It took ten albums for Siouxsie & the Banshees to find commercial success in the United States, but they did it in 1991 - with this single. Yes, it was a more mainstream pop move - some called it a sellout, but they already had a major label deal, so I don't think it was.
The song took its title from a 1957 Jayne Manfield film - and the song was very much about Mansfield. It's full of references to her, from the word "divoon" in the 2nd verse (a word Ms. Mansfield was known to use frequently) (notice that Siouxsie is in a heart-shaped swimming pool when she sang that lyric in the video, as that's one of the things the term was in reference to) to the third verse reference to the car crash that killed her (while sparing Mariska Hargitay for a future as Olivia Benson).
I am rarely surprised by my blog. I knew Siouxie & the Banshees broke up in the 90's and, that was it for them, save for a brief reunion in the early 2000's/ What I did NOT know is that Siouxie Sioux herself is back to performing, after a long hiatus (although she did have a solo career as well), and headlined the Cruel World Festival in Pasadena, CA, this year.
The performance is in a different key than the original, but her stage presence is undeniable.
Something I think you didn't know - Roxette had four number one hits in the United States - which is one more than they had in their home country, Sweden.
This song, from 1988's Look Sharp album, was their first in the US (it did not reach #1 in Sweden - the only song, in fact, to top both the US and Swedish charts by the band was "Joyride", which, despite my prior attempt at humour, was not only a minor hit - ironically both their last US #1 and their first Swedish one).
Dual vocalist/guitarists Per Gessle and Marie Fredriksson played togeher from the mid 1980s until 2019, when Fredriksson passed away from complications from a brain tumor. Gessle wrote this song as an exercise when he got a new synthesizer and was learning how to operate it. It's an oddly consructed song, with weird chord progressions that no one reading this blog is going to hear about from me.
I loved this song from first listen, and yes, I have the 12" single of the song around here somewhere.
As I stated earlier, the band performed together for a long time - until a few years before Marie's death. This performance is from 2009 - with less epic hair, but just as epic performance.
The band rerecorded the song in 2015, as part of an advertising campaign - with a new mix and new vocals. It would be a Swedish Top 40 hit.
It's a different song - far more focused on electronic music and tuned to the slightly reduced vocal ranges of Fredriksson and Gisele. It wasn't the last thing Fredriksson would record (they released another album in 2016) but it's one of the last, and that makes it somewhat sad.
Marie toured with Roxette and announced that she could not any longer in 2016. You can see her still performing her heart out, even sitting down, in 2015, which was one of her last live performances.
Per Gessle briefly reuinted the band in tribute to Marie under the name PG Roxette. They did a tribute show for her and of course included this song - with him singing some of her part and other background singers picking up the rest.
She's not your typical pop star, and yet, you know who she is..... and not just because she wore a swan dress to the Oscars.
No joke, this dress has its own Wikipedia page. Photo credit: Cristiano del Riccio
She got her start at the age of 11, as a children's artist, and then started and joined a bunch of bands in her native Iceland. Eventually, she joined a supergroup called Sykurmolarnir, which in English translates to The Sugarcubes. That band released three albums to worldwide acclaim before breaking up... partly because their record label - Smekkleysa, or Bad Taste in English - was taking a lot of time (and still does - the band members still run it today) and mostly because Björk was a hot commodity and in demand for a solo career.
Her adult solo debut, called Debut, was an international smash hit. This song, which was very much in the style of house music, was a huge club hit and a minor pop hit, her first to hit the US Billboard Hot 100. Co-written by Björk and producer Nellie Hooper, it is a song not necessarily about sexuality but about bravery.
Björk was - is - known for her unusual voice and ability to incorporate primal scream into her performance. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the live performance of this song, which is of course a staple of her performances.
I wanted to share this rare performance with Talvin Singh (he's the guy on the Indian drums 0and a well-knwon virtuoso on them) & Guy Sigsworth. which is a lot more stripped down and quieter. Björk's childlike raspiness really shines through here.
The version she did for MTV Unglugged was different still - with more Indian-influenced instuments and less of the synthesizers that were the hallmark of the original.
I like to chose songs with an intresting story. This is one of those songs.
If you are reading this in the United States, this is not the Pet Shop Boys song that hit the top of the charts. This is the original version of the song, released by the group in 1984, produced by Bobby Orlando.
If you are reading this in the UK, or were a clubgoer in the mid-1980's, you may recognize Bobby Orlando's attempt at British rap.
In 1985, the Pet Shop Boys got signed to EMI records and rerecorded this song. Whereas the original featured Orlando's instruments and samples, this version featured none of that - and was mostly created on synthesizers. It was also less rap and more Neil Tennant talk-singing.
This version resonated better, topping both the US and UK charts.
This version is also a little darker and more haunting - kind of like audio film noir - and an objectively better song.
It should come as no surprise that this is their best known song and biggest hit, although they've certainly had other hits.
The audience still knew the song a full 25 years after its initial release.
In 2022, the Pet Shop Boys changed the lyrics of the song, from "Finland Station", which is in Russia, to "Kviv Station", in Ukraine - by the way, it was called Kiev in 1984 - in solidarity with Ukraine in light of the invation by Russia.
Also, Neil Tennant has not lost a BEAT off this song or off his voice - after performing it for 40 years!
As many of you know, I was a college radio DJ. As such, I had early access to music, some of which was on the fringe of music in the early 1990s.
That includes They Eat Their Own, an LA-based band founded by vocalist Laura B. (Baricevic) in or around 1989, which was together until about 1994. They didn't have a lot of success, but they had that ONE SONG and that ONE VIDEO.
