24 January 2025 - Falco - Der Kommissar | After The Fire - Der Kommissar | Laura Branigan - Deep In The Dark

This is a case where there is an obvious original and an obvious cover, and yet both are iconic.  

But you weren't expecting THREE songs, were you?

In 1981, Falco released this song as a single in Germany and Austria.  He really wanted it to be a B-side because he thought the bassline was too-"Super Freak"-y.   He may have been right, but his record label insisted, and, well, they were right.  

The song hir #1 in both countries.

So they all decided to release it broader.   And it did really really well in Europe, and hit #11 in Canada in 1982.  

It only made club hit status in the US, despite this amazing US-only video with terrific special effects. Don't worry, though - he had hits later. 

We jump to early 1982, and struggling UK prog rock band After The Fire. In a last-ditch effort to stay together, they recorded a version of this song, and it was a hit everywhere Falco's version was not, except Canada, where not only were both hits, but - remember above, where I said Falco's version hit #11?   ATF's version hit #12, the SAME WEEK.

Anyway, this was a more popular song in the US, but both are great.  

Falco, who HATED the ATF version with a passion, would not agree with me that both are great. 

ATF would break up in late 1982 - ON STAGE, during an opening gig supporting Van Halen - but they did reform in 2004, and yeah, they did perform this song live. And well.

But c'mon.  Falco did live better, if just for the trenchcoats.

But wait.  There's more. Around the time of ATF's breakup, Laura Branigan was recording and preparing for release her own version of the song, with a different translation and in a very different key.

Here she is lip-syncing to "Deep In The Dark" on American Bandstand.  It did get a 1983 single release but went nowhere on the charts, and was quickly overshadowed by "Self Control". 

22 January 2025 - Dua Lipa - Dance The Night

"Dance The Night" is what you'd get if ABBA and Daft Punk had a baby and raised it on a strict diet of glitter and confidence. It's proof that movie soundtracks don't have to be as forgettable as your ex's birthday or as bland as tofu at a steakhouse.

Yep.  It's gonna be that type of post today.

Mark Ronson crafted a production smoother than a buttered dolphin. The bass line struts around like John Travolta practicing for "Saturday Night Fever" in a zero-gravity chamber, while strings sweep in like the ghost of Barry White conducting an orchestra of velvet.

Dua's vocals are more polished than a Buddhist monk's head, showing growth that would make a redwood tree jealous. She's evolved faster than a Pokemon with a Fire Stone since "Future Nostalgia," and this track is her final evolution. The lyrics, ostensibly about dancing through your problems, are more layered than a Matryoshka doll wearing an onion costume.

The song, from the soundtrack to the Barbie movie, dominated summer 2023 like a benevolent earworm dictator, climbing to #6 on Billboard faster than a spider monkey hopped up on espresso. It's the rare movie tie-in that doesn't feel more forced than small talk in an elevator, actually enhancing both the film and Dua's artistic journey like some sort of pop music alchemy.

17 January 2025 - Pat Benatar - Love Is A Battlefield

Remember when Pat Benatar was on MTV all the time?!

This song was a lot of the reason.  The video itself tells a story of a 30-year-old teenage runaway leaving home to become a taxi dancer, only to lead a dance rebellion by her fellow taxi dancers and escaping the lifestyle.

No, really.  That is the storyline of the video.   

It was somewhat groundbreaking because it was one of the first music videos to feature dialog - not THE first, but the first well-known video.  It is the Oreo to Phillip Bailey's "I Know" Hydrox.  

The song was written by Mike Champan and Holly Knight - each of them hitmaking songwriters - and would become one of Benatar's celebrity-making early hits. 

This song was a hit in 1983 and 1984.  So, imaging the surprise when she appeared on Austin City Limits in 2024 and brought the SAME LEVEL of energy to the song 40 years after its initial release, at age 71.

I'm not overselling this performance.  It's incredible. 

15 January 2025 - The Beatles - Hey Jude

I have always loved the song, and it's been in my drafts for five years.   Today is the day.

