WORDS FOR THE WORLD

Hollywood careers are notoriously short. One day you are all the media talks about, and the next you are a nostalgia act. Exposure in the public eye is the best and worst thing for the true artist. The years it takes crafting your songs or stories finally get their payoff, but the summit of the mountain only has one way to advance. Just like the Beatles dominated the 1960’s in music, one writer-director left his thumbprint in the roaring eighties in a way that defined how we remember those days. John Hughes didn’t give interviews. In a way, that sustained his lore. All we know about him is his work. The way we were happy when Samantha kissed Jake Ryan on the table over her birthday cake. The way we wanted to take a swing for John Bender straight at Principle Vernon’s stupid face. How we wanted nothing more than to be Ferris Bueller. All of these characters came out of the mind of one man.

Film was made for music. Before they could record sound onto strips of film, an organist would play along to the action on the big screen. Four bars of a song can remind us of the heartache we once felt after that girl starting dating that guy, or stir up a cynic to fall in love with the idea of love again. I’ve picked four Hughes films that not only reflect the time period visually, but have the right song placed in the right moment.

“Sixteen Candles” 1984

After gifting the world with Clark W. Griswold: John Hughes had his ticket ready to be stamped. Money has a way of turning red lights green, which gave him the licence to make a new type of film. Teen movies were all the rage in the fifties, where Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon would fall in love at a beach. When the children of the seventies became teenagers, they were raised in a world where a gleaming smile and a perfect hairdo weren’t the only things that they could relate to on the screen. Frank dialogue about sex, puberty, and drugs were not topics that John Hughes strayed from, but embraced as part of the vernacular of a sixteen year old. Molly Ringwald wasn’t a bombshell, she was an awkward teenage girl; which is what most sixteen year old girls are like. Teenagers also like music that speaks directly to them and how they are feeling in the moment. It took an amazing amount of insight for a man in his mid thirties to place songs that fit the exact tone he was looking for without culling the songs of his youth. “If You Were Here” by The Thompson Twins is a particular standout from the aforementioned kissing scene at the end, putting the bow on top of a teen classic.

“The Breakfast Club” 1985

Put five high-school students from various social-economic backgrounds into a school library for eight hours and see what happens. The plot was simple enough to understand, but the execution would be crucial. John Hughes had established himself with Sixteen Candles as someone who understood how teenage girls view their world, but “The Breakfast Club” was a watershed moment that put the spotlight on dialogue between idealists and realists. The movie opens with  the song “Don’t You (Forget About Me) by Simple Minds. In many ways, it is like any other movie that would use a new pop song to get through the otherwise boring credits and on to the first sights of Claire (The Princess), Andrew (The Athlete), Brian (The Brain), Allison (The Basket Case), and John Bender (The Criminal). The latter character is the straw that stirs the drink, as he presses each of their buttons until they are finally able to let their defenses down and show that they are not so different from each other. In a bold move, the movie ends with a reading of a paper written to their principle about who they think they are: The same speech that is read during the credits over the song “Don’t You”, which also plays at the end of the film. The bookends provide a perfect introduction and conclusion, which gives the speech and song a whole new meaning.

This Thursday: John Hughes: Establishing the Era

Album of the Week: “Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming” by M83 

Who gives a damn if it’s a hipster move to be into 12″, 180 gram O-zone polluting discs? I certainly don’t. The compact disc was already a staple of a middle-class music library by the time I was old enough to process the verbiage of the masters, but my old soul melts at the first whiff of musty cardboard. Unlike the music of today, which is stored up in a cloud somewhere; vinyl is alive. It is a piece of art you can hang on a wall or make into a tote bag. It takes a needle and turntable to sing through the wires of an old wooden speaker. It scratches and chips, reminding us to take care of things that are dear to us. I may have iTunes and Spotify on my phone, but when I’m at home, in my room; there is only one way to fully enjoy the music of my parents generation: The way they heard it.

ACHTUNG: These albums are in no particular order

10. “Fragile” by Yes
This is Yes at their finest. Still very much entrenched in their classic English Prog sound, yet with enough hooks to make a DJ spin the first cut “Roundabout”. Chris Squire’s bottom end fills up a room and is at the front of the mix, giving it the punch that sets it apart from other albums in the genre. Steve Howe’s jazz/classical playing style through an electric guitar is the good kind of fuzzy for 1971. In the days of vinyl, track listing is imperative. Note “South Side of the Sky” at the end of Side A for a solid riff-driven rock number.

9. “Silk Degrees” by Boz Scaggs
He may not have been the biggest artist of the seventies, but this record is one of those “I didn’t know he did that song” kind of albums. Side B is particularly well worn, as it holds his two biggest singles “Lowdown” and “Lido Shuffle”, with the latter of the two being a sing-along/karaoke gem. Side A showcases his smooth vocal over the top of the bells and whistles of a mid-70’s white-soul artist. It is certainly an album for the times. Jeff Porcaro and David Paich of Toto/Michael Jackson fame appear on all tracks playing drums and keyboards respectively.

