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Gr00vus's Favorite 50 Songs - 1: Synchronicity II (2 Viewers)

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaw Come On!"

27: The Mob Rules, Black Sabbath, 1981

This song is a sonic wrecking ball. It smashes from start to finish, no let up, makes you feel like you could run through a building. If you're missing the intro to the song, here's a clip with E5150 and The Mob Rules uninterrupted. Along with the relentless rhythm and Dio's arch-demoniacal caterwauling, it's another showpiece of excellent metal riffs from the metal riff master Tony Iommi. I also love how he gets his guitar to sound like an oscillating radio signal at various points in his solos.

This song was featured in the 1981 movie "Heavy Metal" in the Tarna vignette. In truth it was the only metal song on the whole soundtrack. "To the council chambers!"

It may be sacrilege, but I like the sound on the album this song comes from (Mob Rules) best among Sabbath's catalog. The production quality is there and Dio is in full throat. I much prefer Dio to Ozzy musically. Though Dio can get into almost self parody at times when he emits his angry frog voice (a characteristic that many other metal singers adopted to be their entire style unfortunately) most of the time he's the perfect flamethrower for this kind of material. I find Ozzy tends to whiny, which I can't listen to for very long.

Anyway, listen to this song and go out and destroy some ####.

 
Gr00vus said:
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaw Come On!"

27: The Mob Rules, Black Sabbath, 1981

This song is a sonic wrecking ball. It smashes from start to finish, no let up, makes you feel like you could run through a building. If you're missing the intro to the song, here's a clip with E5150 and The Mob Rules uninterrupted. Along with the relentless rhythm and Dio's arch-demoniacal caterwauling, it's another showpiece of excellent metal riffs from the metal riff master Tony Iommi. I also love how he gets his guitar to sound like an oscillating radio signal at various points in his solos.

This song was featured in the 1981 movie "Heavy Metal" in the Tarna vignette. In truth it was the only metal song on the whole soundtrack. "To the council chambers!"

It may be sacrilege, but I like the sound on the album this song comes from (Mob Rules) best among Sabbath's catalog. The production quality is there and Dio is in full throat. I much prefer Dio to Ozzy musically. Though Dio can get into almost self parody at times when he emits his angry frog voice (a characteristic that many other metal singers adopted to be their entire style unfortunately) most of the time he's the perfect flamethrower for this kind of material. I find Ozzy tends to whiny, which I can't listen to for very long.

Anyway, listen to this song and go out and destroy some ####.
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the musical equivalent of catching someone masturbating....

 
preferred sabbath tunes...

exhibit A- especially the drumming

exhibit duh- smiley singing is super duper metal if pitchy.

sorry. shameless. but floppinho's participation in that sabbath vs ac/dc session gave me a lot more appreciation for sabbath.
 
Interesting pick. Love Dio Sabbath but a couple earlier tunes like neon nights or heaven and hell might rank higher with me. 

 
"I'm finding out what you're all about."

26: Dead Giveaway, Shalamar, 1983

This is the song that played during the opening credits of the mostly forgettable 80s "buddy" movie by the same name (Dead Giveaway), in which Gregory Hines (playing a private investigator) and Jeff Goldblum (playing a psychologist) get played by their mutual "client" Sean Young (whom they both fall in love with), who's framing both of them for the murder of her rich husband. Had a decent car chase and a couple of funny gags, but that's about it.*

This song, well maybe in 5 years it wouldn't make this list, but right now it's in my head and I can't get it out. I can't totally explain my love for this one musically either. The drum loop is pretty square (whether it was a couple measures of a live drummer looped or a program, the end result is the same), not really funky - white man's overbite material. The whip crack clap track is pretty good. I do enjoy the manic synths here, such a mid 80s sound feel, but I don't enjoy them in most other places I encounter them. Jesse Johnson (most associated with being the Time's guitarist) provides a solid guitar solo (according to accepted legend) - not an all timer, but serves the song well. I really like the bass lines, that may be the foundation of the song for me - both the synth bass and the electric string bass are nice hooks. Probably the vocals are the best part of this thing, in particular the staccato responses by the backup singers. The end result I guess makes this memorable for me amongst a sea of sound alike neutered 80's r&b tracks, I can't really pin down why. I have a hunch Jody Watley is the kicker (more on her in a bit), but in the end, the ears want what the ears want I guess.

