Category Archives: Bands & Music Artists

TLC – ‘Waterfalls’ Domination of the Summer of ’95

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TLC – four platinum albums, five Grammys, sold more than sixty-five million records, and ranked the best selling American female group of all time.  Members Tionne ‘T-Boz’ Watkins, Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopez, and Rozonda ‘Chilli’ Thomas lit the world on fire with their R&B, Funk, Hip-Hop, Urban, and Soul sound.  TLC signed with Antonio L. A. Reid at LaFace Records in ’91, and their debut album (Ooooooohhh…On the TLC Tip) was released in February ’92. The album was a critical and commercial success becoming a four time platinum album in that year.  Written primarily by Lopez and producer Dallas Austin.  This album led to three Top 10 singles (Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg, What About Your Friends, and Baby-Baby-Baby), as well as a national tour as the opening act for MC Hammer.

Their second album (CrazySexyCool) made them even bigger.  With four singles that reached the top five Hot 100 (Creep, Waterfalls, Red Light Special, and Diggin’ On You), worldwide sales hitting fifteen million, Diamond Certification from RIAA, and won two Grammys in ’96.  They seemed unstoppable, except life has a way of hitting you in the face.  Watkins was dealing with medical bills and an illness, and Lopez had a drinking problem, domestic disputes with her then boyfriend, as well as an arrest record for arson.  The Group declared chapter 11 bankruptcy in ’95.  Some articles say it was the bills and problems that the girls got into while others directed it towards the expenses, fees, and royalties that the label and management team were receiving.  It seemed the more money the group made the less money the group got.  They were selling millions of records and performing, but after all the costs, fees, and other expenses the girls were left with $50,000 a piece after years of blood, sweat, and tears.  I think the lesson here is to really understand what you are signing with management and a label, and if you don’t understand the agreement or need to negotiate bring in an entertainment lawyer.

CrazySexyCool had the hit of the summer 1995 with Waterfalls.  A song that was smooth and soulful with the rap edge of Lopez.  Written by Lopez, Marqueze Etheridge, and Organized Noise where it touched on subjects of illegal drugs, promiscuity, HIV/ AIDS, and death.  The video was innovative, full of digital enhancements that were still new to the time, and hit real subject matter that made you think about your actions.  It was not the normal summer hit that was all fun and games, but brought you to an understanding that your actions have consequences.  These lyrics in the song sum up the concept:

“I say the system got you victim to your own mind
Dreams are hopeless aspirations
In hopes of comin’ true
Believe in yourself
The rest is up to me and you”

Waterfalls spent seven weeks at number one, won four MTV Video Music Awards, and introduced the world to Cee Lo Green who assisted with the backing vocals on the track along with Debra Killings.  I can honestly say that when I was nine years old, I was not paying attention to the deeper metaphor.  Watching MTV with my cooler older brother all I really cared about was that I got to do what the big kids do.  Now I realized how important this song was to our generation.  The epidemic of HIV/AIDS hit in the 80s and carried into the 90s.  The drug situation with the youth is terrifying and brings to light the importance of mentors in the inner cities to get kids out of the illegal drug ring.  To understand that there are better options and more opportunities than what is in front of you.

TLC dominated the charts during the 90s.  They continued to make epic music like No Scrubs which was our jam in middle school!  After their third album Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopez died in a car crash in Honduras in 2002.  The group released a fourth album with some of Lopez’s raps on two of the songs, but the group made the decision to retire and never replace their sister.  Now, they are on the move to make a fifth album for the fans in collaboration with their old producer Dallas Austin.  Waterfalls will always one my favorite songs of the 90s.  There is no doubt that the new generation of girl groups had some great role models for music.  TLC was the the representation of females and excelled in a dominated boy band time and brought to light issues more than just a song about a broken heart.

Click Here and come back to the 90s with this TLC playlist. Below is the video for ‘Waterfall’.

