You know what really pisses me off? No? I'll tell you! It's when you have barely a scant memory of a lyric of a song, and don't know who sang it or when the song was released, and it's stuck back in the cobwebs of your mind...
.. then when looking for another completely different song from another artist, you stumble along another artist, in then see that they were the ones that wrote and released that song that was that scant memory... and then in listening to that song, you realize how damned good it is and wonder why the hell you overlooked that group for so long!
That's what just happened with me when listening to a set of Yacht Rock/soft rock songs, in Christopher Cross, which then finally led with a hugely underrated band that you all know as The Alan Parsons Project. You may know them for
Eye in the Sky, which makes perfect fodder for yacht rock, but you may better know them for the Jock Jam that is known as
Sirius. Trust me, if you've ever seen the team introduction to any Michael Jordan-era Chicago Bulls game, you've heard it.
Anywho, back to my point. what is on constant rotation is this gem, called
Don't Answer Me. It's timeless for 5 major reasons:
- Do the chords sound familiar? They should; the Wham song Last Christmas and Soul Asylum's Runaway Train are the same exact chord progression.
- Wall of Sound? Phil Specter, eat your heart out!!
- Dick Tracy pop art animation in a video. This came out in 1984, and predates a-ha's Take On Me and Dire Straits' Money For Nothing.
- Harmonies that the Beach Boys and America would say "damn, that's harmony!!"
- Alan Parsons... yes, the same Alan Parsons that was the sound engineer for Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album. so suffice to say that he knows his stuff.
Anyway, I heard this, had to listen again with the volume up to catch the lushness of the production, and then the volume down to hear each note in the melody and harmonies. Really good. Anyway, enjoy, and don't be afraid to turn this one up.
BL.
