max abelson's super groovy music video spectacular

1960s on mon
1970s on tues
1980s on wed
1990s on thurs
2000s on fri


featuring the fine musical stylings of: the beatles, the rolling stones, serge gainsbourg, yo la tengo, the kinks, harry nilsson, ike & tina turner, antony, aretha franklin, wilco, elvis, talking heads, stephen foster, dr. dre, bonnie 'prince' billy, elvis c., neil young, the smiths, dusty springfield, al green, jimi hendrix, r.e.m., ray charles, belle & sebastian, randy newman, cat power, the cure, queen & pavement


i write for the observer, email me at mabelson at observer.com


"mtv makes me want to smoke crack." -beck


see the archives, or a random post.


"i just happen to be here, and it's okay." -caetano veloso


"it took me about three or four weeks to toilet train my cat, nightlife. most of the time is spent moving the box very gradually to the bathroom. do it very slowly and don't confuse him." -charles mingus


"sing a simple song but keep the swing strong." -de la soul


"his wife was a spent piece of used jet trash, made good bloody marys, kept her mouth shut most of the time, had a chihuahua named carlos that had some kind of skin disease and was totally blind." -tom waits


"i’ve still got things inside me—sad things, happy things—that people don’t know about." -loretta lynn


"after cheesecake with all of your friends and family, who's gonna front the bill? me... say you want to take first-class trips, well i want to work those first-class hips. yes i do." -r. kelly


"i drive a rolls-royce, cause it's good for my voice." -t.rex


gotta think straight, keep a clean plate." -joanna newsom


"keep a clean nose, watch the plain clothes." -bob dylan


"my mother used to tell me about vibrations. i didn't really understand too much of what that meant when i was just a boy. to think that invisible feelings, invisible vibrations existed scared me to death." -brian wilson


"i'll be the wind, the rain and the sunset." -lou reed


"hey there, hey now, well, you can make a pacemaker blink, yeah, easy thing, make a man's heart go bibbity bom like a gentle drum: dirty ass rock and roll. -john cale


"i'm dealing in rock and roll. i'm not a bonafide human being." -phil spector


"at a certain point phil approached me with a bottle of kosher red wine in one hand and a .45 in the other, put his arm around my shoulder and shoved the revolver into my neck and said, 'leonard, i love you.' i said, 'i hope you do, phil.'" -leonard cohen


"we were having coffee or something to drink, i forget, at 2 am at the plaza hotel. phil had this long hair, down to his shoulders, he’s a very strange looking guy, it’s, well, anyway, this was before longish hair was everywhere, it goes back. i could see at this table nearby, there were two couples, i remember, they were older people, at least in the 60s, they’d whisper at each other and look at phil and whisper at each other. finally this lady, tanked, comes over to phil and says, 'alright, sonny, what’s your problem?' and he said, 'premature ejaculation, what’s yours?'" -tom wolfe


"i bite my nails and if that fails i go get myself stoned, but when i do i think of you and head myself back home" -gram parsons


woody allen's reasons to live: "i would say groucho marx, to name one thing, and willie mays, and the second movement of the jupiter symphony, and louis armstrong’s recording of potatohead blues, swedish movies, naturally. sentimental education by flaubert, marlon brando, frank sinatra, those incredible apples and pears by cézanne, the crabs at sam wo’s, tracy’s face."


"i'm going to boogie my scruples away" -lowell george


"the first time i got stoned on grass was with john paul jones of led zeppelin. we'd been talking to ramblin' jack elliott somewhere and jonesy said to me, 'come over and i'll turn you on to grass.' he had a huge room with nothing in it except this huge vast hammond organ, right next door to the police. i ate two loaves of bread. then the telephone rang. jonesy said, answer that for me will you? so i went downstairs to answer the phone and kept on walking right out into the street." -david bowie


brian eno songs that will make good book titles for my 10-volume memoir, in order: here he comes, baby's on fire, golden hours, brutal ardour, taking tiger mountain, events in dense fog, through hollow lands, some of them are old, everything merges with the night, dead finks don’t talk


ry cooder albums that every man should own: into the purple valley, boomer's story, paradise and lunch


#1 song on the white album (tie): long long long, happiness is a warm gun


"the only word is love." -john lennon


thelonious monk's middle name: sphere


"think about something else. was art tatum talented?" -charles aznavour in shoot the piano player


"really, we don't want people twiddling their goatees over our stuff" -radiohead


"i don't rap fast, i rap slow, 'cause i mean every letter in the words in the sentences of my quotes." -lil' wayne


"i love songs about horses, railroads, land, judgment day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. and mother. and god." -johnny cash


"the moon is clear, the sky is bright, i'm happy as the horse's shite." -the pogues


"i hope that you all out there, young, old, tall, short, fat or thin, quick or slow, no matter what kind or color or shape or person you are, if you like to make music, why, go ahead, don't let the microphones and loudspeakers faze you, make some yourself.” -pete seeger


"but chuck berry isn't merely the greatest of the rock and rollers, or rather, there's nothing mere about it. say rather that unless we can somehow recycle the concept of the great artist so that it supports chuck berry as well as it does marcel proust, we might as well trash it altogether." -robert christgau


mashable.com says about the spectacular: "you can expect the unexpected with this awesome gem. groovy."


the 33 1/3 book series' blog says: "whenever i start playing around on youtube i always end up watching that lady fall over while stomping grapes, so it's nice to have someone steer me in a more worthwhile direction."


