So, I have posted about this song once before - on Totally Covered. And on there, I recounted the following:
True story - I saw Sixpence None The Richer opening for a Natalie-free 10,000 Maniacs at St. Bonaventure University in 1994. This was years before they had any hits - they were just a little Christian rock band. I enjoyed them an awful lot, and was really happy to see that they became big hitmakers.
Yes, I do have a signed copy of their first CD. Why do you ask?
Now, what would happen later is that the two central figures of the band - Leigh Nash and Matt Slocum - would briefly join 10,000 Maniacs. Which, well, is kind of cool. But the band was more than 2 people. They had a full band, and one of them was bassist Justin Cary. Cary died aged 50 after a stroke,
This song was a 1999 US pop hit - their 2nd trip to the top 40 and a bigger hit than the original version by The LA's.
This live performance is from two months ago - TWO MONTHS - and yes, that's Justin Cary on bass. He will be missed.
Bridley Costello is an up and coming singer who grew up in Chicagoland. This post isn't about Bridley Costello.
No, this post is about Corrina.
Corrina released her debut album HOUSE ON ANOTHER STREET in 2025. It's pretty good power pop. This was the single off that album, whose video was released on Halloween 2025. And yeah, it's a pretty spooky video - so I get it.
And it's got credits, and in those credits, Corrina uses her government name.
As in Amy and Vince
Why she isn't cashing in off her TWO last names, I do not know - but she's making music very differently from either of them. She *is* opening for her mother tonight in Stroudsburg, PA, so if you're in the area, check her out.
And if you aren't, just enjoy her music, right here.
This song would represent Huey Lewis and The News's only top ten hit
On the UK charts. They had TONS of hits in the US, but this was one of their biggest.
Written for the 1985 hit move Back To The Future, it appears early in the movie when Marty McFly tries out for his school's talent show with his band, only for one of the judges to call it "too loud".
That judge is exactly who you think it is.
By the way, Huey Lewis was like 34 when that scene was filmed.
The song was one of the biggest hits of 1985, and it was nominated for both a Grammy and an Academy Award in 1986. And, it brings the BIG horns, which was something of a band trademark.
Of course, I can find TONS of live performances of this song. I chose a later one - from 2014 - to show that, even in his 60s, Huey brought high energy.
And the fans know the words.
But ok. One more for you. This is from 1987 and is at the peak of the band's fame - and it shows.
They've been making great electronic music in Toronto for about 20 years. Their latest album, Event Beat, was released in March to critical acclaim, and last week, it was named to the Polaris Music Prize longlist. It deserves it, too, even if their name has to be censored absolutely everywhere, including YouTube, where the video is billed to Holy F.
However you have to hear them, they are worth it. There's a great depth to their music that you don't see in many electronic acts.
It was hard to find a version of this song live that wasn't age-restricted, but this one, from Asheville NC on 4/20, fits the bill. Billed to @holyfuck, it skirts the age restrictions, I guess.
I love the new Lala Lala album, Heaven 2. No skips. This is one of my very favorite albums of 2026 so far. Lillie West has put together a masterpiece.
And, there have been a few great singles from this album, and I was all ready to feature one of them. However, there's one dark, bass-heavy song that has been on super heavy rotation for me, and it's not one of the singles. So, I was worried that I was going to have to wait until either that single got released or there was a clean, solid live performance.
The latter happened. KEXP hosted Lala Lala for a four song session, and sure enough.... "Anywave". You didn't even know there was a sax in there, did you? The song starts really drum-and-bass heavy, but slow, quiet and plodding - but it grows exponentially, and quickly.
And, because KEXP did this great thing, I can also post a grimier, darker version, HARDER version of this song from April.
I just found out last week that Cris Derksen, the Canadian First Nations (of Cree and Mennonite heritage) cellist known for her evocative work, passed away on May 15th at age 45 - in a head-on collision that happened on the travel home from her father's funeral.
This song was from her 2010 album The Cusp. Her latest album The Visit came out in November and will likely get some Junos love next March.
Cris's musical talent and advocacy for other artists will be sorely missed. For now, I want you to hear her music.
R.E.M. released their fifteenth and final studio album, Collapse Into Now, in 2011.
This song, co-written by the band (minus Bill Berry, who had left the band at this point) and the legendary Patti Smith, who also provides vocals on the song, ended the album.
The band would make videos for every song on the album. This video, directed by actor James Franco, ends with the words "The End".
I think they were telling us something.
The band broke up in September 2011, six months after this album's release.
They never toured in support of the album, but they left us with a great exclamation point on their career.
