Browse Category: Music

A Soundtrack of High School

As promised, I am writing a post on favorite songs from my high school years. I’m not sure anyone was really waiting with bated breath for more “soundtrack” posts from me, but I enjoy the reminiscing. So, here goes!

At a cast party for a play I was in my sophomore year in high school (1983–1984) with my friend Laurie in the background.

The Birth of MTV

In my early teens, I was into a mishmash of musical genres. As I said in my most recent blog entry about my childhood music favorites, I had started getting into some classic rock (thanks to my older brother) and power pop (Pat Benetar) and a little New Wave (The Go-Go’s) by my pre-teens. MTV started in August 1981, the year I turned 13. This was a super-exciting event, as it meant that I was exposed to a broader range of music than was previously available in my small town. At that time, the local radio stations played a lot of soft rock and pop and some rock but not much (if any) alternative, punk, New Wave, or electronic music.

MTV opened up a whole new world. I can’t remember now if my family already had cable at the time MTV started (I think we did) or whether I watched that original MTV broadcast (I probably didn’t), but MTV soon became a big part of my early teenage life. See below for MTV’s debut (and sorry for the poor video quality).

Through MTV, I discovered “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles (the first video ever aired on MTV!), got more into Pat Benetar, and first heard music by The Pretenders, Split Enz, Elvis Costello, and many others. It’s hard to remember which of those early music videos had the biggest impact, but I do recall being very into “I Ran” by A Flock of Seagulls my freshman year in high school. Even though FOS was pretty much a one-hit wonder, “I Ran” and that FOS hairstyle (not featured in the “I Ran” video but seen in “Space Age Love Song,” which I also liked) had a big impact on teens in 1982! “I Ran” was also a very popular song at our high school Friday night dances in the early ’80s.

Another early-’80s fave was “Rock the Casbah” by The Clash. Like “I Ran,” “Rock the Casbah” got heavy play at the high school dances my freshman year and was probably a song I first heard on MTV. Wikipedia tells me that the song lyrics were inspired by the ban on Western music in Iran after the Islamic Revolution. I don’t think the lyrics seem too politically correct today, but as a fairly clueless 14-year-old in rural Pennsylvania, I thought they were great. (And I still do love The Clash.)

One of my all-time favorite songs, then and now, is “Melt With You” by Modern English. This song, which came out in 1982, still makes me happy. Oh, how I love it!

A memorable event was the 1982 release of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video, an extended version directed by John Landis. I recently went to see an MJ tribute band called Foreverland, and I was telling the friends I went with how exciting it was when the “Thriller” video came out. One of my high school pals had a “Thriller” viewing party. The 14-minute short film revolutionized the music video genre. Hailed as the greatest music video of all time by MTV, VH1, Rolling Stone, and others, it is the only music video included in the Library of Congress’ prestigious National Film Registry.

While MJ is a controversial figure today, I still love his music. He was so talented and driven as an artist, and of course, his songs from the ’80s have a lot of nostalgia value for me now.

Boom Boxes and Stereos

I had an old stereo that I inherited from my dad when he got a new one, but around 1981 or 1982, I also got a boom box, which I loved. It was easier to play cassette tapes on the boombox than vinyl on my turntable. Of course, the sound wasn’t as good and you had to fast forward or rewind to find a particular track. I can remember waiting breathlessly, finger on the “record” button to try and tape my favorite songs as they played on the radio. It took skill to hit “record” at the right moment and then to turn off the recording before the DJ started talking over the end of the song or a new song started playing. If you were lucky, the DJ was quiet and you got (almost) the whole song on tape.

Making “mixtapes” was fun for me and many teens in the ’80s. Whether it was recording a cassette of your own favorites to play in the car or making a special tape for a friend or love interest, mixtapes were awesome! I don’t think I made too many in high school, just because the technology I had wasn’t super, but I did make a ton of them in college.

At some point in my teens, I got my own brand-new stereo system. How exciting! It was huge. It included a receiver, turntable, and tape deck. All this was held in a massive fake wood cabinet (probably 4 feet high), and two large speakers took up floor space in my bedroom. Who could have imagined then how tiny music technology would become in the future?

Friday Night Videos

MTV was not the only source of cool music videos in the 1980s: The TV show Friday Night Videos started in 1983 to capitalize on MTV’s popularity (and to allow those without cable TV to see videos, too). I often had a friend sleep over on Friday nights, and we would stay up late watching videos, playing Atari (“Frogger,” “Pitfall!,” “Haunted House,” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” were my favorite games), and being silly teens. I was pretty wholesome at that age, so we didn’t get into much trouble.

