Super Oldies of the Week

What's an oldie? How old should a song be before it is considered an oldie? My friend’s kid who was born in the mid 1990s thinks any song released before 2005 is an oldie. Hardly so in my book.

Should the term oldie be applied to songs of a certain era or to songs that pass a certain numeric threshold based on the year it was released and first became popular?

For the purposes of the weekly top 10 that I turn into Plannine’s Classic Top 30 page, it seems that songs from the early 1980s or older qualify as an oldie. The current definition that I will use for an oldie is a song that is 20 years old or older.

Hence all music that was released and became popular in 1989 for me will be the defining point of what is an oldie. Certainly other people will think otherwise. This means popular tracks like Paul McCartney’s “My Brave Face,” U2’s “With or Without You” and Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” are all oldies. These records were released at least 20 years ago. Makes you feel old huh?

Here are my 10 favorite oldies of the week as submitted to Plannine’s site:

1. My Hawaii - The Rascals
2. Oh Boy - Buddy Holly
3. La La La La La - The Blendells
4. Jennifer Eccles - The Hollies
5. Orinoco Flow (Sail Away) - Enya
6. New Year's Day - U2
7. Nights Are Forever Without You - England Dan & John Ford Coley
8. The Lord's Prayer - Sister Janet Mead
9. One Tin Soldier - Coven
10. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance - Gene Pitney

The oldest song on this list is Buddy Holly’s “Oh Boy” which came out in the 1950s. The newest is Enya’s “Orinoco Flow” which was a hit in 1988. Hard to imagine an Enya track as an oldie. The song is more than 20 years old. Yes, you are old.

England Dan and John Ford Coley, originally uploaded by lwb10463.

DAN SEALS

Sad to hear of the passing this week of country and pop singer Dan Seals. He was the “England Dan” of England Dan & John Ford Coley who had a string of soft rock pop hits in the mid to late 1970s. England Dan & John Ford Coley’s records included “Nights are Forever (Without You)”, “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight”, “It’s So Sad to Belong” and “Love is the Answer”. Dan Seals later went on to a solo country music career in the 1980s and early 1990s. He was the younger brother to Jim Seals of Seals & Croft fame. Rest in Peace Dan.

Mel's Weekly Top 20 - 3/22/09

Neko Case sings her latest hit "People Got a Lotta Nerve" (currently at #8 on the Weekly Top 20) in this week's video showcase feature. The song is from Neko Case's new album Middle Cyclone. The video was recorded for QTV.

The list below contains 20 of my favorite current tracks that are playing on my iTunes and iPods. These are some of the songs radio should be playing if they're not already.

Rank Song Title - Artist - Last Week

1. No You Girls - Franz Ferdinand - 3
2. Working On A Dream - Bruce Springsteen - 1
3. Poker Face - Lady GaGa - 4
4. My Lucky Day - Bruce Springsteen - 2
5. Gives You Hell - The All-American Rejects - 5
6. Magnificent - U2 - 8
7. Time Lapse Lifeline - Maria Taylor - 9
8. People Got a Lotta Nerve - Neko Case - 11
9. Still Have My Heart - Caitlin Crosby - 7
10. Get On Your Boots - U2 - 6
11. I'm Not Over - Carolina Liar - 17
12. Is Anybody Out There? - The Downtown Fiction - 18
13. Natalie - The NuRu - 15
14. The Rake's Song - The Decemberists - 14
15. Boys With Girlfriends - Meiko - 13
16. Just Dance - Lady GaGa - 16
17. My Life Would Suck Without You - Kelly Clarkson - 10
18. California - Shannon Hurley - new
19. The Fear - Lily Allen - 12
20. Good Days Bad Days - Kaiser Chiefs - new

I found several new tracks on TheSixtyOne.com that I'd also like to feature today. Click on the player links below to listen to these wonderful new tracks.



Shannon Hurley's "California" makes its debut on the Weekly Top 20 at #18 this week. It's a wonderful new track by a talented and largely undiscovered singer. I read she is popular on MySpace.com.



The NuRu's track "Natalie" is a longtime and largely ignored fixture at TheSixtyOne.com. I think this is a terrific song that in some ways reminds me of a Hootie and the Blowfish track with underpinnings of The Corrs' "When the Stars Go Blue" in song structure.



If there was a song that paid tribute to the late George Harrison, this could be it. Darrin Kohavi's voice reminds me of the late George as he cites The Beatles and the late Jim Croce as his musical influences. He does a good cover of Croce's "Operator" and has released an EP a few weeks back. This is a song that I am certain will reach my Weekly Top 20 soon.



Chanel Campbell's track "Cry Cry Cry" should be a radio standard someday. It is newly discovered and not too many people have heard it.

Frankly all 4 tracks should be regular staples on adult contemporary radio.

