Was it the day when Seattle was “put on the map”? Some people think so. Yesterday we talked about one of Kurt Cobain’s favorite bands, The Pixies. Today we look at Cobain and his band, Nirvana itself. Because on this day in 1991, the Seattle grunge trio signed to DGC Records, a division of Geffen and were on their way to conquering the world.
At that point, Nirvana were a regional, niche band. They’d signed to the indie label Sub Pop, and put out their first real album, Bleach, in 1989. It was noisy and raw and got fairly decent reviews and a loyal, but small following mostly in Washington state. Within a year or so, it had sold 40 000 copies – good for alternative rock on a small label with limited distribution powers. What’s more, the band didn’t figure Sub Pop even tried very hard with them, compared to some other acts they had. In 1990, they’d replaced iffy drummer Chad Channing with Dave Grohl and had opened for Sonic Youth on a short tour. This gave them access to talk to that band, and particularly Kim Gordon from it as Sonic Youth had started out a small indie act but had recently signed to a big label – also DGC. They seemed to give the change a “thumbs up”, so after also talking to Alice In Chains and Soundgarden (both also on the way up with big corporate deals) Nirvana decided they should follow suit.
They’d started working a little with Butch Vig, and Cobain felt they were getting better too. “ The early songs were really angry…the (new) songs are getting poppier and poppier as I get happier and happier”, he said at the time, rather ironically given his future. They sent out demos to the biggies, and after talking to a few followed their friends to DGC. It’s reported DGC gave them about $287 000 ($700 000 or so today) as an advance, presumably to cover the recording of their debut album for the company. Bleach, for comparison’s sake cost them $606 to make.
The rest is history. As we know, that album was Nevermind, and not only is it regarded as the album that changed rock’s course in the ’90s, while Bleach had sold 40 000 total copies, it was selling 400 000 per week by late 1991! Eventually it would top 20 million albums.
Did DGC feel snubbed by it all? Apparently not. They seemed to realize they didn’t have the resources to fully support a major international act and by all reports wished Cobain, Noveselic and Grohl the best. Bruce Pavitt of that label said “when I first moved to Seattle in 1983, most people in the world wouldn’t be able to find Seattle on a map. Post-1991, that all changed. Nirvana did for Seattle what the Beatles did for Liverpool.”
Something happened in business on this day in 1977 which no one could have seen influencing the music world as much as it would. Back then, few probably even figured it would be significant in the business world when a California garage industry incorporated. But that’s what Apple did 47 years ago, and of course, the world has never been quite the same.
Apple had begun making and selling computers a few months earlier, the brainchild and labor of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, as well as one Ron Wayne. Wayne had bowed out and sold his share of the company back to the two Steves only months in, and was paid a handsome $800 for his efforts. Oops! Apple’s 2022 sales were close to half a trillion dollars. One might guess there’ve been times Wayne’s kicked himself over that move.
Anyway, of course no one figured back then that a computer company would influence music, but as we know, much of the current shape of the music world has been molded by Apple. In 2001, they introduced the iPod. The first one had hard drives of 1mB and could hold about 1000 songs; before long they’d be having 15 GB drives and screens capable of playing movies as well as tunes, and over the years some 400 million would be sold.
There were mp3s and mp3 players even before iPods, but it took the Apple device to make the concept of taking downloaded music with you instead of hard copy CDs or cassettes, popular with the masses. In time, of course, Apple’s iPhone became so popular it has rendered the iPod nearly obsolete with its music capabilities. Again, Apple wasn’t first – Samsung had a celphone back in 2000 that had mp3 music-playing capabilities – but Apple took the concept and ran with it making it an integral part of modern phones and perhaps the single leading way most people now listen to their music. And needless to say, never one to miss an opportunity, Apple made it an obstacle course full of hoops to jump through for anyone who wanted to fill their iPod any way other than, you know it, Apple’s own iTunes.
