My music

Hello! This is going to be my last blog post, so I got to go out with a bang. This week I decided to write about the song "Play That Funky Music," written by Wild Cherry. This multi-million record was extremely successful, reaching number 1 on both the pop and R&B charts. It remains such an iconic piece and artists from later decades, like Vanilla Ice, have tried to recapture the magic of the song through their own covers.  I think this song completely captures the entirety of funk music. The beat is very high tempo and makes you want to get up and dance. It is such a good dancing song that growing up I vividly remember dancing to this song on Dance Dance Revolution. It has a fun blend of different instruments that add to the "funkiness" of the song such as: bass, drums, trumpets, saxophones, and an electric guitar. The lead singer Parissi’s style of singing also adds another element of funk. The instruments, singing style, and lyrics play an important key r...

Hello the two people who read my blog! This week I am going to be writing about the song "Honky Tonk Women," performed by The Rolling Stones. The Rolling Stones was a very popular British band that formed in 1962. They had a persona of being a rougher version of the Beatles, another band of the time. Their style of music- which was Blues and R&B- reflected the band's darker image. The song "Honky Tonk Women" was one of the band's numerous top 10 hits (the band had 37 total top 10 songs), released in the year 1969. The song was on the top of the charts for 4 weeks. The song starts off with a simple beat, but as the song progresses more instruments are incorporated along with lyrics. You can see that the song is greatly influenced by original honky tonk music, because they utilize the fiddle to add dimension to the song. The lyrics also show the country influence, because it talks about a "honky tonk woman" who is a dancing girl in a western ba...

Hello everyone! This week for my blog post I have decided that I am going to talk about the sound "Be My Baby," composed by Phil Spector/ Ellie Greenwich/ Jeff Barry was performed by the Ronettes. When Spector heard Veronica (Ronnie) Bennett’s voice he immediately signed the girl singing group.The song was recorded and released in the year of 1963. I actually really love this song, I feel like the style is upbeat and is a song that is timeless. It actually is considered widely to be one of the best songs of the 60s decade. This song is a perfect example of Phil Spector’s wall of sound concept he loved to integrate into his music. This wall of sound was a very unique characteristic of Phil Spector’s music. It is where he would layered a number of different instruments and used echo effects. This wall of sound was paired with the love form of Jeff Barry’s songs. In Barry’s songs he is very blunt with his lyrics, like the girl in the song. She ma...

Hello everyone! This week I decided to write my blog about the song "Sh-Boom" originally by "The Chords" in 1954 and then was later covered by a band called "The Crew Cuts." The original record was very successful, reaching number two on the R&B charts and number five on the pop charts. The cover was also very successful, reaching number one on the pop charts for nine weeks. I thought it was really cool that I could recognize the song from the movie Cars in class when I listened to it for the first time! It is such an amazing song that I feel truly captures the popular singing style of the 50's. It is a very catchy song that has a very happy tone.  Although "The Crew Cuts" did not change the composition of the song very drastically from the original, there is a distinct difference in the singing style of the two bands. In the original version you can hear lots of jazz and blues influence, because they implement the style of scatting in...

Hello! This week I am going to be writing my blog post about the piece, "You Can't Hurry Love," composed by Hooland/ Doizer/ and Holland and was performed by the Supremes. This song debuted in the late 60's in the year 1967. This song reached number one on the American charts along with 4 other consecutive hits done by the Supremes. Personally I absolutely love this song. It has an upbeat tempo to it that makes you want to dance. The way the structure of the song is composed it also leaves you as the listener wanting more. You are constantly waiting for the last 'B' to come back around again. This is very fitting considering the entire song is about waiting for the love of your life to come to you.  "You can't hurry love No, you just have to wait" She said, "Love don't come easy It's a game of give and take" The lyrics of the song show that the narrator is waiting for love, while the structure of the song makes the ...

This week I want to write about the song “La Bamba,” adapted and performed by Ritchie Valens. This piece by Valens I believe perfectly embodies the Latin side of Rock ‘N’ Roll during this time period. The song perfectly reflects the influence that Valens’ Latin heritage and exposure to Rock ‘N’ Roll have on him as an individual. Ritchie Valens was a very big artist who was not in the music industry for a long time, but played a very influential role in the Latin Rock ‘N’ Roll genre. He released this song 1958, which was the year before he died in a plane crash at age 17. He along with other artists like Buddy Holly and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson died in that crash on February 3, 1959 and that day is now known as “the day the music died.”  The song itself has a very upbeat tempo that makes you want to jump out of your seat and dance. This is actually very fitting considering the phrase “La Bamba” actually translates to “the dance” in English. The loud instrumentals mixed wi...