6 or 5: Screamin' Jay Hawkins: "I Put a Spell on You"

Pretty soon I won't have to write anything ever. I'll just simply post a YouTube video that gets my point across. Ugh.

Anyway...

I'm breaking all kinds of my initial rules here, but it makes sense to me. And Screamin' Jay Hawkins strolls at chirp factor five (see previous posts about the "chirp"). "I Put a Spell on You" came out in 1956 and Screamin' Jay Hawkins already had a stage show in which he came to the stage by way of flaming coffin. Brilliant. In terms of genre, you could put this in blues or rock as well--it certainly influenced a lot of musicians and music. Two of my favorite versions are done by Nina Simone and Diamanda Galas. For me, I connect this to the showmanship, strangeness, and subversiveness of some pop music.

Some of the connections I'm making here, may be slight at best, but if you watch Hawkins's performance and then the Spears performance of "I'm a Slave 4 U," it may be a little clearer.


Shock Rock:
Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper (who used with West Side Story and has elements of it on many early albums), (The "Thriller" video?), GWAR, Marilyn Manson, Scandinavian death metal bands with corpse paint, etc.

"Strange" Rock/Pop: "I Am the Walrus"~Beatles, "Turning Japanese"~The Vapours, "Fish Heads"~Barnes and Barnes, "Mexican Radio"~Wall of Voodoo, "She Don't Use Jelly"~Flaming Lips, "Detachable Penis"~King Missile, etc. (Many of these were never Top 40, neither was "I Put a Spell on You").

Growing Pains: Madonna, Britney (particularly "I'm a Slave 4 U," Xtina (The "Dirty" side of Christina Aguilera), etc.