This is that song. Released in 1990 or 1991, it got a fair bit of airplay and got the band a major label deal with Geffen Records.... that ended up imploding before anything came of it. This song, however, is absolutely amazing.
Of course, they wouldn't have gotten their single released at all if they didn't perform live extremely well. This version, performed live at the LA Music Factory, predates the studio recording, and it's sparser, but still great. Laura is a terrific frontwoman.
I said "is" for a reason. You see, after TETO broke up, Laura B. hopped around the country for a bit, settling in Pittsburgh, PA. She started a band called The Off Labels, and they performed a lot of her old stuff.... like this song. Have a listen to this performance from 2014.
This was an outtake from last week, where there was a lot of sugary sweet songs. Plus Metallica.
We had to combat the saccharine.
So, we did it with South Park. Season 1, Episode 10.
The song is far from politically correct, and features Eric Cartman (voiced by Trey Parker) repeating an insult about Sheila Broflovski, who happens to be Kyle's mom.
Kyle, voiced by Matt Stone, did not appreciate the song.
In 1999, the Academy Award nominiated film South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, was released. An extended, uncensored version of this opus was included with the movie, as it should be.
By the way, there's almost one "bitch" per second in this version.
Of course, it's more meaningful to see Trey Parket and Matt Stone actually perform this thing of beauty live. They did just that at the 25th anniversary concert.
Yes. South Park is old enough to rent a car.
The testimonial to this song is how many people know and love this song. It's a classic - more so than the theme song.
It's also incredibly crude.
The orchestral rendition is only a little bit less crude.
Persian-Kiwi rapper CHAII has carved out a corner in the hip hop scene that is fresh, diverse and extremely exciting, drawing from her Iranian heritage as well as the multi-faceted and multi-cultural world of hip hop burgeoning in Australia and New Zealand.
Not wrong.
This video - for the title song of her debut EP - is self-directed, filmed in California (where a lot of her family and, indeed, a large Persian popluation, lives). You can see the signs in Farsi - in CALIFORNIA. Everything you see and hear is all CHAII's vision - and she is clearly proud of her heritage.
OK, so yeah. This song is objectively cool as f.
But why this week?
Because this song was featured, along with a lot of other modern Middle Eastern music, on the television series Ms. Marvel. I absolutely can easily make an entire week - a MONTH - out of great music from that one series alone. It was hard to choose just one.
In 1986, a band that was growing in popularity (but not getting much airplay) released their third albun, Master of Puppets. The only single they released from that album was the title song, and it was a goddamn masterpiece. The song is about their frustration with the music business how drugs can control your life.
It was also the last album and therefore the band's last single that featured original bassist Cliff Burton, who passed away later in 1986. This was his favorite song on that album, and its mine as well. The band all co-wrote the song, which features long instrumental breaks, dramatic tempo changes, and even an homage to David Bowie.
Those of you who know television know where I'm going here.
That's right. James Hetfield's appearance on American Dad, which features this song.
No, no, that's not what you were looking for.
Of course, it was The Simpsons, where the band appears and featured this song and a super diss on the bus driver.
Ohhhh, no. You meant Billions, the Showtime series. You know, its seventh season comes tomorrow to Paramount+ (with Showtime).
OK, fine,
Stranger Things generated TWO Billboard Hot 100 hits last year. "Running Up That Hill" was a huge hit, but "Master of Puppets" featured prominently in the season finale, and made this song a top 40 hit - with airplay finally coming ON POP RADIO -(although rock radio played them even more) - in the United States, nearly 40 years after its initial release.
According to my sister, Eddie played this song on his guitar in the Upside Down to destract the demobats away from Venca's house, so Steve, Robin and Nancy could sneak in to try and hurt/kill Vecna before he got Max.
This is Eddie. It's he who played the song.
There's no way in hell I'm posting a picture of Vecna. I Googled that so you don't have to.
I understood none of that, so I hope you did.
I just wanted to remind you that this song is 37 years old and the band still performs live, and they ALWAYS, to my knowledge, include this song, which is one of their most popular amonsgt fans (including my sister).
In current concerts, they actually use some of the Stranger Things images on the screen. Which you can see in this video, taken when they played in Western New York in 2022. August 11, Highmark Staduim (which used to be called Rich Stadium and that's what it will always be to me). I know this because my sister, Dawn, actually recorded this video.
The song is also featured in my favorite TikTok post... of mine.
Some songs, you just save for someone to pass away. This is one of them.
This song, quite likely the best known song by Canadian-American band The Band, was written by Robbie Robertson, who has passed away. He was 80 and had been ill for quite some time.
He had a career as a backing musician for Bob Dylan, with the Band, and a solo career. I personally loved his solo stuff.
Rick Danko and Levon Helm provide vocals on this song, of course, while Robertson plays guitar. The song is a tale of a traveller passing through a town called Nazareth and finding some kind folks along the way. I certainly hope he's met with kindness whereever he is now.
When he went solo, Robertson did play his best known song live. It hit a little differently without The Band - a little more of a slow jam - but it still worked, and was full of just as much emotion and appreciation.
In 1981, Billy Vera, along with his live band The Beaters, released a single called "I Can Take Care of Myself", which ended up being a top 40 hit - Billy Vera's second, but also his first since 1968. His follow-up song was an over-the-top sad love song called "At This Moment."
It would peak at #79 on the Billboard Charts in 1981 - a minor hit, but nothing spectacular.
Fast forward to 1985. During the 1985-1986 season of the popular TV show Family Ties, the character of Alex P. Keaton, played by Michael J. Fox, was given a love interest, Ellen Reed, played by Tracy Pollan (who would soon become Fox's wife (she still is)). It was a great on-screen relationship, probably because they had that real-life connection.
