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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for January 27, 2016

Hostages to fortune

January 27, 2016 by Terry Teachout

81j+QO7jsEL._SL1417_I think it’s fair to say that most people think of me as a highbrow-egghead type whose tastes in pop music are meticulously consistent with his tastes in the other arts. For this reason, I thought you might possibly enjoy perusing the following non-comprehensive but nonetheless suggestive list of fifteen pop singles that you’ll almost certainly be surprised to learn that I like—a lot.

Don’t ask why. The reasons vary widely and in some cases inexplicably. Suffice it to say that I like the musical aspect of all these songs very much:

• Blue Öyster Cult, Before the Kiss, a Redcap

• Kim Carnes, Bette Davis Eyes

• Pixies, Gigantic

• Huey Lewis and the News, I Want a New Drug

• Right Said Fred, I’m Too Sexy

• Olivia Newton-John, Magic

• Maria Muldaur, Midnight at the Oasis

• The Pointer Sisters, Neutron Dance

• Melissa Manchester, Nice Girls

guillotine_alice• Alice Cooper, No More Mr. Nice Guy

• Chesney Hawkes, The One and Only (best known in this country as the theme from Doc Hollywood, which is where I first heard it)

• Murray Head, One Night in Bangkok

• Hall & Oates, Private Eyes

• The Bangles, Walk Like an Egyptian

• Toto, 99

Snapshot: Ethel Merman sings “I Get a Kick Out of You”

January 27, 2016 by Terry Teachout

TV CAMERAEthel Merman sings Cole Porter’s “I Get a Kick Out of You” on NBC’s Texaco Star Theater. She is introduced by Milton Berle, the host. Merman introduced the song in the original 1934 Broadway production of Anything Goes. This episode was originally telecast on March 22, 1949:

(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.)

Almanac: Henry James on women of action

January 27, 2016 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“She could never rid herself of the sense that unhappiness was a state of disease—of suffering as opposed to doing. To ‘do’—it hardly mattered what—would therefore be an escape, perhaps in some degree a remedy.”

Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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