Comedian James Acaster was having a rotten year, but he got through it by assiduously seeking out albums released in 2016. The effort led him to conclude that 2016 was the “greatest year for music of all time.”
Although I read his book “Perfect Sound Whatever” quite a while back, I figured I would save this blog post for the decade anniversary of that fateful year.
Throughout the book, Acaster takes anecdotes about his own heartbreak and humiliation and weaves them together with stories of the music that brought him solace. When he interviewed the artists, many of them described creating their music under precarious mental health conditions similar to Acaster’s. It’s interesting to reflect on how personal turmoil can inspire art with broad appeal, which can in turn inspire more art from artists experiencing their own turmoil. Both the creation and the consumption can be therapeutic.
The book recommends 366 albums, and online Acaster has continued to add to his list of 2016 favorites. I certainly haven’t listened to every one, but Acaster’s descriptions did pique my interest in several. This was how I discovered Danny Brown’s “Atrocity Exhibition,” one of my top albums of 2023. And it turned me onto “Kiid” by an artist right here in Western Massachusetts, Mal Devisa. Other Acaster picks that get my endorsement include the experimental R&B of Jon Bap’s “What Now?” and the math rap of Sooper Swag Project’s “Badd Timing.”
Even before sampling these unfamiliar records, I could tell Acaster had good taste when I saw his picks included two of my top albums of previous years, Clipping’s Splendor & Misery and Esperanza Spalding’s Emily’s D+Evolution. I don’t know if 2016 really is the greatest year for music of all time. Truth be told, some of Acaster’s picks just didn’t resonate with me. But based on that year’s recurrence in my own list of favorites, I think he may be onto something.
A particularly trenchant passage from the book: “And if you don’t love an album that everybody else hates, then I don’t believe you truly love music. We can intellectualise all day long but, really, true fandom is about you having a personal connection to an album and it’s impossible to only enjoy critically acclaimed cult classics that everyone approves of. Albums like this are how you know you’re not just liking stuff because you’re told you have to like it” (pages 194-195).
Curating my “Lowest Common Denominator” anthology, I found plenty of music related (directly or tenuously) to my surname, Lowe. Enough to fill more than the three CDs I ended up producing.
I wanted the collection to reflect the diversity — stylistic, geographic, temporal, and otherwise — of my musical family. But I had to draw the line somewhere. With due respect to those cousins I excluded, I wanted the songs to be good ones. Or at least for their creators to have interesting stories.
But there is also material I excluded either because I overlooked it in my own collection or because I hadn’t discovered it yet. My research wasn’t quite obsessive enough, evidently, to turn up some true gems. In the time since I finalized the physical collection, a few of them have found me.
Below, I give some of these rejects and latecomers a new, digital-only opportunity to join the family.
Lowdown | Boz Scaggs
William Royce “Boz” Scaggs played with Steve Miller in the 1960s and had a lackluster solo career until a rogue DJ turned this album cut into a hit in 1976. With lyrics describing the archetypal foolish lover and performances from future members of Toto, “Lowdown” registers a whopping 94.5 on the Yachtski Scale. So smooth!
I Wish | Skee-Lo
Rappers tend not to be whimsical and self-deprecating. In 1995, when gangstas ruled the charts, this minor hit from Skee-Lo (real name Antoine Roundtree) was a breath of fresh air.
Seeds of the Desolate | Solitude Aeturnus
This doom metal epic comes from a 1992 release by the band from Arlington, Texas. Their singer is Robert Lowe, who has performed with a number of heavy music groups.
Sweet and Low | Fugazi
How could I have forgotten that one of my all-time favorite bands recorded an instrumental named after the artificial sweetener? Not their best work, but worthy of inclusion.
Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac | Dizzy Gillespie
I tip my hat to a listener for hipping me to this 1967 jazz take on the 19th-century spiritual that closed out Disc One.
Cage the Songbird | The Low Anthem
Not to be confused with the Elton John song about Edith Piaf. The Low Anthem is a folk/Americana outfit founded in 2006 by a couple of Brown University students. This track is from their second album.
Monsters | All Time Low
This track by the Maryland power pop group, featuring the rapper Blackbear, was No. 1 for 18 weeks in 2020 on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart. A remix featuring Demi Lovato was released at the end of the year. The band claims to have taken its name from the lyrics of a song by pop-punk band New Found Glory — but we know better.
BBC World TV Mix | David Lowe
English composer and producer David Lowe (b. 1959) is best known for creating theme music for BBC News. The instrumentals were so popular the Beeb released some of them on CD in 2001.
Only the Strongest Will Survive | Hurricane #1
Formed in Oxford, this group fronted by guitarist and singer Alex Lowe was another part of the Britpop craze of the mid-1990s. This song, the title track from the band’s second album, reached No. 19 on the U.K. Singles Chart in 1998.
The Widor Toccata | Roger Lowe
I’m a sucker for modern reinterpretations of classical music. This prog rock version of the final movement of Charles-Marie Widor’s Symphony for Organ No. 5 (1879) was created in 2003 by Roger Lowe, a composer and church organist from North Carolina. “I grew up wishing ELP or some similar band would cover this,” Roger writes on his YouTube channel.
Speak Low | Kurt Weill
It was inevitable: Just days after I finished burning CDs, I heard this perfect example at an open mic in Brattleboro. Performed by the composer in 1943, this song has lyrics by the poet Ogden Nash.
Toxic | Michael Lowenstern
You may not have realized before now that you needed a “clarinet choir” rendition of Britney Spears’s greatest song. Michael Lowenstern makes goofs like this, as well as serious instructional videos, on YouTube. Primarily a bass clarinetist, his background is in performing with various New York avant-garde ensembles, including with luminaries Steve Reich and John Zorn.
The mirror image of stalk rock is found in songs where the narrators profess undying love despite being ignored or mistreated or even abused. Let’s call this subgenre “Stockholm syndrome rock.”
Whereas many stalk rock narrators falsely believe they’ve been wronged, Stockholm syndrome rock narrators actually have been wronged but fail to see it. What both have in common is delusion.
