Tag Archives: Music

Friday Night Funk – Top 10 Music (Mojo & Funk): (5) Calvin Harris – Feel So Close

Posted on by

 

Opening (title) shot from music video

 

(5) FUNK: CALVIN HARRIS –
FEEL SO CLOSE (2011)
B-Side: How Deep is Your Love (2015)

 

“And there’s no stopping us right now
I feel so close to you right now”

Calvin Harris falls in the electronic dance funk end of the funk scale – electronic dance music or house, sometimes termed electro pop or nu disco. He’s been a prolific producer or mixer of electronic dance music since his debut album I Created Disco in 2007 – both in the sense of number of singles and also in the profile of those singles, rising to international prominence with his third album 18 Months.

Of course, it’s electronic dance music, so don’t look for lyrical depth – or much in the way of lyrics in general, as the lyrics tend to be fairly basic verse mixed through the music. However, it is irresistibly funky.

And as for the balance of my Top 10 Calvin Harris songs:
(3) You Used to Hold Me (2010)
(4) Drinking from the Bottle (2013)
(5) Thinking About You (2013)
(6) Under Control (2013)
(7) Summer (2014)
( 8 ) Outside (2014)
(9) My Way (2016)
(10) Stay With Me (2020)

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Monday Night Mojo – Top 10 Music (Mojo & Funk): (6) Depeche Mode – Personal Jesus

Posted on by

 

 

(6) MOJO: DEPECHE MODE –
PERSONAL JESUS (1989)
B-SIDE: I Feel You (1993)

 

“Reach out and touch faith”

A song from my life soundtrack.

Depeche Mode might well have been a funk entry, with their bubble-gum synth-pop from the early 1980s, such as “I Just Can’t Get Enough” but then they took a turn to mojo later in the eighties with a harder sound as well as a darker and more sexual tone.

“Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who cares
Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who’s there”

Their new mojo brought them to world fame and their creative peak with albums Violator and Songs of Faith and Devotion – but for me their highlight was the 1989 single, “Personal Jesus”, from the former album, with a distinctly lapsed or pagan Catholic feel to it (or a play on that old evangelical refrain of a “personal relationship with Jesus”. She is the goddess and this is her body – o yes!)

“Feeling unknown
And you’re all alone
Flesh and bone
By the telephone
Lift up the receiver
I’ll make you a believer ”

It is also one of my ‘soundtrack’ songs for my story ideas. I was delighted that the music video evoked something of the neo-Western road movie in my mind’s eye, although I had imagined it a little differently.

“Take second best
Put me to the test
Things on your chest
You need to confess
I will deliver
You know I’m a forgiver ”

And I was also delighted when the man in black himself, Johnny Cash, covered the song in a stripped-back acoustic version in 2002 – “probably the most evangelical gospel song I ever recorded”.

“I feel you
Your sun it shines
I feel you
Within my mind
You take me there
You take me where
The kingdom comes
You take me to
And lead me through
Babylon”

My B-side is a single in a similar vein from their Songs of Faith and Devotion album – I Feel You.

As for the balance of my Top 10 Depeche Mode songs:
(3) Dream On (2001)
(4) Enjoy the Silence (1990)
(5) I Feel Love (2001)
(6) World in My Eyes (1990)
(7) Barrel of a Gun (1997)
( 8 ) It’s No Good (1997)
(9) Home (1997)
(10) John the Relevator (mainly for the name – the song is okay, I guess)

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP-TIER)

 

Monday Night Mojo – Top 10 Music (Mojo & Funk): (7) Ben Harper – The Woman in You

Posted on by

Burn to Shine album cover

(7) MOJO: BEN HARPER –

THE WOMAN IN YOU (BURN TO SHINE 1999)

B-side: Glory & Consequence (The Will to Live 1997)

ALBUMS:

The Will to Live (1997)

Burn to Shine (1999)

Diamonds on the Inside (2003)

 

“Love carved sorry in his face

The woman in you is the worry, the worry in me”

 

A voice like smooth smoky honey with a soft sad blues aftertaste – Ben Harper is an insanely talented singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, playing an eclectic mix of blues, folk, soul, reggae and rock.

Ironically my entry here, “The Woman in You” from his fourth studio album Burn to Shine in 1999, was effectively a B-side as inexplicably it was never released as a single.

 

As for the B-side of my entry, “Glory and Consequence” was a single from his third album The Will to Live in 1997 – the lyrics just have that hauntingly evocative resonance for me.

