We went down a cover rabbit hole yesterday, but in doing so, we discovered a rockin' band.
Rolling Quartz formed in 2019 when Rose Quartz and Rolling Girlz, two different bands, merged into one, creating an indie rock band that demands your attention.
That's right. I said "demands." They're that good. Jayoung's huge vocals drive the band, all of whom are both technically strong and bring personality to their performances.
This, their debut single, was released in December 2020.
The band formed just before the global pandemic, and released their first single DURING the pandemic, so they had to adapt to a new normal in performance, but they also came back to live performances hard as soon as they could.
It's not often we get to feature Eurovision-winning bands. I'm happy to say that Italian band Måneskin fits that bill.
This song, written by the band, was Italian representative and winner of Eurovision 2021. The song also won the Sanremo Music Festival the same year. Notice how hard the song rocks. It is an angry rebuke of an older generation who does not value the input of those younger than they - the title roughly translates to "Quiet and Good" i.e. shut up and be good kids.
The song actually started off as a ballad. Strange to imagine that, so we'll just give you the song that won Eurovision. Viva l'italia!
Yes, of course we're including their Eurovision performance. C'mon now.
Daryl Hall and John Oates may be the greatest duo of the 1980s. At least, my friend Mark thought so.
In 1984, this song went to #1 on the Billboard charts. It would be the duo's last trip to the top of the charts - although they still had a few hits left in them. Oates wrote the chorus off a synthesizer riff, and the duo wrote the verses the next day.
It's also one of my personal favorite songs by the duo. Which is the real reason why we're talking today.
We're almost a month into 2023, and we're still writing 2022 on our checks.
Just kidding. We haven't written a check in years.
But that's how we're getting you back to 1998, when bluesy guitarist Everlast broke onto the scene with his only solo hit (he previously had a hit with his group House of Pain) - a song that uses each verse to tell a story of someone who is figuratively drowning in their life (and literally drowning in the video).
By the way, "his only solo hit" is by no means a measure of the success Everlast has had, as he has continued to create music that resonates, and has been nominated for several awards. Here he is, performing his best known song just a couple of years ago. His voice is raspier, which lends itself well to the bluesy tone of the song.
You had to know we'd get here eventually. Today is the day.
Drew Garrett and Lauren Willey didn't have a lot of confidence in their singing abilities. This is why they went with talk-singing on their viral hit that many have called "Worse than "Friday"".
These two young songwriters (that's right, they wrote this) also didn't actually think they're hot. This song, from 2012, was the first of just a few singles by the singer-songwriting duo - all in a similar style, and all clear parody.
But we know the real question: where are they now?
We did a #WickedGP deep dive to find out what the ladies were up to since their viral fame. Drew Garrett is a holistic health coach with her own business. Lauren Willey's Instagram bio clearly states that she is a "lifelong hoop earring advocate & beauty PR w/ @behrmanpr". Both appear to be living successful, happy lives outside the music industry.
According to Billboard, it was "Heat Waves" by Oxford band Glass Animals. Which is quite an achievement, since it was released in 2021 as a single (and ended up #16 on THAT year end chart) and took 59 weeks to get there. It spent more than a YEAR on the pop chart before it hit #1, and spent a month there. And that's just what it did in the US! In Australia, it spent 85 weeks in their top 10, the longest run by far of any single.
It's not like Glass Animals is some big hitmaker overnight success of a band. They've been around since 2010, and this was their first big hit.
So what made this song a hit?
Well, weird Minecraft fan fiction that highlighted the song didn't hurt, but I'd like to think it's the simple lyrics and captivating electronic beat. Anyone can sing along to this song. Even me! Hell, I'm singing along right now.
It also may be the fact that they are a different band, with an accessible look. They aren't overstyled. They're a real band, writing real music. And they perform it live, too.
"You know, people will actually read about Christina Aguilera. Why not continue down that road?"
"Sure. But I should go non-obvious and not the literal second single from Stripped, right?"
"What? What is that single"
""Beautiful". I literally mentioned it yesterday."
"Oh yeah. You did. But I kinda think you have to. It's her biggest hit and her best known song."