No, this isn't a love song. It's a song Michael Stipe called "violent" in 1988 but acknowledged later that it could be open to interpretation. "A simple prop to occupy my time" is not exactly a loving line.
But I'm here to talk about Peter Buck's guitar work. Despite being a rock band, I don't think they got enough credit for the sheer talent of the instrumentalists, and Buck - who also played mandolin and banjo on other tracks, has a HELL of a guitar solo in this song.
The video features friends and family of the band, including Michael Stipe's sister, Lynda (who herself was formerly in a band called Oh-OK and a little later was in another one called Hetch Hetchy).
I just needed an excuse to talk about Lynda Stipe. OK, let's move on.
From their fifth album, 1987's Document, the song would be their first big hit single, hitting the US Top 10 and getting airplay worldwide... but not as much as they would if they were on, say, Warner Brothers....
In 1990, R.E.M. released a movie Documenting the Green tour, called Tourfilm. I figured the footage of this song from that would be better than anything someone with a videocamera in the audience in 1989 could get.
It's a pretty straight-forward version of the song.
In fact, this is a song they always did faithful.... even in 2005.... even in the pouring rain.
In 1988, R.E.M. left their longtime home at IRS Records to join the Warner Brothers roster with their sixth album, Green. They did it because overseas distribution of their records had been poor thus far.
Not a speck of green on this cover.
They kicked off their Warners years with a song about Agent Orange and the Vietnam War in 1988 - this song, which is not about a soft drink but absolutely did kick off an orange soda kick for 16-year-old me. The song was not released as a single in the US, but did well on modern and mainstream rock radio as well as overseas, where it WAS released as a single.
The video was a huge MTV hit and won an MTV Video Music Award for Best Post-Modern Video - in the inaugural year for the category. The band does not appear in the video at all.
This live video, courtesy of Reelin' In The Years Productions, is exactly how I remember the band performing the song in 1989 when I saw them - complete with the "Be All You Can Be" intro and megaphone usage by Michael Stipe.
The megaphone stuck around for later tours, including this 2005 performance that was just as dynamic so many years later.
This song was one of R.E.M.'s earliest, being performed at shows as early as 1980, and a live version was recorded for their 1983 debut album Murmur, but it was left off. So, when it came time to record the follow-up album Reckoning, producer Mitch Easter wanted the band to record it.
Except, at that point, Michael Stipe had grown to hate the song.
Well, compromises were made, and the song was recorded in a multi-track version with Stipe and Mike Mills providing fresh harmonies.
Despite Stipe's feelings at the time, it remains one of my favorite songs of theirs.
This is one of their earlier performances of the song. Yes, the harmonies are there, but you can see it sounds a lot more raw.
This is a song that disappeared from R.E.M.'s live sets for a good spell, but it came back. Here they are in 2007 performing it once again.
The band was still performing the hell out of the song.
R.E.M. broke up in 2011.
HOWEVER, in February 2025 - LAST YEAR - they reunited for ONE SONG ONLY at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, GA.
What was the song?
This one, of course.
Now, a little explanation - Michael Shannon, Jason Narducy & Friends were touring and performing a cover of the entire Fables of the Reconstruction album. This song wasn't on that album, so clearly, they needed help...
They didn't, actually. They perform the song pretty frequently as part of their R.E.M. cover band project.
That's what a lot of people think the name of this song is.
It's not. It's "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)". The "So." is short for "South". However, it is listed as "Southern Central Rain (I'm Sorry)" on the inner sleeve of the Reckoning album. I usually myself refer to it as "South Central Rain" without the parenthetical title.
What does it mean? I'm not sure, but Michael Stipe seems to be singing a narration happening during a particularly rough rainstorm, so that's probably part of it.
But it's a passionate, great song - one of my favorites by the band even though it ended up being a relatively well-known song.
The video - and this is a band that LOVED exploring the video medium, but more on that throughout the week - was fake playing by the band but real singing by Michael Stipe, who hated lipsyncing.
You might notice the Hall of Fame label on this week. It's R.E.M. week, folks. They're our newest Hall of Fame entry.
Throughout their career, R.E.M. consistently played this song. Here is one of the last times they played it, on Austin City Limits.
My sister saw R.E.M. in 1995 in Buffalo, on the Monster tour - R.E.M. is her favorite band - and this song was one of typical encore songs. It was a little more torch-songy, but also passionate. This is a recording from the Milan, Italy show on that tour.
