As I write this, I am almost to the day the same age Robert Palmer was when he passed away. Frankly, I'm a few days older.
That's right. I'm an old guy. Oblivion really is all I crave.
Which is why I have such nostalgia for this song and video - featuring models that are supposed to look lie mannequins - when maybe I otherwise would not have.
This 1985 single, from his album Riptide and written by Palmer himself, would become his signature song and a HUGE hit. The song was originally intended to be a duet with Chaka Khan, but she was removed from the song by her record label.
Even though he couldn't do the song with Chaka, he did have a co-vocalist live in 1985.
Palmer was taken from us WAY too soon, in 2003. Eat heart healthy, kids. But that doesn't mean he slowed down. In 1995, he filmed this version of the song for Danish television.... and he sounded JUST as solid as he did in 1985
Perhaps my favorite live performance of this song - with the most energy - is the one he did in 1991 with UB40. Also, he always looked so dapper.
There was a brief time when I was a journalism major in college.
I mean, this shitty writing should tell you why that didn't stick.
What DID stick was a lot of even more obscure music than I had ever heard before. You see, I was a college music DJ - it's where I met my former collaborator, Scott Colvin. Our college radio station was programmed "classic rock", but during the late night, we switched to alternative music.
Our late night director was Jonathan Falls, and he had a penchant for finding great underground music.
This particular band and this particular song was his find.
The band hailed from Orange County, California, and were a trio that were clearly and heavily inspired by The Minutemen and fIREHOSE. Led by Mark Andrea, there were a lot of stop tempos and change-ups in their songs - and since none of them were really experienced in bands (their bassist only learned to play his instrument to play their FIRST SHOW - ironically opening for fIREHOSE), they could get inventive.
I really tried to not love Tiffany Day's new album HALO. It's a frenetic hyperpop mess.
But that's kind of the point. Being a woman in her mid 20s right now is a frenetic hyperpop mess - so I hear. I don't know, really. I'm not a woman in my mid 20s. I've never been a woman in my mid 20s. The fact that I can confidently state that is because HALO is just THAT good.
In all seriousness, this is a woman with OCD making hyperpop about her OCD - that's precisely what this song is about - right down to the obvious overmedication and missing the days before she was medicated.
Also, the music is just fun.
Yes, she has perforned this live, and yes, the crowd knows the words, because they resonate. It's SMART hyperpop - some of the smartest made this year - and that is undeniable.
Remember when Ice Spice did that song for the Spongebob Squarepants movie?
I frankly thought Ice Spice was done three years ago, but here we are.
This short-ish song, which critics actually LOVED, marks a return to form - her classic simple lyrics and catchy beats. Cowritten by Ice Spice and producer RIOTUSA ("Stop playin' with em, Riot"), it grows on you despite the song clearly being about a sea sponge's pants.
Ice Spice also has a small part in the movie in making Spongebob into a.... big guy.
We completely recognize the irony of a Canadian group called U.S. Girls.
The bigger irony is that the Toronto-based project of Chicago-born-and-raised Meghan Remy - a solo project. And yes, the name of the project is in the plural.
She moved to Canada in 2010 because she married a Canadian musician. That's how.
This song was a single from her 2018 album In A Poem Unlimited and, on the album (but NOT when released as a single ahead of the album), it is titled "M.A.H." but it is an identical song. Co-written with her husband, the whole album was shortlisted for the 2018 Polaris Music Prize.
It's also a fun as hell song.
By the time she performed the song on KEXP in 2018, the song had been retitled but it had not lost its biting wit and Meghan had not lost her delivery.
This song is best known for its association with the 1967 film The Graduate. How it came to be is interesting. Mike Nichols really wanted the duo to write a song for his movie, but hated the ones they initially submitted. In conversation, it turns out they were working on a song that Paul Simon had given a working title based upon a character in the film......
The working title stuck, and the song won two Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year - the first rock song to do so.
You might hear that the version above - one of several used in the movie - is not the version you know. That's OK. They did the song in the version you DO know several times live, including this performance from 1968.
Many people think their 1981 performance in front of 500,000 people in Central Park is the quintessential performance of this song.
It's hard to argue with that. The chemistry and the harmony is unequaled.
lucky break - the stage name of Emma Gerson - has only been releasing music under that name for about two years. Her debut album, made it!, came out last month, and it is delightful - she's getting comparisons to Liz Phair (warranted) and Fiona Apple (I get it) but I hear a little bit of Lucinda Williams in this song - right down to the drawly alt-country cadence.
90s-style alt-Americana? You can give me credit for that label.
Anyway, this song is kind of an outlier with the rest of the 90s-soaked pop-rock that dominates the record - and yet it fits in perfectly, like that long Tetris piece that comes out just in time because you have that long hole that needs to be filled.
