OPO: Raspberries

Anyone here heard Cyrus Erie's 'Get the Message'? Not Raspberries per se but that'd be my pick.

How about "On the Beach" from Side 3? Feels like it has about 7 parts -- including a great melancholy verse, a ridiculously optimistic chorus, a fast middle-8, and an excellent "I Want You/She's So Heavy" descending guitar pastiche with seagulls squawking in the background.

Will check that one out. Just heard this annoying cover of "Go All The Way" by The Killers and need to clear my ears.

man this band was really good

this song is sick

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzX6wNjRZwI

seriously

otm

new favorite is "i saw the light"

tonight.

they have a lot of amazing songs though it's true

Usually just stick to the hits but this thread inspiring me to dig deeper. Anyway is there a thread for all-time best series of album openers because

Raspberries, "Go All The Way"
Fresh, "I Wanna Be With You"
Side 3, "Tonight"
Starting Over, "Overnight Sensation"

OK, tbh there are some boilerplate tracks buried in between the hits and the deep cuts that threaten to derail the listening experience.

their greatest hits, which is like 20 songs, is almost uniformly great

Yeah. With respect to the original albums, so far Side 3 seems to be the one for me. The big, um, wall of sound on every single track.

of their actual albums i've only heard fresh, which i thought was pretty even

Will listen again. Perhaps it will fall into place. If we close our eyes and believe it will all come true.

Love this rhythmic figure they use over and over again where the bass emphasizes the beats three four one. Kind of like a modified bolero.

Which songs have that?

"Tonight," "I Wanna Be You" right before the chorus.

Not hearing it on the last album though. Did hear a bass voice on the right channel of "Overnight Sensation" I never noticed before.

THREE FOUR ONE You looked too young to know about romance. Oh yes you did
THREE FOUR ONE But when you smiled I had to take a chance, I had to to take a chance and be with you
Tonight, I'll be with you tonight
Tonight, you'll love me too tonight

If we were older
ONE THREE FOUR ONE
We wouldn't have to be worried tonight
ONE (two) and THREE FOUR ONE
THREE FOUR ONE (= Ba-by Oh)
I wanna with you so bad
Yeah I wanna be with you

"Go All The Way" too

Please THREE FOUR ONE (=Ba-by go)

and elsewhere throughout the song

do u see?

Interesting stuff. I wonder if they got it from somewhere.

On another thread it was suggested that they borrowed heavily from The Small Faces.

I was just listening to The Beach Boys Today the other day and the chorus melody in "She Knows Me Too Well" rang the Raspberries bell. The descending part is also in the chorus of "Go All the Way."

I'm like a humungous Wally Bryson fan, btw.

OK, I did this:

http://thisiheard.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-raspberries-ecstasy-1973.html

Cool. Why does it say "tenor"? Also dominant prep chord, is that a V of V?

Ha, I have to select something for what voice it is on that notation program!

Yeah, dominant prep could be a V of V, but IV are ii are also considered to be chords that lead to the dominant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predominant_chord

B-b-but it still puts the Treble Clef!

Yeah, ended up reading that Wikipedia article. Pretty useful term actually.

What software did you use to write that btw? I started using MuseScore which is free. Didn't want to deal with obtaining a copy of the more popular alternatives.

Yeah, I used MuseScore. I don't know, maybe you can have staff lines without identifying which voice it is somehow? I haven't tried.

Now I remember and I think your are right. I chose Electric Bass for something but I was scared because the guy I was showing it to was an upright player.

By the way, I checked on that "She Knows Me Too Well"/"Go All the Way" melody and the Raspberries do it a whole step lower. I've wondered if appropriations happen close to exact pitch more often than people might realize.

can't believe I never noticed that before. maybe it's because it's a whole step lower

You have perfect pitch, Shakey?

Same chords, too - both songs are moving from vi to IV when that happens.

I have never understood what perfect pitch entails tbh

Assume it means you know the name and exact pitch of any note you hear, even out of context. Which is usually a good thing but can mess people up if others are not playing at concert pitch or something is tuned down a half-step etc.

yeah I don't "have" that. I guess my confusion about the term stems from it often being referred to as this mystical "talent" that people just innately have, whereas it seems like the kind of thing anybody should be able to learn with practice. (I have not bothered to practice).

what I was getting at about my not noticing this particular similarity is that I am usually pretty good at recalling/spotting melodies, but since I didn't notice this one maybe it was the difference in key that threw me.

There was some popular book recently by a music executive who went back school and started doing brain studies related to music and iirc he said that there was research that showed that at some low level the brain has absolute pitch but most people do not have conscious access to it.

