Each week, the pop culture website Pop-A-Looza shares some posts from my vast 'n' captivating Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) archives. The latest shared post is another exciting episode of Guilt-Free Pleasures (A Defense Against The Dark Arts), pleading its case on behalf of "Indiana Wants Me" by R. Dean Taylor.
This was written as a Guilt-Free Pleasures piece, but it could have just as easily been a Greatest Record Ever Made! chapter. As always, an infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. And, if my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) ever manages to will itself into existence, I would almost certainly convert this R. Dean Taylor bit for use in a very hypothetical GREM! Volume 2.
It wouldn't be the first Guilt-Free Pleasure to go through that metamorphosis. The blueprint for the actual (if still hypothetical) GREM! Volume 1 includes a piece based in part upon my Guilt-Free Pleasures study of Milli Vanilli (providing context for an entirely different act). A Guilt-Free Pleasures celebration of "Freedom" by Wham! formed the basis for a chapter originally intended for GREM! Volume 1, and subsequently shifted to Volume 2 in an effort to streamline the book into a more manageable size. It's possible, though unlikely, that I could convert a Guilt-Free Pleasures piece about the Monkees' "I Never Thought It Peculiar" to a GREM!, but a G-FP rant called "This Is Radio KISS" wouldn't lend itself to such repurposing. And anyway, the subject of KISS is already explored (and celebrated!) in its own GREM! chapter about "Shout It Out Loud."
Because so much of what I write focuses on songs, the artists who record them, and the stories associated with them, there are many posts from my many different recurring blog features that could be used as a GREM! chapter. Or vice versa. A GREM! Volume 1 chapter about the Partridge Family's "I Woke Up In Love This Morning" could have been a Guilt-Free Pleasure, but it's actually based on something from my weekly 10 Songs column. 10 Songs has been a fertile breeding ground for GREM! ideas.
Another source to feed the GREM! ranks is my B-side appreciation series The Other Side Of The Hit, which gave the proposed book the template for its Yoko Ono chapter, as well as another Monkees piece that was just recently excised in the streamlining process. (Don't worry; the Monkees will get their due in The Greatest Record Ever Made! [Volume 1].) Some Other Side Of The Hit bits about the Ramones, the Go-Go's, and the Barbarians could likewise have been GREM! chapters. It's ALL pop music.
(And, although I still can't tell you much about my forthcoming first book, to be published in the Spring of 2023, I can say that it includes a single, stand-alone Greatest Record Ever Made! chapter near the end of the book. The first GREM! book appearance! Here's hoping it leads to more.)
As we await the elusive idea of more, we pause to marvel at the pulp noir story I hear in a pop song from 1970. R. Dean Taylor's "Indiana Wants Me" is the subject of the latest Boppin' Pop-A-Looza.
If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider supporting this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon, or by visiting CC's Tip Jar. Additional products and projects are listed here.
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.
I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl
No comments:
Post a Comment