Bookmarx

Posted by Tommy Marx July 17th, 2010

When Hanson first had success with “Mmmbop”, I didn’t pay them much attention. I didn’t dislike them but I wasn’t a fan, either. But the brothers kept plugging away, releasing albums and following their dream, and now they have a song that I can’t get out of my head. VH1 has been playing the video for a couple of weeks, and while it got my interest the first time I saw it, it’s grown to the point where yesterday my boss said, “Well you must be in a good mood” because she heard me singing the song in my cubicle.

I hope this song puts them back in the public eye, because it’s a damn good song and a damn good video.

Posted by Tommy Marx January 14th, 2010

I’ve always been a fan of soul music. From Blue Magic’s lonely “Side Show” to Brian McKnight’s uplifting “Back at One”, I’ve loved listening to Deborah Cox insist nobody’s supposed to be here, Siedah Garrett worry about the everchanging times, and The Temptations wish for rain.

And whether it’s Barry White telling you to practice what you preach or Babyface going on and on about your whip appeal, soul music has defined what sex sounds and feels like for me. It’s impossible not to hear Shirley Murdock belt out “As We Lay” or Gregory Abbot croon “Shake You Down” without getting a little hot under the collar.

For me, Teddy Pendergrass was the epitome of soul music. As the lead singer of Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, he broke my heart singing “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” and “The Love I Lost (Part 1)”. As a solo singer, his “Love T.K.O.” was equally memorable.

But it was hits like “Close the Door” and “Turn Off the Lights” that really defined his career. The lyrics were as seductive as his voice, promising a night you would never forget. If sex had a melody, Teddy Pendergrass was the one singing it. I’ll let other people debate whether Barry White or Marvin Gaye or someone else was the sexiest soul singer, but for me, it will always be Teddy. Even after surviving the car crash that left him in a wheelchair, that voice and that power was still undeniable and still sexy as shit.

It seems like the list of people that have died recently just keeps growing and growing, and it pains me that Teddy Pendergrass is the latest to leave us. This is my favorite song by him. “Come Go With Me” never charted on the Hot 100 and peaked at #14 on the R&B chart. But God, I loved this song. To me, it’s everything that’s great about soul music, sex, and Teddy Pendergrass.

Sir, you will be missed.

Posted by Tommy Marx January 5th, 2010

Six hundred million years ago, when I was a waiter at the Pizza Hut in South Hill, Virginia – which still ranks as one of my favorite jobs of all time – I got annoyed by a song that kept playing on the jukebox. It was the mid-Eighties, and seven years after “Sultans of Swing”, the Dire Straits had finally had another major hit with “Money for Nothing” (which featured Sting famously singing “I want my MTV” to the tune of The Police’s “Don’t Stand So Close to Me”).

Everytime someone would put a quarter in the jukebox, I would get to hear Mark Knopfler sing, “The little faggot with the earring and the makeup. Yeah, buddy, that’s his own hair. That little faggot got his own jet airplane. That little faggot, he’s a millionaire.” The video that aired on MTV edited that verse out, but the vinyl single that played on a jukebox in a small southern town in Virginia was less polite.

I remember hearing Mark Knopfler say he heard someone actually say those exact lines (evidently someone who believed in talking in rhymes), and he thought dropping “faggot” would make it less authentic or something. But let me tell you something. When you’re a gay teenager working in a fast food chain in the middle of Bible-belt Virginia and you keep hearing someone singing about those damn faggots with their earings and their makeup, it’s not a pleasant experience.

So I went to my manager and asked her if she could get the jukebox guy to remove the record on his next visit. I told her it really bothered me hearing the word “faggot” so often. (more…)

Posted by Tommy Marx November 17th, 2009

Although I thought some of Adam Lambert’s performances on American Idol last year were amazing, I was actually rooting for Kris Allen to win. I think Adam is very talented, but I’m not a fan of his style of music. And to be quite honest, the over-the-top theatricality turns me off.

But it seems like Adam keeps getting attacked for the most ridiculous things. I thought it was bad enough when Gene Simmons, the fossilized lead singer of the Seventies’ rock group Kiss, said Adam “killed his career because now the conversation is not about his talent but about his sexual preference. He’s done.”

But now no less than the editor-in-chief of Out is attacking Adam Lambert.