I personally saw R.E.M. live on September 13, 1989 in Hartford, CT - and it was my first concert ever. I saw them with my very good friend Mark Whittier, who passed away in 1995. Great show. Again, it was somewhat torch-songy, but less so than 1995.
Anyway, this is the performance from September 12, 1989, in Buffalo, NY. This is exactly how I remember it.
For the last live performance, I go back to 1983, and the band's first national television appearance on Late Night With David Letterman. Yes, this is a year before the song was released, and yet they performed it anyway.... even before the song had a title. By the way, if you go back up to the ACL video earlier in this post - that's my source for that little fact.
Michael Stipe had a reputation for being a little mumbly early in his career. This performance is a lot of the reason why.
One of those musical acts that I am supposed to like as an aging hipster is Waxahatchee.
And I have TRIED really hard to like the Katie Crutchfield project. And, well..... I just don't like Waxahatchee all that much. But, I still felt like I had to listen to her projects... in a desperate attempt to like her music.
But when Katie got together with her twin sister Allison (and MJ Lenderman and Brad Cook) and formed Snocaps - a great indie power-pop band - THAT I could get on board with. It's earnest, lo-fi fun!
The whole Snocaps album was one of my favorites of 2025, and although it missed the Wicked25, I feel like you still need to go listen to it.
I hope there are more Snocaps albums, because, as this Tonight Show performance illustrates, these sisters can HARMONIZE!
I know I didn't make a 2024 list - but if I had, Evergreen by Soccer Mommy would have been one of the top 2 albums on it (Romance by Fontaines D.C. would have been the other) and probably #1.
However, Soccer Mommy released an EP in 2025 - Evergreen (stripped) that had stripped down versions of a lot of those songs. THAT was good enough to earn an honorable mention on my Wicked25 last year. I did an online listening party with Soccer Mommy the day before its release, where we listened to Evergreen and Evergreen (stripped) and I gotta say, that was a musical highlight of the year.
For contrast, this is the original Evergreen version of "Abigail".....
.... and this is the Evergreen (stripped) version.
There are a LOT of available live versions of this song, so I chose the easiest to hear - the one she did for Triple J.
No word on whether or not she's doing any stripped shows.
I had the entry for If You Asked For A Picture by Blondshell WRITTEN for my Wicked25.
WRITTEN!
That's how close it was to making the list. It was ON the list.
Ultimately, it got pushed out because there was 25 albums that, on that day, I found more worthy.
I have felt really guilty about this since that day. The album deserved to be there - to the point where I have almost edited it back in. I still might do that.
Anyway, here's a single for you. This is pretty indicative of the songwriting that Sabrina Teitelbaum (who goes by Blondshell because it's a lot less wordy, I guess) brings to the table.
Yes, the song is about tits and ass.
While I love her KEXP performance......
.... the bluntness of this introduction during a live performance in the wild is a little more endearing.
There used to be a great button on Youtube that allowed me to just make a post directly from there to this blog.
They took it away in March. So doing this has gotten harder.
Housewife is not an artist that has released a full album yet - but she did release a great EP in 2025 called Girl Of The Hour that was filled with so much 2000s goodness that it was absolutely worthy of its honourable mention. I say artist - it was a band, but Brighid Fry is the only member left. They've been doing this for a decade but only the last few years solo.
Anyway, it's a great EP and you should go listen to it now.
You might remember my #Wicked25. For the very first time last year, I listed my 25 favorite albums of a year. I have been known to do one or two favorites, but never 25.
I also had a list of 25 runners up - honourable mentions, as you will. Some of those, I felt very guilty about excluding. I'm going to highlight those this week - because if I made the list today, these albums would be ON the list, not just honourably mentioned.
I'm not going to highlight the albums that would have been bumped in most cases - because they were on the list because they were deserving, excellent albums. And no, you can't just guess it's 21-25, because that's not the case. At all.
This is the more egregious omission. Because, if you look back at the list, you'll now see 26 honourable mentions. I didn't listen to Dogue by Ariane Roy until January. It was a terrible oversight on my part, because it not only would have made the list, it would have been a top 10 album. This is EASILY the second best francophone album of 2025.
Ariane release Dogue de Luxe in February of this year - probably because Dogue was so well-received - and used the extra space to make new versions of some of her songs with her friends.
Because yeah, this song by Korean girl group LE SSERAFIM, who have an inexplicable second S in their name, certainly DOES sample the wedding staple "Macarena". And their latest single, from the album 'PUREFLOW', Pt.1, which is incredible, is very much fast Latin house - and very much in your face from the get go.
The single was literally released last Friday, but is already on the Japanese charts. Let's see where this goes. I personally think they're poised for greatness.
