Word: rocke
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Jonathan Richman wrote one of the essential rock songs but is most famous for playing the mystery musician in There's Something About Mary, who sings the movie's theme song while waltzing through the scenery. Of course, Jonathan Richman, despite his incredible influence over more than 26 years of playing music, has had only one hit--"Egyptian Reggae," an instrumental dance number that scraped the bottom of the charts in Europe about 22 years ago. Richman's recording career, among the most varied in rock, is what ought to be garnering all the attention; his first songs were highly...
...songs Richman wrote and performed during the early '70s are astonishing; they meld the sound of his beloved Velvet Underground and the Stooges with the typical teen rock concerns of girls, driving and insecurity, shot through with an unnerving simplicity and directness like nothing else in rock then or now. Also distinctive is Richman's voice, which I hesitate to describe as nasal and monotone, because it is far more appealing than that...
...Modern Lovers signed to Warner Brothers, which proves just how base corporate rock today is, since major labels then weren't afraid to sign bands like the Stooges or the MC5 or the Modern Lovers. All these bands were commercial flops, so it's understandable that labels were chastened, but each produced a body of art that ought to have bands like Third Eye Bland and Dave bleedin' Matthews throwing themselves off bridges in shame, or at least wetting themselves with envy...
During this period Richman recorded his best known song: "Roadrunner." He takes two chords from the Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray" and makes "Roadrunner" one of the best rock songs ever recorded. The simple, affecting music is matched by the lyrics, which are both the typical rock song and about the power of that song: "I'm in love with Massachusetts/I'm in love with the radio on/It helps me from being lonely late at night/I don't feel so bad now in the car." Richman's probably sick of playing "Roadrunner," but people aren't sick of hearing...
...other songs of Richman's are as timeless and universal as the sound and feeling of Richman driving alone "in love with modern girls and modern rock & roll." That sound and feeling have often led to Richman being labeled a "protopunk," and it is true that he played passionate minimalist rock in a time otherwise filled mostly with orchestral, pretentious crap and inoffensive James Taylor wimpery. Richman's influence is all over '77 punk, as you know if you've ever heard the Sex Pistols' massacre of "Roadrunner." And a cover of "Pablo Picasso" appeared in Alex Cox's brilliant...