Rave’s Raves: February, 2002
Thursday, February 28th, 2002RAVE’S FAVES
(on the air since December)
Something Corporate, Chemical Brothers, Starsailor, No Doubt (“Hella Good”), Garbage (“Girl”), Sum 41 (“Motivation”), Pete Yorn.
I’m surprised that Something Corporate‘s “If you C Jordon” isn’t spreading quicker on a national basis. The song has a great melody and hook, and has been getting top requests for weeks on KROQ. I think the Chemical Brothers have a chance to go mainstream with “Star Guitar.” The Starsailor song took awhile, but has grown on me. They are the latest promising British act on Capitol, following in the footsteps of such bands as Radiohead and Coldplay. The Strokes just went gold in mid-February. While sales haven’t yet matched the incredible out of the box hype that this band received, it has been gratifying to watch their acceptance grow as the mainstream alternative audience gets more and more used to these guys. “Last Night:” has recently become a regular entity among the Top-Five requested songs in LA. Word is that work is about to resume on various George Harrison catalogue items (music and video) that hopefully will make it to the marketplace. As you probably know, Limp Bizkit auditioned potential guitar players in numerous cities. A friend of a friend gave it a shot in Portland, and he reported that Fred told everyone he was looking for “image” more than talent.
CD unit sales are down again this year after being down for all of last year. In 2001, sales of recordable CD’s bested the number of prerecorded CD’s by about 30%. People can talk about the economy and quality of music overall, but we all know that there is more and more great music that simply isn’t getting on the radio.
LA RADIO:
The stations playing mostly 80’s music are adding more 90’s to the mix and greatly reducing the amount of 80’s airplay. While, I understand their need to remain relevant to younger listeners, I wonder whether 90’s hits will have the same staying power. Many airplay songs from the last decade seem to have less character and to fit stricter formulas, so the burn-out may turn out to be higher. In my case, I thought the first 90’s weekend on Star 98.7 was great fun, but my staying power hasn’t been great as they continue to key on 90’s hits. KROQ is adding more 90’s songs into their noon hour of “Flashbacks.”
80’S COLLEAGUES:
Sum 41 have been regularly mentioning Iron Maiden as a major influence. The readers of “Spin Magazine” just voted Sum 41 the best band of 2001. Guitarist Dave Baksh was asked to list “five guitar solos that will break your skull.” Numbers two through five were specific solos. As for #1, he says “Dave Murray, Adrian Smith, Janick Gers: any solo (any Iron Maiden album).” He also sports a Maiden t-shirt in the “In Too Deep” video. Speaking of Maiden, they’ve taken the last year off and will be reconvening soon to play several UK benefits for original drummer Clive Burr, who has MS. Later this year, the band will record a new album, to be followed by another world tour. The Church have a new album out, and I’m hearing it’s some of their best work. The Missing Persons reunification seems to have lost steam, so guitarist Warren Cuccurullo has taken the opportunity to expand his extracurricular enterprises with a porn website that will soon debut. The Knack‘s current CD is getting some strong reaction at college radio. And finally, The Motels are about to tour. I caught a nearby warm-up show and can say that they have some promising new material.
That’s it for now. Until my next update in April, enjoy music and enjoy life; or in other words…