HAPPY 20TH ANNIVERSARY* TO ‘LISTEN WITHOUT PREJUDICE’ BY THE MAN GEORGE MICHAEL. WHO I HOPE WILL COME BACK VERY SOON. I WILL HELP WITH IT, FOR REAL.
*it came out on 03 sept 90 in the uk, and 11 sept 90 in the us. i know that thinking of a record’s first global release date as its actual release date is very ‘internet’ but come on.
This song came on the radio the other day, and, of course, I already own, like, three copies of the album or something, but it was nice to have it forced on me like that. And, my God, what a song. I was struck again by how long and twisty and ambitious it was. Every single piece of the song is catchy and realized; even at 6 minutes, it’s hard to find any fat that I’d trim. Hell, it has two (brilliant) choruses! Many supposed pop songs are really just a decent-to-good chorus buttresses by bland, filler verses. How many times have you started to karaoke a song, only to realize you have no idea how to sing the verse, that the verse is merely a bland vessel to get you to the 1 minute of the song that’s actually memorable? “Freedom” is not one of those cases.
And the bridge/middle eight/whatever you want to call it…it’s good! Really good! My number one least favorite thing ever in music is a “bridge” or “middle eight” that is completely incongruous to the rest of the song, adding nothing to it and often acting as a detriment, a giant Kirby or NAFTA-style sucking sound that eats its momentum. 90s rock bands are really stupid about this. It’s like the songwriters are sitting there and they have a nice A part and a good B part, but there is no C part, and that’s a bad thing for some reason, so they just scribble some chords down and some stupid lyrics like “Bad moon white again” and figure nobody will notice because, “Hey!”, it’s just eight bars, right? and I can power through it with lots of strings or extra distortion or extra-emotive singing. I’m looking at you, Bush. And Foo Fighters. And Stone Temple Pilots. Guys/gals, it’s okay to have a song with just two parts! A and B are plenty if you don’t have a good C (or D or E). Heck, look at Stereolab and Can and Neu! These guys have/had amazing careers with just A parts. Note to bands/singers/whatever, I would rather have your good parts only. I don’t want your bad parts touching your good parts. If you only wrote one good part then that’s fine. All of the best Guided By Voices albums are built on this “good parts only” principle. “All we’ve got is a chorus and some kind of acoustic intro thing…print it!” Or maybe pull a “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” and just smoosh a bunch of good A parts together. It seems to be working for MGMT and Of Montreal thus far. Now, sometimes you might think you have a lot of good parts, a preponderance even, and you want to put them all in one song. That’s dicey. This is how we ended up with “Carry On Wayward Son” and the work of Blood, Sweat, and Tears. These are cautionary tales for a variety of reasons. First off, your parts might not be as good as you think they are, as evidenced by the examples I just mentioned (I’m giving Yes and King Crimson and Rush a pass because I am a 35 year old white male, and thus am allowed to do this). Second, you have to think of the poor marching bands. A lot of parts means that band directors are now able to take you seriously as works of art. And that means that a bunch of awkward kids are going to spend their summers stumbling around a drill field, trying to navigate all of your stupid tempo changes with their hopeless, arrhythmic feet. I participated in at least four Blood, Sweat, and Tears and/or Kansas shows in my eight years in marching bands. Think the average Southern football audience loved that? Think again! There is nothing more demoralizing than hearing the polite applause and disinterested conversations—the total indifference—of 80,000 people. All because you had to use all of your parts in one song, you jerks. I hate you.
So, yeah, parts. And George Michael! Come back to us. I think it’s time for “Freedom 2010”. Bring your good parts.
—Lucas