It was the biggest hit of 1968, by far.  It led year-end charts worldwide. 

The song started out as "Hey Jules" in May 1968 - the titular Jules being Julian Lennon, son of John and Cynthia, who had separated in the wake of John's affair with Yoko Ono.  Listen to it as not a love song, but as encouragement for a five year old kid who blames himself for his parents' divorce, and you will get it.

Did Paul McCartney ever admit to John Lennon that it was about his son?  No. John thought it was about himself. 

The seven-minute long magnum opus was, at the time, the longest #1 song in history (later eclipsed by "American Pie" by Don McLean, which was a minute longer, itself eclipsed by Taylor Swift's "All Too Well"). 

It's also a beautiful song. 

13 January 2025 - Spice Girls - Spice Up Your Life / Spice Invaders

In 1998, I travelled to California with my then-wife for a training class.   

The only tolerable radio station we could find was, no joke, Radio Disney. 

This song was on super heavy rotation, so, shockingly, we got a quick affinity for the song.   

It's clearly a strong attempt to have the word "Spice" repeated over and over in a song. 

The song was the lead single from their 2nd album, SpiceWorld, and was a significantly lower performer than their previous songs.  Still, it was a hit, and not a bad song (although there are some questionable lyrics).    

But can we talk about the B-side?  You see, they didn't have any songs left for the B-side, so Virgin Records hired songwriting/producing team Absolute to come up with something.  The "something" they came up with was "Spice Invaders" - literally a generic dance beat over hot mics on all the Girls just talking.

It is both horrifyingly awful and amazing at once.

But back to "Spice Up Your Life".  This was one of the two songs (the other OBVIOUSLY being "Wannabe") the group performed at the London Olympic closing ceremonies - their first performance together in over a decade. 

They did leave out the line about the yellow man in Timbuktu. 

10 January 2025 - Chicago - Stay The Night

Well, here we are, ten days into 2025.

Let me tell you a story.

When I was a kid, I watched a LOT of MTV.   

So, in 1984, I was a fan of synth-driven pop-rock music.   

And this video came out - and it sounded like everything else on MTV, and, well, I liked it a lot. 

I did wonder why their album was called Chicago 17, though.   

Turned out that Chicago had been around for a while, and I had just not associated some of their biggest songs, which I absolutely knew, with them.   

But this song, which I do still like despite not being a typical Chicago song, was a hit in the US and the UK.  

Peter Cetera left Chicago soon after this (he was gone before Chicago 18).  However, the band found a sound-alike and continued to perform the song.

However, Peter Cetera also performs the song in his solo shows.  I'd argue that this song led directly to his solo career, so it makes sense. 

9 January 2025 - Kate Bush - The Man with the Child in His Eyes

Yesterday, I went epic with my post.

I can't do that every day.

So, rather than saying a million words about a song, I want to give you an epic song.   

But I can't say nothing about it.   

The song was released as a single in 1978 and was a huge UK hit and a minor US one (her first!).  But the history of the song was much longer than that.  It was originally recorded in 1975 and produced by Andrew Powell and David Gilmour (it is rumoured the latter is the subject of the song, but Bush, the songwriter, has not clarified that). 

But she had begun writing songs in 1970, and this song was written in 1972.

Kate Bush was 13 when she wrote this song and 16 when she recorded it.  I suppose her youth contributes to the innocent nature of the song - it exudes a sweetness that is rare in music, even in the 1970's. 

And, to be fair, she was 19 when she made this video.  

Despite the epic nature of this song, it is, at its core, Kate Bush and a piano. Never has that been more clear than her 1978 Christmas special.   

8 January 2025 - Yvonne Elliman - I Don't Know How to Love Him | Helen Reddy - I Don't Know How To Love Him

Let's start by remembering that, when Jesus Christ Superstar, the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice musical, was first recorded, Yvonne Elliman was 18.  

18.

