Yesterday, I talked about BABYMETAL. There would be no BABYMETAL without Shonen Knife, the three Japanese housewives who decided to form a Beach Boys/Ramones influenced band in the early 1980's. Their songs tended to address pretty mundane subjects, like how much fun cycling is and riding on rockets.
They still rock today. From their 2014 album Overdrive, this song does a pretty good job of explaining itself. For a song about spending your days like a cat, it has a Ramones-esque feel.
Yes, a Japanese version of this musical cat video exists. They are, after all, Japanese. It also does an excellent job of explaining itself.
Here is the band performing the song live in 2014. I can tell you they are still going strong.
Like most of you, my initial reaction when hearing BABYMETAL was "What the hell did I just watch?"
The group is really the women singing and dancing in front. The backing band is session musicians - consistent, known ones, but they aren't the focus. The focus is the women that you are expecting to sing light pop music, and who instead blow your expectations out of the water.
The music is metal. It's metal that's a throwback to early 1990's bands that rocked this hard. They got their start in 2010 as a subunit of the Japanese idol group Sakura Gakuin,, but broke away and became so so much bigger than that.
The concept was originally a traditional idol fusion with metal music - but it has evolved into something of a reverent metal tribute. This song, which was something of a worldwide breakthrough for them in 2015, deals with a woman's desire to... well, eat chocolate, along with the pressures of maintaining one's figure. I'm not kidding. Enjoy.
You see, today is the day that the Marvel Cinematic Universe returns from its forced pandemic hiatus, with the movie Black Widow. The title character is, of course, played by actress Scarlett Johansson, and it is a movie everyone wanted for YEARS.
What you didn't know you wanted was to hear her musical collaboration with Pete Yorn. Recorded in 2006, the album was not released until 2009 - the year before Iron Man 2 was released. Their collaboration was seriously good - and as much as I am making more Black Widow jokes than Captain Marvel jokes that I made yesterday, Scarlett Johansson is an excellent, nuanced vocalist.
Their album didn't do great in the States, but was certified gold in France. Here they are performing the song for French television in 2009.
In 2010, the movie Scott Pilgrim vs. The World was released. With it came a pretty epic soundtrack. At the center of the film was a song called was "Black Sheep", by Toronto band Metric. This wasn't a new song of theirs - they had performed it live for years. The song, belted by Metric lead vocalist Emily Haines, was included on the soundtrack.
Here is the original version from the soundtrack. It's a great song in its own right.
This live performance of what is possibly their best known song from 2015 is absolutely amazing. Right?
If you have seen the movie, you know where this post is about to go.
You see, Emily Haines didn't sing the song in the movie. The song in the movie was performed by fictional band Clash at Demonhead - who were admittedly based on Metric - fronted by Envy Adams, who was played by real-life actress who can sing and future Captain Marvel, Brie Larson.
In 2010, Metric insisted that the original version, with Haines on vocal, be included on the soundtrack. As they should. It's their song. However, this made a lot of fans of the movie - and the Brie Larson vocal - very unhappy.
Fast forward to December 24, 2020. After much fan encouragement, Brie Larson released this video on her YouTube channel... I won't make you sit through the first 6 1/2 minutes....
Also, yes, those are sheep on her sweater..
Finally, in June 2021, Metric released the song as a single, accompanying an extended version of the film's soundtrack. There was much rejoicing and something of a resurgence in interest in the movie.... and it's still on the US Rock charts as I write this.
And no guitars. Some synth. But mostly percussion.
Just like every other Big Pig song.
In 1988, this song became the band's biggest hit worldwide, reaching the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time and doing significantly better elsewhere in the world.
A lot of people like to request Smashing Pumpkins as posts on this blog.
What they don't know is that I was a fan from the very beginning. This song, one of the few the band still performs live from their debut album, Gish, was their second single - although the "single" was really the EP Lull. It remains to this day one of my favorite songs. It starts slow and quiet and builds to a frenzied wall of noise.
By the way, D'arcy isn't really throwing the ball backwards, people. It was filmed in slow motion and run backwards.
I did not choose a modern performance of the song for the live showcase. I *did* choose one from 1991, which highlights just how important D'Arcy's bass was to the band's sound. The song is more subdued than the original for a longer time, but eventually builds to the noise.
The most infamous song of 2020 is finally here on Wicked Guilty Pleasures.
The song itself was a huge hit worldwide, both commercially and critically, but let's look at it a little closer.
It is a collaboration between two women who rap, a field largely dominated by men. It is, in fact, arguably the biggest hit by two collaborating rap artists.
It is a very explicit song, almost to the point of absurdity. And, it is unapologetically so - neither of these women care if you're offended.
And the song is a true collaboration. As much as their music demands a bit of bravado, neither upstages the other.
Plus, the use of tigers in the video sparked a feud with Carole Baskin.... so, there's that.
I have to admit something.
I wasn't a huge fan of this song until I heard this mashup with "We Appreciate Power" by Grimes. Completely different song. Brilliant choice both titular (look at what that title spells) and musically.
