Saturday, September 30, 2023

 





Today I was sent by The Baltimore Banner to report from an auction house in Towson, where a piano once owned by John Lennon was expected to sell for over a million dollars. It did not!

4:07 PM

Thursday, September 28, 2023

 





I wrote about 30 overlooked 1993 albums turning 30 this year for Spin. 

10:26 PM

My Top 50 Albums of 1977

Wednesday, September 27, 2023


 


















Here's the Spotify playlist with a deep cut from each album:

1. Television - Marquee Moon
2. Steely Dan - Aja
3. Elvis Costello - My Aim Is True
4. Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
5. David Bowie - Low
6. Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell
7. Sex Pistols - Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols
8. Bob Marley & The Wailers - Exodus
9. Thin Lizzy - Bad Reputation
10. Heart - Little Queen
11. Queen - News Of The World
12. The Ramones - Rocket To Russia
13. Donna Summer – Once Upon A Time
14. Jackson Browne - Running On Empty
15. Billy Joel - The Stranger
16. The Isley Brothers – Go For Your Guns
17. The Clash - The Clash
18. Randy Newman - Little Criminals
19. Iggy Pop - Lust For Life
20. Rush - A Farewell To Kings
21. Electric Light Orchestra - Out Of The Blue
22. Suicide – Suicide
23. Talking Heads - Talking Heads '77
24. David Bowie - "Heroes"
25. Peter Gabriel – Peter Gabriel 1 (Car)
26. Joni Mitchell – Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter
27. Kraftwerk - Trans-Europe Express
28. Teddy Pendergrass – Teddy Pendergrass
29. Chic – Chic
30. Al Green - The Belle Album
31. Yes - Going For The One
32. Neil Young - American Stars 'n Bars
33. Parliament - Funkentelechy Vs. the Placebo Syndrome
34. Wire - Pink Flag
35. Jimmy Buffett – Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes
36. Styx – The Grand Illusion
37. Cheap Trick - In Color
38. Lynyrd Skynyrd - Street Survivors
39. Blue Oyster Cult – Spectres
40. The Ramones - Leave Home
41. Leonard Cohen - Death Of A Ladies' Man
42. Iggy Pop – The Idiot
43. Pink Floyd – Animals
44. Grateful Dead – Terrapin Station
45. Little Feat - Time Loves A Hero
46. Earth, Wind & Fire – All ‘N All
47. Bill Withers – Menagerie
48. Sparks – Introducing Sparks
49. Aerosmith - Draw The Line
50. Blondie - Plastic Letters

As I work my way back through the years, I’m entering the era when it was common not just to release an album every year but to release multiple albums in a single year. David Bowie, The Ramones, Iggy Pop, Donna Summer, Cheap Trick, The Jam, The Damned, The Stranglers, Curtis Mayfield, Gary Wright, Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, The Spinners, Merle Haggard, Utopia, and Sammy Hagar are just a few of the artists who released two studio albums in 1977. So those were a lot of instances where I had to figure out which of each pair of '77 albums was better, and whether to include both, or one, or neither. It gets to be kind of a headache because I want to cover more artists, and some really cool records wound up outside the top 50. But when someone like Bowie releases two classics in a year, you just kind of have to go with it, you can’t shut one of them out. 

Previously:

12:50 PM

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 324: Wilco

Tuesday, September 26, 2023

 





Wilco's 13th studio album Cousins is out on Friday, so I thought I'd take a look at their catalog. 

Wilco deep album cuts (Spotify playlist)

1. Casino Queen
2. I Got You (At The End Of The Century)
3. Hotel Arizona
4. I'm Always In Love
5. How To Fight Loneliness
6. I'm The Man Who Loves You
7. Jesus, Etc. 
8. At Least That's What You Said
9. Handshake Drugs (live)
10. Impossible Germany
11. Side With The Seeds
12. One Wing
13. Deeper Down
14. Art of Almost
15. Standing O
16. More...
17. Someone To Lose
18. We Were Lucky
19. Sad Kind Of Way

Track 1 from A.M. (1995)
Tracks 2 and 3 from Being There (1996)
Tracks 4 and 5  from Summerteeth (1999)
Tracks 6 and 7 from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2001)
Track 8 from A Ghost Is Born (2004)
Track 9 from Kicking Television: Live In Chicago (2005)
Tracks 10 and 11 from Sky Blue Sky (2007)
Tracks 12 and 13 from Wilco (The Album) (2009)
Tracks 14 and 15  from The Whole Love (2011)
Track 16 from Star Wars (2015)
Track 17 from Schmilco (2016)
Track 18 from Ode To Joy (2019)
Track 19 from Cruel Country (2022)

Wilco is one of the most acclaimed alternative bands of its generation that I never felt a really strong connection to for a long time. Based on the Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt records I've heard, I think I respond a little more naturally to Jay Farrar than Jeff Tweedy as a vocalist and songwriter. But over the years, Tweedy and Wilco have become a far bigger deal, and I've slowly come around to them, particularly its later lineup. 