It's a K-Pop girl group.
OF COURSE they have a performance video.
And by "a performance video", we mean TWO performance videos. This one's in a quarry.
Now, you know I usually have to throw a disclaimer on "live" performances by K-Pop groups, but this performance - from earlier this week on Korean television - seems to be a little different - it's not the album version at all. They seem to be at least PARTLY singing this.
You may notice there's only four of them. Kim Chaewon had to sit this one out and will be resting for a bit with neck pain.
"Hey, you know what would make this greatest hits album great? A song about literally killing people with music."
And, indeed, that's exactly what happened in 1986, when Kate Bush released The Whole Story, and had a moderate hit song and arguably her biggest hit to date, finally getting significant overseas airplay and MTV rotation. And yes, it was about the military creating a sound that could kill someone from a distance, written and produced by Kate Bush.
The video was directed by Bush herself and tells that exact story.
"Amy Grant writing a song about the January 6th incident in Washington, DC" was not on my 2026 bingo card.
Here we are.
Released as a single on January 6th of this year - and the lead track on her album The Me That Remains, released May 8th - it's about more than that specific event, but the unrest that happens around us, and being present in the moment despite these moments of turmoil. She's definitely not taking a side.
The song is sweet and hopeful, and on this Memorial Day, I think we need that.
By the way, for those who don't get the reference, Matt Yasgur owned a daily farm in Bethel, NY and leased one of his field for a music festival in 1969 that neighboring towns declined to host. Oh, that music festival was Woodstock. Did I forget to mention that?
By the way, Amy suffered a pretty traumatic brain injury four years ago, so it's pretty incredible that she's recording at all......
Let alone performing the song live, and doing so beautifully.
Harlee Case and Josh Smith were high school friends who recorded music together. Then they graduated and went their separate ways....
Until 2015, when, after several years of pursuing solo careers, they both returned to Oregon - Portland - and started a creative partnership that is New Constellations.
They just released a breakthrough album last week - It Comes In Waves - that is excellent and you should check out. They're rightly getting Phantogram comparisons with this album, which has a vague Eyelid Movies feel.
But they aren't Phantogram. They're making good, unique music that you should hear.
After hearing this early live version of the song from last year, I think this would mash up really well with "When I'm Small" and I wish I was good enough to do mashups.
I have been talking about the album and another band so much.... but this is my favorite song on the new album because it's just loaded with emotion. It uncorks and beats you like a drum.
I really miss old time classic pop/country crossover hits. They don't make songs like that anymore.
Take "Seven Year Ache". Written by Rosanne Cash and produced by her then-husband Rodney Crowell, this song by Johnny Cash's daughter was a HUGE country hit and a moderate pop hit in 1981.
It wasn't her last country hit - it's considered to be her breakthrough - but it's her most recognizable today.
She's never stopped recording the song, either. Here she is performing the song last year, in a quiet acoustic version at the Country Music Hall of Fame.
This performance from 1987, however, is more electric and matches the feeling of the original.
Do you remember the time when the "Sledgehammer" video came out and everyone thought it was SOOOOOOOOOO groundbreaking because, well, claymation and stop-motion?
And it was. It won NINE MTV Video Music Awards, the most any video has ever won. It won the Brit Award for Best Video of the Year. It was NOMINATED for a Soul Train Music award in 1987..... the only non-R&B artist nominated in the category and the only non-jazz white artist nominated in ANY category that year. He lost that one to Janet Jackson....
The video is great and Gabriel suffered for it - by having clouds repeatedly painted on his face and having to stay very still a LOT.
But this isn't a blog about videos. It's about music. And this was a pop-rock song in the British soul style, written by Gabriel, that would become his biggest hit in North America (and tie for his biggest hit in the UK). Gabriel leans into the soul influence on this song and on the whole So album, merging an 80's synth sound with 70's-style horns.
OK, but the video is undeniably great.
Gabriel embarked on a long tour in support of So, and it ended in October 1987 in Athens, Greece.
His performance is absolutely a whole-body performance.
Today is the 40th anniversary of the release of So.
So, why not celebrate with a lively performance from.... 2023.
Gabriel still gives a whole-body performance but with less hair.
On Friday, you could say "Bulgaria has never won the Eurovision Song Contest".
On Saturday, you could no longer make that claim.
DARA gave a hell of an exciting performance in the finale of the infamous competition. But despite North American audiences not knowing her, she's been around awhile - going far in the Bulgarian version of The Voice in 2015. She's had a string of hits in Bulgaria since.
