Saturday, May 5, 2007

"That Summer Song With The Huge Guitar Hook" (1999?)

Is anyone working on a search engine that identifies a scrap of melody? Let's say with a piano-like interface where you tap in a melody, it plays back to confirm you entered it right, and then it searches a database? I would use a site like that constantly. For years I've been trying to find a song that was all over the radio in the summer of 1999 or maybe 2000. I think it was a one-hit wonder, a pop-rock band with a guy singer, and the hook went more or less like this:

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--8--10-8------------------8--10-8----------------
-----------10-7--7------------------10-7--7-------
--------------------10----------------------------
--------------------------------------------------
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Catchy as viral meningitis, as I recall. I might want to pick up their album, if I knew who they were...

6 comments:

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Doesn't ring a bell, but if you gave us some idea of the chords, and at least five or six words of the lyric, we might be in a better position to help you.

By the way, have you been following the Prestige Records Rudy Van Gelder reissues of late? I only ask because our tastes in jazz are pretty close. This series (which started about a year ago) involves piles and piles of fifties sessions, all selling dirt cheap (at Sam the Record Man in Toronto, they go for 2 for $15 Canadian). Sometimes the sound quality is less than ideal (the tapes are falling apart), but at this price they're excellent value. There have been a half-dozen Coltrane records, including a few middling ones that you haven't reviewed (_Traneing In_, _Kenny Burrell &_, _Mating Call_) - and at least as many Davis sessions as well. I would say your top priority is probably at least the first of the three essential Sonny Rollins discs (_Saxophone Colossus_ , _Tenor Madness_ [with Trane], and _Plus Four_) if you haven't got it yet. And let's not forget Oliver Nelson's SCREAMIN' THE BLUES - not the Jay Hawkins LP - that to me is a total revelation, and features Eric Dolphy. (A couple of Dolphy LPs are also part of the series - _Outward Bound_ and _Out There_.)

I'm still digesting the Booker Ervin one released last Tuesday, but on first listen it was engaging. And, of course, there's the MJQ's _Django_, which was part of the initial series, and is a classic, although it may be a little kitschy to some ears.

I think I've mentioned all the ones I've bought so far - I haven't tried any of the others yet. But it's worth looking into.

Unknown said...

So what are the changes for that hook? It sounds like G-F-C to me, but if it's minor, I don't have a clue, and in either case the second half sounds unresolved.

David B. Wilson said...

That's the thing: if I knew any of the words, I could Google up the title and artist with no problem. But you can't Google up a riff.

G-F-C does sound about right for the chords.

I wasn't aware of the Prestige reissues: I'll look out for them.

Unknown said...

Have you tried this?

http://www.midomi.com/

John (Jung Ho) Park said...

I've given up on buying new music some time ago. I'm tired of the bullshit and crap that record companies, and MTV and Co. dish out.
and I cant be bothered with indie stuff.

Now I spend my time with videogames and watching Jon Stewart.

*sigh