SONY DSC

While MTV stuck more to “Top 40” songs, Friday Night Videos played a wider variety of genres. In the beginning, the show ran 90 minutes long and aired music videos introduced by an off-camera announcer. Classic artists of the 1960s and 1970s occasionally appeared in “Hall of Fame Videos,” major stars were profiled in “Private Reels,” and new music videos made their network debuts as “World Premiere Videos.” The most popular feature was “Video Vote,” in which viewers could call in and vote (for a small fee) for one of two videos that were played back to back. I can’t remember me or my friend calling in, but maybe we did?

I may have watched Friday Night Videos all through high school, but I mainly remember it from my sophomore year, 1983 to 1984. This was the era of Madonna, and I was a fan. “Burning Up” was one of my faves, partly because of the hot ’80s fashion and dance moves. These videos seem very low-tech today, but at the time, they seemed pretty amazing and creative.

In 1983 or 1984, I got into Bananarama. They were a fun pop/New Wave band that I probably liked because of their similarity to The Go-Go’s and cool fashions and hairstyles. The first song of theirs that I remember was “Cruel Summer.”

As a pretty mainstream girl at the time, I wasn’t quite sure what to think of Billy Idol’s sneer and punk aesthetic, but everyone loved “Dancing With Myself,” and I was no exception. The video is actually pretty elaborate and cinematic for 1983.

More Favorites

There were a few bands and albums I got into in the early and mid-’80s not solely because of watching music videos. One was Cheap Trick. Although this live version of “I Want You to Want Me” by Cheap Trick came out in the United States in 1979, I didn’t get into the band until the mid-’80s (influenced by my high-school boyfriend). I became a huge fan and had all the Cheap Trick albums (on cassette). I actually preferred the studio version of “I Want You to Want Me,” but this live version from the live album Cheap Trick at Budokan, recorded at their 1978 concert at Nippon Budokan (in Tokyo), has remained a classic.

I must have worn out my copy of Genesis by Genesis, which came out in 1983. One of my favorite tracks was “Mama.” I think it was Phil Collins’ passionate singing that got me, as well as the strange laughing and groaning in the middle of the song. I still like a lot of music from my teen years, but not Genesis. Sorry, Phil Collins.

Another Phil Collins song I loved as a teen was “In the Air Tonight” after seeing the movie Risky Business. I also developed a major crush on Tom Cruise.

I became a big fan of The Police, mainly due to the influence of some cooler kids in high school who had better musical taste than me. My first Police album was Synchronicity–another album I must have worn out. I loved all the songs, so it’s hard to choose a fave, but “King of Pain” and “Every Breath You Take” were up there. I’ll share the video for “King of Pain,” since it’s much more interesting and avant garde than the one for “Every Breath You Take.” Actually, I’ll share “Every Breath You Take” as well, since both the song and the video are classics. The video is quite lovely. (I also had a big crush on Sting.)

A group I got very into in my teens was INXS. I am pretty sure I must have heard their 1982 hit “Don’t Change” and their 1983 single “Original Sin” around the time they were released, but I didn’t fall in love with the band until 1985, when they released “What You Need.” That song became one of my top faves, and I bought all of their albums (again, on cassette, although I may have had one or two on vinyl).

Poor Michael Hutchence (INXS’s lead singer). Not only did he die young (at age 37, in 1997), but there were widespread rumors that he died by either suicide or autoerotic asphyxiation. As a mental health professional, I don’t want to add to the stigma of either reason for his death, but I do remember that the media had a field day with the story that he died performing a sex act. Rest in peace, Michael, and thanks for the music.

Who can forget the clever and classic video for “Take on Me” by a-ha, released in 1985? I also had a crush on the lead singer, although I didn’t know his name. In fact, I probably never knew his name until I Googled it just now–it was Morten Harket, from Norway. I had so many celebrity crushes in my teens.

At the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards, the video for “Take on Me” won six awards—Best New Artist in a Video, Best Concept Video, Most Experimental Video, Best Direction, Best Special Effects, and Viewer’s Choice—and was nominated for two others, Best Group Video and Video of the Year. The video was also nominated for Favorite Pop/Rock Video at the 13th American Music Awards in 1986. It’s still fun to watch.

