The J0rdan S. listening club

as inspired by conversation here: Is anyone anticipating the new Diddy album?

the idea: seeking to enrich J0rdan's musical worldview and perhaps edify or entertain the rest of us with his reactions, this thread is for suggesting music (primarily pre-1997 or wherever he'd pinpoint his musical knowledge or interests as tapering off, but release date not being a huge deal). kind of like a cross between Mordy's Metal Listening Club and that old thread where people got kicks out of LJ listening to rap songs and writing about them. this thread is mainly for people that know and respect J0rdan's musical taste and want to share music w/ him in a friendly environment, so keep the condescension to a minimum and try to think of the audience and context and not just use this as an opportunity to champion your usual hobbyhorses regardless.

the rules: suggest any song J0rdan hasn't heard, or ask him about things he's not familiar with in order to find things to suggest. how J0rdan finds and listens to the song is up to him and/or the suggester to figure out, although let's try to keep youtube embeds to a minimum itt. J0rdan has consented to listen to 1 album every 2 weeks as decided by volunteers -- simply note in this thread if you'd like to participate and I'll put you in the rotation. I'll probably go first, but I don't have a firm idea right this minute so if someone else wants to go first, let me know and I'll consider giving you the go-ahead. no cap on song suggestions, although if the thread gets crazy J0rdan reserves the right to cry uncle.

since the topic that inspired this was J0rdan listening for the first time to "Tears Of A Clown" and the other songs referenced by Diddy in "Coming Home," if J0rdan wants to react to those songs itt he can to get the ball rolling, i guess. i'm not gonna enforce any high requirements on his thread participation, though, this is supposed to be just some laid back fun.

1. song recommendation -- frankie wilson - do i love you (indeed i do)

Wilson also tried his hand at being a recording artist himself, recording the single “Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)" for release on the Motown subsidiary label 'Soul.' Supposedly 250 demo 45s were pressed, but by that time Frank Wilson decided he would rather focus on producing and had the demos trashed. Somehow at least two known copies survived, one of which fetched over £25,000 in May 2009.

numbering these is probably a good idea, just to make it easier for J0rdan and everyone else to keep track of what's being thrown out there, good call.

i'll volunteer. irony!

lol. we could do a lex listening club too but i think that would quickly devolve into an exercise in people trying to force you to hear stuff you'd hate.

i should mention that #1 despite being on motown is not an classic in the 'tears from a clown' mode at all, and in fact is a fairly rare record championed primarily by british collectors of rare american soul 45s for 60s-70s northern soul dance scene (someone can correct me on the timeline)

but, it kicks ass

i would've volunteered for a lex listening club but trying to keep up with a few of the various listening clubs last year ended in rapid failure (though not without discovering some good shit first). rest assured that i'm pretty much discovering an average of at least one old album every couple of weeks anyway, i just don't tend to post about them.

before we do this, j0rdan did you get around to madonna yet?

this sounds like fun - J0rdan how familiar are you with mid-90s R&B and disco/garage/post-disco/90s pop-house?

2. Alexander O'Neal - Hearsay. All of it.

in the original thread (I think it was a Katy Perry thread since we were talking about "California Gurls" sounding like "Holiday"?) J0rdan outlined what Madonna songs he knew, don't know if he's heard much since then

Alfred if you want to suggest a whole album, sign up w/ me to get a date to do the albums thing. or just pick one song from that album.

Sorry -- it says songs. OK.

2. Alexander O'Neal - "Fake"

you can still pick that album or any album if you want, though, after lex's turn. just trying to keep things somewhat structured, no biggie.