"Ugh, fine. Can I at least talk about new facts people might not know, like that it was written and produced by Linda Perry, who most people know from 4 Non Blondes?"
"It's not like I can stop you."
"How about the fact that this video won a GLAAD award for the positive and normalized portrayal of the LGBTQ+ community, who have adopted it as kind of an anthem?"
"You really can't not mention that. Better mention the Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance as well as its nomination for Song of the Year. You love mentioning awards."
"How about the lack of assless chaps?"
"....."
"What else do I need to say about this song?"
"Did you mention the second video?"
"The what, now?"
"Yeah, Christina made a 2nd video for this song in 2022, with a focus on body acceptance and the issues of social media in regards to that."
"I did NOT know that existed."
"Yeah, she even put some mental health resources right on the front page of her website. They're still there right now, as we write this."
"Yeah, I see that. Looks like this was a 20th anniversary rerelease as well."
"I mean, yeah, but do you see the greater good she's trying to do here?"
"Well, what about the other version of the song/"
"What other version?"
""You Are What You Are (Beautiful)". She rerecorded it in a different style for her greatest hits album."
The birth of Xtina happened in 2002, as Ms. Aguilera was looking to blast the virginal image that her record label was trying to push.
If the song didn't accomplish that, the video sure as hell did. A dirrty, gritty affair, featuring mud wrestling, furries, and a relatively scantily clad Xtina ended up being an immediate hit and propelled the song to #5 on the pop charts.
The songwriting team included Redman, whose 2001 song "Let's Get Dirty" was a strong inspiration for this single, which Aguilera fought to be the first single from her Stripped album (over eventual megahit "Beautiful").
To go a little bit into how the sausage is made, I like to add a live performance in a lot of these posts. In the case of this song, there are a lot of performances from 2002 and 2003 in which it is not clear whether or not Christina is singing or just lip-syncing (I believe she is singing but using a helper track). Sure, there are a lot of assless chaps, but I like to give you, the reader, a different perspective of the song.
Then I found this full-band performance. No doubt she's singing the hell out of this song here.
It was really only a matter of time before Nicki Minaj sampled Rick James, right?
Released in August 2022, this song was an instant hit - and by instant, I mean huge Spotify debut, #1 Billboard Hot 100 debut, a spot on her Greatest Hits album (she's been around long enough to have one of those!).
The bigger deal is that it was only her third #1 - and her first in a couple of years.
The All-American Rejects scored their biggest hit to date - #4 on the Hot 100 in addition to topping the US Rock charts - with this angry, angry song. Of course, the band had someone in mind - some real asshole, in their words - but they're not saying - or telling the subject.
Anyway, it's a great straight-ahead rock song that was a refreshing take in 2008.
The Arrows wrote and performed this song in 1975. This creepy, creepy song about picking up an underage girl ended up getting them a recurring TV gig on their own eponymous show. Ah, the 70s. It was on that TV show that Joan Jett saw the band perform the song - and her recordings became history.
The song is a classic because of what Joan Jett did, and despite the creepy, creepy subject matter, I have come to appreciate this version.
Kim Petras has been releasing compelling alt-synth pop music for years that has been really really good. This post is about one that didn't get a real release, though.
This song was supposed to be the big single from her third album, which would have been her major label debut, Problématique, That album, for unknown reasons, never got released and was scrapped by the Republic Records, supposedly due to the fact that many songs, including this one, were leaked ahead of time (some speculate there are other reasons related to Dr. Luke, who we have mentioned before in not-complimentary terms).
Anyway, Petras says it's OK to listen to the leaks, and she has released this song as a single - and it ended up being something of a club hit - so if she's OK with it, we are, too.
My mother's nickname was Dolly. (Not a joke - a lot of people thought it was her real name)
So, naturally, I grew up listening to a lot of Dolly Parton. That includes this song. I used to not really like it. I found it boring. As I grew older, I see the beauty of it.
The song was written for Porter Wagoner, on whose show Dolly Parton (not my mom) got her start. She had been on his show for five years and was leaving for a solo career - and this song was her resignation letter.
You thought it was a romantic breakup song, didn't you? It wasn't.
Anyway, the song topped the country charts twice. The first time was in 1974, and this was what the song sounded like then.
