23 December 2016

23 December 2016 - The Chainsmokers ft. ROZES - Roses

2016 was The Chainsmokers' year.  This was the first big hit of 2016 for this DJ duo.  It only seemed fitting that we'd feature them for our last post before Christmas.

Written by Elizabeth Roze Mencel, she also provided vocals to the song.  Yes, ROZES is actually a person.  She's also a pretty solid songwriter, and the pride of Mongomeryville, PA. Enjoy!

21 December 2016

21 December 2016 - The Amps - Pacer

This was supposed to be The Breeders.

But Kim Deal decided to do things a little differently.  She put The Breeders on hiatus for a year - mostly because her sister Kelley was in rehab and Jo Wiggs was off doing other things - and called herself Tammy Ampersand.

And made a brilliant album.

And then got tired of waiting and reformed the Breeders without her mates... or rather, renamed the Amps to the Breeders.

But we still have that one Amps album. 

07 December 2016

7 December 2016 - Liz Phair - Stratford-on-Guy & Stratford-on-Guy (Girlysound)

I've been on a bit of a Liz Phair binge lately.  But when I binge, I BINGE.  I listen to everything, end to end. Every live performance, every pretentious interview.  And there are a LOT of them.

30 November 2016

30 November 2016 - Taylor Swift - Wildest Dreams

It actually hurts a little to post Taylor Swift songs. I'm not exactly her #1 fan.  That was - still is - Scott Colvin.

But damn.  This song is epic.  Even I can't deny its genius and expert execution.


(update: 26 December 2021)

We added Taylor's Version here.  It's better anyway.  They all are.

21 November 2016

21 November 2016 - Mazzy Star - Halah

Some songs and sounds stick with you forever, and you never get sick of them.  This, for me, is one of those songs.

Mazzy Star were (still are, in fact) a duo - Hope Sandoval and David Roback (ex-Rain Parade) - who started off together in a band called Opal, with Kendra Smith (ex-Dream Syndicate) as lead vocalist.  When Smith left, abruptly - like, slammed her guitar on the ground during a gig and left - Sandoval took over lead vocals to finish the tour. 

After that tour ended, the two of them formed Mazzy Star. Mazzy Star had a minor hit song in 1993 - "Fade Into You".  This is not that song.  This song is from their influential and tone-setting 1990 debut album, She Hangs Brightly.  Kurt Cobain called the album one of his favorites of all time. 

Hope Sandoval is notoriously shy during live shows - she performs only under dim lighting and interacts little with the crowd.  You can kind of hear it in this song.  That's the best description I can give for this haunting song, one I list among my favorite songs of all time. 


The band is actually still together.  They released their fourth album in 2013, and had reformed for a couple of tours before that.  Here's a performance from 2012, where you can see the dim lighting. 


13 October 2016

13 October 2016 - Justin Bieber - Sorry

Boy, did I ever want to hate this song.

I REALLY wanted to hate it.

But it's charming.  And cute.

So here you go.

08 September 2016

8 September 2016 - Dolly Parton - Jolene

You know, now that Scott Colvin doesn't write for this blog, we have a lot less country.  (Yes, I know - I posted this last week.  That was the first country I had posted in a year, at least.)

Over the next several weeks, I am looking to remedy that.  We start with a song about the woman at a Nashville bank who was trying to take care of Dolly Parton's husband while she was on the road.  As the story goes, Jolene (probably not her real name) the bank clerk knew damn well the song was about her, and yeah, there was a catfight.

Dolly kept her man.  And also had a huge hit single that branched her into both pop music and the UK pop charts.


As an added bonus, here's a live duet version of the song that Dolly did with her goddaughter.

Did I mention her goddaughter happens to be Miley Cyrus? (If you read Totally Covered, you already knew that, and that Miley does a pretty damn good version of the song herself)