Remember Toni Childs
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You know how babies and kids have blankets or teddy bears that they carry around with them until they become torn and raggedy. Well I took this cassette (remember it was released in 1988) and a Walkman with me to the Central African Republic on its release date and played Union hundreds of times as a lonely Peace Corps volunteer in need of Western culture. Needless to say I know this album well. Every track is strong but I am particularly fond of Zimbabwe (remember, I was a lone American living in the heart of Africa when I knew this album intimately) and Tin Drum. Childs has one of those uniquely strange voices, like Bjork. Some may not like it but I do. Anyway, she's not a known quantity these days and never really made it big despite this auspicious debut album. So much more talented than some of these contemporary artists like Ke$ha. Please let me know what you think of her before my Mog account expires on Dec. 2nd.
Locating MOG account...
Comments (17)
I remember this record from when it came out. High quality stuff. I always confused her with Jane Child, another artist from that era. Do you know what became of Jane or Toni?
There seemed to be a bunch of female singer-songwriters in that period coming out with major label debut records (Tori Amos, Ani DiFranco, M'Shell Ndegeocello, Jane Child, Sarah Mc), plus the successes of Bonnie Raitt...not so much these days (on the majors anyway).
No I have no idea what happened with Toni Childs. She kind of dropped off the map. I see from Mog, and Wikipedia, that she released some more music but I guess she never really became all that commercially succesful. I was listening to her on Mog stream last night at home (with a new Toshiba laptop - I am tempted to renew Mog to listen to music at home but not sure if I'll really take advantage of it so it may not be worth the $5/month) and heard some songs from later albums that I was unfamiliar with. I really liked what I heard so I may now become familiar with her latter recordings. Are you still following the 1001 list. I have been going through it chronolgically, and coincidentally, am up to 1989. Maybe that's what got me thinking of the music I was actually listening to that year.
As long as the 1001 shows up here, I check it out. Been a little busy lately though. Even if you don't do the streaming thing, check back with us from time to time.
I will if I can. Not sure what kind of access I can get to Mog without paying. Certainly won't be able to play music but perhaps I can still post. And I may very well renew some day. If I do, my settings and trusted Moggers remain the same so that's a good thing.
Well, that was a rocket ship to the past. I haven't thougth about "Don't Walk Away" since...well, 1988 I guess. Come to find out I know "Zimbabwe" too. Very strong and unique voice.
The other album I listened to incessantly on my Walkman from that time is REM's Green. That too is a really great album. Also liked the Sugarcubes debut. Nice that with Mog one can just call up these albums. I don't really have recall of other years the way I do with 1988-89 because I had such a limited number of options. I can also recall what books I read those years. Today, with the Internet, the Kindle, and iPod Nanos that contain thousands of songs I doubt PC volunteers feel the same way about remote posts and access to media. To me it was a real treat to get the occassional Newsweek sent to my village.
You can still post without a sub..
sweet, thanks, been wondering about that Cody.
Nice to know.
I dunno how annoying the ads might be, but as you might know, posting is all we did on MOG for the first 3 years or so.
I Wasn't aware of that. I only joined Mog a few months ago after the evil people at Apple shut Lala down. I am aware that it started out and remains an aggregator of music blogs. I wasn't aware that the streaming audio was a later feature.
In the beginning it was just us MOGGERS, no blog aggregation, no streaming. MOG allowed you to upload stuff through their servers after awhile, then the blog aggregation started, then streaming. But back in the day it was Music + blog=MOG. For me the other stuff was always icing on the cake, 'cause I was weaned on posting and commenting and the community. I understand how the lala folks were coming from a place where streaming was the thing..not so for the old timers here.
Thanks for the history lesson. Quite interesting. I have enjoyed my few posts, sharing some excellent albums, seeing what others think of my posts, and commenting on Reid's blog. It's definitely part of the experience and community building. Streaming alone, without the music sharing, conversations, and relationship building would indeed by a pale service.
Even Lala was originally a CD trading site for the early members there. The whole streaming part didn't really come to full fruition until the last 18 months or so and in the beginning they hid the trading community from the streaming community and did not let them interact. There definately was a community atmosphere though in the early "lounge" at Lala and friendships and good times were had.
I'm sure at some point, when and if streaming becomes the main way folks listen to music, you'll make a choice of a provider. When folks who provide the service get all their ducks in about the same functionability row...how are you gonna choose?
For me, a strong,vibrant,active community is gonna be the kicker. A stream is pretty much a stream, but I think that survival will be based on the strength of the community. My two cents on the topic.
When I transitioned to Mog I was sorry to see Lala go, partly because it was free but also because I loved the interface and it was a more aesthetically pleasing site. Mog has done away with the mail service which I had used but evidently was not taken advantage of by many. Of course people can still communicate via posts but I am not sure if one to one conversations are still possible. I do like that with this service you can listen to music repeatedly while with the other service you could only get one listen unless you paid for the album stream. I like a subscription model like this one, and a low cost. $5.00 per month seems reasonable and I would continue to pay if my work based firewall wasn't interfering with reception. But I don't stream at home. If I did, I'd keep going. In the end it'll be cost and user experience. Community is a strong part of that.
Maorka, more on this topic from another post (in case you missed it.)
http://mog.com/MusicRX/blog/2472870