Work It – Spotify
Work It – YouTube

This would have been a smash on the ROQ of the 80s. Back when the weird was purveyed and embraced, when music heads were still the hippest in the world.

And in that bygone era, KROQ embraced a Kraftwerk tune, “Pocket Calculator,” and suddenly the act blew up in America. Now they’d had a hit nearly a decade previously, but “Autobahn” was seen as a novelty track, back when Mike Oldfield cut a record that was two sides long and built Virgin Records, not long after Jethro Tull did the same thing. But Tull’s “Thick As A Brick” was an extension of what Ian and the band had done before. “Tubular Bells” was brand new, and when the voice came on to announce…

Sure, “Tubular Bells” blew up because it was in the “Exorcist,” but I bought it before that, because of the reviews and…

I must admit, I found Marie Davidson’s “Work It” in the “New York Times.” That’s right, I rail all the time that their reviews are meaningless, and I still believe that, with too many tracks, but I’m stone fried, after being in three countries in three days, I flew from Toronto to New York today and was at Sirius for hours recording and I got to the apartment and was sitting on a pile of e-mails and…

I just couldn’t focus. There’s so much happening, so much I want to write about. I walked around the corner to buy some sustenance and when I came back I was catching up with the newspapers online and that’s when I discovered “Work It.”

The rest of the cuts in the “Times” playlist were not as good. Some were laughable, like the St. Vincent track, but that’s modern music, certain acts are championed and others are ignored.

And Marie Davidson comes from Montreal. Far from the beaten path. In Canada you can be an artist, in the States you’re a vehicle for exposure and cash. In the States you don’t focus on the art, you focus on the commerce. And if, by chance, you focus on the art, you keep bitching that you can’t get noticed or paid. But in Canada, the government helps you out. And you can be known in Canada, but can you cross over here?

Some do.

Now first I was hooked by the sound. You might dismiss it as EDM, but you’d be missing the point. This is not mindless drivel made to dance to, not that all EDM is, but if you paint the whole electronic scene with a broad brush you’re gonna miss this, and what you’re missing is a hypnotic groove, and that’s the essence of great music, that which has your head nodding involuntarily, your whole body shaking and then Marie says…

You want to know how I get away with everything?
I work.
ALL THE FUCKING TIME!

Whew! I thought this was an instrumental tune. And then I get this viewpoint and attitude.

There’s this image that all women are snowflakes, but the truth is they just want to be free of abuse, to pursue their life’s desire.

So Marie is talking and you’re locked into the groove and then…

How does that feel, tell me how does that feel.
Is sweat dripping down your balls?

And then she laughs!

You’re drawn down the rabbit hole, the music is no longer background, you want to get to know this woman, WHO IS SHE?

But if you look up pics online you don’t find someone showing skin with surgical enhancements, rather she looks like someone in your French class. Proving once again, it’s not what’s on the outside, but the inside.

Now you’ve got to know, these records used to have a place in the firmament, not only with Kraftwerk in the eighties, but Frank Zappa in the sixties and… We were enthralled by experimentation, people testing limits, it reflected our society, music fans, the youth, were all about having the music set them free and take them on an adventure. And believe me, “Work It” does, it’s like going inside your iPhone and meeting Siri in person.

And “Work It” is not the only good track. Nor the only track with lyrics that’ll have you going HUH?, and thinking about what it all means. It’s like going to a museum, but in this case the museum comes to you, a safe, sacred space where all the usual precepts don’t apply and people can be humans and explore.

Now I only discovered this tonight, I’ve got to go deeper, and I want to, Marie Davidson’s “Working Class Woman” isn’t one and done. It’s just like the way it used to be, but without being retro.

INSPIRING!

“Working Class Woman”

My Uber driver was a rapper. Told me about signing with a production company, going to SXSW, buying his beats online.

So I told him to play me his tracks. Not bad, but a lot of references to other rappers and a lot of profanity, not a lot of substance, but is this the new rock and roll?

Everybody had a band back when. And most of them were terrible. But people dreamed, and got fulfilled, as their lives fell into place and the goal became hazy and then drifted into the distance.

But many still play and they all go to shows.

And when he dropped me off the driver told me he was a liquor salesman with three kids and that’s when I realized, it was a hobby.

But we all need something to keep us going.

That was the debate last night at the initial Lefsetz vs. Flom show. Rock versus hip-hop.

Did you read the WSJ article about live grosses?

“Hip-Hop Is Huge, but on the Concert Circuit, Rock Is King”

(Behind a paywall. Information is not free, and those who pay are the best informed, proving once again we live in a two-tiered society.)

