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2010 (4)
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"Let's all meet up in the year 2000..."

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Audaciously opening with a riff lifted wholesale from an old Laura Branigan hit, Jarvis Cocker turns in a by-then customarily class-conscious wryly knowing anthem in this single released during the height of Pulp-mania.

His slice-of-life details in the Ray Davies vein ("Your house was very small, with wood chip on the wall...") combined with his typical lasciviousness ("You were the first girl at school to get breasts...") and the aforemention catchy guitar riff add up to another winner from a time when the band could seemingly do no wrong.

This was a UK hit (#7) but in retrospect it was a little bit lost in the shuffle, and in some ways marked the beginning of the end of the buoyant and triumphant His 'n' Hers / Different Class era for the band. Although they made a couple more solid albums, and Jarvis continues to churn out quality solo work, Pulp was never this joyously anthemic again.

Disco 2000 video:

An early video for Babies, probably my favorite Pulp song - before they had broken through, after a decade of trying:

"The REAL title of this song is..."

"...'Playing A Guitar Solo With This Band Is Like Trying To Grow A Watermelon In Easter Hay'. And that's where it came from."

-Frank Zappa, 1980 (source: the very thorough FZ wiki)

Ironically enough for a song originally from one of Frank's complex rock operas - I think that the less you know about this song the better it actually is. Although, with some context the bizarre spoken intro makes a little more sense (spoiler if you don't know the story of the album: music is outlawed and the solo takes place in his head).

 

"Watermelon In Easter Hay"

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I first heard this one in the also otherwise-excellent soundtrack to Y tu mamá también back in college and was mesmerized. Apparently the song had made quite an impression on director Alfonso Cuarón, as well.

Some may dislike it for the same reasons they are unable to get past the cold calculation that is also present in the music of some other guitar heroes like Stevie Ray Vaughan, but to me the technical proficiency plus the beauty of the melody shines through.

One of these days I plan to make a mix of "Songs That Are Epic In Length But Don't Seem As Long As They Are And In Fact You Wish They'd Continue Much Longer" and this will be on it.

1993 Was a Strange Time, Indeed

Actor/comedian Eddie Murphy had already made a couple of records of self-indulgent funk/R&B throughout the late '80s with some famous friends (Rick James, Stevie Wonder) but by the early 1990's his primary career was in a pretty deep slump.

What makes this, his 3rd (final?), music album a little more interesting is that it's again a stylistic indulgence by a non-musician, but that the music itself is surprisingly heavily rooted in mid-period Beatles-esque psychedelia, albeit filtered through a 1990's lite-R&B production sheen - kind of like PM Dawn with a bigger budget.

The entire album features a heavy "peace & love" message of general positivity - not many mainstream artists were having success with this sort of outlook at the time, as grunge was then starting to hit it's peak. In fact, some of the style reflects the arrangements and lyrical content of friend (and fellow Beatles fan) Michael Jackson's most recent work (MJ, possibly repaying Eddie for appearing in his "Remember the Time" video, sings a duet and appears in the video for "Whatzupwitu" - yep...).

Tusk!

Tusk!

It may seem a little odd to consider this song underrated - one that, quoth Wikipedia, "reached #8 on the U.S. charts, #6 in the U.K. and #3 in Australia and Canada" - but as the song that lent this site it's name, it's a natural start - plus it's definitely strange, weird and arguably freakish.

By 1979, Fleetwood Mac, having been re-energized by the addition of Lindsey Buckingham (one of rock's true, if oft-kilter, geniuses) and Stevie Nicks, had released a couple of brilliant mainstream pop/rock albums (the one everyone knows: 1977's Rumours, and the one most people don't - the equally high-quality proto-Rumours 1975 eponymous album). But nothing really prepared folks for what was next. The band knew that trying to top the blockbuster success of Rumours would be impossible, so with the help of prodigious amounts of cocaine they (led by Lindsey) proceeded to craft this masterpiece.

The percussive, chanting title track did not sound much like anything else on the album, but as the debut single (but penultimate song) it definitely set its tone - one of feverish drug-fueled nervous paranoia. The bizarre accusatory lyrics, the nonsensical background vocals, the brass - oh, that brass. None other than the Pride of Troy - the USC Marching Band. It must have been a trip to hear this on the radio airwaves in 1979. Fleetwood Mac were exactly the type of bloated rock stars that punk was railing against, but ironically this album had such extreme elements of the avant-garde (to go along with some masterful classic rock performances and sweet pop, yet all tempered by Lindsey's flat-out weirdness) that this was as strange as pop music gets.

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Recommended reading:
Stephen Thomas Erlewine's review of the album.

Recommended viewing:
the video, featuring the USC Marching Band -
Fleetwood Mac - Tusk (Original Video)