Tuesday, March 8, 2011

The Drumbeat of the Early Eighties



Flint Expatriate Shawn Chittle wades deep into Hall & Oates, Footloose and Toni Basil to discover "the drumbeat of the early eighties" and, by extension, a core component of Our Lady of Lebanon dances.



4 comments:

  1. What was up with Toni Basil's weird cheerleader/drum major aesthetic?

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  2. Even without playing it, that "Mickey" song is in my head. Curse you Toni Basil!!!

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  3. Toni was a cheerleader in high school so she did that entire video like that..

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  4. Shawn! Thank you so much for finding that beat from H&O! As an H&O superfan I was so impressed that someone took a deep cut such as "Africa" to show the drum beat DNA for that decade! "Footloose" is even in the same tempo! With Loggins and H&O being of the same "pop" genre, I wonder if Loggins did indeed hear that song and moved forward with it? It's a fairly simple beat, but so wild that it's basically the same! Thanks again!

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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.