Religious hippie music

 Background

Just one year after +100 000 hippies gathered in San Fransisco to introduce new ideological ideas, society began to push back. The confrontational reality of working for political change struck down hard on the hippies escapism, and the drugs began to reep their victims. The bloodline of the hippies ''something more.''-ideals got drained, and though 1968 was the year with most psychedelic rock released (which I'm assuming is a sign of LSD popularity), the growth had already stagnated by 1969 and quickly dropped off the radar after that. The hippies had to look for ''something more'' in other ways. One such way was to replace druggy hallucinations with hallucinations about being ''level-headed earthy simple country folks'' (see the Grateful Dead, The Yardbirds, The Band, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Creedence Clearwater, Joni Mitchell..), a tendency that none other than the The Byrds spearheaded, i.e those who more or less created psychedelic rock in the first place.

The Byrds - Sweet Heart Of The Rodeo - The Christian Life

Though it might sound like a flat-out country album now when rock-instrumentation is common in the genre, it was pretty much a new concept during it's time. And likewise with the entire post-hippie movement, bands hardly ever made exact copies of other music genres as much as combined them with an own sound. If you pay attention to the loose playing and unpredictable background texture, you'll see the bands trippy roots shine through. Lyrically, the eastern-influenced spirituality and drug hallucinations are replaced by country-life and christianity, though I honestly don't know if lines such as ''Others find pleasure in what I despise, I like the christian life'' are entirely serious or not. Their attraction to something polar to hippiedom is nonetheless apparent throughout the album. 


Despite the police-clashes and drug-casualties, it's a common notion the final nail in the coffin for the hippie appeal was the Manson family. 

 The ''weary yet still searching'' post-hippie-depression began to get treated more seriously.


James Taylor - Sweet Baby James - Country Road

James Taylors ''Country Road'' from 1970 reeks of a zeitgeist in which hundreds of thousands of hippies accepted both an ideological and sonic turn from 60s counter culture culture.

''Sail on home to Jesus, won't you good girls and boys?
I'm all in pieces, you can have your own choice.
But I can hear a heavenly band full of angels
and they're coming to set me free.
I don't know nothing 'bout the why or when
but I can tell you that it's bound to be,
because I could feel it, child, yeah, on a country road.''


Though trippiness would linger around for a few more years, it's noticeably absent here compared to most folk-inspired bands at the time. Instead it's an early example of a type of smooth, straight-forward 70s radio pop/rock that would dominate the charts for a few years to come, and pretty much the entirety of the early christian (Jesus Music) scene. Though country road is a perfect lyrics-music match in its simple comfort for worn-out hippies, it's still undeniably plain sounding, so you can imagine why the second-rate versions and the Jesus Movement in general are largely forgotten today.

A lot of direction-seeking hippies settled with a relatively harmless faith, but some took it to the next level and became followers of people claiming to be reincarnations of Jesus. Let's look at some of the traits associated with joining cults  to see where the shoe fits.

V   A desire to belong       (The hippie movement was always collectivist in nature)
V   Gullibility
V   Low tolerance for ambiguity
V   Cultural disillusionment
V   Idealism
V   Susceptibility to trance-like states
V   A desire for spiritual meaning
V   Ignorance of how groups can manipulate individuals (they didn't seem to notice the spread of their culture was a product of the pro-consumption forces they were against)


If the above applies to you then look deeply into my eyes...

Children of God - Special Love - Special Love (Late 70s?)

There is a special love in a pedo-sex cult led by a raped-as-a-child-and-liked-it guy who thought he was a cosmic lion who said ''BE FRUITFUL, MULTIPLY'' over and over while attracting new members with the help of prostitutes (long story), but it makes the music all the more disappointing. While none of it is bad, it's just basic, mostly acoustic smooth-guitar ballads with pretty predictable melodies and meek, hippie-autopilot vocals. There's not much about the ''standout'' track except that it fits squarely into this formula. I did notice it starts on a more musically positive note but gets more urgent-sounding at the end, maybe to give the impression of ''don't miss this opportunity''. It didn't seem to work, since the membership rate began to drop once they started to promote themselves through music rather than prostitution.