Apart from wondering why I'd go with this particular 80's r&b song, you may also be wondering why this particular Shalamar song? You could argue, and probably win a popular vote, that Second Time Around, Make That Move, or several other songs of theirs are better. Maybe even Take That To The Bank if you're @SWC (yep there's actually a take that to the bank song). I wouldn't argue with you much, those tunes are much funkier. I invite you to make your arguments here, either about which Shalamar song you'd prefer, or a representative of a better 80s r&b track.

Shalamar was an interesting act. It was a laboratory fabrication, the brain child of Soul Train producer/creator Don Cornelius and Soul Train booking agent **** Griffey (if you don't know what Soul Train is, get educated). They became focused on two regular dancers, who became feature performers -  Jeffrey Daniel and Jody Watley - and figured they'd make a song dance outfit with them as the core. Jeffrey Daniel was sort of a mentor to Michael Jackson in terms of dance moves - Jackson mentioned on occasion that he'd speak with Daniels about his moves as well as watching/copping his work. They had pretty much all the moves. It turns out that they could sing as well. The band went through a few 3rd members before landing on Howard Hewett. Those three are the combination that produced their biggest hits. It's tough to know who played behind them, a faceless conglomeration of ace studio musicians. The result was some ultra smooth disco/funk up through the mid 80s, fronted by some great dance/sing folks.

There's a video for the song. It's not a very good video, mainly notable for Jody Watley's eccentric performance with the clap/freeze choreography. At this point the relationship between these three was pretty much toxic, particularly between Hewett and Watley, and Watley had pretty much checked out. Egos had come to dominate the dynamics with bitter results. This is evident in the video as well - that's not actually Watley in the mask that Hewett is chasing around whatever city that is - she would have nothing to do with him at this point. The video was the end of this iteration of the act, and it never recovered. All three went on to solo careers, with Watley having the most individual success. Which wasn't surprising as she was a talented dancer, vocalist and was/is red hot sexy. She may not be a tier 1 diva, maybe not tier 2, but she's a great performer none the less.

Thank you for indulging me in the Shalamar interlude. I accept all your slings and arrows now about how this spot should have gone to an Earth Wind And Fire or Gap Band (or any other) song with little resistance. Post away.

* No such movie was ever made or even written to the best of my knowledge, I just now made it up. But you could totally imagine that movie and know this is the exact song that would lead the soundtrack.

 
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Shalamar was a perfectly acceptable 2nd-or-3rd tier act - the kind that's been propping up pop charts since Day One. There was nothing particularly original about them (both Brothers Johnson and Kool & The Gang were doing this particular stripped-down New Wave-ish r&b better in the early '80s), other than Whatley's stunning looks. But they did what they did well and had maybe half a dozen radio hits - "Right In The Socket" is another I can recall off the top of my head, in addition to those Groovus mentioned.

"Second Time Around" is probably my favorite for personal reasons, but choosing a "best" Shalamar record is probably not worth the effort since they rode the same groove in all of their hits.

 
Around the same time Shalamar was popular, a group called Champaign had a couple of really nice, slower jams in kind of the same, minimal vein:

How 'Bout Us (this is what cocaine looked like in the early '80s, kids - not one person in that video weighs more than 130 lbs) & Try Again. That dude was truly a gifted ballad singer.

Even though funk had collapsed and their was not much to fill the void - The Commodores were on their last legs and so was EWF, though Prince & Stevie were still doing their things - I still listened a good bit to black radio then. One morning, as I was getting ready for work, I heard something that didn't sound like anything else currently playing. It sounded like the future and it turned out, for once, that I was at least half-right.