As of 2017, some 63% of all legal music downloads in the U.S. were through iTunes. Better than the days of Napster for the artists, since they got paid for each download. Only not much better. Typically Apple pays the artist about 9 cents per song they sell (although some sources suggest a few artists may be paid as much as 60 cents.) The label gets about half of the price with Jobs’ little corporate baby keeping some 37%. With download sales dropping off considerably (down 24% in 2017 alone) and streaming services like Spotify going through the roof, Apple got into that end of the business as well with the successful Apple Music offering streaming music and internet radio to paying customers. Although it hasn’t taken over the market like some Apple products, it still boasts 88 million subscribers. Maybe music would be bought and consumed like it is now even without Jobs and Wozniak…but then again, maybe we’d be carting around a second generation Sony LP-man and a satchel full of vinyl and be limited to talking to our friends on phones if not for Apple! Debate the pros and cons of that amongst yourselves.
A sidenote about Apple. As you probably know, a fairly popular rock band had a record company called “Apple.” The Beatles’ label continued on after the Fab Four had become four solo acts, and they weren’t altogether amused by the upstart computer company. In fact their Apple Records sued Apple Computer in 1978 for trademark violation. Jobs & Co. said he had picked the name because it was “fun, spirited and non-threatening”…and he ate a lot of fruit. The Beatles weren’t a part nor inspiration in the naming of the company, nor was the public likely to confuse a computer manufacturer with a company putting out vinyl Abbey Road records. The computer company lost and paid the record company about $80 000 (perhaps $500 000 today) but the two agreed both could carry on in separate realms. The computer company soon got into music software though and the two clashed again, with the Beatles winning another court case in 1991, being paid some $26 million that time. However, the California Apple beat the Liverpool label in a similar 2006 lawsuit, and the Beatles decided if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em and by 2007 let their music be sold by Apple on iTunes.
Christmas-time means two things to the music biz – an influx of new “Christmas” albums by any, and some years it almost seems all, current popular artists and new releases of compilation albums. Greatest Hits, Best Ofs, new live albums. And why not? Traditionally the last six weeks or so of the year have been pretty much the hottest time of the calendar, sales wise. People who don’t know what to give someone as a gift often say “well, they like music, let’s get them an album”. Or else, “hey, I like X, here’s an album of Christmas songs by them! That’ll be good for our Christmas dinner party!” That jumpstarts the sales if they’d been a bit slow through the fall (when the biggest artists usually seem to try to put out their new records). Case in point, this year with The Beatles releasing remixed, remastered editions of both their “red” and “blue” greatest hits albums, with a few tracks added to them and the newly-released song “Now and Then” included. (Check out the remastered version of “In My Life” below). They’re bound to find their way underneath a lot of trees this December 25th, and of last week the “blue” one (1967-70) was sitting at #15 on Billboard and the “red” one, #20.
It’s a popular way to go in North America – a greatest hits is always good as a gift for the “hard to buy” for, and often the shopper will be reminded “hey, I like them. All their hits on one album, I think I’ll get that for myself.” But Britain seemed to take it to the next level, at least in the 1970s. In fact, on this day that decade, only three of ten #1 albums were not compilations – Bob Dylan’s New Morning in ’70, David Bowie’s Pinups in 1973 and the Grease soundtrack in ’78. The other seven years, a compilation was sitting on top there, such as Elton John’s Greatest Hits in ’74 and Glen Campbell’s 20 Golden Greats in ’76. More surprising however, were how popular K-tel releases were there.
In 1972, K-tel releases dominated the #1 position in the UK for the final 14-weeks of the year, with 25 Rockin’ and Rollin’ Greats being the top on this particular date. In 1975, a compilation of Perry Como hits put out by them was #1. K-tel were Canadian by origin and did well there too, and were a great way to get a lot of songs you liked (usually 20 per LP) on one record at a decent price. They at least used the real songs, though they were notorious for making sharp edits to the ones that went over about three minutes to fit the required number onto the album. But one other #1 stands out from the list – Top of the Pops, Volume 20 in 1971.