Band Spotlight: Against the Current

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Girl fronted bands have been blowing up in the music scene over the last few years.  There is Paramore, The Pretty Reckless, Prvis, Echosmith, and now Against the Current.  Recently signed to the record label Fueled By Ramen (March 2015), Against the Current (ATC) is a three piece pop-rock band that consists of Chrissy Costanza (lead vocals), Daniel Gow (guitar and vocals), and Will Ferri (drums) from Poughkeepsie, New York.  Formed in the Summer of 2011 meeting through mutual friends and were originally a five piece band which also included Jeremy Rampala (guitar) and Joe Simmons (bass).  Ultimately, they have grown into the badass band they are today with a more enhanced musical sound, stronger stylized lyricists, and a fan base that I have watched grow on YouTube from a little over 100,000 to over a million followers.

In an interview with Maria Sherman the band stated that they utilized YouTube as a way to build their fan base outside of playing local gigs at pizza hangouts.  They were a band for about a year before ATC created their YouTube channel where they not only did covers of popular songs, but released original music.  The first cover they released was Good Time (Owl City and Carly Rae Jepsen) as well as their first original Thinking.  Releasing both at the same time I thought was music business genius.  Fans of Owl City and Carly Rae Jepsen searching online could come across ATC’s cover as well as their original music to help gain a new audience.

For the past four years ATC has done all the business related together as a team from packing up and sending merchandise, to spending a week to record and write in the studio to release new music for their fans.  The one support they have had before the label is a manager to helped book them all over the world.  For a band that just got a record deal in 2015 they have played sold out gigs in not only the United States, but in England, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Canada.  Now having a record label behind them they can focus more on their music as well as get a promotional push from the label to reach a radio level of success.

Their most recent EP Gravity has the potential to have radio hits, especially the song Talk.  Right now, the radio sound has been blowing up with 80s synth music (Taylor Swift, The Bleachers) and the comeback of electric guitars with groups like 5 Seconds of Summer and their 2014 break out hit She Looks So Perfect.  Chrissy Costanza has a powerful voice that has a range to be able to go from a hard rocker chick to a soft ballad.  Personally, I like her voice when it is on a bit of an edge.  The song Talk has an aggressive sound with the start of simple chords of a guitar and soft drum beat that explodes within the first twenty seconds.  Costanza’s ‘don’t mess with me’ attitude I think is the power every girl wishes they had when dealing with a boy that messing with their head; the younger generation has a great role model coming up with Costanza.

Against the Current’s push to go against the grain by releasing original music through YouTube along with covers gave them an edge in getting recognized by a label.  Their push to play outside their hometown, wanting the music to reach more than their inner circle coupled with the drive to do their music their way has a stead fast determination sure to take them far.  As their name is derived from the last line in The Great Gastby, “So we beat on, boats against the current, born back ceaselessly into the past.”

Music Video for Against the Current’s Talk.  Click here for ATC website.

Kurt Cobain – Genius, Musician, and A Lost Soul

Posted in Bands & Music Artists, Film, Songs by

Nirvana – a transcendent state in which there is neither suffering, desire, or sense of self.  A state of perfect happiness.  After watching the film ‘Montage of Heck’ Kurt Cobain was far from happy.  You know when you look into someone’s eyes and you can see a light dance when they are happy?  The only time you ever saw a light was when he was young, maybe three or four, and then you saw it again when he was around his daughter.  People see famous people and have this vision that their life is perfect.  That suffering doesn’t exist in that world.

Cobain’s problems started before he was born.  His parents got married young without the realization that marriage is hard work and that children are even harder work.  They hadn’t really figured themselves out as individuals let alone had the ability to know who they were as a couple.  At nine, Cobain’s parents got a divorce, which was difficult for Kurt because no one got divorce in those days.  It seemed that he felt humiliated, betrayed, and broken.  He acted out towards everyone.  His mother who kicked him out and sent him to his father.  His father who belittled and shamed him for his hyper-active behavior.  His siblings, grandparents, and step-mother.  The list continues as he was passed around from family member to family member.  When Kurt would act out, he would be passed on to the next one.  No one ever truly dealt with the emotional damage that had been created and was still being created.

