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Mr. Rodgers's Neighborhood (2011) (nilerodgers.com)
103 points by norescue on March 6, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 21 comments


If you liked reading this, search "Nile Rodgers interview" on youtube and watch any of them. He has hundreds of interesting anecdotes, and is, for my money, as good at telling a story as it gets.


Amazing story. Nile Rodgers is a legend.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nile_Rodgers


What a career – who didn't he produce for? Diana Ross, David Bowie, Duran Duran, Mick Jagger, INXS, Madonna, Grace Jones, Cindi Lauper, Sheena Easton the list goes on and on . . . Al Jarreau (L is for Lover – I forgot I listened to my brother's copy of this record) . . .

"In February 2012, Rodgers announced that he was collaborating with electronic band Daft Punk for their latest album, "teasing out their R&B influences". The record, Random Access Memories was released in 2013. Rodgers co-wrote and played guitar on three tracks: "Give Life Back to Music", "Lose Yourself to Dance", and "Get Lucky"."

I was not aware – but I guess I should have known ? – who played the guitar on "Get Lucky": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3s5D2HnQiE


I saw Nile play last year, Duran Duran hired him as an opening act.

The man still has it. And what really blew me away is that he was up there on stage with the Hitmaker, the 1960 Stratocaster that has sold 100 million albums.

http://www.nilerodgers.com/about/the-hitmaker


The music video for this song was teased long in advance of the album and it was just unerringly cool at the time.

It was followed by some more teases with some semis in Japan. https://youtu.be/92by5ZdVzEM

Eventually the record dropped though, and to me nothing that came afterward beat this particular track and the brevity of the originally teased music video.

Edit: here’s the teaser. Apparently it was shown at Coachella https://youtu.be/1Ep2NDJXS5g


"Unerringly cool" is the constant Daft Punk descriptor. Those guys had their fingers on and in the pulse for decades, absolute legends. Not to take anything away from Nile or anyone else of course. Just crazy how fresh they managed to stay for so long.


This autobiography is a must read if you are a musician. You won't want to put it down and you'll listen to all his collab hits in a different, new way.


I try not to have heroes but this guy and his history is just irresistible to me.

Ok I'll say it out loud: Nile Rodgers is my hero!


Not at all that Mr.Rogers. Interesting read, especially being in my old neighborhood yet far removed from anything I'd ever see first hand, but very clickbait title.


Not at all that Mr.Rogers.

Clearly not, given the context clues of the different spelling of the name and the fact that HN shows the domain nilerodgers.com.


I'll allow it, since likely a fan of that Mr. Rogers probably enjoyed the article. I did.


To cut the title here some slack, it is the title of the essay :)


The HN guidelines call for changing titles when the original is misleading or clickbait: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

In this case the original title is arguably both, but on the other hand (1) it's literally a description of the content, which is fascinating; and (2) the 'd' in 'Rodgers' is a decisive if subtle cue to the difference.

It's a borderline call, but I think in this case the title is tasteful and crafted enough to not be garden-variety clickbait and we should keep it.


From my European perspective I immediately assumed it was about this Mr. Rodgers, and I had to search to find the other Mr. Rogers alluded to.


Personally I'd consider it wordplay. I certainly didn't take offense at the title or feel misled, and it seems to me that the person I responded to didn't either. Maybe we should take everything so seriously?


Never underestimate the power of the dreaded title fever... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

I didn't mean to imply that you were infected by it! I just knew we would have a breakout somewhere.


There's also the "'s" at the end as well - Mr. Fred had his show named "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood", not "Rodgers's".


Agree. I was only misled for microsecond. For me the title is whimsical, not deliberate clickbait.


I've never heard the elitist basis of the HN title policy expressed so plainly. So it's not to preserve the sanity of neurodivergent readers, or stop them from getting annoyed with tricksy titles that have to be decoded, or to maintain a serious tone, but actually (and merely) to establish HN as somehow above the throng.

Elitism. Snobbery. Ugh.


Not sure how you got from what I wrote to any of that!


Nothing bugged me about dang's comment. His choice of words is more formal than the average web comment, so maybe that rubs some people the wrong way?

What specifically could HN do differently to be less snobby?




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