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2008: j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o. n. d.


2009: j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o. n. d.


2010: j. f.


Creative Commons License
March 1

#539: loretta lynn (with don helms) - your cheatin’ heart (1966)

bob dylan said that when he found out hank williams had been killed, the silence of outer space never seemed so loud. and when loretta lynn plays hank williams’ saddest song with his own pedal steel guitar player, even the dark matter in the colliding galaxies of the famous bullet cluster sheds tears and sniffles. those twangs are hazy cosmic screams.

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February 28
the woman in the mysterious photograph from the inside of my 60s junior walker record might have the best hair in the long history of found photos. i hope she’s still alive and looking exactly the same. [taking photos of my pretty lps, part 7]

the woman in the mysterious photograph from the inside of my 60s junior walker record might have the best hair in the long history of found photos. i hope she’s still alive and looking exactly the same.

[taking photos of my pretty lps, part 7]

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February 27
just discovered this photograph inside of my old copy of the junior walker album. either someone put it there or it’s a promotional shot of jr. walker himself, at a party or a chinese restaurant (or both). i can’t quite make it out but i think the upside-down bowls on the table say hon kong restaurant. what is this? and who are these people? the fellow at center looks like lyle lovett’s awesome uncle, and he’s staring at a woman who looks like my mother at age 22. then for some reason there’s a very menacing and furious man hovering around, next to a guy who looks awfully happy. it’s lovely. [taking photos of my pretty lps, part 6]

just discovered this photograph inside of my old copy of the junior walker album. either someone put it there or it’s a promotional shot of jr. walker himself, at a party or a chinese restaurant (or both). i can’t quite make it out but i think the upside-down bowls on the table say hon kong restaurant. what is this? and who are these people? the fellow at center looks like lyle lovett’s awesome uncle, and he’s staring at a woman who looks like my mother at age 22. then for some reason there’s a very menacing and furious man hovering around, next to a guy who looks awfully happy. it’s lovely.

[taking photos of my pretty lps, part 6]

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the dollar lp bin at good records is a penny more expensive than the 99-cent section at bleecker street records, but you can taste the difference: this morning i picked up a copy of junior walker and the all stars’ soul session from 1966. it’s on tamla motown, whose logo was just incredibly perfect back then. it looks like a tattoo. [taking photos of my pretty lps, part 5]

the dollar lp bin at good records is a penny more expensive than the 99-cent section at bleecker street records, but you can taste the difference: this morning i picked up a copy of junior walker and the all stars’ soul session from 1966. it’s on tamla motown, whose logo was just incredibly perfect back then. it looks like a tattoo.

[taking photos of my pretty lps, part 5]

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February 26

#538: shane macgowan, nick cave, bobby gillespie, glen matlock, chrissie hynde, mick jones, johnny depp, and more - i put a spell on you (2010)

the future of charity singles has been put in grave jeopardy by a group of tocacco-smoking rapscallions who have recorded such a pelvic, leathery, and tremendous screamin’ jay hawkins cover (to benefit haiti) that no one, including lionel richie, will be brave enough to gather a group of singing celebrities ever again. this is the charity single to end charity singles. someone get shane macgowan a nobel and a drink.

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portrait of the shane macgowan as a young man—as a 19-year-old punk music magazine editor, actually. he is the hero of the day. he is the hero of the century.

portrait of the shane macgowan as a young man—as a 19-year-old punk music magazine editor, actually. he is the hero of the day. he is the hero of the century.

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February 25

#537 - neil young - dead man theme (1996)

i’m getting a little bit worried about alice in wonderland. i wonder if it’s too late for tim burton to scrap all that cgi and just reuse johnny depp’s performance in jim jarmusch’s mid-90s western dead man? or at the very least avril lavigne’s alice (“when the world’s crashing down/ when i fall and hit the ground/ i will turn myself around/ don’t you try to stop me”) can be replaced by an entire soundtrack of neil young’s noodling.

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February 24

#536: just-ice ft. krs-one - going way back (1987)

“to the best of my knowledge, i guess that i’m fresh” would be best epitaph in the history of the world. not a bad way to start a song, either.