Anyway, this song was used by the show as their love theme - and it became a huge, HUGE hit on its second run. It topped the charts in 1987, and also hit the country charts - such a crossover by a chart-topping pop song wouldn't happen again for another 13 years.
It would be Vera's last Top 40 hit (to date).
Despite the song hanuting Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan for a few years, they, and all the cast, appreciated the song, and he the show. In 2011, he performed the song at the TV Land Awards - and yes, the cast of Family Ties were there... and clearly enjoyed it.
I will take any excuse to take a screen grab of Michael Gross and Justine Bateman enjoying a Billy Vera jam (you weren't expecting Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan, were you?)
Here is his performance from that night. You can see all the main cast members from the show's run watching and enjoying.
Sometimes, it isn't just a random song from an episode that hits just right.
Sometimes, it's the theme song.
Take this song, from the 1981 series The Greatest American Hero. Starring William Katt and Connie Sellecca, and I guess William Culp, and created by the legendary Stephen Cannell, it would last for three seasons... and the theme song was inspiring.
Joey Scarbury's biggest hit peaked at #2 on the greatest American pop charts in 1981, being kept from the top spot by the juggernaut that was "Endless Love". Steven Geyer wrote the music, with producer Mike Post providing the music.
Of course, the tune would be repopularized by George Constanza's answering machine on Seinfeld.
This week on Wicked Guilty Pleasures, we are going to dedicate our list to "What the hell is that song that I just heard on my favorite TV show?"
Today, we go to the end of Season 7, Episode 24 of Criminal Minds. This song was played as JJ and Will got married, if you know the show. If you don't know the show, that's a meaningless reference and this is just a really pretty song.
Lily Kershaw, of course, is a singer-songwriter best known for, well, this song. Her mom is actress Whitney Kershaw, so she knows show business. This song is from her 2013 debut album, Midnight in the Garden. The episode this song was featured on, however, was from 2012 - and it, along with another appearance in a season 8 episode by another of her songs - led directly to her record deal.
Anyway, it's an awfully pretty song and I hope you enjoy it.
Yes, she performs it live, and she performs it beautifully.
And, for those interested in the song in the context of the show.....
Seth Justman wrote and produced this song. Not coincidentally for this keyboard-heavy song, Seth Justman was also the keyboard player for the J. Geils Band.
He was not J. Geils, though.
Neither was Peter Wolf, although a lot of casual fans of this song, the band's biggest hit (six weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100 in 1982) sure thought he was. He was the vocalist and most prominent publc face of the band.
No, no. J. Geils was the guitarist for the band. And their leader, I suppose.
This is Jay. John Warren Geils, Jr.
A little strangely, the video takes place in a high school classroom full of young women who end up being relatively scantily clad. It makes sense to the plot of the song - the narrator has discovered his high school crush has appeared as a centerfold in an unspecified men's magazine that we can only assume is Playboy. He's both titilated and, well, confused, I guess is the right word.
I don't have any explanation for the milky drum, though.
The band did have some hiatuses - hiati? - but remained mostly intact until 2013, when J. Geils passed away. They did tour through 2015 at least - as shown in this live performance from that year.
Contrast that with this performance from 2009, with J. Geils still on guitar. I think it's a better performance, frankly.
Perhaps my favorite album title of all time is Lyle Lovett's 1992 album, Joshua Judges Ruth. For those Chritians out there, they are the 3 books immediately following the Torah (the first five books) in the Old Testament.
That is a pretty cool way to title your album.
The former Mr. Julia Roberts has carved out a nice alternative country career that has recieved a lot of critical acclaim, and with good reason - he writes and performs good, unique country music. Take this song, from the aforementioned album. It would not be out of place at a Southern revival, or on country music radio. It's a spirited song.
The beauty of Lovett's music is when it is performed live. You can see just how much of this song is powered not by musical accompaniment - which is sparse but ever-present - but by the power of his voice and of his backing vocalists. This song really and truly takes on a spiritual feeling - and you actually hear the lyrics. It's really not a terribly spiritual song.
If I ever go back to adding artists to our Hall of Fame, I have a list of potential inductees.
Madonna tops that list. She's a prolific performer, who has had a very long career - spanning about 40 years, during which time she's frequently released albums and performed live.
What a lot of people DON'T know is that she also has written a lot of her music. Take this song, a single she co-wrote and co-produced with Mirwais. She's also all the voices in this song - she's the one asking if you like to boogie woogie throughout.
More than fifteen years into her career, this song was yet another #1 song for Madonna, in 2000 - and remains one of her largest worldwide hits.
The video features a pre-Borat Sacha Baron Cohen, who was largely unknown to the US audience at that time, in full Da Ali G Show character. Amazingly, Madonna was pregnant during the filming of this video.
The real reason we're posting this? In a live version, Madonna interlaced this song with "Disco Inferno". It's way more incredible than it deserves to be.
In 2012, Madonna did the Super Bowl halftime show, which was epic and full of guest stars. Here, she merged "Music' with LMFAO's "Sexy and I Know It". Also, at the :31 second mark, she almost falls.
I'm haivng a little trouble believing that Same Trailer, Different Park, the debut album by Kacey Musgraves, is ten years old this year.
This was one of the singles off that album. It was a relatively big country radio hit and even bubbled under the Hot 100, which means it got a lot of POP radio airplay - in a era when such a crossover was uncommon
The song is a clever play on words - the "Blowin' Smoke" is both a reference to the protagonist of the song smoking and also to the phrase "blowing smoke up one's ass", or in other words, talking trash and generally doing a lot of talking - her words. And, there's a lot of blowin' smoke in this song - mostly about her co-workers, one of whom just left for Vegas (so there's a little jealousy going on here). It's clever and witty - and a little dark.
