80s electro-funk compilation... some real bangers:

Edited Sunday at 10:14 PM5 days by HiWire

RIP, Donnie Iris

Edited Wednesday at 01:23 AM3 days by HiWire

Everything But The Girl - Young and Dumb (single from their new album coming in February)

Nice! I haven't been loving Tracey's "changed" voice on some of their newer stuff, but this song is pretty good!

Going out to Mr. and Mrs. Bedecarre. Some AI BS but that's just where we are?

I remember that video, which came out right around the time I started thinking about being a lawyer. Not sure what's so remastered about the sound.

Edited 3 hours ago3 hr by Voltron

Let's talk about Steely Dan. The boomer jazz rock duo who took their name from a steam powered dildo described in William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch, best known for their super slick studio production. They were hugely popular with boomers housewives in the 70s and gained a significant following amongst aging boomers classic rock aficionados in the 80s and 90s. Their 1977 album Aja is considered a studio masterpiece by some, and the most wretched, excessive piece of wank imaginable by others. The late, great Steve Albini, a legendary punk rocker and and god tier record producer, absolutely loathed Steely Dan and Aja in particular. In the 21st century, Steely Dan is the source of ironic zoomer memes.

Their albums have a following with audio snobs to tend to listen to equipment and not, you know, actual music. This can lead to some obsessive behavior (top comment: "jfc"). All of this is to say, I don't really like SD, at all. I had to endure them on the radio throughout my youth. I was in a hardware store a few years ago and they had their in ceiling speaker system up louder than usual. I got serenaded by "Do It Again" while I furtively looked for ant cups. That experience threw me in a depression for the rest of the day. I actually love 1970s music production. It's all analogue, full of optically compressed bass and often loaded with horn sections that are really well recorded. Obvious examples are Rev. Al Green's "Can't Get Next To You" and the 800 lb gorilla that is Stevie Wonder's "Superstition." Bonus points to Bobby Bland's Dreamer album. To their, uh, credit, Steely Dan managed to wankify 70s studio tech to the point that I find it physically uncomfortable to be around.

A while ago, I was browsing the official YouTube channel of 70s music television show, The Midnight Special. It's a treasure. It has live segments, obvious lip syncing, and entire shows (one hosted by George Carlin!) They have a rare live performance by Steely Dan, featuring their original frontman David Palmer.

This rendition removes more or less everything I loathe about the band. The slick studio sheen is gone. In my very jaded opinion, Palmer is both a better and more emotive singer than Donald Fagan. It's kind of hilarious what an absolute statue Walter Becker is on stage, especially as the rest of the band is making a considerable effort to be really into things. The guitar solo is still kind of wank, but that's the 2FA for knowing it's really Steely Dan. Not long after this performance, Fagan and Becker fired the rest of the band and became a masturbatory studio duo. It would be interesting to see what kind of band they would have become if they'd done the opposite.