I did not expect A6 to be my second favorite Lights album.
It's still not Siberia, but it's got a similarly unique - yes, I know. Oxymoron. Stay with me here - sound. It's a great, great album, end to end.
And I really can't wait until the as-of-this-writing-not-annouced-but-history-tells-me-I-am-right A6 Acoustic album next year. I'll happily update this post with the new version of 'Clingy", the fifth single from A6 and my personal favorite song on the record.
Anyway, my sister goes to a lot of concerts. One of them she went to earlier this year is tomorrow's featured artist, and I'll talk more about that then, but this was a special one-off show in Buffalo, and Lights was one of the opening acts.
This is one of those songs and bands you've heard, but you may not have known by name.
And yet, you hear this song and you know it instantly.
Produced by George Harrison, this 1971 single was Badfinger's biggest US hit. They were far from a one hit wonder, but their popularity in the US was not as prolific as their associates, The Beatles. However, their slide guitar solo skills are a lot better. Of course, those slide guitar parts were played by George Harrison..... so, maybe not.
But six women ended up winning this show - represent South Korea, Philippines, United States and Switzerland's best... K-Pop artists.
Here is their recent single. It was co-written by Charli XCX and previously offered to Rita Ora and Anitta (who both did record demos of the song that aren't bad). For a manufactured group with not the greatest dancer, they aren't half bad. The video is quite entertaining.
The group also performed the song last month at Lollapalooza.
Notice how we didn't say they "sung". It's very much about the performance.
Adéla Jergová is a singer from Slovakia. Now, we don't talk much about Slovakia here, and that's part of the problem. You see, her singing career really started when she moved to Los Angeles in 2022, aged 18. She moved there to compete in a reality series - Dream Academy - where the prize, in a very Korean-style competition, was to be in a 6-piece group called Katseye.
The show was in 2023, about a year after she moved there to train for the academy, and she competed with twenty other young women. In the first episode, half the women sang, and half danced, and then fan voting occurred. Adéla was on the dancing side - she danced to "Pink Venom" in a group....
...and then the fans got to vote.
The voting ended up being very skewed along national borders - and, since women all over the world were competing, women from populous countries got more votes. Despite her excellent dancing - and she IS an excellent dancer. Classically trained - she literally came in 20th.
This is her dance, singled out from the group. Sorry, she was great compared to the rest of her group.
She was robbed, and if you are watching the Netflix series Pop Star Academy: Katseye, you KNOW that the producers have a lot of regrets about how the fan voting happened. Slovakia was the smallest country represented and it showed in the voting.
Plus she didn't even get to sing.
But that's OK. The first episode of Dream Academy aired August 19, 2023 and by September 2024, she ALREADY had her first solo single released to critical acclaim. This song, released in October 2024, was her second single.... and yeah, it's about her experience.
Her debut EP is coming later this year, and I can't wait, because her poppy electronic sound is super compelling... and frankly better than anything Katseye has done thus far.
You see, I am currently going through a project to listen to 1000 albums in a year, and I asked for suggestions (and, by the way, I'll take more). There are a few bands that were definitely over-recommended - Pink Floyd, Tool, and Incubus were probably the top three.
At this point, I am 1/3 of the way through my little project, and I have listened to one album by each of those bands - which, well, the over-hyping really lowered my expectations on.
The Incubus album I listened to was 8. Even though Alternative Press magazine called it their worst album, I rather enjoyed it. Four stars, guys. This song, the third single from the album, opens Side A and, frankly, it's a stand-out for me. It's a straight-ahead rock sound without being heavy for heavy's sake.
So, whoever suggested Incubus.... bravo.
The thing about solid rock bands - and I have to say, Incubus falls in that category - is that their live performances, like this one from Kuala Lumpur in 2018 - sound just like the studio, but with more crowd noise and shaky camera work.
I was really angry yesterday, because when I wrote that post, I had just listened to an album by that songwriter that I absolutely loved - and I went into it wanting to hate it because of the things she had done.
But here's the thing. The song was really chosen by Jennifer Warnes, and she chose Joe Cocker - not known for his love ballads - as her duet partner, and it was their contrast that made this a great song that I very much did not appreciate when it was new. THEY won a Grammy for this song. THEY sold the song for the Oscar.
And, given that Jennifer Warnes performed on THREE Oscar-winning songs, she knew a thing or two about successful movie songs.
Even though he was much older, and she was just a childhood fan, from this song grew a 30-year friendship. They continued to perform their song together thought the rest of Cocker's life. This was their final performance, in 2013.
I am extraordinarily angry with Buffy Sainte-Marie.
For many years, Sainte-Marie was seen as a pioneering Canadian Indigenous singer-songwriter and an outspoken advocate for Indigenous rights and culture. However, extensive investigative journalism - led notably by CBC’s Fifth Estate - revealed strong evidence that Sainte-Marie was not born into the Cree community, as she long claimed. Instead, her Massachusettsbirth certificate reportedly indicates she was born to white parents - Italian, in fact - contradicting decades of her public narrative.