It's refreshing to hear a live version of a song sound a lot like the studio version. The song is just as quietly cool unproduced than it is on vinyl. Also, that tambourine playing by Kacey is epic.
But what about when the stage and crowd get a lot bigger, like at Farm Aid 30, in 2015? By this time, her 2nd album, which had a more traditional country feeling, had been released, and so her band was tuned for that. It sounds less pop and more country - but it's still the same old song about blowin' smoke.
This was originally written for last week, but you know what they say about plans - man plans and God laughs. I still wanted to share this post with you, and it it a fitting end to a busy July.
I grew up in the 1970s, the son of van owners. We had an eight track and later a cassette deck in the van.
My parents were also Columbia House Record Club members, so, well, they had a lot of 8-tracks and later cassettes.
My mother was a huge fan of Loretta Lynn, so I heard a LOT of Loretta Lynn music. One I remember hearing is perhaps one that could have been considered my mother's theme song (although I hope not completely). A song earnestly performed by Lynn, it was about a woman who married too early and kept getting pregnant, while envying those who were marching for women's lib.
Loretta Lynn, like my mother, was a feminist. No doubt. In 1971, this was controversial. Loretta Lynn was frequently a controversial figure. So was my mother, in some ways.
The best part of this song - which was a huge country hit, reaching the top of the charts in 1971 - is the songwriter.
Shel Silverstein.
The Where The Sidewalk Ends guy.
Shel Silverstein.
This performance is from the Grand Ole Opry in 1972.
Famously, she also performed the song in 1978 on The Muppet Show..... with a lot of small Muppets.
My parents were country music fans and we listened to it in our family van all the time.
One of the cassettes my parents had was a Mac Davis compilation. Included on this was a song called "In The Ghetto", a very sad song about a child who grows up poor and completes a vicious circle of violence and poverty.
It would be many years before I learned that was an Elvis Presley song.
It would be a few years after that before I learned that Mac Davis actually wrote the song and was covering a song HE wrote - a year after Elvis turned it into a hit song.
This was Elvis's first release after his 1968 comeback special - and it ended up being a worldwide hit. It remans to this day one of my favorite Elvis Presley songs (don't tell my parents).
I felt this was a good bookend to yesterday's post - because it came from the other end of Sinead O'Connor's career. This song was the big single from her 2014 album, I'm Not Bossy, I'm The Boss, which would be her last.
I actually found this song hoping to post a cover of hers that wasn't a Prince song over on Totally Covered. I thought this was the Hozier song.
It is not the Hozier song. Sinead O'Connor wrote the lyrics and co-wrote the music for this one.
The video, directed by James Lees, is particularly striking for me. It superimposes images of Sinead O'Connor from her "Nothing Compares 2 U" video over her in the present day - with hair (that she removes at approximately 2:00 in the video - it's a wig).
I encourage you, however, to pay attention to the lyrics. It's raw and honest performance by O'Connor.
I really REALLY REALLY dislike having to do special edition posts.
For those new to the blog, I do these when a musician passes away, so, you can probably figure out what's going on here.
This song was Sinead O'Connor's third single, and her first in heavy MTV rotation, from her debut album, The Lion and The Cobra, which is fantastic. It's a straightahead rock song, and it led to her becoming an international superstar and being in the position to tear the pope's photo in half on Saturday Night Live.
"Fight the real enemy." - Sinead O'Connor
I was supposed to see Sinead O'Connor live in 1995, as part of the Lollapalooza tour. She departed about a week before I was scheduled to attend. I'm sorry that I never got to see her live, Her eccentricity and raw spirit are going to be missed in the music world.
The late Nanci Griffith was quite possibly the greatest songwriter of her generation. She released so many critical acclaimed albums throughout her long career.
At the time of its release in 1989, Storms was not one of those albums. It was a huge departure for her stylistically - from country-folk to a more pop-folk sound, including this song, which ended up being one of the biggest personally recorded hits she had in her career (Bette Midler had a much bigger hit with one of her songs, and frankly, so did Kathy Mattea). Critics did not like her change in style, which didn't stick, but also, these were still great songs that told great stories.
And this song tells a fantastic story, and it does so beautifully.
And the lyrics are so poignant, even today, more than thirty years on. Few songs give me actual chills - but this one does.
"This will always be my, uh, my personal best favorite" - Nanci Griffith
"If we poison our children with hatred
Then, the hard life is all that they'll know" - Nanci Griffith
Remember when the (Dixie) Chicks got in a fight with George W. Bush over the Iraq War.
1) They were right (and I'm pretty sure he'd agree now).
2) This better-than-it-should-be song, which was extremely controversial at the time of its release, ended up being one of their biggest hits.
This song hit the Billboard Hot 100 in 2006 and REENTERED in the top 10 in 2007, after the song won three Grammys, including Song and Record of the Year (the two biggest awards). Co-writen by the Chicks (they changed the band name in 2020 to avoid association with the Dixie Swastika) and Dan Wilson (the lead vocalist of Semisonic), it is an angry song. Anger does, however, bring about good music.
It was an extremely controversial song. Controversial songs can be good songs, though, and in this case, it is.
I considered including their Grammy performance, which was excellent, but their performance on the TV show VH1 Storytellers was even better and more sublime.
As I write this, there is a country song with a lot of controversy surroudning it (mostly based upon its music video). It's a big hit song. It's also not very good.
