...there’s some desperation to this junk version of “Dancing in the Street,” with both parties trying to affirm their A-1 celebrity status. One of the more pernicious effects of the whole Live Aid/Farm Aid/Band Aid spectacle was to cement the hierarchy of the “legend” rock acts and a smaller tier of anointed successors from the slightly-younger generation (Tom Petty, Sting, Dire Straits, U2). It was the height of the Boomer Counter-Reformation. The late Eighties would see the over-publicized returns of everyone from Steve Winwood to the Monkees to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, to a revamped George Harrison to a MOR version of Pink Floyd to Robbie Robertson pretending that he was Peter Gabriel (a version of Gabriel who couldn’t sing) to an all-star Yes and a Zeppelin-sampling Robert Plant, culminating in the return of the “revitalized” Stones in 1989, the touring company now reincorporated into a gleaming multinational. As Marcello Carlin said back when Popular covered this single: “Suddenly we were once again reminded who in pop and rock mattered and who didn’t…With their massacre of “Dancing In The Street,” Bowie and Jagger seemed to relish rubbing it in.“-The Annotated Jagger/Bowie "Dancing in the Street"
Do you ever get a song stuck in your head? It happens to most people. Some little ditty or the memorable part of a hit song or a carpet company jingle, you try to go to sleep and there it is, doot-doot-doo-ing away in the back of your mind. Super annoying.posted by anazgnos at 11:43 AM on January 17 [18 favorites]
Have you also noticed how the song "Private Dancer" by Tina Turner never ever gets stuck in your head, no matter how many times you've been forced to hear it? That's because "Private Dancer" is so formless and hideous that there isn't even enough of a tune there to get stuck.
"Private Dancer" is the absolute zenith of the art of 80s schlock. There's a sort of synthetic rhythm, and some schmeer of digital drama provided by the Yamaha DX7 keyboard, but no actual music. On top of it all, a creaking, tuneless yowl of a vocal, rattling up from the guts of a parchment-skinned old woman trying to sexy at you. Hideous.
So, "Private Dancer" makes the perfect palate-cleanser. Whenever you have a song stuck in your head, force yourself to mentally trudge through the song "Private Dancer," at least as much as you can remember. It also helps to imagine the video of a once-stunning, now-cartoonish Tina Turner, the last of the pain pills and red wine finally down her throat, heaving her clattering bones around the soundstage trying to sexy.
Run that through there for twenty seconds, and it's better than Drano. It clears-out whatever was stuck and leaves on its own, leaving no trace behind.
In “Modern Love”‘s circular 24-bar chorus (repeated three times in all), with its equally cyclical chord progression of the first four degrees of C major (C, D, Em, Fmaj7), Bowie starts out trying out “modern love,”4 finds it wanting, and takes solace in traditional marriage (“church on time”). But tradition’s just as empty, so he puts his trust in humanist religion (‘God and man!”) and finds that equally barren. (These moves are echoed harmonically by the fall back to the tonic, C major, with each new disappointment). The chorus closes with an echo of John Lennon’s “Imagine” and “God,” Bowie checking off everything that’s failed him—no religion, no confessions, no love. Nothing means anything, nothing works anymore. So the chorus ends back where it started, on “modern love,” because it’s the most appealing of the false gods.posted by euphorb at 11:57 AM on January 17 [5 favorites]
they literally just called it the 'Gayest video ever made'
Bowie immediately moved to recording two tracks of backing vocals with Visconti (hence the faint Brooklyn accent you hear on “I remember” and “wall”)because I swear I have pointed out this accent to others when this song is playing, and was starting to think I was crazy for being the only person to hear it. Vindicated by Visconti!
there were worse revivals of the 60s in the 80s - like this pointless remake
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But I've heard stories that, during the Live Aid original live broadcast, a number of people did actually throw open their windows during this song and go out and dance in the street because they were so swept up in the whole spirit of "big huge global event that has a lot of awesome people and HOLY SHIT Queen's performance was awesome and this particular song is a party song so yay". So yeah, out of context it may have been lame, but that kind of wasn't the point.
and it's still a damn site better than anything you see on American Idol so nyah.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:40 AM on January 17 [11 favorites]