She was not only not Indigenous - at all - she was also not Canadian - at all. Sainte-Marie, in fact, was a Francophone-sounding version of her birth last name - Santamaria - that her parents changed to due to anti-Italian sentiments after the Second World War.
That, in itself, is pretty bad. But it gets worse.
She spent years claiming an Indigenous identity and then leveraging it - for awards, visibility, resources, and representation, which was meant for other people. By her actions, she told the access of others, and their real First Nations stories. This isn’t just a personal failing but an act that perpetuates erasure, appropriation, and betrayal, especially given how fiercely Sainte-Marie was defended and celebrated for her supposed identity - with statements and threatened lawsuits.
And she claimed she didn't mislead anyone, but this clip from Sesame Street says otherwise.
She may be "real", but her story about her heritage certainly was NOT.
I’m angry because Buffy Sainte-Marie made a career and earned accolades by claiming an identity and heritage that evidence now shows she didn’t have. This isn’t just a personal lie; it’s a harmful act that took away opportunities and space from genuine Indigenous people, betrayed the trust of fans and communities, and undermined the ongoing fight for First Nations voices to be heard and honored.
However, the one thing I cannot take away from her is that she is a songwriter with a rich and long resume. She has won many awards for her songwriting and performing - many of which have rightly been stripped because she earned them at the expense of actual Indigenous voices. However, her Academy Award for Best Original Song - that, I can't take away from her.
She doesn't deserve her Juno Awards, but I can't say she doesn't deserve the Oscar.
This song was featured in the movie An Officer and A Gentleman, and was a huge hit for Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes. It was a huge hit, and it was co-written by Buffy Sainte-Marie, in perhaps the most honest moment of her entire career.
It's a real shame, because she made a lot of great music. She's genuinely a gifted musician, and some of her albums are must-listens, even after all this. But she tarnished her own legacy.
Here she is performing the most honest song she ever wrote.
The title song from Snail Mail's second full length album, this is probably the closest thing to a hit she/they have. The stage name of Lindsey Jordan, this project has been met with wide critical acclaim - and with good reason. Jordan writes indie pop with a heart unlike any other artist today.
Personally, I think this is the best modern example of the quiet-loud-quiet structure of music. It opens quiet, and goes to a rockin' chorus. The video is very much a violent Bridgerton homage.
Also, you should be listening to Snail Mail, and now, you have an opportunity.
Of course, Lindsey and her band perform this song an awful lot, and I could have highlighted several performances.
I chose this one for The Current in 2021 because it was the most audible. Also, she sounds amazing and that guitar is very large for her.
But also, this performance from last month, four years after the one above, shows how much Lindsay has matured in those years as an artist.... and also, the guitar doesn't dwarf her anymore.
On Saturday night I was watching Storage Wars and a Michelin commercial came on. I'm not sure if this was the commercial - but this was the song.
It made me remember how absolutely amazing The Chemical Brothers were for a few minutes. Featuring vocals by co-writer Q-Tip and making heavy use of a song by Morrocan singer Najat Aatabou, the song clearly endures more than 20 years after its initial November 2004 release. It also won a Best Dance Recording Grammy in 2006.
The song is a great pump-up and an absolute banger.
Lest you think they made up that beat and did not sample it, here is the Najat Aatabou song.
Also kind of a banger.
I was concerned that I would not be able to find live performances of this song that is so clearly electronica.
I was wrong.
But this version from the 2019 Glastonbury music festival is.... strange and not really cohesive, although the beat is clearly there.
I did, however, find great footage of Najat Aatabou performing her song live.
This is not one of those times. This is a short 2-minutes song by Mumbai-based Adi - a fusion of EDM, hip hop and Bollywood. This is a cool little song, and a very cool self-made video (that he clearly made in California, not Mumbai)....
.... that looked very familiar to old-time Bollywood fans, as Adi was playing the part of Kishore Kumar, an artist he sampled for this song..... and this is the scene from the Bollywood movie - Chalta Ka Naam Gaadi, a 1958 film - where Kumar appeared. Should look familiar, no?
No one really knew when Run DMC hit the scene, but they had a couple of big hits when they hit the studio for their next recording - but they had to wait, since they were not well-established, for rock band Riot to finish recording. Inspired by their rock sound, they recorded a song with heavy rock guitar over their beats...
... and hated it.
So they chose to release a version without guitar.
However, both versions got released, and it was the guitar version that was a huge hit.... and ultimately won the group over.
Because of course it did. This song is a classic.
Run DMC first said a DJ could be a band, according to Public Enemy. This is the song they said that in, by the way..
I mention this now because this live performance with Jam Master Jay on the turntables really illustrates the power of the DJ.
So Jay passed in 2002. This ended Run DMC as a group - they were no more without their band. That doesn't mean that they stopped performing. Here is DMC in 2011, paying tribute to what he called the first rock-rap song.... and he may very well have been right.
Fast forward to 2021, and they did reform for occasional performances..
I am listening to 1000 albums in a year and I'm going so quickly I'm going to be done in six months.
