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Today’s Song of the Day was inspired by a recent viewing of P.T. Anderson’s masterpiece Boogie Nights on IFC. Honestly, it’s not even that great of a song, and I’ve never watched The Transformers. But it’s a pretty good discovery from the time capsule. It’s Stan Bush’s “The Touch.”
Why? Because it’s a song by a guy named Stan Bush used for a movie about the porn industry. What else did you expect, that I picked it for quality?
Here’s Mark Whalberg’s bastardized version of it on Boogie Nights
Today’s song of the day was going to be something else, but I was reminded of good old “Kokujin Tensai.” Unlike those guys, I wanted to put up some more “authentic” Japanese hip-hop just because some of this stuff is actually good. So today, we got Zeebra, who is known as the first Japanese rapper, from his album The New Beginning. It’s “Street Dreams.”
Why? Because the hook is addictive, the guy isn’t all about sex and bling-bling (although it does have that egotistic self-promotion stuff), and as he raps in his chorus, he’s the “number one hip-hop person.” It’s not something I’d agree with, but I can’t really afford to not agree with the father of Japanese hip-hop, can I?
Today’s song of the day comes from the Peter Chan film Perhaps Love, and while the vocals on this song is nowhere near as good as Jacky Cheung, its use in the film still makes it one of the best songs in the musical. The song is Zhou Xun’s “Out There.”
Why? Because it’s a companion piece to “The World Out There,” a song that was used in the film that was NOT created for the film (While the original song is about a guy losing a girl who went out there, the Perhaps Love song is from the perspective of the girl). It not only works as an effective companion piece either - it also fits the Zhou Xun’s character perfectly. It’s a touching examination of someone who looks to the world out there for some type of salvation, and it’s a pretty damn good song by itself.
Here’s the original song, performed by someone else (because the only version with the original singer is a badly recorded live version where you hear the audience more than the singer):
Today’s Song of the Day comes from Corinne Bailey Rae’s debut album. While the hit single Put Your Record On is perfectly enjoyable, this track is the one that told me “this girl’s really good.” It’s opening track “Like a Star”
Why? Because its quiet soulfulness places you immediately in a dark smoky lounge where you can light up a cigarette while sipping a glass of ___________ (insert name of favorite alcohol not named beer here) on the rocks. It’s that smooth.
Here’s her trio performance with John Meyer and John Legend at the Grammys
Today’s song of the day comes from Khalil Fong’s second album This Love, which I’ve recommended a couple of times here before. This song was, in my opinion, the first great Hong Kong pop single of 2007 and maybe my favorite song in the album. It’s “Foursome” with Khalil Fong and Fiona Sit.
Why? Because it’s a funky duet that’s not another one of those Karaoke-friendly monotonous pop shit that Hong Kong is used to feeding its listeners, despite Fiona Sit’s flawed Mandarin.
Today’s song is a cover of an older song by Janis Ian. The cover artist is Shiina Ringo, one of my favorites, and the song appeared on her 2-disc cover album Utaite Myori. It’s “Love is Blind.”
Why? While the original is also quite good, Shiina Ringo’s intense vocals really elevates the song to a new type of emo anger. It changes the song from a sense of bitterness from Janis Ian to agonizing pain on Shiina Ringo, who sounds like she’s literally hurting just singing. It’s really one of the most incredible covers I’ve ever heard.
Someone just took the song and put it on the video for Ringo No Uta, so watching is not necessary, just listen and feel it.
Here is a concert version where Shiina sings it at a lower key. In my opinion, it’s actually not as good as the album version.
Today’s song of the day is from Hong Kong rap group Fama, discovered by DJ Tommy. In their second album “Music Tycoon,” there were two main collaborations, one was “Love is Like Edison Chan,” featuring, you guessed it, supposed rapper Edison Chan, the other is today’s song: “Love is Like Chet Lam.”
Why? Because I’ve been choosing all rock and ballads since I started this thing, and I wanted to show that I listen to a bit of hip-hop too. Of course, I know that this song isn’t hip-hop, it’s just rapping with a guitar.
So why THIS song, then? Because it’s rap with a guitar. Because it undoes all those ideal notions we have about love, most notably George Lam, who sang that “love is like the sun and the air.” In the main hook, Chet Lam and Fama kill the idealist in all of us and sings:
戶口得幾舊水 仲想養埋佢個女 Oh 叫佢食陽光空氣
Only a couple of hundred bucks in your account and you still want to raise her daughter tell him to eat the sun and the air
The lesson of the song: Real love is for those who can afford it. Ideal love is for those poor bastards with no money. It’s painful, but there it is.
Today’s song of the day can only be found on Youtube. That’s because I bought a second-hand copy of the album that had the original, but the version on the album sounded nothing like the initial version I heard (good thing it was only 462 yen). So today’s song of the day is the version I like best of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s “Bibo no Aozora (The Beautiful Blue Sky).
Why? Because it’s the most minimal-arranged version of this song, and yet it’s the most powerful. I’m literally still haunted by this song since I heard it last summer and it prompted me to buy two different CDs for it (the aforementioned Ryuichi Sakamoto CD, which took me to 4 different record shops in Tokyo before I found it in Shimo-Kitazawa, and the Babel soundtrack). But this is still the best version out there.
Here’s what the album version sounds like (I do believe this is the original version, yikes):
And this is the version from the Babel soundtrack (POTENTIAL SPOILER ALERT, this IS, after all, the final scene of the movie):
Today’s Song of the Day is from Jonathan Lee, better known as famed musician and Sandy Lee’s ex-husband. Also victim of a Jackie Chan public drunken rampage. Anyway, the song is “Loneliness is Hard to Bear.”
Why? Because it’s a depressing subject done in a light and breezy fashion rarely seen in Chinese pop. Lee approaches the whole subject with a “meh, what can you do?” attitude that carries a bit of that gruff machismo that’s also a bit of fun.
Jonathan Lee’s original version:
Good thing about this song is that different performers all bring different interpretations of it to the table. Chet Lam did his accoustic version at a small live show (he changed the lyrics where Lee sings “30 [years old]is coming soon” to “30 just arrived.” Cute.).
And Harlem Yu did his American idol audition version on his show.
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