15 Albums

A friend of ours posted a note on Facebook to challenge us to name fifteen
albums that you've heard that will always stick with you. We needed to list
the first fifteen you could recall in no more than fifteen minutes. These are
the fifteen I came up with...in no particular order:


Yes - 90125
The first album I ever bought.


Journey - Escape
I was a huge Journey fan in high school and early college. This was the
first CD I ever bought.


Rush - Moving Pictures
This cassette was cranked as loud as it could go on many a bus trip to
high school volleyball games.


Van Halen - 1984
I was a late bloomer to the Van Halen bandwagon. I later became a huge
"Van Hagar" fan.


John Mellencamp - Scarecrow
Growing up in Indiana, this was a must.


Pink Floyd - The Wall
The second CD I ever bought. Listened to it until it almost wore out.


R.E.M. - Fables of the Reconstruction
This album turned me into a R.E.M. fan and suddenly I was buying any
album that had anything to do with Athens Georgia.


The Police - Synchronicity
I listened to this constantly on my boom box my freshman year of college.


Michael Jackson - Off The Wall
This was a cassette that my brother, John told me to buy. I remember
listening to it at the same time with dual headphone jacks on a trip we
took to Milwaukee with my Mom and Dad.


Andy Williams - Moon River and Other Great Movie Themes
My parents owned this album (still probably do) and for some reason I remember
them playing it a lot (at least that's what I remember). Probably the reason Moon
River is one of my favorite songs to this day.


Kate Bush - Hounds of Love
I listened to this album every shift I worked my Junior year while
working at Von's Records at Purdue. It was pressed in very cool
pink paisley vinyl!


The Cars - Shake It Up
I owned something like three cassette tapes my senior year of high
school and this was one of them. I had a 1964 powder blue Ford
Fairlane and it had an 8 track player in it. I could only listen to my
three cassettes using one of those adapter thingys in which you stuck
a cassette into and then plugged it into the 8 track player.


Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy
The first 8 Track of my brother's I ever listened to. Mostly because I liked the
cover art. Still my favorite Led Zeppelin album to this day.


U2 - War
I rushed out to Hegewich Records to buy this CD the same day I saw
U2 play at Live Aid.


Queen - Sheer Heart Attack
I remember listening to "Killer Queen" from this album while on the playground
in elementary school. I liked it...and Queen instantly.

So there you go. 15 albums that meant something to me during my life.
Think about which albums and what music was important to you!

The Jamaica Splits?

Being a child of the 70's, I grew up watching the kid's show,
The Banana Splits. In my youthful ignorance, I hummed along
with the catchy theme song and conveniently placed it in the
back of the Vast Warehouse of Useless Information...also known
as my brain. When I went to college, I first listened to Reggae
Uber-Superstar, Bob Marley. Then I heard his song...Buffalo
Solder. Out of the back of the Warehouse popped my childhood
memory...The Banana Splits theme song. Now, you would say
I'm crazy...what the heck would Bob Marley be doing listening
to the theme song from the late sixties/early seventies. Well,
Bob was known to smoke...hams...no, not hams, but you get the
idea. He might have been recreating with some herbal varietals
and caught the Banana Splits while in a hotel somewhere in the
States and not even have known. Down the line, when writing
Buffalo Soldier, he might have remembered this ditty floating
in his head and made it his own. I've contended this for years
and have had several...ok more than several friends look at me
and shake their heads when I discussed it. (I stopped mentioning
it for fear of being committed to some place with jackets that
tie in the back). So recently, I ran across this article from the
BBC...a usually reputable source of information. Decide for
yourself:


The children's TV classic the Banana Splits is getting a modern
makeover, reviving memories of its sing-a-long theme tune.
But have you ever noticed the startling similarity between it
and Bob Marley's hit Buffalo Soldier?
Listen to Buffalo Soldier - key lyric "Woy yo yo" - and The Tra
La La Song, and it might seem like there is an echo in the room.
The eight-bar passages are remarkably similar in tune and rhythm.
But while the Banana Splits came onto the scene in 1968 as hosts
of The Banana Splits Adventure Hour, Bob Marley & the Wailers'
Buffalo Soldier did not appear until the posthumous release of
Confrontation in 1983.

So did NBC's costumed rock band of Fleegle the dog, Drooper the
lion, Bingo the gorilla and Snorky the elephant influence one of the
greatest reggae artists of all time - and if so, does it amount to
plagiarism?
According to the Bob Marley Foundation in Jamaica, the reggae
legend would probably never have heard of the Banana Splits,
let alone be inspired by them.
Spokesman Paul Kelly says he is unfamiliar with the TV show,
and nor has he dealt with other inquiries about the Banana Splits.
Buffalo Soldier is "Jamaican style straight up," he says.
"Ye man, it's reggae - it's got the 'one drop beat' of the bass
guitar and drums. The Wo yo yo is just Bob Marley being creative,
it is Jamaican slang, an exclamation, a joyful noise the Jamaicans
make when they laugh at a joke."

THE ANSWER
Bob Marley Foundation doubts it
But musicologist says songs are "strikingly similar"
One issue is whether Marley had access to the Banana Splits
But he says the song has a serious message: "In America, the red
Indians used to say the black people resembled buffalos because
of their dreadlocks - so 'Buffalo Soldier, dreadlock rasta' - and the
song is about them being 'stolen from Africa, brought to America,
fighting on arrival, fighting for survival' about 400 years ago."
But a musicologist, who asked not to be named for professional
reasons, says the songs are "strikingly similar."
The main differences are in bars two and six, where the timing
and inflection in Buffalo Soldier is more jumpy and Marley sings
with a groove, whereas the Banana Splits theme song is "straight".
And in bars three and seven, a note is gained in Buffalo Soldier or
omitted in The Tra La La Song.
"The other difference is in bar four - where the final note goes
down to a C in Buffalo Soldier but up to an E in Banana Splits.
In bar eight they both go down."


The issue of plagiarism rests to a large extent on whether Bob Marley
had access to the Banana Splits' theme song, he says. If he did not,
it couldn't be infringement of copyright as the law stands.
"Then it would be a coincidence - and coincidences do happen."
But if Bob Marley had heard the tune, "there is also always the
possibility of subconscious recollection".
BBC 1Xtra's DJ Seani B offers another possible explanation.
"It might be that Bob Marley's producer, Chris Blackwell, morphed
mainstream sounds from the era into his music to make it more
catchy. There is no evidence of this, it's just a conspiracy theory."

WHO, WHAT, WHY?

A regular feature in the BBC News Magazine - aiming to answer
some of the questions behind the headlines
Having heard other Marley songs years before their commercial
release, DJ Seani B says the originals versions were different.
"There was a watering down from the real authentic reggae,
which was more drum and basic, to a more commercial style
which would appeal to the masses."
And although Jamaican music draws inspiration from a wide
spectrum of sounds - including country music and R&B - he
thinks the cuddly cartoon characters would not have been on
Marley's radar.
"He was a serious man, I very much doubt that he would have
heard of them."

Live Earth?

I received email today from a band called Nunatak
which is playing in some round the world concert
called Live Earth. Not to start an international
incident or anything, but why weren't any of our
bands here at McMurdo and Scott Base chosen? They
can't be any less talented than the folks at Rothera
that were chosen. Hmmm...something slightly amiss here
and I think our folks should at least get a mention in
the press coverage.