“We Cry Together”

Hey…how’re y’all today? I’m doing alright, mood’s been up and down. O am happy because school is nearly over for the summer, just powering through one last term paper and then I’m free. Get myself a milkshake or something to celebrate. Did a performance for my piano and guitar classes, those went well. Might even show one since I like to share, other 2 classes had final exams that went fine. Still a very slow semester with all the shit going on and being stuck at home. Glad i got this place and all of you for a little joy 3 times a week, and more with TNOCS.com, which i outta do more for, maybe find something to write about. Also I’ve been working on a little personal music project, and when it’s finished you’ll get to hear it!

Til then stay awesome you wonderful people

the key to it all is the final verse where the misgendering stops, imo. seemed like a narrative exploration of past homo/transphobia resulting in eventual understanding through evolution of perspective.

This would be a whole lot funnier if the review was simply “No. Absolutely not. Fuck this. I reject the premise of the assignment.” and you left it there.

It’s been out 26 minutes. This is a SCORCHING hot take.

Seriously considered this.

more like Enemigos.

Not so much a story about today’s Number One as it is about the recording that it samples.

I had just finished limping through college when the Diana Ross song was released. In those days, I eagerly ate up anything new from Nile and Bernard, and just like when “Good Times” exploded on the scene, I practiced his signature Straty-sounding hook over, and over, and over again. The interesting thing about Nile’s playing is that although it might sound like a riff simply repeated, I guarantee that he never plays the parts exactly the same in any song. The difference is almost imperceptible, but as they say, once you know that it’s there, you can’t unhear it. That’s why he’s Nile Rogers, and I’m really, really not.

Anyway, after practicing it to death, I quickly realized that no one in my current band seemed to have any interest in covering the song. Bummer, but you only get to play about 40 tunes per night, so it was not to be. Until the new keyboard player, who’d joined up about a month ago quietly said that he’d like to try it, and that he would like to sing. This was odd, because aside from the occasional harmony parts, he was a really quiet guy who never sang lead. A very nice person, but he really kept to himself, and the others in the band didn’t know much about him.

We agreed to take a shot and try to cover the tune, and ran through it. It was OK; one of those definite “maybes.” That Friday night at the gig, we were on the fence about it, but something told me to go for it. I called the tune. And this guy came out of nowhere, and revealed a stellar tenor register, and crushed it. He belted it out like it was a life mission. Everyone loved it, and then, he returned to doing his little keyboard hooks and light harmonies. But not before giving me a look of satisfaction and accomplishment, like it was important, or something.

Within a month or so, the band called it quits, as they always do. I didn’t think about any of it at all for about fifteen years, until I ran into the keyboard guy at, of all things, a funeral. We caught up, and he me thanked for, as he put it, “you know.” I was puzzled, and then he explained why he wanted to sing the song, where he was then, and where he was now. The light dawned on my marble head.

In those days, I was even more obtuse than I am now. I never did the math or put the puzzle pieces together. Good on you, Mark, for having the courage to sing and say “I’m Coming Out,” at not only a forgettable bar-band gig, but in real life as well.

TNOCS keeps rocking, and I wanted to just express my gratitude to all of you for that!

Despite a few of us wondering a year ago how enthusiastically we’d wade through the musical 1990s, Tom’s consummate columns and the sheer passion which drives these comments have still given us all so much to look forward to three times a week. The setbacks by the new CS system which has led to a drop of several hundred comments per article, the slowest uploading and reloading of any other page I’ve ever used on the web since about 1997, difficulty in tracking threads – even those things haven’t dampened spirits. I really love feeling the spitfire that backs everyone’s recommendations of their favourite releases, even if SoundScan keeps the pace rapid fire and necessitates shorter blurbs.

Thanks to all for this passion which helps us discover great music and keeps alive the reasons we all return here regularly.

regarding the auntie diaries track – i think it’s a bit of a bad faith reading to see him as carelessly misgendering trans people, when he actually switches back and forth between pronouns. my read is that he’s trying to portray his and his family’s struggles with understanding transness. i found that song really moving

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