This song, co-written by the artist, is inspired by the act of kukeri, which is a Bulgarian ritual, performed by men, intended to ward off evil spirits.
But really, it's just a fun song. Give it a go.
By the way, in order to win, you have to perform the song several times.
You have to compete in-country first - and emerge victorious.
In this day and age, you need a music video, too. And Dara has that.
So, it's tough for me to justify posting much Canadian content outside of March.
And you don't get much more Canadian than Hamilton, Ontario's own Arkells. They have a lot of hometown pride - and they released a new album, Between Us, last month.
But for one of their singles, Arkells teamed up with John Gourley, better known as Portugal. The Man. He's from Alaska, AMERICA! So, checkmate. SUCK IT!
But seriously, it's a cool collaboration.
The night after their album was released, Arkells travelled to the States to perform the song.
OK, they drove like an hour to Buffalo. Seriously, Hamilton is closer to Buffalo than Rochester is. AND they have IKEA!
The crowd in Buffalo knew the Canadian national anthem by heart loved the new music, and with good reason - the band sang the hell out of it.
I have had this song sitting in my drafts for almost a decade.
In 1991, this was America's introduction to the Chicago rock gods. This was their very first single, and it blew me away from first listen. This song defined their fuzzy sound and marked their first use of the signature Big Muff pedal sound that dominated their Gish and Siamese Dream albums.
I still love this song. Billy Corgan bringing it quiet and mellow for 30 seconds at about the 1:50 mark and coming back to the bombast even stronger.... only to return to the quiet style for the last verse.... and get even more bombastic for the finish!
This song is a journey.
Back when Smashing Pumpkins had their original lineup and Billy Corgan had his original hair, this song was a staple of their shows - like this one in 1993 at a Siamese Dream release party. The band was tight!
Most of the band is back together here in 2019 (D'Arcy ain't coming back, ever), and they still sound tight, if not a little older and less bombastic.
But really, my favorite ever performance of this song is this one from a Tower Records in 1993. The band was performing acoustic for a group of fans camping out to buy Siamese Dream at midnight, and despite his reputation, Billy was absolutely charming with that little girl.
This new single, co-written by Finn Keene, A.G. Cook (the producers) and Charlotte Aitchson (because yes, I am using her gubmint name and not some kiss Charli kiss thing she came up with when she was 14), is probably not technically rock music, but it is the most guitar driven thing she's ever done.
And it is a polarizing departure for Charli. But also, like I said when "Vroom Vroom" came out in one of my least favorite posts on this blog, because I really still don't like "Vroom Vroom", it's still Charli. And, this time, I really like this. It's kind of an electronic/rock fusion, and I am here for it.
A couple of weeks ago, Irish hip-hop trio KNEECAP released their second album, FENIAN. The title of the album - and today's song - is both a term to refer to Irish revolutionaries and, not coincidentally, a slur referring to Irish Catholics.
KNEECAP - in all their Irish Catholic brashness - have taken their word back.
And not only are they brash, they released the best hip-hop album of the last year on May 1st, and arguably the best album of the year so far in any genre. It is melodic AND in your face. STRONGLY recommended.
They've already performed this and other songs from the album live, as in this April 30th performance in advance of the album's launch.
Happy 27th birthday to Sabrina Carpenter! Have we been posting her too much lately? Maybe. But she's one of the hottest stars right now and she's making great music, honestly.
But her overnight success was far from overnight. In fact, her first pop hit - making the top 30 in the United States - came off her 2nd album, EVOLution, released 10 years ago. This song, written by Muni Long and Steve Mac, was a top 30 hit in early 2017.
The video was done in one shot. No edits. She was 16.
Sabrina does not like this song anymore. She is 27 now. But she sure did perform it a lot in 2017.
My sister, Dawn, wrote to me yesterday to let me know that Bonnie Tyler had been placed into a medically induced coma (after surgery to repair a perforated intestine), in case I wanted to draft something.
Because, you know, Special Editions.
Well, I have to post this either way now. I'm holding out for not having to uncork a second one before too long.
This song was recorded in mid-1977, after Tyler has undergone surgery (in 1976) to remove nodules from her vocal cords. That surgery left the Welsh singer with a remarkably husky voice - which is better than not being able to sing, which she thought was going to happen.
That husky voice would end up being her first US top 5 hit (she'd have another later).
In 2004, Tyler rerecorded a bilingual version of the song with Kareen Antonn, a French singer. I think it works well as a duet - and Europe agreed, as it as a hit there once again.