Top of The Pops albums had nothing to do with the popular British live music show of the same name. It happened that the BBC didn’t copyright the name, so some record people took it for their own products as well. That was Hallmark Records, which also had nothing to do with the well-known greeting card company. They were in some ways a bit of a predecessor to the popular American Now That’s What I Call... albums that sold well in the ’80s and ’90s. But there were two big differences.
The British Top of the Pops albums tended to stick out on the record shelves because of their cover. While K-tel tended to use gaudy colors and little thumbnails of the artists on the record, Hallmark went with a more sure-fire way to generate sales with their covers – pictures of sexy girls or young ladies usually wearing not a whole lot! No doubt this helped put them into many a young lad’s hands, but there might also be another reason they used that approach rather than the K-tel one. Whereas K-tel featured the real songs you knew and loved, even if sometimes edited, Hallmark didn’t. They re-created the hit songs, making generic cover versions from their house band of studio musicians, led by singer Tony Rivers. The covers weren’t necessarily badly-done (they did use artists like Elton John and Tina Turner to play at times) they weren’t the real versions. Many a surprised buyer probably found that the two Beatles songs on Vol. 2, for example were not the Fab Four but in effect, the Fake Four. This didn’t sit well with Jarvis Cocker, outspoken leader of Pulp. He called them “bad” and remembered “usually I avoided these records like the plague. The original idea behind them seemed to be ‘it’s all worthless trash anyway, so the kids won’t be able to tell the difference.’ But of course, we could!”
Whether the buyers did so wittingly or unwittingly, those Hallmark albums sold in huge quantities through the 1970s there, with 92 such volumes being released before they called it quits in 1985. But this was the only one that was a #1 in December; in ’72 the tabulators there decided to disqualify them from the official charts since they were deeply discounted and contained no music by named artists. K-tel ones continued to count though it would seem they didn’t get counted by Billboard over here. Regardless of that, they sold over half a billion albums in their day!
Ikea. Volvo. Abba. When you think of big Swedish exports, that’s probably it. But there’s one more, and it came to light 15 years ago, and there’s a good chance that if you’re reading this, you might use it. Spotify began this day in 2008, although only in Sweden and a couple more European countries at the time. In 2011, it was made available in the U.S., and by now, 184 different countries can “stream” the songs they want on it. China is a noteworthy hold-out though, so far.
Before Spotify, “streaming music” wasn’t really a concept people knew. Now of course, over half a billion people use it and some 220 million of them pay for it, getting better quality sound and other features like no advertising for their money compared to the free service. It’s changed the way we listen to music, and with over 500 million subscribers, given China’s non-usage, that means that about one in ten people around the world actually subscribe! It’s popularity has only accelerated with the ever-growing worldwide acceptance of smartphones and TV devices like Firesticks or Rokus that will also play it. No more waiting for the radio to play your favorite song, now you tell it what to play. And unlike some similar offerings prior, you have access to the huge entire library, without having to buy individual tunes.
It had taken Swedes Martin Lorentzen and Daniel Ek about two years from the time they registered the company in Stockholm to get the technology right and launch it. Though it caught on fairly quickly, it would seem its growth lately has been exponential and it now is up there with Facebook and Google as technology household names… fitting since its Europe’s most successful tech company. Although like many other techs, that doesn’t always translate into quick profits. In 2022, it reported having about $12 billion in revenue, but lost over $400 million. Artists might not think they are the reasons though; even though the company says it pays out 70% of its revenue to them, or their record companies, many feel they don’t get enough of the pie. For the record, Spotify typically pay about .4 of a cent per each stream, or about $4 per thousand. Meaning that the Weeknd is doing fine; his song “Blinding Lights” is the most-streamed one ever on Spotify, with over three billion listens, which should pay him about $13 million or so for it.