Wither Not Finetune

One of my favorite streaming websites is Finetune.com. I joined Finetune in the spring of 2007. It is a free service that up to this month, allowed users to build their own online jukeboxes or playlist utilizing the music available at the Finetune.com library.

They have more than 2 million songs available for inclusion to user playlists. The music available in the Finetune library is supplied by all of the major labels as well as a number of independents. Artists available for inclusion on playlists included everyone from The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Elton John, Fleetwood Mac to U2, Lily Allen, Carrie Underwood, Bruddah IZ, Chet Atkins, Johnny Cash, Enya, Timbaland, Britney Spears, Kitaro, The Four Tenors, Herb Alpert, punk rock artists, metal bands and hip-hop artists.... plus everything else in-between and obscure.

Users were allowed to build customized playlists utilizing the Finetune library of songs. I created more than 40 playlists that covered several genres including current top 40 hits, classic rock, 60s and 70s oldies, to popular standards, Hawaiian music, science fiction soundtracks and classic country. Each playlist contained a minimum of about 45 tracks before they became active. There was no limit on the amount of songs that could be included with each playlist. The only restriction was that no artist could have more than 3 songs each per playlist... so only 3 Madonna, Blondie, Led Zeppelin, tracks, etc., per list.

The small restriction did not limit user creativity to generate hundreds of playlists on the service. Finetune even employed a professional DJ to come up with mainstream playlists to cover many different genres. The service also allowed users to create playlists on the fly based on artists or songs they included in their own playlists.

One of the best features of Finetune.com was that it allowed users to embed playlists to their blogs and websites, much like how YouTube does with video. Users could also include custom icons for their playlists, post descriptions of each playlist, have other users become fans or comment on the playlist and listen to their playlist on supported mobile devices such as Apple's iPhone.

All that changed this month.

Finetune has apparently been throttled by the music industry, more than likely by the much hated (by music fans) RIAA. Finetune stopped users from editing or creating new playlists. No songs can be added to current playlists or new ones created using the present catalog or new music releases. The embed feature has also been disabled.

Finetune has been relatively quiet about this turn of events, not mentioning much to their user base unless inquired through email or found by luck on Twitter. So far the only thing that has been stated (as of this posting date) is:

"Playlist building and embedding is currently disabled. Sorry!

Dear Users - We're seeing all your feedback. We understand your confusion. Our reason d'être is in flux. More news soon.

Service changes doing what we expected... further changes maybe coming later this week, will update when we decide."

I hope this is not the end of the Finetune music site as we know it. I can hope that they work things out with the record labels and the RIAA and allow us to at least keep the playlists we built and allow us and other users to keep on listening to them. Finetune is a good way to share music without doing it illegally.

Mel's Weekly Top 20 - 3/15/09

These are the 20 most popular current songs that are being played on my iTunes and iPods. Note that not all of these songs are the usual top 40 radio hits. Some are indie releases, alternative tracks that I think radio should be playing.

Rank / Song Title / Artist / Last Week's Position

1 Working On A Dream (2nd week @ #1!) - Bruce Springsteen - 1
2 My Lucky Day - Bruce Springsteen - 3
3 No You Girls - Franz Ferdinand - 10
4 Poker Face - Lady GaGa - 6
5 Gives You Hell - The All-American Rejects - 5
6 Get On Your Boots - U2 - 2
7 Still Have My Heart - Caitlin Crosby - 9
8 Magnificent - U2 - 15
9 Time Lapse Lifeline - Maria Taylor - 8
10 My Life Would Suck Without You - Kelly Clarkson - 4
11 People Got a Lotta Nerve - Neko Case - 14
12 The Fear - Lily Allen - 7
13 Boys With Girlfriends - Meiko - 13
14 The Rake's Song - The Decemberists - 16
15 Natalie - The NuRu - 18
16 Just Dance - Lady GaGa - 17
17 I'm Not Over - Carolina Liar - new
18 Is Anybody Out There? - The Downtown Fiction - new
19 The Sun Ain't Shining No More - The Asteroids Galaxy Tour - 11
20 Lost+ (with Jay-Z) / Viva la Vida
(Live At the 51st Grammy Awards) - Coldplay - 12

Three songs this week are featured on TheSixtyOne.com music site. They are:

Top 10 Oldies of the Week

TOP 10 SINGLE TRACKS sent to Plannine's Classic Top 30 site:

1. The Lord's Prayer - Sister Janet Mead
2. La La La La La La - The Blendells
3. My Hawaii - The Rascals
4. Jennifer Eccles - The Hollies
5. Oh Boy - Buddy Holly
6. Pilot of the Airwaves - Charlie Dore
7. New Year's Day - U2
8. The Unicorn - Irish Rovers
9. Orinoco Flow (Sail Away) - Enya
10. The Pushbike Song - The Mixtures

THIS WEEK'S SUPER OLDIE TRACK:
"La La La La La" by The Blendells.



(audio and graphic only - no moving video)