Take for example Irma Thomas’s “Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)” (1968), a terrific piece of music with a terrible message.
You can blame me, try to shame me, and still I’ll care for you You can run around, even put me down, still I’ll be there for you The world may think I’m foolish, but they can’t see you like I can Oh, but anyone who knows what love is will understand
The female version of Stockholm syndrome rock is about men — men whose wants and needs come before those of the women narrators. These narrators abdicate any form of personal agency, and they never complain about any discomfort they might experience.
In another example, the narrator of “Midnight Train to Georgia” by Gladys Knight and the Pips (1973) accompanies her lover’s retreat from a failed attempt at Hollywood stardom because “I’d rather live in his world than live without him in mine.” Tammy Wynette’s signature tune, “Stand By Your Man” (1968), carries this subservience to the extreme, recommending that wives honor and obey regardless of their husband’s behavior.
You’ll have bad times, and he’ll have good times Doin’ things that you don’t understand But if you love him, you’ll forgive him Even though he’s hard to understand
The male version of Stockholm syndrome rock is also about men — men who want to stay with the object of their affection even if it means being tortured or killed. Its narrators are focused primarily on their own misfortune. Their paramour-antagonists are shadowy figures, scarcely mentioned.
Green Day’s “Pulling Teeth” (1994) describes physical abuse, captivity, and coercion at the hands of a lover.
Looking out my window for someone that’s passing by No one knows I’m locked in here, all I do is cry For now I’ll lie around, that’s all I can really do She takes good care of me, just keep saying my love is true
Nickelback’s “Follow You Home” (2005) uses the same template, but sounds more like plain old stalk rock:
Well you can tamper with the brakes, call it a mistake And pray I’m never coming back And I’ll stay alive just to follow you home
At one time or another, you’ve probably embarrassed yourself by mispronouncing something. Maybe it was a word you read on a page but never heard spoken aloud, and your first attempt at verbalizing it made you a laughingstock.
Luckily there’s one word for which any and all pronunciations are acceptable. It’s a word that describes carefree, self-assured bodily movement, so it’s fitting that the normal strictures of elocution don’t apply.
That word is boogie.
Etymologically, boogie is likely descended from African words for dancing and drumming. Its absorption into English began somewhere in the second half of the 19th century as African-American pianists started playing the blues fast and with a seesawing motion in the left hand, enlivening the musical form for dance parties and saloons. Dancing is better with a partner, and so boogie was often doubled up as boogie-woogie.
From there the boogie phenomenon translated to other instruments and social strata, carving out a corner of country music and giving rockabilly a starting point. And even though boogie’s influence on the disco genre is difficult to discern, there is hardly a better word than boogie to describe what one does on the disco floor.
When deciding how to pronounce boogie, you have many options to choose from. Let’s explore them phoneme by phoneme.
You won’t find much disagreement on the initial plosive. The letter B sounds like the letter B anywhere in the English-speaking world.
Things get more interesting with the double vowel that follows. Just how much do you lean into those O’s?
If you’re American, you may not lean very far. In what may be the first sound recording of the word boogie, “Pine Top’s Boogie-Woogie” (1928), it sounds just like Merriam-Webster’s primary pronunciation, \ˈbu̇-gē\. That is, it has a compact central vowel sound like in “wood” and “book.” This pronunciation persists from the Andrews Sisters’ “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” (1941) to Heatwave’s “Boogie Nights” (1976) to Childish Gambino’s “Boogieman” (2016).
If you’re British, you’ll probably want to lean further into the O’s. Webster’s secondary pronunciation, \ˈbü-gē\, extends the central vowel sound like in “rule” and “youth.” Humble Pie made light of this variant pronunciation with the title of its song “Natural Born Bugie” (1969), though the word “boogie” does not figure into the lyrics. Like many of his countrymen, Marc Bolan on T.Rex’s “I Love to Boogie” (1977) squeezes all he can out of the diaresis, to the point where the “oo” almost sounds like “ew.”
What about the G? Most people say it hard: \g\, as in “gift.” But there is at least one example of people saying it soft: \j\, as in “gem.”
In “Conditional Discharge” (1971), over piano vamping by Elton John and occasional guitar licks from Ronnie Wood, Long John Baldry gives a spoken-word account of being arrested for busking. The arresting officer testifies in court that Baldry was “contravening a breach of the peace” by playing “BOO-jie WOO-jie” music. The judge questions this unfamiliar term, and the officer explains that it’s “kind of a jazz-rhythm music peculiar to the American Negro.”
In Baldry’s telling, the mispronunciation demonstrates the squareness of the authority figures. In the song that follows his monolog (“Don’t Try to Lay No Boogie-Woogie on the King of Rock and Roll”), Baldry and his backup vocalists reassure us that they’re hep by singing both boogie and woogie with a hard \g\.
While using a soft \j\ may go against orthodoxy, you may do it anyway if you’re being ironic — or if you’re keen on upsetting orthodoxy.
The diphthong concluding “boogie” is where you have the most options. If you’re a traditionalist — which certainly is not to say uptight — you can use the long E sound, \ē\, as in “easy” and “mealy.” That’s mostly how the examples above treat it. But two well-established variations can go further to signal your attitude about boogying.
Occasionally Bolan will throw in a blithe “BOO-geh” (\ˈbü-gə\). That’s also how David Bowie does it on “Starman” (1972). Perhaps better than any other utterance, this pronunciation evinces each artist’s godlike cool. We know Bolan in particular loves to boogie, but it’s a supremely nonchalant boogie. He and his friends are doing their thing, and what do they care if you join in?
At the other end of the spectrum both metrically and enthusiasm-wise is “I Love the Nightlife (Disco ’Round)” (1978), where Alicia Bridges exclaims, “I love to boo-GAY” (\bu̇-ˈgā\). While both the dictionary and most singers stress the first syllable, Bridges emphasizes and extends the second. Her syncopation suggests an altogether more exuberant, extroverted kind of boogying. She is preaching the boogie gospel — she’s on a boogie crusade.
In conclusion, there are many ways to pronounce “boogie,” and none of them is right or wrong. Let those who hear you say it draw their own conclusions.
Illustrations adapted from The Strand Magazine (1897) via the Public Domain Review.
The great thing about my surname is you can spell it multiple ways. And depending on how you spell it, it can be a proper noun (Mr. Lowe), an adjective (low to the ground), or even an interjection (lo and behold). The puns are never hard to find when you’re a Lowe.
Creating my “Lowest Common Denominator” collection last year, I eventually amassed enough songs to make it a three-CD set. Naming each disc didn’t require a second thought. Obviously the first would be “Lowe,” the second would be “Lower,” and the third would be “Lowest.”
When my aunt received her copy of the anthology for Christmas, it jogged a memory about subscribing to a magazine years ago. “They sent me TWO copies every month thereafter, one addressed to Linda Lowe, and one to Linda Lower,” she wrote me. “Always wondered if I’d eventually end up with a third copy, but that never happened.”
The low/lower/lowest conceit provided a convenient way to organize the music. The songs of Disc One establish a baseline that is already low. (Some might consider this lowbrow or low-calorie music). Disc Two takes things lower, delving into more melancholic material. Disc Three hits rock bottom, with songs full of deviance and debauchery. And, most importantly, the lowest of the low frequencies. Here’s where you’ll find the soundtrack for your next party.
Friends in Low Places | The Suffers
There are many ways to work the family name into clever song titles, and this may be the best example. Credit for the title and all the music associated with it goes to Earl Bud Lee and Dewayne Blackwell, working in Nashville in 1989. This 2019 performance for Houston Public Media’s “Skyline Sessions” gives the country classic a soul makeover.
In Spite of All the Danger | The Quarrymen
You’ve heard of Pete Best, you’ve heard of Stu Sutcliffe, but have you heard of John Lowe? “Duff” (b. 1942) played piano alongside John, Paul, and George before they formed The Beatles. This track, written by Macca, was recorded in 1958. Various non-Beatle Quarrymen got back together in the 1990s, and Duff has performed with them as recently as 2017.
Bourama | Cheikh Lô
Imported Cuban 78-rpm records were all the rage in West Africa when Cheikh (b. 1955) was growing up. That’s why there’s a Latin tinge to many of the recordings from this Senegalese singer, drummer, and guitarist. A dedicated member of the Baye Fall movement of Islam, Cheikh wears dreadlocks and patchwork clothes as colorful and varied as his song catalog. A frequent collaborator is James Brown saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis, with whom Cheikh wrote this song about a “little impudent provocateur” who steals a bicycle.
In the Still of the Night | Whittemore and Lowe
For 40 years, Jack Warren Lowe (right, 1917–1996) and Arthur Whittemore carved out a niche performing classical and popular compositions on two pianos. Jack was born in Colorado and met Arthur in the Navy. This rendition of a Cole Porter tune comes from a bestselling 1946 album the duo recorded with the RCA Victor Orchestra.
Afrodesiac | Powder
This Britpop band fronted by Pearl Lowe (b. 1970) released a handful of singles in the mid-1990s. Pearl went on to record with the group Lodger alongside her now-husband, Supergrass drummer Danny Goffey, with whom she has three children. She also has a daughter with Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale. Pearl’s penchant for partying landed her in the tabloids and ruined her chance at a solo career. She cleaned up in the mid-2000s and now designs textiles and supports charities fighting homelessness and addiction.
Further Reading: Lowe, Pearl. “All that Glitters.” London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd., 2007.
Get Me to the Church on Time | Jon Hendricks
Growing up in Berlin, Frederick “Fritz” Loewe (1901–1988) was a child prodigy concert pianist. After moving to New York in 1942, he teamed up with lyricist Alan Jay Lerner and went on to write some of Broadway’s biggest musicals, including “Brigadoon,” “Camelot,” and — the source of this particular tune — “My Fair Lady.” One example of a crossover success for Lerner & Loewe, “Church” has been adopted as a jazz standard. This version is performed by Jon Hendricks (1921–2017), one of the most celebrated scat singers and an originator of “vocalese,” which adds lyrics to existing instrumental songs. The backing band features Wynton Marsalis among others.
Misshapen Measures pt1 | Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe
This sound artist (b. 1975) lives in Brooklyn, doing lots of collaborations and making soundtracks. Back in the early 2000s he was the bassist in the Chicago indie band 90 Day Men, who are also well worth checking out.
One of the defining bands of early ’90s indie rock, Sebadoh used to practice and record in Eric Gaffney’s dad’s garage on Oak Street in Florence, Massachusetts. Gaffney (center) and Westfield’s Lou Barlow (right) formed the band in 1986, with Northamptonite Jason Loewenstein (left) completing the lineup in 1989. This 1991 track, a simultaneous salute to and send-up of their subgenre, is credited to all three multi-instrumentalist songwriters. These days you can find Barlow performing with Dinosaur Jr., Loewenstein with the Fiery Furnaces, and Gaffney with Grey Matter.
Jenny from the Block | Jennifer Lopez
If your last name is Lowe and your first initial is J, your work email address is bound to be jlowe. Your colleagues won’t be able to resist pointing out the similarity to J.Lo, aka Jenny from the Block, aka Jennifer Lynn Lopez (b. 1969). Undoubtedly the biggest star in this collection, Jennifer has sold some 80 million records worldwide and starred in numerous Hollywood films. But as she asserts in this 2002 hit, fame hasn’t caused her to forget her humble upbringing in the South Bronx.
Allegro con fuoco | Jerome Lowenthal
This is the third and final movement from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Major (Op. 44, 1880), whose tempo marking translates as “Cheerful with fire.” Jerome (b. 1932) is a native of Philadelphia and is recognized as a virtuoso and expert on late romantic music. He’s backed up on this 1987 recording by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sergiu Comissiona.
I Know I Know | Lifeguard
Here is a perfect example of what I call a trompe l’oreille (trick of the ear): a song where the downbeat turns out to be not where you thought it was. As the guitar begins the song, you naturally hear its first strum as the downbeat. But when the drums enter it becomes clear that the guitar part is syncopated. Those drums are played by Isaac Lowenstein, younger brother of Penelope from Horsegirl.
A Knot of Toads | A. Mifflin Lowe
This children’s author lives in Newport, Rhode Island, and Bird Key, Florida. In 2003 he recorded an album of songs and poems based on the names for various groups of animals — from the familiar (a murder of crows) to the bewildering (a smack of jellyfish). Mifflin’s song about a pride of lions would have been appropriate for this collection, given that the surname Lowe may derive from the German word for the king of beasts. But the lion song is just (k)not as amusing as this somewhat Carrollian, amphibian air.
Canzonetta | Alma Gluck (soprano), Francis J. Lapitino (harp)
In his day, Johann Carl Gottfried Loewe (1796–1869) was known as the “Schubert of North Germany,” setting hundreds of poems to music. Many of the texts came from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — including this one, from “Faust,” whose first line translates as “She was prettier than the prettiest day.” You can find oodles of 21st-century recordings of Carl’s works. This one is more than a century old and very scratchy, but its charm is irrefutable.
Hello Susie | Amen Corner
Singing on this 1969 U.K. hit is Welshman Andy Fairweather Low (b. 1948). Later in his career Andy was a touring guitarist for George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Roger Waters, and Bill Wyman, and he sang backup on The Who’s “Who Are You.” (Bonus: Don’t miss The Move’s 1970 recording of “Hello Susie,” which features the song’s writer, Roy Wood of later ELO fame.)
Mischief | Bill Lowe and the Signifyin’ Natives Ensemble
In his younger days, Bill played trombone and tuba on the New York City jazz scene. From 1989 to 2005, he taught music and African-American studies at Northeastern University. In 2023, at age 77, Bill released his first album as sole leader of a band (one that includes Boston cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum among others). The album centers on Jean Toomer’s experimental novel “Cane,” a defining work of the Harlem Renaissance. Black LGBTQ writers including Samuel R. Delany figure in other of Bill’s scholarly work and musical compositions.
Turn the Lights On | Big Sugar
These guys are kind of a big deal in their native Canada. Anchoring their blues/rock/reggae sound was bassist Garry Lowe(b. 1953), a transplant from Jamaica who played in several other Toronto groups and was the go-to bassist for visiting island acts. He even does a little toasting on this track. After Garry’s death in 2018, his son Ben took over as the band’s bassist.
Low Down in the Broom | Frankie Armstrong
This traditional Scottish folk song has been recorded many times in the modern age, including by the Waterboys. “Broom” here refers not to the sweeping implement but to a bush with small yellow flowers. In the song, two lovers meet beneath this bush for what we can only assume is an innocent chat. You may think this song is included because it’s got “Low” in the title, but there’s another reason. Accompanying vocalist Frankie on the recorder is one Jeff Lowe.
Theme from “Leisure Suit Larry” | Al Lowe
Albert William Lowe (b. 1946) is a video game designer best known for creating the “Leisure Suit Larry” series. This is Larry’s theme song as it sounded in a 1989 release on the Apple IIGS. Before getting into computers, Al played saxophone at the University of Missouri and was a public school music teacher.
The Green Door | Jim Lowe
James Ellsworth Lowe (1923–2016) grew up in Missouri. Outside his work as a singer-songwriter, Jim was a disc jockey at various New York City radio stations for decades. This recording climbed to No. 1 on the Billboard pop chart 1956, displacing Elvis Presley’s “Love Me Tender.” Written by Bob “Hutch” Davie and Marvin J. Moore, “Green Door” probably describes a speakeasy. During Prohibition, some restaurants painted their doors green to indicate they were selling bootleg liquor.
Break Up Your Band | Chavez
Heavy-hitting drummer James Lo anchored this mid-’90s NYC math-rock/post-hardcore band. Chavez never scored a hit on the charts. But their video for this song — which prominently features male strippers — did appear on “Beavis and Butt-Head.” To quote Butt-Head: “I mean, it’s like, the music is horrible, but it rules.”
Dawn Carol | RNCM Flutes
Margaret Lowe of Birmingham, England, wrote this meditative piece in 2001. She intended for it to be performed by multiple flutists scattered among the audience in a concert hall, each one playing the same part in a loose round. This somewhat indeterminate format made “Dawn Carol” perfect for the type of collaborative split-screen videos that so many musicians created during the lockdown phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. This version was posted to YouTube on June 5, 2020, by students of the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.
Get Low | Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz feat. Ying Yang Twins
Atlanta’s Jonathan H. Smith (b. 1971), aka Lil Jon, is the self-proclaimed King of Crunk. In other words, he’s a leading exponent of a subgenre of Southern hip-hop that’s all about partying. This song was a No. 2 hit in 2003 and remains a party staple to this day. Lil Jon continues to rack up hits as a producer.
A scene from the music video for “Escape” by Enrique Iglesias.
In an earlier essay, we explored how stalk rock songs often slip under listeners’ radar. This month, we’ll look at how stalking infiltrates pop music in another way: through music videos.
It’s common enough for the narrative of a music video to diverge from the lyrical content of the song it promotes.1 In the handful of cases that interest us here, songs with relatively harmless lyrics are transformed into stalk rock because of the visuals that accompany them.
Perhaps the most outlandish example is Maroon 5’s “Animals” (2014). Its lyrics are clearly metaphorical, albeit aggressive: “Baby I’m preying on your tonight / Hunt you down, eat you alive.” In the video, singer Adam Levine plays a butcher’s assistant who secretly photographs a customer (played by model Behati Prinsloo, his real-life wife) and imagines having sex with her while covered in blood. The video was condemned by critics including RAINN (the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), which called it a “dangerous depiction of a stalker’s fantasy.”2
A tamer version of the predator/prey metaphor is found in the lyrics of Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf” (1982). The video, however, opens up a different can of worms by portraying the love interest — Bermudan model Sheila Ming-Burgess, a woman of color — as an animal.
Occupying the domain of visual narrative, stalk rock videos usually fall back on the Hollywood trope that Jonathan McIntosh of Pop Culture Detective calls “stalking for love.” He cites several examples where “movies present stalker-like behavior as a harmless or endearing part of romantic courtship.”
“Without You” by Pugwash (2017) has a vaguely menacing chord progression and a singular, vaguely menacing lyric: “I will find you when I want to.” The video makes the stalking explicit — and explicitly forgivable. The jealous hero stealthily tails his lover (actor Natalie Porretta) all over town while she enjoys a girls’ day out. In a series of vignettes, his spying is interrupted by a disapproving look from a passing dogwalker, a beachgoer beating him with a towel, and a waiter pouring hot water in his lap. The girlfriend is momentarily disgusted when she finally discovers what he’s been up to. But they quickly reconcile as the video becomes an advertisement for an animal shelter.
Lionel Richie’s mopey “Hello” (1983) is narrated by someone who can’t work up the nerve to talk to his crush. There’s no story arc in the lyrics, but it’s there in the video. Richie plays a drama professor smitten with a visually impaired student (played by Laura Carrington, a sighted actor who later starred on “General Hospital”). The student can’t see the professor lurking behind her in the hallways. But his behavior is vindicated because the student is revealed to be in love with him too. She demonstrates this by sculpting his head out of clay. Did I mention she’s blind?
“Escape” (2001) shows Enrique Iglesias following tennis star turned TV personality Anna Kournikova into the ladies’ room at a club. The video’s only acknowledgement that this is a violation comes from other women who make faces as they exit the restroom. The bouncers who remove Iglesias are presented as the true bad guys. In the end, Iglesias’s tenacity is rewarded. He gets to have (presumably consensual) sex with Kournikova inside a car. This time, a passing security guard only shakes his head and continues on his rounds.
McIntosh detects a pattern in Hollywood depictions of romantic stalking that’s also applicable to stalk rock videos. It’s a pattern “where confidence-building for boys often comes at the expense of women’s boundaries and women’s personal autonomy. Movies have taught us that never giving up is one of the most admirable traits of all, especially for men.”
Several stalk rock videos feature another trope of the large and small screens. A stalker shrine is a wall covered with photos of a celebrity or an unsuspecting regular person. In “Animals,” Levine has one with photos of Prinsloo. George Michael has one in “Father Figure” (1987), where he plays a cabdriver fixated on model Tania Coleridge.3
Rod Stewart accumulates a stalker shrine in “Infatuation” (1984). Throughout the video he observes a bikini-clad neighbor, played by actress Kay Lenz, through a variety of lenses — much like Jimmy Stewart (no relation) in the Alfred Hitchcock thriller “Rear Window” (1954).
Stalker shrines also feature in two pop-punk videos from the 2000s. Both imagine scenarios in which the stalking is mutual.4 New Found Glory’s “Dressed to Kill” (2000) begins with a teenage boy secretly photographing the girl next door (“She’s All That” star Rachel Leigh Cook), then reveals that she’s been doing the same to him. Ludo’s “Go-Getter Greg” (2008) is set in an apartment complex where all the residents are stalking each other.
Stalk rock videos span more than three decades, but nonetheless adhere to the same tropes. When the male hero of one of these videos invades a woman’s privacy, it’s treated as romantic, benign, or even funny. If the hero faces any censure, it’s usually nothing much stronger than a side-eye. He may be tormented by emotions, but he endures them nobly in the name of love.
Not that love is what’s really at stake.
“Romantic stalking at its core isn’t really about love at all,” McIntosh observes. “It’s extremely selfish behavior because it’s all about the stalker’s own personal feelings. Any potential discomfort, fear, or embarrassment on the part of the stalker’s target is rarely ever considered.”
And that’s right in line with the portrayal of women in film and visual art historically. The love interest in each of these stalk rock videos is a traditionally beautiful model or actress playing a character with little to no agency of her own. She’s a fox for the hunting.
It’s worth repeating that these songs’ lyrics don’t necessarily adhere to these tropes. But something changes as each song crosses the event horizon between speaker and screen. It’s as if the black hole that is the objectification of women is so strong that it can suck in unrelated cultural artifacts.
Notes
The video for “Body Movin’” by the Beastie Boys carries this divergence to a delightful extreme. ↩︎
The lyrics of “Father Figure” do not reference stalking, but they are troubling for another reason. George Michael’s character is offering to be a father figure to a love interest who is underage in depiction if not in fact. He asks them to “Put your tiny hand in mine” and “Greet me with the eyes of a child.” ↩︎
At least one song has lyrics describing a similar mutual stalking scenario: “Control Freak” by Recoil (1997). ↩︎
Top row: Garry Lowe, Rosie Lowe, Chris Lowe, Ruth Lowe Bottom row: Nick Lowe, Pearl Lowe, Johann Jacob Löwe, Janice Lowe
One of the joys of writing this blog is discovering music I never would have come across if I weren’t investigating some obscurity or other.
Lately, listening to the radio, reading criticism, and even taking recommendations from friends hasn’t really turned me onto anything with enduring interest. For new songs to get over the hurdle, apparently, they need to reach me on a level beyond the sonic and the social. They need to be bangers, sure. Eclectic styles certainly help. But they also need to appeal to my penchant for esoteric research.
The “Lowest Common Denominator” compilation is a perfect distillation of this phenomenon. I’ve appreciated Nick Lowe for quite some time, and occasionally other Lowes or Lows or Loewes would come to my attention. At some point the mindshare of these distant relatives reached critical mass and I started tracking them down in earnest. I entered a new universe where any creators’ name or song title bearing a passing resemblance to my own surname was worth investigating. Before I knew it, I was creating an anthology, complete with liner notes, to share with my actual family.
The following are my observations accompanying Disc Two of that three-disc set, subtitled “Lower.” It’s the sad one.
So Low | Self
Brothers Matt and Mike Mahaffey recorded this album in their childhood home in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. A determined downer, “So Low” got plenty of airplay on the alternative rock radio stations I listened to in the mid-1990s, though Self never charted. Years before it was a thing, the band released multiple albums for free online.
