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.

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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.

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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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September 21

#448: tracy nelson and mother earth - wait, wait, wait/you win again (1968)

if it’s true that janis joplin really did sleep with leonard cohen at the chelsea hotel, then it’s not clear why tracy nelson, who was slightly better, couldn’t have known hank williams carnally in the middle of some desert—or, considering that he died when she was in the third grade, gram parsons. “country music is so pretty and clean and simple,” she says here, “and yet it says something that’s relative to the average young person’s life.”

she means that her band mother earth’s weird version of a barnyard gospel blues is so cosmically good that anyone who’s anyone will want to sing along. in other words, this is 60s nashville music by san fransisco stoners for 00s sweet sentimental fools.

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July 2

#402: lou reed & john cale - style it takes (from songs for drella, 1990)

if this sounds like hallelujah, only with no allusions to the old testament and a lot to pop art, it’s because john cale was a year or so away from making leonard cohen’s song famous when he and lou reed recorded songs for drella, their warhol eulogy. style it takes isn’t just soft and sweet, it gets nostalgic and furious—it’s downy but a downer, the combination that makes hallelujah so good. but leonard cohen’s song is probably better, what with its references to biblical coitus and all.

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January 5

leonard cohen’s mustache is the mustache that launched 1,000 mustaches.

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#279: leonard cohen - angel (dir. derek may) (1966)

in all of mankind’s history, there’s been only one canadian, mid-60s, black-and-white short film in which leonard cohen tells a woman, “i like wings. i like wings. i like wings. well, you really can’t stay?”

“maybe it’s better that way,” says the woman.

“no,” says leonard.

“i knew,” says the woman, “it wasn’t better that way.”

the film sadly doesn’t have footage of women feeding leonard cohen tea and oranges, but on the bright side an early canadian folk band named the stormy clovers plays obscure leonard cohen instrumentals while the man himself asks questions like “where does it hurt?” (the answer turns out to be “in the wings”), and “excuse me, miss, can i borrow your wings?”

“no,” the woman responds. “maybe. why? sorry. no.”

“i won’t go far,” says leonard.

“well, next time,” says the woman.

“i’m dying to try your wings!” says leonard.

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“i heard of a man who says words so beautifully that if he only speaks their name women give themselves to him.” (from let us compare mythologies)

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“my reputation as a ladies’ man was a joke. it caused me to laugh bitterly through the ten thousand nights i spent alone. from a third-story window above the parc du portugal i’ve watched the snow come down all day. as usual there’s no one here.” (from book of longing)

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January 1

#277: john cale - hallellujah (1992)

9 albums from 1969 i’ll listen to 40 times in 2009 to mark their 40th anniversaries:

1. the velvet underground’s the velvet underground: even though john cale (above) had just left the band, this not only has super-delicate candy says and pale blue eyes, but tuba-thumping after hours.

2. leonard cohen’s songs from a room: a very long-faced jew plays a jew’s harp and some tunes about jews, birds, and butchers. if only leonard cohen had written hallelujah back in the 60s, then john cale could’ve covered it with the velvet underground, and then everyone’s heads would’ve exploded.

3. fairport convention’s unhalfbricking: get yourself a father like mine who saved his fairport convention LPs and kept them spic and span, and then go and listen to percy’s song until your heart bleeds.

4. bob dylan’s nashville skyline: tonight i’ll be staying here with you, lay lady lay, and country pie are three exceptionally satisfying and only moderately dirty country ditties about sex. when you’re older i’ll tell you who old saxophone joe is.

5. caetano veloso’s caetano veloso: once i strangled a fascist spy in brazil with a purple shoelace while listening to veloso’s closing track alfômega.

6. harry nilsson’s harry: i’ve been listeninig to pandemonium shadow show, aerial ballet, nilsson sings newman, and especially a little touch of schmilsson in the night too much, so 2009 will be the year of harry.

7. townes van zandt’s townes van zandt: mostly i’ll just listen to fare thee well, miss carousel because it’s better than anything on nashville skyline, and i’d stand on bob dylan’s big brass bed in my desert boots and say that.

8. david bowie’s space oddity: not as perfect as hunky dory or as martian as ziggy stardust or as fashionable as scary monsters, but space oddity has janine, the love song of the year.

9. skip spence’s oar: did you know that when lou reed heard all come to meet her he opened up his chest with john lennon’s pen knife and fedexed his left and right ventricles to neil young, but the package was intercepted on the canadian border by leonard cohen, who gave it to bob dylan for his birthday?

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March 16

#70: leonard cohen - the stranger song (1967)

not many jewish-canadian clothing store heirs have written love song lyrics as perfect as: “it’s hard to hold the hand of anyone/ who is reaching for the sky just to surrender.” but leonard cohen is a special canadian.

by 1967 he had been president of the mcgill university debating union, a columbia law school drop-out, a published poet (with collections like let us compare mythologies and flowers for hitler), and a recluse novelist living on a greek island called hydra (like the multi-headed water beast). what a guy.

in his spare time he wrote tortured folk songs like this one, and then he finally released an insanely great and dour debut album (which starts off with suzanne, the best ballad ever written about chinese tea and oranges.) it’s perfect music for sulking in your grandfather’s turtleneck sweater, listening to the rain start and stop next to a brunette with bangs who knows a little kierkegaard.

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“ 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’… [he had] megalomania and insanity and a devotion to armaments that was really intolerable. in the state that he found himself, which was post-wagnerian, i would say hitlerian, the atmosphere was one of guns, the music was a subsidiary enterprise. leonard cohen on phil spector, who produced cohen’s death of a ladies’ man… see monday’s spector posts for more.

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January 26

good album cover #1: i love those words, and that cut-out smiling shot, and the ladies’ man quote below

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“ if a strain of gallows humor didn’t underlie many of mr. cohen’s pronouncements, such observations might sound insufferably pretentious. but he continually undercuts his own solemnity. here is he is on his own mystique as a silver-tongued casanova: ‘my reputation as a ladies’ man was a joke. it caused me to laugh bitterly the 10,000 nights I spent alone.’ stephen holden on leonard cohen in the new york times, june 2006

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