Perfect Examples

[jennythereader]

So what songs do you guys point to and say "This song is a perfect example of what I mean when I say (whatever musical genre)?"

My examples are:
"Turn, Turn, Turn" by The Byrds; Folk-Rock
"Pastures of Plenty" and "This Land is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie; Folk
"They Can't Take That Away From Me" by Ella Fitzgerald; Jazz
"Sing, Sing, Sing" by Benny Goodman; Jazz
"Purple Haze" by Jimi Hendrix; Psychedelic Rock
"Twist and Shout" by The Beatles; Rock

There are others of course, but these are the ones that are at the top of my head at the moment.

Comments

This One's Right Up My Alley

[nounsandverbs]

Hmmm ...

Rock 'n' Roll: Elvis Presley - "Jailhouse Rock"

Pop: The Beatles - "I Wanna Hold Your Hand"

Folk-rock: Bob Dylan - "Like a Rolling Stone"
or: Simon & Garfunkel - "Sounds of Silence" (also credit to producer Tom Wilson, who "electrified" the original acoustic version without telling S&G)

Motown: Smokey Robinson & the Miracles - "I Second That Emotion"
(Honorable mention: Marvin Gaye - "What's Goin' On")

Southern Rock: Allman Brothers Band - "Whippin' Post" (OK, not a huge category to begin with, but I love that song)

Indie Rock: New Pornographers - "All for Swinging You Around"

Jazz w/Vocals: Nina Simone - "Feelin' Good"
Jazz Instrumental: Miles Davis - "So What"
Jazz Fusion: Herbie Hancock - "Chameleon"

Old-school Broadway musical: "Guys and Dolls"
Modern Broadway musical: "Ragtime"

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[purpura.livejournal.com]

Old School Broadway Musical - Oklahoma
Modern Broadway Musical - Into the Woods

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[nounsandverbs]

Like I told you in person (but posting here to spark a lively discussion) -- I excluded Sondheim and Rogers & Hammerstein because I think they are so much in a class by themselves that they are, in effect, their own genres. I could pick a "Perfect Sondheim Musical" or a "Perfect R&H Musical", but I wouldn't pick either one as an example of "perfect musical."

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[purpura.livejournal.com]

And I still support them as perfect. When they become the standard with which all others adhere to then how can the originators of the standard be anything but the "perfect" example?

And Ragtime had some issues that other modern musicals didn't have. Their better musical was Once on This Island.

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

See, I'm going to split the difference between you and purpura

Since R&H basically invented the modern Broadway musical (i.e. a linear story with songs helping to advance the plot/character development), you can't remove them from the genre when choosing a perfect example.

Sondheim, on the other hand, I think is different enough from the rest of Broadway that he almost does deserve to be considered a separate genre.

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[nounsandverbs]

Very well, then. I guess I do agree with "Oklahoma" as a best R&H musical, with honorable mention to "South Pacific" and "The King and I."

Sondheim -- as brilliant as he is, and as much as I love him -- hasn't turned out to be as universally influential as R&H were. Many composers will wince if you compare their work to Sondheim's.

Still, I gotta go with "Sweeney Todd" as his best. And I have an unnatural fondness for "Sunday in the Park With George," despite its flaws.

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

I've never seen Sunday in the Park With George. Has it been filmed?

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[nounsandverbs]

Yup, it has. I think we have it in the house somewhere ...

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

Very cool.

I shall have to check the library/add it to the Netflix queue/get my hands on it some other way.

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[nounsandverbs]

... such as by coming down here and having it lent to you.

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

That could work

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

You can probably tell I've been playing with Pandora (http://pandora.com/) again. I got the idea to post this list after making my own genre stations.

"Jailhouse Rock" is one of the ones I used for my Rock station. :-)

If you're curious about the others you should check out my Pandora Profile (http://www.pandora.com/people/jennifer.cerul). I'm trying to come up with half a dozen or so seed songs for each station. I may swipe a couple of yours.

