Wing Wave

Ah yes, its time for my weekly commentary on the music I hear while I'm eating wings. Since last week they didn't have any music playing, I'll make up for it by commenting on several songs:

"Drag City" / Jan & Dean - What made surf music successful over and over again? The songs all sound so similar, you'd think people would get sick of it. It's formulaic, but it was a formula that worked. The surf beat (snare on 2, 2.5, and 4), the same drum fills, the two measure guitar riff breaks with the hook lyric, the falsetto backup vocal. Every element is unmistakingly surf--if you heard any one of these things in another style of music you'd be reminded of surf. Every surf song contains ALL of these elements, which is surprising in itself. It's like there's this checklist you have to complete when composing a surf song. This particular song I don't think I've heard very much, but I might as well have heard it a million times.

"Philadelphia Freedom" / Elton John - Okay, I'm going to catch some grief for talking about this guy. But I do remember that this used to be my favorite EJ song. Maybe it still is? Maybe because it doesn't have any piano (and therefore EJ's overused piano riffs) at all?

"I'm Walkin'" / Ricky Nelson - Wow, I haven't heard this version in a long time. Apparently he performed this on Ozzie & Harriet. I can't think of any way to make this version sound any whiter. That guitar solo sounds especially white bread. Soul-less! Say what you will about white artists stealing black music, but if it allowed white people to enjoy black music in some fashion, maybe it helped open their ears to the originals as well.