MONSTERS IN THE CLOSET

I’m an asshole.

I just discovered Gram Parsons. Wow. Fucking, wow.

I have no idea how he wasn’t more famous in his time. He invented a genre (Alt-Country/Country Rock/Cosmic American Music), was friends with Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, wrote INCREDIBLE songs and possesed the charisma and talent to be a major performer.

Unfortunately, the dude was super self-destructive. A trust-fund child born into one of the richest families in the south, who went to Harvard and dropped out, and died at 26 after taking enough Morphine to kill 3 people - in and among all that shitty stuff, he wrote some fantastic songs, which you can only be appreciated if you start thumbing through his catalogue pronto (check out anything by the Flying Burrito Brothers or Gram Parsons).

He’s the man. Watch how he introduces the first singer - a back turn , flashing the red cross on his back, and an extended arm - “here we come”

A poet, songsmith and badass.

- Leo Showbiz

Roy Orbison - Lana

Throw out the window every fanastic Roy Orbison song you’ve ever heard and listen to this pop-rocker.

Roy Orbison should be singin’ in Operas or something …his voice is ridiculous. I love the stupid harmonizing going on behind him, and that high he hits is insane. pitch perfect.

-Leo Showbiz

Al Green - I wanna hold your hand

This song is epic. I found it on a CD that came with a magazine I bought in England.

Al Green tears the pants off this song and gives it some dick and balls. He swoops in and throughout his fantastic backing band and drops bombs on us…the only evidence of any warnings are the super highs that he litters the songs with before he owns the words.

It’s like he took the original and juiced it with soul-steroids.

Put this song at any party and everyone will cheer up and start moving. Guaranteed.

Al Green’s acting silly at the beginning and one of the band members tells him to shut up. “Shut up Al Green”

-Leo Showbiz

Sometimes I hear songs in trailers or commercials or wherever, and I’m hooked. My life mission becomes finding out who the hell sings that song.

ELO’s “Mr. Blue Sky” is in the trailer for the film “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and after listening to this song, you’ll competely understand how I got hooked.

The beats per a minute are pretty out of control for a 70s pop song, but they keep everything pretty smooth with those sweeping strings and soaring vocals. Also, nothing is better than the vocal part around 2:40…actually never mind, the choir at 3:24 is.

Also, I have no fucking clue who Mr. Blue Sky is or what it’s about.

Check out the lead singer’s fro. He looks like he’s been up for weeks.

-Leo Showbiz

Supertramp - Goodbye Stranger

This song is the closest you can get to 70s prog-power pop.

Thank God for synthesizers.

Fun fact, this song is covered by Michael Scott at the end of season 4 of the office “Goodbye Tobyyyy”

-Leo Showbiz

Puddle of Mud - She Hates Me

Back when I was a kid, we had this show called TRL. It came on after school and it was a countdown of the top videos in the country (as voted by the audience). As Carson brought us through the countdown, a lot of the times, there were songs that sucked. But, they were talking points. “Did you see the new Brittney Spears video? What’s up with that red body suit?”..”No I didn’t, but did you see the making of the video for N’Sync? I’m not going to lie, I kind of like that ‘bye bye bye’ song.” And so it went. Videos were more than streamed youtube clips and actually mattered. You got a good video on the air, you could guarantee a hit record.

In the face of all this pop video bullshit, I heard this Puddle of Mud song on the radio. It was the song on the radio that I liked. Maybe it was because I was obsessed with dirty langauge and rap, but I had to hear what was going on with that pause before the chorus - “She —- hates me” My buddy had the CD, he blasted it for me, and I was blown away. That “FUCKING” stood out, more so than on rap records.

Long story brought short, this songs holds a special place in my heart. It’s not my usual taste in music, but I loved it.

Also, that lead into the chorus is fantastic.

-Leo Showbiz

I’m gonna run with this theme of ’90s ballads for a bit. I guess there are just so many of them and every time I run into one online, I gotta post it. All apologies if you hate this cheese-drenched genre.

John Hiatt - Have A Little Faith (in me)

This song is proof that all you need for a ballad is a hypnotizing piano and catchy souring vocals. I’m pretty sure when this song was written they were just like, “Fuck yeah. I cannot WAIT to play that song in my car later!….in the rain. “

This song is also Rom-Com gold. Put this in your romantic comedy during a perfect rain scene, or as the main character chases after “her” taxi, and you can get a tear out of me.

In all seriousness, you should check out this John Hiatt cover of Roy Orvison’s You Got it where he sings the pants off this song. He does it justice.

- Leo Showbiz

Since the theme here has grown toward 90s female balladeer-ests, it seems inappropriate not to mention Celine Dion, and her best song “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now.”

This song is a nice solid “fuck you” to ex’s and loves lost. “I finished crying in the instant that you left” and it really sounds like Celine means it. After all, it’s lightning bolting and thunder clapping outside her castle.

But any who, her vocals on this song continue to amaze me. How can such a sound come out of a human? I’m not sure. But I know it’s great. Fuck nighting-gales.

Also, best use of sleigh bells since Christmas songs? Probably.

-Leo Showbiz

There are a few things from the 90s that I am quite fond of.

One is Kevin Coster’s action movies. The other, are stupid movies about obscure professions done well.

The Bodyguard takes both of these things and mashes them together into a action/thriller/love story hybrid.

It also came out at the peak of Whitney Houston’s fame - before she started smoking the crack pipe with one Bobby Brown.

But before all that, Whitney was just a 90s balladeer, with sweet angelic vocals that could rip the dick off choruses, and this was her by far her best song. It gets no better than a lingering melody, the smash of a kick-drum, a pause, and then an explosion of Ms. Houston’s “And, IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!”

-Leo Showbiz

Here at Monsters in Closets, we like to celebrate musical diversity in all forms, so:

Here’s some gay guy singing “A Whole New World” from Aladdin.

He’s actually pretty damn good at singing this song though, so I guess I’ll give him props. He probably knows that there’s a slight problem that he can transition so perfectly between Aladdin and Jasmin’s parts. To one his own, I guess.

This shit has 14,224,213 hits on youtube - wow.

-Leo Showbiz