Ya Ho Wa 13 - Savage Songs Of Ya Ho Wa - Fire In The Sky (1974)

Father Yod formed The Source Family on the principle of one-man one-woman. He had sex with every woman in the cult a few years on. What separates this from every other cult is that they produced at least slightly weird music. All the albums of Yahowa 13 (all 65 of them) are a band of hobby musicians having a sloppy repetitive jam with Father Yod grunting out Captain Beefheart-like vocals. The effect they're going for seems to be more concerned about creating a trance-like experience for themselves than to produce easily accessible self-promotion. Their lack of creativity and technical skill makes sure whatever ambitions they have falls flat, but if you just want some jam-noise in the background it will do.

Peer-reviewed, mathematically calculated musical attitude compass

I'm so proud of this it's been posted on two blogs.

: C

Commercial craft #1: The mainstream peak of the electronic dance music era

The mainstream electronic dance music of the second half of the 90’s and early 2000’s is, despite its more than occasional awkwardness, something close to my heart due to nostalgia, and it being around that time I got musically interested to begin with. As a more or less socially retarded kid I spent a lot of time in front of the TV, and much of the time watching MTV, waiting for all the boy and girl groups to shut up for awhile to give room for the EDM around, or what’s popularly known as just techno. Not sure why this style of music held a particular appeal to me, but with it came a childish dream about having full access to any musical record of choice, having fun all day looking for beats/loops/samples etc in a large variety of musical styles and getting and endless stream of aesthetical experiences in the process. Had no idea this would actually pretty soon turn out to be the case.

But enough with the self-indulged nostalgia, where did the whole EDM craze come from to begin with, what was around those days and how well does it stand up to the test of time? The boom in the mid-90’s was really just the peak of a process that had been going on since the rise of electronic disco/new wave in the late 70’s, gradually generating subscenes with a more repetitive and ‘’futuristically de-humanized’’ sound, which apart from individual hits remained mostly an underground phenomena until the boom of rave and house music in the last breath of the 80’s. A large variety of EDM styles went from underground to mainstream, but the two most notable styles of era I’m referring to were

1) Eurodance, feather-light go-lucky pop songs with some structural and sonical foundations of techno. Famous examples are Aqua, Rednex and Venga Boys.

2) Big beat, anthemic, instrumentally/loop-oriented but straight forward and rather heavy sounding dance music. Famous examples are The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim and The Chemical Brothers

Both EDM styles had in their own way been polished throughout years to what appeared to be commercial perfection. In the case of eurodance they rode on the explosion of the prepubescent musical consumer group created pretty much entirely as a result of spice girls releasing their bouncy, colorful and ever so annoying Wannabee single, and took its childishness to the absolute maximum. Most eurodance acts were pure one-hit-per-album studio products created by painfully cynical producers, and the ‘’band members’’ were usually actors who did nothing but act childish/cartoony on music videos. However, despite all childishness it managed to attract a teenage audience by (1 hiding the catchy pop song behind electronic rhythm and sound production which would open up for the singles being played at dance parties and (2 just like in regular pop hiring photo-model looking singers/actors and make them spout sexuality in both music videos and lyrics, sometimes subtle and sometimes blatantly obvious (but of course they passed over the kids head anyway). One more golden rule of producing eurodance was to never, never change a concept that sells. Created a winning concept? Great, reuse it with minimal variation. And just use someone else’s if you can’t come up with one of your own.

As for big beat, you can in short say the style got popular for being EDMs equivalence to blockbusters. Unlike eurodance which tried to please everyone under 18, big beat tried to please insanely large mass of teens and young adults who had turned into electronic dance club enthusiasts at the time, and did just that by using top-notch production values to create big, dumb, anthemic breakbeats/loops which in the minds of the public easily outshine the more mellow forms of EDM (to much annoyance of pseudo-intellectual EDM fans). This ‘’cool’’ bravado also shined through in the genres music videos as demonstrated by the link above. But to be fair, big beat as a scene wasn’t a laboratory product of a team of slicked producers like eurodance. Instead it came out of individual DJs from underground rave scenes who had spent years trying to get noticed and acquiring ‘’the ear’’ necessary to understand what a really addictive beat consists of.