The great thing about her voice is that is still sustains a half century later. This performance is from a month and a half ago. As an added bonus, the audience knows every word.
With the first single from this year's locket, Madison Beer has given this to us. It's sultry - oozing with sex - and brings a sharp disco beat - and it has become a pretty sizable hit on the dance charts in the US and elsewhere.
Is Madison Beer a modern day Donna Summer? Maybe. Is this a great dance/pop song? Absolutely.
It's that sexiness that probably got Madison Beer booked to perform this song at the 2025 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.
This live performance from 2023 really makes us happy. You see, we write a lot of posts early, and we are WRITING this post in 2023, just a couple of weeks after this was recorded.
"Fall" being one of our favorite songs from Crawdaddy, this delights us further. Plus, they're having so much fun!!!!
Also, hey, future! Did Elon Musk bring us the flying car yet? (edit: 2026: this did not age well. AT ALL)
On July 4th, 2019, Season 3 of the Netflix hit show Stanger Things dropped. That is when so many people were introduced to a new character named Robin Buckley, who inspired a LOT of 2019 Halloween costumes.
You all had one friend who dressed like this that year. ADMIT IT!
That character was played by actress (and daughter of Uma Thurman) Maya Hawke.
Now, when you all saw the name of the artist, a lot of you didn't need me to tell you that this was Robin. I learned the name of the artist, and I wondered if she was related to Ethan Hawke (she is - that's her dad). Because, you see, I've seen maybe five minutes of Stranger Things.
This isn't an actor's blog. It's a music blog. So, where am I going with this?
On August 16th, 2019 - just a month later - Maya Hawke started her music career with two songs that she co-wrote with Jesse Harris. She was a young singer-songwriter, but was already showing a maturity in her storytelling.
Despite her continued busy acting schedule, Hawke does perform live, as she did in 2020 - and her voice was just breathtaking.
Her new album, MAITREYA CORSO, was released last week, so she's also still making music - and the album is excellent.
The absolute best thing about this blog is learning about new music that I would not have otherwise heard.
Lately, that journey has taken me to Australia an awful lot. Take this band, who formed in Melbourne in 2024 and just released their second EP, NEW AGE, this February. Combining post-punk and showgaze elements, they bring a fresh energy to their music.
Sounds like this don't come out of nowhere. This very tight five piece was performing this song last September - and you can see and hear the raw energy, and the wall of three guitars creating a rich, layered rock sound.
I listened to this album - Graceland Way - on the day it came out - last Friday, April 24th - without knowing a single thing about Mikaela Davis. The cover did tell me something about the album, though.
Can we guess the genre?
What I did NOT guess was that Davis was a classically trained harpist, which is really cool. And she actually plays it - on the album and on stage.
What I did NOT guess is that Davis's record label is Kill Rock Stars, famous home to the riot grrl revolution of the 1990s.
What I REALLY did NOT guess is that Davis is performing at the Lilac Festival in Rochester, NY on May 13th - a Wednesday night, so I likely won't be there, but that does not mean I'm not going to try - because, and this is the kicker, she's actually FROM Rochester, NY.
Without knowing ANY of that, I listened to what is an excellent album. This is the second single from that album - featuring Tim Heidecker (of the comedy duo Tim & Eric) and Grammy winning artist Madison Cunningham - and it is a sweet, bright, throwback of a country song... complete with harp.
To be fair, he DID write it, and he DID record it first - in 1978. It's HIS song.
And, after Johnny Paycheck made it a monster hit and everyone assumed he wrote the song - and Johnny Paycheck HIMSELF implied this was true and definitely downplayed the actual songwriter - David Allan Coe wrote a sequel.
I'm not saying this was the reason, but Johnny Paycheck would never have another #1 hit song.
It feels a little weird to pay tribute to a great outlaw country singer-songwriter like David Allan Coe - whose biggest hit wasn't made popular by his own recording of the song. ("Take This Job And Shove It", by Johnny Paycheck, by the way).
But no. This perfect country and western song - co-written by Steve Goodman and an uncredited-by-choice John Prine, would end up being Coe's biggest personally recorded hit song. It hit #8 on the Country charts in 1975, and ended up being one of the biggest hits of the year.
This live performance of the song - despite the fact that he didn't write it - illustrates just how great a storyteller Coe was.
David Allan Coe passed away yesterday. His voice and his songwriting will be missed.
OK, I'm clearly posting this because it's gonna be May. But also, it's a fun song. It was also the ONLY #1 song by *NSYNC - and they charted a LOT. This was their biggest hit, and it still endures every late April to this day.