I remember being vaguely intrigued by the reviews of Being There and its lead single, and enjoying Mermaid Avenue with Billy Bragg when my brother bought it. But the first proper Wilco album I heard was Summerteeth and I wasn't crazy about it, and still am not, really. Then Yankee Hotel Foxtrot really made Wilco a big deal, and I remained kind of a skeptic. I've warmed to the album a bit, but I couldn't bring myself to include the famous album opener "I Am Trying To Break You Heart," I still just do not like that song at all. 

Wilco worked with Jim O'Rourke on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost Is Born around the same time a lot of established bands started working with O'Rourke. And I have to say, I much prefer O'Rourke's work on Superchunk's Come Pick Me Up and Sonic Youth's Murray Street to his work with Wilco, the different styles just don't mesh as interestingly for me. Being There is by far my favorite Jay Bennett-era Wilco album. 

Wilco's O'Rourke period presaged a development that really changed things for me: Nels Cline being invited to join Wilco in 2004. By that point, Nels Cline had been one of my favorite guitarists in the world for almost a decade. He's made dozens of albums that I love, including work on Mike Watt's solo albums and a variety of Carla Bozulich projects (The Geraldine Fibbers, Scarnella, Evangelista), and his many instrumental ensembles (Nels Cline Trio, The Nels Cline Singers, Destroy All Nels Cline). He's an incredible creative talent who does things with a guitar that nobody else can. I've seen him play live several times in small rooms in Baltimore, and have on multiple occasions walked up and personally thanked him for touring here, since he's from California and often only does a handful of east coast shows with his smaller projects.

So I had complicated feelings about Nels Cline joining Wilco, a band I hadn't particularly loved up to that point. But I have to say, Wilco is probably the best thing that ever happened to Nels Cline, in terms of giving him a public profile closer to what I think he deserves, and probably more financial stability, and he's continued to make a lot of great music with and without Wilco over the last two decades. So the later chunk of this playlist is really a Nels Cline fan's take on later Wilco. From track 9 onward, I primarily picked songs that showcase him the best -- the band's first release with him was a live album, Kicking Television, where he was already starting to bring new dimensions to songs from previous studio albums.

Given how much more popular Wilco's first album with Cline, Sky Blue Sky, is than its predecessor A Ghost Is Born, I would say there's some consensus among Wilco fans that it was a good move for the band as well. Tweedy's guitar playing on A Ghost Is Born is actually really cool, though, I almost feel like he wouldn't necessarily need to add Nels Cline to the band when he can play like that if he wasn't also the lead singer (again, I worship Cline so I mean that as the highest possible compliment to Tweedy). "Impossible Germany" is very much the definitive Wilco/Nels Cline song and one of the band's top streaming tracks. I saw Wilco live once at the Virgin Festival in 2008, and honestly one of my favorite music festival memories of all time was just laying in the middle of a field in the early afternoon, listening to an incredible rendition of "Impossible Germany." 

I glanced at Spotify while listening to Wilco's 2015 album Star Wars the other day, and was amused to find that the progress bar had turned into a lightsaber. Apparently, Disney and Spotify created that as an easter egg years ago when people listened to Star Wars soundtracks, and whether it was deliberate or accidental, Wilco's cheekily named Star Wars is included in that (Tweedy once remarked that they were prepared to change the album's name to Cease And Desist if George Lucas ever brought legal action, so I suppose nobody ever objected to the name). So if you put on this playlist, you may look down and see a lightsaber while "More..." is playing. 

11:52 AM

Friday, September 22, 2023

 



I've got a new Western Blot single out today called "Don't Waste Your Time With Him," with a cover of one of my favorite Two Dollar Guitar songs on the B-side. 

10:17 AM

Thursday, September 21, 2023






I wrote a big Baltimore Banner piece about my favorite Baltimore festival, High Zero, which is kicking off its 25th year this week. 

10:16 AM

TV Diary

Wednesday, September 20, 2023






This Apple TV+ series starring LaKeith Stanfield is pretty unique and intriguing, effective at different points as a love story, a tragedy, and some kind of supernatural horror. It's based on a novel but I'm kind of happy to just go along with this strange tale having no idea where it's all headed, but it's pretty damn dark. I have to wonder if someone from the Baltimore indie scene is involved in this show because Dan Deacon did the music and Samuel T. Herring of Future Islands plays a crucial supporting role -- if there's any musician you'd assume could be a talented actor just from their stage presence it's him, and he's unsurprisingly great in this. 