In 1982, Dolly Parton (not my mom) did a movie with Burt Reynolds called The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, and she rerecorded and rereleased this song - and it topped the country charts AGAIN.
She would, of course, release the song AGAIN, as a duet with Vince Gill, in 1995. This version didn't top the country charts - it only reached #15.
Disappointing.
This version started off as THIS live performance, and was picked up by country music radio, which pressured Dolly's label to release it as a single - and it became a hit again.
As big a hit as this song was, it was an even bigger hit for another artist who shall remain nameless.
In 1982, Steve Winwood released an album - Talking Back to the Night - that featured this single, which ended up being a minor hit - hitting #70 on the Billboard charts, and getting the former Spencer Davis Group member some attention.
The song is about a former lover that the narrator hopes will return to him someday.
In 1986, Steve Winwood had a huge enough year to warrant a greatest hits album - Chronicles - in 1987. Included on that album was a remix of "Valerie", which ended up being a much bigger hit (US Top 10) than the original.
Both are among my favorite unsung songs by any artist.
Megan Pete really knows how to write a really, really dirty song.
More to the point, she knows how to write a great, strong breakup song - which she says was based on a lot of past relationships and had nothing to do with being shot by Tory Lanez.
Yes, she was shot by Tory Lanez, in 2020. In both feet. She was in bad shape.
The song, with the title a reference to the popular post-coital birth control, is angry and bold and.... really really good. I hope we have her as an artist for a long time to come.
You know, I appreciate the need for a helper track, but Megan is raw and honest in this live performance, even with that.
The first hip hop song to be a radio hit samples "Good Times" by Chic pretty heavily, so much so that Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards sued for songwriting credits. The song, ironically, started when the Sugarhill Gang and Fab Five Freddy JOINED Chic on stage and came up with an impromptu rhyme to go along with the LIVE bassline of this song.
That wasn't the only sample they used. "Here Comes That Sound Again" by Love De-Luxe was also sampled. Did Alan Hankshaw get a songwriting credit? Noooooooooo.
More importantly, this was the song that brought hip hop to a broad audience. No, it wasn't the first, but it was the first hit. It would go on to be one of the most influential one-hit wonders in history.
No, Mariah Carey didn't get a songwriting credit here.
You know who did?
Tina Weymouth. Chris Frantz. Adrian Belew. Steven Stanley.
This really dirty song reached #3 on the pop charts - and #8 on the year end chart - and was a worldwide starmaking hit for Latto. The winner of the 2016 TV reality competition The Rap Game, she's come out strong with a bravado that Megan Three Stallion no one can match.
Plus, lyrically, Latto does pay tribute to Mariah here, even if it's a Tom Tom Club sample.
Mariah DID get a songwriting credit on this remix (100% true)...... as well as a vocal one. DJ Khaled gets his two cents in at the beginning and end of this as well.
If you read this far, you know today is our 12th birthday. Celebrate with us all year long as we bring the BDE and make this our biggest year yet.
I'm not a huge Mariah Carey fan. I am really, really not. I am especially sick of her right now, when we have all heard that goddamn Christmas song on repeat, everywhere. Little known fact: this song was THAT song's follow up single.
But this song - which she lyrically co-write with Dave Hall (musically and partially lyrically, it was written by Adrian Belew, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Steven Stanley) - really understands the song it sampled, and doesn't disrespect it. It's not a ripoff. It's an homage. And it's probably the best thing Mariah Carey has ever done.
If you listen to the lyrics, you know that the Beasties are talking about being on a long tour, as a lot of young musicians have to do, where you don't get to sleep much. Their home base being Brooklyn, that would be when sleep would come.
Now you know.
This song, produced by Rick Rubin, fuses rock and hip hop, with a guitar riff straight out of "TNT" by AC/DC and a title that invokes Motörhead (No Sleep 'til Hammersmith), However, the three part harmonies were boastful and bold, typical of late-1980's rap music.
The song was a band and crowd favorite at their shows, with the group frequently using this as their closing song. Who could resist the frantic, energetic feeling of this tune?
Why yes, that is Penn and Teller playing the big baddies in this video.