Wikipedia calls Australian artist Carla dal Forno an "electro-pop singer".
Yeah. Maybe.
But she's much more than that.
Her latest album, Confession, was released on Friday, and it is one of my favorites of 2026 so far. It's dreamy and skilled. Her fourth solo album (after three as lead vocalist for the band F Ingers (and a release or two with Mole House)), it is a lush masterpiece.
Today's song leads off the album, and it is an ethereal opus that sets the tone for the entire album.
Sometimes this blog feels like ad copy. I'm sometimes parroting facts from the artist's Wikipedia page... or worse, their official bio, rather than telling you how it makes me feel. And, with all the new music I hear, I sometimes get apathetic about it. I'm going to try not to do that this week.
I heard Eaves Wilder's debut album Little Miss Sunshine last week, and it was part of a streak of albums I had listened to after a long streak of albums that were just meh. This album is delightful. The title came from an ironic nickname given to the artist - she admits herself that she was "a bitch". The album itself is full of songs that are nature-themed in title - referencing types of weather and land - kind of going through her own imposter syndrome like a meteorologist.
The results should erase any self-doubt she has.
This performance, released last week, shows that Wilder can play a guitar just like she's ringin' a bell. And she's still really young. In her early 20s, she's already showing performance and songwriting maturity beyond her years.
Look, I have a very hard time listening to Chris Brown since his incident with RiRi.
I came around on this song - which was produced by Diplo and Afrojack - for two reasons.
The first were the guest stars on this track, who STOLE the track. STOLE. Busta Rhymes and his speedrap is the thing of legend. Lil Wayne proves to be his equal. And their participation made this song a huge hit - one of the biggest of 2011, on top of the fact that it was just a huge hit in its own right.
Busta Rhymes has performed the song with Chris Brown - live - and he's just as great with the speedrap live as he was in the studio.
To be fair, Justin Bieber doing the Busta Rhymes part is somehow just as impressive.
He also does the Chris Brown part, though.
But really, you came here for reason 2:
A couple of months after this single was released, a couple of Berkeley School of Music students named Amy and Nick - who happen to have been in a band called Karmin at the time - recorded a version of this song - with Amy singing ALL THREE PARTS.
It's epic. And they thought they had butchered it.
Honestly, I spent the last two days referencing this song and this video, I feel we need to talk about it.
I think we all know that the two members of Videoclub were a couple, both musically and romantically. This was their first single, one of their best known songs, and while it spoke of what seems like love, it's really talking about a superficial love, with little depth.
I'd like to think AdĆØle and Matthieu had more than just this, but that's the song.
Fast forward to 2021, a couple of months before Matthieu would leave Videoclub, and this very sad acoustic version of the song.
Neither of them is happy.
Four years later, when AdĆØle performed the song at a festival in France, she's back to being happy.
For those who don't, this is absolutely a song about her relationship with Mattyeux, and one he felt the need to respond to. But it's a sad song - and it revisits a lot of the scenes from "Amour Plastique" in a slightly different frame, much like Mattyeux did in his video.
But I'll be damned if he doesn't write a hell of a song,
I'd feel a lot better about it if the video wasn't a direct ripoff of Videoclub's "Amour Plastique" and a lyrical response to "C'est drĆ“le" by AdĆØle Castillon, his ex-lover and ex-bandmate.
Let's throw it back to brat summer as we celebrate the warming days of this spring!
It blows my mind (and probably Charli's nostrils) that she does this song live, but she does - and it was a highlight of her Coachella set last year.
As part of the reimagined album brat and it's completely different but also still brat, Charli does a version of this song with Shygirl. Shygirl appeared on stage with Charli to do their version together in Detroit. Stick around to hear her go seamlessly from "365" to "360" (and then to "Von Dutch").
Lime Garden are an all-girl indie pop-rock band from Brighton, in the United Kingdom. Their second album, Maybe Not Tonight, was released last week, with this single, which the band calls their favorite single they've ever recorded, being released earlier this year.
By the way, Maybe Not Tonight is an early contender to top my #Wicked25 this year. Easily one of my favorite albums of the year so far.
But back to this song. It SHOULD be a huge hit by now. It's different - and has an interesting and unique bassline. On top of the album being great, this is one of my favorite singles of the year.
Now listen!
Just because they released the song in 2026 doesn't mean they didn't perform it in 2025.... and it sounds a lot like what you heard on record. Also, this band is TIGHT!
A number one POP hit - the second for each artist - and a MONSTER country hit, it dominated the charts in 1983. It is considered to be the greatest country duet of all time - and I think that's a pretty solid pick.