Another interesting sort of horror series with a primarily Black cast that's based on a novel, that's also a witty social satire about corporate racism and tokenism. I'm only three episodes in but interested to get through the rest and figure out what happened. 

This British crime drama aired on the BBC back in February and was just dumped on Hulu in the U.S. with absolutely no announcement or promotion. Not bad but I'm finding it a little dour after a couple episodes and not that curious to watch more. 

This Amazon Prime drama about a young British couple whose perfect life goes off the rails in a story of cheating and revenge is alright, not the most interesting story but the cast/storytelling/direction is solid. 

My 13-year-old son likes anime and went through a phase of watching a lot of "One Piece" a year or two back but I have no idea how many of the over a thousand episodes he actually got through. Seemed like one of the better animes I've seen as a non-fan, though, and I was curious to see if this new Netflix live action version would be received more warmly than the live action "Cowboy Bebop." And it totally has been, already getting a renewal for a second season. My son seems pretty indifferent about checking it out but I've enjoyed it so far, I think they found the right tone and visual style for pulling off live action anime. 

My wife read some of the Wheel of Time books but never finished the giant 14-book saga, so she's kind of amused that I'm still watching the Amazon series and trying to make sense of it, but it's quickly becoming background noise for me. I'm not a huge "Game of Thrones" person, but as my wife is fond of pointing out, the clothes looked realistically weathered and dirty, whereas the costumes on a lot of these other fantasy shows always seem a little too clean and a little too modern. 

Now halfway through watching the final season of Matt Groening's "Disenchantment," I have to say it never really delivered laughs as reliably as "Futurama" (to say nothing of "The Simpsons"), but I never had a bad time watching it, it's fun.  

It's funny that Gamera originated as a competitor to Godzilla and was never nearly as possible, but it's still chugging along as a franchise almost 60 years later. I like this new anime series on Netflix, it has a cool animation style. 

I probably saw every episode of "Tiny Toon Adventures" as a kid, but I don't have much nostalgia for it, it was a little embarrassing as a modern update of Looney Toons.. and Tom Ruegger went on to make shows that were a little more inspired and distinctively wacky ("Animaniacs," "Pinky and the Brain," "Freakazoid!"). But I thought I'd check out the new "Tiny Toons" reboot out of curiosity, and I just didn't dig it, don't like the new voices and Buster and Babs are siblings now, which makes them not being siblings in the old series feel creepy now. 

Watched a little of this with my kid the other day. The insanely long title with three colons is the most memorable thing about it, felt indistinguishable from every other Pokemon cartoon I've ever seen. I guess if it ain't broke don't fix it. 

It's funny to see a show like this out of South Africa that feels very much, culturally and in terms of the humor, like a college comedy in America would be, like there are reminders beyond the accents that it takes place very far away, but it's funny and relatable to the youth culture here. 

I would say I feel that even moreso watching this Saudi Arabian sitcom on Netflix, which is really funny at times, totally took me by surprise how good this show is. 

Another show that makes me realize how much American comedy tropes have spread around the world, it feels like a Brazilian "Brooklyn Nine-Nine," not as funny as "Tahir's House" but has its moments, is pretty likable. 

On the other hand, it feels like America has plenty of its own shows about, like, the hero's journey of teenagers who want to become famous musicians, and this show about a Romani girl who moves to Poland and aspires to be a rapper, I dunno, not an interesting story to me, the European hip-hop scene just kind cracks me up, I can't help but feel a little dismissive of it. 

I totally understand that soap operas and telenovelas have a lot of episodes because they are daily, but it feels weird to see that adapt to streaming era, where Netflix can release 65 episodes of a show like "Miss Adrenaline" all at once. I watched a couple, Juanita Molina is absolutely gorgeous, and a woman posing as her identical twin to solve her disappearance is a pretty good premise (I guess they kind of do that in Glass Onion but whatever). I don't think I'd ever have it in me to watch every episode, though. 

I was not familiar with Bernard Tapie, the French businessman-turned-entertainer-turned-politician-turned-convicted criminal that this Netflix miniseries is about. But he's certainly a familiar and fascinating kind of figure, kind of depressing to think about how every country seems to have guys like this. 

I was kind of surprised to learn this Spanish miniseries on Netflix about a murdered police officer is based on a true story, because it's all so tawdry, with lots of sex scenes. Still, it's a pretty entertaining show, I like it. 

This Mexican series on Netflix feels very "Desperate Housewives," at least in terms of the story, tonally it feels a little more compelling, a little more based in the recognizable real world.  

This Korean show is kind of a weird sci-fi mystery romance where a woman who's mourning the loss of her boyfriend magically time travels back to 1988 and becomes a teenager again and meets someone who looks like her boyfriend. I kind of wish American TV did this kind of dreamy high concept stuff more often. 