I mean, I may not have perfect pitch but I can tell the difference between a melody played in different keys

xp

I can often correctly deduce what key a song is in, but if asked to sing a particular note I can only estimate (though I'm usually within +/- a couple of notes in either direction). From what I understand that doesn't quite qualify as perfect pitch.

My OPO is "Let's Pretend", which sometimes feels like it could be the official song of ~my life~.....

"Let's Pretend" also utilizes that Raspbolero beat.

This thread really should have been a POX.

I think the highest note in that is D an octave above middle C and it doesn't sound like he's using his falsetto. Incredible voice.

Yeah, pretty nice.

Almost think it would be interesting to do TS Raspberries vs. 10cc but I dunno.

How about "On the Beach" from Side 3? Feels like it has about 7 parts -- including a great melancholy verse, a ridiculously optimistic chorus, a fast middle-8, and an excellent "I Want You/She's So Heavy" descending guitar pastiche with seagulls squawking in the background.

― Naive Teen Idol, Sunday, July 1, 2012 10:21 PM (11 months ago)

For a guy who doesn't like the Beatles I'm awfully fond of bands that (try to) sound like them.

On another thread it was suggested that they borrowed heavily from The Small Faces.

That was almost certainly me!

More importantly, that wasn’t Damone with her in the dugout.

I come to this thread for the Raspberry strudel, it’s great.

Didn’t remember that copy of Taking Liberties in the background.

a then-newly restored The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick talking about saving some money by swapping out some songs on the soundtrack.

Supposedly the impossibility of obtaining music rights is the reason why Wenders' debut, Summer in the City, has never been released.

Anyway, if for some reason I had to Only Pick One Raspberries song, it might be "Let's Pretend". But they are probably the epitome of a band that could create a great compilation with only enough good songs for a compilation.

Fair point. Or so I used to think.

Side 3 is a solid album though

^^Probably my favorite. Also has the best artwork (die-cut, baby!).

this song from his early days band Cyrus Erie rocks so hard, extremely Who-like right down to the drums

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-Dtg295wVk

Too bad Jonathan Richman didn’t see fit to put the Raspberries on his graph.

#onethread!

“I Don’t Know What I Want” has that beautiful melisma from “So Sad About Us,” too (“And you’d think I was committin’ some kind of criii-i-i-ime” = “You can’t switch off my lovin’ like you can’t switch off the suuu-u-u-un”).

I’m reluctant to bring up the subject of postmodernism because people seem to have different views of what it is, but I don’t how else to talk about something that I think is key to Raspberries. They’re a very early example of music where the gesture is the important thing, much more so than whatever the content would be. They’re so much more like this than Big Star. Maybe it’s partly me, but I’ve always been less invested in, you know, whether Eric gets the girl or whatnot and more invested in things like how Wally looks rocking out. Or “OMG it’s The Who.” Stuff like that.

I think that’s really why “Overnight Sensation” works so perfectly as their signature song. They were always kind of a band about a band. It makes their dissolution kind of sad and “Overnight Sensation” really works that poignancy in retrospect.

Now that Eric has died as well. Even more so.

really very otm

great post

Jesus, it wasn't! It was the nerdy guy he was like mentoring? I clearly haven't seen it in like 20 years. Also, I think it was somebody's baby. I was getting it was GATW but as soon as I read that it felt right.

I like Tim’s post and may want to add to it, but need to get some shuteye.

In love with “go all the way”

Rolling Stone has an article about Eric’s last years.

Well-reported too.

I got the picture and couldn’t keep reading

For the curious: https://web.archive.org/web/20250119140639/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/eric-carmen-songs-marriage-death-1235230611/

Sorry, this is a better rip:https://web.archive.org/web/20250121113042/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/eric-carmen-songs-marriage-death-1235230611/

Just noticed that he seems to have lowered the keys a bit for that Raspberries reunion performance.

When Carmen was just three and a half, the Cleveland Institute of Music offered him an enrollment. (To this day, by all accounts, he holds the record as the youngest student in the 104-year history of the organization.)

Listening to Boats Against the Current now for the first time ever, I think.

An amusing minor detail in that Carmen RS piece is the revelation of the surprisingly small degrees of separation there were between him & Taylor Swift.

Actually I was wondering about that. Because I think it says that one guy was her musical director, but I always thought her musical director was David Cook.

Fave song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb0DeUzIrY0

Andrew Gold plays a guitar solo on “She Did It”? Never noticed

Okay it’s there around the three minute mark. Sounds like him. Not that long.

Burton Cummings supposedly also on this.