Date: Jan 27, 1962
Weeks: 3
When I started this blog, I expected to be reviewing more classic dance rock songs that sounded like this. Maybe I watched too much Happy Days or American Graffiti. Or maybe while the overall sound of pre-Beatles rock sounded like this, not a lot of it topped the charts. There are no Grunge No. 1 songs in the 90s, after all. At any rate, it's a pleasure to get a song that sounds like it should be playing in the background at the diner in American Graffiti.
In particular, the middle part of the song, the guitar solo, is an absolute blast. That guitar sound, mixed with the drums and sax, evokes Rock and Roll's R&B roots. It's a wonderfully simple, raw sound, and I enjoy the heck out of it. I even kind of like that organ sound that provides additional rhythm. There's just something about organs in rock songs that seems so appealingly contradictory.
It's hard to even criticize the lyrics. Yeah, they're aggressively just trying to create a new dance craze, and yeah, they're blatantly stealing from the Twist to do it. And yes, they don't even accurately describe the dance in the song very well. "Round and round, up and down" could describe anything. But there's no pretension here, and there aren't even very many lyrics to get in the way of a fun little dance number.
I did track down Part 2 of this song, and I think I like it even better with that extra part attached. The music turns into a bit of fun, jazzy chaos and there are minimal additional lyrics to get in the way. It's a bit unstructured and I don't think both parts put together would work particularly well from the perspective of pop music structure. The tail is too long. But, removed from the context of being one overall song, I do enjoy more of the same music in Part 2.
My verdict: Like it. Something about that classic R&B sound, in a song that has no more complicated goal that encouraging you to dance, is appealing.
No comments:
Post a Comment