This German series seems to have the most buzz of Netflix's recent foreign imports, pretty gripping story of a woman and child who are found after escaping some man keeping them in captivity but I assume there's some kind of strange twist or reveal I haven't gotten to yet. 

This Brazilian dating show on Amazon matches people up based on their zodiac signs. I feel like it's a matter of time before there's an American version of this show or something like it and I'm not looking forward to it, if there's one thing I'm a judgmental snob about, it's people who take astrology super seriously, I really think it's some quack shit that people use to judge each other without any meaningful facts or experiences. 

Now, this Japanese dating show is kind of a cool idea that I would like to see done in America -- five men and five women who are looking for love are put together, but one of the women is 'the wolf,' a saboteur who lies and manipulates and tries to avoid becoming involved in anyone else or being found out by the others. Silly but entertaining. 

I've loved Natural Geographic animal docs my whole life, this new one on Disney+ has some excellent camerawork and a cheerful young British guy as the host. 

This Netflix nature docuseries is pretty good, if a step below "Animals Up Close," with some occasionally nasty footage of predators catching their prey. 

A Hulu miniseries about a man in Australia whose death was ruled a suicide when his body was found at the bottom of a cliff, and his brother's mission to find out what really happened and figure out if it wasn't a suicide, haven't finished yet but I like these kinds of stories where someone with a tragedy in their family is driven to get justice for them, even when the story is dark and sad it's kind of inspiring to see them refuse to give up. 

z) "Spy Ops" 
This Netflix series is a pretty interesting look at famous espionage missions by the CIA, MI6, other countries, no America-centric patriotic biases dominating the narratives, impressive and interesting stuff. 

10:15 AM

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 323: Diddy

Tuesday, September 19, 2023






Sean "Puffy" Combs, Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, Diddy, Shiny Suit Man, Diddy-Dirty Money, Love, whatever you wanna call him, is one of the most consequential figures in popular music in the last 30 years, perhaps the most. People love him, people hate him, people tolerate him, but he moved in, he lives on TV. On Friday he released The Love Album: Off The Grid, his first "solo" album in almost 17 years, but like anything else he's done, it's really a group effort where he's merely the ringleader. 

Diddy deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. What You Gonna Do?
2. Young G's featuring The Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z and Kelly Price
3. Is This The End? featuring Twista, Ginuwine and Carl Thomas
4. Fake Thugs Dedication featuring Redman
5. Journey Through The Life featuring Nas, Beanie Sigel, Lil Kim and Joe Hooker
6. Roll With Me featuring 8Ball & MJG and Faith Evans
7. I Need A Girl (To Bella) featuring Lo & Jack, Loon, and Mario Winans
8. That's Crazy (Remix) featuring Missy Elliott, Snoop Dogg, Black Rob, and G. Dep
9. Girl I'm A Bad Boy with Fat Joe and Cool & Dre
10. Diddy Rock featuring Twista, Timbaland and Shawnna
11. The Future
12. Yeah Yeah You Would with Dirty Money and Grace Jones
13. I Hate That You Love Me with Dirty Money
14. Shades with Dirty Money, Lil Wayne, Justin Timberlake, Bilal and James Fauntleroy
15. Broken Windows with Guy Gerber
16. Auction featuring Lil Kim, Styles P. and King Los
17. Brought My Love featuring The-Dream and Herb Alpert
18. Deliver Me featuring Dirty Money and Busta Rhymes

Tracks 1, 2 and 3 from Puff Daddy & The Family's No Way Out (1997)
Tracks 4 and 5 from Puff Daddy's Forever (1999)
Tracks 6 and 7 from P. Diddy & The Bad Boy Family's The Saga Continues... (2001)
Track 8 from P. Diddy & Bad Boy Records Presents... We Invented The Remix (2002)
Track 9 from Bad Boys II: The Soundtrack (2003)
Tracks 10 and 11 from Diddy's Press Play (2006)
Tracks 12, 13 and 14 from Diddy-Dirty Money's Last Train To Paris (2010)
Track 15 from Diddy and Guy Gerber's 11 11 (2014)
Track 16 from Diddy's MMM (2015)
Tracks 17 and 18 from Diddy's The Love Album: Off The Grid (2023)

We think of Dr. Dre, Kanye West, and Diddy in very different ways, particularly today, but I look at them as all the same archetype: producer/rappers who each had a small army of other producers and rappers helping them make beats and verses for most of their careers, eventually building empires, shaping hip-hop history over multiple eras, and becoming permanently famous billionaires. They're leaders, they're visionaries, to some extent they're probably also glory-grabbing thieves. 

Diddy's legacy is more in the albums he crafted behind the scenes like Ready To Die or My Life -- you wouldn't necessarily put any of his solo albums on the level of The Chronic or The College Dropout. But No Way Out went 7 times platinum and completely changed the scale and nature of hip-hop stardom. His peak was reminiscent of MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice era pop rappers in how massive but fleeting it was, and how much it was centered on his videos, his dancing, his shamelessly obvious samples. But Puff kept adapting, kept shifting, remaining the top mogul in rap even as he quickly slipped out of the top rapper spot. 