With The Weeknd as the most listened to of over 100 million songs available (according to the company) and artists like Post Malone and Drake in the top 10, one can guess that the service still is more popular among the young than middle-aged or older people – Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” is the highest-ranking song from the 20th Century on the service, with about 2.2 billion listens.
So, if you’re hopping in your Volvo to motor down to the out-of-town Ikea and have Abba cranked up on your phone through Spotify, take a moment to say “thanks Sweden!”
Let’s hope it was worth the wait and they didn’t go home mired in infinite sadness. New York City fans got to see the Smashing Pumpkins on their massive Mellon Collie &the Infinite Sadness tour this night in 1996. The Madison Square Garden show was about two months after it had been originally scheduled.
That was because right before the original date, keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin died of a drug overdose in a nearby hotel, and their drummer Jimmy Chamberlin was charged, with him believed to have provided the heroin. Chamberlin was fired, replaced at the time by Matt Walker. Two weeks of shows were postponed, but eventually the tour for their most successful album went on, playing a total of 171 concerts over a 13-month period. Although they leaned heavily on the massively-popular double album for their setlist, one song they didn’t play that night was “Thirty Three”, oddly enough. That would be their next (and final) single from the album. “Thirty Three”… we’ll come back to that number. Billy Corgan is vague on what the song was about, and at the time he was still in his 20s but one might guess that it referred to the age 33. And, turns out that is an important age in music appreciation.
It seems that around age 33, we generally give up on new music. Canadian musicologist Alan Cross posted an article recently citing studies by Deezer and Spotify (the current article he has seems to have compacted some of the results presumably for length) that suggest just that. In fact, he says the studies show that age 33 is the magic age where the majority of people let “nostalgia take over” and find it “often just easier to default to the music of their youth.” The studies show that the trend is a little more pronounced in men than women, but is generally true for both sexes. One study cited shows 24 to be the peak age for “music discovery” while another says that ages 9 through the early-20s are the essential years for it. Both figure that after you pass, oh about 33, you’re going to be much less receptive to new music and too busy to search for it. In fact, 60% say they’re satisfied hearing their old music over and over again. Furthermore, it finds that if people over that age do look for something new, their “new” will be old. Rather than look for brand new acts or releases, they’ll stick to new releases from long-time favorite artists, or go back to get deeper into the catalogs of those artists to listen to old music by them they missed first time around.
What do you think? Did your interest in new music drop off… and if so, did it happen at 33? Maybe Billy Corgan knew that and felt too “mellon collie” to play the song!
Welcome back to Turntable Talk! Thanks once again to all the regular readers and welcome to any new ones. If you’re keeping count, today begins our 18th instalment…if you’re wondering about past topics, I have previous topics indexed here. For any new readers, briefly, on Turntable Talk we have a number of guest columnists from other music sites, sounding off on one particular topic. This month, our topic is Behind The Curtain. It’s a well-known phrase uttered in The Wizard of Oz, when the gang is warned to pay no attention to that man behind the curtain…who was actually in charge. Well, through 17 rounds we’ve looked at a number of great musicians and albums and given credit to those artists. But it takes a lot more to put out a great record. This time around we’ve asked the writers to pick a “behind the scenes” type of person who’s done a lot for music we love. There are record producers, record label bosses and scouts, anonymous session musicians, radio DJs, videographers and so many more that have helped shape the soundtrack to our lives that usually go ignored. This time, we change that.
Today we hear from Christian from Christian’s Music Musings. Having lived on both sides of the Atlantic, Christian’s had a wide range of musical inspirations. Who’ll he find behind the curtain?
I can’t believe Turntable Talk is up to Round 18. This feature certainly has been a great gift and it keeps on giving. Thanks for having me back!