He loved art – music, drawing, and writing.  Kurt fell in love with punk rock.  Punk rock was the music that understood the anger he felt, the alienation, and the loneliness.  His sister Kim said, “He was in search of something that didn’t make him feel so alone. So different.”  Watching the film of the intertwined rock shows, the interviews, the home movies of him as a teenager and into his twenties that he was searching for acceptance and to be loved.  He was threatened by ridicule and by what others thought, but he was his own worse critic.  He was a musical genius, a lyricist that always had a deeper meaning, and a mind that never took a vacation.  He never wanted the fame.  I think that the biggest thing he wanted was to help young people not feel so alone like him.  He wanted his music to be great; to be something that people could find their own interpretations.  He believed that the music spoke for itself, that the explanation was based on the individual.  In the song ‘Come As You Are’ Cobain sings,

“Come as you are, as you were,
As I want you to be
As a friend, as a friend, as an old enemy
Take your time, hurry up
The choice is yours, don’t be late.
Take a rest, as a friend, as an old memory”

Those lyrics are hauntingly beautiful.  Almost like he was trying to convince the world to accept themselves.  Trying to convince the world to accept him.  And trying to convince the man in the mirror to accept him.  Being from a broken family he wanted to make sure that his immediate family (Courtney Love & Frances Bean) was never broken, but again it was broken before it started.  He and Love were both addicted to heroine, never dealt with past struggles with their own parents, and now enters their child (Frances).  Cobain said in an interview that Frances became the most important thing in his life.  That he didn’t want her to be screwed up because of him.  He would leave the band if it started to affect her in anyway.  Cobain committed suicide on April 5, 1994.  His daughter grew up without him.  Never knowing the man that loved her more then he loved himself.  He was heartfelt musician, but what a wasted talent.  He died a broken man.  Leaving the world with songs such as ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and ‘All Apologies.’  He helped create a whole new style of music, and introduced the 90s generation to grunge.  Even though he formed Nirvana he never truly found it.

All details of Kurt Cobain’s life were found through the documentary ‘Montage of Heck’ – watch the trailer here.

Now & Then – The Soundtrack to Generations Growing Up

Posted in Bands & Music Artists, Film, Music, Songs by

Growing up during the 90s, me and three of my friends were obsessed with the movie Now and Then.  We would watch it at my friend’s birthday sleepover ever year and think that we were those girls, and we were going to be them when we got older.  We thought that we would be friends forever, but time changed and we grew apart.  Now, I sit watching this movie in Boston alone and all I can think about are my parents.  We all wonder what our parents were like when they were kids.  Did they like the same hobbies we did?  What were their friends like?  What mistakes did they make?  What was it like for them in their first relationship?  Did they have people they didn’t get along with in school?  What was their favorite song when they were thirteen years old?  Watching this film these are thoughts that run through my head, and I realized that I don’t know the answers to most of these questions.

Now and Then is a coming of age story about four thirteen year old girls who made a pack to be there for each other no matter what, now and forever.  The film has flashbacks between present day and the 1970s, which in my parent’s case they would have been around thirteen too.   The girls grow up in that year – one them has feelings for a boy for the first time, they deal with death, understanding divorce, the loss of just having faith, and realizing that your parents are not always right.  We put our parents on these pedestals as kids; that they are untouchable, perfect, but in reality they are human too.  They make mistakes, can’t handle situations, and do things the best way they know how.  These four girls meet people throughout the film that teaches them these lessons, and the soundtrack is intertwined in those lessons if you listen closely.