By the way, I am presently sitting in a small town, saying that, so you could say I tried it ina small town. (I feel like that joke isn't going to make sense in a month).
So, at a loss on what to write, I decided to do a week dedicated to country music that doesn't suck.
Of course I'm opening the week with Kelly Willis. I've written about her before, but everything I've written this far is about her MCA years. Her three albums for MCA were excellent but poorly marketed. Her first album for Rykodisk, on the other hand, What I Deserve, was very well marketed. Its first single, today's song, is excellent, much like her earlier work, and actually got label support.
The song would go on the broad critical accalaim, as would the album, and deservedly so. Co-written by Kelly Willis and Gary Louris of the Jayhawks, it is now a part of the American music fabric.
Of course she performs the song live. And it's delightful.
My Strange Addiction is an American documentary television series that premiered on TLC on..... no, wait. I mean, that's true, but that's not what this blog is about.
Let's, instead, talk about Billie Eilish's strange addiction..... The Office. Not that this song is about that - it's probably more tightly tied to the TLC show and perhaps a romantic addiction. However, this song opens with a sample of Season 7, Episode 17 of The Office, titled "Threat Level Midnight" and contains other sample throughout. It is a must-see episode that was requested as a going-away gift for Steve Carell.
The song was written and produced by Finneas O'Connell, Billie Eilish's brother. They are frequent collaborators, and this song might be their high water mark. It was a mid-level hit - peaking at #43 on the US charts and a top 10 hit elsewhere.
By the way, their mom, Maggie Baird, once had a voice role on The Office. Season 4, Episode 18, "Goodbye, Toby (part 1)". She's the one on the phone with Phyllis when she's asking about an anti-gravity machine.
This isn't an official video for the song. No such video exists. However, Billie Eilish has fans, and they made a pretty good video that includes a lot of The Office clips, too.
This is a song she clearly loves performing live - and the crowd, who knows all the words, love it, too.
What happens when four relatively well-known musician friends decide to start a band together?
Chaos? Maybe.
Hilarity? Absolutely!
Buzzworthy effervescent pop music? No doubt.
Well, Dodie, Greta Isaac, Orla Garland and Martin Luke Brown did exactly this. They are four best friends who happen to be independent musicians that made themselves into a supergroup.
FIZZ's debut single came out three weeks ago, and their album drops in September. Go preorder it if you want. No pressure. The song is about... well, getting high. In Brighton.
So, this is so new, there's no way there's any live performances, right?
It is SO RARE that we get to hit a song when it's still a hit. It happens maybe twice a year.
This is the CURRENT, as we write this, #1 song in the United States, Canada, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, and #2 in the UK - and a big hit in a lot of other countries..
Of course, the version of the song that's a huge hit doesn't include the word "famefucker", but we don't restrict bad words here.
And it is good. REALLY good. It's like a mini rock opera, and the video has three acts just like your traditional rock opera. No Olivia Rodrigos were harmed in the making of this video.
This far, it being such a new song, she's only performed the song (which she co-wrote, like most of her stuff) live one time.
But she did it on piano, and it hits so much different - maybe even a little angrier! - so stripped down
My sister is going to be very happy with this post. You see, she was part of a generation in thei 1980s who were the perfect age to see The Monkees reunited (without Mike Nesmith) and a revival of their show by Nickelodeon(!), so she became a really big fan of The Monkees at an early age, and I mean a really big fan.
It's because of her that I even know to write this post, because, before her, I didn;t know of the existence of Head, a somewhat satirical musical adventure that served as an epilogue to the band's popular television series. Co-written by Academy Award winning actor Jack Nicholson - yes. THAT Jack Nicholson - the movie was... well, it was a little trippy.
It opened with this song (and accompanying visual - this is the opening of the movie, complete with mermaids saving Mickey Dolenz), written by the great songwriting team of Gerry Goffin and Carole King. It is something of a deep song - and includes not only the band playing the song, but actual porpoise clicks and clacks.
The Monkees took a lot of shit for being a band for a television show. Yeah. I said it. It was undeserved. They were a real band, with a lot of talent, who toured together for as long as they possibly could. Here are three surviviing members (Davy Jones having passed earlier that year) performing together - and I do mean together, and well - in 2012.
Of course, at this point, three of the four Monkees have passed, but the vocalist on this song, Mickey Dolenz, has not, and still tours in tribute to the Monkees More than fifty years after this song was originally released, he still delivers it in the same huge, theatrical, emotional manner.
We're eleven years into this blog - more than! - and we've never, as far as I can see, posted a song written by Diane Warren. I'm not quite sure how that's possible - she was a huge hitmaker, especially during the 1980's and 1990's, and still writes for top pop artists to this day.
As much as we usually talk about the artists - and we'll get there - the songwriter is the hitmaker in this case. She's written 32 top 10 US hits, been nominated for 14(!) Academy Awards (winning none but finally recieving an honorary one in 2022, during a year she was also nominated for an award), 15 Grammys (winning one), and two Emmys (winning one).
She's a well-respected songwriter who has written a lot of hit songs you know well. This is one of them. Originally intended for Stevie Nicks, it was given to Belinda Carlisle, who took it all the way to #2 on the US charts, only being kept from that top spot by one of the most enduring songs of all time.
The video was directed by Diane Keaton. Yes, that Diane Keaton.
I've mentioned the worst show I ever saw - September 10, 1995, Hartford, CT. Live, with special guests PJ Harvey and Veruca Salt. I didn't have high expectations of the headliner - I was there for the two openers. Veruca Salt were truly disappointing.
I had high expectations of PJ Harvey, and Polly Jean let me down. I'm sure it was an off night, because she had already released three great albums of material and has consistently done so since.
