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Entries categorized as “Friday MP3 Shuffle” 276 results
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesFriday MP3 Shuffle: Happy Birthday Terri Nunn Edition
(Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
Today we celebrate the birthday of Terri Nunn, lead singer of the American New Wave band Berlin. In addition to singing, Nunn appeared in several extremely '80s TV shows (T.J. Hooker, Lou Grant) and even auditioned for the role of Princess Leia in Star Wars. Fortunately for her band mates, she also kept her focus on music. In a sea of electronic blips and bleeps, Nunn had the kind of solid vocal punch that stood up to and elevated the synth-pop sounds behind her, putting her in the same league with the era's top front-women like Belinda Carlisle and Debbie Harry.
Combining a hair spray and skinny ties New Wave aesthetic with an air of '70s-style Studio 54 decadence, Berlin had success with chart hits "The Metro," "No More Words," and "Sex (I'm A...)." For a brief moment the band hit the stratosphere with a song written for the blockbuster (and also extremely '80s) movie Top Gun. "Take My Breath Away" (1986), written and produced by Giorgio Moroder, was far and away the band's biggest hit, but ironically also led to the end of the line as the group broke up in 1987. Nunn reformed the band with different personnel ten years later and today they work the '80s nostalgia circuit while also producing new material.
Wish Ms. Nunn a happy birthday by pressing the "shuffle" button on your MP3 player and sharing the first 10 songs you hear:
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesFriday MP3 Shuffle: Happy Birthday Dave Lambert Edition
For today's MP3 Shuffle we celebrate the posthumous birthday of jazz vocalist and pioneer Dave Lambert. During the Hep-Cat heights of the 1950s and '60s Jazz scene, Lambert was one of the artists who perfected a singing style called vocalese, a technique by which a singer puts words to melodies and solos originally written for instruments (as opposed to scat singing, where a vocalist makes non-word sounds and basically becomes another instrument).
Lambert teamed up with fellow vocalists Jon Hendricks and Anne Ross to form a trio whose prowess in interpreting the complex Bee-Bop charts of musicians like Charlie Parker and John Coltrane earned them a following as The Hottest New Group in Jazz (which was also the name of their biggest album, released in 1960).
Lambert tragically died in an auto accident at age 49, but he left behind a truly unique art form that's still used by vocalists seeking to expand their repertoire. Sing a few notes in his honor by taking your MP3 player, pressing the "shuffle" button, and sharing the first 10 songs you hear:
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesFriday MP3 Shuffle: Happy Birthday Laurie Anderson Edition
Avant Garde extraordinaire Laurie Anderson’s career is Exhibit ‘A’ in the argument against artistic specialization. First coming to prominence in the ‘70s New York Experimental art and music scene, where she shared a physical and artistic community with folks such as frank Zappa, Alan Ginsburg, John Cage, and Andy Kauffman, Anderson’s work encompasses music, visual art, performance art, writing, film, and television. Along the way she’s even invented her own musical instruments, such as the Talking Stick and Tape Bow Violin.
Anderson's life is an inspiration to anyone who values creativity, and today’s her birthday! Wish her a happy one by pressing the “shuffle” button on your MP3 player and sharing the first 10 songs you hear:
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesFriday MP3 Shuffle: The Birth of Joy Division
For today’s Friday MP3 Shuffle, instead of celebrating a person’s birth, we celebrate the birth of a band and one of the pivotal events in modern music history. On May 29, 1977, in support of The Buzzcocks, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, Ian Curtis and Tony Tabac stepped on stage at the Electric Circus in Manchester under the name Warsaw. The band’s one performance got enough attention from the local press to set magical things in motion; The band would soon replace Tabac with Stephen Morris on drums, change their name to Joy Division, and go on to make music that continues to influence genres from Industrial to Dance to Shoegaze. It’s not often that a band gets to be at the forefront of a new music movement, tragically lose a member, then go on to be at the forefront of another music movement, but that’s exactly what Joy Division/New Order did when they helped put Post-Punk and Alternative Pop on the map. In this writer’s opinion, this day should be a world holiday, one celebrated by 24 hours of dancing with romantic-tragic vigor while drinking red wine and looking at modern video art.
Let us mark the occasion by taking your MP3 Player, pressing the “shuffle” button, and sharing the first 10 songs your hear:
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesFriday MP3 Shuffle: Happy Birthday Johnny Gill Edition
Today we say Happy Birthday to Johnny Gill, one of the biggest names in '90s-'00s RnB both as a solo artist and member of the group New Edition. While he wasn’t an original member, Gill was the key to the band accomplishing something other groups rarely achieve: a successful second act. Having fired lead singer Bobby Brown for reasons known to anyone who was watching “Inside Edition” or reality TV in the 2000s, the remaining New Edition members decided they needed to recruit someone of comparable skill and charisma up front. With Gill (the only member of the group not from Boston) on lead vocals, they transitioned from a fresh-faced bubble-gum boy band to legit RnB stars, developing a more mature sound and releasing their biggest-selling albums Heart Break and Home Again. Despite splitting up from time to time to pursue solo careers and the consummate New Jack Swing experience that was Bell Biv DeVoe, all six current and former members have remained in each other’s orbit and continue to tour together.
Wish Johnny Gill a Happy Birthday and play the MP3 shuffle by taking your MP3 player, pressing the "shuffle" button, and sharing the first 10 songs you hear: