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Yoko Ono is #4 on Billboard Dance Chart


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Harry Likas was the Technical Editor of Mark Levine's "The Jazz Theory Book" and helped develop "The Jazz Piano Book." Find 700 of Harry’s piano arrangements of standards for educational purposes and jazz piano tutorials at www.Patreon.com/HarryLikas

 

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Not much of the original song left in there!

 

This reminds me a bit of The B-52's wacky take on "Don't Worry" from the album that contained "Whammy Bar", which subsequently got removed for some reason (I doubt Yoko asked them to pull it as I'm pretty sure they are friends, but maybe the record company didn't want to incur royalties on later pressings).

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Billboard's Dance Club Play chart is a puzzle to me because it often bears little or no resemblance to the charts in the DJ pools like Zip DJ and DJ City (of which I am a member). I don't know where they are getting this stuff, and I certainly don't play much of it.

 

Keep in mind that DJ remixes (and this is a somewhat shortened one) are not intended to be listened to as a whole (unless you are seriously stoned and love repetition ;) ). They are construction kits that we take apart - pulling segments out, and then reassembling those segments in the order we like while discarding most of the track. Most of my edited remixes run under 2 1/2 minutes.

 

Somehow Yoko Ono is attracting the attention of some pretty famous remixers - guys that usually only bother remixing current pop stars. I use the Papercha$er remix of Rihanna's "Where Have You Been" practically every weekend.

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Don't forget, Yoko Ono was a key inspiration (along with Joni Mitchell and maybe a few others) behind most if not all of the female artists that started coming into vogue as the punk and new wave explosion kicked into force. I rarely have the urge to listen to her music, but I acknowledge the huge influence she had, from a lyrical point of view as well as breaking the rules and paving the way for what came later.

 

Very little of her music has the famous screaming that was done during her desperate plea to be reunited with her daughter, who was effectively kidnapped by her ex-husband. But indeed her voice takes a bit of an adjustment for western ears; just as do the voices of most Japanese pop stars of today, in spite of how popular and talented they are (my favourite by far is Ringo, who is extremely diverse and huge almost everywhere but the USA, sort of like ABBA in the 70's).

 

There are some great songs in there. Grab a copy of the compilation "Every Man Has a Woman" to hear people like Eddie Money and Roberta Flack provide their interpretations in voices that are more comfortable for western listeners.

 

As for this latest remix of "I'm Moving On", I'm not surprised that it is meant as part of a construction kit, but that makes it even further removed from the original song.

 

BTW, Yoko Ono wrote "Imagine", but John Lennon had to credit it to himself because no one would believe she wrote it as she didn't have an established songwriting history yet at that point.

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BTW, Yoko Ono wrote "Imagine", but John Lennon had to credit it to himself because no one would believe she wrote it as she didn't have an established songwriting history yet at that point.

Prove it. According to Wikipedia, it was a co-write.

 

Several poems from Yoko Ono's 1964 book Grapefruit inspired Lennon to write the lyrics for "Imagine"[1]in particular, one Capitol Records reproduced on the back cover of the original Imagine LP titled "Cloud Piece", which reads, "Imagine the clouds dripping, dig a hole in your garden to put them in."[2] Lennon later said the composition "should be credited as a Lennon/Ono song. A lot of itthe lyric and the conceptcame from Yoko, but in those days I was a bit more selfish, a bit more macho, and I sort of omitted her contribution, but it was right out of Grapefruit."

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But indeed her voice takes a bit of an adjustment for western ears;

Anyone else old enough to remember Yoko cutting loose with her ululation (caterwauling) on the Mike Douglas show? "My Yoko that's... um... an interesting thing you do with your - ah - voice". Yikes!

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

-Mark Twain

 

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I find it hard to believe Ono had much of anything to do with Imagine other than perhaps pushing John to finish the song and perhaps adding a few bits of lyrics. John was sharing everything with Ono at that point. I heard that she had urged John to have Nicki Hopkins play the piano part for the recording. I always wondered if Hopkins came up with that clever piano lick on the 4th beat of every 2nd measure in the verses. I bet he did.

Harry Likas was the Technical Editor of Mark Levine's "The Jazz Theory Book" and helped develop "The Jazz Piano Book." Find 700 of Harry’s piano arrangements of standards for educational purposes and jazz piano tutorials at www.Patreon.com/HarryLikas

 

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I gave up on Joko a looooong time ago. She may had been a good wife to JL but she is not a musician.

 

Years ago I worked the radio booth at the college cafeteria, they put me right on the noon lunch hour. Always wondered why they gave me the prime spot - later I learned that one of the guys who worked there was a complete Lennon nut who only played Lennon and Ono stuff and nothing else. He didn't have many fans during the lunch hour.

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WhoWhat is enabling this woman? :idk::sick:

John's money.

Yea I get the feeling that she's paying these guys to do this. If they are getting club play anywhere it's based on the name recognition of the remixers, not Yoko Ono.

 

Remixes are all over the map. Some are extended light touch-ups of the original song. At the other extreme, some take just a vocal snippet from the original track and insert it into what is essentially a new construct.

 

This is a good example of the latter.

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Ono has name recognition and they have re framed her thing with some success.

Harry Likas was the Technical Editor of Mark Levine's "The Jazz Theory Book" and helped develop "The Jazz Piano Book." Find 700 of Harry’s piano arrangements of standards for educational purposes and jazz piano tutorials at www.Patreon.com/HarryLikas

 

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Well she has been highly supportive of scholastic chess. I appreciate that.

"It doesn't have to be difficult to be cool" - Mitch Towne

 

"A great musician can bring tears to your eyes!!!

So can a auto Mechanic." - Stokes Hunt

 

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