Another 1985 fave was “Don’t You Forget About Me” by Simple Minds. I can’t remember if I liked the song first or got into the song because it was in the movie The Breakfast Club. This film came out during my junior year in high school and was a big influence on me (and most teens at the time). Unlike some other John Hughes films, The Breakfast Club still mostly holds up to the test of time. But, I digress. This post is about music, not movies.

Late High School

My junior and senior years in high school (1984 to 1985 and 1985 to 1986), I continued to like lots of pop, New Wave, and rock artists. There were also some soft rock and R&B songs in my heavy rotation as well, including those by Peter Cetera, Billy Ocean, and Lionel Ritchie. There were so many blockbuster artists at the time: Michael Jackson and Madonna continued to dominate, plus Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson, Peter Gabriel, Van Halen, Tina Turner, Wham!, Bon Jovi, Duran Duran, Sade, Bruce Springsteen, John Cougar Mellencamp, and Sting. Aretha Franklin was making new hits.

The music video for Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love” came out in 1986. It caused quite a stir. The video ranked at number 3 on VH1’s Top 20 Videos of the 1980s. It was much loved and also much mocked. Classic ’80s!

I have a clear memory that someone held a microphone up to a boom box at my high school graduation ceremony to play Whitney Houston’s “The Greatest Love of All.” (I guess our school didn’t have a better way to play music at an event?) I can’t remember now if I liked the song that much, but the memory of graduation does stick, despite my not having a single photo from that night! (Our planned outdoor ceremony got rained out and was held in the high school auditorium, although I am not sure why that resulted in no photos?)

The summer after my senior year in high school was when Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” came out. I didn’t actually like the song as much as I’d liked his earlier hit “Shock the Monkey,” but the video was so creative. It’s worth a re-watch now.

Last Thoughts

There are so many other songs, artists, and albums from the 1980s that I loved–too many to post about here. I’ll post again to list my college faves, and maybe even beyond.

A Soundtrack of My Childhood

We all have favorite songs. Some of them remain magical for all our lives, or at least for many years, but some are more short-lived and situational. I want to share a few of the faves from my childhood and early teen years. I’ll probably post another time to share high school and college faves and beyond.

Me in some funky ’70s overalls, age 8, 1976.

Early Childhood

I’m not sure why, but as a kid, I really loved B.J. Thomas’ “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.” I can’t remember any particular memory related to it, and as a kid I did not see Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which featured the song, so that’s not the reason. I think I just heard it on the radio and liked it. The song came out in 1969 when I was only 1 year old, but I feel like I was probably 4 or 5 when I listened to it. I didn’t know this until now, but the song was written for the movie and won an Oscar (Best Song From a Motion Picture at the 1970 awards).

I also liked Sly and the Family Stone around that time. My parents had a couple of their albums, and I liked playing them on the hi-fi. “Everyday People” was one of my favorites. I also remember loving the parts of “Dance to the Music” when Cynthia Robinson talked or sang. And, I recall that my parents had a double album of Sly, and one time when I was looking at the album cover, one of the records fell out and landed on my toe, making the toenail turn black. Funny what you remember!

Another childhood favorite band was The Jackson Five. I loved all their songs, but “The Love You Save” stood out. Ah, back when little Michael Jackson was innocent and cute. I have to admit my memories of the Jacksons are a bit tainted now with all the allegations of abuse against Michael. Still, the Jackson Five music takes me back to happy memories of childhood. Here they are lip-syncing on The Ed Sullivan show in 1970. Look at those bell-bottoms and dance moves! I was only 2 at this time, but I got into the Jackson Five when I was a little older. I watched their cartoon, which ran from 1971 to ’72, when I was 3 and 4 years old.

Middle Childhood

In my mid-childhood, I got really into Donny and Marie Osmond. They had a TV show from 1976 to 1979, and I was a big fan! I was 8 to 11 when the show aired. I had one of their albums on 8-track. I was obsessed with “Deep Purple,” which Donny and Marie covered in 1975. I didn’t know until now that the song was originally written in the ’30s as a piano tune, then performed as a big band number. The lyrics were written in 1938, and several artists covered it before the Osmonds. Oh, how I loved it when Marie spoke those lyrics. So romantic!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROOFYmpvHYM

I also remember being very into Olivia Newton-John. I loved her music and of course did a lot of lip-syncing with a hairbrush to her tunes. I think that one of her albums was my first vinyl. Her super-romantic ballad “I Honestly Love You” was a favorite. I must have really been into sappy ballads as a kid, because I also recall having little performances with my friends where we sang Debby Boone’s “You Light Up My Life.” The drama! The pathos! “NEVER AGAIN TO BE ALL ALONE!!!!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac24COCKTVM

Next, I started getting into the “teen idols.” Shaun Cassidy was my top fave. Even now, listening to “That’s Rock ‘N’ Roll” gives me a little thrill. I was 9 and still very innocent, but my hormones were about to explode. Shaun gave me a preview. I didn’t know or care that the song was written just a year earlier by Eric Carmen. Shaun’s 1977 version was all I needed to hear.

The Pre-Teen Years

When I was 10, 11, and 12, I inherited some albums from my older brother, so my musical tastes expanded a bit beyond soft rock and kid stuff. I ended up with some albums by Kansas, Styx, Bad Company, Queen, and Boston. Don’t get me wrong–I was probably still listening to Shaun Cassidy and Olivia Newton-John. But I was also getting into rock that was slightly more grown up. Who can forget stomping and clapping to Queen’s “We Will Rock You?”

Styx’s “Come Sail Away” was another fave.

(As an adult, Cartman’s version was pretty entertaining, too. Maybe even better than the original.)

Pat Benetar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” from 1980 was a classic pop rock song and one that my friends and I tried (pretty unsuccessfully) to belt out like Pat. I did have one friend, Staci, who came pretty close. Staci had an awesome voice!

Early Teens

Words can’t really express the love I had for Journey’s “Open Arms.” This song, released in 1981 when I was 13, was an opus to all the feels that were happening at that age, as well as my first insane crush. That opening piano riff brings it all back, even now. I sang that song and cried so many times.

Fortunately, my early teen favorite songs were not all wrapped up in heartbreak. I was obsessed with “Beauty and the Beat,” the first full album by the Go-Go’s, which also came out in 1981. It’s hard to choose which song I liked more, “Our Lips Are Sealed,” or “We Got the Beat.” (I still love the Go-Go’s!) So, I am sharing the original, punkier version of “We Got the Beat” from 1980. And, no, at 13 I wasn’t cool enough to know any of the Go-Go’s music from before “Beauty and the Beat” came out.

The year 1981 also brought Joan Jett into my world. I got the Joan Jett & the Blackhearts album “I Love Rock ‘N Roll” and fell in love with the title song. I can still rock out to Joan.

That’s all for now. As I said, I may post another time with later favorite songs. I hope you enjoy the videos I shared here. It was fun to think back on some of the music that had an impact on my youth.

An Ode to Generation X

The recent, untimely death of Luke Perry, 90210 heartthrob and, more recently, actor in Riverdale, sparked a wave of nostalgia and also fear about my own mortality. It also got me to thinking (probably as a way to stop thinking fearfully about my mortality) about my youth. Specifically, I was thinking about the events, media, and entertainment that shaped and defined Generation X, my generation.

BEVERLY HILLS, 90210, Luke Perry, 1990-2000,
(c)Spelling Television/courtesy Everett Collection

Gen X Got a Bad Rap

The zeitgeist was cynicism and disenfranchisement. I remember as a 20-something reading countless articles saying my generation would “be the first to do worse than their parents.” We were disparaged by Baby Boomers and the media as “slackers” and told we were lazy, aimless, and self-involved. It was difficult to feel positive about the future when these were the constant messages. But, despite our apparently dismal prospects, we still managed to embrace our dark-color-clad youth. (We also proved the naysayers wrong: Gen Xers ended up being quite entrepreneurial and ambitious, helping to create the high-tech industry that fueled the 1990s economic recovery.)

Our generation was shaped by changes in the economy and workforce, such as more women working. Divorce had become more prevalent. These forces and others, such as a lack of affordable childcare, contributed to the “latchkey kid” phenomenon and less adult supervision.

We were the first generation to play video games (remember Atari??), see shows “on demand” (with the invention of VCRs), watch cable TV (on 24 hours a day!), and have home computers. Gen Xer Justin Hall invented blogging. We were the first to have MTV. In fact, in addition to being called Generation X, we were also called the “MTV Generation.” It’s no wonder so many of us grew up to create tech startups and most of us adapted fairly easily to a digital future after our analog childhoods.