“We’re curious whether you know that we made cover offers for you before American Idol was even halfway through its run. Apparently, Out was too gay, even for you. There was the issue of what it would do to your record sales, we were told. Imagine! A gay musician on the cover of a gay magazine.”

That’s just one of the things Aaron Hicklin says in one of the most bizarre Editor’s Letters you’ll ever read. Evidently Hicklin is pissed that while Adam posed for Details magazine (with a woman, no less), he allegedly wouldn’t pose for Out unless it was a group photo.

I’m not much for bullshit, so here’s my open letter to Mr. Hicklin.

(more…)

Posted by Tommy Marx November 17th, 2009

Monica is probably best remembered for her duet with Brandy, “The Boy Is Mine”, which spent three months at number one on the Hot 100, but three years earlier, she scored a top ten hit with one of my favorite love songs, “Before You Walk Out of My Life”.

Posted by Tommy Marx November 16th, 2009

For a while in the late 90s, The Wallflowers were wildly successful. Led by Jakob Dylan, the son of Bob Dylan, the group’s biggest hit, ”One Headlight”, spent an incredible 70 weeks on the Billboard Hot Airplay chart. Two other singles from their second album, ”6th Avenue Heartache” and “The Difference”, also became Top 40 airplay hits, as well as their cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes” for the Godzilla soundtrack.

Unfortunately, they weren’t able to sustain mainstream success, and the lead single from their final studio album (Rebel, Sweetheart) didn’t even chart. It’s a shame, because I think it’s easily their best song, and almost five years later, it’s still one of my favorites. I hope you enjoy “The Beautiful Side of Somewhere” as much as I do.

Posted by Tommy Marx November 13th, 2009

Although I’m not a major fan of Taylor Swift, I do enjoy her songs. And I admit without any shame that her latest single, “Fifteen”, is easily one of her favorites. I may be quite a bit older than Ms. Swift, but I remember what it’s like to be fifteen. And I also know that girls aren’t the only ones that get hurt at that age.

Posted by Tommy Marx November 12th, 2009

Every time I would have to drive anywhere back in the mid-Nineties, I’d keep switching radio stations, hoping to hear Brownstone sing “If You Love Me”. Back then, I was working for the public school system as an administrative assistant, which didn’t pay well at all, so I could barely afford food, let alone a CD. But radio was free, and damn, did I love me some Brownstone.

I have their CD now, and I enjoy it, but when I think of Brownstone, I still think about being in a car with the radio blasting, a million possibilities still waiting to be discovered, being bathed in tight harmonies and an incredibly sexy beat. The song reminds me of yesterday in a way that makes me feel optimistic about tomorrow. And I think that’s pretty cool.

Posted by Tommy Marx November 11th, 2009

The Apple is truly one of the worst movies ever made, yet there is such an innocence and sincerity to it that it has become a cult hit, beloved by many (including myself). Everytime I watch it, I’m amazed that it’s even worse than I remember, and when I started watching it with my friend Chad a few years ago, he insisted I turn it off after 15 minutes. It’s a musical with horrible music, a sci-fi epic set in a 1994 where disco still reigned, a film that proved George Lucas is not, in fact, the worst writer of dialogue and Keanu Reeves, in fact, is not the worst actor who ever lived.

But I still love it. Here is the love song between Alphie and Bibi, two Canadian kids torn apart by fate (the fact that Bibi signed a contract with Satan to have a recording career didn’t help matters either). In the end, God arrives driving a white limo and saves the day, although it’s not clear whether he’s taking them to heaven, a new earth, or the junior-senior prom.

At this point, however, our young lovers have been split apart. “Cry For Me” is the definition of a guilty pleasure, and it will probably surprise no one to learn that I had a major crush on George Gilmore. Let’s just say I wouldn’t have minded comforting him for at least a decade or two.

Posted by Tommy Marx November 10th, 2009

I’m not a fan of the Black Eyed Peas (is it even possible to be a fan of both music and songs like “My Humps” and “Boom Boom Pow”?), but they had one song that I enjoyed. “Shut Up” was a single from their Elephunk album, and while it went to #1 in more than 15 other countries, evidently it wasn’t serviced to US radio for some reason. It’s the only Black Eyed Peas song I can say I honestly love, and I think it’s ridiculous the record company didn’t push the single.