16 May 2024 - Emei - That Girl

Meet Emei.  She was born in California (as Emily Li) and raised in New Jersey to Chinese immigrants.

She also competed on Chinese Idol and Dancing With The Stars China.  She was enough of a star in China to be on THAT show.  

She's an angry pop-rock artist with some great songwriting chops, like this 2022 single by her.  Did it chart? No.  Did it make an impact?  Yuppers.  This song is fun and angry and empowering and you will be dancing by the end of it.  

14 May 2024 (special edition) - Mélanie Renaud - J'm'en veux

For most of you, you don't know who Mélanie Renaud is.  

Born in Haiti in 1982, she was adopted at 8 months to parents from Quebec.  She built a hell of a career as a singer and a stage performer.  Today's song won the Félix Prize, an award for Quebec songwriters, for in 2002.  Her debut album, Ma Liberté, won the Canadian Independent Spirit Award for Francophone Album the same year. She fought and beat substance abuse.  Her huge voice never suffered.

Renaud passed away today at age 42, from overian cancer.  Her legacy and her music remain. 

A few months before she passed, Renaud did a beautiful acoustic version of this same song.  It is breathtaking and haunting.

14 May 2024 - Marie-Mai - Tu t'en fous

I tried like HELL to get this song into Maple Leaf March this year.  Since we featured Marie-Mai as part of a Simple Plan post in 2023, I've been trying to slot her in.

Marie-Mai is not that well known outside of Quebec, but inside Quebec, she's a star.  She got her start on a Quebec-based singing competition show, finishing third, and followed that with a part in the musical Rent. 

It's been a lot of music over the last twenty years as well, with hits in francophone Canada and France.  She has gravitated a little more pop nowadays, but she was always pop/rock.  This is one of her earliest, from her debut album, Inoxydable, from 2004

Of course she performed one of her biggest early hits live.  By this time, she had gone a little mellower and more towards a poppier direction, but the rock edge is still here. 

9 May 2024 - Big Black - The Power of Independent Trucking

Had I not woken up to the news that Steve Albini had passed away on Tuesday, I would have made this a Special Edition.

Steve Albini wasn't best known for his music with Big Black, Rapeman and Shellac, although all three bands were great, and what will likely be the last Shellac album is coming out next week.  He was best known as a great record producer - producing such albums as Surfer Rosa by the Pixies, Pod by the Breeders, In Utero by Nirvana, Rid of Me by PJ Harvey, and so, so many others. He was notoriously not easy to work with, but also, down to earth, even personally answering the phone in his recording studio.

Big Black's second and final album, Songs About Fucking, probably the most honestly titled album ever, was a masterpiece, and it opened with this minute and a half long ode to, well, independent trucking... and absolutely about fucking. Released in 1987, it was probably a little ahead of its time.  Albini layers distorted power chords with atonal squeals, creating a relentless feeling of claustrophobia that perfectly captures the cramped confines of a diesel cab.  

His voice, his guitar, and his production will be missed.  

8 May 2024 - Tara Slone - My Little Secret

Born in Quebec and raised in Nova Scotia, Tara Slone isn't exactly a household name outside of the San Francisco Bay area, and even then mostly with hockey fans.  She has been a longtime hockey commentator - first with Sportsnet in Canada and now with NBC Sports Bay Area.

But before that, Tara Slone was a musician.  She got her biggest break with a band called Joydrop (yes, we've featured them before) and then she went solo.  She did take a slight turn in trying to be the lead vocalist for INXS - that's not a joke - but did some credible solo work in her own right. 

She had a pretty solid straight-ahead rock sound that was compelling - an extension of Joydrop, but even heavier.  

7 May 2024 - Teya & Salena - Who The Hell Is Edgar?

Meet Austria's 2023 Eurovision entry.  Teya and Salena are separate Austrian musical artists - both quite talented.  They met on the TV show Starmania 21, which is a music competiton in Austria.

This ended up being a hit song in many countries, and the 15th place finisher in Eurovision.  It is the biggest hit to date by either artist, and they've gone on to continue to record and release singles together.  

By the way, the titular "Edgar" is Edgar Allen Poe, who has possessed the songwriters, these women, along with their producers, Ronald Janeček and Pele Loriano.  The song was written during the last hour of a songwriting camp in 2022, and was always intended for Eurovision... for Salena to sing solo.  It just worked better with both of them.

Just have fun with it.