This very quick-tongued song, co-produced by Run-DMC and Rick Rubin (best known for metal producing before this). Utilizing samples from "My Sharona" by The Knack and "Mickey" by Toni Basil (the former sued the band over the sample), the combined forces of Run, DMC, JamMaster Jay, and Rick Rubin solidified the group's strength in fusing hip hop music with hard-edged rock. They were, in essence, the gangsta rap of their time.
Shoutout to Penn Jillette, who does a "great" job with the tune at the end of the video.
Why post a band that hasn't been together since the mid-1990's as your last song of 2022? Why post a 30 year old song that isn't even available on Spotify?
I've stated earlier that I am a fan of Mary's Danish - one of my favorite bands of all time. This despite the fact that the band only had three albums and a live EP (with a version of "Foxy Lady" as a bonus). None of these albums were available on any streaming service.... and there was a good reason for that.
You see, the masters were lost. All of them.
In 2022, the masters for their EP, Live + Experienced, and their first album, There Goes The Wondertruck, (some thought to be lost in the famous Capitol Records fire of 2008), originally released on the defunct Chameleon Records, were found in the Warner Brothers archives by Gretchen Seeger herself. So, now, we can stream "Don't Crash The Car Tonight".
This song is from their third album, American Standard. That and their second album, Circa, are still missing, as they were part of the Morgan Creek records archives - a record label that doesn't exist anymore, although Morgan Creek FILMS does, and they do license music.
So, in very much the John Oliver style, I have personally asked Morgan Creek Films for the licensing rights for these two albums - just in the hopes that they were open up their archives and find these masters. Let's see if this gets us anywhere.
This was the 3rd single off the Soundgarden album Badmotorfinger and it was an instant hit. Featuring an odd tuning (the E string on Kim Thayil's guitar was tuned down to B) and really erratic musical time signatures and tempo changes, it had a unique sound that's very difficult to replicate - but that's what Soundgarden did - create unique sounds that were difficult to replicate.
It's a song that endures, too.
As Chris Cornell moved onto solo artistry, he still performed his songs. This particular song, however, was famously covered in the interim by country music legend Johnny Cash.... who absolutely took the song and made it his own, so much so that Cornell used Johnny's version of his song when performing it live.
If you didn't see this coming, you aren't paying attention.
The Temple of the Dog self-titled debut album, their only release, was issues in April of 1991, a project featuring what would end up becoming Pearl Jam along with Chris Cornell of Soundgarden. It would remain largely unnoticed until 1992, when Pearl Jam hit it big and their whole story, including how Eddie Vedder joined them, came to light.
So, you could consider this to be Pearl Jam's debut album.
This was their best known song, written by Chris Cornell.
I do, however, want to paint a picture for you.
Here's this gas station attendant from San Diego who happens to be a basketball buddy of a Red Hot Chili Pepper, who was recommended for this project by said Chili Pepper, just walking into a studio with some giants of grunge who knew each other pretty well. Yes, at this point, Chris Cornell was well known. Soundgarden was a hit band. Mother Love Bone was iconic.
This gas station attendant steps up to the mic and turns this song into a duet, which he was unaware Cornell was already looking to do, and constructed the duet you see here, and cemented his own career.
None of this matters if A&M Records don't wake up and see they have a collaboration between two of their biggest hit bands a year after this album's release. None of this matters if this isn't an instant classic of a song.
The song and album were reissued in 2016, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the initial release. A new video for this song was released, compiled from old footage of Cornell and Vedder.
Yesterday, we talked briefly about Mother Love Bone. But what happened to the rest of Mother Love Bone after the death of Andrew Wood?
Many of you know the answer to this, at least partially. Stone Gossard, guitarist for the band, started writing some hard-edged stuff in reaction, and started revisiting other stuff he had written as a member of MLB. One of these songs was an instrumental named "Dollar Short". He and Jeff Ament were taking part in a tribute project (to Wood) called Temple of the Dog with Chris Cornell from Soundgarden, and a San Diego vocalist who I'm sure you've never heard of named Eddie Vedder was recruited to do some vocals for this.