Some of Diddy's most popular album tracks like "Senorita" are just flat out bad songs, so I went more for quality tracks, cool moments he created, often by utilizing other artists in brilliant ways. Probably the best Biggie/Jay-Z collaboration, awesome show-stealing guest spots from Twista and 8Ball & MJG when they were still regional stars on the come up, a posse cut with Nas and Beanie Sigel before the Nas/Jay beef, etc. I also wanted to spotlight the original album track version of "I Need A Girl" because it's such a totally different track from the 2 remixes that were both hits. I also wanted to grab something from the Bad Boys II soundtrack that Diddy exec produced because that was really some great brand synergy and more big movies probably should've had Diddy put together their soundtrack albums. 

Press Play was the beginning of Diddy's modern era of kind of moving past NYC hip hop and into making big opulent R&B/pop records, although that album does have "The Future," a hilarious but kind of awesome track of Diddy spitting rhymes written by Pharoahe Monch over a Havoc beat. That era peaked with Last Train To Paris, for my money one of the best albums of the 2010s. One of the most exciting things about listening to The Love Album for the first time last week was hearing Dirty Money reunite on a track, what Diddy, Dawn Richard and Kalenna did together was really special. And Diddy's full-on dance album with Guy Gerber and his mixtape MMM were pretty good, underrated projects too. King Los, one of the most talented rappers to ever come out of Baltimore, was signed to Bad Boy for two stints without ever dropping an album, so it was cool to at least get a Diddy project with multiple Los features. 

8:00 AM

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 322: Gary Wright

Thursday, September 14, 2023






Gary Wright, best known for the 1976 hits "Dream Weaver" and "Love Is Alive," passed away last week at the age of 80. At this point, I've covered a lot of artists who are known and beloved for their albums, but sometimes it's good to get back to my original Deep Album Cuts mission and really dig into the catalogs of people who I don't know about beyond their hits. 

Gary Wright deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. I Know A Place
2. The Wrong Time
3. Whether It's Right Or Wrong
4. Love To Survive
5. Give Me The Good Earth
6. Can't Find The Judge
7. Power Of Love
8. Blind Feeling
9. Let Out
10. Silent Fury
11. I'm Alright
12. Child Of Light
13. Night Ride
14. The Love It Takes
15. You Don't Own Me
16. I Can Feel You Cryin'
17. Love Is A Rose
18. More Than A Heartache
19. Comin' Apart

Tracks 1 and 2 from Extraction (1970)
Tracks 3, 4 and 5 from Footprint (1971)
Tracks 6, 7, 8 and 9 from The Dream Weaver (1975)
Tracks 10, 11 and 12 from The Light Of Smiles (1977)
Tracks 13 and 14 from Touch And Gone (1977)
Tracks 15 and 16 from Headin' Home (1979)
Tracks 17, 18 and 19 from The Right Place (1981)

I will say, I knew one Gary Wright deep cut before I worked on this playlist. "Can't Find The Judge" was sampled on "No More Talk," which was the opening track on my T.I. deep album cuts playlist, and both those songs kick ass. So I knew that The Dream Weaver, by far Wright's most successful album, had at least one great song beyond the two songs everybody knows. 

Gary Wright was American, but moved to London in the late '60s when it was the center of the pop universe. He was an on-and-off member of the British blues band Spooky Tooth and not their frontman, but Wright was the group's primary songwriter on their most popular albums. In the early '70s, he became good friends with George Harrison and fell in with that post-Beatles crowd, playing keyboards all over Harrison's first few solo albums well as hits by Ringo Starr and Harry Nilsson. 

Gary Wright's first two solo albums made no commercial impact, despite the second one Footprint being made with basically the same group of musicians as All Things Must Pass, including George Harrison, a year after that was the biggest album in the world. Those records are pretty good, but pretty guitar-driven and different from Wright's later work outside of the piano ballad "Love To Survive," which influenced some of Harrison's solo work. Manfred Mann's Earth Band also covered "Give Me The Good Earth." Wright made a third album soon after, Ring of Changes, that his label shelved (it was eventually released in 2016). 

The Dream Weaver was known at the time as one of the first synthesizer-driven rock albums (with guitar on only one track), and it's a pretty cool-sounding record. Legendary session drummer Jim Keltner does great stuff on both Footprint and The Dream Weaver. As someone who's made a few rock albums with synths and live drums, it's interesting to listen to one of the first really successful albums made that way. I think he's kind of like Peter Frampton: a talented musician with a pleasant voice who didn't quite have it in him to be an all-time great artist, but got a few timeless songs out there and was briefly a big star. He's got some kind of dippy, very '70s songs, but I mostly was able to pick songs I really dug for this playlist. 