Album #331 was Dry, the debut album by Polly Jean Harvey. And, as I looked back through my drafts, I saw that this, her debut single (although the 2nd one I heard, as it got a rerelease after the success of "Sheela-Na-Gig", which I realize is ALSO in my drafts) was in my drafts.
The song tells a story of a woman who puts on a dress that is clearly uncomfortable to impress a man. He was not impressed. Famed DJ John Peel lauded the "urgency" of the song, and yeah, I hear it.
There was a 2nd video that clearly shows PJ Harvey (the band, not just Polly Jean) playing the song live. I have seen PJ Harvey live, in 1995. It was one of the most disappointing shows I have ever seen, and part of the reason is that I found it passionless - and she didn't perform this song, and she certainly didn't perform with this much energy.
This is fantastic.
But here's the thing.
This was a week later. On the same tour.
THIS was fantastic.
Remembering that this single was released more than 30 years ago, it is incredible to see PJ Harvey - the person, not the band - still performing this song, as she did at the Glastonbury festival last year.
I have to be honest - before about a month ago, I had not thought about Wednesday Week in decades. Then, strangely, because I was looking at other artists and other music - specifically, Don Dixon. Don Dixon, you see, was a great producer, probably best known for his work with R.E.M. and The Smithereens.
He also produced the Wednesday Week debut album, What We Had. And he wrote this song. Wednesday Week was a band that went through a lot of iterations and names before they got to this particular one, but the core of the Los Angeles band was the Callan sister - Kelly and Kristi. They made a couple of albums before breaking up - and becoming another band, called Lucky.
The band's name comes from an Undertones song, and this song, which was also featured in the movie Slumber Party Massacre 2, is their best known.
The band did break up in 1990, but they got back together in 1998 and STILL occasionally perform. This is from a reunion show in 2014.
Also, I kinda hope they get together again. I really enjoyed my trip down memory lane.
Most people didn't know the members of The Sugarcubes outside of Iceland.
However, for most of these musicians, this wasn't their first band. It was, for most of them, at least their third, and some of their past projects had some renown in Iceland. They were, by most measures, a supergroup.
This was their first English-language single that got some pretty heavy rotation on worldwide alternative radio. It all started when renowned British DJ John Peel heard it and played the HELL out of it. Written by Einar Örn Benediktsson and Sigtryggur Baldursson, it literally was the catalyst that propelled Björk Guðmundsdóttir into such a superstar status that she could drop the Guðmundsdóttir.
Also, the song is really cool and full of weird horns. And some really odd lyrics.
But guys.
They were Icelandic, not English.
The band was actually called Sykermolarnir. And this song was called "Ammæli".
In a lot of ways, the song sounds more natural in Icelandic. Probably because it was written in Icelandic and the English version is absolutely a direct translation. Yep, that's right. Those lyrics were there all along. That five year old girl was always threading worms on a string and keeping spiders in her pocket.
So, the Sugarcubes broke up in 1992, but they reunited for one night only in 2006, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of "Ammæli"! And yeah, Björk's voice and Einar's horns were just as fresh as they were 20 years prior.
But yes, during their initial run, they did perform the song in English, and it sounded so amazing, too. It speaks to the talent of these musicians that they could so effortlessly perform in two languages.
Well, as part of my 1000 albums in a year project, I listened to their 1994 ill-timed breakthrough Live Through This. I say ill-timed because it was released less than a week after Kurt Cobain a.k.a. Courtney Love's husband killed himself.
No, I don't think Courtney did it.
Anyway this song - reportedly about Love's pre-Cobain relationship with Billy Corgan - opens the album. It is dark and bombastic and beautiful.
This song was one of the first written for the album, and the band first started performing in live in 1991, a full three years before its official release. I thought about sharing the 1991 Peel Session recording of this song, but I felt this 1993 live version better captured the raw energy of this song.
I actually saw Hole while they were touring in support of this album.
July 26, 1995, Lollapalooza, Hartford, CT.
I desperately looked for video from that performance (Courtney was CLEARLY grieving hard, so I remember the show fondly), but could not find it. I did find Lollapalooza footage from three days later..... and yeah, it absolutely kicked ass.
This song followed their cover of "Pennyroyal Tea" during the set, so if you want to rewind a bit to hear that, be my guest.
As many of you know, I am presently going through a project where I am listening to 1000 albums in a year. I'm past the 300 mark at this point, and I have discovered a LOT of music I would have never otherwise heard.
One such band is The Wanton Bishops. And, before you read any further, listen to this song.
Great Delta Blues sound, right?
The Wanton Bishops is a band, but really, it's one guy - Nader Mansour - from Lebanon.
The country. Not Lebanon, Mississippi. Which, to be fair, is a place that exists. But no. He's from Beirut. Mansour, however, DID travel to Mississippi to learn more about the sound - and he executes it perfectly.
This song is from his/their debut album of the same name, released in 2015. However, in 2025, he's still performing this song. And it sounds fantastic. I really hope they tour the US soon, because I *need* to see this live myself.
Adding to the body count this week, George Kooymans of Golden Earring passed away. He wasn't a household name in the United States - Golden Earring were Dutch - but you know his voice and his work. In the US, they were a one hit wonder. This absolute classic, from 1982, is that one hit. To let you know just the kind of band they were, this song was from their 16th album, Cut.