Also from the same era there was trip hop, which is down tempo (sometimes almost ambient) EDM with more experimental breakbeats. Despite being popular it remained mostly the mellow alternative to the even more popular and seemingly more commercially slick party-styled EDM. However (while not being as popular making today), trip hop is the only material from electronic dance music's commercial peak which most people still can listen to with a straight face, and which most popular tracks are still used in commercial contexts. Why is this? Let’s start off with what trip hop didn’t do, as in not shamelessly throwing itself into all of its times trendy aesthetical expressions (speaking both on a visual and musical plane), doomed to forever be associated with an outdated era. Stone death of once-really popular music is the norm. What trip hop did do, though probably unintentionally, was to create a style of music which goes perfectly hand in hand with high-tech products and ‘’mature, moody and serious’’ entertainment media. Perhaps the best example is Teardrop from 1998 by Massive Attack which among other things frequently serves as theme and background music for top-rated American drama shows, non-fiction documentary/news/debate shows and a seemingly endless stream of commercials. Eple by Royksopp is a similar example. These two tracks are just commercial atomic bombs for these clients; They’ve got a polished professional coldness which still has a very warm, welcoming touch which is very hard to achieve but is something trustworthy people feel comfortable around once it’s pulled off well , they put you at ease yet activates your attention at the same time, and perhaps most of all it’s their combination of style and simplicity.

So even though trip hop got silenced by it’s big, dumb brother and sister during it’s prime time, now almost ten years after the mainstream EDM era ended, you can be pretty sure that the most popular trip hop songs has been more financially successful than the most popular eurodance and big beat songs. Slow and steady wins the race after all.

Pop of innocence and cynism

Bubblegum pop is very light and simple mid 60s to mid 70s pop rock, aimed towards the children who wanted to be hip just like their older siblings listening to what's now called classic rock. To their misfortune the genre was simply met with a facepalms from everyone else, especially it's creators. More often than not the ‘’bands’’ were pure studio projects with random session musicians under a team of producers/songwriters, who usually didn’t want to waste time and energy on musical quality; as long as there was cartoon characters, animals or people in costumes mimicking to gibberish about candy and love on TV, it was a living. So even though these are my recommended songs on the genre, this is not really an entry consisted of particularly good musical material. Though there is always the inbuilt novelty of spending a few minutes getting to know a musical genre.

Enjoy

Lancelot Link And The Evolution Revolution - Sha-Na Love You
(02:33)

Lancelot Link & The Evolution Revolution is as archetypal bubblegum pop as it gets. They were the fictional band of 1970 – 1972 TV series Lancelot; Secret Chimp, with a cast consisting of dressed up, probably psychologically traumatized chimps. Sha-Na Love You is their most notable track, both being very catchy and the most cringe-worthy thing you've heard since Hanson Brothers MMMbop.

The Wombles - Remember You're A Womble
(03:16)

In the 70’s the Wombles was a popular UK live-action show about long-snounted furry animals cleaning up and reusing trash from inconsiderate humans. Remember You’re A Womble is their galloping, dance friendly declarance of superiority over the human race (which you’re not a part of, thankfully). The music on the show was written by now acclaimed but obnoxiously snobby songwriter Mike Batt (still paranoid about not being taken seriously because of this), who took the liberty of mixing together all sorts of instrumentation (this track includes saxophone, violin, horns etc) and satirizing different musical genres.

The Fun And Games - Elephant Candy
(02:15)

Bubblegum pop for real men, given that The Fun And Games unlike most of their musical associates were an actual band, and compared to the genres standards were pretty raw, hard-hitting and shouting. Elephant Candy, released in 1968, is the a perfect example of this, and has more than a little touch of insanity in it's vocal harmonies.

20 Years Later

This entry consists of my three favorite 80’s pop hits according to three different categories. First up is simply the greatest hit of the decade all in all, material that media almost guaranteed has spoonfed you with at least some time. Then I’ll mention a forgotten hit, which despite having been big in it’s time for one reason or another (double-digit hit, more regionally oriented etc) you just don’t hear anymore. Lastly I’ll focus on electronic dance, just because it’s a fraction of that decade’s mainstream music I really like. The reason to make categories like this is that when it comes to 80’s pop heading for mainstream popularity it usually really was the most famous songs which were the best, and overplayed to this day.