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[nounsandverbs]

Hey, swipe away, and I'll totally check out yours. It was all I could do not to divvy up each genre into several subgenres. (Funk? New Orleans Blues? Hip-hop?) You ask a music geek a question, you get a geeky answer. :)

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

I do that too. You'll notice I have Rock, Folk Rock, Psychedelic Rock, and Pop. I might also end up adding Country Rock and Blues Rock to the list. I could probably also break the R&B station up into several separate stations, but I'm not sure where I'd draw those lines.

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[nounsandverbs]

Oh, and you've got the original acoustic version of "Sounds of Silence" there. That version wasn't successful. Then the producer hired session musicians to turn it into a folk-rock number -- which became a huge hit, much to everyone's surprise. (Including Simon & Garfunkel's. The producer had neglected to tell them what he was doing.)

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

Hadn't they already decided to split up? I seem to remember reading that somewhere.

That version of "Sounds of Silence" seems to be the only one that Pandora has in its system. I should probably write to them and point out that there are two different versions of the song.

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[nounsandverbs]

They had decided to split up -- Paul was in London at the time, I believe.

If there's one quibble I have with Pandora, it's that their selection can be a little spotty sometimes. But it's only a quibble.

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's my only real beef with them too. There were a couple of songs I wanted to use for this group of stations that they didn't have.

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[nounsandverbs]

But on the plus side, the stuff they recommend by artists I've never heard of, tends to be stuff I like.

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

They're also pretty good at finding one song I like by artists that I otherwise can't stand.

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[nounsandverbs]

Fortunately 80% of the stuff I listen to tends to be easy to match. Like, I made a "Brit-pop" station and suggested XTC and Elvis Costello -- so it wasn't a stretch for Pandora to come up with The Police. (I'd forgotten about them.)

But I also made a "silly" station, suggesting Weird Al, Tom Lehrer, and They Might Be Giants. It seemed to have trouble with that one. It suggested a Styx song. I had to give that one a thumbs-down.

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that it's a lot better at finding stuff that has similar vocals or instrumentation than stuff that has similar lyrics or subject matter. That's probably why it didn't do so well with your silly station. Musically those three have almost no common ground for Pandora to work with.

I've often wished that there was a way to tell it "I like the sound of this song, but I'm giving it a thumbs down because the words offend me."

Re: This One's Right Up My Alley

[nounsandverbs]

I can see how a lot of ballad-sounding songs might run into that problem.

Of course, having given a thumbs-down to Styx, I'm that much less likely to hear REO Speedwagon. So I'd call that a win.

[gwenlianna.livejournal.com]

This has always been my issue when trying to define my musical tastes. I tend to just listen to whatever strikes my mood, and not pay much attention to genre.

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

You should definitely check out Pandora (http://www.pandora.com) then. The simplest way to use it is to tell them a song or performer that you like, and then give the player appropriate feedback as songs come up.

[gwenlianna.livejournal.com]

I should give it another shot at some point. I kept getting involved in other stuff, and forgetting to give the feedback it needed.

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

It does work best if you're doing something right there on the computer.

Ooh! I love this game!

[siegerat.livejournal.com]

Okay, here are some more esoteric genres (in that I made them up because the songs remind me of the genre more than the other way around, but I suspect I'm still in the spirit of things...)
Adventure Movie Theme: Indiana Jones Theme
Opera Diva Breakdown: "Die Hoelle Rache Kocht in Meinem Herzen" (Queen of the Night, The Magic Flute)
Viral Internet Video Theme: All Your Ships are Belong to Us
Old School Bluegrass: Foggy Mountain Breakdown
Multiply Covered Classic Rock Hit: Money (for some reason I have both the Rolling Stones version and the one from Empire Records stuck in my head now)
Southern Rock Song in a Movie Soundtrack: "Sweet Home Alabama"

That's about all that are coming to mind right now. Hmm. I'll have to think of some more. :-)

Re: Ooh! I love this game!

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

I never knew that the Stones did a version of "Money"! I've got a copy of the Beatles cover.

I like your genres. Very personalized.