Beauty and the Beat turns 40

I know what I'll be listening to at the gym tomorrow... 

July 8th marks the (I cannot freakin' believe it's been that long) 40th anniversary of the release of the Go-Go's debut album, Beauty and the Beat.

I won't go into detail on the history or significance of the band or their post-punk/new wave/pop offering that rose to become the first number one album by an all-girl band. Instead, I'll let the others tell you why the album is so great and simply relate a story:

Around my freshman year of high school, when music became a much more significant part of my life, I visited Record Town with enough money to purchase my very first album. I didn't realize then, but this would be a seminal event in my life and my choices came down to Olivia Newton-John's Physical, Blondie's Parallel Lines, or Beauty and the Beat. I lingered in the store and mulled long and hard before finally choosing ONJ.

Weeks later, I did wind up buying Beauty and the Beat, making it one of the first ten or so albums I ever owned. Today I have an extensive collection of vinyl, cassettes and CDs that I cherish, and it all began with that trip to Record Town. I'm also proud to say that my three finalists that day were all albums that had major success and historical importance in popular music. 

Among other accolades, Parallel Lines was Blondie's breakthrough album, spawned six singles, was number one in the US and UK, and its single "Heart of Glass" was one of the biggest crossover hits of all time, dominating both black and white radio stations in the early months of 1979.

Physical sold over ten million copies; it's title single was number one for (a then record) ten straight weeks; and an accompanying compilation of videos for each of Physical's tracks served was one of the first ever video albums.

But back to Beauty and the Beat. It's well-produced blend of Belinda Carlisle's throaty lead vocals, group choruses and surf-rock drums and guitars, combined with infectious beats and underrated musicianship (drummer Gina Schock is a standout) set the benchmark for all-female band success on the album charts. In this regard, the album trail blazed for a number of 80's and 90's radio-friendly punk and rock artists including Green Day, Joan Jett, and The Donnas (who, ironically, went on to master the pop/punk fusion the Go-Go's originally intended but wound up straying from.) From "We Got the Beat" (a punk record disguised as dance-pop) and the power-driven "How Much More", "This Town" and "Lust to Love", to the frolicking "Our Lips Are Sealed", and the haunting lyrics and harmonies of "Fading Fast", the album is nothing short of an early 80's treasure.

To recognize Beauty and the Beat's anniversary, the band is holding a listening party that you can access through Apple Music or Spotify.

And if you've read this far and are a true Go-Go's fan, let me reward you with a rare bootleg from one of the group's early concerts.

Go-Go's: Live at the Sun Plaza Hall, Tokyo, Japan, 1982

Related Posts:

Go-Go's Rock the Sunset Strip

Belinda Carlisle on Arsenio Hall

More Belinda

Great Album Covers: The Score, Head Games & Vacation

Go-Go's Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (About F**king Time!)
5 Films Hollywood Needs to Get to Work On

Just an NBA YouTube Channel Intro Video

Created this short video as an intro for Kaleb Conti's YouTube channel -- which is dedicated to discussing the NBA. Started with the opening of the old Kurtis Blow jam "Basketball", added a drum beat and just took it from there.

 

New Original Mashup - Cher vs B.o.B "Gypsys Tramps & Magic"

I have no idea what inspired this but I was showering one day last month and it just came to me that Cher's jangly ballad from 1971, "Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves", would blend well with B.o.B's pulsing, singalong/rap hit "Magic" from his debut album, The Adventures of Bobby Ray. Ostensibly, the two tunes couldn't seem more disparate. They were released almost 40 years apart, and while Cher's song paints a melancholy portrait of racism, teen pregnancy and prostitution, B.o.B's track is an irresistible hunk of ear candy and the perfect jam for karaoke or singing into the mirror.

And though I'm not a deejay, sound engineer or music producer, I just couldn't shake the remix I had in my head, so I figured I'd give this mashup a try. A bit of warning, it starts a little rough but gets better and better as it goes. 

Enjoy.

A Few Words About Breasts

From the Pop Culture Fiend Archives comes this clipping from one of my old issues of Playboy magazine. (Pretty sure it was one from the 80's.) This was not at the time, nor is it now, a comprehensive list, as it's missing several favorites like "puppies", "chesticles", "milk monsters", "sweater stretchers", "silicone sisters" and "floppy whites". Be that as it may, for a pre-internet aggregated list, this was pretty darn good. 

The 20 Most Must-See Movies of the 90s: Part 3

The countdown continues with numbers 10 through 6. Also, be sure to check out The 20 Most Must-See Movies of the 90s, Part 1 and Part 2

10. The Silence of the Lambs
1991
Directed by Jonathan Demme
Written by Thomas Harris, Ted Tally (Based on the novel by Thomas Harris)
Starring: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glen

A more chilling film, you will not find. A sexually ambiguous serial killer named Buffalo Bob lives in a dank, isolated backwoods home, keeps his female victims in a dungeon, fattens them up, and then skins them so he can wear their flesh as a woman suit... Oh, and this guy's not even the main villain! It's actually Dr. Hannibal Lechter, a brilliant but insane psychiatrist who, when he isn’t murdering and eating the livers of his colleagues, enjoys playing head games with his fellow asylum inmates and coercing them into suicide. Thrust into all of this is Jodie Foster as rookie FBI agent Clarice Starling, working against the clock to track down Buffalo Bob and his latest victim, the daughter of a US Senator, before it’s too late.

