Rewinding: Gladys Knight's 'Midnight Train To Georgia'

Gladys Knight and The Pips. (She reminds me of Kelly Rowland) Deep down, I wanted to be born during the Motown era and experience all the music fresh right off the radio. I find this musical time sentimentally inspiring. There was this knack for perfection vocals and perfection melodies where faults were hard to be found. This song possesses such natural soul, but with timeless ease that it’s really soothing. Gladys provide a voice which wasn’t too extravagant and extreme, but could still left listeners in awe. She had great pitch, great vocal dynamics, she meant every note she sang and she had a genuine touch to her personality that gave me such warmth and comfort. Lyrically, you also felt a realistic element that any age can relate to. The song left a space for listeners to interpret their own personal connection to it, which here it could be about the sacrifice for love in having to move somewhere or finding comfort in having to face rejection when following your dreams. When a song can be interpreted in many spheres that in 2011 you can still find true value in it, iconic is the only word.

The Pips were also a colorful addition. They provided a cutesy quality to the song and I love the idea of having men backing up a female singer. There’s such feminine empowerment going on for me. Gladys and The Pips had great vocal runs and adlibs when exchanging to each other during the latter part of the song where you felt The Pips gave the spotlight to Gladys’ singing, but there moves at the back were still pretty comical and legendary. I also bow down to them for making my eyes fixated on their performance the whole time when it was done on simple TV show set with no marketing or million dollar hair and make-up, which in today’s world every televised performance has to be done through pyrotechnics and explosions, which is where the core value of music is greatly lost and questions where true talent lies.

I think that sometime we associate this era too much with Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin, Lionel Riche and Stevie Wonder, and give them ultimate praise, which isn’t wrong because they were legendary and paid their dues, but it’s singers like Gladys and Al Green who I feel should receive a bit more recognition for contributing such great tunes for us to all cherish. This was when music meant something more profoundly and not based on going to the club and tries to get laid. This was when music left an imprint on people’s lives.  

Rewinding: John Mayer's 'Bigger Than My Body'

John Mayer. My all-time favorite male pop-rock vocalist period. His smooth huskiness voice and realness quality to his lyrics are what I’m drawn into about his music since the very beginning with his Room For Squares debut album. I use to listen to this song and album, Heavier Things, religiously to the point where it was Mayer season in my boarding school room for months. There’s one thing I applaud Mayer for is that he’s categorized in a generic genre of pop rock, but his music has always been pure genius and has been the top of the pack. He’s legendary for me and that explains his longevity. I mean, he won a Song of The Year Grammy for his song Daughters and won Pop Vocal Album for Continuum over Sir Paul McCartney and that’s something.

This song stays true to Mayer’s musical existence. It has this uplifting message and tone that you can play it any time, anywhere. The musical production also reminiscent a lot of what U2 has done with their sound, which is a simple pop rock universal appealing sound to every age group. This song could have been played on Top 40, Adult Contemporary, Rock and even country to a marginal extent. However, Mayer has his own tricks of subtly adding blues-rock to all his songs. With this reason there’s no wonder why John Mayer has create classics. The video itself was basic pop rock cliché 101, but maybe because the early 00’s all videos were crafted like this and today the video’s are more elaborate and theatric. But what I liked about it was that Mayer had this pure innocence and a sense of vulnerability even when he was already revolutionizing music to his own right. He had this friendly persona to him, which he fucking sadly became a self-loathing prick for the past few years trying to the bad boy talking about being a master of sex and bashing ex-girlfriends in tabloids. Sad. Sad when artists like him are eaten up by fame when he was on the road of being the next Bruce Springsteen.

What I would love to see Mayer do now is experiment with more sounds. I haven’t really seen him stepping out of his comfort zone with all the music he has released so far. Yes, he has done featuring on other artist in other genres, but his actual sound has been thoroughly the same. Maybe try a country twang to a song or a jazz Herbie Hancock fussed number or even inject some really mild electronic computerized sound, but still stay true to his own sound. There are many new artists emerging right now like Bruno Mars who’s taking Mayer’s place, which Mayer has to step up his game. Still, Mayer music catalogue so far remains supreme.

Rewinding: P.Diddy Feat. Faith Evans' 'I'll Be Missing You'

P.Diddy. Puff Daddy. Sean Combs. Diddy. Anymore? Ok. Let’s start. Going through my all-time favorites, I wanted to fuse in some classic hip-hop records. For me, my kinds of hip-hop records are the rappers rapping their lyrics and the woman singing the simple beautiful chorus. It’s just soothing. I can’t stand listening to hardcore rap songs. I need some singing in it and this song is the definitive answer. I just fucking love this song. Fucking, fucking love it. Till this day, I’ve never heard a better cover/ sampled song on this planet. For Diddy to have the genius to take an iconic Police song (Every breath you take) and mash it up to create a legendary hip-hop record is just inspiring. For me, I think Diddy was the first few hip-hop artists who embrace mainstream pop music. He wasn’t shy to use it as a key ingredient to his music, which is why I’ve appreciated his work for so many years. He did it for Jay-Z and Eminem. The song structure is certainly a prototype to the songs we hear today by hip-hop artist. Listen to Love The Way You Lie.  He should definitely be honored for starting this rap-pop movement years ago when people were still dividing the two and arguing some superior shit.

Even though this song was crafted in remembrance of Notorious Big death (that’s why his widow Faith Evans is singing the chorus), but it’s a song which can reach the masses with such sentimental conviction and let us dedicate it to anyone we have lost in our life. With Japan’s situation or for me Thailand’s flooding devastation, this song means a lot. I don’t want to continue in explaining my feelings because I think the music speaks for itself. Just listen.

