How did INXS become an afterthought on the US charts? The answer may surprise you.
This 1993 single, the lead one from their album Full Moon Dirty Hearts, featured a video that MTV would not air, because it had "controversial images" - specifically Gulf War images, something that was still pretty fresh in the American psyche.
It was, and is, still a great and exciting song. It is a true shame that it was ignored to the extent that it was.
Even though Michael Hutchence passed away in 1997, he still have time to give spirited live performances of this song. Here is the band, performing the song to an excited crowd in 1994.
This joke, co-written by and primarily performed by reality show dating star Flavor Flav, is about the paramedic response in predominantly black neighborhoods. It is not about police response - only paramedic/ambulance response.
I think a lot of people look at Flavor Flav is a joke because, well, the clocks, Flavor of Love's three seasons. Come on, man - just pick New York. However, he wrote and performed poignant songs like this one - and delivered the hard messages with a side of humor. It's somewhat brilliant, really.
Leo Graham and Paul Richmond, record producers, were nominated for a Grammy for this 1980 hit song, the biggest by The Manhattans for several years - their second and final trip to the Billboard top 5 (although they'd continue to be the R&B chart hitmakers they had been for more than a decade).
But hey, that's not the point of this post. The point is to make sure you know it's The Manhattans, and not Earth, Wind, and Fire, who perform this song. Yes, EWF has a song by the same name. It's not this song.
"Actually, today we're going to feature Ten Second Epic. Yeah, they're Canadian. Maybe I should have saved this for Maple Leaf March, but whatever. They have other songs."
"OK, sir, I am impressed. Good way to break the mold. Or do they spell it mould?"
"Good question. I'll have to ask all my favourite Canadians."
"Well, tell me about this song!"
"OK! This song was off their 2009 album Hometown, This video, for the third single from that album, was directed by Sean Michael Turrell, and centers around a guy asking his lady to forgive him for some ambiguous wrongdoing."
"Oh, I love ladies in videos. Anything else you need to tell me before I watch this?"
"My computer doesn't know what to do with the weird o-e thing and just drops it. So the links just say Pirate Stray Dog or something."
"(facepalm) OK, well, she did a video game soundtrack. The song you hear when you finish the game is really beautiful and quite possibly the most epic video game song ever written."
"What game was it?"
"Child of Light. By Ubisoft. Critics loved it and it's been released for just about every major gaming platform."
"Wait - that's an old game and it's all childhood stories."
"I mean... 2014, but it's still being released for new platforms."
"OK, that's cool. I suppose you're going to want to say something about the soundtrack and how Béatrice Martin wrote the whole soundtrack, not just for piano, but for symphony, and worked with the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra to record a good portion of these tracks?"
"Um... yeah. That's pretty much exactly what I was going to say."
The old people reading this are wondering who Dua Lipa is. So, let's set that up.
Dua Lipa started her professional life as an alt-pop artist a la Charli XCX. Somewhere along the way, she dropped the 'alt".
There. You know enough.
"Levitating" was a worldwide hit in 2021, peaking at #2 in the US and topping the charts elsewhere. Despite peaking at #2, it spent a LONG time at #2 - long enough to end up being the year end #1 single, according to Billboard - onyl the fourth song to ever accomplish that and the first in two decades.
It's also a damn catchy song, and a great disco throwback. It was time. This is version #3 of the song, a remix featuring DaBaby.
The first (original) and second (a remix by Missy Elliott and Madonna) were released on the same day, and they each got different official videos (as did that third version with DaBaby). Here is that original:
....and here is the Blessed Madonna remix. Yes, that's Missy Elliott in the video as well.
For me, this song about a woman in love with a gay man was my first introduction to the Hayden Triplets.
Even though the Haydens are widely associated with that dog, this song, as well as every other one from their 2nd album, Totally Crushed Out (which is amazing), was written by Anna Waronker, lead vocalist and frequent Beck backing band member.
Why this band isn't as big as Weezer is a question that is often asked. And I agree. They should be.
that dog is a band that is still together. Here they are, performing this song in 2019.
Hoodoo Gurus were one of my favorite bands growing up. They never got super well-known in the States, but in their native Australia, this song, written by vocalist Dave Faulkner, was a Top 20 hit.
The travesty about this video is that it only has 157 views on YouTube as I write this. I'm hoping to at least triple that and get this classic band some attention!
The great thing about this band is that they're still performing. Here they are in 2008, playing for a crowd that knows all the words.
Sometimes, a song so absolutely ridiculous comes that captures the entire world. That's not a negative - those songs are usually remembered fondly.
This is not a post about a song like that.
Take "Dance Monkey", the 2019 single by Austrailian singer Toni Watson, who goes by the stage name Tones and I. This song hit #1 in over 30 counties, and was a top 5 hit in the US - despite being called "Dance Monkey" and having what one could say were absurd lyrics. The reality of the lyrics is that the inspiration came from Watson's time as a street dancer - where she would literally have to dance for money. So, the absurity is actually rooted in reality.
And here I am, talking about it three years later, because it's a darned catchy song.
I have to be honest - I thought this was going to be a quick little post with a viral video, given the song's short but strong chart showing.
