02 December 2020
2 December 2020 - Crowded House - Don't Dream It's Over
01 December 2020
1 December 2020 - Oasis - Live Forever
20 November 2020
20 November 2020 - Men At Work - Overkill
19 November 2020
19 November 2020 - Olivia Newton-John - Xanadu
The Xanadu soundtrack was split in two parts. Side A was written by John Farrar - principle songwriter for Olivia - and performed by ONJ, with several guests backing her. Side B was written by Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra and performed by ELO - but the closing song was this one, with a guest lead vocalist.
18 November 2020
18 November 2020 - Sam Phillips - Holding Onto The Earth
14 November 2020
14 November 2020 - Nirvana - Lithium
I have to admit, when I first heard Nevermind, this was my favorite song on the album, and I was thrilled it was released as a single. It isn't still my favorite, but it's still great.
14 November 2020 - Nirvana - Verse Chorus Verse
14 November 2020 - Nirvana - [hidden track]
It was not my first listen to the album when I discovered it. And yes, I did have a "what the f***" response when I did.
13 November 2020
13 November 2020 - Nirvana - Heart-Shaped Box
That was not purposeful. Nirvana had a short catalog, but it was deep, and so it's hard to fit everything into one week. We're trying, though.
Kurt's not here to tell us what this song is about, but he did leave the song behind for all of us to question and ponder.... and enjoy.
12 November 2020
12 November 2020 - Nirvana - In Bloom
11 November 2020
11 November 2020 - Nirvana - Sliver
Let me say that again.
This was a non-album single, not deemed good enough for Nevermind. It was a throwaway song. It's also a perfect Nirvana song - showing the time before the band got so large.
Two notes on the video. First, the song doesn't actually feature Dave Grohl on drums, as it was recorded before he joined the band. Rather, Dan Peters from Mudhoney was the drummer on this single. Second, and cutest, that's Frances Bean Cobain dancing at the beginning of the video.
Enjoy!
10 November 2020
10 November 2020 - Nirvana - About A Girl
09 November 2020
9 November 2020 - Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
I decided that Nirvana deserved it.
![]() |
Actual casting call for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" |
Turns out this little video, which Kurt called his attempt to "rip off the Pixies", struck a chord with the youth of America, including me. Here's the song that started it all.
07 November 2020
7 November 2020 - Miley Cyrus - Party In The U.S.A.
28 October 2020
28 October 2020 - Lena Katina - Never Forget / No Voy a Olvidarte
12 October 2020
12 October 2020 - L7 - Pretend We're Dead
In the early to mid 1990's, it was cool to be a hard rock band made entirely of females.
Seriously. This was a thing. And, for some reason, it was a novelty.
L7 was no novelty act. L7 was four very talented women who knew how to rock and rock hard. That doesn't mean their music didn't have feeling. Take this song, the band's biggest hit. Donita Sparks (primary vocalist on the song) wrote this while going through a devastating breakup. It was easier for her to pretend that the guy was dead - that helped her cope. Thus, a song was born.
15 September 2020
15 September 2020 - Lush - Ladykillers
This is nearer to the end of their time together, in the mid-1990s, when they were starting to get poppy and score a radio hit or two.
03 September 2020
3 September 2020 - Foster The People - Pumped Up Kicks
Let's be very clear.
This is a very dark song.
To be clear, when Mark Foster wrote and performed the song, he was trying to write from the perspective of a homicidal kid thinking about shooting up his school. Written in an afternoon, Foster had been writing commercial jingles and plowed through writer's block to get this song done.
And, for a song that was just a demo, with Mark Foster singing and performing every piece, it's pretty rich and strangely beautiful.
\02 September 2020
2 September 2020 - 10,000 Maniacs - Like The Weather
We're almost a decade into this blog, and we've NEVER posted about 10,000 Maniacs on this blog.
Let's fix that today.
25 August 2020
25 August 2020 - Lady Gaga ft. BeyoncƩ- Telephone
This video tells a story that doesn't entirely match the song. I mean, it's set in a prison - and the song clearly isn't.
And that's OK. It also doesn't hurt the song.
What it is is a great song, with a great dance beat, celebrating the great dance song, co-written by Gaga and BeyoncƩ - and they wrote a song on which they could BOTH showcase their unique voices. It ended up being Gaga's 6th consecutive #1 song - a feat matched by no other artist in history.
I mention that Lady Gaga cowrote this song, and I have said numerous times that this woman has a lot of natural musical talent - enough that she uses vocal tricks to her advantage without taking away her timbre. Which brings me to this live version - from 2017.
Clearly, Stefani really just wants to dance! But it is the singing in which she excels on this night - and it is huge and CLEARLY pure.
