{"id":573895329,"date":"2023-01-25T21:20:37","date_gmt":"2023-01-26T02:20:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/?p=573895329"},"modified":"2023-01-26T17:48:20","modified_gmt":"2023-01-26T22:48:20","slug":"these-arent-snowtunes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/blog\/2023\/01\/25\/these-arent-snowtunes\/","title":{"rendered":"These aren&#8217;t snowtunes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It snowed overnight, and most of the morning. This is the first substantial snow we&#8217;ve received since last February. We got about four or five inches. On the drive into the office there were two nervous moments. I got into a bit of a fishtail at a roundabout. And then, at a red light, I wasn&#8217;t sure how and when the car would stop. <\/p>\n<p>But at least this guy got to sleep in. <\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/photo\/jan23\/jan23.jpg\"><\/center><\/p>\n<p>And two of his buddies were driving around, with their snow plows up off the ground. <\/p>\n<p>That might be unfair for one of a few reasons, but, then again, the roads were a mess. <\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/photo\/jan23\/jan24.jpg\"><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Somewhere approaching 11 a.m., well after the morning rush, they got around to clearing the roads, as you will see. And they didn&#8217;t even wait until the snow had stopped falling. Just before it ended, the great big flakes, one last bit of winter defiance, came down. Here&#8217;s the tail end of that.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"900\" height=\"506\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DTuGvWcfUBY\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>But those first few hours after, it was quite lovely. <\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/photo\/jan23\/jan25.jpg\"><\/center><\/p>\n<p>It is the wrong kind of snow, however, in that it didn&#8217;t melt right away. It won&#8217;t melt until the weekend, if the weather forecasts are accurate and it won&#8217;t look that lovely in a day or so. But that&#8217;s for Thursday or Friday. For now, we listen to music.<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/blog\/banners\/bannermusic.jpg\"><\/center><\/p>\n<p>It is time, once again, to dive back into musical memories, with the Re-Listening project. I\u2019m going through all of my CDs, in order of acquisition and listening to them in the car. It\u2019s about memories, rather than music reviews. No one is asking for another review of quarter-century-old songs, after all. <\/p>\n<p>In the fall of 1996, a buddy of mine told me to look for a particular band. They&#8217;ll be big, he said. You&#8217;ll like them, he said. At the same time, there was always a stack of CDs on the giveaway table at my station. And one day, there they were. <\/p>\n<p>This is one of the two things I remember about the Matchbox 20 debut. It sold something like 12 million copies in the United States, and 15 million worldwide. People liked it. It got a lot of airplay. This is the other thing I remember. The wrong single got all the attention. <\/p>\n<p>This was the debut single, and the best bit of the record, by far.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"900\" height=\"506\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Lgoz3XkW1UM\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The rest of it is a bit aggravating to me. Maybe it got overplayed. Maybe it wasn&#8217;t something we played in crowds. It definitely sounds whiny today. And, oddly, I have no other recollections associated with the album.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, I don&#8217;t have a lot of memory attached to &#8220;To the Faithful Departed.&#8221; Seems odd, but I don&#8217;t recall picking this up, either. I knew I had it, but I am slightly dismayed that I don&#8217;t recall what came behind it. And, yes, I think I should remember how and where and why I bought a circular piece of plastic in 1996. I probably barely listened to it, which is a shame. It seems, at times, conceptually and lyrically repetitive. At the same time, the instrumentation is there, and Dolores O&#8217;Riordan&#8217;s talent is fully on display. <\/p>\n<p>This song struck me tonight, and I was surprised to learn, or re-learn, that this was one of the singles. (This is how closely I was paying attention to The Cranberries, I guess.) It also figured prominently in O&#8217;Riordan&#8217;s funeral in 2018. Beautiful song. <\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"900\" height=\"506\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RUmdWdEgHgk\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Two other singles were released. A fourth was canceled when the tour ended and the Irish rockers went home after O&#8217;Riordan had some health problems. In retrospect, that the fourth single wasn&#8217;t released might have been a good idea. It is hard to listen to that song in the context of the album and airplay at the time and think it would be as successful as the songs that came before it. <\/p>\n<p>Why they didn&#8217;t release this as a single though is an enduring mystery. It&#8217;s U2, The Cure and Depeche Mode all in one. It would have been a big alt hit. <\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"900\" height=\"506\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/60DQuV6h95E\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>There was a well-packaged ballad just waiting to be called upon, too. And there&#8217;s an all too obvious Doc Martens reference in there, just waiting for sponsorship.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"900\" height=\"506\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EfwGWLauuWI\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The contemporary reviews suggest this wasn&#8217;t The Cranberries&#8217; best album, but &#8220;To the Faithful Departed&#8221; didn&#8217;t top charts in four countries and climb to number four in the United States by mistake. Maybe it was my mistake to overlook it. <\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/blog\/banners\/banneroak.jpg\"><\/center><\/p>\n<p>A wise man said you should never end a post by admitting a mistake, so &#8230; a joke. <\/p>\n<p>What is a snow man&#8217;s favorite song? <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Freeze A Jolly Good Fellow.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It snowed overnight, and most of the morning. This is the first substantial snow we&#8217;ve received since last February. We got about four or five inches. On the drive into the office there were two nervous moments. I got into a bit of a fishtail at a roundabout. And then, at a red light, I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,39,10,94,11,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-573895329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-indiana","category-music","category-photo","category-re-listening","category-video","category-wednesday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573895329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573895329"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573895329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":573895330,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573895329\/revisions\/573895330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573895329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573895329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573895329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}