Matthew Rutledge » synthpop http://mattrut.com It's my website, but you can read it! Sun, 14 Mar 2010 22:24:21 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 How to pick up girls? LEARN TO DANCE. How to pick up girls? LEARN TO DANCE. http://mattrut.com/2009.09.17/how-to-pick-up-girls/ http://mattrut.com/2009.09.17/how-to-pick-up-girls/#comments Thu, 17 Sep 2009 08:08:22 +0000 Matthew Rutledge http://mattrut.com/?p=1246 Bobby Orlando is three things: a homophobe, a misogynist, and a great one-trick pony. His songs all sound the same, but his trick is an amazing one — it is an insistent, fun, driving synth beat that ties the line between disco and techno while never, never forgetting that pop is the name of the game.

Nothing gets me in the mood to dance like these songs — they are so good at what they do that even at 2AM in the middle of the week, I am gyrating inappropriately in my own bedroom while folding laundry. I long, long long long, for the chance to hear these in a bigger room, with a bigger audience, amongst my greater set of friends. I deserve a dance party after all these years going it alone.

So here’s a mini mixtape of Bobby O’s best songs. Click below to start:

actual track listings: Bobby Orlando — How To Pick Up Girls, Waterfront Home — Teenage Girl In Love, Roni Griffith — Spys, Bobby Orlando — German Girl, The Flirts — Helpless (You Took My Love), The Flirts — Passion, Pet Shop Boys — West End Girls (Original Mix)

]]> http://mattrut.com/2009.09.17/how-to-pick-up-girls/feed/ 0 Cardiocleptomanie http://mattrut.com/2009.07.02/cardiocleptomanie/ http://mattrut.com/2009.07.02/cardiocleptomanie/#comments Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:14:37 +0000 Matthew Rutledge http://rutlo.com/20090702/245/
  • Pas De Deux — Cardiocleptomanie
    • ]]>     http://mattrut.com/2009.07.02/cardiocleptomanie/feed/ 0     The most obscure pop standard http://mattrut.com/2009.06.22/the-most-obscure-pop-standard/ http://mattrut.com/2009.06.22/the-most-obscure-pop-standard/#comments Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:11:18 +0000 Matthew Rutledge http://rutlo.com/?p=154 The most obscure pop standard of the 80’s must be John Paul Young’s “Soldier of Fortune”. I say pop standard because it exhibits every element of “popness” that should have ostensibly brought about an adult contemporary hit for Mr. Young. It contains a very memorable and addictive obbligato with a par-four synthesizer on typical glock mode, it features saccharine but accomplished vocals from a too-young-to-be-cool man of obscure national origin (à la Chris De Burgh), it contains fashionably insensitive references to America and savages, throws in a didgeridoo, and has a fairly good music video.

    You can tell it was produced to go somewhere, yet it only was a hit in JPY’s native Australia. His previous hit, “Love is in the air”, was top 10 in both the US, Australia and the UK.

    When you listen to it, you think you’re in an alternate universe where you are convinced you have grown up listening to this on “easy listening” radio at the dentist’s office. It’s amazing how much music, released music with accompanied videos, is out there, and how most of it is left to dry out like papyrus reed.

    Shockingly, last.fm records over 11,000 listens of “Love Is In The Air” within the past 6 months, but “Soldier of Fortune” has received 11 plays, 5 of which are mine.

    While the music video was easy to find on Youtube, the song itself seems to be out of print, and it took days for me to find a copy.

    (He looks a lot like contemporaneous Cliff Richard in this clip if you ask me)

    The song itself:

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