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 10
in this week’s observer, i wrote about a very bald and large israeli businessman named yuval tal, whose new york company makes the prepaid private-label debit mastercards that were used in january’s assassination of a senior hamas militant. the whole time i was writing it i thought about james bond, except mr. tal’s secret manhattan headquarters turned out to be sort of sad and dingy.

in this week’s observer, i wrote about a very bald and large israeli businessman named yuval tal, whose new york company makes the prepaid private-label debit mastercards that were used in january’s assassination of a senior hamas militant. the whole time i was writing it i thought about james bond, except mr. tal’s secret manhattan headquarters turned out to be sort of sad and dingy.

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March 5
i have recently conducted thorough research with colleagues, and our conclusion is that joan collins once had gams from here to next tuesday. the original caption of this photo reads, “1956: british actor joan collins holding a cigarette while leaning against a fence in shorts.” hemingway couldn’t have said it better himself.

i have recently conducted thorough research with colleagues, and our conclusion is that joan collins once had gams from here to next tuesday. the original caption of this photo reads, “1956: british actor joan collins holding a cigarette while leaning against a fence in shorts.” hemingway couldn’t have said it better himself.

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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 26
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 21
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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February 16
oh, carol.

oh, carol.

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February 15
are you familiar with the mysterious wonders of wilson simonal? if not, it might be because he fell out of favor after he was accused of being an informant to the brazilian fascists (which turned out to not be true), but you can remedy it by listening to vou deixar cair from 1966, which is the closest recorded music can get to sounding like a swirly straw cocktail. and please note that his album covers featured the best assortment of seriously large sunglasses and also yellow turtlenecks ever.

are you familiar with the mysterious wonders of wilson simonal? if not, it might be because he fell out of favor after he was accused of being an informant to the brazilian fascists (which turned out to not be true), but you can remedy it by listening to vou deixar cair from 1966, which is the closest recorded music can get to sounding like a swirly straw cocktail. and please note that his album covers featured the best assortment of seriously large sunglasses and also yellow turtlenecks ever.

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February 11
posdnuos (seated): “will anyone ever look as cool as we do at this 1989 moment?” maseo (right): “how could one say for sure? probably not, though. trugoy (left): not. no. definitely not. [this concludes imaginary dialogue from late-80s time magazine rap photos, v. 1]

posdnuos (seated): “will anyone ever look as cool as we do at this 1989 moment?”

maseo (right): “how could one say for sure? probably not, though.

trugoy (left): not. no. definitely not.

[this concludes imaginary dialogue from late-80s time magazine rap photos, v. 1]

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February 6
david bowie’s station to station: best inner sleeve of all time? weirdly the internet didn’t have a picture of it, so i took this photograph of my very own copy of the album just now. [taking photos of my pretty lps, part 3]

david bowie’s station to station: best inner sleeve of all time? weirdly the internet didn’t have a picture of it, so i took this photograph of my very own copy of the album just now.

[taking photos of my pretty lps, part 3]

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+
i forgot how good david bowie’s station to station was, but it’s the only thing that’s saving this non-snowy day. first of all, tvc15 is one of the best pop songs of the 1970s, and not only because it’s about an incident in which iggy pop thought his television was eating his girlfriend. but then word on a wing sneaks up on you, golden years is a toe-tapper, and the title song is terrifying and classic. david bowie learned that station to station was recorded in los angeles only afterwards, and it shows. [taking photos of my pretty lps, part 2]

i forgot how good david bowie’s station to station was, but it’s the only thing that’s saving this non-snowy day. first of all, tvc15 is one of the best pop songs of the 1970s, and not only because it’s about an incident in which iggy pop thought his television was eating his girlfriend. but then word on a wing sneaks up on you, golden years is a toe-tapper, and the title song is terrifying and classic. david bowie learned that station to station was recorded in los angeles only afterwards, and it shows.

[taking photos of my pretty lps, part 2]

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February 2
franco sounds as good as he looks (just listen to this and this).

franco sounds as good as he looks (just listen to this and this).

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January 28
why a close-up from joan of arc was never put on the cover of a smiths album (or single!) is anyone’s guess. this charming man got jean marais and what difference does it make got terrence stamp, so morissey could have at the very least considered renee falconetti for pretty girls make graves and/or cemetery gates.

why a close-up from joan of arc was never put on the cover of a smiths album (or single!) is anyone’s guess. this charming man got jean marais and what difference does it make got terrence stamp, so morissey could have at the very least considered renee falconetti for pretty girls make graves and/or cemetery gates.

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January 26
it’s true that ram would have sounded better with paul mccartney’s old bandmates, but imagine, all things must pass and ringo would have too. so can’t we all just agree that it’s a good album and a warm album and that paul looked good in this 1948 photograph?

it’s true that ram would have sounded better with paul mccartney’s old bandmates, but imagine, all things must pass and ringo would have too. so can’t we all just agree that it’s a good album and a warm album and that paul looked good in this 1948 photograph?

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January 25
one more look at the hat. just soak in its rays. and—hark—is that president bush, first lady bush, president clinton, and vice president gore in the background? one can only wonder what they were thinking about. it was probably aretha-related. her inauguration hat was the 21st-century equivalent of the white turtleneck suit al green wore on the i’m so in love with you cover, only better.

one more look at the hat. just soak in its rays. and—hark—is that president bush, first lady bush, president clinton, and vice president gore in the background? one can only wonder what they were thinking about. it was probably aretha-related. her inauguration hat was the 21st-century equivalent of the white turtleneck suit al green wore on the i’m so in love with you cover, only better.

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