And she sang it with such maturity, and such gravitas, that it quite literally stole the show. 

This version is from the 1973 version of the movie, when she was 21.  

The song is sung from the point of view of Mary Magdelene, and the "Him" is Jesus Christ himself, in the last couple of days before his crucifixion.  Written by Rice (lyrics) and Webber (music), the song owes a huge debt to Mendelssohn's "Violin Concerto in E Minor", and if you don't believe me, go check out the 2nd movement about 5 minutes in.  

And, more than fifty years after its initial release, it is a song that stands on its own as a classic.

But this wasn't the version I grew up with. 

No, in fact, when I first saw Jesus Christ Superstar in the early 1990s, my initial reaction to that song was 1) "that's not Helen Reddy" 2) "this is WAY better than Helen Reddy!"

Now, before you go off and say "OMG, you are being so disrespectful", hear me out. 

I was in the early 20s when I saw the musical.  I had grown up with parents - especially a mother - who were very passionate about music - especially music they had either purchased on eight-track tape or via a Columbia House membership, or in the case of Helen Reddy's Greatest Hits album, BOTH - and therefore, I grew up with this Helen Reddy cover of the song (a song she initially did not like)....

.... which was actually a hit first, and a bigger hit.  The single release of the Elliman version was a reaction to Reddy's - and both were legitimately hits.

Now, as I am older, I appreciate Helen Reddy - the queen of 70's pop - a lot more than I did when I was 20.  Her music brings me back to road trips in the van, short trips to school... a simpler time.  And her voice was spectacular - let's not pretend otherwise.  

I do stand by my statement that the original is the best, though. 

And Elliman is still around to perform the song, and she does.  The song would be one of her most recognized and one of her biggest hits.   And even in this version, where her voice has lost some of the higher register, the passion she still exudes gives me goosebumps. 

7 January 2025 - The (Dixie) Chicks - Wide Open Spaces

I decided this year to go through all my drafts on this blog.  I have, not a joke, almost 500 of them, a large percentage intended for future March posts.  

Yes, my musical tastes skew a little Canadian. Sue me. 

This song was my oldest draft, and it'll surprise some of you that I actually enjoy the song, unironically.   A song about a young woman leaving home to live her life on her own.... it was written by award-winning songwriter Susan Gibson, from the alt-country group The Groobies - who would go on to RELEASE the song themselves in 1999.... after recording it a few years prior.

So how did the song get to the Chicks?

That album the Groobies was recording was produced by famed country producer Lloyd Maines, who happens to have a daughter named Natalie..... and he thought the song was a good fit for his daughter's new group's first album (which would also be named Wide Open Spaces).   (Also, anyone who thinks it's talent and not who you know that makes a hit - well, this is evidence to the contrary). 

Remember earlier when I mentioned Susan Gibson was an award-winning songwriter?  This song, which she loved and, by most accounts I found, still does, is a large reason for that.  Sure, it was deeply personal for her - but the fact that it resonated with another artist was something she not only understood, she appreciated. 

Anyway, this song, which ended up being the Chicks' third single, was a HUGE hit - and their performance was a big reason for that. 

OF COURSE they perform it live, and of course it is brilliant.

Now go to Totally Covered, because we have a more recent cover of this song there.  

3 January 2025 - Lights - Damage

"Hey, remember when you used to use that quote style in your blog posts?"  

"Yeah, that was kind of lazy.  It was usually a sign I was out of ideas."

"Kind of like when you try to sneak in a Lights post?"  

"Are you implying something?"

"Yeah, I'm implying that there is literally a relatively new Lights song you haven't posted featuring a video of her giving herself a haircut."

"I just assumed her hair would fit behind that LŪN mask easier if she cut it?"

"I mean, I guess that's true.  Want to actually say something of substance about this song?"

"It's kind of a throwback to older Lights, I guess, and even she's said it's Little Machines coded. "

"Seems like you're making an excuse to add another link here."  

"Just listen to the music."

