Boy, Hamilton sure is brilliant. This ditty from early in Act Two runs less than two minutes and yet captures so much of what is smart, funny and musically interesting about the work.
Coming right after the emotional George Washington send-off ‘One Last Time,’ this playful track serves as King George’s exit and a shift from the Revolutionary period to the messier work of building a new government.
Today’s random selection is one of the most famous and beloved rock songs of all time. Chuck Berry’s brother Marvin first heard the track played by a young man named Marty McFly during the ‘Under the Sea’ dance at a Hill Valley, California, high school, and the rest is history.
‘Johnny B. Goode’ is a loosely autobiographical tale of Berry’s rise, though by all accounts he could read and write just fine. Berry says the original lyrics used “colored boy” instead of “country boy” but he knew it wouldn’t get any radio play in that form.
The biggest critical splash of 2001 came courtesy of New York rockers The Strokes and their debut album Is This It. The record was named the year’s best by many critics and placed second (behind Bob Dylan’s Love and Theft) on the annual Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll.
The Strokes were hailed as saviors of rock-n-roll, carriers of the garage rock and post-punk banners. They pointed to the Velvet Underground as a primary influence, and many breathless critics predicted they would be equally influential on popular music.
I wrote last week about how few women cracked my top ten albums of 2001 (few as in one, Lucinda Williams). Is that because I wasn’t as open to female artists back then or was it not a great year for women in music?
Probably more the former than the latter, but I will submit that the most acclaimed release by a woman that year was Björk’s Vespertine, and I’ve heard enough of it to know that it definitely wouldn’t have won me over then, and it sure isn’t going to win me over now either.
The White Stripes’ third album, White Blood Cells, was released in 2001 to universal acclaim and a rising tide of publicity. Music critics were going gaga over the “brother/sister” band that was actually a former married couple, who wore only black, red and white, who performed with guitar and drums but never a bass, and who made a living resurrecting the blues.
The scrutiny was wearing on Jack and Meg White during the recording of White Blood Cells, and they nodded to it with the album’s cover photo, which depicts them surrounded by shadowy figures wielding cameras and microphones.
Meet Me In Montauk 