Album Review - Pick'in Up The Pieces

fitz&thetantrums

It's Motown 1959 - 1971 and your stereo sounds like The Marvelettes, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, The Four Tops and anyone else who had either a funky big deep bass cord or a quick drum solo song opener, crisp percussion throughout and lyrics that begged to be sung along to. This is a total throwback FUNK album. And that's not a revelation. So I decided to make a mix of actual Motown (I have a huge collection) and Fitz in a playlist, mixed up of course, just to see how well the new stuff melded with the old stuff. And to no one's surprise it blended beautifully. I mean, with tracks like L.O.V and Moneygrabber and the album opener Break'in the Chains of Love you'd be a total moron not to see the Motown connections. I think Fitz are a great tribute band to an era of musicians that used terms like "far out, boogie and groovy" as descriptive words. This vintage style is coming back with groups like The Secret Sisters, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Mavis Staples, The Black Keys, The Cool Kids, and everyone who's done an alt-country record in the past 8 years. This resurgence of vintage is getting to me. I like it, and yet I don't. Though I can't prove it or find a reference to it anywhere, I did hear that films and T.V. shows are really only about 5 main themes. Maybe this is also true of music. Each genre overlaps another, each show combines, each food dish mixes and so on in the human melting pot of life. There are only so many ideas in the world. Until something new is invented and not just something new that's derived from another's already invented concoction, we'll never truly have something original. Using the words I'm using here to describe originality are in and of itself making this post unoriginal since my method of description is not mine and mine alone. Language, ideas, the very thought of what life is and what we want out of it is due its credit to someone else's thoughts and ideas of what a good life should include. Think about all the stuff you want. All you really want is someone else's idea. You want food, good. A hotdog perhaps? Someone else invented that for you. Someone else even invented the process to make the hotdog. Someone else even invented a process within the bigger process to make you that hotdog. Someone else invented another process to make a part for the smaller process that's used in the bigger process to make you that hotdog. Someone else invented a process to make a part for the process used to make the parts that are used in the smaller process thats used in the bigger process used to make you that hotdog. This could go one and on and on. Everything we desire is the thought of someone else. Music is just an audible representation of this. But don't take my unoriginal word for it, go see for yourself.

Album : Pick'in Up The Pieces

Website : http://fitzandthetantrums.com/