The singing on this record is definitely late '80s, '90s. The intro is backwards-looking and (like everything else in the '70s, too long), but once the main groove locks (forerunning house music) in it's about as unique and exciting as black rock got (sans Prince and the occasional George Clinton cut). As far as I know, these guys never did anything else but - man - what a one-shot.

The Valentine Brothers - Just Let Me Be Close To You

 
Uruk-Hai said:
Around the same time Shalamar was popular, a group called Champaign had a couple of really nice, slower jams in kind of the same, minimal vein:

How 'Bout Us (this is what cocaine looked like in the early '80s, kids - not one person in that video weighs more than 130 lbs) & Try Again. That dude was truly a gifted ballad singer.

Even though funk had collapsed and their was not much to fill the void - The Commodores were on their last legs and so was EWF, though Prince & Stevie were still doing their things - I still listened a good bit to black radio then. One morning, as I was getting ready for work, I heard something that didn't sound like anything else currently playing. It sounded like the future and it turned out, for once, that I was at least half-right.

The singing on this record is definitely late '80s, '90s. The intro is backwards-looking and (like everything else in the '70s, too long), but once the main groove locks (forerunning house music) in it's about as unique and exciting as black rock got (sans Prince and the occasional George Clinton cut). As far as I know, these guys never did anything else but - man - what a one-shot.

The Valentine Brothers - Just Let Me Be Close To You
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That Valentine Brothers track works. The vocals are super, sometimes like a cross of George Benson and Marvin Gaye, but their own thing to be sure. All the harmonies going on, so good. And the backing track has kind of a Zapp feel.

Also, :lmao:  at the 130 lbs thing - I wouldn't have picked up on that if you hadn't pointed it out.

 
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Gr00vus said:
That Valentine Brothers track works. The vocals are super, sometimes like a cross of George Benson and Marvin Gaye, but their own thing to be sure. All the harmonies going on, so good.

Also, :lmao:  at the 130 lbs thing - I wouldn't have picked up on that if you hadn't pointed it out.
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The only one in the video who looks healthy & fit is the lady, but she's a foot shorter than the rest and is probably carrying the same weight.

The early 80s was a really strange time for mainstream r&b. Disco & funk had both wiped out around the same time, and hip hop hadn't gone big yet. 

 
Uruk-Hai said:
The only one in the video who looks healthy & fit is the lady, but she's a foot shorter than the rest and is probably carrying the same weight.

The early 80s was a really strange time for mainstream r&b. Disco & funk had both wiped out around the same time, and hip hop hadn't gone big yet. 
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The whole "Death To Disco" backlash took down everything in even remote vicinity. It took like 10 years or more to recover and make it o.k. to funk again. Popular "Dance music" in the 80's was mostly awful as a result.

 
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Gr00vus said:
Derailing is pretty much the entire point of this thread. The songs are just an invitation to discussion really, wherever that goes.
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Gotcha. Shalamar may be a wee bit outside of the board demographic - though I think @simey may be a fan - so I figured there might not be many comments and felt like running off at the keyboard for, IMO, an unfairly forgotten time in music.

 
Uruk-Hai said:
Gotcha. Shalamar may be a wee bit outside of the board demographic - though I think @simey may be a fan - so I figured there might not be many comments and felt like running off at the keyboard for, IMO, an unfairly forgotten time in music.
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Exactly - I enjoy the run offs. Like I said, people want to shine a light on the Gap Band, Brothers Johnson, Patrice Rushen, whoever, I'd love it.

 
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Gr00vus said:
The whole "Death To Disco" backlash took down everything in even remote vicinity. It took like 10 years or more to recover and make it o.k. to funk again. Popular "Dance music" in the 80's was mostly awful as a result.
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The ironic thing about the "disco sucks" thing is that AOR - the music many of disco's most vehement haters loved - was done, too. 

