FiguringItOut

When looking for a song that would be the right fit for “The Phono Project,” I had to make sure that the recording I had found was in fact published on a 78, and could be found in “The Great 78 project” audio catalog. But after searching for awhile, I came to the realization that while although many of the songs probably had a story behind them, or were in one way or another interesting, the reason I was having such a difficult time picking something out, was because none of the songs had any meaning to me.

I decided to call up my grandmother. I said “do you happen to remember any songs or artists around or before 1950?” And in response it was just silence. Then after maybe thirty seconds or so of jeopardy music, she said “does Eddy Arnold count?” After some basic research on my laptop real quick, I came to the conclusion that he did. After scrolling through a few songs by him in The Great 78 Project catalog, I began to read them out loud to her. After approximately three to four minutes she just halted me mid read. “I don’t remember any of these song titles, if I remembered his name, that makes him special enough” she said. So from there on out I listened to a few songs before picking one out.

I ended up picking out a song called “What a Fool I was,” by Eddy Arnold. Arnold was a successful country, gospel, and pop singer. Arnolds second single that was released reached number five on the country charts in 1945.  Its success began a decade of unprecedented chart performance; Arnold’s next 57 singles all ranked in the top 10, including 19 number-one successes. After What a Fool I Was was, was released to the public in 1947, it began to play its role in Arnolds success, it continued to dominate within the charts, with 13 of the 20 best-scoring country music songs of 1947–1948.

When looking for a song that was released on a 78, I believed it would be easy. I thought that I would be able to just search through all of my grandfathers records, pick one out, and Bam I would have it figured out!

But this turned out to not be the case, in fact even though all of his records were old, none seemed to be quite old enough to reach the 78 requirement. Thus cue the slight panic, having been so sure that I would have found what I needed, I realized that I don’t really have any background knowledge about older songs.

So the first thing I did to solve this problem was ask some friends if they knew any songs, and when they too came up empty handed, I knew I had to pull out the ultimate search tool. I googled ‘Popular songs before 1950.’ And even though my search was specific, Poor Little Fool by Ricky Nelson still popped up. I had to look into it to make sure it was produced on a 78, so although it just barely makes the cutoff, I am glad that it does.

Ricky Nelson released this song on June 23, 1958. When looking into the genre of this song, I was surprised that it was listed as ‘Rock and Roll.’ While although when listening to this song you may disagree, this genre has evolved drastically since the time that this song was created.

And although this song is interesting enough on its own, the reason it first attracted me to it was because of who actually wrote it. According to Rolling Stone, this song has been considered “Possibly the ultimate teen idol anthem. “Poor Little Fool” was written by Sharon Seeley when she was just 15 about her brief fling with one star, Don Everly, and she pitched the song to another pop idol, Ricky Nelson. She became the youngest woman to write a Number One hit in America.”

Post #3

Brand New by Ben Rector is an upbeat, quirky, summer vibes type of song and album that brings the listener through a moment in his life, in an optimistic point of view. After releasing five different albums, it wasn’t until he released his sixth, on August 28th, 2015, called “Brand New,” that his music started to pick up the publicity that it deserved. Shortly following the release of this album, the song “Brand New” began to pick up some traction with the mainstream media.

Thanksgiving 2016, Rector appeared during the Thanksgiving Macy’s day Parade, which was broadcasted live on NBC nationwide. As of 2018, Brand New has been featured in over 40 televisions placements, such as the Ellen Degeneres show, America’s Got Talent, and was featured in the trailers for two big movies, like Moana and the Edge Of Seventeen.

Overall the beat of the song is very up beat, it’s the kind of music that you seek out when you wanting to go out with friends, feel better, or just have a good time. Ben Rector has this amazing musical power to connect his music to many different people through not just beat, but the lyrics too. In a sense it’s a universal song that one can hear and feel like they’re on top of the world. While although its got that summer vibe, it also has that love song vibe, like when he sings “it’s the way that I feel when I’m with you, brand new.” Which can be inviting towards people who often seek out love songs, or a specific type that fits the mold.

The album Brand New is also the last album by Ben Rector to be published by Aptly Named recording studies, his next album “Magic” was released by a studio called OK Kid.