3. R.B. Greaves - Take A Letter Maria

4. debbie deb - when i hear music

5. The Supremes (70s) - Bad Weather (produced by Stevie Wonder)

6. tricky - hell is round the corner

with "goon rock" in mind, i'd like to know what J0rdan thinks of any of the singles off Def Leppard's Pyromania or Hysteria

7. Civilles & Cole - Pride (A Deeper Love)

8. Mint Condition - Breakin' My Heart (Pretty Brown Eyes)

hell let's go with the power ballad:

def leppard - love bites

10. black ivory - mainline

we should probably cap this at some number right

8. Rufus & Chaka Khan - Stay

11*

12. pj harvey - the sky lit up

13. Jones Girls - You Gonna Make Me Love Somebody Else

14. Grace Jones - I'm Not Perfect (But I'm Perfect For You)

15. jackson sisters - i believe in miracles

im gonna vote we stop at 20 for now

omfg yes grace jones, all of her shit

i mean if jordan's up for more cool but we dont want to make this into some hours-long project either

16. neneh cherry - buffalo stance

17. sisters love - give me your love

18. H-Town - Knockin' Da Boots

haha i was about to suggest 'buffalo stance'!

19. jocelyn brown - 'somebody else's guy'

20. Yarbrough & Peoples - Don't Stop The Music

20. lipps inc - how long?

21. Sylvia Striplin - You Can't Turn Me Away

xp dammit! but it's a GREAT SONG so i'm not taking it out

ok how about we stop at 30

22. I Second That Emotion - Smokey Robinson

23. Aretha Franklin - Get It Right

24. Patti Labelle - If Only You Knew

imo stop @ 25

whic we're at now

I had picked up dribs and drabs previously but really got into jungle in about 1999, well and truly after its golden age (1993 --> 1996, perhaps 1997 at a stretch), so it was kinda comparable to, maybe, getting into minimal now.

A lot of my listening is also bound up with mode - basically done while commuting and at the gym primarily, and with earphones. Really rhythmic music works really well for that without it needing to feel like a contemporary club environment b/c it's basically all happening on the inside of my skull while i'm (surreptitiously) moving in time.

Also, when you begin to think of your personal history with music like this - a constant feedback loop of influence and expansion and shifting in taste - you can pinpoint various albums/songs/moments that (even if they aren't necessarily your favourites or whatever) were key to reconfiguring your approach to certain types of music or ways of thinking about music & c.

this is really spot on I think.

ok no judgments because it's not like anything was going on here before but...wtf happened to this thread

well, is it even possible to get it when you're that far removed from it?

An interesting question -- rhetorical maybe? Because I don't listen to music or read novels so as to "identify" or "relate" to what I'm experiencing, it's no problem to listen to Sonny Boy Williamson or Luther Vandross, or read Herbert or Donne or whatever. That's why a lot of conventions the twentysomethings I talk to take for granted baffle me; for a lot of them, the past isn't even usable, it's just dead, or reducible to the irritating catch-all phrase, "That stuff is old school."

For me the point of art isn't to get overwhelmed by canonicity; it's to listen to or read an ever-lengthening chain of referents of sounds and words I like -- a chain that stretches both ways, from past to present.

insofar as art has "a point" of course. The "point" is pleasure, at least for me.

does this thing still happen? i have an album i think j0rdan will love

rev too for that matter

actually all of you probably

http://www.chartstats.com/images/artwork/27927.jpg

you push the same things on everyone indiscriminately, that's basically the kind of thing that killed the thread

Is 'overload' on that one?
xp

i'm not "officially" still doing this, but i'll make a note to listen to that sugababes album

R.I.P. The J0rdan S. listening club

I wish markers would agree to a listening club.

me too.

make him a spotify playlist he says that's where he's started listening to music

i would do a gr8080 listening club because there's shitloads of music i haven't heard but i dont think i have a clearly defined swath of music i'm unfamiliar with that would make a thread for me work

awesome thread. so many great things. millennials not getting tricky. deej policing the thread at the beginning. alfred being disappointed that j0rdan isn't into alexander o'neal. the lex suggesting pj harvey.

