28 April 2023 - Lily Allen - Smile

This has been one of the weirdest posting weeks I've ever had.  So I decided to lean in and really get weird.

In 2006, this was Lily Allen's debut single.  On first listen, if you ignore the lyrics, it sounds bubbly and upbeat, but it is decidedly a lyrically angry song - bitter, even.  The song is great, biting, and somewhat humourous.  It ended up being a huge UK hit and a minor hit worldwide.  

That beat you hear is from "Free Soul" by the Soul Brothers.

This is a song that has defined Lily Allen, even if she has grown tired of it at times.  She smartly still performs it live, and does it brilliantly, as she did here in a 2019 performance. 

     

The weird part is that its anger was so polarizing, it sparked a response song, by an artist named Example. He used the same Soul Brothers sample as his background.  It was almost as equally inventive and nearly as bitter.

Wait, did I say that was weird?  No.  That's not weird.

What IS weird is that Lily Allen recorded a second version of the song.  This version of the song is not in English, but in Simlish.  Simlish is the language of the video game The Sims 2, in which Lily Allen was a character.  She found it silly, but also, fun.  It is kind of fun.  But it's also a great way to end what has been a strange blog week.

Next week, we get back to normal stuff.  Maybe. 

27 April 2023 - Miley Cyrus - The Best Of Both Worlds

OK, I know.  At this point, we know that Miley Cyrus is Hannah Montana - or, was.   I debated billing this post as Miley, and not as her television character.  I chose Miley, because she actually performed this song live an awful lot, as Miley (although when she performed it on the show, she was Hannah).

Really, Miley was Hannah Montana, and Hannah Montana was Miley - and, in interviews recently, Miley has expressed a lot of appreciation of Hannah, in getting her to the superstardom she's achieved today..  

This was the theme song to that show, and although she doesn't perform it live anymore (and hasn't, as far as I can see, since 2010), it's a part of Miley, and Miley is a part of it.  The song was written by Matthew Gerrard and Robbie Nevil.

On a personal note, this was a show my daughters watched.  We had the Hannah Montana CD in our car.  I heard this song a lot.  It brings back positive memories.  

There was a second version of the song, partially live, done for a movie to wrap up the series as well. 

26 April 2023 - Barry De Vorzon & Perry Botkin Jr. - Cotton's Dream a.k.a. Nadia's Theme

How the hell did I come to post the theme to the daytime soap opera The Young and The Restless?

Well, if you read yesterday's post, you may have a clue, but it's not directly related.  You see, a different Mary J. Blige song - "No More Drama", which happens to be the title track to the album featuring "Family Affair" - heavily samples this song.  I was doing some research for a future post, and, well, I stumbled upon the history of this song, which is absolutely wild.

The song did not start off as a soap opera theme song, but rather as incidental music for the 1971 movie Bless the Beasts and Children. Barry De Vorson later extended his little piece of music for use on the soap opera.

Fast forward to 1976.  ABC's Wide World of Sports used the song as part of a montage of the gymnastics of Romanian Nadia Comeneci - you know, the first one to bring perfect 10s to the Olympics (in Montreal in 1976) and also six more? She is arguably the best known gymnast of all time, and certainly the best known of her generation.

The voice-over is by famed sportscaster Jim McKay, and it cemented the positive feeling for Comeneci throughout the 1976 Olympic Games.

  

Well, at this point, everyone was not only hyped up over Nadia Comenci, but also "Nadia's theme", as it came to be known.  I, at my very young age, knew her name - it was an effective piece.  

De Vorson and Perry Botkin responded by releasing the song as a re-titled single, which became a top ten hit in 1976, five years after its composition and initial recording.

Incidentally, Comeneci never actually performed to the song that ended up bearing her name.... except during a 1997 episode of Touched By An Angel, alongside her husband and fellow gymnast Bart Conner.  

This is more typical of her floor execises - this performance from the 1980 Olympics in Moscow that won Comenci her fifth Olympic gold medal (an event in which she only won bronze in Montreal).

25 April 2023 - Mary J. Blige - Family Affair

When Mary J. Blige was a current hitmaker, I wasn't a fan.  I can't tell you exactly why.  I just wasn't. 