For many of the previous installments it didn’t take me long to figure out how to address the topic. In some cases, I knew right away what I was going to write about. This time, the decision proved to be more challenging, even though the topic to share our thoughts about an individual behind the scenes, who was significant to music, gave us a good deal of flexibility.
After some reflection, I came up with two individuals whose names may not be familiar to most readers, but it’s safe to assume they have heard of what they created: Jim Stewart and his sister Astelle Axton, (shown above) the co-founders of what became Stax Records.
Stewart was a bank clerk and a part-time fiddle player in a Memphis country group called the Canyon Cowboys. In 1957, he decided to launch his own record label Satellite Records. Initially operating in a garage, Stewart started out focusing on country, rockabilly and straight pop.
In 1958, his sister Astelle Axtoninvested $2,500 (about $26,400 today) in her brother’s venture by mortgaging her family home. This enabled Satellite to purchase an Ampex 350 mono console tape recorder.
In 1959, Satellite set up a small recording studio in Brunswick, Tenn. Although Stewart initially recorded country music and some rockabilly, several local R&B musicians found their way to the label and also began recording there.
The first were The Veltones who in the summer of 1959 recorded Fool In Love at Satellite. Following the song’s release, Stewart and Axton decided to move the label back to Memphis into the former Capitol movie theater.
In the summer of 1960, Rufus Thomasand his daughter Carla Thomas became the first artists to record at the new facility. Their record Cause I Love You was nationally distributed by Atlantic Records, laying the foundation for an important yet fateful distribution partnership.
Due to a legal dispute,Satellite Recordschanged its name to Stax in September 1961, using the first two letters from the siblings’ last name – Stewart and Axton. In addition to a recording studio in the movie theater’s former auditorium, the company also set up a record store in the cinema’s old foyer. The store carried records from many different labels and became a popular hangout for local teenagers, which gave the company valuable insights into what music was selling.
Stax also established a house band that backed up the company’s artists during recordings. Eventually, that band consisted of the members who formed Booker T. & the M.G.’s in 1962: Booker T. Jones (organ), Steve Cropper(guitar), Lewie Steinberg (bass) and Al Jackson Jr.(drums). They served as the session band during most recordings until 1970. They also recorded their own music and became best known for their seductive July 1962 instrumental “Green Onions”
In 1962, Stax also signed Otis Redding, who would become its biggest star until his untimely death in 1967. By the mid ’60s, Stax had also signed other major artists, including Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, Wilson Pickett and Isaac Hayes.
Not only did Stax have a stellar line-up of artists in their roster, but they also were a true model of racial diversity. Booker T. & the M.G.’s and other ethnically integrated bands, along with a racially integrated team of staff and artists was unprecedented amid the civil rights-era racial strife and deep-seated tensions of the late ’50s and ’60s, especially in Memphis and the South.
In 1968, Stax ended their distribution deal with Atlantic Records and in the process lost the rights to all recordings Atlantic had distributed between 1960 and 1967. A new co-owner, Al Bell, stepped up and substantially expanded operations to better compete with the label’s main rival Motown Records. In 1972, Bell got a distribution deal with CBS Records, but CBS lost interest in Stax, which eventually forced the label to close in 1975.
In 1977, Fantasy Records purchased the post-1968 Stax catalog and some of the pre-1968 recordings. In 1978, Stax under Fantasy’s ownership began signing new acts. But by the early ’80s, no new material appeared on Stax, and it became strictly a reissue label. In 2004, the Stax label was reactivated after Fantasy had been acquired by Concord Records. Today, Staxcontinues to be owned by Concord and issues both new recordings and its 1968-1975 catalog. Atlantic Records still owns most of the Stax material from 1959 to 1968.
After Stax went bankrupt in 1976, Jim Stewart kept a low profile and protected his privacy. Perhaps, tellingly, when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, he sent his granddaughter Jennifer to the induction ceremony to accept the award on his behalf. In 2018, Stewart donated his fiddle to the StaxMuseum, for which he made a rare public appearance. Stewart passed away on December 5, 2022 at the age of 92.
