Archive for the ‘Com-Pak Music Theater’ Category
Another 80’s music meme
Saw this one on Eyeore’s LJ and of course was compelled to steal it. 
(I got 80% right, BTW)
Your result for The Ultimate 80’s Pop Music Test…
80’s Music Encyclopedia
Take The Ultimate 80’s Pop Music Test at HelloQuizzy
Com-Pak Music Theater: The Wonder Twins
Tonight’s edition of Com-Pak Music Theater brings you more cheese and lots more hair.
Family legacies in pop music performance have always been fascinating to me (I’m going to post about Wilson Phillips one of these days), and I just recently learned that the duo behind (in front of?) tonight’s band are “double-legacy.” This family apparently made the Guinness Book for being the first one to produce #1 hits in three successive generations. When your grandparents are former radio, TV, and music stars, and your father is a former teen rock idol… Well, I won’t say “what else can you do?” (plenty), but it was certainly in their blood.
Welcome tonight’s guests: Matthew and Gunnar Nelson, best known for fronting the band that bears their family name. I’m not gonna go into a big thing about why I still like the music. *shrug* I just do. Anyway, as is typical for me, I’m just now catching up on 17 year-old music videos, and I’m more here to talk about the video. What just tickles me about this one is just how much attention someone paid to detail and little bits of humor in what is, essentially, a throwaway pop video. They dubbed the fully-reverbed-and-chorused vocals from the album over the first vocal line in the video (”Here she comes.”), and the funny part is to watch Matthew in the video look up and around to see where all the reverb came from. I laugh at that every time I see it. There’s little touches like the “VAGUE” cover (watch for the model to pop back up later).
What amazes me, though, is how much work they put into things. They’re pulling the trick where the video speeds up and slows down, but watch Gunnar and Matthew closely: their lip-syncing and strumming [mostly] stay with the 1x-speed music. That had to be tough to do (probably involved some really silly-sounding fast and slow music on the set). There are sections where they do the video backwards (especially at the end) and still lip-sync forwards. None of this is rocket science, but it’s just a lot more work than I would have expected for a video like this.
Nelson: (Can’t Live Without Your) Love and Affection (1990)
Also, the guitar melody (with that little trill) is one of my favorite musical elements in the song, and it was neat to hear them play it with the acoustics (especially with that 12-string Matthew is using).
On that subject, I gotta throw one more at you. The video itself is not all that exciting for me (especially the over-done heavy-handed “Don’t listen. You can do anything you want.” message). However, once you get past that, they take the video as a chance to splice on a musical intro that sounds like something they might use at a concert. It’s a little thing and easily done, but it added another facet to music that I already really enjoyed. By the way… I would so hang that poster up here in the computer room if I could get my hands on one.
Oh, and I think all the hair-tossing is just absolutely hilarious specifically because of how cliché it looks now.
Com-Pak Music Theater: When Guitars Attack
Two recent (to me) media sources have proved to be a lot of fun for me lately: XM Satellite Radio and YouTube. Long-time readers (or people with way too much time their hands) may remember a post where I talked about “Com-Pak music“. Basically, it means what was playing on the local hits station when I was working at my first job. I mentioned “Joyride” by Roxette specifically, but there are a whole list of songs that snap my mind back to that time.
That’s where XM comes in. I’ve found myself spending a surprising amount of minutes listening to songs on the 90’s channel, and several of the songs have turned out to be Com-Pak music. Tonight I heard another one on the way back to the house, and I decided that sharing some of these might be a fun way to kill some posts on the site.
Enter YouTube. It’s pretty difficult for me to find whole songs to link to in audio format, but if a song had a video, someone has probably posted it to YouTube. The added fun is that since I didn’t have cable or satellite TV in high school, this is the first time I’ve seen a lot of these videos.
So, without further ado, here’s tonight’s edition of Com-Pak Music Theater:
Sweet Sensation: If Wishes Came True (1990)
Here’s a perfectly happy little bubblegum love tune that wants nothing more than to be an Exposé song when it grows up. Except, out of nowhere, the 80’s attack with full-force power ballad guitars! There’s even a guitar solo bridge complete with modulation! Whoa.
The video’s great, too. The choreographed-synchronized posing complete with wind machine and fake rain (could it be warm September rain?) is my favorite part. They really do want to be Exposé when they grow up!
Beetles, Joyrides, and Fried Chicken
Anyone who has read my first post here is aware that I associate certain music very strongly with events or periods in my life. From time to time, I’m going to drop in a nugget here and there. Tonight’s selection concerns a set of pop music that I’ve come to call “Com-Pak music.”
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