And the show wasn't all bad. She did perform this song and it was the highlight of the show.
This song, her third single ever, came from her second album Rid of Me. It was a huge hit in the UK, but she never got the commercial success stateside that she had enjoyed in Europe. Is it her best song? No. It is a rockabilly punk masterpiece, but she's got better songs lyrically and musically. But it's a FUN song. It's an in-your-face, dick-measuring masterpiece by a woman who previously wrote a song about her childbreaing hips.
I KNOW I caught her on an off night, because this performance, and other songs from this performance, rocks. From 2003, you can see the song isn't hard to play on guitar, but it is simplicity that makes it a masterpiece.
Someday, I am going to stop being surprised at musicians who are still touring 30 years into their careers. This is from 2016, and it STILL rocks. Polly Jean has given up the guitar, but that makes for a more dynamic performance.
The Pandoras were an all-girl garage band that got their start in LA in 1982 and had a great run until 1991, when front woman Paula Pierce passed away. The band didn't break up (they're STILL together, despite also losing bassist and background vocalist Kim Shattuck in 1991 to The Muffs (Melanie Vammen also went to The Muffs) and again in 2018 to ALS), but their glory days were behind them.
This performance, from 1990, was probably their pinnacle. They were a garage band and a good one at that, with a bunch of great musicians who all happened to be women making great music.
Oh, they also made a video for the song. I just wanted to feature something that WASN'T such obvious 1980s record label objectification right up front.
The second you saw the name "Luis Buñuel" in yesterday's post, you should have known this was coming.
"I am un chien andalusia" is literally a line in this song.
"Slicing up eyeballs" is literally a different line in the song.
Can we look at the title of the film, though? Un chien andalou is a mishmash of French and Spanish already. The film is really about nothing. It's a surrealist collaboration between Buñuel and Salvador Dalí. It was, at points, stomach-turning, debasing the standards of art and morality.
Ahhhh, there it is. The title. That last sentence paraphrases Black Francis a.k.a. Charles Thompson IV, the writer of this song and leader of the Pixies, the Boston-based post-punk band that broke through the US consciousness with their 2nd full length album, Doolittle, which opened with this bombastic song.
Never released as a single in the US, this song hit #23 on the UK charts. More personally, it's possibly my favorite song by a band that I count among my favorites.
The Pixies did break up in the mid 90s but reformed about a decade later, and are still together and still making music. Kim Deal did leave the band in 2013 to devote herself to The Breeders full-time, and was replaced on their 2013 tour by Muffs frontwoman Kim Shattuck - who was amazing as a fill-in.
Shattuck was replaced the next year - by most accounts, because her personality (which had been very frontwoman-y and outgoing) didn't mesh with what was a mostly introverted band, which is a shame because she was incredible. She was replaced by Paz Lenchantin, who, to be fair, is also incredible.
Jyoti Prakash Mishra, White Town's sole member, famous music producer, and a guy, wrote this song as kind of a methaphor for all sorts of relations, that could be adaptable to all sorts of points of view. He recorded the song using a sample from an old Lew Stone song (the muted trumpet), free MIDI software and a cheap tape recorder, releasing it in 1997.
He created a worldwide sensation.
This song was a worldwide hit - top 30 in the US, top 10 elsewhere. What's more, it carried Mishra's self-described mediocre voice and pretty good keyboard work to one hit wonder status.
“I feel so privileged [because] to be 100 percent honest with you — I’m a mediocre singer, I’m a terrible guitarist, I’m a pretty good keyboardist, I’m a good producer, not amazing, but good.”
The video was partially inspired by Luis Buñuel's Un chien andalou - thankfully without slicing up any eyeballs - and other surrealist artists, and has the same 20's feel that the Lew Stone sample gives to the song.
In 1985, British band - from Bradford, West Yorkshire, if we're being precise - The Cult would release what would ultimately be their best known and most widely recognized single. It wasn't their biggest hit - although close to it in the UK - and didn't even chart in the US, although its success and endurance paved the way for their future worldwide success.
Written by Ian Astbury - the lead vocalist - and Billy Duffy - the guitarist..... I didn't need to tell you that. The song shows that. Astbury's haunting vocals lend an air of enigmatic charisma to the lyrics that are tuned for his voice. His raw, soulful delivery infuses the lyrics with passion and depth, drawing the listener into a realm of introspection and introspective longing. Add that to Duffy's distinctive guitar work, which merges elements of psychedelic rock with a touch of new wave, and you've got a Cult classic.
Weirdly, the song was also a club hit - so much so that in 1993, it got some remixes and a rerelease, which ended up being a hit in its own right.
It's weird, though.
The Cult, believe it or not, are still together. There have absolutely been some lineup changes, but it has always been, unceasingly, the Billy and Ian show throughout. This performance from 2022 shows that the song has changed a little to accomodate for the changes age brings to vocalists, but not much - and the energy is still there.
In 1969, feeling feelings of alientation - his career was taking a nose dive - and having seen Stanley Kubrick's classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, David Bowie wrote and recorded this classic song.
It was an initial bomb but enventually because a UK hit, his only until 1973.
It remained a bomb in the US for three years, until it was released in 1972. THEN it hit #15 on the pop charts and became a big deal.
In July, 1990, I was getting ready to go to college. I was 18, and visiting family in Niagara Falls and Buffalo. Coincidentally, and not visiting my family, David Bowie was playing at the Niagara Falls Convention Center in what he said would be his last tour playing his classic songs, such as "Space Oddity".