It’s a bit apples to oranges. There are not enough heritage hip-hop acts. And Jay Z sells out stadiums, albeit with Beyonce, then again, hip-hop has been around for thirty-odd years, so…

Then a member of the audience brought up country, which bridges the gap. Turns out there are two country radio stations in Boston, and never forget this is where Kenny Chesney’s No Shoes Nation started, at Gillette Stadium.

And if you’re anti-hip-hop you’re a racist.

And the right keeps appropriating old rock tunes to make its points, now Prince’s estate wants Trump to stop using “Purple Rain.” So what is going on?

I don’t know.

But one thing’s for sure, no sound is dominant today.

An ex-Berklee student, a young woman still in her twenties, loves Petty and the classics. Went to see Flo and her Machine and complained the songs on the latter albums are inferior.

And listening to the rapper’s tracks in the car one thing was for sure, the beats were good.

And our school music programs are inferior and it costs nearly nothing to rap. Beats are free online and all you need is a computer, you can even do it on a smartphone.

Then again, the School of Rock people were there last night and they now have deals with Mike Caren and Lollapalooza. Is this the future of performance rock?

And no one in the industry will take responsibility. At this point, the majors labels are all hip-hop all the time, being the sheep that they are.

And streaming companies take no responsibility in breaking outside acts. There are no unknowns on their homepage. We used to rely on radio to break acts, is this now streaming’s responsibility?

And we used to have a new sound every three years, and now we haven’t had a new sound this century.

And just like in politics, the two sides have contempt for each other.

Then again, one of the biggest acts is Ed Sheeran. How come we don’t have more of him? Same deal with Adele, not a difficult formula, great singer with great songs, but all the majors keep purveying is hip-hop.

And has it all shifted to live anyway? Is it truly about the show, the experience? And, once again, there rock is triumphing. As the WSJ article says, Drake does four MSGs and Phish does seventeen. And I won’t say there are more Phish fans, but it appears they’re more rabid. What does this mean?

Maybe hip-hop listeners are more fans of the genre than any specific artist.

Maybe it’s the same Phish fans going to every show.

It’s not as simple as young people wanting a new sound. Boomers never listened to Perry Como, abhorred Frank Sinatra until they embraced him decades later. But so many hip-hop fans love AC/DC and…

And it’s nearly impossible for rock acts to fly up to the top. We’ve got Imagine Dragons and Dave Grohl. And Grohl’s songs aren’t even that good. And then there are acts like Tedeschi Trucks which don’t fly on the mainstream radar but tour incessantly and just made a deal for residencies in New York and Chicago.

And the vaunted festivals are good for promoters, but don’t break acts.

We are in a position of transition folks, and change always comes from the bottom up. What will it be?

In case you missed the memo, voter registrations went way up after Taylor Swift took a side.

You should too, it humanizes you.

Call it the millennial ethos. To succeed in the world today you must have an identity, and be proud of it. Sure, there will be backlash from those who don’t agree, but if you think everybody loves you, you’re absolutely wrong. That’s what the internet has taught us, there is no monoculture, chances are people have never heard of you or don’t know your music. Then again, it’s those who are uninvolved who take umbrage and protest the most. Like the Republicans who attacked Taylor Swift. Were they really her fans, did they really listen to her music? OF COURSE NOT! So what does it matter? Music is not about the court of opinion, people vote with clicks on streaming services, by buying concert tickets, never forget your fans keep you alive, not the media, so play to them, and what fans want most is a 3-D personality that they can relate to. They’re looking to identify, they’re looking for instruction, I learned more about love and life listening to Joni Mitchel and Jackson Browne than I did from my friends, I thought they got me, I thought they understood me, fans feel the same way about Taylor Swift. And the truth is Taylor Swift is an oddball who doesn’t fit in, didn’t she tell us that from the very beginning, on her first two albums? She couldn’t believe she got all the adulation, then she tried to create a girl posse to counteract the backlash, she grew up in public but she never grew up. Taylor Swift is not a rapper, not part of a community, she’s sui generis, a party of one, as are all true artists, by taking a stand she only burnishes her image, when an artist lets their freak flag fly, shows their true beliefs, it bonds fans to them. It’s the wishy-washy pop stars who fade away.

This is a turning point, but it’s also the way it always was, post Beatles. The Beatles took stands, they were cheeky and irreverent and rarely apologized, and they’re the biggest act of all time! And the acts that followed them, wearing their street clothes on stage, they were sending the message that you should focus on the music, they were, once we went to spandex it was over. Of course Elton John pushed the envelope with costumes, but following in his footsteps would be a mistake, we’re not looking for me-too, we’re looking for original!