The film soundtrack uses popular songs from the 1970s to set the stage. The movie flashes to the beginning of the summer of 1970 as ‘Daydream Believer’ by The Monkees plays in the background.  This shows the innocence that we all have when we are young.  The belief that anything is possible, full of hope, happiness, and faith.  The girls are riding their bikes on their next adventure singing along to ‘No Matter What’ by Badfinger.  Right after hearing this song, they run into the boys of the neighborhood who are constantly taunting them, which we all know is the universal sign of I have a crush on you.  The girls converse, where they decide it is payback time for all that has been done to them by the boys.  ‘Sugar Sugar’ by The Archies plays as they paint the garage, dancing around and having fun with another; thinking that nothing will ever change, that nothing will ever separate them, but as an adult, people that you always thought would be there, sometimes leave – they get married, create families, and drift apart from their childhood.

As a kid you think that nothing will ever separate you with the people that you care about, but as we get older we lose what’s important.  We get caught up in our own lives and the mundane routine that controls it.  We lose touch with people (family and friends), get caught up in the failures that happen, and forget that sometimes you just have to have faith.  So, I leave you with this, “Things will happen in your life that you can’t stop.  But that is no reason to shut out the world.”   Call that person that you haven’t spoken to in years, break your routine everyday, and dance like a crazy person in the aisle of a grocery store with your best friend to your favorite song.  Continue the soundtrack of your life living with the good, the bad, and the ugly, not everything everyone says (including your parents) is right, ask your parents those burning questions before you can’t, and know that the people of your past are the people that made you who you are today.

Click here for a playlist of the Now and Then Soundtrack, and then go watch the movie!

‘My Music is Better Than Yours’ – Generational Music Gaps

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My mom’s favorite line when she hears the rap music my brother listens to is, “there is a reason why rap rhymes with crap.” Of course then my brother defends rap music by saying you don’t understand that there is a lot of poetry and deep lyrical thought behind the verses, then of course my mom’s rebuttal is “I still don’t like it.” I’m sure all of you out there have had this disagreement with your parents where they don’t understand why you like the music you like, but what I don’t understand is where did this music elitism stem from? Is it just the love that generations have for the time they grew up in? Is it because they had kids and didn’t really keep up with new genres that were coming up because they were driving kids to baseball practice and dance classes? Or is it because as a kid and a teenager, music speaks to you at a level when you feel like no one understands you?

I still haven’t quite figured out the answer to this question, but what I do know is that new genres and styles of music stem from the past, so why doesn’t everyone like all genres like me?  To continue with the rap music lineage, it is based around storytelling, which is the basis of every music genre in existence. Taking it one step further, this type of music is tied to other styles such as jazz, rhythm and blues, and gospel music. It is tied to the rich history of the streets of New York City and ultimately became a way of expression for the African American and Latino communities in the 1980s. Rap music started off being spoken instead of sung with strong beats, an intense rhythm, and ability to develop strong lyrics if the rapper is truly talented.

Now, I know what the baby boomer generation is thinking especially my mother – “it’s still crap.” In many cases, just like any genre, if you listen to one artists and you don’t like their music it turns you off to the entire style. TuPac is one of the greatest rappers to ever exist. His song Dear Mama is something that hits you deep in the gut when you are listening to it. It brings you back to various points of time in his life, regrets he’s had from his choices, and gives you an image to develop characters in a story like you are reading a book. My brother is obsessed with Eminem. I think Eminem is another artist who has come out of this genre strong. His songs connect to his life, and gives an insight to what he has gone through. This gives listeners the ability to feel like they are understood and connect on a more personal level. For example, Eminem’s Lose Yourself says,

“Look, if you had, one shot, or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted. In one moment
Would you capture it, or just let it slip?”

How can this music be crap?  Parents, teenagers, and kids I encourage you to give one another’s generational music a chance.  Classical isn’t boring, rap isn’t crap, and pop music isn’t sub par to the rest of the styles out there.  The next time someone comes to you with new music figure out why they like it, ask questions, and develop some insight on where it came from.  History might surprise you.