As for Estelle Axton, she sold her interest in Stax in 1970 and ended up forming formed Fretone Records. The label, which doesn’t appear to be around any longer, had its biggest success in 1976 with the groovy but slightly weird Disco Duck by Rick Dees. In 1973, Axton also founded the Memphis Songwriters Association aimed to support education and advancement of local songwriters.
Together with her friend and founder of Moon Records, Cordell Jackson, Axton also worked with the Music Industries of Memphis, which subsequently was named the Memphis Music Association, to assist in the development of Memphis music as a global force once again. Axton died in February 2004 at Saint FrancisHospital hospice in Memphis. She was 85 years old. In 2004, Axton and Stewart were inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame.
Welcome back to Turntable Talk! Thanks once again to all the regular readers and welcome to any new ones. If you’re keeping count, today begins our 18th instalment…if you’re wondering about past topics, I have previous topics indexed here. For any new readers, briefly, on Turntable Talk we have a number of guest columnists from other music sites, sounding off on one particular topic. This month, our topic is Behind The Curtain. It’s a well-known phrase uttered in The Wizard of Oz, when the gang is warned to pay no attention to that man behind the curtain…who was actually in charge. Well, through 17 rounds we’ve looked at a number of great musicians and albums and given credit to those artists. But it takes a lot more to put out a great record. This time around we’ve asked the writers to pick a “behind the scenes” type of person who’s done a lot for music we love. There are record producers, record label bosses and scouts, anonymous session musicians, radio DJs, videographers and so many more that have helped shape the soundtrack to our lives that usually go ignored. This time, we change that.
Today we have Randy from Mostly Music Covers. And who will our second Canadian guest to this feature this round choose to un“cover”…?
Typically, when I get the topic from Dave for Turntable Talk, I know almost immediately who I will write about. This time I think he was wearing his Jays Cap and threw me a curve ball. It’s my idea to provide a link here so you know what I am referring to.
It’s not that I don’t do a lot of research and run across names all the time but not one of them jumped out at me! Recently and I apologize because I can’t remember which one of the bloggers I follow brought up the topic of the 45-rpm record. I have investigated this phenomenon and written a bit about it, but I didn’t have a particular name to put to it. I knew RCA Victor was responsible but was there a name of the person (s) that was the actual inventor?
I decided to do a bit more reading and I still don’t have a name! Perhaps with more research I will find one. It turns out, not surprisingly it took more than a couple people to come up with the concept. A group of engineers at RCA worked on this for some ten years before the official release in 1949. With every company project there is a champion, and at RCA it was the President, David Sarnoff. He may not have invented the 45 but if not for him it would not have happened. I know I often malign Record Executives for bad decisions on recording artists and what not, but this time I’m on his side.
Sarnoff was born in Belarus (then Russia) in 1891 and he and his family immigrated to New York City when he was 10 years old. With his father struck as so many were by Tuberculosis, he was forced to find a job to help support his family at age 15. From newspapers he eventually ended up as an Office Boy at Marconi where he was to be involved in pioneering work in telecommunications. He rose through the ranks and when the Company was reformed as RCA he was already at the Management level. Initially involved in the Radio Broadcasting end he was a key figure in creating RKO, promoting Colour TV and, oh yeah, he founded NBC Television. If you read his short bio on Wikipedia there is no mention of the 45-rpm record. So here is how I understand his role in the “Behind the Curtain” creation of the little disc that changed music and helped to launch Rock and Roll.
Most will know that the 78-rpm record replaced the cylinder and was the only way you could buy portable music for many years. It had its limitations so Record Companies were constantly working on different formats, one being the 33 1/3 rpm record that gave for one thing, more space for songs on each side, hence the name LP or Long Playing. It was during a tour in 1948 of the RCA rival Columbia Records that Sarnoff and others were introduced (in a justifiable show off-ish way) to the revolutionary LP.
