It's not just Milli Vanilli who faked their vocals! Jennifer Lopez, Selena Gomez and Britney Spears — industry insiders have suggested that their hits involved significant input from uncredited ghost singers.

New Order's 'Blue Monday' hit of 1983 borrowed various elements from pre-existing music, such as a drum kick pattern originally created by Georgio Moroder, a bass line from Sylvester, Kraftwerk's choir vocals, and a spaghetti Western riff from Ennio Morricone which references Johann Sebastian Bach's famous Toccata und Fugue in D minor.



See also related post: zafoid.com/post/view/11749

The music video of Robert Palmer's 'Addicted to Love' (released in early 1986) is one of the most iconic music videos of all time, in no small way thanks to models Mak Gilchrist, Julie Pankurst, Patti Kelly, Julian Bolino and Kathy Davies. (These models also featured in Palmer's 'Simply Irresistible' music video.)



Many artists contributed to this iconic song, including Chaka Khan who was responsible for the vocal arrangements of the song, Andy Taylor of Duran Duran (and a former band member of Palmer's Power Station) who contributed rhythm guitar, whilst the opening drum solo was performed by Tony Thompson (another member of of Power Station).

This song is about struggling musicians (namely the front man, Adam Duritz of Counting Crows, who is actually singing this song, and his friend bassist Marty Jones, of The Himalayans) who "want to be big stars," believing that "when everybody loves me, I will never be lonely." Marty Jones is the "Mr Jones" of the song. The song was written by lead singer Adam Duritz and guitarist David Bryson (whilst the other three band members have composer credits).



On an episode of VH1's Storytellers, lead singer Adam Duritz explained:

"It's really a song about my friend Marty and I. We went out one night to watch his dad play, his dad was a Flamenco guitar player who lived in Spain (David Serva), and he was in San Francisco in the mission playing with his old Flamenco troupe. And after the gig we all went to this bar called the New Amsterdam in San Francisco on Columbus and we got completely drunk. And Marty and I sat at the bar staring at these two girls, wishing there was some way we could go talk to them, but we were too shy. We kept joking with each other that if we were big rock stars instead of such loser, low-budget musicians, this would be easy. I went home that night and I wrote a song about it. I joke about what it's about, that story. But it's really a song about all the dreams and all the things that make you want to go into doing whatever it is that seizes your heart, whether it's being a rock star or being a doctor or whatever. Those things run from 'all this stuff I have pent up inside of me' to 'I want to meet girls because I'm tired of not being able to.' It is a lot of those things, it's about all those dreams, but it's also kind of cautionary because it's about how misguided you may be about some of those things and how hollow they may be too. Like the character in the song keeps saying, 'When everybody loves me I will never be lonely,' and you're supposed to know that that's not the way it's gonna be. I knew that even then. And this is a song about my dreams."



There is a reference to a dancing woman named Maria: "Cut up Maria, show me one of them Spanish dances." This character appears in many of their songs. She is the main subject of their second single, 'Round Here': "Maria says she's dying, through the front door I see her crying," and "Maria came from Nashville with a suitcase in her hand." In 'Mrs. Potter's Lullaby', Duritz sings, "There's a piece of Maria in every song that I sing." She is also mentioned on the background writing on the cover of August And Everything After. The identity of Maria has never been revealed, which leads many to believe that she is not a real person, but a symbol for loneliness, desire, or something similar.



The band's name refers to a phrase "counting crows" which means pointless, as in, "That is about as pointless as counting crow."

Nice chillout compilation by talented composer from Canada, SYNTHWORX SWX.

CGI video by Dmitry Shakhov.



What's that that he is saying at 26:29, and repeated later on over and over?



I make it to be: "Spiċċa l-Milied" --- in Maltese. Is that what you are hearing also?



😀 🎅 🌲

A drive-time favourite that tackles drink, depression and sex.



Sources:



https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2011/jan/05/gerry-rafferty-baker-street



https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/12/baker-street-gerry-rafferty-saxophone/421008/

How is it that Beethoven, who is celebrated as one of the most significant composers of all time, wrote many of his most beloved songs while going deaf? Natalya St. Clair employs the "Moonlight Sonata" to illustrate the way Beethoven was able to convey emotion and creativity using the certainty of mathematics.

Dystopia, anarchy and political alienation.



Source: https://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-strange-attraction-of-political.html