The song is written in C major for Rogers but switches to A-flat major in the parts where Parton takes lead.
Of course, they performed the song together whenever they could, but the last time they did was on October 25, 2017. Rogers was retiring (Dolly still isn't) and would pass away in 2020. It's rare to have a firm last concert in advance, and he was lucky to do it.
Some called the performance painful. I say it's a classic.
You know, when Midnight Sun, Zara Larsson's fine album from 2025, was released, I listened to it soon after its initial release - early October. I liked the album quite a bit. I stopped short of calling it "great" but I enjoyed it, and said I'd come back to it.
And then I moved on. And I got a bit sick of hearing "Midnight Sun".
But "Stateside" gave me a good reason to give Zara Larsson a second chance. And it's a good thing. Her second biggest hit was a single from 2015 that peaked very high in Europe, including spending time at #1 in her native Sweden, and in the 70s... uh, stateside. And, she released this video in her native Sweden and Europe.
She made a total of three videos for this song in 2015, including this one for the United States.
And because it was a big hit song, she kept performing it live, like she did here for Swedish television.
And she kept performing it..... like this performance at Lollapalooza in Chicago in 2017.
Important to note that she really won the crowd over with her performance
And she kept performing it.... like this performance at Lollapalooza in Brazil in 2018.
It had been a huge selling single in Brazil already, so no surprise that the crowd loved it.
And she kept performing it.... like this performance in the UK in 2023.
It had already been a #3 single back in the 2015-2016 timeframe, and among her biggest hits there, by the way.
And she kept performing it on the Midnight Sun tour in 2025.... and then she played a show in Amsterdam.
On this tour, it had become tradition to bring a fan onstage to dance the somewhat TikTok popular dance at her shows. On this night, she chose a 16-year-old girl named Julia Coster.
Let's just say that Julia knew the dance.
Julia understood the assignment.
That viral moment got a LOT of attention, including US television coverage, and it gave the song a second win worldwide, including a rise to #36 #35 on the US charts - and still rising!!!!
And now, these fan interactions have become Zara's signature.
Today, I'm working mostly backwards, and we're starting with the Winter Olympics - specifically the skating exhibition done by two-time gold medalist Alysa Liu.
This sparked interest in a song that was already rising - and that is the version of "Stateside" from PinkPantheress's reimagine set Fancy Some More, the followup to her fantastic Fancy That. On Fancy Some More, many of these songs from the original mixtape were reimagined as duets - and all of them more than once (most of them more than twice).
Partly due to Ms. Liu, and partly because it's an absolute banger, the duet version of this song with Zara Larsson (one of four by my count) has floated to the top. It is currently a top 10 hit in the United States and worldwide. It's almost as if two up and coming pop stars in their own rights are elevating each other.
Also, remember that both of these artists are European. Being stateside to them means something different than it would, say, to an American. It's very much more tourism.
But it DID start off as a PinkPantheress song originally.... it's a lot less pop and a lot more harshly electronic, but it works and works well.
Compare that to this demo version, which is slightly more Charli XCX-inspired. The Autotune is way way turned off in this version.... and she ended up dialing it back for the released versions.
By the way, Zara Larsson wasn't the only one our friendly neighborhood PinkPantheress decided to team up with on this song. This version, for example, features Kylie Minogue. It's got a very different feel, for sure.... but it's still poppy.
Her collaboration on the song with Swedish hip-hop artist Bladee is a bit more... industrial. Same song, but also, a different song.
I'm including the version she did with Groove Armada, but this very overtuned and electronic version is probably my least favorite of all of them.
But now bringing it back to Zara Larsson - who happens to also be touring at the same time as PinkPantheress.... it's become a live staple for her just as much, though, and she finds a way to do it while still being respectful to the songwriter and original solo performer.
But, really, little ever beats the original, as we see from this PinkPantheress live performance in Tokyo earlier this year (and yes, we saw her Coachella set and it was spectacular)... but you can see that Zara Larsson's shared success with her has changed the performance of this song forever.
Compare it to an earlier performance of the song, which is remixed differently and more like the original.
Also, stick around for the whole performance because it's incredible.
There is no official video for the 5th single off Choke Enough, but this is the first YouTube result.
But let's add a layer here. Oklou is clearly still playing the sweet acoustic guitar and still singing the sweet and heartbreaking lyrics that I suspect about the pains of parenthood and having to eventually let your child out of the nest - but it's a much more upbeat sounding song when additional layers of music are added.
It sounds more rich with a full band is what I am saying.