What’s maybe a bit hard to understand now was that early 80’s pop in general was both very rebellious and reactionary music at the same time, trying to distance itself as far away from the hippies as possible both musically with manufactured, slicked and (at the time) high production electronic music not seen before, aesthetically with excessive yuppyish-decadence, and even ideologically with most artists ignoring social issues entirely and often focusing on the excesses of capitalism in a more positive light.

Enjoy.


THE REMEMBERED
Kim Wilde - Kids In America
(03:29)

Who haven’t heard this rocking 1981 new wave track yet, in one form or another. The tense buildup and unforgettable anthemic chorus together with the lyrical content does not only scream of commercial perfection*, but the very beginning of a new era.

*A claim that can be easily supported by the endless stream of consistently popping up covers by everything from alternative rock bands to cartoon shows.

THE FORGOTTEN
Moon Ray - Comanchero
(03:58)

Stomping Italo-pop which was a hit in the summer of 1985, or perhaps 1984, the sources are a bit conflicting; maybe it reached different countries at different time periods. Very kitschy track both intentionally with the spaghetti western-ish chants and unintentionally with it’s extremely 80’s music video, which has led to the song getting a minor non-commercial comeback on the internet.

THE.. ONE TO DANCE TO.
Trans X - Living On Video
(5:54)

Light beams, purple skies, computer fantasies… On video. Behold what the future sounded like in 1981, though the world just didn’t understand the quintessentially early techno until two years later when it became a huge international hit. The backbone of the song is its dark synth line repeated over and over again for the entirety of the song and rightfully so.

Happy Hardcore Compilation

The ''album art'' is a slightly modified snapshot from an Indonesian kids show. For own entertainment I'll throw in these these types of pictures from now on, meant to be descriptive of a musical genres stereotypical visual expression.

Happy hardcore is essentially fast, hard 4/4 beat electronic dance music with an upbeat attitude popular in the 90’s rave scene, eventually going in and out of mainstream popularity the same decade.

It's by many thought of as lame/gay, uncreative low quality trash falsefully proclaiming itself to be hardcore techno played by loudmouthed narcissistic DJs with broken English that only dumb, drugged out pubertal european wigger teens with dyed blonde hair listen to. As with all music that was really popular, the higher up it gets, the harder it falls. Still it's always moronic to judge music depending on how difficult it was to create or it's fanbase rather than the aesthetic experience it generates, or thinking that depth equals to wanting to sit alone and be angsty. In happy hardcores defense I think it has a depth in the sense that it's often the most intense and accurate musical expression of bliss and positive energy; That it can still the music of choice on big festive events and locations like carnies, despite being a dinosaur for the mainstream, shows the lasting strength of that expression the genre provides.

I'll let the tracks speak for themselves this time. Enjoy

Dj Dougal and Mickey Skeedale – Emerald
(03:54, from Happy Hardcore 5 CD 1)

Dj Paul Elstak – Pump This Party
(04:17, from Happy Hardcore 1 CD 1)

DJ Seduction – Samplemania
(03:33, from Hardcore Flashback 2)

Dj Dougal and Mickey Skeedale – Pump It Up
(06:23, from Hardcore Flashback 3)

TKM – Time Out
(04:48, from Bonkers 5: Anarchy In The Universe CD 3 (Dougals Mix)

Update:

Dj Vinylgroover & Dj Quatro - Calypso Summer
(03:38, from Bonkers CD 1 (Hixxys Mix)

Dougal & Gammer - Get Hype [Scott Brown Remix]
(03:53, from Hardcore Flashback 4)

Eruption feat Katherine Wood - Let the Music
(05:38, from Happy Hardcore 4 CD2)

Hixxy - I'm ready
(03:37, from Happy 2B Hardcore Vol. 7)

N.U.K.E - Nana
(03:12, from History of Dance 5: The Happy Hardcore Edition)

Some pre-second half of 19th century non-classical traditional Swedish music

Local church in Bredsättra, a village where I spent all my summers until very recently. Just thought it looked oldschool enough for the subject matter...