Foster and Hopkins give riveting performances as Clarice has to let Lechter inside her head in exchange for his assistance in finding the killer. Taught with suspense and utterly creepy, this film paved the way for a slew of similar psychological thrillers including Final Analysis, Seven, The Bone Collector, Kiss the Girls, and Taking Lives.

Killer Sequence: Lechter breaks Clarice down and forces her to recall haunting childhood memories of what happened on her uncle’s farm.

9. The Rock

1996

Directed by Michael Bay

Written by David Weisberg and Douglas Cook & Mark Rosner

Starring Nicholas Cage, Sean Connery, Ed Harris

Despite two unlikely heroes -- quirky Nicholas Cage and a pushing seventy Sean Connery -- this picture serves as the measuring stick for 1990s action movies. Screenwriters Weisberg, Cook and Rosner flipped the tables by having the two protagonists break in to Alcatraz prison to stop a rogue general (Ed Harris) from wiping out San Francisco with a stolen cache of chemical weapons. Since this film’s release, Hollywood has sought to duplicate director Michael Bay’s heart racing “can-you-top-this” action sequences, but the two films that come closest may very well be Bay's own Armageddon and his latest effort, Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

Killer Sequence: General Hummel makes his demands, and sets off nearly two solid hours of edge of your seat action and suspense.

8. American History X
1998
Directed by Tony Kaye
Written by David McKenna
Starring Edward Norton, Edward Furlong, Avery Brooks

Ed Norton, who holds the edge over Johnny Depp as the best young actor to emerge during the 1990s, gives a commanding performance as Derek, an intelligent, but disillusioned Venice, California youth who rises to a prominent position in a neo-Nazi skinhead organization. After serving time in prison, Derek reforms, but upon his release finds that his younger brother is making the same mistakes he did. The film shifts back and forth in time, showing us how Derek was initially drawn into the group, his rise to power, and his eventual rehabilitation and release from prison. The film offers a frighteningly authentic depiction of exactly how hate groups recruit and convert their members and infuse them with their doctrines of prejudice and intolerance.

Killer Sequence: A flashback where Derek murders a black car thief, and a family confrontation where he fully reveals his philosophies of white supremacy to his mother and her Jewish boyfriend are both powerfully disturbing.

7. The Shawshank Redemption

1994

Directed by Tim Robbins

Written by Stephen King, Frank Darabont (Based on the short story Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King)

Starring: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman

This tremendously moving film, based on one of Stephen King’s lesser known short stories, stars Tim Robbins as Andy Dufresne, justafiably imprisoned for the murder of his adulterous wife, and traces his experiences through the 30 years he spends in a New England prison. Fine supporting performances by Bob Gunton as the prison warden and the always reliable Morgan Freeman as Andy’s best friend Red, help make this film an engrossing testament to the indominitability of the human spirit. Had it not been released the same year as Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction, this film would have walked away with Best Picture and Best Director Oscars.

Killer Sequence: Andy fulfills the film's credo, "Get busy living, or get busy dying", by carrying out a long-planned, daring and ingenius escape.

6. There’s Something About Mary

1998

Directed by Bobby and Peter Farrelly

Written by Ed Decter and John J. Strauss & Bobby and Peter Farrelly

Starring: Ben Stiller, Cameron Diaz, Matt Dillon

The Farrelly Brothers had given us a couple of films that featured good old fashioned, gross-out humor (Dumb and Dumber and the underrated Kingpin) but they scored a box office smash with TSAM, which sprinkled in healthy doses of sentimental romance and hilarious slapstick alongside its’ over-the-top bathroom humor.

Stiller plays straight man through most of the film (whether it’s to Mary’s mentally challenged brother, Warren; Dillon’s sleazy private dick; a homicidal hitchhiker; or Puffy, the border terrier on speed) as he seeks to track down his one and only true love from high school.

Though some found it's scatalogical humor a bit much, TSAM features BIG laughs from start to finish and the film's success kicked off a trend among contemporary American comedies to see how far they could push the raunchiness envelope (see American Pie, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Superbad, Borat, etc.)

Killer Sequence: The “hair gel” scene gave the 90s the same thing the diner scene from When Harry Met Sally gave the 80s -- the single funniest screen moment of the decade.

Related Posts:

The 20 Most Must-See Movies of the 90s: Part 1

The 20 Most Must-See Movies of the 90s: Part 2

The 20 Most Must-See Movies of the 90s: Part 4

Defining Films of the Decades