Eurovision is, of course, about the performance, and this is their performance. Again, it's a fun, goofy song.

Of course they continue to play the song, like during this charity play in Austria.

They've even done a stropped down - I refuse to call it "acoustic" - version of the song.

6 May 2024 - The Darling Buds - If I Said

I was REALLY SCARED we wouldn't have something to continue this.  I mean, it's going to have to end someday, right?  The Darling Buds only released so much music.  

This is not the year it ends.  But I scared you, didn't I?

There have been rumours of new Darling Buds music coming soon.  I will let you know if I see it anytime soon, but we won't post it here until next May 6th.  We have to conserve our Darling Buds, you know. 

3 May 2024 - Manel - Per la bona gent

Manel are a Spanish band.

But that ain't Spanish that they are singing.

You see, Manel are from Barcelona, in Catalonia, in the north of Spain.   The native language there, banned for so many years by Francisco Franco, who ruled Spain from the end of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s until 1975, is Catalan.  

Manel are a band who perform in Catalan.  

This song was the title song from the 5th album, released in 2019.  They use a sample from the song "Alenar" by Maria del Mar Bonet, a Majorcan singer who stood in defiance of Franco by singing in Catalan in the late 1960 - the native language of Majorca, strangely enough, is a dialect of Catalan as well. 

If this is the first time you've heard Catalan, it may sound a little strange, like someone is pronouncing Spanish with extra h's.  It is a beautiful language and this song is a banger.

 

The song is just as cool live, if not cooler.

2 May 2024 - Daoko × Kenshi Yonezu - 打上花火 (Fireworks)

Daoko is a young Japanese singer and rapper who first hit the scene in 2012, at age 15, when she uploaded her songs on the video streaming site called Nico Nico Douga at the time (now it's NicoNico). 

This single, a collaboration with Kenshi Yonezu, who wrote the song.  Featured on her 2017 album, Thank You Blue as well as the anime Fireworks, Should We See It From The Side or The Bottom, it would go on to top the Japan Hot 100.  It would go on to be the 3rd biggest hit on the 2017 Billboard Japan year-end chart.

Here's where it gets crazy.

It would also go on to be the 4th biggest hit on the 2018 Billboard Japan year-end chart.

It would also go on to be the 21th biggest hit on the 2019 Billboard Japan year-end chart.

OK, so now I'm done.

No, wait. It was the 75th biggest hit on the same chart in 2020.

In an all-time hit chart released in 2022, it was the 13th biggest Billboard Japan hit of all time.

The song is sad and beautiful at the same time, and was heralded for that dichotomy.  The video is, well, anime.

Daoko isn't an anime, though.  She's a real person, who really performs live, as she did in 2018.

1 May 2024 - Jennifer Rostock - K.B.A.G.

The Bundesvision Song Contest is a German competition between the 16 states of Germany that is loosely based on Eurovision's concept.  

In 2008, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern band Jennifer Rostock didn't win, but they did get noticed and a record deal followed.

Oh, we should probably address this for our non-German readers.  Jennifer Rostock is a band, fronted by Jennifer Weist.  The name came from an earlier studio misunderstanding, where notes to the band were directed at Jennifer, and since they didn't know her name, but only that the band was from the coast, they just put the only coastal town they knew, Rostock - which was not where the band was from, but close enough, I guess? - and the screwed-up name stuck.

The band rocked hard and they continue to rock hard.  This single, from 2014, is a great example of that.

They rock just as hard live.

30 April 2024 - Danna - ATARI

I am absolutely on an Élite kick lately.  

It doesn't hurt that the actress who played Lu - Mexican singer/actress Danna Paola - in seasons 1-3 of the show released a single last Tuesday... and that it's a banger.  The second single from her new album, Childstar, it's already got a LOT of views and listens on your favorite streaming platform.  Co-written and co-produced by the now-mononymous Danna (with a large team), it's a fun and sexy song.  

Even you English speakers will recognize a few of the words.  

The song's title is a reference to the popular Atari 2600 VCS, the first mass-market home video game systems with interchangable cartridges - you know, you can play with her like an Atari.... I guess.

It's also really easy to dance to. 

29 April 2024 - Louane - Donne-moi ton cœur

I've featured Louane on this blog before.  More than once.  

