John C. Reilly : Starman

Strangely enough, the music for the movie Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story is pretty top notch. John C. Reilly can really sing and the writers did a great job of parodying a variety of musical styles and clichés throughout the film.

This tune is a fine example, skewering both the disco movement and the of washed up and B-list musicians and actors who hopped the disco gravy train.  You've got a tremendous variety of square going on here. You've got the past-the-prime musician trying to be hip.  You've got him delivering a peculiarly smarmy loungey disco song (I especially love the stilted way he sings "let the children boo-gie"). Then you've got the song choice itself. "Starman" was relatively minor hit for David Bowie from 1972's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, a slightly wacky, tripped out number about a cool rock 'n' roll alien communicating with the children over the radio. It's chock full of hipster language, like "hazy cosmic jive", "far out" and "blow our minds", plus clear drug innuendo.  It's a bizarre choice, and the whole thing is laughably weird, in a reality TV kind of way.

And John really nails it. It's an exact recreation of a whole slew of records that came out in the late 70's. Plus, it's a damn good cover of a great song. The disco vibe is perfect, with the traditional funk bass and chicken scratch guitar. John's delivery is just stellar.  His vocal is solid, but he keeps it decidedly unfunky over the funk. It's a fun tune.

You can find John's performance of "Starman" on the soundtrack for Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.

[You can listen to John C. Reilly's "Starman" by navigating to the post "Song051" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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MFSB : Sexy

I feel like ending the week on an up note, so let's go with a little disco. MFSB (which stands for Mother Father Sister Brother, although it's never written that way or as an acronym) was a house band in Philadelphia that backed all sorts of classic soul singers from Wilson Pickett to The O'Jays to Billy Paul. The label also had them put out their own albums of instrumental funk (obviously). MFSB had their biggest hit in '74 with "TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)", which was later adopted as the theme to Soul Train. They also did the incredible "K-Jee" on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack in '77.

"Sexy" falls somewhere in between. It starts with a bit of Meters-like guitar, which pretty much completely disappears once the song gets going. Then it dives straight into that rump-shaking dance beat. After a couple of cycles it's joined by a wisp of porn guitar (chick-a-wow), and then a little later by a super-funky bass line. After four more trips around the beat, there's a bit of a build up, a drum roll, and the strings kick in.

Ahhhhh, the strings. Like hot water down the back of your neck on a cold morning, or good Swiss milk chocolate diffusing across your tongue, the strings swoop in and carry you off, leaving you with a warm melty feeling inside. There's nothing like it. After a bit more of the floaty strings, the band drops back into the main groove and cruises along, carrying on with a little solo sax and keeping up that peppy dancefloor vibe. They try the string trick a few more times, and it's always nice, but it's never quite as good as your first time.

"Sexy" comes from MFSB's '75 album, Universal Love, which isn't available on CD. You can also find it on Love Is the Message: The Best of MFSB which has all their hits and then some.

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