David Bowie is the F-ing S

After a lot of careful thought – about 20 minutes – I've decided that if I could trade my musical career (none) with any successful artist's, it would be David Bowie. He was unquestionably cool during his musical peak, and he still is cool now, which is why shows like The Venture Brothers can cast him as the leader of the Guild of Calamitous Intent and get away with it.

In fact, David Bowie has so many hits that you probably don't realize how many hits he has. Here are hit singles and songs I've heard on mainstream radio, that you've probably also heard and never realized he did:

“Dancing in the Street.” “Modern Love.” “Blue Jean.” “Let's Dance.” “Under Pressure.” “Heroes.” “Fame.” “Golden Years.” “Knock on Wood.” “Sound and Vision.” “Young Americans.” “All the Young Dudes.” “The Man Who Sold The World.” “Changes.” “Life on Mars?” “Suffragette City.” “Rebel Rebel.” “Space Oddity.” “Starman.” “The Jean Genie.” “Never Get Old.”

That is 20 songs right there, and if some of those are debatable to you, just replace them with your personal favorites that I left out, like “Ziggy Stardust” and “Diamond Dogs.” Quite simply, you will be hard-pressed to name other bands with such a vast, expansive repertoire. Other bands or artists that I at least considered swapping places with:

- The Beatles. Like David Bowie, The Beatles have a slew of hits. However, I'm kind of narrow in my thinking; I want to trade places with just one person. And since I'm somewhat vain and egotistical, I'm not sure if I'd want to split credit like Lennon and McCartney do. Even George Harrison has at least one insanely catchy solo pop ditty.

As a result, the Beatles almost feel like an unintentional superband. McCartney is still cranking out hits by his lonesome and Lennon was a supernova once he left the group.

- Queen, Weezer and the Beastie Boys. Because they're all made up of multiple members, I have to lessen their accomplishments ever so slightly. Queen's Freddy Mercury was the closest competitor to Bowie's crown, except that I like Bowie's overall catalog a bit better. (This also overlooks that Freddy Mercury died of AIDS and liked boys.)

Queen has a lot of F'ed out, overplayed pop rock shmaltz that hasn't held up well to me. I'm specifically referring to “We Will Rock You” and “We Are The Champions,” which are always played 50 million times at any sort of sporting event.

Some of Queen's best work is also, well, downright odd. “Fat Bottom Girls” and “Bicycle Rice” are incredibly catchy tunes, but they're somewhat like Weezer (another band I mentioned in this paragrah) in that the songs won't really appeal to all audiences. They feel a bit too much like nerd rock.

The same applies to the best of Weezer's arsenal, for which the term “nerd rock” was coined, after all. I love all of their songs, from the Pinkerton tracks “El Scorcho” and “Falling For You” to the obvious pop bait like “Pork and Beans,” “Buddy Holly” and “Keep Fishin'”.

- Nirvana, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Sublime and The Doors / Jim Morrison. All of them are great, and all of them are dead, which I'm not really into. Overlooking this aspect, their premature deaths prevent them from possibly joining either the preceding or proceeding groupings...

- Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots. If we were doing this list after initial albums, based on potential, then both these bands would rank highly, much like Ben Grieve would after his stellar debut for the Oakland Athletics in 1998. Unfortunately, Pearl Jam kept making weird, artsy records instead of doing good alternative rock, and Stone Temple Pilots fizzled out as Scott Weiland got hooked on heroin.

- Beck, Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails. Awesome artists, except that they're not that varied or commercial successful. If I want something besides industrial from NIN, I'm shit outta luck.

- KISS and The Eagles. The opposite of Beck and Radiohead, both these bands are hugely commercially successful, but not really that deep or critically acclaimed.

- The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Modest Mouse, The Killers, Queens of the Stone Age, Interpol, Girl Talk and The White Stripes. All these are somewhat new bands that have had some great releases, but do they have staying power? Can they change styles and stay fresh and still stay commercial and critically awesome?

iTunes Running Diary - Monday, July 13, 2009

This week's artists, a day late.

- “She Wants To Move” by N.E.R.D. Wondering whatever happened to one-hit wonder Pharrell after he was done “Frontin'”? (Girl, you know he wants you bad.)

Much like Danger Mouse of The Grey Album fame, who is now more known for being half of Gnarls Barkley, Pharrell is actually in N.E.R.D., a kind-of popular band known for this song and “Spaz.” Ironically, both are featured in commercials, but I knew of N.E.R.D. before then because of “Rock Star,” which got some alternative rock radio play. Like Gnarls Barkley, N.E.R.D. is a little hard to categorize; kind of like techno, alternative rap.

And because I brought up Gnarls Barkley, I'd like to take a second to talk about Charles Barkley, the greatest NBA player ever. I'm saying this for two reasons – I have an awesome poster of him that I bought in third grade, and he is by far the most quotable, funniest NBA player ever. Although I've already brought up this story once before in a comparison between Gnarls and Charles, his bar fight in Philadelphia bears repeating:

My favorite Charles Barkley story is about when he got into a bar fight in 1997 and threw a guy through a plate glass window. When the police asked him if he had any regrets, Barkley said, "I regret we weren't on a higher floor."

As Cigar sports reporter Pat Oullette said when he heard that story, "Charles Barkley is the man." Sports editor Matt Pavao said, "I wish Charles Barkley threw me through a plate glass window." Production manager Michelle Kirms said he was her favorite basketball player growing up.

- “Song 2” by Blur. The other night at trivia, the trivia lady asked an approximation of the following question: What British band, despite releasing seven critically-acclaimed albums, is best known as a one-hit wonder for their hit single “Creep”?

Now, the answer is obviously Radiohead, except that up until she named the actual single, it was Blur. And I'm saying this as a guy who actually likes more music by Blur besides “Song 2.” While I'm not crazy about the frenetic energy of “Crazy Beat,” it's still a good listen, as is “Tender (The Sweetest Thing).” And “Coffee and TV” is just an addictive, great song that is pushed over the top by the bittersweet music video.

If you're looking for a British band with one monster hit that conceals their underground credibility, then it's Blur. I think everyone is aware of Radiohead's virtues. Heck, I don't even like Radiohead that much – I find their music to be a bit like ambient techno, there and clearly good, but I'm just not interested – but I can name two hit songs by them. Obviously, “Creep,” but there is also “Karma Police,” which has gotten significant radio play.

- “Chelsea Dagger” by The Fratellis. Back in the day, when I ran the Cigar entertainment section, I assigned this CD to someone to review it. They came back, raving about how great it was, and gave it a great review, but it didn't really stick in my mind to go download some tracks.

Flash forward to about two weeks ago. I got sent a copy of Guitar Hero: Modern Hits to review for the DS, and one of the songs was “Chelsea Dagger.” It is so rhythmic and awesome, and it makes me feel like a sad panda that I took so goddamn long to download it. Along the same lines, it took me forever to get into Girl Talk, and Feed The Animals now has the most plays on my iTunes.

- “Love Me Two Times” by The Doors. I didn't mean for this entry to highlight just music from Guitar Hero and Rock Band, but apparently iTunes had different ideas.

A couple entries ago, when talking about Everclear, I wrote that their lead singer's struggles with drugs and altered thinking on it probably gave the band a sort of obsession he couldn't match once he got clean. The obsession allowed him to create great music and survive long enough to eventually get clean. Without the music, I imagine that he would have succumbed even quicker.

I think the same thing about Jim Morrison and The Doors. I always feel like the music and lifestyle kind of get blamed as causing the drug usage, but given the background of Morrison – there are plenty of good books out there on his life – he would have been into drugs even without the music.