Naturally, I wanted to go, but I was only allowed to go if I went with my Aunt Martha, who, to be fair, wasn't terribly old herself and so was cool enough to actually enjoy the show. We had a great time and it was a great show.
My younger sister was pissed because she wanted to go. Sorry, Dawn.
This is from Santiago, Chile, on the same tour. I can tell you that this is exactly how it sounded.
By the way, David Bowie lied, because here he is, performing the song in 1997. David Bowie taught me not to believe that farewell tours are real.
This top 20 hit was released in 1983 by German artist Peter Schilling. The titular Major Tom is, at least officially, not the same Major Tom who happens to be an astronaut in the David Bowie classic "Space Oddity:.
But c'mon.
Yes it is.
The synth-heavy song is right in place in 1983 - and it remains a really cool song to this day. It was Schilling's first English language single, and it ended up being a worldwide hit.
Ready for the other shoe? Well, the title of this post should have given it away.
This was a rerecorded version of a German song - and a hit song at that - by Schilling in 1982. Titled "Major Tom (Völlig losgelöst)", it was hit in Europe and the German-speaking world. Specifically, it was a #1 hit in Germany.
This song was commissioned for the 1984 hit movie Beverly Hills Cop. Most of you probably knew that. I mean, it's Harold Faltermeyer's best known song.
"Alex F" was named for the character Axel Foley, portrayed by Eddie Murphy in the movie. What you may not know is that it was composed in the key of F minor, continuing the F theme. Faltermeyer wrote the song, and performs all the instruments, which are all electronic. He also appears in the video, strangly wearing an overcoat, sunglasses and a hat while pounding away on what was probably state-of-the-art computer equipment in 1984.
Before you all go running off to the Wikipedia page for this song and tell me that I'm wrong and that the song was written by Hans Faltermeier, you should know that his full name is Hans Hugo Harold Faltermeier.... and he anglicized his name for single release (mostly because Americans are more likely to listen to a Harold than a Hans, to be frank and sad about it).
Anyway, it was a worldwide instrumental hit, and you should just listen to it.
Well, Happy Independence Day to all our US readers.
We decided it was appropriate to go with a 40-year-old motivational song that started off as something very different than that.
You see, Eddie Van Halen wrote the synth part first - and the rest of the hard-rockin' band rejected it. When David Lee Roth was finally convinced to give it another shot, he recalled a news story of a person who was threatening to commit suicide by jumping off a building... and, well, there's always that asshole who has to yell "C'mon, Jump!"
Well, since encouraging suicide isn't really something that record labels are going to get behind, the lyrics the band wrote ended up being a bit more motivational and less... well, death-y.
What the end result turned into was the biggest hit of Van Halen's career, by a lot. Deservedly so, too - it was a great, energetic song that brought rock to the masses.
Famously, David Lee Roth left Van Halen and was replaced by Sammy Hagar - which really begat a different band. This live version of the song from 1993 is a lot less synth-y, which tracks with the harder rocking feel of the band.
Funny enough, this live version was released as a single in Europe and ended up being a bit of a minor hit, too.
Perhaps not so famously, Sammy Hagar left Van Halen and was replaced by Gary Cherone from Extreme. Not surprisingly, he needed to perform David Lee Roth's songs, too.
This version was not released as a single and was not a hit because no one liked Gary Cherone as the lead vocalist of Van Halen.
Because this is a blog post, we are very much oversimplifying the history of Van Halen, but the short version is, David Lee Roth came back and the band, of course, performed this song. It is very much a fusion of the rock and synth styles - and that's Wolfgang Van Halen on bass.
There was supposed to be a "kitchen sink" reuinion with Hagar, Cherone, and Michael Anthony rejoinign the band - but, sadly, Eddie Van Halen passed away before that could happen. So, this post ends here.
We want July 2023 to be the coolest month on Wicked Guilty Pleasures ever. This is why we opened it with the absolute coolest song ever recorded.
The song was released as the debut single from the Digable Planets's debut album, and it was a Top 20 hit in the US and elsewhere. It remains their biggest hit to this day. More to the point, it is a Grammy-winning song and is considered to be the pinacle of the fusion genre known as jazz-rap. You hear the jazz, right? Well, that's "Stretching" by Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers, which they sampled for this track.
The Cleveland-based trio formed in 1987, and broke up for a bit in the late 90's, but they're back together and still together. All three of them have remained - no lineup changes.
And, as you can see from this 2016 live performance, they're still way cooler than I am.
Madonna wanted to use the commercial to launch her song, before its release to MTV and radio as a single. She had somewhat stepped back from music for a couple of years, but in 1989, she was ready to make a splash.
The commercial was a hit.
The next day, she released this video to MTV.
Because of the controversial use of religous imagery, an immediate boycott of Pepsi, including their brands like KFC and Taco Bell, was called by Christian groups. Pepsi resonded by dropping Madonna.
MTV responded by playing the video even more.
The song is widely regarded as one of Madonna's best, and its chart performance supports that - it was a #1 song in the US for three weeks and a huge hit worldwide.
As huge a hit as it was, the song itself was also huge, and never is that more apparent than when performed live - like this performance in Miami. The song employs the use of a choir, and having that choir in the room, live, just adds to the depth and majesty of the song.
(Update: 13 September 2023) Pepsi has now reversed course and do recognize the genius of the commercial - with an updated commercial.
On the 20th of March in 1993, the second of two bomb attacks happened in Warrington, Cheshire, England. The Irish Republican Army, a group who was trying to pressure the UK into pulling out of Northern Ireland, claimed responsibilty for the attack, which killed Johnathan Ball, aged 3, and Tim Parry, aged 12.
