Andrew Hickey’s History of Rock Music in 500 Songs podcast (& books) — discuss!

Overall I like what Hickey's doing so much I've seriously considered basically copying the format and doing some seasons focusing on some of my sweet spots, like say doing 25 episodes on female 70s/80s post-punk, followed by a season on african musicians... but I think about the head start Hickey must have had owning hundreds of biographies and memoirs and the music I would want to cover, much of it doesn't even have a single biography, so the focus would have to be more on the music than on the biographical details of the artist... sounds like a ton of work.

― mig (guess that dreams always end), Thursday, August 11, 2022 5:32 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

I really appreciate Hickey's overall project but I am so much more interested in the parts where he focuses on the sounds and the instruments and the music. The biographical stuff and all the names and the cities and the managers and the labels is too much for me – 20 minutes pass and I realised I've totally zoned out. I would love to hear podcasts doing similar things – i.e. jokeless analysis of music history/culture - that focus on the music itself and not the endless personal connections. So this kind of project, and this particular period, would be very appealing to me.

OK, I've had two upvotes to the idea here, that's encouraging.

A request:

https://500songs.com/podcast/a-request/

Totally.

Tremendous new episode:

https://500songs.com/podcast/episode-155-waterloo-sunset-by-the-kinks/

And there's something of a revelation (at least, to me -- hardkore Kinks fanatics probably already knew) about the writing partnership (yep) that spawned the Kinks' greatest songs.

About his Lithuanian wife?

That's what I was assuming as well.

Can’t remember where I read about that before but it was fascinating.

Ahh, it was Hickey’s blog I read it on! I hadn’t made the connection

Rasa (or someone posing as her) popped up in the comments to confirm the thrust of it:

https://andrewhickey.info/2018/01/28/did-a-teenage-girl-make-the-kinks-great/#comment-83768

Didn’t realize I had read it there either.

Yep, Hickey addresses that in the episode, and also talks about the two other times people directly concerned with an artist or song commented on his work.

Whoever described Hickey's delivery as "jokeless analysis" upthread, that really captures his vibe... I haven't been able to listen to him quite the same since reading that. He reminds me a bit of the local jazz DJ who diligently back-announces the unabridged personnel and recording date of every song played. That said, I haven't stopped binging on the early episodes.

One place he loses me a little bit is his vigorous support of the Blurred Lines decision -- he's mentioned it in 2 episodes so far. It seems like if you could copyright the Bo Diddley beat or the tresillo (which he seems to think would be a good idea), then things would gridlock pretty quickly.

Haha I used the phrase "jokeless analysis" but it was to some extent meant as a compliment - so many UK podcasts (and culture in general) I might get into are ruined by the constant begging for laughs, and I appreciate Hickey's commitment to playing it absolutely straight.

i really enjoy the approach he's settled into and wish more culture history/analysis podcasts were like this - he actually does deep thoughtful research, the production is as good as it needs to be, and while "jokeless analysis" is otm he does manage to lighten the tone now and then, in his weird stiff way. i appreciate that its meant to be informational and not entertainment first - too many friends have recommended too many podcasts to me about music or film history that just end up being "fun" hosts reading wikipedia entries to each other.

that being said i'm definitely aware that, as with just about every podcast with a carefully-honed style & quirky host, i need to moderate my consumption because i can see myself getting really annoyed & sick of it if i overdose on too much of it

Just listed to the episode on Louie Louie. I had no idea about the backstory. Great episode. Glad that Richard Berry eventually made some money from the song even if it was 20 years later. The amateur shambolic nature of the Kingsmen version must have been a huge part of the success even though it was lol only the 2nd best version recorded in Portland that week.

Dave Marsh’s book on “Louie Louie” — which was part of Hickey’s research — is essential, and goes even deeper.

Does teh beach Boys version of Louie Louie predate the recording of the Kingsmen's one. I found the bass harmonies unintentionally funny when I first heard it in my midteens now hear it's some berry had used elsewhere. His version of Have Love Will Travel has similar. I thought Louie Louie was supposed to be tapping into a Calypso or similar West Indian trend which may have also featured Chuck Berry's Havana Moon .
Anyway do enjoy Richard Berry.

A short while ago he talked about having covered a few songs he couldn't stand, and I'm fairly sure one of them is The Kingsmen's version of Louie Louie/

The Kingsmen's "Louie Louie" was the first 45 I ever bought. (To tie this to another thread, it had the Isley Brothers' "Twist and Shout" as a B-side.)

I thought Louie Louie was supposed to be tapping into a Calypso or similar West Indian trend which may have also featured Chuck Berry's Havana Moon

yes, that's how it started per Hickey. You can here it in this
Richard Berry version from 1957

Absolutely loved the Louie Louie episode. Had no idea the lead singer's drunk-sounding performance was simply due to his braces.

The Joe Meek episode was fucking bonkers.

The one problem with Andrew Hickey is that he's a firehose of content, so I can't find this post (I think a Twitter thread?) - but there is a great statement from him about the fact that he's turning up at the top of some podcast charts, and he's started to get people finding him through that who are used to the "Hi and welcome to the podcast, let me recap the premise and where we are at this point on the journey, in this 45 minutes we will be doing this, my guests will be these people, here's how I know them" and so on, in a very structured way.

Whereas, he is operating in a different context and lineage, so he gets a lot of "why don't you do it this way?" tips from people who are being friendly and helpful and incredibly fucking rude.