21 August 2020
21 August 2020 - Miley Cyrus - Midnight Sky
This song, released literally last week, is clearly about her breakup with Liam Hemsworth - and it's a deeply personal song, in only a way that Miley could be deeply personal. But this is Wicked Guilty Pleasures, not Wicked Guilty Therapy Sessions, so it's got to be enjoyable, and it is.
Musically, it's straight ahead bass-driven pop with significant synth. It's a great 80's throwback with a modern feel - and it's fun. And that's enough.
17 August 2020
17 August 2020 - blackbear - hot girl bummer
This song, from late 2019, is the first hit by blackbear, aka Matthew Tyler Musto, a man who has made most of his money writing songs for other people. He has been a recording artist for several years as well, and this was his first hit after seven years of releasing albums.
And it's a doozy. From the repeated chorus with the chiming bell and guitar going in time with the melody, to the significant bass drops and creative use of Autotune, the song is infinitely memorable.
10 August 2020
10 August 2020 - An "Into the Unknown" Special
It is a fairly recent tradition of Disney to record their recognizable songs from their feature films in the native languages where their movies are released. "Let It Go", from Frozen, for example, was recorded in several languages.
03 August 2020
3 Aug 2020 - The Notorious B.I.G. ft. Pam Long - Hypnotize
Biggie's flow on this song is just impeccable, and I cannot deny it's a great tune. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if he and Tupac would have collaborated, and it is incredibly tragic that both voices were snuffed out so young.
31 July 2020
31 July 2020 - First Aid Kit - Emmylou
She does. She's a fan.
30 July 2020
30 July 2020 - The Jesus And Mary Chain ft. Hope Sandoval - Sometimes Always
The song is a little less... dark than other Jesus and Mary Chain fare, which is probably how it was so darned accessible to so many.
28 July 2020
28 July 2020 - Tori Amos - Crucify
This song - a minor hit in 1992 that sparked an EP with some pretty epic B-sides - is my favorite of hers. From her debut album - we aren't counting Y Kant Tori Read here - the song is powerful and full-on from the first note. A very piano-driven song, it was wholly written by Amos herself.
That EP did not contain the Little Earthquake album version of the song, though. It contained this very mild remix of the song, which includes some additional lyrics that I think add to the power of the song.
In stark contrast, this is a live version of the song from the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1991, before the song was released - and it's not at all remixed - and is STILL powerful. True talent - a woman and her piano - is on full display.
By the way, Tori Amos still performs. Here she is from 2014 performing a similarly pure version of the song.... and it is still as brilliant as the first time.
17 July 2020
17 July 2020 - The Bangles - In Your Room
From the first song of theirs I heard (their cover of "Going Down To Liverpool") and throughout their career, I have always thought they were four excellent musicians who just happened to be female performing great music.
This was the first single off their third album Everything and it was the band's fourth top 5 hit. Written by Susanna Hoffs, the primary vocalist for The Bangles, it is one of my personal favorites by the band.
For our live selection today, I wanted to choose a really recent performance, for two reasons. First of all, the band hasn't lost a beat. At all.
The second is that bassist. The classic Bangles lineup included Michael Steele on bass, but she was NOT the original bassist. The original bassist was a woman named Annette Zilinskas, who left the band in 1983, just before their breakthrough All Over The Place album was released.
35 years later, in 2018, Annette Zilinskas returned to the band. And I just think that's awesome.
16 July 2020
16 July 2020 - The Call - Let The Day Begin
15 July 2020
15 July 2020 - Baltimora - Tarzan Boy
Interestingly, the man you see in the video is an Irish native named Jimmy McShane - who was kind of a member of Baltimora, as a front man. However, he did not sing the song - Maurizio Bassi, the architect of this Italy-based project, was the vocalist, and he co-wrote the song along with Long Island, NY native Naimy Hackett.
To be fair, McShane could sing - he did perform backing vocals on several other tracks - but not this one.
When it became clear that Baltimora was not going to recreate the success of "Tarzan Boy", Bassi disbanded the group.
I usually like to include live performances of the song, but, well, when you're using an actor to represent your band.... there aren't any. Instead, here is the late Jimmy McShane (he passed away in 1995) dancing on American television.
08 July 2020
8 July 2020 - Transvision Vamp - Kiss Their Sons
This song was not a hit. Or even a single.
I personally have a favorite album by them - Velveteen. I consistently list it among my five favorites of all time, and usually around #3. I purchased that album the day it was released, and it is fantastic, end to end. I remember every song on that album had its lyrics printed in the liner notes, except one.