But no. Tones and I absolutely performs this live. And it's kind of spectacular.
It's also a song that predates its fame. This performance is from four months before the single's release - before the record deal, before the hugeness, before everythung.
"So, I guess you're gonna want to post another song with that funny o-e combo woman today? I mean, gotta keep a streak going or something?"
"Nah, But you make a point. I should tie yesterday into today. Didn't Aly & AJ have some huge autotuned hit breakup song a few years back?"
"Oh, that's right! They did! Acutally, now that you mention it, they kinda disappeared after that."
"Well, as we said yesterday, iZombie and all that."
"You know AJ is on The Goldbergs, right?"
"Oh, really?"
"Sorry that didn't fit into your Aly fetish, but yeah, AJ Michalka is at least as accomplished an actress as her sister."
"To be fair, I didn't mention Hellcats. They both appeared on there."
"That really wouldn't have helped your case."
"Can we PLEASE get back to the music."
"Sure, I guess so."
"I need to write something actually pertaining to this song."
"I suppose you're gonna want to say something technical about the song, like how their other stuff was actually guitar-based rock and this was synth-filled Radio Disney-targeted pop stuff, right?"
"Yeah, that sounds like me."
"Hey, I know you love posting live stuff in a second video. Might I make a recommendation?"
"Sure, fire away."
"I seem to recall that Aly & AJ rerecorded the song with dirty words on some live performance on New Year's Eve in 2020. That would be cool, right?"
Let's keep up the shoegaze stuff with the band that literally defined the genre - Lush. I think Miki Berenyi and Emma Anderson are literally gazing at their shoes in this video.
At 2:13. I don't just say stuff to be funny.
Written by Anderson, and produced by Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins, this song is one of the noisiest from their 1992 Spooky album - but even this noise doesn't cancel out the dreamlike music and beautiful harmonies of Anderson and Berenyi on dual lead vocal.
I know, I know. We've been AWOL for a while. It's been a busy summer. But we're back. And we aren't leaving for a long time.
The opening track to the 1991 debut album (God Fodder) by Ned's Atomic Dustbin originally started life as a song that had nothing to do with television.... until Alex Griffin saw a sticker in Mystic, Connecticut. Why he was in Mystic, I'm not sure - but that changed his album and his song for good.
The shoegaze genre, which was so damned popular among the kids whose parents just didn't understand them, was set on its ear with this album, which took the genre and turned up the amps. This song - and in fact the whole album - was somewhat groundbreaking.
By the way, they're still around, still touring, and still killing televisions.
In the case of Mr. Yankovic, it's elevated to an art form. This particular song did piss Coolio off, but it's biting and clever, like so much of his other music.
It would not have been a novelty music week without including Weird Al, either, so I couldn't relegate him to the Covers blog.
In 1976, disco was everywhere. So, Memphis, TN DJ Rick Dees wrote a parody of disco featuring a vaguely Donald-sounding duck.
Surprisingly, and despite initial resistance from his bosses in Memphis, it became a Number One hit and set up Rick Dees for a career that ended up being a whole lot bigger than Memphis - he was quickly moved to the Los Angeles market soon after.
There are few songs I know all the lyrics to, without mistake, unprompted. This is one of them.
Released in 1978, it remains the most requested song on Dr. Demento's radio show to this day - but there's more to the story of this rather surreal tribute to a fish from the neck up.
The video was directed by and stars friend of Barnes & Barnes, Bill Paxton. Yes. THAT Bill Paxton.
In 2022, this song could never be made. It's violent, in a school, and quite politically incorrect.
In 1983, it was the B-side to a song that didn't have the staying power of this one.
Julie Brown is an actress, a comedian, a musician, a screenwriter (she wrote BOTH Camp Rock movies) and sometimes an MTV VJ. Her songs - not just this one - still crack me up all these years later.
But even in 1983, this song wasn't well-received by critics. It was a novelty song, to be sure - but it wasn't like the cute and funny ones of the past like "Disco Duck", It was dark, and graphic, and appealed to a different sense of humor.
The people loved it, though - and the song still endures as one of the best known novelty songs ever.
Unlike yesterday's song, this one is actually about a pony. And Ralph Stanley.
I've long been a fan of Kasey Chambers - the undisputed queen of Australian country music - so I'm glad I got this opportunity to post one of my favorite songs by her.
I own The Burdens of Being Upright, which was Tracy Bonham's debut album. I know when and where I bought it.
March 12, 1997, Circuit City, Henrietta NY.
I still almost forgot this song existed, and that's a shame, because it's a great song. It opens with some manic VIOLIN playing by Bonham, and ping-pongs between noise-filled frenzy and quiet thoughtful verses. It is a nearly perfect and criminally overlooked song.
One of the biggest absences from Spotify, in my opinion is Curve's debut album, Doppelgänger. It is a brilliant, grungy album that was overshadowed by others in its time - but it was ahead of its time.
Co-written by Toni Halliday and Dean Garcia, who were Curve, this was the lead track from that album - and it hits in the face with its combination of overwhelming power-pop and gothic undertones. Unlike other bands in the "shoegaze" genre that was so popular in the early 1990s, Toni Halliday's vocal is right out front, not at all mumbled.