Anyway, Vedder got his hands on "Dollar Short" and came up with lyrics. Those lyrics were "Alive". After Temple of the Dog, Vedder stuck with Ament and Gossard, along with other participant Mike McCready (who was already playing with Gossard and Ament with the goal of a new band) formed a new band, Pearl Jam, which would become one of the biggest and most influential bands in the Seattle scene.
This single, the band's first, was, believe it or not, only a minor hit - bubbling under the Hot 100 and getting some commercial airplay - but it set the table for their bigger follow-up songs. And, clearly, the song (with the added McCready outro, considered one of the best guitar solos of all time) endures.
When everyone in the music business discovered Seattle and their "grunge" music scene, one of the first bands signed (after Soundgarden, who really opened that door) was Mother Love Bone. Unfortunately, Mother Love Bone didn't get very far, as their lead vocalist, Andrew Wood, passed away in 1990 from a heroin overdose.
The influence of Mother Love Bone was felt throughout the scene, even after Wood's death. His friend, Jerry Cantrell, vocalist and guitarist for Alice in Chains, wrote "Would?" as a tribute to his friend. Originally appearing on the soundtrack for the movie Singles (the band also appeared in the film), which also featured a Mother Love Bone song, it would go on to be one of AiC's best known songs
The unusual makeup of Alice in Chains allowed for some interesting harmonies. Cantrell sings the verses on this song, and the late Layne Staley - lead vocalist - sings the chorus.
As was commonplace in the 1990s, the band appeared on the TV show MTV Unplugged and did a version of the song that was.... well, Layne Staley gave this version a very different feel.
Staley himself passed away from a heroin and cocaine overdose in 2002, but the band eventually persevered, reforming a few years later. In 2006, AiC got together to pay tribute to Staley and performed this song, with Phil Anselmo of Pantera (themselves also dealing with the tragic loss of Dimebag Darrell, to whom this performance is also tributed) taking his vocal role and Duff McKagan of Guns 'n' Roses joining in on guitar. With the new tribute, this song becomes even more poignant.
It's been a while since we featured Phanotgram. We're featuring this because we had a draft of this post already written for such a time like this - when we were too lazy to go hunting for a new song and research it.
Nevertheless, here we are. And, since we forgot to add that research piece, we saved almost nothing.
The band's third single from their great debut album, Eyelid Movies, it wasn't quite as well-known as the two previous singles - but it still got a video and a bit of label backing. The song itself is a bit of a sonic experiment in this format, although it is one of the band's older songs.
Why does it seem like I'm getting all my music from perfume commercials lately?
Mostly because I am.
This song was covered by Miley Cyrus in a Gucci perfume ad, but it's really Shampoo who originally recorded the song. Shampoo, a 90's girl duo who started off more riot grrrl and ended up more Cher Horowitz, had a few hits in the UK but never sit fire on this side of the pond.
It's pretty standard 90's power pop, but it's catchy so I don't care. Let's just enjoy it together.
The only thing I am seeing more than ads for perfume on Hulu these days are ads for this song.
This isn't a joke. There's been a pretty aggressive marketing campaign surrounding this particular song in the last month of the year. I'm sure I'm going to see the ad 100 more times before it's done.
I'm not sure she needs it. You see, "kenzie" is Mackenzie Ziegler, best known for the six years she spent on the Lifetime series Dance Moms with her older sister Maddie. We've discussed Maddie before - but only in terms of Sia.
Now, Sia didn't write this song (she has written for kenzie in the past),- the younger Ms. Ziegler did co-write this breakup song, which was loosely based off a text a friend of hers sent to her - a friend who hated the summer, but broke up with her boyfriend in the winter so she longed for the summer.
Despite the fact that this song made this blog solely off the power of a Hulu ad, it's pretty darned catchy.
I've been hesitant to post any Natalie Merchant music. I found the work she did with 10,000 Maniacs to be more significant and more successful....
However, this, her debut single in 1995 after her split with 10,000 Maniacs, was a top 10 hit, and the accompanying album, Tigerlily, sold 5 million copies, more than any 10,000 Maniacs album. This single made the top 10, which is higher than any 10,000 Maniacs song did (their cover of "Because The Night" fell just short).
So I was wrong about the successful.
And this song is a deep yet lighthearted look at city life, inspired by a trip Merchant took to New York City as a young child. So, maybe this is also pretty significant.