The French hitmaker has a lot of great singles to choose from, including this 2020 single, written and produced by Wolfgvng and Damso, the latter of whom Louane met at a music festival, where they bonded and decided to work together.  The song is a slow electronic love song, whose title literally translates to "Give me your heart". 

The song would go on to be a hit in Belgium and Switzerland, and a minor hit in France.

In addition to her excellent pop vocals, Louane is a pretty good pianist, and she does an acoustic version of this song, which is slower and more heartfelt.

It's beautiful.

It also wasn't a one-off, as she also did this version live, on French television.

That doesn't mean she doesn't perform the original live.... or that it isn't differently beautiful. 

26 April 2024 - Soul Coughing - Super Bon Bon

Move aside, and let the man go through.

This song was on heavy rotation in the 90s on Rochester, NY alternative radio station WBER, which is how I became aware of Soul Coughing. 

This song, written by the band, was one of their biggest hits on alternative radio, becoming something of radio favorite in 1997. It was used as wrestler entrance music, in video games, in television.... it was something of a cash cow for the band.  

It is probably better to see a live performance by the band, and see the energy that they bring. Watching M. Doughty go apeshit while the rest of the band stays cool is a sight to behold.  

25 April 2024 - Paula Abdul - Straight Up

This was not Paula Abdul's first single.  It was her third.

It was, however, her first top 40 hit, the first of four from Forever Your Girl, at the time the most ever from a debut album.  Written and produced by Elliot Wolff, it would eventually hit #1 around the world - in the US in February 1989.  To get into the technical, the song is at a tempo of 96 beats per minute, which is known as a "shuffling" tempo.

You aren't here for the technical.  You're here to see Arsenio Hall.    

Did you watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2022?  Then you saw Paula Abdul, 35 years after the single's release, tap dancing and lipsyncing the song.  

She does also perform the song live for real from time to time, but really, you should be here for the choreography, because Adbul was and is a gifted choreographer.

24 April 2024 - Mala Rodríguez - Tengo un Trato

We're presently binging the Netflix series Élite. The show was originally made for Netflix Spain, and is dubbed into English for our viewing pleasure.  It's a cool show, with a lot of twists and turns.  There's also a lot of great music to discover, much of it music I have never heard.

Season 3, Episode 4 is where we are as I am writing this, and as the episode was starting, this song came on.  I instantly recognized Mala Rodríguez's voice, and this song, which was her debut single in 2000.  It set the stage for the in-your-face style that is a hallmark of everything La Mala has done.

The song's title literally translates to "I Have A Deal" and is a classic rap battle response.  For that, you need her attitude. 

La Mala is not one to forget where she came from, which is why, in 2020, she was still performing this song, with as much bravado as the first day she performed it.

23 April 2024 - Pink Floyd - Shine On You Crazy Diamond

This is a very, very, very long song.  

It's also a very complex song with a lot of changes and movements.  Written by David Gilmour, Roger Waters and Richard Wright, it is an opus in nine parts, and a tribute to Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett.  Appearing on their 1975 album, Wish You Were Here, it quickly became a band favorite.  

I'm going to leave this without much commetary, because the emotion of the song - the love for Barrett and the guilt in forcing him out - is enough.  

Here is the band, led by David Gilmour, performing the song in 1990.

Here's another performance, from Nassau Coliseum in 1988.

22 April 2024 - Fine, It's Pink - Did It All for You

I've been following Romanian band Fine, It's Pink since 2013.  That's when I heard their amazing cover of Phantogram's "When I'm Small".   Now, the original of that is one of my favorite song, and I'll probably fire it up on the turntable pretty soon.  

I've written about them a few times on this blog, too, most recently in 2021.  

I write this blog to tell you about the music that I enjoy, and, well, I have discovered music thanks to this blog.  It was purely accidental that I discovered this Romanian band, over here in the States, and yet I did.  

Watching Fine, It's Pink mature as musicians - watching their original songs get more adult and more beautiful - is one of the best things I have ever experienced in writing this little blog.  Their new single, out last week, is perhaps their most mature and beautiful work to date.  The song was written by Fine, It's Pink, with Ioana Lefter writing the lyrics she is singing herself.  

I hope this is the song that breaks them out of Romania and onto the world stage, because few musicians deserve it more.  

19 April 2024 - Coi Leray - Players

It's like a jungle sometimes.

It makes me wonder how I keep from going under.

No, I'm not talking about my personal struggles.   I'm talking about the Grandmaster Flash sample that the outstanding Coi Leray employs prominently through this song.