Kooymans passed away from complications from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which forced his retirement in 2021. He will be missed.
Our last THREE posts are special editions. What a terrible time.
The most famous fluegelhorn player is best known for the megahit "Feels So Good", but the native Rochesterarian did a lot more than that. For instance, he wrote the official theme for the 1980 Olympic Winter Games, held in Lake Placid, just a few hours from Rochester.
And he performed it there, too. But the poster won't let us embed that, so here's his performance of "Give It All You Got" from that Games's closing ceremonies.
Mangione passed away this week, and he will be missed.
And what did I choose to celebrate the life of the now-late Ozzy Osbourne?
His only solo Top 40 hit, which reached #28 on the Hot 100 in 1991. It's a power ballad that I ABSOLUTELY hated when it was new.... and I have come to appreciate. Co-written by Osbourne, Zakk Wylde, and Lemmy Kilmester of Motörhead, it was originally written on piano, but moving it to guitar really amped up the power.
It is rare that we get such a soon final performance of a song like this. But we have it here.
July 5, 2025.
It was to be his and Black Sabbath's final performance, and... well, you can tell he's weak, and he threw EVERYTHING he had into this performance.
Ozzy Osborne has passed. His voice will be missed.
Connie Francis - born Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero in a time when Italians weren't exactly beloved in this country (hence the stage name), actress and singer, passed away yesterday at age 87 - and news has broken on this today.
Now, modern music fans probably don't think much of this, but in 1960, when she first hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 - her first of three #1 hits - she was the FIRST woman to do that. She was also the first woman to have three #1 hits and that record held until 1979 (Donna Summer, for the record) .
She was a big deal, guys.
This song was not her biggest hit - but it is an enduring one, from the movie of the same name (that she also starred in). This song hit #4 in early 1961.
By the way, in 1989, 29 years after the song's release, Connie Francis performed it on Today.
In Fort Lauderdale, where the movie was set.
And she sounded great.
She would return to Fort Lauderdale Beach in 2010 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the movie.
I sincerely thought she was going to be from Buffalo. I mean, she co-wrote and performed a song that makes you think she's from middle America.
Hell, the song even SAYS "....hotel middle America, you can never leave here."
Nope.
Nova Scotia.
Still, this artist - real name Kayleigh O'Connor (at the end of this video, you hear an older woman reference her by name) who is very much up-and-coming, is worth your listen. The video is a combination of Baby Nova standing in an empty room posing and what look like old home videos. It's kind of cool.
Angèle is from Brussels, Belgium. This song is a love letter to her hometown and her home country. Written during the pandemic, when she was forced to be away from Brussels, she wrote what will undoubtably become their tourism anthem..... and an anthem for a unified Belgium (yes, the country splitting apart on language lines is a real possibility).
This was the lead single off her 2022 album Nonante-Cinq, or, as we say in numbers, 95. She was born in 1995, so... well, title makes sense.
Anyway, the song was a hit in all of Belgium, and elsewhere in Europe. And it's delightful.
By the way, not joking about it being a tourism anthem. This is unofficial but, still.
But you didn't come here for the TikToks. You came for the cool live performances.
And the first is from French television, and it's not the electro-pop version, but rather a quiet, piano-driven one. Her voice pairs so well with the piano, which she is playing.
Worry not, friends. She also does the original version live - extending this version in Montreal to north of eight minutes that do NOT seem wasted. It's high energy, even when it's a love letter for a different city - and listen to all the Quebecois singing along about Brussels.
Last week, the Polaris Prize committee announced their short list.
Ten great Canadian albums.
Which I like to think of as ten great albums that happen to be Canadian.
I listened to all ten of them. In a day. Which is insane. (Full disclosure - I had previously listened to one of the nominees - Nemhasis - and posted about her during Maple Leaf March).
All of them were good.
One of them was a lot better than the rest.
Bite Down, by Ribbon Skirt.
Previously known as Love Language, this Montreal, QC band is amazing, with a rock sound - and this album is my favorite of 2025 so far. Give them a listen.
Got that down? Good. Now listen to their SXSW 2025 performance of the same song. It's practically star-making.
So I'm flipping through Spotify a couple of days ago and I hear THIS.
JoJo Siwa covering a nearly-forgotten 80's classic song was NOT on my 2025 bingo card. However, it's pretty solid - an electronic update of the Kim Carnes classic. Her raspiness matches the song well.
But let's talk about the 1981 Kim Carnes version - which adds a sultry breathiness to the raspiness. THIS version - Carnes's biggest (but not only - she isn't a one-hit wonder) - spent nine weeks at number one on the US charts, and won the Grammys for Song and Record of the Year.
The song also reached gold and platinum status, and Carnes sent gold and platinum records to Bette Davis herself - who was very appreciative of the song and of course hung those gifts up prominently.
So the thing about the Grammy for Song of the Year - it's a songwriter award. Kim Carnes did not write this song. Donna Weiss and Jackie DeShannon wrote this song, so they won the Grammy.