"I mean, also, that's not her hair colour.  She probably was wearing a wig."

"This live video implies otherwise, buddy."

"OK, we stand corrected.  Sorry."

"Her tears at the end of that video were also real, buddy.  Wanna doubt that?!"

2 January 2025 - Taylor Swift - You Need To Calm Down

I think I've mentioned here that I thought Lover was a high water mark for Taylor Swift.  This song is yet another reason why.  Written and produced by Swift and Joel Little, this LGBTQ+ anthem is fun, funky and smart.  The song peaked at #2 on the pop charts in the US, blocked from #1 by the juggernaut that was "Old Town Road".   

But can we talk about this video?  So many cameos - and a lot of them are members of the LGBTQ+ community, which is wonderful.... but also, for all those people who thought "Bad Blood" was about Katy Perry must have been satified to see Ms. Hudson show up in this video wearing a hamburger and sharing a sweet moment with a fries-wearing Swift.  

The video is fun and completely unhinged.   

What would we be if we didn't include an Eras Tour version of this song?

1 January 2025 - Tommy Richman - Million Dollar Baby

What a weird song to start 2025 with?

Yeah.  It is.   

But also, it's unlike any other song released in 2024, and it was a HUGE hit.... Richman's first as a vocalist.  Strangely, it's a non-album single that does not appear on his later-in-2024 album Coyote, itself a decent piece of work.

Anyway, I don't post a lot of trap music, so when I hear something interesting and different, I am going to post it.  

This is going to be our biggest year yet, so stay tuned. 

31 December 2024 - Chappell Roan - Pink Pony Club

I have to admit, it has taken me a while to get into Chappell Roan.  

Yes, this is my 2nd post of one of her songs, the first in April of this year.  When I posted that, I really wanted to like her.  I posted that song, which was pretty good, because I really wanted to like her music. 

But then I got bombarded by her music - a lot of which, I didn't really intially like (I've come around on some of it since then).  So, I slept on her.   

So what made me come around?  First of all, her public persona is brash and charming, and that got me to give her a second chance. Second, as I did some research, I discovered this song - which was one that faded into the background for me as just noise.  

"Pink Pony Club", co-written by Chappell Roan and Daniel Nigro, was inspired by The Abbey, a real gay bar in West Hollywood, CA.  When she came from the Midwest, she considered The Abbey to be the first place to be herself.  The song is semiautobiographical - and I find that vulnerability to be absolutely riveting. (No, Chappell Roan wasn't a stripper).  

The song and video were recorded in 2020.  This was one of the first times she had been recorded performing - and you can see the nerves in her face.    

And, although the song and video were recorded in 2020, it did not enter the charts until 2024, peaked at #26 in the United States and higher elsewhere. 

When she performed the song on Saturday Night Live last month, the nerves were gone.  Hell, it gave me CHILLS when she got the SNL crowd to sing it!  This is absolutely something she does at every show - and this is usually the closing song - but this hit different.

So yeah.  I took an artist I struggled to get into, and made her my last post of 2024.  

And I want you to remember that this is generally her last song at a concert - and it in itself is an emotional rollercoaster - with a piano section, strings, and some pretty heavy rocking parts. And she brings THIS MUCH ENERGY.  

There are very few songs that get me actually choked up - and when she throws it to the crowd, this is one of them. 

This is the energy we're bringing into 2025.

30 December 2025 - Once A Tree - Whatever You Do Kid?

I have to be honest - I get so jazzed for Maple Leaf March that I write some of these posts six months in advance.  I wrote this in August - and will likely rewrite some of it.

And then release it three months early.   Because, well, this was my 8th most listened to song of 2024, and the highest ranked song for which no post previously existed.  

However, I wanted to share that I am a Spotify user, and this song - well, it's my most listened to for the last four weeks - and Once A Tree is my 5th most listened to artist all year.  