What Are We Doing? | Allen Lowe and the Constant Sorrow Orchestra
Curmudgeonly music historian and saxophonist Allen Lowe (b. 1954) hates living in Portland, Maine. Dubbed “jazz’s quintessential outsider artist” by the Village Voice, he’s vocal about not getting the attention he thinks he deserves. This selection, released in 2023, comes from a heap of songs Allen wrote during his excruciating recovery after surgery to remove a tumor from his sinus. Get a load of the gnarly glissando that begins his solo.
I’ll Never Smile Again | The Platters
Ruth Lowe (1914–1981) was a pianist and songwriter from Toronto. She wrote “I’ll Never Smile Again” in 1939 after her husband, whom she’d married only 12 months earlier, died on the operating table. The next year, Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra (featuring Frank Sinatra) recorded the song and scored the very first No. 1 hit on the Billboard charts. The song has been recorded multiple times and is now considered a standard. I prefer the Platters’ version from 1958.
Money Ain’t $hit | Kameron Marlowe
This song nicely complements the entry from Johann Jacob Löwe on disc one. Kameron (b. 1997) comes from North Carolina and launched his country music career as a contestant on TV’s “The Voice” in 2018.
Blackberry Blossom | Bill Frisell
Seattleite Keith Lowe, who plays bass on this 2002 jazz/bluegrass release, prefers performing barefoot. Among other gigs, he was a member of the recently disbanded Brad (which also included Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard) and played in Fiona Apple’s touring group in the late ’90s. These days Keith is still gigging, recording, and teaching.
Endless Sleep | Nick Lowe
David Bowie released the album “Low” in 1977. Miffed that Bowie’s title omitted the terminal e, fellow Englishman Nicholas Drain Lowe (b. 1949) responded a few months later with an EP called “Bowi.” This song ends that record on a very low note indeed. You probably know Nick best for his No. 12 hit “Cruel to Be Kind” or as the writer of “(What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding,” which was a smash for Elvis Costello. Never a superstar, Nick is nonetheless revered as a master of songcraft. He still writes and performs today.
Further Reading: Will Birch. “Cruel to be Kind: The Life and Music of Nick Lowe.” New York: Da Capo Press, 2019.
Billy Blue | Bruce Low
Dutch singer Ernst Gottfried Bielke (1913–1990), stage name Bruce Low, was famous in Europe for adapting county-western songs. The lyrics to this 1979 single tell the story of an alcoholic who gets sober after a visit from God. The song is credited to legendary Nashville producer Billy Sherrill and lyricist Kermit Goell. Goell ran a company that imported European melodies, turning them into English-language songs. Apparently “Billy Blue” went through the reverse process. I haven’t found any trace of an English version.
Boy Flower Tamir | Janice Lowe & Namaroon
Janice A. Lowe is a musician and poet from Cleveland. This song is a lament for Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old Black boy who was killed by police in that city as he played with a toy gun in a park in 2014. “I thought of wildflowers protected by conservation societies, while Black children are too often unprotected by hometowns that don’t allow them … us … our childhoods,” Janice writes.
Largo | Boston Symphony Chamber Players
This selection is the second of two movements from the Trio for Violin, Cello, and Piano written by Pulitzer Prize-winning contemporary composer Leon Kirchner. The ensemble is led by violinist Malcolm Lowe (b. 1953). Originally from Manitoba, Malcolm was the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s concertmaster for 35 years, retiring in 2019.
All I Want for Christmas is Lowered Expectations | Bunny’s a Swine
Emerson: Baby, if I had some money / I would buy you the world, honey / But instead I burned you some CDs.
After years producing other acts, this New Haven rapper took the mic himself on his 2004 debut album. Here he reminisces about a lost relationship: “I wish I never said what I was sayin’ / I was gassed up, a player just playin’ / A lady like you, but who knew what to do? / With fightin’ and the fussin’ we both went through.”
Make a Record for Lo-Life | Boston Spaceships
Robert Pollard maintained this side project from 2008–2011 with his Guided By Voices bandmate Chris Slusarenko and the Decemberists’ John Moen. Is this a song about the frustrations of working for sleazy record execs?
Rhapsodie pour la harpe | Georgia Lowe
Georgia is a harp soloist, chamber and orchestral musician, and teacher from Australia. This piece (Op. 10) is by Marcel Grandjany (1891–1975), a French-American harpist and composer. The recording is from a recital in Sydney in 2015.
The Last of the Widows | Jez Lowe
Lefty guitarist John Gerard “Jez” Lowe (b. 1955) writes folks songs about industrial decline in northeast England. He wrote this song to commemorate the 40th anniversary of a 1951 explosion that killed 81 coal miners in Jez’s hometown of Easington Colliery.
妳的樣子 | 羅大佑
Lo Ta-yu (b. 1954) is one of Taiwan’s most celebrated musicians. His 1982 debut album is regarded as a groundbreaking work of Mandopop, or Mandarin pop. To these Western ears, it sounds derivative of American hard rock and country. The song I’m featuring here, whose title translates as “Your Look,” comes from his third album, released six years later. I like its more Eastern sound and frequent key changes. Google doesn’t do a very good job translating the lyrics, but it appears to be a breakup song.
Stars Gone Out | Low
Hailing from Duluth, Minnesota, Low were a paragon of the indie rock subgenre “slowcore,” so called for obvious reasons. Made up of husband and wife Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker, plus a series of bassists, Low were active from 1993 until not long before Mimi’s death from cancer in 2022. This track comes from relatively early in their career, before the tempos got faster and the production got slicker.
The Lost and the Lonely | Mundell Lowe
James Mundell Lowe (1922–2017) spent the work week at NBC writing music for films and TV. On the weekends he played guitar with Billie Holiday, Charles Mingus, Charlie Parker, and others. This is a cut from Mundell’s soundtrack for the 1961 sexploitation film “Satan in High Heels.”
Low | Cracker
This 1993 song about opioid addiction was a sleeper hit for the band co-founded by singer/guitarist and educator David Lowery (b. 1960). David was also a founding member of Camper van Beethoven. More recently, in 2013, he wrote a seminal blog post on music streaming and its dismal financial prospects for artists.
Not that I avoid it, but today’s pop music isn’t really on my radar. Listening to the podcast “Switched on Pop” keeps me somewhat in the loop. Even if today’s hits aren’t made for me, the analysis offered by co-hosts Nate Sloan and Charlie Harding and their guests is right up my alley.
A companion book by the hosts is equally compelling. For folks like me who aren’t hip, the songs called out in this book make a perfect crash course in what the kids are listening to these days. The book also examines pivotal pop songs dating back as far as the late 19th century that continue to inform today’s styles.
Each chapter of the book revolves around a single song, and I’ve collected them into a YouTube playlist. Many, many more songs are discussed in passing, and they’re rounded up in this comprehensive Spotify playlist.
A key insight from the book: “Pop is recognizable not by the sound of any one part but by the way it assembles those discrete parts and smooths them out for mass appeal” (page 154).
How a stalk rock deep cut became an Indo-Pacific linedancing sensation
You could be forgiven for thinking it’s a parody song.
Darren Hayes’ “Creepin’ Up on You” is sung from the perspective of a stalker apostrophizing the object of his desire. It’s remarkably similar to “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Do I Creep You Out.” Yankovic’s character asks to “sniff the pit stains on your blouse,” for example, while Hayes’ character confesses to “drinking from the glass that you left on the bar.”
But each artist has his own signature schtick that indicates which one is joking and which one is not. And you probably already know that parody is Weird Al’s thing.
You might not be as familiar with Hayes. In the late 1990s he fronted the Australian pop duo Savage Garden, which had a pair of U.S. No. 1 hits titled “Truly Madly Deeply” and “I Knew I Loved You.” These are saccharine love ballads, neither giving off a whiff of irony.
Columbia Records realized that Hayes was not only a talented singer but also a heartthrob. In music videos, Hayes’ blue eyes and stubbled jaw get the spotlight while guitarist Daniel Jones is relegated to the background. The image was complete when Hayes went solo in 2002 with the album “Spin.”1 As one reviewer wrote, “Hayes is the guy you get into just after you’re through with boy bands.”2
Only one track from the album charted, and it was not “Creepin’ Up on You.”3 Nonetheless, “Creepin’” has a lasting legacy on YouTube, where it is the soundtrack for more than 300 videos uploaded by users all over the world dating back almost all the way to the website’s launch in 2005.
Several could be classified as “shipping” videos, where fans edit clips of TV or film characters in ways that suggest a romantic relationship. One example with “Creepin’” for a soundtrack matches 007 and Q. You could think of shipping videos as YouTube’s version of slash fiction. But they’re not limited to wish fulfillment around male/male relationships. One hetero example soundtracked by “Creepin’” features Buffy the Vampire Slayer and her undead beau, Angel. (Angel did indeed stalk Buffy before they began a star-crossed romance.)
By far the largest category of “Creepin’” videos, however, are ones that feature linedancing. I’ve found nearly 250 of them with a combined view count approaching 475,000. Most of them were uploaded during the coronavirus pandemic, originating almost exclusively in the Indo-Pacific region.
Before understanding why this is, we need to understand a few things about “Creepin’ Up on You,” a few things about linedancing, and a few things about geopolitics.
The wrong thing to do
The lyrics to “Creepin’ Up on You” include no explicit threat of violence, but make no mistake: This is stalk rock.
In the first verse, Hayes’ character describes gathering information about someone he’s fixated on, including phone number, address, favorite stores, and “secret places you think nobody knows.” Things escalate in the second verse with the narrator “hanging round all the places that you haunt / Spying on your friends to find out what you want / Drinking from the glass that you left on the bar / Follow you around driving home in your car.”
While the verses are coldly descriptive, other sections of the song turn confessional. The bridge implies Hayes’ character is unable to initiate direct contact with the object of his desire, perhaps because of feelings of intimidation or social awkwardness. Maybe all he needs is an introduction: “So won’t somebody free me from this misery / Bring my baby closer to me.”
Hayes’ character acknowledges that what he’s doing is “wrong” and “wouldn’t be right.” Yet there’s no indication he plans to stop.
The lyrics paint a pathetic picture, but the musical accompaniment gives them a different cast. A determined beat and Hayes’ velvety vocals transmogrify the stalker into a tragic hero.
Many listeners find the song more romantic than problematic. This seems to have more to do with the singer than with the words he sings. A representative YouTube comment: “He can creep on me anytime lol. Well, he wouldn’t have to because if he wanted me, he could just have me!”
Something else strikes the listener even before the vocals enter: an artificial-sounding string quartet. The album’s liner notes credit 21 string players, but it’s hard for me to believe these sounds are not MIDI simulacra. One YouTube commenter aptly compares the “Creepin’” intro to a jingle from the Nintendo Wii.
With problematic lyrics and questionable production, “Creepin’” might have faded into obscurity. Instead, over the next two decades, it spread to listeners whom Hayes and Columbia probably never had in mind. This is the era in which the song was embraced by the worldwide linedancing community.
Just to peek in on you
Linedancing can be loosely defined as a form of social dance where rows of individuals follow the same choreographed steps. Unlike in other dance forms, there is no physical contact between dancers. Examples of linedancing that you may have encountered in gym class, at your senior center, or at a wedding include the “Electric Slide” and “Macarena.”
From linedancing’s inception in the early 1980s to today, choreographers have set their dances to all styles of music. But linedancing became strongly associated with country music due to the massive success of the 1992 Billy Ray Cyrus single “Achy Breaky Heart.” Mercury Records commissioned a linedance as part of the “Achy Breaky” promotional blitz, and it became one of that decade’s biggest dance crazes.4
This is around the time linedancing appears to have spread to the wider world. David Powell of roots-boots.net places the arrival of linedancing in Australia around 1991.5 At least one linedancing club was founded in Japan in 1993.6 Linedancer magazine was established in England in 1996 in response to the emergence of a “brand new hobby.”7 The inaugural Asia-Pacific Line Dancing Championship was held in Singapore in 2003.
