Friday is fun because it's about music. So there's always a playlist or two. Today, I get nostalgic for the (early) music of Marshall Crenshaw. Underrated genius!
People speculate about Cobain or Hendrix all the time but Holly less so. If anyone could have been the Beatles before the Beatles it was him. I reckon he’d have ended in country music. He had a good and greasy side the pop singles obscured. All those immortal songs in about 18 months.
Freakishly good and they’re so wholesome and timeless. I agree, he’d have gone country. Pretty much all the rock’n’rollers that lasted for any amount went country - Jerry Lee, Elvis, even Little Richard, kinda...
What can I add! A terrific guitar player? Like Springsteen, you think you’ve got him nailed on surface details but then you listen close - this insight, that turn of phrase etc. Unfortunately for him the future was being written by James Brown, not the Beatles. Power pop is kinda like steampunk - adherents are permanently convinced it’s about to be huge. (Guilty.)
Yes, great guitarist. And no one could call Buddy Holly privileged cos it’s hard to since he died so young, and terribly. But if he made it to even 40, he’d be making squeaky-clean, white, privileged “power pop” out of his early rock’n’roll architecture eh…he basically whitened the Bo Diddley beat for ultimate success.
People speculate about Cobain or Hendrix all the time but Holly less so. If anyone could have been the Beatles before the Beatles it was him. I reckon he’d have ended in country music. He had a good and greasy side the pop singles obscured. All those immortal songs in about 18 months.
Freakishly good and they’re so wholesome and timeless. I agree, he’d have gone country. Pretty much all the rock’n’rollers that lasted for any amount went country - Jerry Lee, Elvis, even Little Richard, kinda...
What can I add! A terrific guitar player? Like Springsteen, you think you’ve got him nailed on surface details but then you listen close - this insight, that turn of phrase etc. Unfortunately for him the future was being written by James Brown, not the Beatles. Power pop is kinda like steampunk - adherents are permanently convinced it’s about to be huge. (Guilty.)
Yes, great guitarist. And no one could call Buddy Holly privileged cos it’s hard to since he died so young, and terribly. But if he made it to even 40, he’d be making squeaky-clean, white, privileged “power pop” out of his early rock’n’roll architecture eh…he basically whitened the Bo Diddley beat for ultimate success.
His cover of "My Back Pages" is for the Ages.
Indeed - like a lot of great songwriters, he’s so expert at covers.