What Am I Gonna Do With You - Barry White (1975)

For the life of me I can't make out what the singer is saying in the first :20 seconds...but it's sure damn catchy.

Many remember Barrence Eugene Carter's (Barry White) 1974 classic "Can't Get Enough Of Your Love, Babe" from his titled LP "Can Get Enough" but few recall this featured song as also being a major chart climber off the same album; peaking at #8 on Billboards Top 200 and #1 on their R&B charts was "What Am I Gonna Do With You".

White's recordings featured a distinctive sound that combined orchestral instrumentation with a steady drumbeat and as many as five electric guitars. His arrangements were influential on the emerging sound of disco music in the early 1970s.

God Only Knows - The Beach Boys (1966)

Note the irony that this, one of the all-time great love songs, opens with the line 'I may not always love you' (although the line is turned on its head by the subsequent lines).

From the Beach Boys' masterpiece lp "Pet Sounds", this song broke new ground in many ways. It was one of the first pop songs to use the word 'God' in its title. The song was also far more technically sophisticated than anything the Beach Boys, or arguably any pop group, had ever attempted before - particularly the complicated melodic structure and vocal harmonies. As producer Brian Wilson also used many unusual instruments, including the harpsichord and French horns that are heard in the song's famous introduction.

Brian Wilson described that the song "was a vision of being blind but in being blind, you can see more. You close your eyes; you're able to see a place or something that's happening." According to Brian, "the idea summarized everything I was trying to express in a single song."

The song appears on several movie releases, most notably the 1997 film "Boogie Nights.

The song is 25th on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.

Somebody's Baby - Jackson Browne (1982)

Next up is a personal favorite of mine ...Jackson Browne's "Somebody's Baby". This catchy number was not released on any of Browne's albums prior, but on the soundtrack to the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The film also featured the song at several key moments, mostly concerning the Jennifer Jason Leigh character's misadventures with sex in a Little League dugout. Isn't it amazing on the things just a few notes of a song can make one reminisce.

At first I was going to feature this song with a backdrop of a standard fanmade Jackson Browne video displaying his many LP covers, but after sampling it again while absorbing the beauty of a Jenni Kohoutova makes the experience that much richer. I believe I made the proper choice....ENJOY!

More to come next week...

All the Way to Heaven - Doug E. Fresh & The Get Fresh Crew (1986)

In 1986, Doug E. Fresh and the Get Fresh Crew released their debut full-length album, Oh, My God!. It included such notable tracks as "Play This Only at Night" and this catchy number "All the Way to Heaven", and was critically hailed by Billboard and other similar media for incorporating elements of reggae and gospel music.

However, criticism was drawn amongst the rap community when this Doug E. Fresh video depicted his red Bally's shooting down a pair of black Adidas sneakers. If one recalls, Adidas was an iconic image of Run-DMC as Fresh labeled them in song (@ 0:28 sec.) "...a new corporation around the block, that didn't want the Get Fresh Crew to rock". Thankfully ...no casualties.

Rap in it's infancy stages, the video has plenty of entertaining elements, the beat-box master himself, scratching lp's, a pounding bass track, dancing girls (the one in white reminds me of my wife's business attire when she first started her job @ 2:28 sec) . But I can't understand why feature talk-show host Joe Franklin, one does wonder.

It's the authors opinion that rap music has started on the right track, with a bright future but somewhere along the line ...that train has derailed.

Son of a Preacher Man - Dusty Springfield (1968)

"Son of a Preacher Man" is a song, recorded by Dusty Springfield in 1968 and featured on the album, Dusty in Memphis. This song is about a young girl who sneaks away with her famly preacher's son every time they come to visit. Billy Ray, AKA The 'Son of a Preacher Man' woos her and teaches her about love. He is the only boy she has ever loved.

"Son of a Preacher Man" was originally offered to Aretha Franklin, who turned it down. It was only upon hearing Springfield's version that Franklin reconsidered and recorded the song herself. By that time, however, Springfield's version had already become a hit; thus, Franklin's version, included on her 1970 album, This Girl's In Love With You, charted only as a tag-along b-side of the single, "Call Me" .

"Son of a Preacher Man" was to be the last major chart hit for Dusty for almost 20 years until she teamed up with Pet Shop Boys for the single "What Have I Done to Deserve This?"

One has to admit, Dusty does a great job of performing this song live, as shown above.

Just Like Heaven - The Cure (1987)

"Just like Heaven" is a song by the British New Wave The Cure. The lyrics were written by the band's frontman Robert Smith who was later quoted,

"The song is about hyperventilating—kissing and fainting to the floor." The lyrics were inspired by a trip with his then-girlfriend (and later wife) Mary Poole to Beachy Head in southern England. Smith said the opening line of the song ("Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick") refers to his childhood memories of mastering magic tricks, but added "on another level, it's about a seduction trick, from much later in my life".

