For the past few months, I’ve tweeted “Stuck In Your Head” songs of the day. These are the tunes that somehow get stuck between your ears and hang out there for an eternity. You may HATE the song, but it’s there. Nothing you can do about it. So just enjoy the music and let is play, constantly, endlessly, eternally looping. On the other hand, some of these songs are ALL-TIME favorites!
I’ve assembled here for you the ULTIMATE Stuck-In-Your-Head Mixtape. You’re welcome, in advance!
1) Lionel Richie – Hello
2) Ace of Base – The Sign
3) Mr. Big – To Be With You
4) Hall and Oates – You Make My Dreams Come True
5) Journey – Don’t Stop Believin’
6) Heart – Alone
7) Phil Collins – In The Air Tonight
George Michael – Careless Whisper
9) The Fratellis – Chelsea Dagger
10) Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody
11) Extreme – More Than Words
12) Michael Jackson – PYT
13) Bon Jovi – Livin on a Prayer
14) Soft Cell – Tainted Love
15) Lionel Richie – All Night Long (Yes, we started and ended this list with Lionel Richie – got a problem with that?)
OK, so, removing the Preamble entry, this is the 100th post on The Buzz!!
Thank you to everyone who has read, shared, inspired, and commented here. It’s been an absolute thrill to get to know you (or know you better!). I try to provoke discussion, so I definitely appreciate people who tell me I’m wrong!
I gave a lot of thought on what to do for the big 100th post, whether it be a list, a retrospective, etc. As you know, we cover a lot of different ground here, from PR, social media, sports, pop culture and more.
Music, however, is very important to me. I was a bar mitzvah DJ when I was in high school, and transitioned to radio while I was in college.
I’ve always been fascinated with a concept I call “The Soundtrack of My Life.” The jist is, you pick 18 songs that MUST be included in a biopic movie about your life. No other rules apply. Any piece of recorded music is fair game. I made several CDs trying to capture this essence, and every one of them was different. Of course, the 18 songs will change as you have new experiences, are exposed to more music, have more life to cram into 18 tracks, and so on. This IS not a favorite songs list. This is music to be played in your life story. Some of them are included for instrumentals, others for lyrics, and most, hopefully, for both.
I hope you will place your 18 songs in the comments section!
One more thing: Here are my personal favorite posts!
“Gotta make a change
For once in my life
It’s gonna feel real good
Gonna make a difference
Gonna make it right”
—
“I’m starting with the man in the mirror
I’m asking him to change his ways
No message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make the change
You gotta get it right, while you got the time
‘Cause when you close your heart
Then you close your mind”
Two of my favorite passages from “Man in the Mirror,” (one from the beginning and one from the end) strangely not one of Michael Jackson’s biggest hits, yet one of his most enduring songs. It has become almost an anthem of his passing, perhaps a bigger song for him posthumously than it was during his life.
Looking at the song in full context, with all of the lyrics, it’s plain to see it is about charitable work, feeding those without food, finding homes for the homeless.
However, it is also a song about personal redemption. The first part of the song includes and admission of laziness/apathy/wrongdoing. By the end, it is a powerful, loud statement of making an impact on the world.
Suffice it to say, by the time “Bad” was released, Michael Jackson had made his mark on the world.
But you can look at this in another way: the past is entirely in the past and doesn’t mean anything if you aren’t currently doing something. Perhaps the song is about drive to succeed, always building upon what you have already achieved.
If you are constantly looking to improve, you HAVE to look at yourself in the mirror and know that what you did before was OK, but that you have so much more inside of you. If you know in your heart that you have more to give, than your mind will find a way to make it work.
The song stresses personal responsibility. You can’t do everything yourself…but you can control your actions and handle your business. And if everyone does that, then we’ll all be better off, right?
It hasn’t been a good week for the entertainment industry. Four icons of pop culture, TV and music passed away from very different circumstances.
Ed McMahon – The former “Tonight Show” sidekick died at age 86 after battling several illnesses for many years. He was one of the most beloved members of his generation of TV stars, an affable, hearty man that America invited into their lives every weeknight for three decades. Perhaps his legacy is being carried on by Andy Richter, who Conan O’Brien invited into that sidekick role when he took over the show last month.
Farrah Fawcett – One of the first TV vixens, Fawcett, even at 62, was a woman the men wanted and the women wanted to be. Her battle with cancer was waged publicly and she gave it a good run, according to reports. Like McMahon, her prime was well before my time, but there is enough cultural memory of her to understand her impact during the 1970s.
Michael Jackson – “Thriller” was released on November 30, 1982, when I was less than 7 months old. So I guess you could say Jackson and his music have been a major part of my entire life. When I was old enough to purchase my own music, “Thriller” was the first album I bought. Jackson’s life was as close to “The Truman Show” as anyone had seen before. A child grew into a man on stage with the world watching. Unfortunately, it seemed the man had difficulty growing up, most likely because of his public childhood. If you had to make a mix CD (or an iPod playlist) of songs from the greatest artists of all time, a good chunk of it would feature the King of Pop. There are only four artists with the global impact that MJ had: himself, Madonna, Elvis Presley and The Beatles. That’s it. Nobody else comes close. Details are still murky, but he collapsed and died last Thursday at age 50, apparently from sudden heart stoppage.
Billy Mays – My dad sent me an e-mail saying that the mute button on his remote control would be used less now that the brash, high-volume pitchman was gone. Saturday night, he hit his head while his airplane had a rough landing. He went to bed that night and never woke up. Also 50, Mays became a pop culture icon shilling products like Oxy-Clean and other households items that seemed like they could work, but you weren’t entirely sure about dropping the money on them.
Four very different celebrities, passing in unique ways.
Why do they impact us so much? Collectively, why do we cry when a singer we like has a heart attack, or sit in disbelief when the infomercial star dies from an apparent concussion, or mourn the passing of a retired TV second-fiddle, or anguish as we watch an “Angel” lose her fight with cancer?
I think it has to do with sharing.
Every person absorbs pop culture in their own unique way. No two people are impacted by a song identically. No two people relate to a late-night joke just like the other does. However, we SHARE that experiece. We listen together, we watch together and we discuss together. We figure out how we relate to other people in the world based on what we share with them.
Pop culture is the ongoing conversation in the world. It is an ever-churning axle, increasing in speed, but growing in depth.
When four people who have managed to remain relevant, despite the age of the sound byte and on-demand media, leave us, it is a loss for all of pop culture.
It is a reminder that the people that we know, but don’t know, are still people, just like us. We want Ed McMahon to ring doorbells forever. We want MJ to make his big comeback and reign over pop music for infinity. We want Farrah Fawcett posters on every wall in our bedroom. We want Billy Mays to introduce us to the latest, greatest, but-wait-there’s-more product with a one-time special introductory offer, so act-now, operators are standing by, batteries not included.
In a strange way, we feel closer to them when they pass, because we definitely know that they, in the most circle-of-live ways, are just like us.
George Michael – Careless Whisper
