Boogie Friday: Convention Special

I work a couple of streets away from the Fleet Center in Boston where the Democratic National Convention has been on all this week and as you can imagine it's been a bit of a circus around here. Well, what I imagine a circus in a police state looks like anyway, what with the hordes of police and soldiers hanging around on every corner, the roadblocks, helicopters patroling the skies and demonstrators stuck in razor-wire ringed pens - sorry, Free Speech Zones. But that's a subject for another day and probably another blog, I want to talk about something far more important - the music they played at the convention. It seemed that every speaker who walked out on stage was accompanied by some vintage R&B. The Democrats clearly wanted to send a strong message to the American people that they like to kick it old skool. John Edwards came on to Jackie Wilson's "Higher and Higher", Barack Obama stepped out to the strains of The Impression's "Keep On Pushing" (a smart choice as they're from Chicago where he's running for office) and Wesley Clarke had '"What's Going On?" which seems strange as he's a General and it's an anti-war song. And while I didn't hear it with my own ears I just know that they must have played James Brown's "I Feel Good" at some point as it's the cliched go-to tune for funky upbeat positivity and a tune that even the stiffest, non-funky white person knows because of it's use in things like hemorrhoid commercials. It was all very obvious stuff in an oldies-radio sort of way but I just wonder what other choices they could have made if they were just a little bit hipper. I think Sterling Void's wonderful House anthem from 1987 (also well covered by the Pet Shop Boys in 1988) would have fit the bill perfectly - it's upbeat, uplifting, positive and it mentions Afghanistan - and then they could have turned the convention into a monster rave. Next time they should have Al Sharpton manning the decks, that would sho' nuff be funky.

[Download]
It's Alright - Sterling Void