"Just like Heaven" was the third single released from the band's 1987 album Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. The song became The Cure's first American hit, it has been highly praised by critics and covered by other artists as well; vocalist Smith has said he considers "Just like Heaven" to be the band's strongest song.

Dreamlover - Mariah Carey (1993)

"Dreamlover" is a song written (more like plagiarize) and produced by American singer Mariah Carey, Dave Hall and Walter Afanasieff, and is built around a sample of The Emotions' "Blind Alley". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exO0VaLWw0o

It was released as the first single from LP "Music Box" in 1993 and marked the start of a trend of Carey's to use samples of other talents recordings as backbones for lead singles for her studio albums.

"Dreamlover" became Carey's seventh number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100 and was easily her biggest hit in the U.S. at the time.

I Wanna Kiss You all Over - Exile (1978)

Exile are an American band who originally began as a pop rock group, hitting the peak of their success in this market in the late 1970's with the rock pop ballad hit "Kiss You All Over" in 1978. Soon thereafter, they reinvented themselves as a country music band and have since had a string of number one country singles to their credit.

Great song, strange video; and whats up with the props? They look as if they were borrowed from the movie set of "THE BLOB".

Check out the opening vocalist Les Taylor trying to romance the performance within the first minute..SICKENING!

Hey scary dude @ 1:52sec, can you please try to limit the acid ?

"High on You" - Survivor (1985)

Just checking for a pulse.

Anybody else reckongize this singers voice ? YOU GOT IT ! It's David Bickler, you may be more famiular with his "Real Men Of Genius" advertising campaign for Bud Light.

"Time To Say Goodbye (Con te partirò)" - Sarah Brightman with Andrea Bocelli (1997)

"Con te partirò" (literally meaning "With you I will leave") is an Italian pop-operatic song first sung by Andrea Bocelli and is considered his signature piece of work.
The song achieved widespread success with this featured second version sung partly in English, pairing Bocelli with soprano Sarah Brightman, released as "Time to Say Goodbye".
Since its release, the song has spawned numerous other versions and been performed by numerous other singers. Notable alternate versions include "Por ti volaré", a Spanish version with significantly modified lyrics, and "I Will Go with You", a dance remix performed by Donna Summer.

'(Don't Fear) the Reaper" - Blue Öyster Cult (1976)

"(Don't Fear) The Reaper" is a song by rock band Blue Öyster Cult from their 1976 album, Agents of Fortune ; was written and sung by the band's lead guitarist, Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser.

The "reaper" is a reference to the Grim Reaper, a traditional personification of death in European-based folklore. Lyrics such as "Romeo and Juliet are together in eternity" have led many listeners to interpret the song to be about a murder-suicide pact, but Dharma says the song is about eternal love and death and not to be afraid of it. Video clips are featured are from SUPERNATURAL.

BONUS FEATURE: I have a fever, and the only prescription is this SNL classic ...

"Crazy for You" - Madonna (1985)

One of my favorite ballads, "Crazy for You" by Madonna was written for the 1985 film Vision Quest. Originally penned for a more notable talent, the movies production team felt a currently hot singer might lend to better box office receipts.

Madonna, at the time was charting with songs "Like a Virgin" and "Material Girl" but she has yet to win over the older audience thus making this project especially important for her. She hoped "Crazy for You" would be her ticket to Adult Contemporary radio as she wanted the world to know she could do other types of music.

"Crazy for You" took down the mighty "We Are the World" from Billboards top spot (4 weeks) which lets you know how hot the song and how hot the artist were.

"Groove Is in the Heart" - Deee-Lite (1990)

Talk about sensory overload...

Deee-Lite was a House and Club/Dance group formed in New York City. Their best known single is "Groove Is in the Heart", from their 1990 debut album, World Clique was an immediate smash in nightclubs "Groove Is in the Heart" crossed over to pop radio and after going to number one on the U.S. Hot Dance Club Play chart, it eventually hit number four on the Billboard Hot 100.

The song was accompanied by this psychedelic music video, with Deee-Lite, Rapper Q-Tip, Maceo Parker, and Bootsy Collins superimposed over a cartoonish background of various shifting shapes and colors.

Strangely I really dig the lead singer, Lady Miss Kier's moves (especially during the rap segment) and her band mates unorthodox dancing. The dude with the pony tail falls way short of being an accomplished dancer, but his maneuvers are something you just can't takes your eyes off of. FREAKY!

"Ask The Lonley" - The Four Tops (1965)

When you feel that you

Can make it all alone

Remember no one is big enough

To go at it alone

Just ask the lonely

They know the hurt & pain

Of losing a love you can never regain ...