 
Uruk-Hai said:
The ironic thing about the "disco sucks" thing is that AOR - the music many of disco's most vehement haters loved - was done, too. 
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Pretty much. Everything fractured into a whole bunch of other stuff. Never really came back together either.

 
Gr00vus said:
Exactly - I enjoy the run offs. Like I said, people want to shine a light on the Gap Band, Brothers Johnson, Patrice Rushen, whoever, I'd love it.
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When I was in high school we had HBO, and I had started recording all of the comedy specials on the 'ole VHS and watching those tapes over and over.  Kinison, Robin Williams, Steven Wright, Eddie, Dice, and all of the up-and-comers on the Young Comedians Special.  We're talking 86-88 here so Comedy Central was still a few years away and HBO was the only place to find stand-up.

In 1987 HBO aired live Robert Townsend and His Partners in Crime, a combination of stand-up, pre-recorded skits, and music acts.  Franklin Ajaye, Keenan Ivory Wayans, Damon Wayans, Paul Mooney, and in parts 2 and 3 over the next couple of years guys like John Witherspoon, Tommy Davidson, and David Alan Grier.  And for a kid who also loved watching Kung Fu Theater, it featured one of my favorite routines ever.  In an attempt to tie this rambling back to the thread, the musical guests were Howard Hewett and Patrice Rushen.  

I hadn't heard of any of these people (who is this Al Green they keep referring to?).  I was a white high school kid in a white suburb of the whitest major town in America (Portland) who listened to local pop radio and who's parents listened to Anne Murray, Hooked on Classics, and The Carpenters. I didn't know anybody who talked and sounded like this.  And I was blown away.  I started seeking out anything related to black culture - movies, music, comedy.   The next year I went to see the movie Colors, and as I heard for the first time "I am a nightmare walking, psychopath talking, king of the jungle just a gangster stalking..." I knew I had found "my music".  Yo! MTV Raps launched later that same year.  Soon my entire music collection was made up of cassettes by Ice T, LL, NWA, Too Short, Eric B & Rakim, Run D.M.C., Big Daddy Kane, Kool Moe Dee, and still probably my favorite group of all time, Public Enemy.  And over the next few years I started going backward to the R&B and funk and soul and jazz music that inspired so much of what was happening in hip hop.

In today's world where hip hop culture is almost the default for so many white, suburban kids it's a little strange to think of a time when I was the weird one who was made fun of throughout high school and college. 

tl;dr - because of comedy specials that featured Howard Hewett and Patrice Rushen, I pretty much exclusively listened to hip hop, r&b, funk, and soul for most of my teens and early 20s.  And my life is a lot more boring than wikkid's.  

 
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SFBayDuck said:
it featured one of my favorite routines ever. 
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Man, I remember that show and that spot. Hilarious. Thanks for reminding me, I hadn't seen it in a while.

I never really got on board the rap/hip hop train. I enjoyed Curtis Blow, Run DMC, Grandmaster Flash, The Beasties, etc. Things had changed with Fight The Power back in 89. It's a great tune, and it took rap in another direction from that point forward. But it was a direction I just didn't feel to go in. Hip hop, just isn't me. I was left behind with the regular old funk/disco cohort. 

 
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Gr00vus said:
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaw Come On!"

27: The Mob Rules, Black Sabbath, 1981

This song is a sonic wrecking ball. It smashes from start to finish, no let up, makes you feel like you could run through a building. If you're missing the intro to the song, here's a clip with E5150 and The Mob Rules uninterrupted. Along with the relentless rhythm and Dio's arch-demoniacal caterwauling, it's another showpiece of excellent metal riffs from the metal riff master Tony Iommi. I also love how he gets his guitar to sound like an oscillating radio signal at various points in his solos.

This song was featured in the 1981 movie "Heavy Metal" in the Tarna vignette. In truth it was the only metal song on the whole soundtrack. "To the council chambers!"

