Just heard Plaineclothes Man for the first time last week. I love it when I find new music that really speaks to me, there’s so much good stuff out there right now.
That is interesting. I loved the original in my youth, but now that I am older, a cancer survivor, and with a lifetime of challenge and too many dead loved ones, Cash’s version speaks to me on a different level.
I’m not yucking your yum one bit. I am happy that you have a song that speaks to you.
To be fair, I’m in my mid 20s which may still be “youth”. I do see how the cover can speak more with more challenges in life. I do also love “Thank you for the offer” by Chip Taylor and it gives me a similar feeling to Cash’s Hurt.
I’m not yucking your yum one bit. Wouldn’t take it that way. Besides, Cash’s version is also “my yum”, just not more than the original :)
I hope life has given and continues to give you more to smile about.
The pedant in me has to point our that if it’s the “best song we’ve ever heard…” then we already heard it, and it isn’t still “out there” as in unheard and waiting to be listened to.
Just yesterday I took the time to listen to Dr. Dooom - First Come, First Served. I was pleasantly surprised to say the least. To see him randomly pop-up here made my evening!
I don’t know why, but it just seems so weird that you can go back 30 years and no one would have any awareness of a lot of songs that everyone knows today. They were only up to like Mambo Number 2 or Hey I’ll Think About It! Nickelback didn’t yet exist but if they did, they’d be singing to look at this thing they are doing right now, maybe take a photograph.
Go back 100 years and no one has any awareness of entire genres of music loved by billions today. It was almost an entirely different culture with popular hits like classical music, Take Me Out To The Ballgame, or You Are My Sunshine and other songs that are considered children’s music today.
I’m an uber driver. I had a passenger and we got to discussing what kind of music she likes. She said “Little Wing” so I told Siri to play some “Little Wing”. Of course Siri knew what I was asking for and played some Lil Wayne.
Passenger said she liked Lil Wayne because he’s got different moods. “Sometimes I just wanna chill, you know? Like it ain’t gotta be all go-go-go all the time you know?”
So I asked her if she’d heard any BB King before. She said “Who’s that?” So I told Siri to play The Thrill is Gone by BB King.
She was like “Ooooooh! This is chill as fuck thank you!”
I had just learned about BB King the previous day from another passenger, when I had the Grateful Dead playing some blues. The passenger from the day before was an old hippie, and she was telling me about seeing BB King and Led Zeppelin at a place called The Psychedelic Supermarket in Salem, MA back in the 70s.
I also showed this younger passenger Since I’ve Been Loving You by Led Zeppelin. She was so stoked to have some new music to get her friends to chill to, since they all into that go-go-go music all the time.
I love being someone in a position to introduce people to new music. I love my job.
Congrats on hearing BB King! The dude is a legend, basically creating a whole new genre. Imagine making music so good that it becomes a genre. That’s BB King.
There’s sort of an observer effect at play too though.
The more you hear it, the less interesting it is to you. The song doesn’t change, but your perception does, and you develop an acquired taste in music that way.
While true for some songs, others grow on you or stay good for eternity. My favourite all-time song hasn’t changed in 30 years: Black (Colin Vearncombe) - Wonderful Life
That song had a revival recently. I don’t remember hearing it when it came out, but it has been on my coworkers radio every day for the last couple of months. Maybe it has been on a TV show or something. Great song.
In the past two decades there’s been a bunch covers that I know of (or just learned of):
Ace of Base
Seeed
Zucchero (didn’t even know about this one until now)
Katie Melua
Smith & Burrows (the one you heard on your coworker’s radio?)
Imany (or did you hear this one?)
and then a bunch of electronic music mixes.
I love that song since the 80s; and for a long time - until the early 2000s I knew no covers - so I am very happy that there’s a lot of tributes to Black with lots of different styles :)
I just heard it again my radio on my way home. I still don’t know why it’s so suddenly popular again right now and it’s puzzling me.
Which version, though? :) That sounds like you mean the original?
Anyway, it has stood the test of time, and I think that’s about the only way to actually find the greatest songs.
I suppose it’s one way to judge them :) But yes, that’s why my favourite has not changed for over 30 years - I don’t get tired of it. Much like this one.
PSI know, without autoplay it’s not the same, but I didn’t want to use a youtube-link - f*ck google ;)
Yes, the original keeps playing on radio stations near me for some reason.
(Even the piped link gave away the “WqXcQ” in the url)
I have NewPipe installed, so YouTube links automatically open in that instead.(YouTube must be disabled as default app).That’s the best fix that I know for that issue.
Also, NewPipe works great because it keeps playing when the screen is off and so, so I highly recommend it if you have issues with Google.
(Even the piped link gave away the “WqXcQ” in the url)
well I was serious, I was basically saying “I never mind if someone rickrolls me, because I’ve been enjoying that song since I first heard it on Vinyl in the 80s” :) so it was a kind of “reverse rickroll” - in that I actually meant to link the song for being good :)
Brain imaging studies show that our favorite songs stimulate the brain’s pleasure circuit, which releases an influx of dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and other neurochemicals that make us feel good. The more we like a song, the more we get treated to neurochemical bliss, flooding our brains with some of the same neurotransmitters that cocaine chases after.
Music lights these sparks of neural activity in everybody. But in young people, the spark turns into a fireworks show. Between the ages of 12 and 22, our brains undergo rapid neurological development—and the music we love during that decade seems to get wired into our lobes for good.
I disagree. When I was a teenager, I loved Green Day, Nirvana, The Offspring, and The Sex Pistols. I went through a heavy phase in my early 20s.
While I still like those artists and songs, there are other bands and songs that I like more now. (The Rumjacks are a great band if anyone’s looking for something new).
The music I listened to when I was in my teens and early 20s will always be special to me, and shaped my tastes, but now that I’m in my 40s, my life is vastly different to how it was back then, and other songs speak to me more now than those songs do.
Yeah there’s other music that I enjoy more now, but I put on Nevermind the other day and my voice was hoarse within ten minutes. Sang that whole thing through at maximum volume in the car.
I agree with you. Back then my preference was pretty narrow, but I still love most of what I listened to. Now there’s something in almost every genre that I really like.
Interesting. What did you listen to in your 30’s? Do you remember it as vividly as you do the music you listened to in your teenage years? Can you sing along the same way? How will the music you listen to now compare when you’re in your 50’s?
Not saying the music is objectively better or suitable for all points in life. Just pointing to studies saying teenagers have a huge emotional response to music. IIRC there have been studies showing dementia patients kind of wake up when you start playing music they listened to in their teens.
It’s “better = more suitable here and now” vs “better = more impactful” I guess.
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