However, even though they won the Grammy in 1982, they WROTE the song in 1974, and DeShannon was the original artist. Although her version is VERY different, I don't think she was terribly upset that her song was made into a hit by Carnes.
I thought it would be a fun detour here to hear a man cover the song.
So who better than Liga Joe, from Brazil? We've featured them before. This is straight-ahead rock and I don't really care where they're from - this is a great song.
Other artists, however, have made this song into a hit. Shockingly, Gwyneth Paltrow is one of them.
Anyway, this version - from the movie Duet - went platinum in Australia, and was a top five hit there. And, although not as raspy, it's still well done.
Although Taylor freaking Swift performed the song live, and did so beautifully on an acoustic guitar, it did not become a hit from her.
That does not mean it wasn't great.
T-Swift isn't the only pop superstar to cover this song live. Kylie Minogue did it, too, and did it a little less acoustically.
And we come back full circle to JoJo, who performed it live before she went into a studio.
Not gonna lie - I like this version better. The raspiness is more natural.
BLACKPINK is back (in your area) and they have a new song.
I honestly thought they were done.Seriously. These four women don't need each other anymore. They've all got successful solo careers. Heck, a couple of them are acting.
Anyway, their new song is solid..... but also, this is one of the most messed-up videos I've ever seen.
This post caused me to make an edit to X's Wikipedia page.
You see, it said that X WAS an American punk rock band. I changed the WAS to IS. Yes, they are on a farewell tour, but it is NOT over yet. Hold off on the breakup, Wikipedia.
This song, which also lent its title to a documentary about the band (and that's where this video comes from), is among my favorites by the band. It's about not hearing anything but smooth chords and no hard chords (not hardcore, which a lot of people think it says).
It's a GREAT song.
Some of you may have heard the song in its live version in the movie The Decline of Western Civilization, a documentary about the LA punk scene. This is THAT version.
Later live versions are slower and include the most punk instrument, a marimba.
The first is the #1 hit - and 2025 Grammy nominee song written by Sabrina Carpenter, Jack Antonoff and Amy Allen, and performed by Sabrina Carpenter. The single following her enduring hit "Espresso", THIS song was her first #1 single in the US ("Espresso" only made it to #3). It was, in fact, the 16th biggest US hit of 2024 by any artist (to be fair, "Espresso" was 7th).
Anyway, this song - a country-tinged masterpiece (more on that performance in a moment) is delightful and fun, and the video gritty and somewhat hilarious, featuring Carpenter's then-boyfriend Barry Keoghan.
I mentioned two national treasures.
The second is Dolly freaking Parton.
This version, a duet between Dolly and Sabrina, was released in early 2025 as part of a deluxe version of the Short 'n Sweet album - reached #17 on the US Country charts (Carpenter's first appearance on that chart, not surprisingly).
Also, I have now learned that we can't swear in front of Dolly - but also, leaving out the word "motherfucker" was probably a concession to country music radio.
This twangier version is still delightful.
TO be fair, Sabrina made the lyric change when performing it live in BCC's Live Lounge as well.
She definitely did NOT change the lyric for NPR, though. However, she also talks about the song and how it came to be, and it's a great story (and a great performance).
When The D.O.C. was new and the best bud of all the guys in N.W.A., I didn't give him a chance.
I should have. No One Can Do It Better is a classic album that absolutely serves as a preview for Straight Outta Compton. This is where they honed their G-funk sound that combined funky beats with hardcore rap.
This particular song was written by The D.O.C. and contains significant Marvin Gaye samples.
Because of an accident, The D.O.C. lost his unique voice early on, but his songwriting lives on.
Oh, he's not dead, people. He literally had a car accident that damaged his voice box.
The opening song and opening single from TMBG's 2nd album, Lincoln, is possibly less goofy than people were expecting.
What I wasn't expecting was the gated guitar riff throughout, which ties the whole song together.
The unusual title comes from a browse of the New York City White Pages. There were literally four pages of "Ng"s. A common Cantonese last name, it is properly pronounced like the end of the word "song", but I have heard it pronounced as they do - which isn't quite the same Ng - and I have heard it pronounced "En-Gee".
There ya go.
Yes, the band is still touring, and yes, they do still play this song. Here they are, performing it two months ago.
The guitar is maybe even more impressive when you see the whole band.
I mentioned back in March that Lights made a nighttime instrumental synthwave record during the pandemic to benefit Black Lives Matter Vancouver. For Canada Day, here is the entire album.
That desciption, by the way, is hers, not mine.
Over the last couple weeks of sleeplessness and learning and darkness and processing I made a nighttime instrumental synthwave record, it’s up at https://t.co/MYSW9C0K4o and all of the proceeds will go to Black Lives Matter Vancouver. pic.twitter.com/UqkZ8FAfqR
Do I really think they're great musicians who know what the hell they're doing and have a serious later-Chili Peppers influence? Yup.
Anyway, this is the title song from their 4th album, released in 2017. It's.... delightful. It really is. It's a bright pop song with rock flavor. Featuring guest vocalist Krisztina Farkas from the band ZUP, it's the songwriting creation of Róbert Bérczesi, who also happens to be the main vocalist and frontman for hiperkarma.
