In the Middle of Psychedelia ...

lyle_from_minneapolis · Mon Jun 04, 2007 9:39 am

Sidetracked agin... But while we're at it, I believe Zappa's legacy has not yet begun to build proper momentum. He was a brilliant composer, but we mostly remember him for all the Yellow Snow. Ah well, time will retumfy dis sizuation.

admin · Post by **admin** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 9:40 am

With regard to Englebert and Jones there may have also been the bling factor!

lyle_from_minneapolis · Mon Jun 04, 2007 9:43 am

What do you say to a guy like that. "Um, your upper fly is open."

Tom definitely aging better than the Dinck...

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 9:44 am

Humperdinck looks like a refugee Medellin trafficker...

admin · Post by **admin** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 9:55 am

Paul: Is he that easy to forget?

Seriousness aside, although he was a far cry from what I enjoyed in the 1960s, to this day I know the melody and lyrics of most of his hits.

Could it be that his melodies and themes were strong enough to find their way into the temporal lobes of even those who professed to hate his material?

winston · Post by **winston** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 10:09 am

"It's not unusual to be loved by anyone"

Is that the kind of pervasive effect on the memory you had in mind Peter?

This is terrible. I did not even have to think about that line, it just popped into my head

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 10:27 am

Peter, Hump's music was archetypal in the lowest-common-denominator sense.

Kind of like the soundtrack from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs".

admin · Post by **admin** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 10:42 am

Yes Brian. That is it. Please release me from all this stuff.

Paul: Just whistle while you work and all will be right again.

wayang · Post by **wayang** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 10:45 am

So, Peter...are you suggesting that, rather than the melodies that crept into the heads of even the 'haters' or the mannish 'Jolie' looks, it was in fact the 'bling' that all the girls were throwing their panties for???

Hmm...I believe you may be on to something there...

admin · Post by **admin** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 10:57 am

No Dane, as humourous as your point is.

It it likely that the reason for the popularity of the music of both of these artists is multifactorial.

As we have discovered in previous threads, there is something about particular melodies, guitar riffs, harmonies, lyrics or the interaction thereof that heads to regions of the brain that has reinforcing or rewarding properties that increase our attraction to the same.

Intellectually we may rail against a particular song but emotionally we seem to embrace it based on these unexplained rewarding properties.

wayang · Post by **wayang** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 11:07 am

Yeah, but really now, Peter: "Honey", by Bobby Goldsboro??? The only rewarding property of that song is the comic value of being able to drop it into a thread like this...

(By the way, I love this forum for it's inclusion of words like "multifactorial"...

Keep them arriving!)

admin · Post by **admin** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 11:37 am

Dane: Eleven weeks on the chart with a #1 in the US and a #2 in the UK. Why? Melodic, tender, therapeutic or just a laugh?

This simplistic song allows you to sway gently back and forth in the breeze and before you know it you have done some serious work with regard to grieving.

It is not so much about the lyrics but the feel. For each and everyone of us, time wounds all heels, sooner or later and before we realize it "Now my life's an empty stage."

The rhythmic swaying in this song can do much to ameliorate dysphoria through sensory awareness. At the end of the day, sometimes it is important to "just be."

charlyg · Post by **charlyg** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 11:40 am

I was a big Goldsboro fan growing up in Sdak in the 60's.Lettermen, Tommy Roe, Tommy James, Bobby Vinton, I could go on......

But in late 69 I came to California and found rock......

wayang · Post by **wayang** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 11:49 am

Churlish! Oh, Mc-C, you've done it again...

Ok, if you're going to pin me down, I vote for 'just a laugh'...

I'd have to really do the research, but I'm betting a lot of the tunes Nurse Ratched played for the inmates on "...Cockoo's Nest" were big hits with lots of radio play.

"Medication time, gentlemen..."

wayang · Post by **wayang** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 11:52 am

Hey, no fair! I've been set up...

(I liked churlish better than simplistic...especially since Bobby G.'s such a churl...)