My Kinda Lover
This album is one of my guilty little secrets. I am ready to confess. "Forgive me Father for I have sinned. I upgraded by cassette to CD and listen to it on a regular basis"
When "the Stroke" was popular, Freddy Mercury was still alive and Queen was putting out hits. We were just getting over the Journey/Foreigner/Styx hangover (keep watching this space for those) although Styx had the bright idea of "Mr. Roboto." I hated it to much to even listen to it to poke fun. Billy Squire was slightly ahead of my discovery of David Bowie, the Talking Heads and all that "art rock" of the 80's that I signed up to without a second thought. He was pre-MTV - obviously by the looks of him.
"The Stroke", "My Kinda Lover", "Lonely is the Night" ... this is good stuff! I used to listen to this stuff on an illegal transitor radio at a summer camp in the Berkshires who only encouraged "the music that we made with our own voices." Hippy nazis is what they were. The only thing I remember about the place is doing chores...oh, and making blueberry jam from berries we picked in a graveyard, from trees growing out of the graves. Ugh.
I am not sure why Billy Squire remained squarely on the grade b rock star list. Ozzy's "Crazy Train" and Aldo Nova (remember him? his skintight leapord print pants) were churning out hits as well. To my naive, certainly not a musician's ear, all his songs are sort of clunky and crude - but hey, isn't that what rock and roll is all about?
Another thought I had about Squire while I was thinking about this post was that he was uncool. As much as he tried, as much as he grew his hair, greased it up, failed to button his shirts - all those "cool guy" trappings never worked for him. I think this is why is has a special place in my Sucky CD collection. He was good, he was solid, he was steady - oh, and I just found out he was a Berklee School of Music student - a boy who did his time in Boston! My favorites. I knew there was something about him. And his attempts to be cool just left him vulnerable and that vulnerability makes him human and it is the human side that is the most attractive.
Have you seen Billy now?He is kind of a hottie, as the kids say. I am much more attracted to him now - now that he is decidingly not even on the cusp of being cool and playing gigs at the Mohegan Sun. Hmmm. I wonder if he is single?
posted by pog mo thoin @ 7:05 AM
2 Comments:
Billy Squier is great. I love his song, "Everybody Wants you". I went to his website (thanks for linking) and looky looky he's still making money:
"Jay Z's (Beyonce's beau) "99 Problems" (containing sample of Billy's "The Big Beat") is combined with Linkin Park's "One Step Closer" as part of the historic mash-up album by Linkin Park and Jay Z. Released as dual CD/DVD, the project entitled 'Collision Course' enters the Billboard Chart at #1 selling more than 350,000 in its initial week."
hey, you are not alone. i love this one as well, although that is not widely known. my brother and i used to listen to this as loud as his stereo would let us.
Nice selection!
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