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Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name

Posted on by brucehhackett

How do rock bands select their names?

In its infancy, rock and roll music was played by bands and artists with simple, straightforward names that tended to fall into three general categories:

Somebody and The Somethings:  Many dozens of bands used this linguistic structure, from Bill Haley and His Comets to Little Anthony and The Imperials, from Freddie and the Dreamers to Paul Revere and The Raiders.  Among other things, this allowed the record companies to eventually spin off the leader as a solo act, like Tommy James (without The Shondells) and Diana Ross (without The Supremes).

The Numbers:  The charts were full of groups whose names identified the number of members:  The Four Seasons, The Four Freshmen, The Kingston Trio, The Dave Clark Five, Sir Douglas Quintet.

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I’ll never leave your pizza burnin’

Posted on by brucehhackett

“Don’t go ’round tonight, it’s bound to take your life, there’s a bathroom on the right…”

Well, up ahead there may indeed be “a bathroom on the right,” but what John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival was singing in their 1969 hit single was, “There’s a bad moon on the rise.”

When we listen to a song lyric, there are often a lot of distractions that hamper our ability to understand the words.  First, there’s the recording itself.  Perhaps it’s not very well produced, or was recorded or mixed in a below-average studio.  There may be multiple layers of guitars, keyboards, horns, drums and more that drown out the vocals.  Or maybe the vocalist didn’t enunciate clearly, either by design or because the voice just isn’t very good in the first place.  And of course, the listener must often cope with ambient noise —  nearby conversations, car horns and traffic, enthusiastic crowds.

In a fascinating article last year in The New Yorker, blog writer Maria Konnikova explained the science and psychology of how we listen.  For instance, she points out that we tend to comprehend more fully when we can see the person who is talking; we have visual cues that help us put the words in order and assign meaning to words and phrases.  The same conversation heard over the phone might require occasional clarification because the visual cues are absent.

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