"Kiss Their Sons" was that song. And this song was a lot darker and angrier than anything else on the album - because it was angry and the band was angry - at journalists who were calling these punks with credibility and careers "sell-outs", with very specific anecdotes and a lot of very colourful language. The song opened Side 2 of the album, for those old enough to remember those - and it opened it with a guitar screech and a hell of a bassline. The lyric "If you went away and never came back, that wouldn't be too soon" is possibly one of my favorite opening lines of any song, ever.
It is my favorite song on my favorite album of theirs, and it is a go-to for me all these years later.
I include the only live performance of this song I could find - as part of a whole live show. The anger really shines through live - and unless I'm mistaken, Wendy James is naming names!
07 July 2020
7 July 2020 - Dweezil Zappa ft. Moon Unit Zappa - Let's Talk About it
I was a teenage boy. I was watching for Moon Unit.
By the way, Dweezil was 17 in this video, and reportedly wrote this song when he was 15. The WHOLE song - lyrics and music.
Moon Unit, of course, is better known for her appearance on their father's single "Valley Girl", but this is an objectively better song.
01 July 2020
1 July 2020 - Robin Sparkles - Let's Go To The Mall
If you are a fan of the TV Show How I Met Your Mother, you know this song well. It's possibly more iconic than the show itself - and it endures to this day, several years after the show left the air.
I mean, everybody loves going to the mall. Let this song rock your body until Canada Day (which happens to be today).
These's one more thing.
Go to www.twitter.com/redargyle and start reading down. First word of each tweet is all you need.
26 June 2020
26 June 2020 - Ariana Grande ft. Nicki Minaj - Side To Side
What this song is, even with its somewhat naughty premise, is a grown-up, densely layered dancehall-pop song that is surprisingly strong.
But what if you strip the layers and the overproduction? It's still a surprisingly strong song - Grande has a voice that, while still maturing at this point in her career, is evocative and still a little innocent.....sounding.
25 June 2020
25 June 2020 - The Juliana Hatfield Three - My Sister
I won't tell that one again. I will say that the show I reference in that story came BETWEEN the ones in which I saw Veruca Salt and Letters To Cleo. So, I figured I'd post it today.
For its part, Juliana's first all-ages show really was the Violent Femmes and the del Fuegos. She did not, however, have a sister (although she explains in all in her book, When I Grow Up) .
The Juliana Hatfield Three was a seemingly one-off project, but she got the band back together in 2015.
24 June 2020
24 June 2020 - Letters To Cleo - Awake
23 June 2020
23 June 2020 - Veruca Salt - Volcano Girls
Today, I tell you about the most disappointing. But there's a happy ending.
The band was Veruca Salt, opening for PJ Harvey and Live. I was a really big fan of the energy they brought to their music - but in September 1995, they brought absolutely none of that energy. Let's be clear - I have seen WORSE bands live (and, to be fair, when I wrote THIS, I had not seen the band I now consider the worst I've seen live) but this was a show I thought would be amazing, and it wasn't.
This song came after that, and they clearly recaptured the energy they had lost that one day. So, I'll forgive them. Plus, this song is so creative, it completely switches tempo and plot at 2:25 - which I always found to be intriguing. Veruca Salt knew what their fans wanted, so they catered to it.
Besides, now we know who the seether is.
It's Louise.
Two years later, they seem to have gotten their mojo back, so maybe I'd give them a 2nd chance.
21 June 2020
21 June 2020 - Luscious Jackson - Daughters of the Kaos
I have spent the last week walking you though their catalog, but I had up until now avoided their debut EP, In Search Of Manny. The seven songs on that set (3 early Jill Cuniff/Gabby Glaser demos and four others) were hip-hop/pop/rock fusion unlike anything the music industry had ever seen.
"Daughters of the Kaos" was their first video and you can see the hip-hop group influence, with Cuniff and Glaser taking turns on verses, not unlike other similar artists of their time, and the heavy use of samples - which persists through their music going forward. Lyrically, the song is possibly a little more badass than their image going forward (remember, this was also a single of theirs), but they were well on their way to finding their sound.
Somehow, the song is better live. When the song opens, you don't expect police sirens to follow the Spanish guitar - and yet, there it is.
I may have taken forever to get to the earliest Luscious Jackson music, but they don't at all avoid it. Somehow it sounds a little less dark as they perform it twenty years later, but it's still tight.
19 June 2020
19 June 2020 - Luscious Jackson - Show Us What You Got
In 2013, they released a really solid album called Magic Hour. This was the first single. It clearly retains the hip-hop sensibilities, but it's edgier than their earlier stuff. Listen to this post from two days ago, then come back to this one - and remember that it's the same band.