Wright definitely had some R&B influences ("Love Is Alive" even got some action on the R&B charts and was later covered by Chaka Khan). And sometimes his stuff reminds me of Music of My Mind-era Stevie Wonder, especially the Moog basslines on Touch And Gone. Wright never got close to repeating the success of The Dream Weaver, but he racked up a few hits up through '81, and over the last few decades he continued making solo records, occasionally reuniting Spooky Tooth, and touring with Ringo Starr. 

9:19 AM

Movie Diary

Wednesday, September 13, 2023

 






a) Armageddon Time
Armageddon Time has a really impressive cast including Jeremy Strong, Anne Hathaway, and Anthony Hopkins, but it's really a coming-of-age movie where the main character is a 6th grade boy, played by Banks Repeta. And he gives a good performance, maybe it's not fair to the kid, but I kind of found myself bored by the scenes focused on him, and waiting for more scenes of the supporting cast -- Strong in particular is great, really shows his range in this with a different kind of role. But maybe it was just the movie wasn't that interesting, it's director James Gray's autobiographical period piece and it just kind felt a little self-indulgent, wasn't really sure what the point of it all was other than to make a movie about how people were just as racist in the early '80s as they were before the civil rights movement. 

b) The Pope's Exorcist
Like most people, I kind of laughed just at the existence of the movie, the title and everything, but it's a pretty decent little horror movie. Since it's a period piece about the '80s, though, most of the music in the movie is stuff listened to by the teenage girl character, there are all these kind of sudden hilarious needledrops of, like, "She Sells Sanctuary" or "We Care A Lot" while Russell Crowe is dressed up like a priest riding around on a Vespa. It's kind of annoying how every movie about possession and exorcisms is so derivative of The Exorcist in its effects and imagery, though, like yes that's an amazing movie but please try to do your own thing. 

This was a charming, sad movie. Yara Shahidi was hopelessly miscast as an introvert who's self-proclaimed fashion role model is Mr. Rogers, but I liked the friendship between her and Odessa Adlon, who's going by Odessa A'zion now (maybe trying to beat the nepo baby allegations?). 

When I saw that there was a rom-com about a music critic learning a valuable lesson about love from Celine Dion, I joked that it was based on Carl Wilson's 33 1/3 book. This was a passable romcom, Celine's scenes were definitely some of the best parts, I enjoy things like this or LeBron in Trainwreck where some enormous celebrity who's not in a lot of movies pops up playing themselves in a supporting role and turns out to have good comic timing. 

e) Shazam! Fury Of The Gods
The first Shazam! movie was fun and exceeded expectations, and then the sequel got treated like a total flop, but honestly I would say this is only a little weaker than the first movie, it was fine. I like the superhero movies that know they're silly and own it. 

f) Ingrid Goes West
I remember this movie coming out early in Aubrey Plaza's sort of transition into more substantial roles. I liked this movie a lot, but Plaza was better in Emily The Criminal, she didn't quite have the chops to play the sort of unhinged obsessed character in Ingrid Goes West, but it was still an excellent movie, kind of skewered Instagram culture as a dark comedy really well. Kind of sad to see a movie like this that got some nice festival/critical buzz six years later and realize that writer/director Matt Spicer has yet to do another feature. 

g) mother!
Another movie from 2017 that I just know got around to watching. Somehow I managed to hear a lot of chatter about this movie without getting it spoiled for me, and I was pretty curious about what generated such divided reactions. And I will say, I kind of rolled my eyes when I realized what the movie is about, but I liked it for the most part, particularly the first half when you don't really know what's going on and you're just confused and stressed out right along with Jennifer Lawrence's character. I don't have really strong feelings about Darren Aronofsky, but he definitely excels at kind of putting you inside a character's head when they're losing grip on reality (Black Swan, Pi, Requiem For A Dream) and mother! at least works really well on that visceral level. 

h) The Monkey King
This is one of the better animated features I've seen from Netflix, my kid watched it a couple times and really dug it. Fun to see Bowen Yang voicing the villain in a kids movie. 

9:18 AM

Monthly Report: September 2023 Singles

Monday, September 11, 2023

 





1. Chris Janson - "All I Need Is You"
This is a pretty straightforward song: Chris Janson lists things he wants in the verses, but in the chorus he clarifies that all he needs is you. The melody is simple and there's a lovely string arrangement, and if it was a slow song I'd probably be bored to tears, but instead it's a nice brisk song that wraps up in two and a half minutes. Chris Janson's best single before this was a goofy thing called "Buy Me A Boat," but perhaps I'd underestimated him. One of the things he wants in the first verse is "Waylon on the radio again," and I get a little tired of contemporary country hits referencing the cool old outlaw country guys, but he's got a rich, voice and commanding delivery that could pull off a Waylon Jennings song. Here's the 2023 singles Spotify playlist I update every month. 

