Pop Culture from an Alternate Dimension

  In November it came to light that Daryl Hall had legal papers submitted against John Oates. On the 17th of this month Oates released a new album called Reunion . They hadn't done an album together since 2006 and their last album of original music was 2003's Do It for Love . However, in many people's minds they go together like corned beef and cabbage, like liver and onions, like red beans and rice, like bagels and lox; in short like beans and cornbread. But they are autonomous adults and if we want another album of them this might be the closest we get. The basis for this is Daryl Hall's 2011 album Laughing Down Crying  and I chose three songs from John Oates' 2011 album Mississippi Mile . Those being "He Was a Friend of Mine", "Deep River" and his cover the Coasters' "Searchin'". https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCHnLE0OxajHeJUyPXSI7R_-mF0GSUQV3&si=xCURFfjlAqs3Y7lM

  I started this blog on the 20th of May 2023 so here is a bonus post. Years ago, my co-worker Stefan and I were talking about "what if the Beatles stayed together". One thing led to another and when we went home, we each started going through our albums deciding which songs from the lad's solo albums we would choose. We met up again at work and compared notes. We made copies of the "albums" but I had to take it one step further so I designed covers for all of them. My computer has crashed since then and I lost all of my work. I still have the physical copies of the two make-believe albums shown above. I wasn't going to use them on this blog since there are many talented people already sharing their versions on the web but for my anniversary I thought I would share some of the first "what if" album covers I designed.

  Since this is my first anniversary blog I figured I would make the first "what if" album I thought about. Those of you that have followed my blog know I am an E.L.O. fan. I bought the L.P.s and CDs and when I found out about other albums from the band members I wondered what it would have been like if Jeff Lynne let other members contribute pieces to E.L.O. I figured since the  Xanadu  soundtrack was only half E.L.O. I could fill in the rest with other contributors. I then did nothing with it.... until now. To follow how the Beatles did the Hard Day's Night  album the first side is songs from the movie and the B-side is other songs. Aside from the songs from the soundtrack I included "Drum Dreams" which was in the movie but only released as a B-side of the single "I'm Alive". I put in "Am I a Dreamer?" by Kelly Groucutt because it sounds like he was writing it during Xanadu  considering how well the lyrics suit the movie. Also from Kell...

  I saw the movie Galaxy Quest  in 2000. As a Star Trek fan I could appreciate the parody but also the performances by everyone involved were great. The movie has actors who played heroes in a television space opera being pulled into space by aliens that think they are really the characters they portrayed and high jinks ensue. For this post I wanted to show what a DVD release of the first season would look like if the series was real. https://youtu.be/4kIavuY5NXw?si=dT70SXzyk5UtTpoY

  New Edition started in 1981 in Boston with Bobby Brown and his friends Michael Bivins and Ricky Bell. Soon Ralph Tresvant and Ronnie DeVoe joined. Bobby Brown left the group in 1986 and started a successful solo career. This make-believe album will be a follow up to the 1986 album Heart Break which had Johnny Gill join the band. I used the 1990 solo albums Ralph Tresvant , Johnny Gill  and Bell Biv Devoe's Poison . Since a majority of the tracks on Heart Break  were written by James Harris III and Terry Lewis I chose some of the songs they wrote on Tresvant's and Gill's self-titled albums. I open this new "New Edition" album with a remix Bell Biv Devoe did of "Word to the Mutha!" which featured all the members of New Edition including Bobby Brown. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCHnLE0OxajGjH1ptusa5G-q0JtyY2zVW&si=JCX1H78ww6OkSOGD

      Mel Brooks' 1974 comedy  Blazing Saddles had Richard Pryor as one of the writers. Brooks had wanted Pryor to play the lead as well. However, the studio did not want to back the film with him starring because of his various drug arrests. The role went to Cleavon Little who made a memorable character of Bart. Gig Young was cast as the drunken gunslinger but when they started shooting he had the DTs so bad they couldn't continue so Gene Wilder was hired with whom Mel Brooks made the movie The Producers . Two years after Blazing Saddles  Wilder and Pryor were in Silver Streak  and they made such a good comedic double act that they made four films together.

       The Brothers Gibb started performing as pre-teens. They had hits in the '60s, '70s and '80s. They played a variety of music but when they got the A-side to the Saturday Night Fever  soundtrack they were practically the face of disco and by that time there was disco backlash in the U.S. They did solo efforts but still wrote songs together. For this 1984 imaginary album I used Barry Gibb's Now Voyager , Robin Gibb's Secret Agent  and the soundtrack Maurice Gibb wrote for the Rutger Hauer movie A Breed Apart . It includes three songs written by all three brothers. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCHnLE0OxajGKz-QgUlenWc0ca8y_zKsV&si=SL96-He9lugUOm3Q