Curated Music

Another mutating earworm presented itself in the car (again) the other day. Club de Belugas’ ‘Nujazz’ track ‘Some like it Hot’ was playing . Now I’ve listened to this maybe 30 times or so before but there was something present that I’d never picked up on previously. Maybe it was triggered by the specifics of the listening conditions, high levels of road noise and in a car that wasn’t my own, there was a synth brass stab in there the timbre and rhythm of which woke the earworm and set it off burrowing away.

(From 48s in on the video above)

This proved to be a relatively hard nut to crack but the Donovan Determination would not be deterred. Finally I unearthed the little devil hiding back in the early 90s DNA remix of Suzanne Vega’s ‘Tom’s Diner’ (0:28 onwards)

Now (perhaps unsurprisingly) the same brass stab pattern appears in another related track; Brenda Boykin, who’s vocals appear on ‘Some like it Hot’ also recorded ‘Love is in town’ (taken from her 2008 album ‘Chocolate and Chilli’) check it out below (0:36s for the brass stabs)

That’s it for this week’s earworm trail

I’ve another Suzanne Vega related mutating earworm post coming next week from a completely different direction.

Until then happy listening

Donovan.

You just can’t keep a good earworm down, it always keeps coming back to the surface.

A couple of months back I heard Anna Calvi’s ‘As a Man’ on my morning commute to work. It was immediately appealing for several reasons; Anna’s vocals hold tones I have a penchant for (think Garbage, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Warpaint etc) but the song itself hooked into some familiar musical memories.

First off I had strains of Shirley Bassey ‘The word is about there’s something evolving…’ straight from Propellerheads’ “History Repeating”

Then as the song progressed I heard a melodic hook that I struggled to place. For the rest of my journey to work I was humming it round and round.

Parking up I took a stab at identifying the track, it felt like a Coldplay number but I didn’t know the title. Flicking through their hits I finally found a match – ‘Talk’ from their third album X & Y

Clearly Anna has her own bit of history repeating and a top class song to boot as a result.

You know there will be more mutating earworms as and when I find them (or at least as and when I find time to put fingers to keys).

Maybe not tomorrow, but some day soon 😉

Donovan.

Back with another Midweek Mutation of an earworm. This one is literally hot of the decks having only just identified the link.

The Starting point is an absolute corker of a song from Rory Charles Graham aka Rag’n’Bone Man. “Human” was the title track from his first album, released in July 2016 it has been used in numerous TV shows and films. The parent album being released in February the following year.

It occurred to me that it would be a great track to add to the covers on my set list. After a couple of listens though I could hear something else coming to the fore during the descending “don’t put the blame on me”

And off we skip back to 1988 – the golden year of Stock Aitken and Waterman (see my last earworm!) which also birthed the classic “bohemian” pop record from Mrs Paul Simon aka Edie Brickell

I remember buying this from my local Woolworths store on 7″ Vinyl and playing it on my record player repeatedly at the age of 14. But I digress, “what’s the link?” you impatiently ask.”we can’t hear it”

Well the bit that strikes the earworm chord is the line “Don’t let me get to deep” which fairly closely follows the intonation of “don’t put the blame on me”.

So there you go, one fast fire earworm sorted. Just in time for tea.

Catch you later, humans

Donovan

Ready for more Midweek earworm machinations?

Ready or not here it comes!

Somewhere there is a photo of me at a school fancy-dress party donning blue jeans, white t-shirt plus questionable (certainly superfluous) braces, pretend strumming my dad’s acoustic guitar and singing along to one of the Stock Aitken and Waterman hits riding high in the charts at the time.

The song that was being played is the earworm answer to the conundrum that struck when I heard ‘We are Golden’ by MIKA for the first time.

Try not to be distracted by the typical MIKA exuberance and joyously cheeky performance, and just listen to the first 8 bars (which comprise the intro and choruses) it should take you all of about 10 of the 15 seconds to work our what it reminds you of. Assuming of course you were around at least old enough to appreciate chart music in 1989.

Yes that’s right Jason Donovan’s chart smash ‘Too Many Broken Hearts’.

Tell me I’m wrong and I’ll say ‘it’s my earworm so there!’ but somehow I don’t think you will today.

Back tomorrow 

Donovan

This week’s Midweek mutating earworm is quick and simple.

When ‘Fascination’ from Alphabeat came along in 2007 all I kept hearing was an 80s classic that would always get played at discos.

Purely tempo 180bpm and drum pattern from the intro / break is all it took to build an unbreakable earworm link to Footloose by Kenny Loggins

And then the next step on the journey is the same beat but slightly less high energy. The Cure’s “Close to me” taking almost the same drum beats but going off in a completely different direction.

And that’s it! Short and sweet, journey complete. 

You know what comes next…? tomorrow!

Donovan.