 

“I would rather me be lonely

And you have someone to hold

I’m not as scared of dying

As I am of growing old”

 

That hits me right in the heart – perhaps a little too hard.

 

And as for the balance of my Top 10 Ben Harper songs:

(3) Faded (The Will to Live 1997)

(4) Mama’s Trippin’ – Freedom Mix (The Will to Live 1997)

(5) Sexual Healing (Live from Mars 2001)

(6) Burn to Shine (Burn to Shine 1999)

(7) Steal My Kisses (Burn to Shine 1999)

(8) Diamonds on the Inside (Diamonds on the Inside 2003)

(9) Brown-Eyed Blues (Diamonds on the Inside 2004)

(10) Everything (Diamonds on the Inside 2003)

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Monday Night Mojo – Top 10 Music (Mojo & Funk): (8) Lana del Rey – Summertime Sadness

Posted on by

 

(8) MOJO: LANA DEL REY –
SUMMERTIME SADNESS (2012)
B-side: Blue Jeans (2012)

 

“I got that summertime, summertime sadness”

You and me both, Lana del Rey, you retro pop queen – “self-styled gangsta Nancy Sinatra” and “L0lita lost in the hood”.

The music of Lana del Rey – or Elizabeth Woolridge Grant – has been noted “for its stylized cinematic quality; its preoccupation with themes of tragic romance, glamour, and melancholia; and its references to pop culture” Also – Hollywood sadcore, baroque pop, dream pop and “about music as a time warp, with her languorous croons over molasses-like arrangements meant to make clock hands seem to move so slowly that it feels possible, at times, they might go backwards”

And somehow all of this seems infused in her 2012 trip hop ballad hit, “Summertime Sadness” – so melancholy!

Also something of a crush of mine, although perhaps more as an idea

And as for my B-side, I’ll go with her characteristically mournful love song, Blue Jeans.

Love, like life, is the long lost last look back…

“I will love you till the end of time
I would wait a million years
Promise you’ll remember that you’re mine
Baby can you see through the tears?”

As for the balance of my Top 10 Lana Del Rey songs:

(3) Ultraviolence (2014)
(4) Video Games (2011)
(5) Born to Die (2011)

(6) Ride (2012)
(7) National Anthem (2012)
( 8 ) West Coast (2014)
(9) Did You Know There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd (2022)
(10) A & W (2023)

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP-TIER)

Friday Night Funk – Top 10 Music (Mojo & Funk): (9) The Weeknd – Can’t Feel My Face

Posted on by

 

MUSIC (MOJO & FUNK): TOP 10

(9) FUNK: THE WEEKND –
CAN’T FEEL MY FACE (2015)
B-Side: I Feel it Coming (2016)

 

“I’m a m***********g starboy!”

Of course, that’s the titular chorus from his song Starboy (featuring Daft Punk because they make everything funkier), but it encapsulates Abel Makkonen Tesfaye a.k.a The Weeknd. Also, it is funky – but my funk favorite still goes to this 2015 single from his Beauty Behind the Madness album, my introduction to The Weeknd.

The Weeknd has been so consistently funky through the 2010s to the 2020s – and so ubiquitously funky, as each time my ears prick up for any funk recently, it’s usually The Weeknd – that I’ve had no choice but to rank him in my Top 10 Mojo & Funk (and also ultimately compile my Top 10 Weeknd songs). And how can you not like the Weeknd? We all love the weekend!

“I can’t feel my face when I’m with you
But I love it, but I love it”

Anyway, I can’t resist this tagline for “Can’t Feel My Face” from Billboard – “The Weeknd’s irresistible, Michael Jackson-esque “Can’t Feel My Face” is so perfectly crafted that it’s impossible to imagine a world or alternative reality in which this song isn’t number one”. And it’s not every music video that ends in the immolation of its singer.

As for my B-side entry, I have a soft spot for “I Feel It Coming” (once again featuring Daft Punk, again making it funkier).

“You’ve been scared of love and what it did to you
You don’t have to run, I know what you’ve been through
Just a simple touch and it can set you free
We don’t have to rush when you’re alone with me”.

As for the balance of my Top 10 The Weeknd songs:

(3) Starboy (2015). Obviously
(4) Blinding Lights (2019)
(5) Take My Breath (2020)
(6) Ariana Grande / The Weeknd – Love Me Harder (2014)
(7) The Hills (2015)
( 8 ) Save Your Tears (2020)
(9) Swedish House Mafia ft The Weeknd – Moth to a Flame (2021)
(10) Sacrifice (2022)

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)