Rewinding: TLC's 'Damaged'

TLC. They have to be one of my favorite girl groups in the 90’s. They were one of the main forces during my musical childhood; growing up on their fantastic videos on MTV and performances on the VMA. Till this day I still think what would have happened to them if Lisa Left-Eye hadn’t pass. Chilli might have pulled a ‘Beyonce-ditch Destiny Child and turn solo’ move, but that didn’t seemed to work out since Chilli and T-Boz were never able to have a career as a duo (Chilli sadly turned to the VH1 reality show route to get the cash), but this song of theirs with just the two of them during their last years as a legendary group I just love. I also adored Waterfalls, Creep, No Scrubs, Unpretty and all their more commercial success songs, but there’s just something so special about this song. The Indian inspired opening, the sentimental lyrics that matched their group’s sad ending to the pop-rock chorus- it all reminds us that they changed music history because they didn’t have the typical R&B sound even if they were colored and usually put into that category. Plus, till this day, all of their records never sound dated and each and one of them has a story to relate to, which becomes part of our life’s musical compilation soundtrack.

Rewinding: Whitney Houston's 'My Love Is Your Love'

Whitney Houston. Give me some classic 90’s Whitney any day and I could tell you hours of my musical childhood. The most prime diva artist I was raised on was certainly Whitney. I wasn’t a big Mariah fan. That came quite late with Celine Dion.  But why I chose this 1998 record instead of the forever anthems from The Bodyguard artist is because Whitney showed she was a clever transitional artist without losing any musical integrity. Here she was going for the more urban R&B understated vocals (it was still damn good) route instead of the sappy pop ballads with glass breaking loud long notes ready to be covered on every reality singing show, which she made a legendary career out of. Plus, hip-hop was just about to explode, but instead she still focused on the vocals and wasn’t desperate in needing to have a rapper to be featured on it. Kudos also goes to Wyclef Jean for having such genius in creating this rather simple beat, but it’s just a classic which works in any era. Jennifer Hudson should crucially learn from this record because I personally think this is the type of music she should create. Also, when you dissect this song into pieces, it shows a hybrid of sounds that gives evidence why it stands the test of time. There are the obvious Pop-R&B sounds, but if you listen more closely, there are hints of Reggae in it with touches of old-school throw back soul. This is why records like this are classics because you can’t specify it into a certain genre. It’s like what Michael Jackson has been able to do the best and Whitney is closely behind. Even though of course Whitney will never return to this form again because of the obvious, but she still leaves a catalogue of music that is timeless.

Rewinding: Miike Snow's 'Animal'

Miike Snow - "Animal" from Downtown Music on Vimeo.

Miike Snow. I can’t get enough of this song Animal. Thanks to Rollingstone magazine for raving them as one of the best band in 2009, I just got addicted to this song and their self-titled album. It really puts you in this electronica-mellow world. Yes, they are Swedish and yes I’m playing the bias game again. But my Swedes surely have the credibility to back it up.  The band is made-up of producing team Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg, also known as Bloodshy & Avant, and lead singer Andrew Wyatt. And excuse me, if you know your pop music 101 Bible….Bloodshy & Avant are the one responsible for Britney’s Toxic, Piece of Me and Radar. They are the one who elevated pop music to be more hard-hitting and have an industrial sound to it. But what’s fucking amazing with this song is that it shows how they are really eclectic in their music choices and how they can continuously create new signature sounds. With Animal, it has this sort of underground earthy electronic Brooklyn sound to it while still giving the Stockholm vibe to it. Even though this song is still too fresh to be inducted into my rewinding section, but because of its timeless quality to it…it’s meant to be here.

Rewinding: Aretha Franklin’s ‘Think’

Aretha Franklin - Think by pansen


Aretha Franklin. I constantly wish that the Motown era could be reissued into our lives and on the radio. We currently live in a world filled with computer electronic beats spreading like third stage cancer and an epidemic destroying the essence of real human produced music. Sometimes, I really feel we’re listening to computers singing to us (Ke$ha’s the poster child for this), and that talent doesn’t really matter. But thank god for artists like Cee-Lo and Bruno Mars. Ok getting back from my frustration, I just love to listen to Aretha period. Even though this song is sung on American Idol like a gazillion times, but no one is close to Aretha. Aretha is at the doctorate level and the contestants are still in nursery. With Think, Aretha has the soul passes in her voice that last an eternity. Every time you listen to it you feel this swagger that is so classy. A lot of colored women in the media today are portrayed as these Bronx-esque girls fighting over stupid shit. It’s a stereotype that is disgusting, but with Aretha and the Motown era these colored girls are seen as these glamorous educated statuette ladies. So take note Lil’Kim and the Real Housewives of….any state. You better think.

Rewinding: Michael Jackson’s ‘Black and White’

Michael Jackson. For my first Rewinding entry I would like to dedicate it to my all-time musical god and hero Michael Jackson. This man shaped my musical life in a profound way that I can’t really explain it. I remember being three and his ‘Dangerous’ album came out with its ultra-stunning videos on MTV and I was just fixated and never looked back. My imported expensive toys were to be in isolation and from then on it was “Mummy I want this CD! Mummy I want to watch this concert!” I mean, I was sitting with 50,000+ people watching his HIStory tour in Bangkok at six years old and still remember the moment I run up in front of the stage during his finale set of ‘Heal The World’ and just cried. Without Michael I would be a shit-wrecked only child who’s parents are divorce, feared by constant bullying for being obese (I’ve slimed down 40 kgs now) and not knowing what to do in life. Sounding melodramatic, Michael Jackson paved my way in life. At four or five when adults ask you “What do you want to be when you grow up?”- I always responded “I want to be in the entertainment industry” and that has never change. I know my priorities in life just like what Michael Jackson knew his at nine going to the Ed Sullivan show with the Jackson 5 for the first time.