Steven Page wrote "Brian Wilson" as a tribute to the recently passed Brian Wilson, and the real Brian Wilson took it as such.
And, as someone who at least fancied himself as being a lot like Brian Wilson - in that he strugged with weight and mental health issues - Page hit the nail on the head.
You can see Page's deep feeling and emotion about the song shine through when performed live. There are no jokes here.
This song started off as a minor hit for Tyler, The Creator in 2017, as it was a single off his excellent album, Flower Boy - an album I did not expect to like as much as I did.
Well, actually, it started off as a song for Zayn Malik, but he didn't want that song, so Tyler kept it for himself.
Well, in 2023, TikTok made this song trend, and it became a bigger minor hit.
Tyler is a unique talent who I quite frankly did not expect to like as much as I do - and has consistently made innovative and original music. This is no exception.
This would be a special edition - because their lead vocalist, Douglas McCarthy, died yesterday at age 58 - which is way too young. He toured with the band until last year, when his health issues (cirrosis from excessive drinking earlier in life, for one) took their toll.
He will be missed,
But we had to do a post today anyway, so this seemed like the best idea, and Nitzer Ebb is a band that I always kind of liked, but didn't think about too much.
And let's talk about the music. Pioneers of the industrial wave of music, the band chose a name that sounded German without actually using German words.... so everyone thought they were German. They weren't. They were from the UK.
This 1986 song is one of my favorites by them. It is both danceable and moshable, which is kind of a tough line to straddle.
Industrial music is kind of a weird genre. It's both poppy electronic dance music and angry, heavy music. Rarely is that made more clear than in this 2023 live show.
Brian Wilson passed away today. He won numerous awards, including two Grammys (on nine nominations)
His masterpiece was Pet Sounds, and this song, which led the album, featured his lead vocals. It might have also led to some of his mental health collapse as he left the touring part of his career behind. His wife - Melinda Ledbetter, who passed away last year - helped him finally get the care he needed and got him making music again - and touring.
A striker typically plays further up the pitch from midfielders and defenders. They are sometime called forwards or attackers. We're talking about football here, by the way - and not American football, but the sport North American English speakers insist upon calling "soccer".
Why the soccer lesson up front?
Because this 1976 song is about a striker.
The song, considered by many to be the greatest ever written about a sport, was considered by Rolling Stone to be one of the 500 greatest songs of all time, a list dominated by English-language songs. This song is very much in Portuguese.
You might have noticed that I called this a "1976" song. It was. It's on his album África Brasil, which is an absolutely incredible album. However, the song rose to fame in 1989, when David Byrne included it on Brazil Classics Vol. 1, and this video made the heavy rotation on VH1.
He was known as Jorge Ben until the late 1980s, and changed his name allegedly because a chunk of the royalties for this song accidentally went to singer George Benson. I don't know if that's true, but if you look at the title of this post, I ain't taking any chances with his royalties.
Jorge Ben Jor is WELL into his 80s.
He STILL performs. Here he is - aged 84, two years ago - performing the song, and playing the lead guitar, and bringing the energy! But also, this is 11 songs into his set! And he kept going!!!!
They're a great, GREAT live band from Melbourne, Australia who have started to reach an international audience with their raucous, loud, energetic style. Their third album, Cartoon Darkness, was met with universal acclaim, and deservedly so - it's fun and not like anything else being released.
On the day that album was released, they also released what would end up being the second single - this clever song that is actually one of their quieter ones. Give 'em a go!
Although the band was formed in and based in Melbourne, half the band now calls Los Angelas home, so it was a short flight over no oceans to get to the KEXP studios in Seattle to perform this song live.
And, as I am writing this - and I didn't write this ahead of time. It was written this morning - this performance is from this March but the video was literally posted an hour ago - so you get to see it RIGHT when it's released.
See what I mean about them being a great live band?
Future Islands is a power-pop group that eschews the guitar and replaces it with solid synth.
This song, from their 4th album Singles, was the consensus best single of 2014, and I totally get it. It's strong yet beautiful, forceful and emotional.
It's a great song.
Their debut television performance of the song in 2014 was on The Late Show With David Letterman, and let's be honest, I posted this song for THIS performance.
It's legendary.... if not for just the dancing, or Sam Herring's death metal growls.
But also, don't they have the look of a band that, well, any of us could be in? They're just normal guys.