It may be sacrilege, but I like the sound on the album this song comes from (Mob Rules) best among Sabbath's catalog. The production quality is there and Dio is in full throat. I much prefer Dio to Ozzy musically. Though Dio can get into almost self parody at times when he emits his angry frog voice (a characteristic that many other metal singers adopted to be their entire style unfortunately) most of the time he's the perfect flamethrower for this kind of material. I find Ozzy tends to whiny, which I can't listen to for very long.

Anyway, listen to this song and go out and destroy some ####.
Click to expand...
The Ronnie James Dio Band Act II.  :)

 
"I'm cashing in this ten cent life for another one"

25: Night By Night, Steely Dan, 1974

We're in the 2nd half of the list now, so I'll treat myself to a little Steely Dan to celebrate.

There are noir films, this is a noir song. You can picture this one playing out in black and white, a gritty, down on his luck ne'er do well trying to finally make a winning play, getting crushed again and trying to find the strength to move on. The hope of making it a better life always ahead but never realistically achievable. So he lives, as we all do, day to day - night by night.

It's got a slow funk rhythm, with a syncopated keyboard pattern which lock you in. Fagen's vocals are good - you can hear him as the protagonist, and the slinky backing vocals add a layer of honey on top. There's a solid guitar solo, but as with previous songs, the horns (and backing vocals) may be the best part of this one. Though Jim Gordon played drums on the rest of the album, Jeff Porcaro (another drummer's drummer) is responsible for this funky little drum track. I find myself captivated by the excessively sharp lyrics and the haunting "night by night" backing vocals. Fagan empties the chamber with a ton of great phrases in the lyrics for this song that hit home every time. I had a tough time deciding which to feature above, and I'm still not sure I made the best choice. He manages to capture the essence of despair with his words multiple times for such a short song.

This track comes from the album Pretzel Logic, which has much more famous tunes on it. The album marked Steely Dan's return to the charts after a brief hiccup on their 2nd album (Countdown To Ecstasy), it also marks the last time Steely Dan was comprised of its original members. From this point forward Steely Dan would become Fagen, Becker, and whatever collection of studio musicians worked best for the track at hand. It's my second favorite Steely Dan album, maybe my first on a given day.

 
Gr00vus said:
"I'm cashing in this ten cent life for another one"

25: Night By Night, Steely Dan, 1974

We're in the 2nd half of the list now, so I'll treat myself to a little Steely Dan to celebrate.

There are noir films, this is a noir song. You can picture this one playing out in black and white, a gritty, down on his luck ne'er do well trying to finally make a winning play, getting crushed again and trying to find the strength to move on. The hope of making it a better life always ahead but never realistically achievable. So he lives, as we all do, day to day - night by night.

It's got a slow funk rhythm, with a syncopated keyboard pattern which lock you in. Fagen's vocals are good - you can hear him as the protagonist, and the slinky backing vocals add a layer of honey on top. There's a solid guitar solo, but as with previous songs, the horns (and backing vocals) may be the best part of this one. Though Jim Gordon played drums on the rest of the album, Jeff Porcaro (another drummer's drummer) is responsible for this funky little drum track. I find myself captivated by the excessively sharp lyrics and the haunting "night by night" backing vocals. Fagan empties the chamber with a ton of great phrases in the lyrics for this song that hit home every time. I had a tough time deciding which to feature above, and I'm still not sure I made the best choice. He manages to capture the essence of despair with his words multiple times for such a short song.

This track comes from the album Pretzel Logic, which has much more famous tunes on it. The album marked Steely Dan's return to the charts after a brief hiccup on their 2nd album (Countdown To Ecstasy), it also marks the last time Steely Dan was comprised of its original members. From this point forward Steely Dan would become Fagen, Becker, and whatever collection of studio musicians worked best for the track at hand. It's my second favorite Steely Dan album, maybe my first on a given day.
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No, i think you picked precisely the point where Steely Dan began to matter and forge the path which makes them arguably the definitive American band. Up til this, we could tell they were smarter than us, with all their chord patterns & changes, transblitzerous musicianship and burgeoning elevation of the wiseass, the major dude. But it's the bringing us into the night where anything can happen and probably already has and you might end up gettin' blamed for it that made the Dan. This is where their ship came in, praise be to Jesus, the majorest dude of all.