The Culture That Shaped Us

The entertainment trends of the late ’80s and early ’90s reflected the complexities of the times and of our young psyches: independence, antiestablishmentarianism, cynicism, creativity. The fashion aesthetic tended toward minimalism, casualness, and subdued colors, as well as tattoos and piercings. Punk was a big influence, as was grunge, alternative rock, riot grrls, and hip hop. Britpop and goth were also part of the mix in the mid to late ’90s, as was the growing rave culture.

Nirvana
riot grrrl, a zine created by Molly Neuman of the band Bratmobile

The ’90s saw an explosion of Gen Ex indie film directors, such as Spike Jonze, Richard Linklater, Sofia Coppola, Quentin Tarantino, and Kevin Smith. Although he was a Baby Boomer and not a Gen Xer, John Hughes was known for mainstream movies, such as The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Sixteen Candles, that shaped the adolescence of Generation X.

Will Smith and Alfonso Ribeiro of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

Television also took a turn toward the quirky and independent, with unusual and sometimes subversive shows like The X-Files, The Simpsons, Northern Exposure, and Twin Peaks. Even more mainstream shows were becoming more creative: Think Ally McBeal, Quantum Leap, and Seinfeld. We saw more shows featuring African Americans, including The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Martin, A Different World, Roc, and In Living Color. There were also the popular and increasingly gritty dramas like ER and NYPD Blue. We also saw the birth of the reality TV trend, set off by The Real World. Shows like Friends, Beverly Hills 90210, and Melrose Place set fashion trends and created sex symbols. Admit it: Some of you got a “Rachel” or “Dylan” haircut or tried to model your outfits after Kelly or Donna or Amanda.

Jennifer Aniston as “Rachel” on Friends
“Mulder” and “Scully” from The X-Files

Fashion

Speaking of hair and fashion, there were so many different influences in the 1990s on both. As mentioned, many of the music, movie, and TV trends shaped what we wore and how we wanted to look. There was punk and “alternative” that sparked us to get piercings and tattoos, wear black, and color or spike our hair. The grunge movement showed up in ripped, baggy jeans; flannel; earth tones and puce green (“brown is the new black”); dark lipstick; beanie hats; Doc Martens; and vintage sweaters. There was hip hop, which led to an explosion of Adidas, gold chains, sweat suits, baggy jeans, bright colors, Kangol bucket hats, bike shorts, and gold door-knocker earrings.

Run DMC. Getty Images.

Looking Back

Nostalgia. You don’t truly understand it until you start to get older. When you’re young, you may be living in the moment or looking ahead to what’s next. Now, at 50, I find myself looking back a lot more. It’s been both fun and bittersweet thinking back to my younger days and what it meant to be Gen X in the 1990s. I feel sad at the loss of Luke Perry and others close to my age who are gone before their time. A reminder to appreciate the now, even while looking back.

Meditation of Music: A Performance by Estas Tonne

Photo of Estas Tonne

A friend invited me to see a performance by mystical guitarist Estas Tonne last night. I was not quite sure what to expect. I had not heard of Tonne until recently, and my only exposure (after hearing about the show) was listening to a few of Tonne’s tracks through the iTunes store. My friend had informed me that Tonne’s show would be “a spiritual journey.” She was correct.

Tonne, a virtuoso on the guitar, started the night by lighting incense, haloed by bright spotlights above him, alone, on the stage. He took a few deep breaths, looked around, and cautioned the audience that we should not expect anything in particular. We should not expect to hear “songs” or see a show. He informed us that the music would be like “… a train. Prepare to let the music take you places, and allow your mind to travel where it will. Your mind may visit memories that are pleasant, or some that are not.” He then proceeded to play the guitar, nonstop, for about two hours.

It’s hard to adequately describe what this experience was like, but the closest I could come is to call it a loosely guided meditation. I am by no means a regular meditator, but I have done it, and I am familiar with the struggles our Western, busy, minds have with letting go of familiar thinking patterns and predictable paths. It’s not easy to quiet the mind and let go. During the one hundred and twenty minutes of Tonne’s seamless solo guitar-playing, my mind followed peaceful loops and troubled snarls. This was unlike any other “show” I had experienced: There was no program to follow and no interlude of artist chit-chat or audience applause to punctuate the various directions in which Tonne’s guitar took us.