Did you think being in Hungarian was going to stop me from finding a live performance?
Nope.
This acoustic version doesn't lose any of the energy from the original.
Steven Page wrote "Brian Wilson" as a tribute to the recently passed Brian Wilson, and the real Brian Wilson took it as such.
And, as someone who at least fancied himself as being a lot like Brian Wilson - in that he strugged with weight and mental health issues - Page hit the nail on the head.
You can see Page's deep feeling and emotion about the song shine through when performed live. There are no jokes here.
This song started off as a minor hit for Tyler, The Creator in 2017, as it was a single off his excellent album, Flower Boy - an album I did not expect to like as much as I did.
Well, actually, it started off as a song for Zayn Malik, but he didn't want that song, so Tyler kept it for himself.
Well, in 2023, TikTok made this song trend, and it became a bigger minor hit.
Tyler is a unique talent who I quite frankly did not expect to like as much as I do - and has consistently made innovative and original music. This is no exception.
This would be a special edition - because their lead vocalist, Douglas McCarthy, died yesterday at age 58 - which is way too young. He toured with the band until last year, when his health issues (cirrosis from excessive drinking earlier in life, for one) took their toll.
He will be missed,
But we had to do a post today anyway, so this seemed like the best idea, and Nitzer Ebb is a band that I always kind of liked, but didn't think about too much.
And let's talk about the music. Pioneers of the industrial wave of music, the band chose a name that sounded German without actually using German words.... so everyone thought they were German. They weren't. They were from the UK.
This 1986 song is one of my favorites by them. It is both danceable and moshable, which is kind of a tough line to straddle.
Industrial music is kind of a weird genre. It's both poppy electronic dance music and angry, heavy music. Rarely is that made more clear than in this 2023 live show.
Brian Wilson passed away today. He won numerous awards, including two Grammys (on nine nominations)
His masterpiece was Pet Sounds, and this song, which led the album, featured his lead vocals. It might have also led to some of his mental health collapse as he left the touring part of his career behind. His wife - Melinda Ledbetter, who passed away last year - helped him finally get the care he needed and got him making music again - and touring.
A striker typically plays further up the pitch from midfielders and defenders. They are sometime called forwards or attackers. We're talking about football here, by the way - and not American football, but the sport North American English speakers insist upon calling "soccer".
Why the soccer lesson up front?
Because this 1976 song is about a striker.
The song, considered by many to be the greatest ever written about a sport, was considered by Rolling Stone to be one of the 500 greatest songs of all time, a list dominated by English-language songs. This song is very much in Portuguese.
You might have noticed that I called this a "1976" song. It was. It's on his album África Brasil, which is an absolutely incredible album. However, the song rose to fame in 1989, when David Byrne included it on Brazil Classics Vol. 1, and this video made the heavy rotation on VH1.
He was known as Jorge Ben until the late 1980s, and changed his name allegedly because a chunk of the royalties for this song accidentally went to singer George Benson. I don't know if that's true, but if you look at the title of this post, I ain't taking any chances with his royalties.
Jorge Ben Jor is WELL into his 80s.
He STILL performs. Here he is - aged 84, two years ago - performing the song, and playing the lead guitar, and bringing the energy! But also, this is 11 songs into his set! And he kept going!!!!
They're a great, GREAT live band from Melbourne, Australia who have started to reach an international audience with their raucous, loud, energetic style. Their third album, Cartoon Darkness, was met with universal acclaim, and deservedly so - it's fun and not like anything else being released.
On the day that album was released, they also released what would end up being the second single - this clever song that is actually one of their quieter ones. Give 'em a go!
Although the band was formed in and based in Melbourne, half the band now calls Los Angelas home, so it was a short flight over no oceans to get to the KEXP studios in Seattle to perform this song live.
And, as I am writing this - and I didn't write this ahead of time. It was written this morning - this performance is from this March but the video was literally posted an hour ago - so you get to see it RIGHT when it's released.
See what I mean about them being a great live band?
Future Islands is a power-pop group that eschews the guitar and replaces it with solid synth.
This song, from their 4th album Singles, was the consensus best single of 2014, and I totally get it. It's strong yet beautiful, forceful and emotional.
It's a great song.
Their debut television performance of the song in 2014 was on The Late Show With David Letterman, and let's be honest, I posted this song for THIS performance.
It's legendary.... if not for just the dancing, or Sam Herring's death metal growls.
But also, don't they have the look of a band that, well, any of us could be in? They're just normal guys.
Lionel Richie's 1983 album Can't Slow Down yielded five US Top 10 hits - all five of them also hits worldwide. Four of them were blandish 80's pop songs that you likely know. One was a county-pop masterpiece.
"Stuck on You". written by Richie, was the 4th single from the album, and it was very different. It would be also his first trip to the US Country Music charts - which is just wild.
It's a very sweet love song, and the best thing on Can't Slow Down.
So when he performed the song more than 30 years later - and not only sang but played piano - it's not a shock that music fans from all walks know the words.