At any rate, it's a great song that established Natalie Mercahnt as a solo artist, and for that reason, I decided it was time.
It's not rare that a song from a Disney movie makes the pop charts.
You can count on one hand the number of songs from Disney movies that topped the pop charts for five weeks.
Actually, you can count them on one finger, and it is this critically-acclaimed densely layered traditional Latin pop song. Written by Lin-Manuel Miranda - the guy who wrote Hamilton, yes - it is a complex and extremely well-constructed song that moves forward the story of Encanto, a movie that Miranda was integrally involved in the development of (and we wrote the entire soundtrack).
So many people - a who's-who of Latin actors and musicians (we will revisit several of them soon) - performed on this dense track - and we listed a lot of them, but there were more. This is probably the longest WGP title ever, but I ain't apologizing.
Of course, for a song called "We Don't Talk About Bruno", they sure do talk a lot about Bruno.
Because I did list out all those cast members and represented them with animation, it's only right that I give you a live performance, with the cast performing the song live at Disney's D23 Expo. Notice how Rhenzy Feliz sings ALL the male parts.
The cast made another appearance at the 2022 Oscars (the song wasn't nominated but c'mon). It was introduced by John Leguizamo, who literally played Bruno. Pay attention at the 1:45 mark. No, Megan Thee Stallion was not in Encanto.
Remember yesterday when we talked about Bella Poarch lipsyncing to grime?
Turns out she has a music career herself. This was her debut single, from 2021 - and it's really good. That's not just me saying that. That's critics, who praised its body positivity message.
The video is some sort of a twisted take on Build-A-Bear workshop, where men could come and pick out the parts on women they might want - which, of course, is the point of the song (love yourself, you can't build a.... well, you can read the title).
So, a lot of you have seen this little viral TikTok video that came out a couple years ago. I know a lot of you have seen it, because it is the most viewed video on TikTok.
Sixty million likes for a little head bobbing. What did I do wrong in my life?
As it turns out, this was part of a series of lip sync videos released by TikTok star Bella Poarch, and this one just took off. The story behind the song is a bit unexpected, though.
You see, Millie B was a 16 year old kid from Blackpool who inserted herself in the grime scene - which was (is) all about freestyle, with a focus on diss tracks. That's right - this song is a complete and total diss track, and if you look at the title of this post - I used the original title and not what it's popularly called on TikTok - it's directed at the queen of the Blackpool grime scene, Sophie Aspin.
You know, to get that information, I had to listen to a lot of grime. Some of it is awful. Some of these artists - including Millie B and, frankly, Sophie Aspin - are really really good. And, let's be clear - none of these children talking about "shitte head" are at all serious (Aspin and Millie B have collaborated on tracks after this was released).
It's the holiday season, which means it's time for a significant uptick in perfume ads. So, how you you sell something that smells in a visual medium that doesn't have an odor component?
In the case of Marc Jacobs, when selling the perfume Daisy (as in "fresh as a"), this is what they chose (for a 2019 commercial that seems to be getting a lot of airplay this year). .
Creepy, right?
However terrifying I found this commercial, I found the music underneath compelling. So, I had to do some digging, and found that it was a remix of the the song "Cheree" by the band Suicide. From 1978, the synth-heavy oft-covered song is considered "important" and influential, but isn't necessarily a song that was a hit. Still, we'll take interesting.
Here's the remix they used in the commercial, by the way:
By 2002, it was starting to not be so taboo for a woman to talk about sex in such an explicit manner.... but it was still a big deal for this song to hit #2 on the POP charts (for 10 weeks, which is a record, by the way).... which means it was getting a lot of radio airplay for a sexually explicit song....which Missy Elliott hid with sound effects (the elephant trumpeting, for example), but everyone knew what she was saying.
But this song isn't just a bold sexual triumph. It features some old school samples ("Peter Piper", "Request Line") as well as other classic songs ("Heart of Glass").
And, let's be honest - we know why you're here. It's not for Missy's badonkadonk. It's the line "Ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gnaht ym tup i." Guys, she's not talking backwards. It's backmasked. And it sounds really cool, doesn't it?
