timbaland, luv 2 luv u

i'm disappointed that is has taken us here at obvious jams this long to post this one. i guess some of the most obvious jams are often looked over.

so sorry, timbaland. hope u're not still mad, u know we love you, yo.

tracy chapman, fast car

come on, its obvious, isn't it?

i don't believe this, someone disabled the embedding by request. why would you want to deprive people from this?

why-o-why-o

madonna, human nature

i'm sorry for taking so long to post. i've been thinking about you, obvious jams. a lot. sometimes i don't know what i would do without you.

chicago gets me motivated in the morning and christopher cross helps me sleep at night.

lately, its been madonna, and more specifically the "bedtime stories" album that have been there for me.

& that is why i post this obvious jam. feel free to revisit this time in the mid 90's when this song came out and i'm sure u'll have flashbacks of the video. no one really does this kind of thing like her.

show some r-e-s-p-e-c-t and turn it up already!

faithless- insomnia

don't be scared.

turn off all lights- except the strobe for later on. or if you are at work just close your eyes.

and crank the vol.

what you will experience will be pure delight. enjoy.

Rapper’s Delight - The Sugarhill Gang

We can all agree that this jam is classic, but many believe that it gave rise to that form of rap that we commonly call 'hip hop'. Others maintain that the term ‘rap’ itself became known worldwide because of it. They will say, without hesitation, that this was the first hiphop track ever created. And though tempting to believe, we at Obvious Jams are under no obligation to claim any jam a “First Jam”… not in any genre.

Never has hiphop seemed so homosexual as in its first inklings.

That aside, what is perhaps more relevant to this discussion is the singular effect Rapper’s Delight has had on Western music overall. Featuring one of the earliest references to 'hip' and 'hop' and a bass line sampled from another recently popular song (Good Times by CHIC), this singular jam sought to meld an emergent urban lingo and the craft of the remix into a futuristic art form. Fortunately for us, it succeeded admirably.

What is absolutely undisputed about this jam is that it was the first ‘hiphop’ or ‘rap’ single to become a Top 40 hit. Though the Top 40 is no indication of a song’s relevance, it certainly can stand as a testament to it’s obviousness. This song’s obvious nature is a predictable result of it’s nativity: in order to capitalize on the spontaneous popularity of NYC block parties featuring the now emblematic Technics 1200 setups and brightly vested MCs, Sugar Hill Records simply formed a group of black men with easily digestible lyrics and accessible flow, had them regurgitate this jam and sat back as the money rolled in. The erstwhile record label simply said, “wow, these people have something obvious on their hands: let’s cash in!” And cash in they did. Rapper’s Delight sold more than 8 million copies.

Furthermore, it single handedly launched ‘hiphop’ into the national canon of popular music, so that today sucka MCs and old skool fools alike may wear Sean Jean threads and gold chains, throw shapes into the camera and boldly display oversized t-shirts with this cryptic message:
“I am Hip Hop”.

KRS-One currently weeps at the site of it.

swv- remix

so, human nature happens to be one of my all time mj favs. its such a hot jam and these girls have totally merged it with their own jam to make something so hott and jamable. when i hear these beats i just can't help but move and you'll find that to be the case with most people who get it.






HOLLER ALL YOU HATERS!

tina turner - we don't need another hero

tina was so on to something with this jam.

UPDATE, SOME IDIOT REMOVED THE OTHER VIDEO- THIS IS STILL A JAM THO. YOU CAN'T PUT OUT TINA'S FIRE!

she came up with this song in the 80's and it was a part of a soundtrack from a movie she did with mel gibson. so badass.

i was kind of bummed when all i could find was a live version of this song from a concert she did in amsterdam. then i watched it several times and realized what a genius performer she is. note how she is perched behind the drums for most of the song and seems to feature the keyboard/saxophone/exotic thrusting, silver spandex wearing man throughout most of the performance.




after all, we DON'T need to know the way home.

hinges

maybe we should put this baby to bed as we have just busted the hinges off of this joint.

from before- where it all started...

keep it real, y'all

see also, tlc- creep

soooo, i couldn't decide. they are both hot so i'm hitting you with a double O - J





flannel and silk pj's abound!

tlc- no scrubs

these 3 were on to something. the clothes, moves and lyrics make this a totally obvious jam! rip left eye.