But times change.  Tastes change.  And I can see the genius that is Mary J.  

This song was co-written by a team including Blige and her brother, Bruce Miller, as well as the producer of the track, a Mr. Andre Young, who you may know as Dr. Dre.   For those so inclined, the song follows a C♯m–G♯m7–C♯m–G♯m7 chord progression, written by Dre a fair bit before he sent it along to Mary J., who added lyrics.  She sings all the vocals on this track, both lead and background.    

This song ended up spending six weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Blige's only #1 hit and her biggest hit song by far.  It was also a chart-topper worldwide.  It was also the first number one song to include the word "hateration".   

There are so many great live versions of this song, so I went with this in-studio one from 2005, which features a full band, including background vocalists that aren't Mary J. Blige. 

I decided to include one more version - this one with a different backup vocalist who does step to lead for a few seconds.

Sorry, Swifties - she doesn't have the range of Mary J.

24 April 2023 - Tim Carleton & Darrick Deel - Opus Number 1

You've never heard of these artists, but you know their work.

In 1989, Tim Carleton and Darrick Deel, two high school friends, wrote a song called "Opus Number 1" and recorded it using a Yamaha DX7IIFD and an Alesis Midverb. They composed it because of its specific auditory qualities - the synth, the taps.  It was a pleasing sound to these high school kids - Carleton was particually into Yanni, so that was also part of the inspiration. The song is 5 minutes and 38 seconds of abslolute new-age bliss.

They went on to big rock stardom no big rock stardom, but the song was never by either of them.  

Both Carleton and Deel went on to become IT professionals in the San Francisco Bay area.  Deel worked for a company called Cisco, who were starting to move beyond routers and switches and into the world of IP telephony.  Deel happened to be one of the engineers on the project for the first IP phones from Cisco, and knew that the project needed default on-hold music.  

He happened to have the perfect song on his phone, and the rest is history.  

So, to all the lazy IT professionals who have set up a Cisco phone system and left the default hold music in place - thank you.  You have helped to make "Opus Number 1" the most popular on hold music in the world, by far.

This music is so pervasive, it was featured in a Super Bowl commercial for Bud Light this year.

21 April 2023 - Eminem - Without Me

This 2002 single is one of Eminem's most successful and award-winning - the video for the song even won a Grammy.  It is the typical boastful song you expect from Marshall Mathers.  But there's a few things about this song you don't know.

The song opens with the line "Two trailer park girls go 'round the outside."  This is a direct reference to the 1982 single "Buffalo Gals" by Malcolm McLaren, which was an early hip-hop song and a clear influence on Eminem's music.  First, it was great that he included a reference to an obscure old-school song that most of the music world had forgotten.  Second, because of this, the writers of "Buffalo Gals" - Malcolm McLaren, Trevor Horn, and, believe it or not, Oscar-winning composer and Art of Noise founder Anne Dudley - got a songwriting credit on "Without Me".  

The rapid-fire song and comic-inspired video bring the early 2000's pop culture references, from Dick Cheney's heart attack to his mom's lawsuit against him.  One that I wanted to highlight was his diss of Moby - specifically, "You can get stomped by Obie", a reference to Obie Trice (his real name), a artist that Eminem signed to his own label and was promoting.  This was also a response to Moby's very pointed criticism of Em's lyrics - specifically, Moby called him, "a misogynist, a homophobe, a racist, and an anti-Semite."   In the end, there was no personal beef either way.

Anyway, this is one of Eminem's best received and most critically acclaimed songs. Enjoy it.  

20 April 2023 - ASTRO - Candy Sugar Pop

If you are a fan of K-Pop music and are following the news, you know that ASTRO member Moon Bin was found dead in his home.

I'd love to talk about this song, which is a pretty happy pop song from a group that was together for seven years.  This is, as of right now, one of their last singles, released in 2020 and a hit on Korean radio and elsewhere, like so many songs before.   

Unfortunately, because of this sad news, I'm not feelin' it.  So, let's talk about Moon Bin.  Moon Bin started in entertainment as a child actor when he landed a role in the 2009 TV series “Boys Over Flowers.”. His sister, Moon Sua, is also a K-pop artist, a member of the girl band Billlie.

So, try to enjoy the music and remember an artist gone too soon.