When Sarnoff got back to RCA, he immediately got the Engineering team to work on the 45-rpm technology, something they had been secretly developing since 1938 or 39. The new priority was to perfect it and counter-punch the competition’s 33-rpm record. That they did, much to the amazement of Columbia who thought RCA must have created the 45 in less than one year after seeing their 33-rpm. The 45-rpm was launched March 31, 1949, two months after they had released the record player and changer that would host the little discs. Stores had stock to sell by June, followed by selling 25 million in the first year.
There is much more to the story of the little record that changed music, not to mention the size of the hole and the little “spider” insert, none of which has much to do with Mr. Sarnoff directly. Incidentally, the first pressing of seven coloured vinyl 45-rpm records included “That’s Alright” by Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup. This would be the first R&B 45-rpm record (originally on a 78 in 1946) and was re-titled “That’s Alright Mama”. Crudup is a name more should know about as well. That song was inspiration for one Elvis Aaron Presley. It was the B side to “Blue Moon of Kentucky” and became his first record release in 1954. The song did not chart outside of Memphis, but history shows this as a pivotal point in Elvis’ career and indeed Rock and Roll.
Thanks to David Sarnoff and the unnamed team of Engineers from RCA. With a nod to Mr. Crudup for an incredible song!
Men who “only bought Playboy for the articles” (“What – there’s naked girls in there? Who knew?”) also got to listen to Playboy on this day in 1975. Women too, because on this day 48 years ago Playboy Records scored their only #1 American single. “Fallin’ in Love” would also be the biggest hit of Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds‘ career.
The likable pop song was the title track for the trio’s third album.
They’d scored one prior hit, 1971’s “Don’t Pull Your Love”, which got to #4 but was a chart-topper in Canada. This single got to #2 there, held out of the top by a 10cc great which was #1 this week in the Great White North. The summer of ’75 was very characteristic of the musical era. The smooth pop tune was sandwiched in between two disco tunes (“Jive Talkin’” and “Get Down Tonight” ) on top of the charts. By 1975, they’d been dropped by their first label, Dunhill Records, and their group consisted of singer/guitarist Dan Hamilton, Joe Frank Carollo and keyboardist…Alan Denison. Tom Reynolds had quit by then, but they decided to keep him in their name regardless. They utilized various session musicians to fill in their sound, including well-known Wrecking Crew member Larry Knechtel, although very little specific information about the personnel on this track are out there online. Like all the other songs on their album except for a cover of the Bo Diddley hit “Who Do You Love”, “Fallin’ In Love” was written by Dan Hamilton and his wife Ann. The pair also wrote their follow-up single, “Winners and Losers”, which was their last top 30 hit. They called it quits the following year after one more, less successful LP.
As for Playboy Records, by 1978 it seemed they’d decided that perhaps the Hefner empire was best-suited to pretty girls, and the record division closed its doors. Among the other notable artists they had on it, briefly, was Abba, with American distribution of their first few little-noticed (pre-”Waterloo”) singles.
We found that no one puts Baby in a corner on this day in 1987! And that actor Patrick Swayze not only had the moves, but could sing too. The relatively low-budget movie Dirty Dancing came out 36 years ago today, with the story of a ’60s summer camp romance between young Jennifer Grey and dance instructor Patrick Swayze. To many though, the music was the star.
The movie went on to rake in over $200 million at the box office, plus untold millions more in VHS and DVD sales – it was the first-ever movie to top a million sales of those. Pretty good return on an investment of less than $5 million to make it! And that was no doubt a symbiotic relationship to the soundtrack, which went on to sell an astounding 32 million copies, making it the third biggest-selling soundtrack of all time. It’s diamond-status in the U.S., UK and Canada, and in Germany, it’s the biggest-seller ever.