& nobody does it better, obvs

carly simon- i haven't got time for the pain

obvs! i grew up on this shit. for awhile when i was younger my mom had a pbs recording of a concert she did in maine or something and it was the only vhs we had for years. i used to run around outside in a bathing suit through sprinklers my backyard singing the spider song. you know the one i mean?

my tastes have somewhat changed since then. this is such a jam.

also note: "nobody does it better"

and any other carly simon song. she is a beautiful woman with so much soul.

"all those crazy nights when i cried myself to sleep"






amen

Ease On Down The Road - Michael Jakson & Diana Ross

Is it insulting to the so-called 'blogosphere' to post a jam that is this obvious? I feel like some of you out there are going to say, 'Come On, Dave! You asshole! Tell us something we don't know!' And yet, has there really been anything on this blog that wasn't already patently obvious?

And thus, in the supreme spirit of The Seventies, where one could, and usually did, inject anything traditionally white-bread with a little Soul, we have this obvious jam featured in the 1975 Broadway musical, and later the 1978 film, The Wiz, starring Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. You will recall that The Wiz was a soulful re-imagining, what some might call an urbanization, of The Wizard of Oz, presumably designed to capture those demographics left untouched by the presence of ruby slippers and flying monkeys. With the inclusion of singing and dancing, even the film version of The Wiz was a full fledged musical.

Now, we all know that Diana Ross and Michael Jackson are cool, but have you seen them lately? Flying monkeys indeed! See, this is when they were at their respective zeniths, certainly not the butt of the numerous jokes we can all heartily chuckle at today. Though Diana Ross still maintains a dignity that Michael Jackson relinquished years ago, her career has gone somewhat sour, with renewed interest owed to another musical cum Hollywood production inspired by her past: Dreamgirls.



None of these facts can alter the course of this jam, however. It will live large in the minds of all those who have heard it and have grown up with it, long before sucka MCs like Beyonce, Christina Aguilera, et al. took the helm with their new millennium exploitations of great, classic and obvious jams.

pet shop boys- west end girls

JamMasterDizzyD, you can jump in here at any time.

the cure- just like heaven

sure, this jam is obvious and so perfect. i once heard a remix of this with an outkast song at a bar that was seriously sweet. anyone who can find this remix will be rewarded.

don't you all wish you could have stayed in bed all day?

& you wish you could walk out of your house every morning with robert smith's hair.



word.

Go West - The King of Wishful Thinking

I first encountered this song in the early 1990s while watching the beginning of an enchanting little fairytale movie you may recall entitled Pretty Woman. This song comes on strong in the movie's opening credits. I will never forget thinking as I first watched, "Who the F sings this jamming masterpiece?" I was so enthralled that my friend and I kept rewinding the movie to memorize the words. Today, I remember back and think, "Wow, we were a bunch of losers."

Whatevs... watch the video and I guarantee that you will want to shimmy to the beat. Things to take note of (and these are just a few): The lead singer's shoulders rocking to the beat. (It's infectious.) The keyboardist's T-shirt tucked into his tapered-leg jeans. The bass player's spandex black shorts and bright yellow blazer. The outfits in this piece are out of contrizzy. The zoom in to the guy's earring at 2:26... random. This video embodies all that was rad about the 1990s. Watch, love, jam!

Careless Whisper - George Michael

I could tell you numerous stories about this jam...stories to thrill you! To chill you...to make you laugh :) and ye, to make you cry ;(
But I will dispense with the emoticons and hyperbole, and simply provide you, Dear Reader, with a suggested play-list. This one is best found near the end of the night's festivities, perhaps even while the hostess has begun cleaning up to suggest to her guests that the party's over...but we have some bad news for her: once this obvious jam busts on, the party has just begun!

To correct the tendency of this jam to make a party go all night, I will, without further ado, delineate the Suggested Play-List (as I said, implement near the end of the night):

...
74.)I can't Go For That - Hall & Oates
75.)Careless Whisper - George Michael
76.)I Can See Clearly Now - Johnny Nash
77.)Get Up (I Feel Like Being Like A) Sex Machine - James Brown

The End

See what I mean? It's just this kind of careful planning of your jams that creates an obvious closure to an otherwise wide-open evening.



btdubs...be not afraid to bust this one early on in the night as well. If you are in a diverse crowd of party people who all appear to be "feeling the love", I see no reason at all that this jam wouldn't obviously sparkle.

I Can't Go For That - Hall & Oates

Write a posting for a jam this obvious? No can do...