Lex listening to Roxy Music for the first time:

ugh no got a minute in, it's like a beach but a grey drizzly pebble one and his VOICE I CAN'T EVEN

― lex pretend, Tuesday, February 22, 2011 4:16 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

got that's why people like fucking destroyer though, isn't it

VOMIT

― lex pretend, Tuesday, February 22, 2011 4:34 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha

completely forgot about this

this was my introduction to janet, i'm forever grateful

i actually haven't been inspired by any albums new or old for a few months if anyone still opening this thread wants to throw some suggestions out there

loved this thread.

self-servingly thinking of starting a Tim F. listening club.

omfg yes grace jones, all of her shit

― lex diamonds (lex pretend), Thursday, January 20, 2011 5:34 PM (4 years ago)

If you never got around to this, it's a pretty goddamn fine idea.

I would happily participate in a Tim F. listening club thread.

Not 100% familiar with OG version of this thread, but if it's just "essential older albums", then:

Grace Jones - Nightclubbing
Lizzy Mercier Descloux - Mambo Nassau
Kate Bush - The Dreaming
Evelyn "Champagne" King - Get Loose

some of these might be too weird idk

this was my introduction to janet, i'm forever grateful

― J0rdan S., Thursday, April 16, 2015 6:43 AM (50 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I DID THIS

i feel honoured tbh

why is jaymc surprised by me re: pj harvey or roxy music, fuck's sake

i'm so wary of getting into the blue nile

i'm not surprised by either of those! i was amused in a posts v. much in character way.

it's also strange how many disparate exchanges i remember actually happened here (like the tricky discussion or the jungle one)

xp admittedly, the "pj harvey" mention wasn't particularly interesting. but i'd only then read the first 100 posts or so of the thread and i just liked that it was going so well.

that's part of what i liked about reading this thread. so wide-ranging.

i heard the supremes on the radio this morning and was just thinking about how when you listen to Old Music, a lot of the time it feels very dutiful, even when you can appreciate it (actually that might feel even more awkward than just disliking it), but every so often is like an artist or a band's entire deal hits you completely at once and it feels a bit overwhelmingly joyful (this happened with me and the supremes about a decade ago i guess)

when you listen to Old Music, a lot of the time it feels very dutiful,

I sort of feel this about all music where i know what it is before i actually hear it. Almost like i have already heard it with someone else's ears and am unable to hear it for itself. Hearing the name not the sound

a lot of the time it feels very dutiful

I'd probably say "sometimes" instead of "a lot of the time," because my day to day playlists ping pong between the last six decades pretty freely. But yeah, if I'm sitting down to listen to some long-form prog or psych something or other, it feels like fucking work.

Caveat: It may be that i am still not fully recovered from the EOY listening poll and the spotify-at-work guy

Serious investigation into the works of Jam-Lewis very necessary imo

like what, alfred?

The SOS Band - Sands of Time
Cherrelle - High Priority
Alexander O'Neal - Hearsay
Ralph Tresvant - Sensitivity

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

sometimes listening to new music feels dutiful

totally but it's worth the effort. i am STILL going methodically (and at least three times per song) through this ILX/critbait best of 2014 playlist, alphabetically by artist
http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/4j7EwRMpTBavNAWRJZuki2
i'm about halfway through "i"

loved this thread.

self-servingly thinking of starting a Tim F. listening club.

― Tim F, Thursday, April 16, 2015 2:46 AM (21 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I would happily participate in a Tim F. listening club thread.

― Johnny Fever, Thursday, April 16, 2015 2:49 AM (20 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^^

same though i think tim has already listened to most of the emo i'd earnestly introduce him to

tim, how deep is your knowledge of smokey robinson?

would love to do a TIm F thread

would be afraid he'd know everything already

would prob go either hardcore rap or hardcore jazz or ... pulling away from pop without abandoning it entirely music

Tim, how do you like Huun Huur Tu?

I have not listened (or properly listened) to Smokey Robinson or Huun Huur Tu or most of Brad's earnestly introduced emo.

Imma start a thread.

(or a lot of hardcore rap/jazz)

The Tim F listening club