That was thanks to a few oldies like “Stay” by Maurice Williams and “Be My Baby” by the Ronettes. The movie itself also included a few more classics that weren’t on the soundtrack LP/CD, like “These Arms of Mine” by Otis Redding and “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” by the Shirelles. Still, more of the album’s appeal was probably because of the retro-sounding originals. Among them, Eric Carmen’s “Hungry Eyes” (a top 5 in North America and a single that made the UK charts based solely on sales of import records there!). It was his first top 20 hit in nine years. Then the leading man, Patrick Swayze had “She’s Like the Wind”, a top 10 in the U.S., Canada, Ireland and later, France when it was re-released there in the ’90s. And let’s not forget the the Grammy and Oscar-winning duet “The Time of My Life”.
The song was co-written by Frankie Previte (of Frankie and the Knockouts) originally intended for Donna Summer, but Jennifer Warnes filled in well enough with Righteous Brother Bill Medley. It not only won awards but was a #1 hit in the U.S., Canada, the Netherlands, Australia and elsewhere.
It showed the movie producers were aware of trends back then, with it being the fourth American chart-topper of the year to come from a soundtrack. However, trends due change and only one soundtrack to come later – The Bodyguard – matched Dirty Dancing‘s sales and in fact, only two English-language ones would ever reach eve 20 million copies. Likewise, a sequel (Dirty Dancing Havana Nights) barely turned a profit film-wise and failed to generate any hit songs.
When you think of Aerosmith, you probably think “classic rock.” A band which has now been around for 50+ years and is going strong but epitomized old-fashioned rock & roll even when they were young. What you probably don’t think is “revolutionary”, “forward-thinking” let alone “tech geeks.” Yet on this day in 1994 they were just that. Years ahead of the curve, as they became the first artist to release a song exclusively through internet download! Yep, if you had a computer back then and were one of Compuserve’s two million customers, you could have gotten Aerosmith’s new song, “Head First” for free… after about 90 minutes, which was the typical download time in the era of dial-up connections.
Aerosmith were on top of the world around then. Their album Get A Grip, released about a year earlier, had become their first American #1 hit and given them Grammys for Best Rock Performance by a Band two years running – “Livin’ on the Edge” in ’93 and “Crazy” in ’94. It had even gotten to #2 and gone platinum in the UK which had been fairly indifferent to the charms of Steven Tyler and Joe Perry upto then. Also significantly, it’d finished their legal obligation to Geffen Records and they were preparing to jump to CBS. “Head First” was a relatively forgettable track they’d recorded for Get A Grip, perhaps a bit grungier than most of their stuff and left from the album or even b-sides to singles (it would later be issued as a b-side to a later single, “Blind Man.”)
Now for those who weren’t around in 1994, or don’t remember it, one has to realize this was a time when the idea of “internet” was revolutionary and not well understood. A minority of households had computers at that time and Compuserve led the way with two million subscribers. It was, as Vice put it, “a time when AOL blew people’s minds!”. One of the early adopters though was Aerosmith bassist Tom Hamilton who liked to surf the web and go into chatrooms to talk to fans.
Geffen too had its share of visionaries, like executives Luke Wood and Jim Griffin, who figured the internet was going to grow in importance and popularity and could be useful to the music biz, although Griffin then said “we’re not saying this is how you’ll get your music in the future.” Still, they decided it was worth trying to let people get a little music that way, and decided to offer the one Aerosmith song for free to subscribers. Aerosmith agreed, and agreed to waive their royalties for the song in return.
About 10 000 people took advantage and downloaded the 4 mb file through their 14.4 modems. It was said to be a highly-compressed WAV file that was of mediocre quality, but then again, most people were listening to it through tiny, low-quality computer speakers.
It didn’t go on to become a staple in the Aerosmith catalog or playlist but the band is still soldiering on quite well 29 years later. And, it would seem that little thing they stuck their toe in first – the internet and its music – is going along OK as well!
A Sound Day 