Why am I opening this post like this?
Because "Zombie" was written in response to that attack,
You see, Irish band The Cranberries were on a tour bus near the explosion. so it really hit home for Dolores O'Riordan. She wrote this song very quickly and the band immediately started performing it live, also adding it to their second album. In fact, here they are, performing the song in January 1994, a full nine months before the song was on any album.
While all this was going on, the band's first album was blowing up (figuratively) and they were becoming the band of the moment, with videos in heavy rotation on MTV and hits on the pop charts - so their second album was hotly anticipated. When it was released, it became a smash hit, topping charts worldwide and bringing the band's second album, No Need To Argue, with it.
The song, a grungy departure from the band's style, was loaded with political overtones that were largely lost on the US audience. They were NOT lost on the UK audience, and the band was heavily criticized by some for them in the press. Who did NOT criticize the band were the families of Johnathan Ball and Tim Parry, who thanked the band for their song and for its magesty and real lyrics.
The Cranberries are no more, ending with the 2018 death of Dolores O'Riordan, but she didn't lose a bit of passion right up until the moment she died (which was during a recording session). Here's the band in 2016, more than 20 years after the song was written, performing the song with equal passion as the day it was first performed.
This is a week of a lot of firsts for us. Here's another: our first Metallica post.
We chose a well-known and relatively not-metal song for this first post, for reasons. But it's a song with a story.
Written by James Hetfield (who also gave Lars Ulrich a credit for insisting upon bringing it to the band), it wasn't intended to be for Metallica - and in fact, Hetfield was hesitant to bring it forward, as it's a love song (about his girlfriend at the time). On the recording, Hetfield gave lead guitarist Kirk Hammett a break and took the guitaring duties himself (of course, by the time they hit the tour, Hammett had to learn the song).
The song ended up being released as the 3rd single from Metallica's eponymous fifth album that featured a very black cover. It was a huge hit for the band, nearly making the US Top 10 (unheard of for such a heavy band).
The song was rerecorded by the band in 1999 with an orchestral accompanyment by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. This version ended up being a European Top 10 hit. This version, in my opinion, does a better job at building - but there were 100 more instruments used in this version, so I guess that's a reason why.
As part of a celebration of the 30th anniversary of what was commonly called The Black Album, Metallica recorded this song with Miley Cyrus, who had famously covered it, on Howard Stern's show.
It was incredible.
We like to highlight when bands are still performing their songs - and thanks to YouTube, we have a video from literally this month of the band performing it in Göteborg, Sweden - and not missing a beat.
I know some of you are seeing the title of this post and having one and only one reaction: We know. There's plenty of precedent here, though.
Ashley O was the biggest star on the planet - a huge pop star that people could not get enough of, including Rachel, her biggest fan (although Rachel's sister, Jack, wasn't really on board), so much so that there was a toy marketed that mimic's Ashley's personality. Ashley's success was orchestated by her controling aunt, who didn't pay attention to Ashley's desire to perform in a different style. Tragically, Ashley fell into a coma and her fans worldwide mourned her.
If this sounds like an episode of Black Mirror, that's because it is. And when I first heard "On A Roll" in the episode titled "Rachel, Jack, and Ashley Too", I sat right up and said "That is "Head Like A Hole"' without hesitation.
Three things immediately came to mind.
1) It was way better than I expected it to be. Miley Cyrus, who played Ashley O in the episode, also recorded singles as the character, which she had never ever done before, She freaking nailed it. And, since the song was a worldwide hit, it's clear that I'm not the only one who thought so. Were the lyrics ridiculous? I mean, the song is full of ambition and verve, but they read like a motivational poster. It's still a bop.
2) There's no way Trent Reznor was OK with this. I was wrong about that. Not only was he on board with the lyrical and stylistic rewrite of arguably his best song - by Black Mirror creator and showrunner Charlie Booker and Cyrus - he released Black Mirror-themed merchandise for sale himself.
Ashley O made an appearance at the 2019 Glastonbury music festival - complete with glitter and A hat. Not gonna like - we're here for this. It's really a solid performance of what was supposed to be a vapid song.
This far in, and this is the first NIN we post. Wow. Looks like we have a long way to go here.
(We have posts scheduled into 2026 (so far), so I wouldn't sweat us leaving anytime soon).
This song was the 2nd single from the Nine Inch Nails (which, let's face it, is Trent Reznor) debut album, Pretty Hate Machine. It was industrial, it was metal, and yet it was unlike anything else released in 1989. Radio didn't QUITE know what to do with so much angry, accessible energy, but it was still a US and UK alternative hit.
Its popularity has grown over the years, of course - it is their most covered song, and it's beloved by Rachels, Jacks and Ashleys everywhere.
This song remains popular today, and is usually the closing song at live shows. This is the performance from the Woodstock '94 festival, and it is a doozy. Yes, there is a full band - Trent cannot do everything live. All he can do is embody the angry, muddy angst of the crowd,
I mean, after we posted what we did yesterday, you had to know we'd post this well-known song by Elvis Costello & The Attractions today. A great man once said that he was OK with it and that's how rock and roll works.
This is fine by me, Billy. It’s how rock and roll works. You take the broken pieces of another thrill and make a brand new toy. That’s what I did. #subterreaneanhomesickblues#toomuchmonkeybusiness
This song was released in 1978, so more than 2 Olivia Rodrigos ago, but is still really well-known today. There's a good reason for that - it's a great song. Costello's hashtags are in reference to two songs HE himself used to influence this song.
Costello, of course, still performs this song live. Here he is, teamed up on an unusual live performance with Juanes, giving this timeless song a biligual refresh.