But also, Lionel Richie is probably better known by the kids today as an American Idol judge.... and he joined his other two judges on the season finale this year to reprise a song that sounds more country than most modern counrty music.
I was always a little afraid to give Australian artist Courtney Barnett a try. I can't give you a good reason why. I think her debut album - Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit - was so universally acclaimed that I was intimidated to even give it a try.
I need not have been. As part of my 1000-albums-in-a-year project, I listened to that album.
That album is one of the best I have ever heard, and certainly the best I've heard so far on my list. This fun song was a highlight for me.
In a first for this blog....
The way a music video usually works is - the artist is lip-syncing and the studio version of the song is dubbed over top - and they certainly did the dubbing for this video...... but it wasn't a lip-sync. She REALLY performed the song, and posted the original recording as well.
Shockingly, Barnett and her band have performed this song A LOT, and they all sound impeccable and pretty much the same....
Except for this one, an acoustic version by just her, which is somehow just as thrilling.
This was the biggest hit by the Cocteau Twins - making the top 30 in the UK in 1984 - and brought them on import to the US - leading to the release of their first US album, a compilation called The Pink Opaque.
It's a beautiful, ethereal song.
I very much understated this song's beauty.
The vocal performance in this song is considered to be one of the best of all time.
And here's Elizabeth Fraser, singing it live like it's nothing.
Once upon a time, there was a woman named Pastelle LeBlanc, and she was a folk singer. She started a band with her sister and her husband called Vishtèn. They performed great folk music and promoted the niche Acadian culture they grew up in in New Brunswick.
Then Pastelle got breast cancer and died at age 42.
Rather than roll over, the two remaining members took some of their recordings - yes, Pastelle appears on this and she is CLEARLY playing accordion here, and co-wrote the song with her sister and her husband - and turned them into a collaboration and a tribute - Expansion - as part of a project called Vishtèn Connexions, which I guess makes it distinct, but also it isn't.
So as a lot of you know, I am working on a different musical project that is involving me listening to 1000 albums in a year, and I'm going to do something with it, too.
This post is about the best of the first 50 albums so far, and that is The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. I have to admit - Chappell Roan is an artist I did not get. She makes music for an audience that does not include me, or so I thought. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Well, this is the third post of a song from that album, and so I decided to give the whole album a listen..... and the songs, in context, are so much better. It tells a story, and a good one.
This song opens the album, and I swear I thought when it started that it was written by Taylor Swift.....
One day recently, the Spotify DJ decided it was the right time to send this song to me.
Wow, DJ nailed it.
Self descibed, and this is not a joke, "queer Filipinx kulintang gong punks", the band is based in Toronto - or, as they call it, Tkaronto (a name that is somewhat indigeneous-derived). They celebrate their Filipino roots while being punks that play traditional flat bells. Pantayo is literally the Tagalog word meaning "for us".
The song is a direct assault on the colonialism that the Phillipines has experienced, and the cultural colonialism that occurs in Filipino diasporas worldwide. It, and the rest of their self-titled album, resonated, as it was short-listed for the Polaris Prize in 2020.
I personally think the song sounds so much richer live. But first, listen to them introduce their instuments.
When asked what is the best band I have ever seen live, without fail, I say "Elastica".
And the thing is, I saw them twice, in the same year - and they had a different bassist each time.
I know what you're thinking right now. "Who cares?" Well, give me a second.
The second time I saw them, I saw them with Abby Travis, who is an absolute beast and amazing and, on later Lollapalooza dates, played back to back with Elastica and Beck in 1995 (she had already been playing with Beck, so I did see her play, apparently).
The FIRST time I saw them, I saw them at Lollapalooza 1995. It was an early date, and so original bassist Annie Holland was still with the band - she left about a week and a half later because of exhaustion. No, she didn't write this song, which was VERY CLEARLY ABOUT HER. No, it was primarily written by guitarist Donna Matthews and Jane Oliver and was about going to visit Annie in Brighton, where she spent most of her non-touring time.
By the way, they were EQUALLY solid BOTH times.
The song is short, but it rocks hard.
This is a pre-Lollapalooza show, with Annie on bass, where they are killing the song live.
And this is from a 1996 performance, when Annie was away from the band.
Annie did eventually return to the band.... but Donna Matthews left. Here's one of THOSE performances, from 2000.
I'm not gonna lie - it's great. It's missing the harmonies at the chorus, but it's still solid.
By the way, if you want to hear the ACTUAL performance - and probably me in the crowd - the audio of this performance is on YouTube. And I remember it like it was yesterday.
I cued it up to "Annie" for you. HOWEVER, you should hear the whole thing.
I was going to open this post with a fan-made video of this song with a lot of videos of police brutality.
Unfortunately, those videos are age-restricted and can't be embedded here.
This song began life as the B-side to "Holiday In Cambodia", a song with a similar feel, in 1980. The surf guitar riffs kind of hide the fact that this song is told from the story of a two awful police officers who are brutalizing people and abusing their power.