I'm now revisting this as the year-end list from Spotify comes out.   You see - Once A Tree was my 5th most listened to artist all year - which, completely believable.   I really dove right in on them.  They had a new EP come out this year that was incredible.  I'd argue that combining my Once A Tree listening with my Jayli Wolf (#2) listening - and they should ABSOLUTELY be tied together because, c'mon, don't make me say it - would make my most listened to artist by a mile. 

No disrespect to my Spotify-annointed #1, Charlotte Cardin, who I ALSO listened to a ton. 

Also, no disrespect to Hayden Wolf, who is absolutely the producer for both. 

I have been very curious about this, and not specifically about Once A Tree - but about the algorithm in general. I have requested my Spotify data, and will let you know what I learn - probably in March.  Short answer: I ran the numbers and I was right, but not by much. 

Back to this song.  From their 2020 EP Fool's Paradise, this song is one of my favorites of theirs (probably why it was my 8th most listened to song of 2024). But it was more than that for me.  You see, I spent a lot of 2024 out of work.  I was starting to get a little down on myself, and then I started getting in-person interviews.  I played this song in the car on the way to a few of them.  I was offered every job that followed this song's playing.  Coincidence? Probably - I was qualified for the jobs - but I choose to think not.  

Supposedly, this was a "stripped down" version of the same song.   Maybe Jayli didn't wear socks for this version?   

I couldn't resist that joke.  

27 December 2024 - Phantogram - Attaway

Did you know Phantogram had a new album out? 

I knew there was one coming, but I didn't know it was out.  

Well, yes. Memory of a Day was released in October, and I didn't even notice. 

Here's a song from that album.  

It, like everything else they release, is a banger.

26 December 2024 - ROSÉ & Bruno Mars - APT.

This song is a GLOBAL phenomenom.  GLOBAL.

Like, looking at the Wikipedia page for this song - one thing I look at is chart performance.  I have NEVER seen a longer list for one song.  

And I understand it.  It's a fun, energetic earworm that you will now be humming for the rest of the day.  Co-written by the artists and a large team of collaborators (including credits for the composers of the Toni Basil classic "Mickey"), the song is broadly commercially AND critically successful.

But back to the composition. Rosé was the original writer... and its title and premise - and chorus - are directly based on, and this isn't a joke, a Korean drinking game.  She was concerned about how broadly appealing a song about a drinking game might be.  She didn't need to be, though. 

By the way, I think the end of this video is a Breakfast Club homage.  What do you think?  Let me know in the comments. 

What I love about this song...

OK, for this, I need you to go back to what I said about live performances of "On The Ground" when I wrote about that song.  

I add this "live" performance to illustrate a piece of the K-pop machine that I don't really enjoy.  There's several videos like this. Rosé CLEARLY wants to sing her song.  She's fully capable of singing her song.  The helper track is turned up so high she can't.  

Contrast that to THIS live performance, which she's REALLY singing.   It's not about the dancing.   It's about the music. 

Even better is this live performance with Lee Young-Ji standing in for Bruno Mars... who we have not even talked about here.  It's because, as fun as he is, Rosé is the one bringing the energy here.   

25 December 2024 - Cœur de pirate - Noël Sous Les Tropiques

Well, here we are.  Christmas.

I hope your Christmas is in the tropics, or wherever you are happiest this time of year.  

I give you my gift of music.  My gift, of course, is that I have œ on back my clipboard.  This is a French language classic, performed by Béatrice Martin.  

Merry Christmas!

24 December 2024 - Cœur de Pirate et Les Appendices - All I Want For Christmas is You

So, I was sitting here, on another Christmas Eve, and I didn't know what to give you.

Then I remembered - I have a œ on my clipboard.

This time, ❤️ de Pirate teams up with francophone musical comedy troupe Les Appendices to cover a Mariah Carey classic that I KNOW you heard 150 times in the last month.  

Merry Christmas, everyone!!!!!!

23 December 2024 - Tate McRae - It's ok I'm ok

So, if you look at my Spotify Wrapped, you'll see an artist that looks like something of an outlier.