This 2022 single ended up in the Top 10, her first and at this point only trip there. It absolutely an explicit and empowering song, and I love it a lot. 

It is unusual to see a new video for a REMIX of a song, but in the case, it is appropriate, as DJ Smallz put a new spin on the song.

This remix by DJ Saige replaces the Grandmaster Flash sample with a Busta Rhymes sample.... and Mr. Rhymes himself guest stars.

18 April 2024 - Sigur Rós - Hoppípolla

You know when we feature bands with non-English characters in their names, when we have to figure out the ASCII codes for writing these non-English characters, that they must be special.

Icelandic superstars Sigur Rós, described as a post-rock band (accurately) are that kind of special.  Their best known song is this one, a song with some Icelandic and some nonsense words, about childlike fun and holding onto that spirit....

,,,which is probably why the video prominently features several elderly people pulling pranks on people, including members of the band.

The song, like a lot of their music, is beautiful and different and thought-provoking.  

Of course it's a live favorite.  Why wouldn't it be?!

17 April 2024 - Beyoncé - Texas Hold 'Em

For those who do not know, the former Beyoncé Knowles was raised in Houston, TX.  She was raised on country music.  She performed four times at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, an event she attended many times as a child.   She's performed COUNTRY MUSIC in the past, with the (former Dixie) Chicks and Sugarland.  Her songs have been covered by Reba and others.

So explain to me: why would anyone have any issue with her "going country" when she's performing (and she co-wrote) a really catchy country album?

I sure don't.  This song, released during the Super Bowl this year, is damn catchy.  She didn't even send the song to country radio, but it is getting significant airplay.  It's also getting significant airplay on pop radio, making it one of the more significant crossover songs of the last several years (miss me with that Jason Aldean and Morgan Wallen talk, kids).  

And yes, we hear it.  It sounds a lot like the Franklin theme song.  

16 April 2024 - DRAMAS - Coma Call

Sometime soon, we are going to have a week of nothing but non-English songs.  

It was a search for those songs that led me to DRAMAS, an Austrian band that is making some of the most interesting music on the planet.  And thank Courtney for this one - she found it and introduced it to me.

Formed in 2016, they made a splash in Europe right from the get go. Viktoria Winter and Mario Wienerroither are the whole band, and they bring a lot of noise and emotion.  This song, their latest single, was inspired by old French music.... and yeah, I can hear it.  

"Coma Call" isn't going to win awards for lyrical complexity, but that's precisely the beauty of it.  It's a track that revels in pure sonic pleasure.  It's the kind of song you crank up while cruising down a nighttime highway, windows down, feeling the wind whip through your hair.

So please, enjoy my family's current earworm.

15 April 2024 - Labi Siffre - I Got The...

Labi Siffre built himself a long and illustrious soul career with classic songs and great beats that live on.

This was the opening track of Siffre's 1975 album, Remember My Song.  It is probably the song for which he is best known.

However, it was never a hit song on his own.  

Nope, it was a hit because Emimen sampled it as a singificant part of his song, "My Name Is", in 1999.  Siffre was initially not allowing this song, which he wrote and performed, to be sampled, as the original Eminem track contained a lot of derrogatory language againsts women and gay people (Siffre is openly gay).  Eminem changed his lyrics and submitted a clean version, and the sample was approved.  (Eminem DID release the other version as well, as a dirty version).  

The song, however, was pretty great as is, even if it was a bit obscure.  Here.  Enjoy it.

Since then, the song is no longer obscure, even getting use in an episode of Better Call Saul.

15 April 2024 - Eminem - My Name Is

This 1999 single is likely the first thing you heard by Eminem unless you saw him as a freestyle rapper in Detroit as a kid.  

It earned Eminem his first Grammy, for best Rap Solo Performance.  Cowritten by Marshall Mathers (Eminem), Andre Young (Dr. Dre) and Labi Siffre (Labi Siffre,who was credited because of the significant sample of his song "I Got The..."), the song was meant to be humorous and light-hearted, but ended up being also pretty groundbreaking.  

That was the version that Labi Siffre approved.

He expressly did NOT approve this version, which contains some homophobic slurs - calling it "lazy writing".  But we'll talk more about that another day.

Eminem released it anyway.

Yes, of course, he did perform ths song live, like in this performance at the legendary Whisky A Go Go on the fabulous Sunset Strip.