2. Sabrina Carpenter - "Feather"
"Nonsense" was kind of a sleeper hit, the 5th single from Emails I Can't Send peaking on the charts 10 months after the album's release. Around the same time, she released a deluxe version of the album, and one of those new tracks, "Feather," feels like a nice down-the-middle dance pop song to solidify her hitmaker status while still retaining a bit of Carpenter's personality and sense of humor, I hope it does great. 

3. Dominic Fike - "Mona Lisa"
A few years ago, the music industry seemed really set on Dominic Fike being the next zoomer alt-pop savior who would tap into the zeitgeist and become a huge star like Billie Eilish. That didn't happen with his first album, and when Fike was cast in the second season of "Euphoria," it seemed to backfire when he sang a song in the season finale, and the show's entire viewership hated it and regarded it as a waste of valuable minutes of their favorite show. So I was getting pretty comfortable with dismissing Fike as an overhyped failure when I found myself loving his first Hot 100 hit, "Mona Lisa," which is just incredibly catchy and well put together. "Mona Lisa" has 5 producers, including respected underground rap guy Kenny Beats and the Norwegian mega hitmakers Stargate, so this is still probably more a triumph of the music industry's faith in Fike than anything else, but I'll concede this as a win for him. 

4. Jung Kook f/ Latto - "Seven"
BTS has had enormous, historic chart success in America, but even their English language singles have tended to have an uncanny valley resemblance to American pop, as much as I like "Butter." And after BTS went on hiatus, it seemed for a while there that K-Pop was quickly losing all the ground it gained in the American charts, and even now the solo songs from members of BTS are outperforming the rest of the genre in the U.S. "Seven" really sounds more natural on Top 40 radio than any previous K-Pop crossover hit, though, despite the UK garage vibe of the beat. Again, this victory was achieved with a whole gang of seasoned hitmakers (Jon Bellion, Andrew Watt, Cirkut, one of the R. City guys), but a good song is a good song, I don't really care who it comes from. 

5. Young Thug f/ Drake - "Oh U Went"
Anytime Drake appears on a rap album, it's usually the de facto single. Young Thug's Business Is Business had 2 Drake features, and the one that opened the inferior first version of the album, "Parade On Cleveland," was fucking awful. So I'm pleased that the other one won out and became a radio hit, "Oh U Went" has a great beat. 

6. Josh X - "Love Takes Me Higher"
Josh X has been kicking around the industry for quite a while, he did hooks on Cardi B's early mixtapes, but this is the first time I've seen him on the R&B charts as a solo artist and I really like this, hope he becomes a star. 

7. Offset f/ Cardi B - "Jealousy"
I didn't think I was gonna enjoy this song, because "Clout" had kind of bad vibes, and it seems like Offset and Cardi never stop publicly fighting and accuse each other of cheating and shit, they're really tiresome as a celebrity couple. But "Jealousy" goes pretty hard, I like it. I kind of hope sampling Three 6 Mafia never goes out of style, it's a cheat code but the songs almost always go hard. 

8. Sam Hunt - "Outskirts"
Not too long ago, Sam Hunt seemed like the country star most likely to attain the massive crossover success currently enjoyed by Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs. But Hunt lost a lot of momentum, releasing only one album in the last 8 years, and "Outskirts" could be his second single in a row to miss the Hot 100 entirely. I think that's kind of a shame, because I think I like his music more now than when he was on the verge of superstardom.

9. Ice Spice - "Deli"
Isis Spisis is a star and her whole rise to fame has been charming and entertaining, but I haven't really enjoyed many of her Billboard hits as much as that first viral song I heard by her, "No Clarity," to me that's still the best example of her in her own lane. She's got a great flow on "Deli" though, I'd much rather listen to this than the other recent clubby rap hits like "I Just Wanna Rock" and "Shake Sum." 

10. OneRepublic - "Runaway"
Every few years OneRepublic has a giant hit and roars back to pop radio dominance, but I tend to enjoy some of their minor hits the most, and I like "Runaway" a lot more than the Top Gun: Maverick smash "I Ain't Worried." 

The Worst Single of the Month: Rylo Rodriguez f/ NoCap - "Thang For You"
Some people are still dicks about southern rap and think everybody with a southern accent is a "mumble rapper." I will say, though, Lil Baby's Alabama sidekick Rylo Rodriguez genuinely raps like he has a mouth full of glue and I'm amazed that there are people that enjoy listening to him. His biggest single to date was released a couple months after Bobby Caldwell died and interpolates "What You Won't Do For Love" but they really should've left his song alone, this is not good. 