I probably sound like a sycophant but everything about the show is perfect to me. Most of my favourite music books are well-researched and analysed hard fact rather than opinion-based stuff or hearsay (one of my hobbies is writing Wikipedia articles), and often I find myself put off by podcasts where it’s two people laughing while reading a Wiki page verbatim and saying things like “and at the same time you’ve got so and so happening” as though that’s worth any one’s time. Andrew’s style is perfect to me. He thinks harder and more critically than almost anyone I know of who has written or broadcast about popular music.

One thing I will say is I’ve started listening to Cocaine and Rhinestones because Andrew’s mentioned it so often, and though that’s good and I’ve learnt plenty, it reminds me how well Andrew put things in context. The host of that podcast will quite often mention specifically American things and provide no background for listeners outside the States.

The main problem with Cocaine & Rhinestones is that dude's voice, makes everything sound so dramatic and aggressive even when it's the driest stuff. Hickey's Eeyore delivery I can deal with better.

Yeah the C&R guy is definitely putting on a "podcast voice" in a way that Hickey doesnt, which is another +1 for Hickey.

Also (and I admit this is mostly just my own hangup) I have to admit that C&R became slightly ruined for me when younger people I know who previously couldnt give a shit about country started trying to tell me stuff like "a lot of people think country music is just about trucks and dead dogs, but actually its pretty FUCKED UP when you dig into it, for example did you know..." and its like on the one hand I'm glad that this podcast has turned you onto a genre you'd previously dismissed, but also yes, thank you for the newsflash, i did actually know that country music is good, welcome to the last 100 years bud

I know enough about country music to know it's not just about trucks and dead dogs but not enough to actually know any country songs about trucks or dead dogs. Suggestions welcome (ideally involving both).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIEtYS4iS04

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49gL9hOXoio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILTZsn5spxM

(Alba I have collected a few country trucking records over the years, I guess something like 25 LPs, you’re welcome to come round and marvel at them! Can’t think of any favourites that also include dog action.)

I have yet to really get into Cocaine & Rhinestones, mainly because I keep remembering how insufferable the guy is on Twitter.

houdini said OTMFM. Just finished the latest episode on James Jamerson's "I Was Made To Love Her" -- I've been waiting for this one for a long time, and Hickey did a fantastic job.

Country has more than its share of truck songs, yes. And dudes are still writin' em. The occasional woman too.

Yeah, I had to stop following the C&R guy on Twitter so it wouldn’t ruin my enjoyment of his podcast.

I love Tyler Mahan Coe on his podcast and on Twitter. And on Your Favorite Band Sucks.

That last one is the one I just can’t stomach, sorry.

Your favourite band may suck, but not anywhere near as much as that podcast sucks.

Enjoyed the AMM segment of the "See Emily Play" episode. Imo a nice thing about the sheer scale of the project is that it allows those sorts of connections room to breathe in a relatively unforced way.

I loved this episode, and I'm not a Barrett fanatic. The way he framed it was, for me, unexpectedly very moving.

yeah this was one of my favourites, I love Barrett-era Floyd which if anything put more pressure on this one to be good, and it lived up to it entirely. bonus on The Incredible String Band is also a good un.

xp 100%. I'm also not especially attached to Barrett's work but I thought that Hickey's treatment of the meta-discourse around it was a great example of what this series does best.

catching up on bonus eps and wow fuck John Fahey, don't think I had any idea

One of the worst things about this series is learning just how many of my favourite musicians were garbage humans.

Which bonus episode discusses John Fahey? I think I've listened to them all but I don't remember that one.

Fuck, I really need to proofread my posts! John Martyn, not Fahey.

Artists with similar names that you get mixed up

According to his biography, John Fahey caused a lot of trouble, but mostly to himself.

Fuck, I really need to proofread my posts! John Martyn, not Fahey.

From the Patreon email:

Early Access! Episode 164: "White Light/White Heat" by the Velvet Underground is finally here!

As some of you have seen me complain about, Spotify does a thing where if you upload a file and then fix it, it never corrects the fix, so I get people complaining for literally years about some tiny glitch that I didn't notice when uploading but fixed within an hour.

This episode is *three and a half hours long* (it's one of those stories where I don't even mention the first of the band members until an hour in) and was recorded and edited under more than usually stressful circumstances, so I'm sure that somewhere in there there is a glitch that Tilt or I missed.

Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to listen to this three-and-a-half-hour long episode a day before it goes live, and if you see any horrible glaring thing in there, let me know. If you don't want to do that, just wait til first thing tomorrow morning and it'll be live in the main podcast feed and linked here as normal. I'm doing this because normally if there *is* an error, someone here is the one to point it out.

(NB I'm not talking about mispronunciations and so on -- I'm not going to rerecord the entire thing -- but if there's a bad edit or something, do let me know, or an *easily* fixed factual error that can be fixed by snipping a sentence. Other stuff has to just be errata. Indeed, I have already noted one erratum which will go in the notes -- I say at one point they didn't play in New York "for the rest of the sixties", when in fact they did at least one performance in 1967)

Also, I'm rather brittle at the moment, so preemptively please don't do any "joking" pointing out of fake errors, or "criticism" that amounts to "I wouldn't have made the episode this way, it's boring". This really, really, took a lot out of me, and if you don't like it, that's your right of course, but I don't need to hear it.

And then, of course, a link.

listening to it right now

Just in time. I finally caught up after listening from the beginning. Was wondering if/when he would tackle VU since he skipped their first lp.