Peer Comment

ON TASHA GLOVER'S "The Velvet Underground" BLOG:

Tasha,

This was a great blog on The Velvet Underground. The information you provided about the places they recorded and how the bandmates got there was good in providing an overall understanding and flow.
My only suggestion would be to maybe let the reader know about all the artwork that Andy Warhol did for the group and maybe adding a short video or photograph to the overall blog.
All in all, great job and keep up the good work :)

Marvin Gaye's What's Going On

Prior to the recording of What’s Going On Marvin Gaye’s image was one of an R&B sex symbol. He put out smooth records fun loving records, never rustling too many feathers. He was molded by Motown records and followed the directions of the producers and managers around him. That all changed mid career for Marvin Gaye.

Coming home and hearing the stories from his brothers’ stint in Vietnam and witnessing the police brutality around him, Gaye was inspired and influenced to write What’s Going On, a song with truly moving lyrics and message, bringing up heavy content that most artists hadn’t touched on yet.

When Marvin Gaye tried to get What’s Going on recorded and released he was told by the CEO of Motown, Berry Gordy, that It  “was the worst record I ever heard” and though it took some convincing he eventually was able to get the album released and ultimately sold over two million copies of the single. And has one of the best-known albums of all time.

Typically Motown released good feeling R&B records that promoted love and life and never really focused on the true controversial issues that were surrounding them on a daily basis. Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On was a clear contradiction to what Motown had been produced and inevitably molded the future of a lot of future artists and songs. Each song of the album leaded to the next, which ended up being something that Berry Gordy again, did not like, but that is one of the reasons why it is known as R&B’s first concept album.

What’s Going On is a staple song of my generation. With multiple covers and compilations available, there is probably a different version for every different person. It is a song that opens eyes and minds and I hope that the next generation will listen with the same open mind that my generation and the one before it listened with.

The Beatles' Revolver Podcast

My Revolver Podcast

Velvet Underground & Nico

The music and image of The Velvet Underground & Nico was well known for its experimental musicianship and their outlook and focus on a lot of controversial subjects that they liked to put in their songs and in the album.

Lou Reed would write about drugs and sex in a fashion that Rock and Roll hadn’t heard yet. He was one of the original members and songwriters of the band, but he also sang and played guitar for The Velvet Underground as well.

John Cale and Lou Reed were roommates who started the band together. John Cale also wrote and developed the music and would sing some backgrounds, but he was most known for his work on the Viola on some of their hit songs. Cale would eventually leave the group because of disagreements between Reed and himself.

Andy Warhol supported, promoted and produced The Velvet Underground & Nico both financial and artistically. He would put them on a multimedia performance art show that would inevitably be one of the  “breaks” of their career (he also did artwork for some of the albums).

The Album artwork alone set The Velvet Underground & Nico album apart from most of its time, The album cover is famous for its Warhol design: a banana with “Peel slowly and see” printed near a tab. If you removed the banana skin found a pink, peeled banana beneath. And although the album didn’t sell very well (mostly because of legal issues with a still from the Any Warhol movie “Chelsea Girls” on the back cover turned upside down) it is still noted as one of the best Rock albums of all time

The Velvet Underground & Nico album really took me by surprise. To be honest, I had never heard of them until I was assigned this listening and blogging assignment. I truly enjoyed the awkward experimental feel of the music. This is a band  and album I will definitely keep listening to.

Revolver by The Beatles

The Beatles image prior to writing Revolver was one of lust and love, having almost all of their songs being about hold hands and making plans. Revolver came out about eight months after they released Rubber Soul, which has been claimed as one of the albums that gave The Beach Boys the inspiration to write on of the greatest rock albums ever made, Pet Sounds. Revolver fell in the footsteps of Rubber Soul with a little more LSD involved. During this time some of the band mates took up different religions and out looks on life, giving them a much more broad place to derive lyrics and content for song (plus the new use of psychedelic drugs gave them a new perspective as well).

During the recording of Revolver John Lennon wanted to make his voice sound like it was coming from a high mountain, so the engineer routed the signal to go through monitor speakers in the studio and record the distance to create that effect on the vocals. Recording innovations were done like this throughout the entire recording process, making the album one of the most innovative albums of all time. The album contains reversed guitar tracks and looped magnetic tape. One of the most important techniques that came out of the recording process was the Automatic Double Tracking (ADT), where instead of recording an artist vocals twice, you just use two tape machines and double the vocal that way, saving a lot of time and headache. As I listen to Revolver I realize that I know almost every song on the album, without even thinking or processing, it just sort of happens naturally. Revolver, in my opinion is not just an album, but also a piece of history that everyone should know. This type of music can run deep in your veins and penetrate a part of you that is truly authentic. Not only are the innovational techniques of the recording and the lyrics of the album astounding, but also the energy and musicianship in the album is beyond compare.

Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys

Prior to the recording of Pet Sounds, the Beach Boys image was one of happy-go lucky surfers and a Southern California, close harmony, beach life style. Nothing too complicated or demanding, just plain old good feeling, good vibeing music. When Brian Wilson (one of the three original brothers) starting taking a more forward role in the writing and composing process that later became the Beach boys claim to fame, everything seemed to rise uphill.

Before Brian Wilson had the inspiration to create Pet Sounds, the Beatles released their album, Rubber Soul, with all original songs, no covers and no fillers. Upon listening to Rubber Soul, Brian Wilson was struck with an amazing amount of inspiration and ran to his wife and told her that we was going to write the greatest rock album ever made.

One of the reasons Pet Sounds was set apart from other popular recordings of the mid 1960s was its use of instruments. Brain Wilson had the idea to not only use the classic instruments to make an album (ex. Piano, guitar, bass, and drums) but also the use of things you wouldn’t normally consider to be instruments (ex. soda cans, bicycle bells, dog whistles, a Theremin, buzzing organs, and barking dogs). Another reason Pet Sounds was so much different than anything out at that time was it’s use of a technique that Phil Spector created called the “Wall of Sound”, with most of the backing recordings being mixed live while taping. And probably the strangest and best things that set Pet Sounds apart was the mixing of all the final versions of the songs in mono, not stereo.

Before doing the research and really learning the background of Pet Sounds I just simply sang along with the songs I knew and enjoyed the others without much thought. Now with the knowledge I have gained, when I go to take a listen back to the tracks of the album there will be a different impression on me, one of serious musicianship that lies behind some of the catchiest songs I know. Learning that they were all done in mono and were only able to be stereo tracks when digital recording became available, is unbelievable to me. In my opinion this only shows that what we are doing now, in ten years, it could be so different. It also makes me believe in taking chances. If Brian hadn’t fought for this album and for some of the things he believed in we would not have experienced such an amazing musical masterpiece.

References

Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys

Image : http://www.surfermoon.com/albums/images/petsounds.jpg

Sources:
http://www.123video.nl/playvideos.asp?EMB=EmbedLayer&MovieID=677897

http://www.123video.nl/playvideos.asp?MovieID=706803&EMB=related2&rel=2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofByti7A4uM



Revolver by The Beatles

Image: http://www.oesquema.com.br/trabalhosujo/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/beatles-revolver.jpg

Sources:
http://www.revolverbook.co.uk/abracadabrav1.0.pdf

http://www.prx.org/pieces/15368-everything-was-right-the-beatles-revolver


Velvet Underground & Nico

Image : http://www.amiright.com/album-covers/images/album-The-Velvet-Underground-The-Velvet-Underground--Nico.jpg

Sources:
http://www.veoh.com/watch/v18444087ZF6xZy9c

http://www.warholstars.org/warhol/warhol1/andy/loureed.html

http://blogcritics.org/music/article/the-velvet-underground-it-began-here/


Marvin Gaye's What's Going On

Image : http://www.solcomhouse.com/images/marvingahatsgoingon.jpg

Sources:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2001/dec/08/extract

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2001/dec/08/extract1

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/david-van-depitte-arranger-of-marvin-gayes-epochal-album-whats-going-on-1786174.html

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/69381-whats-going-on-marvin-gayes-liberation-from-the-motown-sound/

http://www.prx.org/pieces/25278-the-r-b-chronicles-marvin-gaye

Kraftwerk


Image: http://tonaj.net/pic/Kraftwerk8266.jpg

Sources:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bpjym1CfGZ0

http://www.getlofi.com/

Farley Jackmaster

Image: http://www.qpratools.com/gallery/farley_jackmaster_funk_&_jesse_saunders-love_can_t_turn_around-front_mini.jpg

Sources:
http://www.globaldarkness.com/articles/farley_jackmaster_funk_trax_bio.htm

http://www.discogs.com/artist/Farley+%22Jackmaster%22+Funk

Independent Research, Hans Zimmer

Image: http://www.soundonsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Hans+Zimmer.jpg

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Zimmer

http://www.hans-zimmer.com/

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001877/