The title may seem like just an odd way of saying ‘Swedish folk’ , but where to draw the line between traditional folk of and other types of oldie music such as church songs and material in old lower-class entertainment performances aimed towards a wide audience, is often very blurry. When it comes to musical inspiration, songs from these various contexts were largely interconnected to each other, shamelessly stealing/’borrowing’ from each other all the time. So for the purposes of this blog entry and its imaginary reader’s entertainment, it’d be very unnecessary limiting it to just pure folk tunes. Also, that they (estimately) need to be at least from the mid-19th century is to avoid romanticist attempts to ’’recreate the sound of the past’’ which was very popular the later half of the century, and instead focus on the genuine material nostalgic aristocrats were crying and masturbating each other about later on.

Have a listen

Till Österland Vill Jag Fara
(To The Land In The East I Will Fare)

Rather moody all-male vocal church choir song which I couldn’t find a studio recording of, so it’s just recorded from a regular church performance. It’s about traveling to the holy land/Israel before death arrives. The song has nine verses, but only two of them are preformed here. The melody is taken from a church song titled På Dig o Herre Kära found in a psalm book from 1695. The lyrics can interestingly enough be traced back to text fragments by a regular sailor named Anders Flöija from the mid 1700’s.

To the land in the east I will fare
where my beloved lives
To the land in the east I will fare
where my beloved lives
Over mountains and deep valleys
beneath a green linden tree
Over mountains and deep valleys
beneath a green linden tree

I will build us a cottage
where the ground is always green
I will build us a cottage
where the ground is always green
Where the trees are full of blossoms
of blossoms that smell sweetly
Where the tress are full of blossoms
of blossoms that smell sweetly

När Som Jag Var På Mitt Artonde År
(When I Was On My Eighteenth Year)

Slow-paced, somewhat eerie vocal-only folk song from the perspective (and here preformed by) a young woman remembering a love interest who cheated on her, but who she still loves and longs for. Much of the songs charm unfortunately gets lost in translation and not only in the usual sense with pacing and rhymes getting all screwed up, but because it relies heavily on poetical wordplay and grammar-twisting in very old fashioned Swedish.

There isn’t much information available on the internet about this one, but it’s featured in a book from 1907 among other authorless traditional Swedish folksongs. To able to establish such status, a qualified guess is that it’s at the very least from the mid 1800’s. My first thought when hearing this was that it was probably a romantic early 1900’s/ late 1800’s composition dreaming of an ancient Scandinavian musical tradition, but seeing there is no author to be found, it might just have it’s origins in that really, really old reality.

When I was on my eighteenth year
There was beautiful boy who fell out in my yard
I thought of owning it forever
But this my thought soon disappeared
There was another girl who got laid down in his arms
He compares it with a blooming flower
Though I’ve held father and mother in high love
And sisters and friends who’ve loved me here
This love goes beyond it all
Thanks for having been my only comfort
And thanks for all the moments I’ve rested on your chest
In heaven we shall again be united

Ack Värmeland Du Sköna
(O Värmeland You Beautiful)

Dramatic song number about a Swedish province whose lyrics is originally written for a 1822 sångspel, which was a theatrical musical act of significally lower budget than opera aimed towards a broad mass, often relying on traditional melodies rather than originally written material. You know the score with these types of songs: Just change the area to any other with a decent nature and it works just as well. Actually, that’s the foundation of this very song: Pretty much the same lyrics and melody was used earler for a folk song about Swedish province Östra Götaland, which in its turn is suspiciously similar to dutch 1500’s folk song O, Nederland! Let op u saeck. Nevertheless Ack Värmeland remains the most polished and proudest version of the tune both lyrically and melodically, and the performance by one of the most skilled operatic tenors of all time Jussi Björling (1911 –1960) posted here is the strongest version of the song recorded.

O Väremland, you beautiful, you magnificent land
You crown jewel among Sweden's provinces
And if ever I should reach the Promised Land
I would still return to my beloved Värmland

For there I want to live, there I want to die
If one day I take me a bride from Värmland
I know it's something I shall never regret.

If one day I take me a bride from Värmland
I know it's something I shall never regret.

In Värmeland – yes, there I want to settle down and live
With the simplest joy to be satisfied with
It’s valleys and forests gives me the calm of silence
And the air is fresh on it’s heights

And the streams sings their lovely song
By it I want to fall asleep so calmly sometime
And rest in Värmlands soil.

By it I want to fall asleep so calmly sometime
And rest in Värmlands soil.