8. “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd
Making two classic albums in a row is like winning a gold metal at two different Olympics. Once again, this is not a countdown list, but if it were, I would have this in the top three. It is not meant to be heard in tracks, rather as a single piece, like much of their work. The title track “Wish You Were Here” and the Side B opener “Have a Cigar” still get heavy airtime to this day on classic rock stations, but the opening eight minutes of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” are entirely seductive without a single lyric being uttered. Roger Waters’ words, along with David Gilmour and the late Richard Wright painting the sonic landscape reflect a band that has just experienced the zenith of their commercial success.

7. “Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs” by Derek and the Dominoes
Possibly one of the greatest “One-off” bands of all time. Duane Allman and Eric Clapton each deserve their own wing in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but their dual guitar intro on “Layla” may be the best five seconds of music in the 20th century. The story behind the song is just as intriguing as the work itself. Clapton was in love with another man’s wife. That man just happened to be his best friend George Harrison. The album could had the subtitle of “Unrequited”. “Bell Bottom Blues” is also one of Clapton’s finest cuts during his most creative and productive era.

6. “Abbey Road” by The Beatles
There is much debate amongst the devoted fans of the “Fab Four” as to which album is their last. Although “Let It Be” was released after “Abbey Road”, the latter was the final work recorded by all four Beatles. It is the finite punctuation on the turbulent sixties, and no other artist dominated a decade like the Beatles. “Abbey Road” is a collection of what John, Paul, George, and Ringo do best: Evocative lyrics, unforgettable hooks, and songwriting diversity.

5. “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars” by David Bowie
No one artist has had more reinventions than David Bowie. After starting as a teen idol, Bowie quickly realized that his music alone wasn’t enough to set him ahead of the pack. In an era of sear-sucker suits and mop-tops, Bowie began experimenting with cross-dressing and practically invented the word “Androgynous”. With the invention of Ziggy Stardust, he created an alter-ego that could explore uncharted lyrical territories that would result in what is now referred to as “Glam Rock”. From “Moonage Daydream” to the title track and on to “Suffragette City”, the “Thin White Duke” showed a world coming on the heels of Vietnam what they needed: An escape from reality.

4. “Hemispheres” by Rush
This may be a wildcard pick, but it is the very essence of the age of the long play format. Most albums during the seventies ranged from 35-45 minutes due to the size of the disc. The lions-share of artists in that day would put between 8-10 songs on a record, but Rush in their kooky Canadian “Sorta” Prog way decided to only have FOUR songs on “Hemispheres”. The first side is an 18 minute multi-layered piece that directly follows the last track on their previous album “A Farewell to Kings”. The foresight to have basically one giant song over two different albums is enough to make a record exec cry deeply in his richly furnished office. Side B is a delight in the form of the riff monster “Circumstances” a song about a battle between trees called (what else) “The Trees” and a ten minute instrumental master class called “La Villa Strangiato”

3. “Exile on Main St.” by The Rolling Stones
With their own record label, Mick and Keith wanted to do things their own way. By the time “Exile on Main St.” was released, the Stones were one of the most popular and influential bands in history, but it was the music that influenced them that informed the album. Using Muddy Waters-esque “Straight-to-the-point” lyrics and a heavy piano-blues sound, they created possibly their greatest work. “Tumbling Dice” explains the off-stage personas of the band to a tee. Although not heavy on hits, it provided a band that who lacked “That Album” with a cultural touchstone of their own.

2. “Led Zeppelin IV” by Led Zeppelin
“Black Dog”, “Rock and Roll”, and “Stairway to Heaven”. That may sound like a greatest hits compilations, but that’s just Side A of the fourth album by the band that epitomized hard rock. Truthfully, every Zeppelin album from I to Physical Graffiti should be heard on vinyl, but this one takes the cake. No other band in their genre knew how to lift up an audience and bring them back down again, just to lay the hammer down on the next song. A signature song (Stairway) and a signature album.

1. “Dark Side of the Moon” by Pink Floyd
No other artist used the format of the LP better than Pink Floyd. The year was 1973 and England, much like the rest of the world, was in a state of civil unrest. The three-day work week and a rising disgust between social classes left the country torn. In America, troops came back jaded from war in Vietnam that shouldn’t have happened. “Dark Side of the Moon” contained all of the angst of the early seventies in a 45 minute time capsule. One cannot think about the album without conjuring up an image of a beam of light breaking though a prism into a rainbow against a black abyss. Universal themes of Life, death, time and money move effortlessly into one another. Turn the lamps off, light up a…candle, and only move to turn the record over.