When I first listened to this, I was initially going to try to say something about how impressed I was that artificial intelligence had gotten so much better.
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But then, I realized that such a preference-driven thing as this wasn’t really artificial (or any other kind of) “thinking” at all. It’s more of a case of you press button A multiple times, and the machine keeps showing you A — not even something as smart as “thinks like A,” but A itself. In some way or other, you could probably have built a machine that could do that a hundred years ago. Press these 12 buttons; get these 12 results. Duh…
It wasn’t even as “smart” as the thing I admired Pandora doing several years back — long before, say, ChatGPT and such. That’s when I noticed that, based on the tunes I had elected to hear, the algorithm was intuiting that I would also like this other tune, of which I had never heard. And it was right. I made some really happy discoveries through that process. I was impressed because Netflix had been presented at the time as being able to do that with movies and TV shows, and it failed miserably. I wasn’t sure whether that was because there are fewer variables with music, or because Pandora was just that much smarter than Netflix.
Anyway, this is nothing like that. I’ve chosen at some time or other to call up every clip on this list (except perhaps one), and YouTube just put them together and played them back for me.
But as dumb and obvious as that may be, I really enjoyed it. So I thought I’d share. Maybe you’ll dig it, or some of it, too. Here’s what it presented to me under the “My Mix” heading:
- “New Lace Sleeves,” Elvis Costello and the Attractions — What kind of music would you call this? I would have called it “jazz,” based on what that rhythm section is doing. But Wikipedia doesn’t say “jazz” once, which I guess shows yet again that I am a musical ignoramus. It puts both Elvis and the song under “New Wave,” which is hard to argue with. I says Elvis himself said it was inspired by Devo‘s cover of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and Stevie Wonder‘s “Superstition“. I can see the Devo, but not the Stevie. At least Wikipedia admits that Elvis’ wife plays jazz.
- “Tired of Being Alone,” Al Green — No mystery here. I listen to the Rev. Al quite a bit. As should everyone. And this one may be the best, although, to quote Ed Grimley, it’s difficult to say…
- “Elenore,” the Turtles — I love the story people tell about this one. The Turtles wanted to get all creative and produce a Sgt. Pepper or a Pet Sounds, but their label just wanted another “Happy Together.” So they decided to write the worst piece of crap they could think up, and that was “Elenore,” and the studio recorded it, and it was fantastic. Another big hit, because it’s simply an awesome pop song. Even the Turtles had to admit it. It’s even creative — I like the rhyming with the first syllable: “ELenore, gee I think you’re/SWELL and you really do me/WELL..” and so forth. Yes, the lyrics are moronic, but in a clever way, I always thought. I thought the dumb words were a way of saying that Elenore blows the guy’s mind to such an extent that he is rendered incoherent….
- “Use Ta Be My Girl,” the O’Jays — Not sure why this is on here. Not that I hate it, but I don’t remember having deliberately played it.
- “I’m an Old Cowhand,” Gene Autrey — I know why this one’s here. My mother was talking about enjoying the singing cowboy when she was a child, so I was showing her how to find some of his stuff on YouTube…
- “New Amsterdam,” Elvis Costello and the Attractions — Played this a lot before we went to Europe, especially since we’d be spending close to half the time in Amsterdam. Talk about fun, goofy lyrics… “New Amsterdam it’s become much too much/Till I have the possession of everything she touches/Till I step on the brakes to get out of her clutches/Till I speak double dutch to a real double duchess.” Maybe ol’ Declan is saying something super-deep about New York. I dunno. I just dig the wordplay. I listen to it the way I do “I Am the Walrus” — although this is better.
- “King Harvest,” The Band — I’ve mentioned my appreciation of this many times before, and this is a great time to listen to it — the most autumnal song by the most autumnal band ever. I first found this video of the guys playing it live in the studio years ago, and consider it a bit of a treasure.
- “Happy Together,” the Turtles — Hey, you can’t put “Elenore” near the beginning of a playlist and leave this one out altogether. As Nick Hornby said about making a mix tape, there are a lot of rules. And apparently YouTube’s algorithm follows them.
- “Sulky Girl,” Elvis Costello — I’ve mentioned how impressive I found this one before, so of course YouTube puts it in.
- “Delta Lady,” Leon Russell — This clip is another classic in the “live in the studio” genre. And of course, this was a time when musicians were fond of putting glitches and restarts on vinyl, to give listeners an illusion of being there. But this is special. When Leon starts, and stops everyone and starts again — twice — you are hearing the Master of Space and Time himself, an actual leading member of the Wrecking Crew, at work…
- “A Day in the Life,” The Beatles — No need for explanation here, is there?
- “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding,” Elvis and the Attractions — One of the great things about this is that it comes across as the quintessential Elvis Costello song, suiting his persona perfectly. And yet it’s not. Nick Lowe wrote it… but he could never bring it to life as well as Elvis. Nick sings it too gently. When Elvis does it, he says the title in a way that sounds like he’s ready to fight, and daring you to tell him what’s so funny about it…
So there you go. It’s been a rough week, folks. Enjoy…
You know who inspired “Delta Lady,” right? Rita Coolidge.
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