12 Songs (Randy Newman album)

12 Songs is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter Randy Newman, released in April 1970 by Reprise Records. It features a swampy style of roots music with introspective, satirical songwriting. "Have You Seen My Baby?", the album's only single, was released in May.

When 12 Songs was first released, it was well received and has since garnered retrospective acclaim from critics such as Robert Christgau and Rolling Stone, both of whom cite it as one of the best albums of all time.

Music and lyrics

According to Q magazine, 12 Songs demonstrated Newman's eccentric mix of traditional pop song structures and his sardonic, satirical humor.AllMusic's Mark Deming said although his sense of humor seemed more caustic than on his self-titled debut album, Newman's "most mordant character studies" on 12 Songs "boast a recognizable humanity, which often make his subjects both pitiable and all the more loathsome." In the opinion of Robert Christgau, American songwriting in general is often "banal, prolix, and virtually solipsistic when it wants to be honest, merely banal when it doesn't", but Newman's truisms on the album are "always concise, never confessional", and unique:

Weezer (1994 album)

Weezer, also known as The Blue Album, is the debut studio album by the American rock band Weezer, released in May 1994 through DGC Records. The album was produced by Cars frontman Ric Ocasek and recorded in Electric Lady Studios in New York City. The Blue Album produced the singles "Undone - The Sweater Song", "Buddy Holly", and "Say It Ain't So", which brought Weezer mainstream success, helped by music videos directed by Spike Jonze. As of August 2009, the album had sold over 3,300,000 copies in the United States. It peaked at number 16 on the Billboard 200 and is certified triple-platinum in the US and double-platinum in Canada.

Background

Weezer was formed on February 14, 1992, in Los Angeles by Rivers Cuomo, Patrick Wilson, Matt Sharp, and Jason Cropper. At the time, they would play at clubs and other small venues around L.A.. However, it took a long time for the band to gain popularity. Cuomo explained:

Weezer recorded The Kitchen Tapes as an attempt to create a buzz around L.A. The band eventually attracted attention from major-label A&R reps looking for alternative rock bands while performing on the same bill as the band That Dog. They were then signed to DGC Records on June 26, 1993, by Todd Sullivan, an A&R rep from Geffen Records.

Suzanne (Leonard Cohen song)

"Suzanne" is a song written by Canadian poet and musician Leonard Cohen in the 1960s. First published as a poem in 1966, it was recorded as a song by Judy Collins in the same year, and Cohen performed it for his 1967 album Songs of Leonard Cohen. Many other artists have recorded versions, and it has become one of the most-covered songs in Cohen's catalogue.

In 2006, Pitchfork Media listed the song #41 on their list of "The Top Songs of the 1960s".

Background

"Suzanne" was inspired by Cohen's platonic relationship with Suzanne Verdal, the then-girlfriend of sculptor Armand Vaillancourt. Its lyrics describe the rituals that they enjoyed when they met: Suzanne would invite Cohen to visit her apartment by the harbour in Montreal, where she would serve him Constant Comment tea, and they would walk around Old Montreal past the church of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours, where sailors were blessed before heading out to sea.

Verdal was interviewed by CBC News's The National in 2006 about the song. Verdal says that she and Cohen never had a sexual relationship, contrary to what some interpretations of the song suggest. Cohen stated in a 1994 BBC interview that he only imagined having sex with her, as there was neither the opportunity nor inclination to actually go through with it. She says she has met Cohen twice since the song's initial popularity; once after a concert Cohen performed in the 1970s and once in passing in the 1990s when she danced for him, but Cohen did not speak to her (and possibly did not recognise her). Verdal never benefited financially from the song's enormous commercial success.

Sway

Sway may refer to:

Music

Dance

Album

Songs

Other Songs

People

Sway (dance)

The term sway has a specific meaning in the technique of ballroom dances. Sway describes a dancer's body position in which the entire body gracefully deflects from the vertical. Entrance to and exit from this position are matters of fine technical detail and differ in various dance figures.

Sway may be an element of both stationary and moving dance figures. In moving figures, sway is commonly achieved as a natural result of body swing, but small amounts from other sources may be useful as an inflection. Sway comes primarily from an incline of the entire body, but a portion may also come from gradual bending of the trunk. It is customary to consider any bending of the trunk to occur more as a stretching of one side of the rib cage more than as a compression of the other side. This description helps to produce sway without the body line breaking awkwardly at the waist. Substantial abdominal strength may be needed to fully utilize this technique.

Possible angles of sway range from having the upper body substantially trailing the lower through a movement, to having the upper body a very small amount in advance. The purposes of sway are both better control of dance motion and aesthetics.

Sway (The Rolling Stones song)

"Sway" is a song by English rock 'n roll band The Rolling Stones from their 1971 album Sticky Fingers. It was also released as the b-side of the "Wild Horses" single in June 1971. This single was released in the US only. Initial pressings of the single contain an alternate take; later pressings include the album version instead.

Credited to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, "Sway" is a slower blues song and was the first song recorded by the band at Stargroves.

The song features a bottleneck slide guitar solo during the bridge and a dramatic, virtuoso outro solo (both performed by Taylor). Rhythm guitar performed by Jagger was his first electric guitar performance on an album. The strings on the piece were arranged by Paul Buckmaster, who also worked on other songs from Sticky Fingers. Richards added his backing vocals but provided no guitar to the track. Pete Townshend, Billy Nichols and Ronnie Lane are believed to contribute backing vocals as well.

It was performed live for the first time in Columbus, Ohio, and then at many of the shows on the band's A Bigger Bang Tour in 2006.