27 December 2022 - Alice In Chains - Would?

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.

24 December 2022 - Cœur de Pirate - Noël Blanc

I hope you are enjoying your Christmas Eve as much as we are here.   To celebrate, we have "Noël Blanc" - a French version of "White Christmas."   

And you know I'm posting this only because I have the œ on my clipboard..... 

22 December 2022 - Phantogram - As Far As I Can See

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.   

21 December 2022 - Shampoo - Delicious

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.  

20 December 2022 - kenzie - 100 degrees

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.

19 December 2022 - Natalie Merchant - Carnival

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.  

14 December 2022 - Carolina Gaitán, Mauro Castillo, Adassa, Rhenzy Feliz, Diane Guerrero, Stephanie Beatriz and the Encanto Cast - We Don't Talk About Bruno

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.