[blue2blue]

 

I saw Nick Drake mentioned above; I've been listening to one of those 'extended' albums that I normally hate so much (outtakes, false starts, adverts, anything to pad), but this is interesting, if a bit distracting.

 

I knew, of course, that Drake was a kid when the UK folk scene of the early 60s was happening, but I was pretty much beside myself to hear a couple of demos where he pretty slavishly covers a couple of 'familiar' John Renbourn songs. (Familiar to John Renbourn fans, anyhow.) He's not quite there on the guitar, but they're demanding, complex arrangements.

 

While his vocals follow Renbourn's, he sounds fairly different in that department. But it's really interesting to hear a guy who managed to carve his own distinctive niche in the tail end of the UK progressive folk scene so early in his career, sounding like a presumed hero/model. Shows that a little imitation early on never held back someone creative.

[Lee Knight]

Makes me think about Carole King and how it was only James Taylor's support and urging that got her out of the composer's closet and out onto the stage and into the studio.

 

And the biography about Woody Allen that Netflix is streaming - about how he absolutely hated performing, fought his managers who pushed and prodded him to try standup when all he wanted to do was submit jokes in written form. That's a good bio by way....

 

And Nick Drake's difficulties with performing. And Andy Partridge - and Robbie Robertson - Glenn Gould - lots of folks.

 

nat whilk ii

 

I think Carole King is a good parallel. Clear differences in writing ability etc. but they both have that awkward performance style.

 

And YES! That Woody doc is fantastic!!! I saw it a few months ago and ate it up. I'm a big fan of the man.