Whereas a lot of artists wouldn't have the guts to perform such a heavily produced song live, Missy Elliott did... many times. Of note is her 2003 American Music Awards appearance, which turned it into a call-and-answer and featured a male artist doing her backmasking for her.
For now, let's feature the 1984 Cars hit song, sung by bassist Benjamin Orr and written by Ric Ocasek. The video was produced by Timothy Hutton (the actor) and features supermodel Paulina Porizkova, who would later become Ocasek's wife.
Orr sang the song beautifully, giving a heartfelt and moving rendition of the tune. He was clearly the right choice, and the American public agreed, as this became a rather big hit for the band.
Perhaps the song is best known for its Live Aid performance - which is spectacular.
How did INXS become an afterthought on the US charts? The answer may surprise you.
This 1993 single, the lead one from their album Full Moon Dirty Hearts, featured a video that MTV would not air, because it had "controversial images" - specifically Gulf War images, something that was still pretty fresh in the American psyche.
It was, and is, still a great and exciting song. It is a true shame that it was ignored to the extent that it was.
Even though Michael Hutchence passed away in 1997, he still have time to give spirited live performances of this song. Here is the band, performing the song to an excited crowd in 1994.
This joke, co-written by and primarily performed by reality show dating star Flavor Flav, is about the paramedic response in predominantly black neighborhoods. It is not about police response - only paramedic/ambulance response.
I think a lot of people look at Flavor Flav is a joke because, well, the clocks, Flavor of Love's three seasons. Come on, man - just pick New York. However, he wrote and performed poignant songs like this one - and delivered the hard messages with a side of humor. It's somewhat brilliant, really.
Leo Graham and Paul Richmond, record producers, were nominated for a Grammy for this 1980 hit song, the biggest by The Manhattans for several years - their second and final trip to the Billboard top 5 (although they'd continue to be the R&B chart hitmakers they had been for more than a decade).
But hey, that's not the point of this post. The point is to make sure you know it's The Manhattans, and not Earth, Wind, and Fire, who perform this song. Yes, EWF has a song by the same name. It's not this song.
"Actually, today we're going to feature Ten Second Epic. Yeah, they're Canadian. Maybe I should have saved this for Maple Leaf March, but whatever. They have other songs."
"OK, sir, I am impressed. Good way to break the mold. Or do they spell it mould?"
"Good question. I'll have to ask all my favourite Canadians."
"Well, tell me about this song!"
"OK! This song was off their 2009 album Hometown, This video, for the third single from that album, was directed by Sean Michael Turrell, and centers around a guy asking his lady to forgive him for some ambiguous wrongdoing."
"Oh, I love ladies in videos. Anything else you need to tell me before I watch this?"
"My computer doesn't know what to do with the weird o-e thing and just drops it. So the links just say Pirate Stray Dog or something."
"(facepalm) OK, well, she did a video game soundtrack. The song you hear when you finish the game is really beautiful and quite possibly the most epic video game song ever written."
"What game was it?"
"Child of Light. By Ubisoft. Critics loved it and it's been released for just about every major gaming platform."
"Wait - that's an old game and it's all childhood stories."
"I mean... 2014, but it's still being released for new platforms."
"OK, that's cool. I suppose you're going to want to say something about the soundtrack and how Béatrice Martin wrote the whole soundtrack, not just for piano, but for symphony, and worked with the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra to record a good portion of these tracks?"
"Um... yeah. That's pretty much exactly what I was going to say."
The old people reading this are wondering who Dua Lipa is. So, let's set that up.
Dua Lipa started her professional life as an alt-pop artist a la Charli XCX. Somewhere along the way, she dropped the 'alt".
There. You know enough.
"Levitating" was a worldwide hit in 2021, peaking at #2 in the US and topping the charts elsewhere. Despite peaking at #2, it spent a LONG time at #2 - long enough to end up being the year end #1 single, according to Billboard - onyl the fourth song to ever accomplish that and the first in two decades.
It's also a damn catchy song, and a great disco throwback. It was time. This is version #3 of the song, a remix featuring DaBaby.
The first (original) and second (a remix by Missy Elliott and Madonna) were released on the same day, and they each got different official videos (as did that third version with DaBaby). Here is that original:
....and here is the Blessed Madonna remix. Yes, that's Missy Elliott in the video as well.