Tonne’s music fluidly combines flamenco, New Age, Eastern European, and electronic elements and bathes the listener in a beautiful and ever-changing soundscape. In some ways, this was an enjoyably easy experience that transported me to many places in my mind’s past, present, and future. At the same time, the show was challenging in its structurelessness. There were moments when I longed for some narrative or a break in the music to provide a more familiar performer-listener dynamic. But, ultimately, I was moved and deeply impressed by Tonne’s skill, endurance, and spiritual earnestness. Other than the brief introduction and a few parting words, the only other verbal interaction Tonne had with us was some thoughtful philosophizing near the end of the journey, during which he spoke of how people, broken into billions of pieces, need to find ways of putting themselves back together. It was obvious that this performance was a sort of spiritual meditation for Tonne. I emerged, changed.

“Blaze”: A Touching and Tragic Tale of the Tortured Artist

Today, I saw the movie Blaze, a biopic about the country musician Blaze Foley, born Michael David Fuller, who never achieved fame but had some influential on other “outlaw” country singers, such as Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson. I’m not a huge country music fan, but I have come to appreciate it more as I’ve gotten older and broader in my musical tastes, particularly classic country and a few country artists who cross over to Americana, folk, and bluegrass, such as Lucinda Williams, Dolly Parton, and Emmylou Harris. Blaze Foley’s music provided a soundtrack and emotional anchor to much of the movie Blaze. It was a touching and meandering film that was skillfully directed by actor and director Ethan Hawke. Hawke’s style of storytelling through multiple voices and songs, as well as atmospheric visuals, made the viewer feel as though they were swimming in a timeless world in which it was sometimes difficult to tell when the multiple storylines were taking place and difficult to feel the accurate passing of time.

The story of Blaze Foley felt more archetypal than specific: How many countless tales have been told of sensitive and tortured artists who can’t survive in the “real” daytime world of making ends meet and creating healthy relationships but instead exist in the nocturnal world of neon lights and spotlights, the haze of cigarettes, and the heightened emotion of music? Alternating between pithy koans and mumbled drunken gibberish, the characters drift through scenes of their past, present, and future in overlapping narratives that, between a few moments of sweetness and connection, mostly sink deeper into the hopelessness and aimlessness that brings us to an inevitable unhappy ending.

If it sounds like a depressing downer, that’s only part of the story: There’s no denying that the story is a tragedy and echoes the tragedies of so many other artists (and non-artists) who succumb to emotional and mental decline and substance abuse. But, there is beauty woven throughout. There is simple magic in the scenes of Blaze living with his girlfriend, then wife, Sybil, in a “treehouse” in rural Georgia. There is simple beauty in the music. And, the visuals reveal a decaying, ramshackle beauty in the rundown streets of 1970s Austin, the glow of red in a bar room, and the peaceful forests of Georgia.

I found the introduction of the character of Sybil to be fascinating, as she, an actress, is first shown practicing a monologue that expresses a sadly codependent version of love, leaving the viewer to wonder whether she will turn out to be subsumed by Blaze’s demons. Instead, Sybil turns out to be a sad but strong figure, who serves early on as Blaze’s muse and champion, encouraging him to move to Austin to try and make it as a singer. The scenes of their romance depict two equals well matched and living in a beautiful “paradise” in which their poverty and lack of modern comforts only makes their passionate love affair more romantic. Eventually, Sybil moves on when Blaze’s drinking, drugging, touring, and infidelity become too much for her. Rather than being destroyed by Blaze’s decline, she chooses to save herself and jump ship. It’s no surprise that Sybil (expertly played by Alia Shawkat) is a compelling and nuanced character, as Hawke cowrote the screenplay with Sybil Rosen, Blaze Foley’s ex-wife (and much of the film is based on Rosen’s 2008 memoir).

Like any good piece of art, Blaze took me on an emotional journey and left me wanting to know more about this talented man, who was too damaged to exist in this world. And, it left me thinking about love, heartbreak, and why some can overcome their traumas and others never rise from the ashes of their past. It also left me wanting to listen to more music by Foley and by artists he influenced. I didn’t know until today that the song “Drunken Angel” by Lucinda Williams, one of my favorites of hers, was written for Foley. Check out the film trailer below, as well as a video of Williams doing a live version of the song.

What Makes Music Popular?