As was Dylan went he went Christian. “Slow Train Coming” was one of his best albums, listen and see, the backup playing is superb. And you may not have agreed, but you definitely got the sense that Bob believed. We want people who believe, who just don’t focus on the dollars.

Yup, you’d better not do that because you may alienate sponsors!

But the Eagles never had a sponsor, and Adele avoids them, and they’re the two biggest acts of their respective eras. You’ve got no doubt Henley and Adele believe what they’re singing. Too much of what’s on the hit parade today is pap, which is why it doesn’t resonate.

You’re not a performer, you’re an ARTIST! You have to learn to say no, think for yourself. This does not mean you have to get drunk or doped-up and break laws, but…

Remember Neil Young canceling his tour with Stephen Stills right before it started? A jerky move, but it illustrated that what he felt was more important than the money, that’s Neil’s identity, and he now matters when CSN does not, he can sell many more tickets, even though Stills is a vastly underrated guitarist with a great catalog. When you do what’s expedient, you pay for it.

So all those stories talking about the cost of Taylor Swift going on the record have got it wrong.

As for musicians having opinions… The reason they’re shouted down is because people are afraid of their power, their influence. They say performers are dumb and uneducated because they’re afraid they’ll move the needle, and they do!

And Taylor Swift just did. Sure, she’s got a radio hit, but her demo never listens to the radio, just ask them. Swift’s last album was a stiff, because she’s been trying too hard to be something she’s not, a pop star.

Rumor has it she’s going back to country.

I don’t know. But when she speaks from the heart she has her greatest triumphs.

You should follow her, then you’ll win too. Truly.

How can we expect the Saudis to tell the truth when our own President tells whoppers on a regular basis?

The WaPo, which I started subscribing to a few months back, because I was sick of running out of free articles, following the paper on Twitter because the NYT overtweets and needing to read Margaret Sullivan’s screeds, and you righties don’t get your knickers in a twist, I get the WSJ too, reports that our President says the Saudis deny killing Khashoggi.

At least Trump says it’s possible, whereas he keeps believing Putin when he denies his illegalities and Kavanaugh lies in Congress.

Am I the chump, the only person who refuses to lie in court? Putting my hand on the Bible and solemnly swearing, at the risk of perjury if I tell a fib?

I don’t know if Kavanaugh would have been confirmed if he’d admitted to occasionally being blackout drunk, I’ve been, but he certainly lied about it, and some other little things. And as my friend Tony Wilson used to say, if you get the little things wrong, how can we trust you on the big ones?

Meanwhile, Putin keeps denying he poisoned that ex-spy in England, even as the press documents not only the identities of the perps, but their true occupations, in contradiction to Vladimir’s statements, and in “Icarus” not only testimony, but visual evidence of cheating is provided and Putin keeps denying it. What kind of world do we live in?

One where character is subservient to cash.

That’s right.

It started in entertainment, which is built on lies. And that’s what Trump is, an entertainer. Lied about his ascension, and built an empire of identity without investigation. The NYT admitted that he bamboozled them, that he was so busy creating chaos with his image burnishing that they didn’t bother to stop and see if it was true.

Character and honesty are something intrinsic. There are not enough police people in the world to make sure you’re toeing the line. Never mind enough IRS people to make sure you don’t cheat on your taxes. Meanwhile, the GOP keeps cutting the IRS to whose advantage, ask yourself that. We all hate paying taxes, but we all hate being called out on our behavior, but is the solution to loosen the reins so that people get away with bad behavior?

When I went to college there was an honor code. No proctors. You could take an exam in your dorm room. Because if we can’t trust the people, if they don’t live up to societal values internally, what chance does society have. And sure, I’ll admit that everybody lies a bit, but where is the line? Like I said, court used to be one. But not anymore.

Or maybe it’s always been this way and it’s me that is clueless as to the true ways of the world.

Then again, there are cameras everywhere these days and the hoi polloi can’t get away with it but the rich can. White collar crime is where it’s at, baby.

So this appears to be a total breakdown of society.

Or maybe we just had fewer checks and balances back then, like I said no cameras in the street, that’s what the Turks are saying, Saudi Arabia has security cameras everywhere, there’s got to be footage.

But when our own President lies incessantly, and a Supreme Court nominee too, why should I tell the truth?

Hell, that’s my reputation, saying the unsayable, it’s what draws people to me in a world of duplicity. Can I be the only one?

I hope not.