The Singaporean government encouraged linedancing for physical fitness and it was taught in community centers around the island. Singapore briefly held the world record for largest linedance after 11,967 people, many dressed like cowboys, danced a Canadian choreographer’s steps to a native folk song.8 Hong Kong broke the record a few months later, and today the record is held by China.
“People are attracted to learning line dancing because it is a form of low-impact aerobic exercise,” Lina Choi, founder of the Hong Kong Line Dancing Association, told the South China Post in 2011. “Line dancing is suitable for all age groups and fitness levels. No previous dance experience is required, and you can dance in a group or without a partner.”9
New dances tend to lose relevance quickly. British visitors to Singapore in 2002 “discovered that it was quite normal for an instructor to teach three or four new dances in every class. A dancer’s repertoire could expand by as many as 10-15 new dances every week. … The inevitable outcome is that the life expectancy for a dance in Singapore is only a few weeks before it is dropped in favor of something newer.”10CopperKnob, an online repository of linedance choreography, had nearly 160,000 “stepsheets” as of this writing, with about 1,000 new ones added every month.
“Creepin’ Up on You”’s moderate tempo, simple structure, and catchy chorus make it ideally suited to linedancing. Over the years, at least eight linedance choreographers have come up with steps for the song.11 Three of the routines haven’t left much of a trace on the internet. But each of the others has been picked up by other dancers who saw fit to post their results on YouTube. Two decades later, a voyeuristic song continues to inspire a sort of mass exhibitionism.
It’s not always possible to determine where in the world a YouTube video originated. However, judging by languages used in the comments section12 and other clues, the bulk of the videos appear to come from the Indo-Pacific. Most feature groups of women of all ages, sometimes in coordinated outfits. Men occasionally crop up, but they’re always vastly outnumbered.
About a third of the videos feature solo dancers, some showing off opulent living rooms or picturesque landscapes as much as dance moves. Many of the dancers are clearly novices wearing comfortable shoes, while others wear heels and appear proficient or advanced.
Post-COVID, many of the videos feature surgical masks and/or outdoor settings. Solos make up a larger portion of the videos after the pandemic began, but group dances still dominate.
While the pre-COVID videos originate in the West, the pandemic-era videos belong to the East.
Seven videos can be traced to Kelli Haugen, a California native now living in Norway, and her daughter Jessica, whose steps were published in 2007. Five videos feature the 2012 choreography of Amy Christian, who was born in Singapore but now lives in Michigan.
Britons Alison Biggs and Peter Metelnick — “the best known Line dance couple ever,” according to Linedancer magazine13 — also came up with steps for “Creepin’ Up on You” in 2012. This version yielded two dozen uploads from users from the U.S. and Canada to Singapore and Hong Kong.
The most imitated “Creepin’ Up on You” dance routine comes from Penny Tan of Malaysia. Tan’s moves spread around the Malay Archipelago throughout 2022, with videos being uploaded from Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore. A handful come from Hong Kong and South Korea. The first rendition from Vietnam appeared in the final days of 2022, and most subsequent videos appear to have come from there. As of this writing I have found 125 videos that follow Tan’s steps. Many are posted by Tan herself as various clubs and solo dancers share their work with her.
Zhang Meilan and Huang Xiaomin command the largest audience. I’ve been unable to turn up any information about the choreographers, but most of the videos attributable to them come from Taiwan and were posted in 2021. Collectively these videos have racked up nearly 240,000 views — more than half of the total view count for all “Creepin’” linedance videos.
Each of the Zhang/Huang videos is labeled with the Chinese characters 情不自禁愛上你, which Google translates back into English as “I can’t help falling in love with you” — suggesting a fundamental misunderstanding of the song’s lyrical content among this group of listeners.14
Bring my baby closer to me
If the worldwide spread of linedancing and later the coronavirus pandemic set the stage for “Creepin’ Up on You”’s curious second act, then its backdrop is the East-versus-West tug-of-war over Taiwan.
The island nation of nearly 24 million people cut ties with mainland China in 1949 and has elected its own president since 1996. Today it occupies a gray area in world diplomacy. China claims Taiwan as its own, and the policy of the U.S. and several other countries is to neither support nor deny that claim. It’s a delicate balance to maintain, given that China is a nuclear superpower and that Taiwan is the largest supplier of the microchips Western society couldn’t bear to live without.15
Hong Kong once enjoyed similar autonomy, but a crackdown in 2020 put it firmly under Beijing’s control.16 Observers worry Taiwan could be next.
Taiwan’s democracy was still young when Hayes first performed there with Savage Garden in 1997. He returned in 2002 to promote “Spin.” A Taipei auditorium full of adoring young women held up signs, waved glowsticks, and cheered at Hayes’ every vocal flourish.
Will Western music and dance continue to reach Taiwan in the years ahead? This is not a blog about geopolitics, but it’s evident that insular authoritarianism is creepin’ up on the island — among other places.
Smyth, David. “All the girls love a choirboy voice.” London Evening Standard, 14 Oct. 2002, p. 52. Gale In Context: Biography, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A92837424/GPS. Accessed 26 July 2022. ↩︎
It was “Insatiable,” the music video for which features Hayes fixating on a silver-screen starlet. He could be a stalker, or perhaps he’s the ghost of a former lover. See https://youtu.be/9u7hGkL57N8. ↩︎
“Fall in line for dancing workout.” South China Morning Post [Hong Kong], 26 Feb. 2011, p. 1. Gale OneFile: Business, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A265125174/GPS. Accessed 26 July 2022. ↩︎
Not to be confused with “Creepin’” by Eric Church, a country-rock stomper that has also received multiple linedancing treatments. Here, it’s the memory of a former lover that does the creeping. ↩︎
Astonishingly, comments on these videos are uniformly positive and supportive. ↩︎
A cover of Elvis’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love” was released with the U.K. collectors edition of “Spin,” and Hayes performed the song live. See https://youtu.be/Jn354itVmJM. ↩︎
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