 
Love me some Shalamar although that track wasn't my favorite.  Shalamar was huge in the UK in part because their fashion sense set them apart from most other American R&B acts. 

The early 80s were my dancing years and it wasn't unusual to hear Shalamar and Midnight Star mixed in with Depeche Mode and Culture Club in the club. Mrs Eephus loves to dance and the way her face lit up on the dance floor was one of things that made me fall in love. 

 
Eephus said:
Love me some Shalamar although that track wasn't my favorite.  Shalamar was huge in the UK in part because their fashion sense set them apart from most other American R&B acts. 

The early 80s were my dancing years and it wasn't unusual to hear Shalamar and Midnight Star mixed in with Depeche Mode and Culture Club in the club. Mrs Eephus loves to dance and the way her face lit up on the dance floor was one of things that made me fall in love. 
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These are the posts that make this thread worthwhile.

 
In reading a bit more on Night By Night, I guess Jeff Porcaro was all of 19 years old when he recorded that. I can't imagine what that must have been like. You're walking in there to cut a song for these guys, instead of Jim Gordon - my ### would have been tighter than my snare drum. And you can totally tell he gave that song a different feel than Jim Gordon would have too. Just fantastic.

 
"And so in her you'll find sanctuary"

24: She Sells Sanctuary, The Cult, 1985

This is one of those songs where you basically have no idea what the lyrics are most of the time (I'd be curious to see what my fellow posters come up with as to what they think is being said). Like the quote up there, doesn't agree with some of the lyrics posts I looked up (some have it "inside her you'll find", some have "I'm sure in her you'll find"), but it's what I hear. And still it's great. Awesome, straight ahead, driving drum and bass tracks. Ian Astbury's distinctive high pitch vocals, without the harsher screaming edge he added on subsequent albums. And all those Billy Duffy guitar hooks - so many of them just in one song. I especially like the acoustic guitar flourishes throughout - at the time this song came out you almost never heard acoustic guitars on rock tracks unless it was a ballad of some kind.

Beyond that, at this point in my life I was firmly ensconced in the KROQ (an L.A. radio station) envelope. And at this point in their career, that radio station played mostly new wave with a bit of punk. Then this song entered their rotation and reminded me of what rock and roll was outside of a hair band context. I was a fan of the Cult from note one. They went on an interesting journey throughout their career. People to this day still have trouble categorizing them, though at the peak of their popularity they were basically a hard rock outfit. They weren't quite there yet on the Love album (which I believe to be their best), they were experimenting with some kind of spiritual/goth rock thing, which I find a bit more interesting than what they later became after Rick Rubin got his hands on them.

The band is essentially Astbury and Duffy - all the other musicians came and went. They went through drummers at an incredible rate. Though Mark Brzezicki (most famous for being the drummer for Big Country, but also a studio guy) is shown in the video for this song, it's actually Nigel Preston (the Cult's "first" drummer) who plays on it. And that makes sense because it doesn't sound like a Brezicki part (he also looks pretty uncomfortable playing it in the video). Years of alcohol abuse caused all kinds of problems within the band, but I believe they're still out there touring to this day in some form or another.

This song has appeared in many video games, movies and commercials in the years between 1985 and now,  but I knew it from when. Anyway, wherever you hear it, this is their best song, and has been one of my favorite songs from the day I first heard it.

And now, how gypsy pirates might dance to this song.

 
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wikkidpissah said:
I'm glad this was a football-day choice. I never knew whether these guys wanted to be U2 or the Cure or what. Very deriv, for my dough. Good song & all......
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I don't hear much of the Cure or U2 in their music. :shrug:  Some similarity in guitar riffs to I Will Follow maybe.

 
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