Among a number of groups who helped define the Motown Sound of the 1960s, the Four Tops were notable for having Levi Stubbs, a baritone, as their lead singer when most groups of the time were fronted by a tenor.

Though "Ask The Lonely" wasn't as successful as later Four Tops radio standards, the arrangements of background harmonies , strings and percussion lend to craft a very powerful yet sad ballad. The final notes from Stubbs show just how distinctive the man's voice is .....a Motown classic no less.

"Bad Day" - Daniel Powter (2005)

Bad Day is a pop song written by Canadian singer Daniel Powter, and Billboard named it the No. 1 Hot 100 song of 2006

Originally I wanted to place Powter's official video as found on the Internet, but I discovered something much better. The creative genius who crafted this video piece should receive awards and accolades.

What a find; especially to me...a New York Giants fan. Memories that will last a lifetime.

Dear friends, please watch this extraoridinary slideshow.

"We're Not Gonna Take It" - Twisted Sister (1984)

What a great opening drum riff..."We're Not Gonna Take It" is a 1984 hit song by the band Twisted Sister from their album Stay Hungry. The song was written by vocalist Dee Snider. As influences for the song, he cites the glam rock band Slade, the punk band Sex Pistols, and the Christmas carol, "O Come, All Ye Faithful".

Mark Metcalf, the actor portraying the abusive father in the video, had previously played Neidermayer, the ROTC student commander in National Lampoon's Animal House (1978).

So much for special effects - check out the bedspread and pillow on the right @ 0:06 sec. I guess some lazy ass had to have a seat during takes, the Wayne Gretzky poster lends to my appreication as well.

Has this ever happened to you ? (@1:43 sec.)...I think I would've been done at this point, but not Neidermayer, he goes in for more. I mean, really dude...you fell off the goddamn roof .

"You Little Trustmaker" - The Tymes (1973)

Doo, Bee, Doo, Bee, Doo, Bee...... Formed in Philadelphia,, in 1956 as the Latineers, and after a four year stint on Philadelphia's club circuit, they recruited a new lead vocalist, George Williams in 1960, and changed their name to The Tymes.

The Tymes had hits such as "So Much In Love", a US chart topperr in 1963, "You Little Trust Maker" and "Ms Grace". The last of these became the group's biggest UK hit, reaching Number One in the UK Singles Chartt in 19755, but barely dented the American chartt after the success of "So Much In Love".

You Little Trustmaker" (1974) - U.S. Number 12 (Billboard Top 100)

"You Never Can Tell" - Chuck Berry (1964)

The song describes a fictional wedding between a young couple and the events afterwards, specifically; living in a furnished apartment, buying a family car and taking their honeymoon to New Orleans. The chorus of the song is the five time repeated "'C'est la vie', say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell".

Pulp Fiction: The song became briefly popular for a time after the release of the Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction. The music was played for a contest at the fictional restaurant Jack Rabbit Slim's in which John Travolta as Vincent Vega and Uma Thurman as Mia Wallace danced for the contest's main prize, as featured above.

Bob Seger recorded this number for his Greatest Hits album, under the title "C'est la Vie."

"With or Without You" - U2 (1987)

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY ... I can't think of a more fitting day to celebrate Ireland's biggest music import....the legendary U2 and their masterpiece.

"With or Without You" is the lead single from U2's 1987 album, The Joshua Tree. It has since become highly-acclaimed as one of the band's most popular songs. Released as a single in March 1987, it became the group's first American #1 hit, spending three weeks at the top of Billboards Hot 100 chart.

The guitar riff at the end of the song is a simple set of notes the Edge came up with to give the sad song a "happy ending".

Among many uses in pop culutre, the most notable ones's are...

• It was featured on the hit TV show Friends as the relationship song for Ross and Rachel and was played when Ross sends in a request to local radio station for Rachel to hear.
• The song was played in a segment of the Tommy Lee Jones movie, Blown Away , during a bomb building scene.
• The song was used in an episode of Cold Case.

As far as the music critics were concerned, U2 has finally written their "Hey Jude" and it was delievered in the form of "With or Without You"

WEEKEND EDITION - Sanford & Son (theme)

One of the most recognized television theme songs, produced by the great Quincy Jones. The original title of this funky number is "The Streetbeater" claimed by NBC for an upcoming sitcom of fall 1974.

Sanford and Son starred Redd Foxx as widower Fred G. Sanford, a 65-year-old junk dealer in the Watts neighborhood of southern Los Angeles and Demond Wilson as his son, Lamont. Lamont is seen driving a 1951 Ford truck on his was back to his family's salvage company that also served as their home.