AM pop heaven: part the second

Continuing on from last week’s post, I offer two more hook-driven Sixties hits that will never, ever exit my cranium. First, the tale of a young lad who love the daughter of his bossman, the melodramatic and catchy-as-hell Billy Joe Royal 1965 chart-topper “Down in the Boondocks.” The song was written by Joe South, who had hits of his own around the same time. The song can be heard in in its thoroughly produced single version or you can view Billy Joe singing it live on Shindig:



And because one hook conjures another, I salute one of my fave-ever pop ditties which, unbeknownst to me, has been revived a whole buncha times. I was introduced to the awesome “Concrete and Clay” by the admittedly Seventies-mellow version of the tune by Randy Edelman. The original is the faster-paced and thoroughly awesome version by the Sixties group Unit 4 + 2 (which, naturally enough, had five members).



The song has the simplicity of a doo-wop tune with a bossa nova beat, a rock-solid hook, and blissfully corny lyrics. Little did I know that the sucker had come back several more times, including an oh-so-Eighties version by a German band named Hong Kong Syndicat. None of the cover artists produced as weird a visualization of the tune (well, actually there's neither concrete nor clay involved) as this 1999 bit of gender-bending bizness from former Dexys Midnight Runners’ lead Kevin Rowland. It’s a nice little what-the-fuck music-vid (Kevin does not make a good lingerie model) that proves the song is as indestructible as any great pop tune.

AM pick to click (in another era)

The sheer hookiness of old pop can't be beat, and for discovering these songs at a moment's notice, YouTube is quite the inescapable destination. To wit, a ridiculous publicity film for a song I haven't heard on the radio in three decades, Bobby Bloom's terminally catchy "Montego Bay":



And since we're saying goodbye to the season this weekend (although, as we all know, the seasons are staggered now that the planet is being melted off its fucking axis), I evoke this ditty, which is actually in occasional "rotation" on oldies radio:

Haircut 101

Pop culture is all about personal taste, so I might as well declare that I think the 20th century started seriously sucking — in terms of film, music, and television — in the Eighties, and it has never quite recovered. Yes, I guess love of pop is always a generational thing (you will over-romanticize the period you grew up in, or "just missed" growing up in), but jeez, just look at the slide from “pure pop (for now people)” to pure pap, and you’ll realize the Reagan era did us mediaholics in but good. More choices, but the mainstream got awful, incredibly awful.... I like plenty of current-era items, but the move from quality pop culture being actually (ahem) popular to being niche or "alternative" that started in the Eighties and was thoroughly defined in the Nineties was an insidious one.

I say this because I have been revisiting my old records in the weeks past, and once again have been lost in the joys of songs you just can’t get outta your head. And yes, the occasional item does come from those Madonna/Reagan-mediocre Eighties. As is the case with the 1982 single, Haircut 100’s “Love Plus One.” The video for this catchy-as-hell tune can be found here and here and here.

As an aside, I’m fascinated by posters on YouTube who don’t allow for embedding, as is the case with the three people who put up the "Love Plus One" vid. I don’t think it really fakes out the copyright holders at all (does it indeed? I’d be interested to hear if this is the one way to keep things from being taken down but still properly i.d.’ed). Thus, the posters seemingly don’t want us blog-folk to share ’em. Well, clicking through is still allowed, so just go ahead and enjoy the song….