OK, I am cheating this time with my blog post, as I didn’t write it. This post focuses on the research of Jonah Berger, a professor at the Wharton School at my alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, with co-author Grant Packard, a marketing professor at Wilfrid Laurier University. The article I am sharing here is an edited transcript of a podcast in which Knowledge@Wharton staff interviewed Jonah Berger. The research Berger and Packard conducted looked at the language in hundreds of songs so they could try to determine what made a song more popular. The psychology of what makes us like a particular song, movie, TV show, etc., is fascinating to me. I hope you’ll find this research interesting as well! Click on the link to go to the original article, which includes a podcast, or read the transcript below.

Wharton professor Jonah Berger.
Wharton professor Jonah Berger.

Knowledge@Wharton: A lot of your past research focuses on virality or why certain things catch on while others don’t. What inspired you to focus on songs this time?

Jonah Berger: We hear songs all the time. We’re in our car on the way to work, or we’re at home listening to YouTube. We like some songs and don’t like others. Some climb the Billboard charts and some fail. One question I wondered was why. Obviously, songs are tough to study. There are a lot of different factors that shape song success, from who sings the songs to what sort of melodies they have. We thought it would be interesting to look at a slightly more unexplored place, and that is the lyrics. Just by looking at the lyrics alone, could we pick up some traction on why songs succeed and fail?

Knowledge@Wharton: You examined songs within their particular genres — country songs with other country songs, R&B songs with other R&B songs. Why did you decide on this format?

Berger: We had a simple, and I think interesting, hypothesis, which is that the success of songs doesn’t just depend on their lyrics in general, it depends on how similar that song is from other songs that are popular recently. Take a country song, for example. A country song could be very like most country songs that are out there already. The lyrics could be very similar to what people usually sing about in country music, or the lyrics could be more different, more novel, more new for a country song. We wondered whether songs that sound more new, because their lyrics are different than most songs in the space, could be more popular with listeners.

Knowledge@Wharton: You found some interesting patterns among these song lyrics. For example, if somebody thinks that all country songs are about girls and trucks, they are not too far off, based on this research.

Berger: We used natural language processing, which is a way to analyze text using software. We did something called LDA (latent Dirichlet allocation), which helps us figure out the underlying themes or topics in the songs. It can take a whole bunch of different songs with all of their different lyrics and find general themes. We found that there were 10 themes across all songs that tended to pop. Some songs talk about love, others talk about girls and cars, some talk about dancing. We asked, what part of each song is in each of these themes? And we found, like you mentioned, that country songs don’t only sing about girls and cars, but they sing a good bit about that theme.

Knowledge@Wharton: What were your key findings about how lyrical differentiation impacted song popularity?

Berger: We found that even though many things affect song popularity, like who sings it and the melody, we could understand what songs become successful just by looking at the lyrics alone and just by looking at how different a song is from its genre. We found that, on average, the more different a song was from its genre, the more atypical a country song was for country music, the more successful it was on the Billboard chart, the higher ranked it was. Even controlling for things like who sang the song, when it was released, etc., the mere fact that it was different from most other songs in its genre was connected to it being more successful.

Knowledge@Wharton: Is there a particular song that is an especially good example of these overall findings?

Berger: What is interesting is it is hard to tell the difference between songs just by listening to them. I bet if you were listening to a radio and I asked you how different this country song is from country songs that usually come on, you wouldn’t be very good at telling me, and I wouldn’t be very good at telling you. We often don’t consciously pay attention to all of the lyrics or even recognize all of the lyrics, but natural language processing allows us to find these implicit or underlying themes that drive success. So, it wasn’t driven by one song in particular; it was looking at it across all of these songs. Lyrics shaped whether they were successful or not.

Knowledge@Wharton: There were a couple of outliers here, and one of those was pop songs. Can you talk to us about that?

Berger: One thing we wanted to try to do is say whether this effect is causal. It is neat that successful songs tend to have more different lyrics, but are the different lyrics causing the songs to be successful, or might it be something else? We did a lot of work to show a causal effect, and one thing we tried to do was see whether it varies by genre. There is this notion out there, if you think about songs, that certain genres care more about lyrics than others.

You might imagine, for example, that lyrics don’t matter so much in dance songs because there aren’t many lyrics, if there are any at all. If we think about pop songs compared with country or rock, success in pop is often more about being the same rather than being different. We wondered whether in those two genres — pop and dance — we might see different effects, and indeed we did.

We found that lyrics didn’t matter much at all in dance songs, and similarity was better than difference in pop songs. It suggested it is not just about the lyrics themselves, it is about how the lyrics relate to difference and how that matters in the specific genre being examined.

