Oh, hello. Have a seat; I didn’t see you come in.
I was just getting ready to for my annual New Years fry up and fricassee. I’m thinking 2 E’s with a speed for the Psytrance rave with a couple of spliffs for the chill out room, maybe some valium for come down, (gotta check if that mixes) and…oh, sorry, what was I saying? Well, none of that’s really important is it? We’re here to talk about music. So before we ring in 2009 with all of the arguing, rating, ranking and a decade’s worth of listing (oh, how we love the listing), I thought I’d take a moment to share a story about finding a song.
This story takes place in late February 2006: The left was exiled from power, the Iraq war was at it’s bleakest, Hip-Hop was entering one of its worst years yet and most pressingly, J Dilla had just passed away. While the blogosphere was busy pouring out heartfelt tributes, T-shirts and mixes, I was trying to make sense of Donuts. Actually, I’m still trying to make sense of Donuts, an album that’s harder to pin down than Axl Rose’s Unicorn, but that’s another post altogether. Through the off-kilter mix of sirens, Jada-squawks and chopped up soul loops however, one song stood out as the album’s immediate centerpiece: Time, The Donut of the Heart. Yeah, it’s hard to separate the album from its circumstances but tell me you didn’t gravitate towards that joint in the wake of Dilla’s passing? It’s the rug that ties the room together. And of course, musical deconstructionist that I am, I needed the sample source.
Easy right? The Jackson 5’s All I do is think of you. Load up Soulseek and Bob’s your uncle. Hell, download the overblown Troop cover while you’re at it if you’re feeling brave. Well I did, but another song came up too: Tammi Terrell’s similarly titled All I do is think about you. At first I figured it was cover, but the Jacksons’ song was released years after Ms. Terrell’s own unfortunate passing so it couldn’t be. I gave it a listen. And another. And another.
And now it’s probably* my favorite Soul song of all time.
I’m not going to describe what makes the song so great, intellectualizing Soul is dancing about architecture of the worst sort and frankly, maybe this particular song won’t do it for you. It wasn’t considered for a single at the time, in fact it wasn’t even officially released until Motown raided its vaults for obscure, forgotten material in 2002. To me, this song is the single best expression of unrequited love put to tape but maybe you’d rather go with a Marvin duet. Or an Otis song. Or hell, something by T-Pain or Anthony Hegarty or M83 for all I know.
But let’s take a minute to think about the joy of discovering new music. How someone can go from nodding his head to a beat, to downloading a sample source to discovering an entirely new record that’ll blow his mind in the space of 10 minutes. That wasn’t possible ten years ago. There’s a lot of talk about the music industry failing, commercial records being meaningless and the Indie scene becoming an elitist circle whose artists can’t communicate to anyone outside the Williamsburg/blog bubble. Those are valid concerns. But the Internet’s also opened up a whole wider world of music for anyone interested. It may not make magazine covers or even end of the year lists, but there’s an unlimited potential out there for people to make personal connections with great songs, great artists and great music. And a lot of those people are going to remember that feeling and go make music of their own, no matter how the industry fairs.
And that’s something we can all look forward to.
Happy New Year, now go get blitzed. I’ll be AWOL for the next couple of weeks as I make a major move to Ho Chi Minh City, but I should be leaving Jeff with a few rants to post in absentia.
Peace.
*Because you KNOW I’m going to say this about another damned soul song next year right?
Download:
MP3: The Jackson 5-“All I Do Is Think of You” (Left-Click)
MP3: Tammi Terrel-“All I Do Is Think of You” (Left-Click)
MP3: Troop-“All I Do Is Think of You” (Left-Click)