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February 23
canyons, cocktails, penthouses, and aging go-go dancers is what leonard cohen’s  phil spector-produced 1977 masterpiece death of a ladies’ man smells like. it’s a woozy, brassy, oiled-up, wild-eyed, california king-sized album from a poet who otherwise sleeps on hardwood floors. and its cover is nearly as good as the poster for the 1961 jerry lewis film. its songs haven’t gotten what they deserved. rolling stone called fingerprints “wrongheaded country music,” as if country music was meant to be right-headed, and sighed that the hugely catchy don’t go home with your hard-on was a “rather pointless wallow in raunch,” like pointless leonard cohen raunchiness (with bob dylan and allen ginsberg yowling back-up!) could possibly be a bad thing. the magazine was wrong. even a minute with the album is a minute of bliss. download the album here—the password, if you need it, is power.

canyons, cocktails, penthouses, and aging go-go dancers is what leonard cohen’s  phil spector-produced 1977 masterpiece death of a ladies’ man smells like. it’s a woozy, brassy, oiled-up, wild-eyed, california king-sized album from a poet who otherwise sleeps on hardwood floors. and its cover is nearly as good as the poster for the 1961 jerry lewis film.

its songs haven’t gotten what they deserved. rolling stone called fingerprints “wrongheaded country music,” as if country music was meant to be right-headed, and sighed that the hugely catchy don’t go home with your hard-on was a “rather pointless wallow in raunch,” like pointless leonard cohen raunchiness (with bob dylan and allen ginsberg yowling back-up!) could possibly be a bad thing.

the magazine was wrong. even a minute with the album is a minute of bliss. download the album here—the password, if you need it, is power.

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#535: leonard cohen - memories (excerpt from a tour bus, 1979)

if you watch just one minute of a somber jewish mystic singing doo-wop about nudity on a moving bus, make it this one.

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February 22

#534: joe tex - the love you save (may be your own) (1966, hullabaloo)

the truly extraordinary thing about the love you save isn’t its eyelash-soft lilt—which brings to mind a description of opiates from vice magazine (“i like swimming through a sea of warm blankets fresh from the euphoria dryer as much as the next person.”) it’s the lyrics: joe tex’s love song is barely about love. it’s about violence and civil rights. “i’ve been taken outside and i’ve been brutalized, and i’ve had to always be the one to smile and apologize,” is the scariest line in r&b outside of marvin gaye’s what’s going on (an album that was released a half-decade later).

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February 21
i wish the world felt this way about me. are all joe tex album covers this awesome?

i wish the world felt this way about me. are all joe tex album covers this awesome?

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after a horrible multi-month hiatus, the 99-cent LP section at bleecker street records is back. yesterday evening i picked up a 1962 design spotlight series soul compilation whose exact title is joe tex!!! brook benton!!!!! marvin davis!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, which is as good as the name would leave you to believe, and took this picture to celebrate it. even though mr. tex gets the least amount of exclamation points, he steals the show. the man knew how to make music for the first nice sunny sunday of the year. [taking photos of my pretty lps, part 4]

after a horrible multi-month hiatus, the 99-cent LP section at bleecker street records is back. yesterday evening i picked up a 1962 design spotlight series soul compilation whose exact title is joe tex!!! brook benton!!!!! marvin davis!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, which is as good as the name would leave you to believe, and took this picture to celebrate it. even though mr. tex gets the least amount of exclamation points, he steals the show. the man knew how to make music for the first nice sunny sunday of the year.

[taking photos of my pretty lps, part 4]

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February 19
i totally call dibs on yoko ono’s sunglasses collection if the smithsonian hasn’t yet.

i totally call dibs on yoko ono’s sunglasses collection if the smithsonian hasn’t yet.

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#533: yoko ono & sean lennon - higa noboru (2009)

“i have to tell you,” yoko ono said to her audience at the brooklyn academy of music on tuesday night, a few days before her 77th birthday, “you have a long life ahead of you, and it’s going to be beautiful.” her brooklyn academy of music show—half concert, half tribute—was filled with all kinds of things: shimmying, screeching, thumping, family members, guitar gods, art films, drag, a tuba, a cello, and as ms. ono would say, a lot of cosmic splendor.

the first half was full of thick, loud, strange, twisting grooves, which probably wouldn’t sound like promising news to those who know her only as a screechy-voiced beatles destroyer. but this wasn’t music for a pilates class in westchester—it was interstellar and kaleidoscopic, with pelvic bass lines bouncing below gooey guitars and horns. she sashayed, shuffled, shook and swayed.

but the tribute half of the concert stole the show. in the spirit of ms. ono’s canyon-sized proclamations, the sound paul simon and his son, harper, made on the two songs they played and sang together was one of the most exceedingly warm things i’ve ever heard live on a stage. they played hold on from john lennon’s first solo album, and silver horse from season of glass, her first after his death. one is sung to a wife, and the other is sung by a widow.

eric clapton, the guest that came on afterward, turns 65 next month, but his guitar, especially on the white album’s yer blues, was hysterical, sludgy, and huge. “in sound check, he was teaching me to play how my dad did it,” said the younger mr. lennon. “a touch sophisticated.” after rising, one of the first set’s arty disco songs, full of ms. ono’s points and crouches and marches, mr. lennon son whispered something to into her ear. “he’s always saying, ‘oh it’s great, it’s great,’ to make me feel good,” she explained.

“i’m not lying, mom,” he said. the crowd sighed. a few days before the concert, ms. ono  discussed her maternal feelings: “you would never know, because you’re not old enough, i’m sorry to use those expressions, but when your son grows up, and he’s doing his own thing,” she explained, “it’s nice to get a chance to be with him for a while.” she said the show’s guests had been his idea. “they’re sort of added. added bombs! not bombs! bombs is a bad word! what is it? added sparkling stars.”

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