Here they are in 2013 on Letterman. They always look like they are having so much fun live, so I love sharing these.
18 June 2020
18 June 2020 - Luscious Jackson - Here
I am posting this for four reasons..
1) Luscious Jackson in general deserves a lot more attention and respect than they get. You've got a band with four REALLY good female musicians, making inventive yet accessible music. That they didn't have more huge hits is criminal.
2) This song features all three vocalists, and three part harmonies are awesome.
3) Few videos were more blatantly made prior to the song being put on a movie soundtrack (Clueless), forcing a movie tie-in to be added where it could be.
4) The song is exciting and easy to dance to. You know you're dancing to it right now. If you aren't, why not???!!!
As per my style, here's the band performing live. No Clueless tie-ins necessary.
17 June 2020
17 June 2020 - Luscious Jackson - Ladyfingers
At the end of my post YESTERDAY, I alluded to the fact that Vivian Trimble left Luscious Jackson and the group made another album, this one as a trio.
This was the relatively well-received single from that third album, Electric Honey. The group broke up soon after, but not because they thought they were were making bad music or not enjoying it. The official word was "they wanted to spend more time with their families" but really, females weren't getting radio airplay in 1999 and 2000 - which is a shame, because this is excellent music.
You can see how much the band loved performing - and really, they didn't stay broken up for long.
Will I post another Luscious Jackson song tomorrow? Tune in.
16 June 2020
16 June 2020 - Luscious Jackson - Naked Eye
I wrote about the harmonies between Jill Cuniff and Gabby Glaser before, and today I won't be doing that. Reason: these harmonies don't include Glaser, but rather, keyboardist Vivian Trimble - that's right. There are THREE solid vocalists in Luscious Jackson - or rather, there were. More on that in a minute. - and they all harmonize well together.
Between their first and second albums - Natural Ingredients and Fever In, Fever Out - Cuniff and Trimble did a side project, called Kostars. A single album came out of it - and even though Glaser and drummer Kate Schellenbach were both part of the recording of that album, it was quite clearly not a Luscious Jackson record.
This song was more classic LJ - a significant hip-hop feel, while retaining a rock feel. It ended up being the band's only Top 40 hit - peaking at #36 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1997 - and remains a cool song to this day. The video itself is somewhat cool looking - with all four band members never appearing together but also seemingly playing the same stoic role.
They had a lot more fun and were a lot less stoic playing live, as you can see in this clip from Late Night With Conan O'Brien from 1997.
Vivian Trimble eventually left the band, and they broke up completely in 2010 after an album as a trio (see a future post for details on that) but they reformed in the early 2010's, still as a trio, to make new music and tour. Here's a stripped down version of the some, featuring Cuniff and Glaser, who does NOT step in on Trimble's vocals.
It's the mark of a great song - when it works so brilliantly both with a full band, loudly, and stripped down, quietly. And THIS is a great song.
(edit: 18 June 2020): I have discovered that the Luscious Jackson Twitter account recently posted a handwashing guide based on this song. And yes, I did.
09 June 2020
9 June 2020 - Game Theory - Erica's Word
In 2012, I wrote a very long post about Game Theory, featuring many of their lesser known songs. Scott Miller, lead vocalist and mastermind behind Game Theory, passed away a year later, and I appended that post to include this song and one other ("The Real Sheila").
I regretting not giving this beautiful, snarky piece of pop jangle its personal due. So, today, I remedy that.
"Erica's Word" was the big single from Game Theory's 1986 breakthrough album The Big Shot Chronicles. Of course, between the time the song was recorded and the video's release, there were a couple of lineup changes to the band - which was OK. Scott Miller was the only constant in the band. It was his baby - and it is the 1986 iteration of the band, which recorded two subsequent albums together, that appears in the video.
The song itself is beautiful, sweet, and yet ends its third verse with quite a bit of snark. How this song wasn't a huge hit is an absolute mystery to me. It's endlessly catchy.
Here's Game Theory in 1985, performing this song live, prior to its release. This is the 4-piece lineup that recorded the song - the differences being a different bassist and lack of rhythm guitarist.
08 June 2020
8 June 2020 - N.W.A. - Express Yourself
I was introduced to N.W.A in the early 90's while in college. I probably missed the messages of their songs at the time, but in this time of protest, this song about freedom of expression resonates.
This is probably the only song they ever did that could be played on radio. Which is hilarious, because the song itself calls out other hip hop artists for avoiding profanity just to get on the pop charts.
They didn't need to curse to make an anthem about expression. Primarily performed by Dr. Dre, the song was written by Ice Cube.