Knowledge@Wharton: Could this technique also be used to predict a summer blockbuster or most popular beach read, for example?

Berger: That is exactly right, and that is what we are trying to do now. We are looking at thousands of movies to see whether we can predict how successful movies are going to be, in terms of box office sales as well as ratings online, based on their scripts. We’re looking at emotional trajectories, for example, in the scripts. We’re doing more work with music lyrics, we’re doing some work with content and text of books, and we’re also doing work with customer service calls.

Imagine you call an airline or an online retailer. How do the words the customer service representative uses, as well as how they use those words, affect how satisfied the customers are? Across a bunch of different domains, we are interested in words even though we don’t always pay attention to them. How might those words affect success or failure?

Knowledge@Wharton: How does this research demonstrate the value of natural language processing, and how do you see that helping to develop this area of research?

Berger: There is a lot of attention these days around artificial intelligence and machine learning, though most people in the general population don’t necessarily understand what that means. But one way that these tools are being used is to pull behavioral insight from text. There are all sorts of textual data out there from online reviews to things like song lyrics and movie scripts. Textual analysis or natural language processing allows us to pull behavioral insights from those reams of data, not just to predict what is going to succeed and fail, but also to use it to understand human and customer behavior. That is really the power of these tools — using them to understand things we might not have been able to understand before.

People may tell you they liked a song or a movie, but they may not know why. What this allows us to do is actually quantify what makes a song or a book or a movie successful, even if it is hard to study otherwise.

Knowledge@Wharton: Do you have a prediction for what is going to be the song of this summer?

Berger: I don’t have a specific prediction, but I bet it will be atypical. I bet it will be something unusual rather than normal.

How the Arts Can Change Your Brain

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Art is part of the human experience. For all of recorded history, people have engaged in making and valuing art, from cave drawings to body and face ornamentation to sculpture to dance to portraiture to music. There is something magical about creating, and also about witnessing, art. Mental health practitioners and other healers recognize that there are many ways for people to get help, connect with others, cope, and heal. The arts provide many tools for mental health and wellness. They often provide paths to understanding and expressing emotions and experiences that may be harder to reach through healing modalities like talk therapy. Creating or seeing art can also be fun, exciting, and profound, enriching our lives and putting us in touch with experiences that make us feel good; positive experiences can combat depression and anxiety and make our lives feel more meaningful. Many people also feel a healing spiritual connection through the arts: Just think of the feeling of awe and ecstasy that can come from hearing soaring classical music, being inside a breathtaking building, or viewing a painting that captures a religious or spiritual experience.

Another benefit of engaging in the arts is that many artistic practices promote neuroplasticity (the growth and/or rewiring of the brain’s neuronal pathways, which gives us the ability to adapt to new habits, develop new skills, and absorb new information). Scientists used to believe that the brain stopped growing and creating new pathways early in life; however, more recent research has shown that brain growth and rewiring take place throughout the lifespan (although as we get older, this growth occurs at a slower pace).

Some studies have shown that drawing and painting can improve various brain functions, such as memory. Research also shows that people who learn to play a musical instrument (and especially those who become proficient at it) develop stronger connections among the various regions of the brain (Wan & Schlaug, 2010) and new and stronger neural pathways. Teaching patients to make music can aid in the treatment of developmental and neurological disorders, as well as the cognitive decline that comes with normal aging.

The fact that engaging in the arts can stimulate brain growth also means that anyone can learn to be creative–you don’t have to be “born with it.” A psychologist at Dartmouth College, Alexander Schlegel, and his fellow researchers published a study showing that taking an introductory class in painting or drawing literally alters students’ brains, allowing them not only to learn the technicalities of the art form but also to think more creatively.

Art forms like dance also have a positive and healing impact on the brain. Many studies have proven that dance can make a difference in people who have undergone trauma, those with Parkinson’s disease and other brain disorders, and the elderly. How so? First off, dance is a stimulating activity that connects mind and the movement of the body, as well as other senses such as vision, hearing, and touch. Many forms of dance also reduce isolation–connection with other people is healing.

If you’d like some ideas about how to explore your creative side and learn a little about expressive art therapy, check out the following websites.

American Art Therapy Association

American Dance Therapy Association

American Music Therapy Association

Inc. article about being more creative with inspiration from Leonardo Da Vinci

Real Simple article about building creativity

 

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