The song was actually written in direct response to a real 1970's incident in Oakland, CA, but, let's face it - it is more broadly applicable. Written by Jello Biafra and East Bay Ray (who is responsible for the fantastic surf guitar riffs), the song experienced a resurgence in popularity after the George Floyd murder. And yeah. It was a murder. That's how I feel about that.
Back in the day, when the band performed live a lot, they brought even more energy than they did in the studio.
It's 1969. You just picked up your copy of Led Zeppelin II. You've just finished side one. You flip it over.
You are smacked in your face with arguably the greatest riff in rock and roll history.
The iconic guitar solo in the middle was actually recorded separately from the rest of the track - and Jimmy Page used a pull-off technique that inspired guitar virtuosos for decades.
Led Zeppelin was a great blues band who manged to get volume turned up to 11, and this song was arguably their magnum opus.
Even though he originally recorded it separate from the rest of the track, hearing and watching Jimmy Page performing what is almost inarguably his greatest solo of all time, live, embellishing the hell out of it, is incredible. This performance is from 1979.
This song was Grammy nominated in 1996 after being a huge hit song around the world in 1995.... except in the United States, where it was NOT a hit. Canada? Loved it! New Zealand? Huge hit. Spain? Top 5. United States? #75 on the Hot 100.
Let's be honest - even though Kravitz wrote and produced this song, it sounds like he lifted half the riff from "Heartbreaker" by Led Zeppelin. It's undeniable (and probably why it failed in the US). In reality, that riff was the riff from "Are You Gonna Go My Way" - which shared an album with this song - played backwards.... so, not actually lifted. But man, I sure thought it was, too.
Anyway, the song is a pretty solid rock song.
Oh yes, he plays it live, and it's perhaps more impressive as a straight-ahead rock song. Here he is performing it in 2011. Not pictured: the painting in his attic that's aging for him.
Does Throwing Muses have new music out? They sure do.
Did I go back to the 90s for some of their older stuff anyway? I sure did.
No, Limbo is not my favorite album of theirs - it was post-Tanya era Muses, which is never my preference. It was their first album on Rykodisc after a decade with Sire Records (and of course, as always on 4AD). The album and stress on it - combined with Kristin Hersh's successful solo career - led to the band breaking up for several years.
As most of their music, written by Kristin, the song is at once noisy - a bit noisier than their earlier work - and dark. Even though Limbo isn't my favorite of theirs, this song floats to the top for me.
I love Kristin's voice live. It comes through a lot raspier than on record.
This 1995 song by folkie Jill Sobule was her biggest hit, in both the US and Canada. It was on my short list to be posting this song very soon.
Unfortunately, her untimely death today in a house fire at age 66 hastened that for me.
In 2009, in response to Katy Perry's song of the same name, Sobule said, and I quote: "Fuck you Katy Perry, you fucking stupid, maybe “not good for the gays,” title thieving, haven’t heard much else, so not quite sure if you’re talented, fucking little slut." No, she really said that.
She didn't actually harbor any ill will against Katy Perry. She was kidding. Perry's song sparked new interest in Sobule's.
Anyway, this song was sweet and earnest and kind, and here it is.
Jill was touring until, no joke, this week. She was literally scheduled to perform in Denver tomorrow. This is a performance of this song from February of this year. Her storytelling is pretty damned amazing.
This is a sad day for music, and she will be missed.
Well, I had a significant power outage yesterday. Absolutely huge. I was personally in the dark for a day and a half.
And I had grand plans for an *NSYNC post yesterday, too! Oh well. Next year.
Today, I'm dealing with the aftermath, so I felt like I'd pull out an easy one from my youth. "Pump Up The Jam" was Technotronic's first and biggest hit. The brainchild of a couple of Belgian producers, the vocals were provided by Congolese-Belgian artist Ya Kid K. She does NOT, however, appear in the video.
The song was a massive worldwide hit in 1989, hitting #2 on the US charts and pretty high elsewhere.
The former leader of The Stranglers released an album in the late 1980s, and it was a pretty good pop-rock album that never really went anywhere.
This was the biggest hit from that album, and it was a hit because of the video. This song, which came out two years after Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer", was directed by avant garde artist Jan Švankmajer, in his only forray into music video (the Brothers Quay, who made the "Sledgehammer" video, were influenced by him).
Anyway, the song itself was a minor US alternative hit but also, it's a fun song. Cornwell brings the same Stranglers bravado he always had.
Cornwell does not tour much, but he does perform this song, still. Here he is performing it live, and playing guitar.
Let's talk about the only song by James that you know, "Laid".
OK, maybe not, but this song represents their only trip to the Billboard Hot 100 - and that was after suffering some serious attempts at censorship at the hands of MTV - who wanted to change a pretty bold line that you certainly know about her only able to do something when "she's on top" *drums*
The band didn't even take the song seriously - they were going to use it as a B-side. However, producer Brian Eno convinced them otherwise, and it was the best decision they ever made. Released in late 1993, it ended up bringing them great success both in their native UK and overseas.
The song is about getting laid, people.
By the way, more than three decades later, James is still together and still performing. This performance, from last year, still sounds as great as it always did.
