Bad Ocean Freddie 5 Whistle Bird - This is the END of VINYL | MUSIC is not a GENRE - Season 2 Episode #36

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This is it. We are getting ready to enter Phase 3 of something that started five years ago. These Thursday posts have gone through a lot of changes. Phase 1 was all text and photos, and all about cassettes. Phase 2 was transitional - all about vinyl, starting with texts and photos and morphing into videos, which morphed into a YouTube channel, and even included a name change. Today’s episode completes that phase, and sets up the next, with lots more to come.

What I’m saying is today is the last of my vinyl collection. I’ve decided to take the remaining six albums and put them all together, for a good old fashioned multi-genre music talk. None of them were hugely significant to me, but all deserve a spotlight. Below are those six, with a few short notes. You’ll want to watch the video to get more in-depth analyses.

-- Bad Company - Every era has a handful of acts that are the quintessential representation of a style - no crossover or muddy waters. Bad Company was that for rock music for the 1970s.

-- Billy Ocean - If you don’t like Billy Ocean, you’re missing a piece of your humanity. And how great that he’s reentering the music biz after such a long hiatus. So may hits in the 1980s, though I honestly didn’t remember this one.

-- Freddie Jackson - One of those singers - like Peabo Bryson or the late James Ingram - who graced the 1980s with awesome smooth r&b. This was his biggest hit, and one I remember well.

-- 5 Star - A British pop/r&b band who had several hits in the 1980s, including five from this album, of which “Let Me Be the One” was the biggest US hit. I often prefer British r&b, because it doesn’t feel the need to adhere so strictly to the genre, something that frequently limits what American r&b can be.

-- Whistle - Whistle’s biggest hit. A couple of years after this, they transitioned surprisingly smoothly from hip hop to an r&b vocal group. You should totally see the video for this single. It’s one of the many fun, irreverent ‘80s rap songs that’s peppered with well-known public domain melodies, in this case played by an old-school keyboard sampler patch.

-- Charlie Parker - Recorded in 1944, this is prime Bird and supreme bebop. Bebop is one of my top three favorite jazz styles, because it had one foot in early more lyrical jazz and one foot in the hard bop and more dissonant jazz to come. Right in the sweet spot. I got this in college at a thrift store, when I was diving headfirst into jazz of all kinds (other than smooth). I love the song, “Romance Without Finance”, and even covered it in one of my sets last year.

And that’s it, people. The vinyl phase is OVER. Next week I’ll kick off Phase 3 - my CD collection. Here’s the link to my band REC’s box set, The Weird Objective:

REC – The Weird Objective - https://www.nickdematteo.com/rectheweirdobjective

Are you into any of these artists? Is your vinyl collection as bizarre as mine? Are you ready to dive into my massive CD collection? Discuss dammit!

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