Her 2025 album Midnight Sun, however, was excellent, and with the 2026 release of the remix album Midnight Sun; Girls Trip, the songs are getting a second wind. As of this writing, Larsson's title song from this album is her biggest hit not from a Pink Patheress album to date, and I suspect, with the Song of the Summer buzz around it, we're not done hearing it.
Plus, the solstice was yesterday - and that's the actual peak of the.... midnight sun.
On Girls Trip, Larsson teams up with female artists to redo all the Midnight Sun songs. She teams up with (checks notes) PinkPantheress on this song. However, in a twist and UNLIKE "Stateside", it's the solo version that is rising the charts.
This version is still pretty solid.
Of course she performs this great song live - but I wanted to make sure you could hear HER sing it - and she did last year on Good Morning America.
It didn't feel right to end on an American show, though.
How about a live performance from Northern Sweden, where they ACTUALLY have a midnight sun?
It's a little more mellow, but honestly, this version gives me goosebumps.
So, I have posted about this song once before - on Totally Covered. And on there, I recounted the following:
True story - I saw Sixpence None The Richer opening for a Natalie-free 10,000 Maniacs at St. Bonaventure University in 1994. This was years before they had any hits - they were just a little Christian rock band. I enjoyed them an awful lot, and was really happy to see that they became big hitmakers.
Yes, I do have a signed copy of their first CD. Why do you ask?
Now, what would happen later is that the two central figures of the band - Leigh Nash and Matt Slocum - would briefly join 10,000 Maniacs. Which, well, is kind of cool. But the band was more than 2 people. They had a full band, and one of them was bassist Justin Cary. Cary died aged 50 after a stroke,
This song was a 1999 US pop hit - their 2nd trip to the top 40 and a bigger hit than the original version by The LA's.
This live performance is from two months ago - TWO MONTHS - and yes, that's Justin Cary on bass. He will be missed.
Bridley Costello is an up and coming singer who grew up in Chicagoland. This post isn't about Bridley Costello.
No, this post is about Corrina.
Corrina released her debut album HOUSE ON ANOTHER STREET in 2025. It's pretty good power pop. This was the single off that album, whose video was released on Halloween 2025. And yeah, it's a pretty spooky video - so I get it.
And it's got credits, and in those credits, Corrina uses her government name.
As in Amy and Vince
Why she isn't cashing in off her TWO last names, I do not know - but she's making music very differently from either of them. She *is* opening for her mother tonight in Stroudsburg, PA, so if you're in the area, check her out.
And if you aren't, just enjoy her music, right here.
This song would represent Huey Lewis and The News's only top ten hit
On the UK charts. They had TONS of hits in the US, but this was one of their biggest.
Written for the 1985 hit move Back To The Future, it appears early in the movie when Marty McFly tries out for his school's talent show with his band, only for one of the judges to call it "too loud".
That judge is exactly who you think it is.
By the way, Huey Lewis was like 34 when that scene was filmed.
The song was one of the biggest hits of 1985, and it was nominated for both a Grammy and an Academy Award in 1986. And, it brings the BIG horns, which was something of a band trademark.
Of course, I can find TONS of live performances of this song. I chose a later one - from 2014 - to show that, even in his 60s, Huey brought high energy.
And the fans know the words.
But ok. One more for you. This is from 1987 and is at the peak of the band's fame - and it shows.
They've been making great electronic music in Toronto for about 20 years. Their latest album, Event Beat, was released in March to critical acclaim, and last week, it was named to the Polaris Music Prize longlist. It deserves it, too, even if their name has to be censored absolutely everywhere, including YouTube, where the video is billed to Holy F.
However you have to hear them, they are worth it. There's a great depth to their music that you don't see in many electronic acts.
It was hard to find a version of this song live that wasn't age-restricted, but this one, from Asheville NC on 4/20, fits the bill. Billed to @holyfuck, it skirts the age restrictions, I guess.
I love the new Lala Lala album, Heaven 2. No skips. This is one of my very favorite albums of 2026 so far. Lillie West has put together a masterpiece.
And, there have been a few great singles from this album, and I was all ready to feature one of them. However, there's one dark, bass-heavy song that has been on super heavy rotation for me, and it's not one of the singles. So, I was worried that I was going to have to wait until either that single got released or there was a clean, solid live performance.
The latter happened. KEXP hosted Lala Lala for a four song session, and sure enough.... "Anywave". You didn't even know there was a sax in there, did you? The song starts really drum-and-bass heavy, but slow, quiet and plodding - but it grows exponentially, and quickly.
And, because KEXP did this great thing, I can also post a grimier, darker version, HARDER version of this song from April.
