NO Frankie Valli thread?????

The Four Seasons C/D?

can't believe this thread never got bigger. absolutely loving 'opus 17' lately, how it seems to shift up a gear on every verse cycle, getting faster and more manic then on the final verse - when it starts to get really crazy - it goes and fades out halfway through - HUGE anticlimax. i've searched desperately for an extended version of this song, it would be perfect if it were about 7 minutes long and went into some high-octane disco freakout about 2/3 through. does this exist? anyone fancy helping me create it?

it took me forever but I finally found a shitty rip of Valli's solo album for Motown, which has some incredible stuff on it

it even fades out during his vocal, just after the verse begins. the worst editing of a song ive ever heard.

"the night" is pretty much the best song of all time imo

otm

holy shit, i've never heard that song

was that just a chorus? a minute-long chorus?

wow

mine is a minor key 3 minutes?

ok yeah that whole thing wasn't the hook i guess, when frankie busts out at first he jumps straight into the middle eight

still wow, i love this

i, um, have to 'find' that motown album, ahem

i just texted my dad about this song lol

I grew up listening to "Swearin' to God" without knowing it was Frankie.

it was a big northern soul track in England. the whole motown years disc is really really worth getting, so many good tunes. and yeah his vocal entry in "the night," the whole construction of the track - backing vox take the first verse and then valli lands like a fucking raptor, what a track

I love how veiled and circumspect the lyrics are, actually not just for that song, but for every song from that time period

Newish Motown west comp on light in the attic is a must

gaudio wrote this, allmusic sez! he really was amazing

Yeah, that is just outstanding songwriting. Interesting parallels with R. Dean Taylor, who was also an unorthodox writer.

Valli's vocal is so fresh here, too - it's like he can feel that this is a choice bit from a guy whose moves he knows - really digs in at just the right pitch

i heard this song on a tape from somewhere or other that was in heavy rotation, paired like a one-two-punch with the snake by al wilson (i forget which came first); my brother bought the seven inches for both & would spin them all the time. i think we also got a pretty bad al wilson LP; the same kind of mis-guided extrapolation from one song meant lead me to picking up a bunch of johnny guitar watson records after hearing 'too late'. the two songs, the night & the snake are just canonical & super fun to dance to. both are so forceful and sharp-edged, have such impact. this wasn't motown though was it??, or is 'motown years' just other contemporaneous stuff?

too late is a jam also

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q_KCJykETo

sorta almost a competitive duet replete with so many archetypally awesome dressings of the period - the backbeats on the guitar, the concise strings-solo, obligatory deployment of 'keep on keepin' on' &c

"the night" is pretty much the best song of all time imo

Bassline ftw. Which reminds me that Pete Hook picked it as one of his favourite tracks of all time in an interview I read with him once.

schlump, the parent album (and presumably the single itself), 'inside you', was released on motown in 1975

ah thank you, i couldn't remember & it didn't seem right somehow

the writing on "the night" with its repetitive circularity plays to one of my biggest weaknesses as a reader, i just love that shit

my favorite example: http://www.bartleby.com/100/173.112.html

"the night" is one of the greatest singles of all time

I appear to have downgraded it from "greatest of all time" since last time this thread was around. in my defense...I have no defense, "the night" is the shit

it really is

sometimes i think the 4 seasons anthology LP i have is my favorite album ever. an entire life lived in 26 songs

The Night is one of my top five songs of all time.

Only discovered this song last year, also pretty amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHi02bpom_Q

uncanny, valli

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoQUIu0ccMY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDS4cQFPwoQ

And now for the soppy passive aggressiveness of his biggest mid seventies hit.

A 45-CD box set?!? Go for broke I guess. Anyway, good interview:

https://variety.com/2023/music/news/frankie-valli-four-seasons-boxed-set-ultimate-collection-interview-1235705611/

Guess maybe people have been beggin’ for it

when I got the announcement for this I promised my wife that I would not spend our money on a forty-five disc Frankie Valli boxed set.

May I register here my disappointment at hearing "Swearin' to God" for the first time recently, but it was the version with no swears?!?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/2024/10/27/frankie-valli-lip-syncing-interview/

At 90 Valli is still touring but is lip-syncing and won’t admit although a former bandmate, tech analysis, and others say it is lip-syncing

I saw ELO in the 70's and they got sued by the promoter of the show for "cello-syncing." It didn't occur to me (or probably anybody else in the venue) that you can't actually play the cello while you are twirling it/throwing it into the air.

people in the entertainment business often believe that if they retire they will die. it's not quite a superstition but there's a profound anxiety about stopping.

Recent footage of him is painful. Honestly he'd be better off with a "Frankie Valli Presents" show, where he acts as an MC and other people sing the songs. Then he can pretend to sing along and who'd know? People just want to see the legend onstage anyway, and this way they could.

I read somewhere that Valli signed a bad management contract or something, and that part of the reason he still tours is to make some money, but yeah I think he just doesn't want to retire