You didn't know Agnetha from ABBA had a solo career, did you?
I say "had". She's still releasing music. In fact, she reached her high water mark in 2013, with her album A. This song is not from that album, but rather from her 1983 English language debut solo album (she had Swedish language albums prior to ABBA, beginning in the late 1960's, and did have some major hits in her home country), Wrap Your Arms Around Me. It is Agnetha's biggest US solo hit to date, reaching #29 in 1983.
The song is a pretty typical 1980's pop/rock song, penned by Russ Ballard.
You all remember Eddie Murphy from all his movies, or maybe from Saturday Night Live.
Did you remember that he make music, too?! His biggest hit was this single, written and produced by the late great Rick James and recorded in James's Buffalo NY studio. My biggest surprise in researching this post was that Rick James had a Buffalo, NY studio.
The lore of the song is more interesting, though. The story goes, it was the result of a $100,000 bet between Murphy and Richard Pryor, over whether or not he had musical talent. No word on whether or not the bet was paid out, but the song reached #2 on the Billboard charts.
So, let's get the things I know I'm going to hear out of the way.
"Why are you posting THIS SONG on a Friday!?" Because it's a great song any day of the week. I won't fit inside your box.
"Wait, didn't Apollonia 6 record this first?" Well, yes, they did, with Prince - the songwriter - but he pulled the song from their album - that version would not be released until 2019. So, this was the first released version of the song. And it's amazing - showcasing the harmonies of which the Bangles are capable, as well as giving Susanna Hoffs a chance to shine on lead vocal, as opposed to Debbi Peterson.
"But wait. Their VERY NEXT SINGLE 'If She Knew What She Wants' was essentially the same situation, except Jules Shear wrote that, and that was on Totally Covered, so why not put this there?" Jules Shear released his version a year before the Bangles did. Come on, now. We do our research.
"But wait. Their IMMEDIATE PRIOR SINGLE was 'Going Down To Liverpool' by Katrina and the Waves. I read Totally Covered. I know the score." Again, Katrina and the Waves recorded and released that song years before - and RERELEASED it after this as the B side to "Walking on Sunshine".
"You've called songs covers for a lot less. Did you think we'd forget the whole 'One of Us' debate?" Yes. You may remember the agony over that decision.
Great. Now I'm out of time. Let's just get to the song.
"But wait. Don't you traditionally include a live version of these songs?" Well, yeah. We do like to do that. Here's one from 1986.
As many of you know, Amy Grant is a Christian music superstar. Her first seven studio albums, plus the compilation The Collection, which was something of a crossover breakthrough, were quite overtly Christian in themes, with some of her songs taking lyrics right from the Bible. And they were hits - many of them went gold or platinum, despite primarily being sold in Christian bookstores.
Her eight studio album, Lead Me On, was the one that really started the wiggle to secular music, but it was still pretty Christian.
On March 5, 1991, Amy Grant's ninth studio album, Heart In Motion, was released. It was a very strong secular turn - but still did well on Christian charts. This song remains her biggest hit to date -it's a standard, cheerful pop song that will make you smile.
By now, you probably think you see a pattern. However, despite what you might think, Cibo Matto was an AMERICAN band.... formed by Japanese expatriates. They tended to be avant garde in their musical style, mostly singing about food.
This song is from their debut album, Viva! La Woman. It's about knowing your chicken.
This version of the song was recorded live in 1996. This iteration of the band featured Sean Lennon - son of John and Yoko - on bass. It's glorious.
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.