Tate McRae. 

And yet this Calgary native is out there, making music that's giving us all Britney Spears flashbacks. Of course, the video is just as campy as the music as well.  

By the way, she writes her own stuff, which is impressive.  The song is about a woman who is very happy to see her ex is not with her anymore - and she's warning the new girlfriend.  It's a clever song. 

The song was a top 20 hit in the US and a worldwide hit overall.  Which is great.  The song is damn catchy. 

The way she debuted this song was kind of crazy.  It was just an encore she pulled out during a show at Madison Square Garden - completely out of left field.  No one saw it coming.  Except, I assume, her dancers and other tour crew.  Her record label.  Her management.

OK, I didn't see it coming.

20 December 2024 - Cindy Lee - If You Hear Me Crying (and Diamond Jubilee)

Yesterday, I said the consensus best album of 2024 was Brat. 

That's kind of true.

The reason that's only kind of true is because Diamond Jubilee, the two hour magnum opus of Cindy Lee, a stage name/persona of Pat Flegel, is kind of challenging that wisdom.  It was not released via traditional streaming channels (which is slightly annoying) - it's on Bandcamp and of course YouTube (without ads!!!).  It's really great and worth checking out. 

Oh, you don't want to seek it out yourself?  Fine.  Here's the ENTIRE Diamond Jubilee album.  

Although Flegel is Calgary-based, that album cover photo was taken in Lethbridge.  Fun fact. 

19 December 2024 - Charli XCX - 360

OK, let's address the elephant in the room.  

At the end of each year, I look at a lot of year-end Top 100 Albums lists.  

The consensus #1 this year is Brat.

Where you all were when I was all about True Romance, I don't know. But Brat is an excellent album, and I'm glad Charli is finally breaking through with a good album. 

You know, I used to post a LOT of her music.  

(And yes, normally I am listening to the song I'm writing about while I am writing about it, but right now, I'm listening to "Nuclear Seasons").

I'm not gonna lie.  A lot of her music in the middle, I did not like, including at least one song I posted on ths blog.  This writer's opinion is that Brat is her best album since at least Pop 2 and probably Sucker. 

This was the 2nd single from Brat, and a pretty solid hit worldwide.  The video features Ms. Aitchison not taking herself too seriously, which is endearing and not the first time she's taken that approach. 

When she hosted SNL, she didn't take herself too seriously, either.  And clearly singing it live. And, by the way, having literal Julia introduce her here is so Julia. 

18 December 2024 - Kendrick Lamar - Not Like Us

For the rest of the year, we're going to highlight some of the biggest and most acclaimed albums of 2024.  

Kendrick Lamar - an artist I have struggled to get into, because I know critics love him - came with an album that was a consensus top 10 - GNX.  But his biggest hit of 2024 was a non-album track, all about Drake.  

It's not a positive review of Drake.  It is, in fact, a pretty harsh criticism concerning allegations of pedophilia and sexual misconduct.

But damn, it's a catchy and sharp song.  And it's on pretty heavy rotation for me now. 

Lamar is pretty up-front about his hatred of Drake, and he doesn't shy away from performing this song.  Take this LA performance from earlier this year, when he performed it FIVE TIMES IN A ROW.

17 December 2024 - Danna Paola - 1Trago

Yes, I watched Élite right until the end, and yes, it was a huge letdown at the end, although I *loved* the very ending. 

I mention this because, as I have mentioned previously, Danna Paola acted on that show for several seasons. Her performance as Lu was underrated and transcendent and should have made her a global star.

Thankfully, her music has done exactly that. Her latest album, Childstar, an allusion to the fact that she was, indeed, a child star, is a platinum-selling hit in her native Mexico.  If you are watching a Latin American Spanish version of the movie Wicked, you'll also recognize her as the voice of Elphaba, a role she also played on the stage (at age 18, already pretty deep into her career).

But can we just sit back and appreciate the banger?  It doesn't matter if you don't speak Spanish.  It rules.