Rate-A-Record
A Brand new Plethora of Pop Series
Certain people of my era — semi baby boomers — remember Dick Clark’s American Bandstand well. Sure, performing artists lip-synched their songs, but when you were stuck in bum-field Alabama as I was, you grabbed your pop/rock/soul music any way you could.
Sometimes the Jackson 5 would play; sometimes The Dave Clark Five, or even Jefferson Airplane performing “White Rabbit” to the consternation of anyone over 35 who might have been listening.
A segment of the show I never much cared for — because it was brief and sketchy — was…
RATE-A-RECORD
a place where two teens stood there with Dick, listened to snippets of two songs, and then rated them anywhere from 35–98. Don’t ask me why these numbers, and never doubt that the sings either were, could be, or perhaps never possibly could be hits. The only one I remember was a novelty tune by The Pipkins:
“Gimme Dat Ding,”
and no, I don’t remember how high/low it was rated.
But all that got me to thinking that a way to keep older music alive is to play the game here!
So, I will propose the two songs, give you a link to both, and then in the comments, have at it. Winners, losers, ties, who really cares? The music of our lives is one of the best ways to keep us connected, thriving, and for me anyway, as sane as I can be.
So, here goes:
The first song is from 1993, a song off an album by a female singer/songwriter who was best known for a hit song about child abuse, but who also semi-popularized a place in Manhattan called “Tom’s Diner,” better known to Seinfeld fans as “Monk’s. This song stirred me, but I am not rating any songs so that I won’t bias you. Suffice to say that I not only obsessed over it then — and maybe the place name was part of my obsession, but it’s also so in my head now, that it’s the last thing I hear at night, the first when I wake:
Suzanne Vega’s “In Liverpool”:
“…on Sunday, no traffic on the avenue. The light is pale and thin…like you….”
Song number two is from 2006 — one my daughter and I used to play incessantly; she was a teenager, and I, in my late 40’s somewhere. I had lost a few people to the disease and she never asked why I might be tearing up at certain lines. So maybe now I’ll tell her, now that the singer is making a comeback. Listen now to:
Regina Spektor’s “On the Radio.”
“You’ll listen to it twice, cause the DJ fell asleep…”
Man.
Cool points for internal recognitions.
So there you go; play along by posting numbers and rationale, and if you need to, you may fall back on the AB tried-and-true criteria:
“It has a good beat and it’s fun to dance to.”
So, rate between 35–98 and have fun!
Calling all Plethora of Pop-ers; Pierce McIntyre, Simon Dillon, Kathy Copeland Padden, Kathryn Dillon, Kevin Alexander, Alex Markham, AB, Paul Combs, Paul Walker, Christopher Robin, KiKi Walter, Anthony Overs, Mark Holburn, David Acaster, Karla Clifton, Chris Zappa, Steven Hale, If Ever You’re Listening, Nicole Brown, Jeffrey Harvey, JP Timko, Frank Mastropolo, Sarah Paris, Robert Gowty, and anyone else up for playing.