I just found out last week that Cris Derksen, the Canadian First Nations (of Cree and Mennonite heritage) cellist known for her evocative work, passed away on May 15th at age 45 - in a head-on collision that happened on the travel home from her father's funeral.
This song was from her 2010 album The Cusp. Her latest album The Visit came out in November and will likely get some Junos love next March.
Cris's musical talent and advocacy for other artists will be sorely missed. For now, I want you to hear her music.
R.E.M. released their fifteenth and final studio album, Collapse Into Now, in 2011.
This song, co-written by the band (minus Bill Berry, who had left the band at this point) and the legendary Patti Smith, who also provides vocals on the song, ended the album.
The band would make videos for every song on the album. This video, directed by actor James Franco, ends with the words "The End".
I think they were telling us something.
The band broke up in September 2011, six months after this album's release.
They never toured in support of the album, but they left us with a great exclamation point on their career.
No, this isn't a love song. It's a song Michael Stipe called "violent" in 1988 but acknowledged later that it could be open to interpretation. "A simple prop to occupy my time" is not exactly a loving line.
But I'm here to talk about Peter Buck's guitar work. Despite being a rock band, I don't think they got enough credit for the sheer talent of the instrumentalists, and Buck - who also played mandolin and banjo on other tracks, has a HELL of a guitar solo in this song.
The video features friends and family of the band, including Michael Stipe's sister, Lynda (who herself was formerly in a band called Oh-OK and a little later was in another one called Hetch Hetchy).
I just needed an excuse to talk about Lynda Stipe. OK, let's move on.
From their fifth album, 1987's Document, the song would be their first big hit single, hitting the US Top 10 and getting airplay worldwide... but not as much as they would if they were on, say, Warner Brothers....
In 1990, R.E.M. released a movie Documenting the Green tour, called Tourfilm. I figured the footage of this song from that would be better than anything someone with a videocamera in the audience in 1989 could get.
It's a pretty straight-forward version of the song.
In fact, this is a song they always did faithful.... even in 2005.... even in the pouring rain.
In 1988, R.E.M. left their longtime home at IRS Records to join the Warner Brothers roster with their sixth album, Green. They did it because overseas distribution of their records had been poor thus far.
Not a speck of green on this cover.
They kicked off their Warners years with a song about Agent Orange and the Vietnam War in 1988 - this song, which is not about a soft drink but absolutely did kick off an orange soda kick for 16-year-old me. The song was not released as a single in the US, but did well on modern and mainstream rock radio as well as overseas, where it WAS released as a single.
The video was a huge MTV hit and won an MTV Video Music Award for Best Post-Modern Video - in the inaugural year for the category. The band does not appear in the video at all.
This live video, courtesy of Reelin' In The Years Productions, is exactly how I remember the band performing the song in 1989 when I saw them - complete with the "Be All You Can Be" intro and megaphone usage by Michael Stipe.
The megaphone stuck around for later tours, including this 2005 performance that was just as dynamic so many years later.
This song was one of R.E.M.'s earliest, being performed at shows as early as 1980, and a live version was recorded for their 1983 debut album Murmur, but it was left off. So, when it came time to record the follow-up album Reckoning, producer Mitch Easter wanted the band to record it.
Except, at that point, Michael Stipe had grown to hate the song.
Well, compromises were made, and the song was recorded in a multi-track version with Stipe and Mike Mills providing fresh harmonies.
Despite Stipe's feelings at the time, it remains one of my favorite songs of theirs.
This is one of their earlier performances of the song. Yes, the harmonies are there, but you can see it sounds a lot more raw.
This is a song that disappeared from R.E.M.'s live sets for a good spell, but it came back. Here they are in 2007 performing it once again.
The band was still performing the hell out of the song.
R.E.M. broke up in 2011.
HOWEVER, in February 2025 - LAST YEAR - they reunited for ONE SONG ONLY at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, GA.
What was the song?
This one, of course.
Now, a little explanation - Michael Shannon, Jason Narducy & Friends were touring and performing a cover of the entire Fables of the Reconstruction album. This song wasn't on that album, so clearly, they needed help...
They didn't, actually. They perform the song pretty frequently as part of their R.E.M. cover band project.
That's what a lot of people think the name of this song is.
It's not. It's "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)". The "So." is short for "South". However, it is listed as "Southern Central Rain (I'm Sorry)" on the inner sleeve of the Reckoning album. I usually myself refer to it as "South Central Rain" without the parenthetical title.
What does it mean? I'm not sure, but Michael Stipe seems to be singing a narration happening during a particularly rough rainstorm, so that's probably part of it.
But it's a passionate, great song - one of my favorites by the band even though it ended up being a relatively well-known song.
The video - and this is a band that LOVED exploring the video medium, but more on that throughout the week - was fake playing by the band but real singing by Michael Stipe, who hated lipsyncing.