For me, this song about a woman in love with a gay man was my first introduction to the Hayden Triplets.
Even though the Haydens are widely associated with that dog, this song, as well as every other one from their 2nd album, Totally Crushed Out (which is amazing), was written by Anna Waronker, lead vocalist and frequent Beck backing band member.
Why this band isn't as big as Weezer is a question that is often asked. And I agree. They should be.
that dog is a band that is still together. Here they are, performing this song in 2019.
Hoodoo Gurus were one of my favorite bands growing up. They never got super well-known in the States, but in their native Australia, this song, written by vocalist Dave Faulkner, was a Top 20 hit.
The travesty about this video is that it only has 157 views on YouTube as I write this. I'm hoping to at least triple that and get this classic band some attention!
The great thing about this band is that they're still performing. Here they are in 2008, playing for a crowd that knows all the words.
Sometimes, a song so absolutely ridiculous comes that captures the entire world. That's not a negative - those songs are usually remembered fondly.
This is not a post about a song like that.
Take "Dance Monkey", the 2019 single by Austrailian singer Toni Watson, who goes by the stage name Tones and I. This song hit #1 in over 30 counties, and was a top 5 hit in the US - despite being called "Dance Monkey" and having what one could say were absurd lyrics. The reality of the lyrics is that the inspiration came from Watson's time as a street dancer - where she would literally have to dance for money. So, the absurity is actually rooted in reality.
And here I am, talking about it three years later, because it's a darned catchy song.
I have to be honest - I thought this was going to be a quick little post with a viral video, given the song's short but strong chart showing.
But no. Tones and I absolutely performs this live. And it's kind of spectacular.
It's also a song that predates its fame. This performance is from four months before the single's release - before the record deal, before the hugeness, before everythung.
"So, I guess you're gonna want to post another song with that funny o-e combo woman today? I mean, gotta keep a streak going or something?"
"Nah, But you make a point. I should tie yesterday into today. Didn't Aly & AJ have some huge autotuned hit breakup song a few years back?"
"Oh, that's right! They did! Acutally, now that you mention it, they kinda disappeared after that."
"Well, as we said yesterday, iZombie and all that."
"You know AJ is on The Goldbergs, right?"
"Oh, really?"
"Sorry that didn't fit into your Aly fetish, but yeah, AJ Michalka is at least as accomplished an actress as her sister."
"To be fair, I didn't mention Hellcats. They both appeared on there."
"That really wouldn't have helped your case."
"Can we PLEASE get back to the music."
"Sure, I guess so."
"I need to write something actually pertaining to this song."
"I suppose you're gonna want to say something technical about the song, like how their other stuff was actually guitar-based rock and this was synth-filled Radio Disney-targeted pop stuff, right?"
"Yeah, that sounds like me."
"Hey, I know you love posting live stuff in a second video. Might I make a recommendation?"
"Sure, fire away."
"I seem to recall that Aly & AJ rerecorded the song with dirty words on some live performance on New Year's Eve in 2020. That would be cool, right?"
Let's keep up the shoegaze stuff with the band that literally defined the genre - Lush. I think Miki Berenyi and Emma Anderson are literally gazing at their shoes in this video.
At 2:13. I don't just say stuff to be funny.
Written by Anderson, and produced by Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins, this song is one of the noisiest from their 1992 Spooky album - but even this noise doesn't cancel out the dreamlike music and beautiful harmonies of Anderson and Berenyi on dual lead vocal.
I know, I know. We've been AWOL for a while. It's been a busy summer. But we're back. And we aren't leaving for a long time.
The opening track to the 1991 debut album (God Fodder) by Ned's Atomic Dustbin originally started life as a song that had nothing to do with television.... until Alex Griffin saw a sticker in Mystic, Connecticut. Why he was in Mystic, I'm not sure - but that changed his album and his song for good.
The shoegaze genre, which was so damned popular among the kids whose parents just didn't understand them, was set on its ear with this album, which took the genre and turned up the amps. This song - and in fact the whole album - was somewhat groundbreaking.
By the way, they're still around, still touring, and still killing televisions.