Man Eater - Hall & Oates

I know enkay will dig this one:

Sometimes in this crazy world of obvious jamming, a jam seems to be
carefully woven into that delicate fabric of which 'obviousness' is wholly comprised. Like a fine thread it dances along in a dizzying pageant
with the garment it is part of, and by extension, with the wearer of said
garment. When we finally recognize it, we are confronted with the cosmic hierarchy that exists betwixt the Universe, the
Stars, the Air we breath, the Clothes around us, the very threads of those
clothes, and this in turn extends to Us of course, and then to the Jams
within our hearts, presumably down to atoms, quarks, leptons, bosons and
super strings that everything is made of - even Love, Rhythm and
Children's Tears. But I shall leave this path to physicists: they did so well
with the atom bomb, why not throw'em a bone?!

Sarcasm and whimsy aside, we should still pay heed to this 'fabric of
obviousness'; a fabric that can so completely escape us, even when our very
noses are saturated with it's lusty perfume. Case in point, Maneater by
Hall and Oates.

I mean, is there anywhere on this whole planet, nay the solar system,
where this jam doesn't get space and time completely rocking?! Fuck!
NASA should seriously consider using this jam as a way to generate
wormholes...because this shit travels through time as it's hitting our
eardrums!

Perhaps I should explain: the theory is that this jam has actually only
been played once, back in 1982 when it was recorded. Upon hearing
what they had created, Daryl Hall and John Oates strangely thought that
it was total crap....they never touched it again! They may have even
thrown away the master tapes for all I know.
However, this song is so incredibly tight and hot, that it can actually
escape through tears within the fabric of spacetime and, as a result,
we hear it rather frequently, but only as a sort of hyper-dimensional
echo. At first the echo was extremely vigorous and stayed at # 1 on the Billboard charts for 4 weeks. This is pretty good, considering the song technically didn't exist any more. From then on it echoed in and out of our lives, defying all known laws of physics in the process. This means it's actually traveling through time and space to rock you!



Now, you may think I'm just joking, but Hall and Oates actually created
a lesser jam called Out of Touch that described the traumatic
experience of tampering with spacetime. This jam is also fairly obvious and as such would normally be assigned its own post. However I have included it here for the sake of reference. Listen carefully and you'll see that they are obviously talking about their 'lost' jam Maneater, which is
simply out of touch (Space), out of time (Time),and out of our heads when it ain't around.
Doggs...that's because it's in outer-fucking-space.

Pay no minds, though... like I've said: it's woven into a fabric that is all
around us, just like Gravity, Fruit Roll-Ups and Trapper Keepers.

Reminiscing - Little River Band

Ok, maybe I faltered a bit there with the posts. Maybe I got greedy. So i'm back to bring it to you. Hold on tight: this one's a doozy. (How do you spell "doozy"?)
Delving back into a seemingly endless collection of Seventies, Adult
Contemporary jams, the so-called 'golden age' of funky, danceable and
obvious jams, we have this memorable number by The Little River Band:
Reminiscing.
I know we've all heard this jam, and that it's so obviously obvious
that it obfiscates with the very concept of obviousness and runs amok with
it in the obvious jam centers of the brain, but I would like to dwell a
bit on the underlying funk backbone that so infectiously permeates
throughout each measure.
Now, having said that, I will admit that much of this jam's lyrical
styling is totes gay, and the LRB can sometimes come off as an oft-ignored
wedding band, but one could say that about 1000 bands (including early
Zeppellin, Prince, and especially Toto). I'll refrain from engaging in
such exercises and instead get caught up in that backbeat, that
bass-line, and those jazzy vocals that were as smooth as cheap 70s champagne.
Oooh, I can't think, I can't even type....

Ok, I'm now over what is without question an obvious jam.



btdubs...Most Awkward Video Ever Award, 1978. Billboard Top Ten, though! Woop Woop!

It Ain't Over Till It's Over - Lenny Kravitz

My dogg Phil suggested this lil' jam after viewing obvious_jams. At first I was skeptical: "Does Leonard Kravitz actually have jams?" The answer may surprise you...or perhaps it's so obvious that you're eyes can't even see it.

What sealed the deal, other than the obviousnous of this jam, is Lenny Kravits's backstory: his mother, Roxie Roker, played Helen Willis on The Jeffersons. He's show-biz royalty, women want him, men want to be him. This would be an easy post were there clear and precise directions about when and where to play this song. But you know what, fuck that. You play this shit when you want to hear it!