You might notice the Hall of Fame label on this week. It's R.E.M. week, folks. They're our newest Hall of Fame entry.
Throughout their career, R.E.M. consistently played this song. Here is one of the last times they played it, on Austin City Limits.
My sister saw R.E.M. in 1995 in Buffalo, on the Monster tour - R.E.M. is her favorite band - and this song was one of typical encore songs. It was a little more torch-songy, but also passionate. This is a recording from the Milan, Italy show on that tour.
I personally saw R.E.M. live on September 13, 1989 in Hartford, CT - and it was my first concert ever. I saw them with my very good friend Mark Whittier, who passed away in 1995. Great show. Again, it was somewhat torch-songy, but less so than 1995.
Anyway, this is the performance from September 12, 1989, in Buffalo, NY. This is exactly how I remember it.
For the last live performance, I go back to 1983, and the band's first national television appearance on Late Night With David Letterman. Yes, this is a year before the song was released, and yet they performed it anyway.... even before the song had a title. By the way, if you go back up to the ACL video earlier in this post - that's my source for that little fact.
Michael Stipe had a reputation for being a little mumbly early in his career. This performance is a lot of the reason why.
One of those musical acts that I am supposed to like as an aging hipster is Waxahatchee.
And I have TRIED really hard to like the Katie Crutchfield project. And, well..... I just don't like Waxahatchee all that much. But, I still felt like I had to listen to her projects... in a desperate attempt to like her music.
But when Katie got together with her twin sister Allison (and MJ Lenderman and Brad Cook) and formed Snocaps - a great indie power-pop band - THAT I could get on board with. It's earnest, lo-fi fun!
The whole Snocaps album was one of my favorites of 2025, and although it missed the Wicked25, I feel like you still need to go listen to it.
I hope there are more Snocaps albums, because, as this Tonight Show performance illustrates, these sisters can HARMONIZE!
I know I didn't make a 2024 list - but if I had, Evergreen by Soccer Mommy would have been one of the top 2 albums on it (Romance by Fontaines D.C. would have been the other) and probably #1.
However, Soccer Mommy released an EP in 2025 - Evergreen (stripped) that had stripped down versions of a lot of those songs. THAT was good enough to earn an honorable mention on my Wicked25 last year. I did an online listening party with Soccer Mommy the day before its release, where we listened to Evergreen and Evergreen (stripped) and I gotta say, that was a musical highlight of the year.
For contrast, this is the original Evergreen version of "Abigail".....
.... and this is the Evergreen (stripped) version.
There are a LOT of available live versions of this song, so I chose the easiest to hear - the one she did for Triple J.
No word on whether or not she's doing any stripped shows.
I had the entry for If You Asked For A Picture by Blondshell WRITTEN for my Wicked25.
WRITTEN!
That's how close it was to making the list. It was ON the list.
Ultimately, it got pushed out because there was 25 albums that, on that day, I found more worthy.
I have felt really guilty about this since that day. The album deserved to be there - to the point where I have almost edited it back in. I still might do that.
Anyway, here's a single for you. This is pretty indicative of the songwriting that Sabrina Teitelbaum (who goes by Blondshell because it's a lot less wordy, I guess) brings to the table.
Yes, the song is about tits and ass.
While I love her KEXP performance......
.... the bluntness of this introduction during a live performance in the wild is a little more endearing.
There used to be a great button on Youtube that allowed me to just make a post directly from there to this blog.
They took it away in March. So doing this has gotten harder.
Housewife is not an artist that has released a full album yet - but she did release a great EP in 2025 called Girl Of The Hour that was filled with so much 2000s goodness that it was absolutely worthy of its honourable mention. I say artist - it was a band, but Brighid Fry is the only member left. They've been doing this for a decade but only the last few years solo.
Anyway, it's a great EP and you should go listen to it now.
You might remember my #Wicked25. For the very first time last year, I listed my 25 favorite albums of a year. I have been known to do one or two favorites, but never 25.
I also had a list of 25 runners up - honourable mentions, as you will. Some of those, I felt very guilty about excluding. I'm going to highlight those this week - because if I made the list today, these albums would be ON the list, not just honourably mentioned.
I'm not going to highlight the albums that would have been bumped in most cases - because they were on the list because they were deserving, excellent albums. And no, you can't just guess it's 21-25, because that's not the case. At all.
This is the more egregious omission. Because, if you look back at the list, you'll now see 26 honourable mentions. I didn't listen to Dogue by Ariane Roy until January. It was a terrible oversight on my part, because it not only would have made the list, it would have been a top 10 album. This is EASILY the second best francophone album of 2025.
Ariane release Dogue de Luxe in February of this year - probably because Dogue was so well-received - and used the extra space to make new versions of some of her songs with her friends.
