Rickie Lee Jones, 'Pieces of Treasure'

[T.D.]

40 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Orb? What is Orb? 

I had to look them up.

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-orb-mn0000891575/biography

Influential armchair techno act whose thick, textural soundscapes combined '60s psychedelia and '70s prog with house beats and dub basslines.

I still don't know exactly what they are...😁 But they seem to be big in their field.

[mjazzg]

here you are folks, UK rave scene

 

 

20 minutes ago, T.D. said:

I had to look them up.

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-orb-mn0000891575/biography

Influential armchair techno act whose thick, textural soundscapes combined '60s psychedelia and '70s prog with house beats and dub basslines.

I still don't know exactly what they are...😁 But they seem to be big in their field.

They were big in lots of fields where people congregated to dance

[Harbour]

Amazed that people don’t know The Orb, they were pretty big in the US too but maybe only in certain scenes.

Rickie was none too pleased by her being sampled, she had a stinking cold when doing the interview so sounded v out of it which worked perfectly on the song, anyway I think she got some decent money because of it

The other main sample is Pat Metheny’s guitar from Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint, Steve was flattered by the sampling and didn’t sue, the drums are sampled from a drum break on Harry Nillson’s Nilsson Schmillson!

 

 

On another song they sampled Minnie Riperton’s Loving You which also fell fouls of legal powers that be so they had to replace with a soundalike.

Edited May 9, 2023 by Harbour

[Teasing the Korean]

58 minutes ago, mjazzg said:

here you are folks, UK rave scene

Love this stuff.  I never knew that was Ricky!

Edited May 9, 2023 by Teasing the Korean

[Jack Pine]

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

Orb? What is Orb? 

May I ask how old you are sir? 😎

I've been listening to the Orb since high school; I guess I've been familiar with her voice for a lot longer than I thought.

I have to admit after some exploration of her earlier work, I don't think it's really for me. I guess maybe she grew into her affect in some way? Still much respect for her as an artist.

[felser]

3 minutes ago, Jack Pine said:

May I ask how old you are sir? 😎

I've been listening to the Orb since high school; I guess I've been familiar with her voice for a lot longer than I thought.

I have to admit after some exploration of her earlier work, I don't think it's really for me. I guess maybe she grew into her affect in some way? Still much respect for her as an artist.

I know I'm really old.  Relevant question, I guess.  Since I know Rickie Lee Jones, Pat Metheny, Harry Nilsson, and Minnie Riperton all very well, does that mean I already know the Orb?  After all, I also have a music collection I can play bits of.

[mjazzg]

2 minutes ago, felser said:

I know I'm really old.  Relevant question, I guess.  Since I know Rickie Lee Jones, Pat Metheny, Harry Nilsson, and Minnie Riperton all very well, does that mean I already know the Orb?  After all, I also have a music collection I can play bits of.

🤣 

It all depends on what bits in which order. You'll also need a good beat to go underneath it all. You're bound to have that somewhere too.

You could be onto something...it might catch on 😆

[JSngry]

2 hours ago, Jack Pine said:

May I ask how old you are sir? 😎

I've been listening to the Orb since high school; I guess I've been familiar with her voice for a lot longer than I thought.

I have to admit after some exploration of her earlier work, I don't think it's really for me. I guess maybe she grew into her affect in some way? Still much respect for her as an artist.

I'm 67, but backed into house/ remix/DJ culture about a decade or so ago, but only played connect-the-dots through blogs and such. Those dots never made it to there 

No complaints about that though. I realized early into it that there's a LOT of there, there. I didn't miss anything that I missed, let me put it that way. And what I did find enriched me. So no complaints, no regrets. 

[rostasi]

I've always disliked her intensely since that first album.
With friends, we used to always refer to her as Rickie Heroin in the 80s - 
I think it was that awfully contrived self-styled bohemianism in her voice along
with those strained "cool & hip" mannerisms that really were extremely laughable.

The Orb - on the other hand - is Alex Patterson's (ad)venture that I gladly latched onto in the early 90's.
I still have some rare sides and special limited editions (LPs in PVC packaging - some unopened - for instance.)
"Prism," which is the latest, came out last week.

[JSngry]

Ok, early 90s. That explains it. 

[T.D.]

31 minutes ago, rostasi said:

I've always disliked her intensely since that first album.
With friends, we used to always refer to her as Rickie Heroin in the 80s - 
I think it was that awfully contrived self-styled bohemianism in her voice along
with those strained "cool & hip" mannerisms that really were extremely laughable.

The Orb - on the other hand - is Alex Patterson's (ad)venture that I gladly latched onto in the early 90's.
I still have some rare sides and special limited editions (LPs in PVC packaging - some unopened - for instance.)
"Prism," which is the latest, came out last week.

I initially enjoyed RLJ's first album and the Saturday Night Live appearance referred to above, for instance. But I soon revised my opinion, finding her extremely affected (some combination of drug chic and contrived beat mannerisms that were massive turnoffs) and (good term) "strained". Lost interest and stopped paying attention after a couple more albums. Wouldn't be surprised if she's recorded some good stuff since then, but it hasn't been a listening priority.

Nothing against the Orb, I simply never heard of them until this thread. In the early '90s when they appeared I was mainly into classical music. Subsequently it's been "too much music, too little time" and all that.

BTW (in response to previous posts), I'm 65 and don't have any issues with sampling, etc. 

Edited May 10, 2023 by T.D.

[rostasi]

57 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Ok, early 90s. That explains it. 

Yeah, but they’ve released stuff nearly every year since then.

[jazzbo]

I can certainly see why some here dislike Rickie Lee. By the same token I really don't like some artists these do. That's the way of it.

As much as I really enjoyed Rickie Lee's earliest as it came out and seasoned, I think that her work of this century is better still. But no one is for everyone.

[romualdo]

Rickie has a special importance here in Australia but most of our population would not be aware that she (& Becker) wrote "The Horses".

It was a massive hit (got to #1) here in Australia covered by Darryl Braithwaite (ex 70s pop band Sherbert) in 1990.

It has become an australian musical meme & absolutely adored by my children's generation (20 yo's+). The vast majority of australians will claim that Braithwaite wrote it.

I heard her perform it plus a number of her composition at the Blues & Roots Festival (Byron Bay) not that long ago.

BTW that's Ricki on the inside & back cover of Tom Waits' "Blue Valentine" LP

[Jack Pine]

9 hours ago, JSngry said:

I'm 67, but backed into house/ remix/DJ culture about a decade or so ago, but only played connect-the-dots through blogs and such. Those dots never made it to there 

No complaints about that though. I realized early into it that there's a LOT of there, there. I didn't miss anything that I missed, let me put it that way. And what I did find enriched me. So no complaints, no regrets. 

Indeed, the electronic music scene is vast, and can be difficult to parse. I think you found some good stuff though; I seem to recall a thread where you mention Kerri Chandler and some other great electronic artists. Frankly I don't think The Orb are really all that hip in the eyes of most serious house/techno fans anyway: they are kind of a smooth pop version of the more raw underground stuff.

[JSngry]

8 hours ago, rostasi said:

Yeah, but they’ve released stuff nearly every year since then.

Yeah, but I would not have been caring. 

[T.D.]

8 hours ago, romualdo said:

...

BTW that's Ricki on the inside & back cover of Tom Waits' "Blue Valentine" LP

They had a relationship for a while iirc. That was back in the days (late '70s) when I still paid attention to such media stories. [I gradually lost touch with "popular culture", mainly via not watching television.]

[jazzbo]

Yes, Waits and Jones were together for two years ending late 1979.