8:00 AM

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 321: Smash Mouth

Thursday, September 07, 2023

 




In addition to Jimmy Buffett, Smash Mouth frontman Steve Harwell passed away over Labor Day weekend. A sad time for easygoing champions of good time music. 

Smash Mouth deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Nervous In The Alley
2. Push
3. Flo
4. Padrino
5. Let's Rock
6. Disconnect The Dogs
7. Come On, Come On
8. Who's There
9. Sattelite
10. Diggin' Your Scene
11. Road Man
12. I Just Wanna See
13. Every Word Means No
14. Better Do It Right
15. Sister Psychic
16. Your Man
17. The In Set
18. Hold You High
19. Ain't No Mystery
20. Hot
21. New Planet
22. Space Man
23. Getting Better
24. Don't Believe In Christmas
25. The Game
26. Out Of Love

Tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 from Fush Yu Mang (1997)
Tracks 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 from Astro Lounge (1999)
Track 13 from Friends Again (1999)
Track 14 from Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2000)
Tracks 15, 16, 17 and 18 from Smash Mouth (2001)
Track 19 from Austin Powers In Goldmember: Music From The Motion Picture (2002)
Tracks 20, 21 and 22 from Get The Picture? (2003)
Track 23 from The Cat In The Hat (2003)
Track 24 from The Gift Of Rock (2005)
Tracks 25 and 26 from Magic (2012)

I will always associate Smash Mouth with Sugar Ray, two bands who blew up with groovy midtempo songs with bright, sunny McG-directed videos in the summer of 1997. I once wrote an essay for Billboard about music videos in the year 1997 and how McG completely overhauled the look of MTV and signaled the arrival of "alt-pop" with those videos, plus more for Fastball, Barenaked Ladies, Sublime and others (interestingly, McG was a pal of Sugar Ray who co-produced and co-wrote some of their songs, before his videos became a springboard to 10 feature films and a career box office of over a billion dollars). 

Another thing Smash Mouth has in common with Sugar Ray is that both bands made much faster, more guitar-driven music before reorienting their respective sounds around those hits. I often forget that the band's name isn't 'Smashmouth' with no space, but apparently that's what it was before local radio play for their "Nervous In The Alley" got them signed to Interscope and someone decided that Smash Mouth was a more marketable name as two separate words. 

The alien-themed Astro Lounge opener "Who's There" is probably the band's best deep cut, I really like that song, with "Your Man" a close second. And "Diggin' Your Scene" is their most frequently performed album track. If all their songs were up to the standard of those and "Walkin' On The Sun," I dunno, Smash Mouth would've probably gotten more respect than just being the "All Star" band, although there are worse things than having one song that will live forever. 

Smash Mouth's most popular non-single is "Come On, Come On," which was featured in the episode of "Kim Possible" where Smash Mouth made an animated cameo. Obviously, Smash Mouth's music got some big boosts from film soundtracks, and I included some of their soundtrack work. At one point they were on three Mike Meyers soundtracks in a row, following their famous work for Shrek with Goldmember and The Cat In The Hat. One of the band's later independent albums, 2006's Summer Girl, isn't on streaming services. 

The band's primary songwriter, guitarist Greg Camp, left the band in 2011, with a couple temporary returns since then, and Steve Harwell, retired in 2021 because of a variety of health issues. Smash Mouth is still going as kind of a zombie band, with bassist Paul De Lisle as the only original member, although they also have keyboardist Michael Klooster, who has toured with the band since the Fush Yu Mang days and has recorded with them since Astro Lounge. This Smash Mouth has released a couple of lousy singles with a new singer in the past two years, and a Rick Astley cover. Obviously you don't need to hear them. 

8:16 AM

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 320: Jimmy Buffett

Wednesday, September 06, 2023

 




Jimmy Buffett passed away on Friday at the age of 76. Oddly, a couple days before that, I heard a Buffett song and it crossed my mind how he's an artist I should totally cover in this series but haven't yet. 

Jimmy Buffett deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. The Captain And The Kid
2. Why Don't We Get Drunk
3. Death Of An Unpopular Poet
4. The Wino And I Know
5. Makin' Music For Money
6. Tin Cup Chalice
7. Ace
8. My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink, And I Don't Love Jesus
9. Tampico Trauma
10. Lovely Cruise
11. Son Of A Son Of A Sailor
12. Fool Button
13. Boat Drinks
14. Chanson Pour Les Petits Enfants
15. We Are The People Our Parents Warned Us About
16. Last Mango In Paris
17. The Pascagoula Run
18. Delaney Talks To Statues
19. Spending Money 
20. Boats To Build (with Alan Jackson)
21. Weather With You
22. I Want To Go Back To Cartagena
23. Twelve Volt Man

Track 1 from Down To Earth (1970)
Tracks 2 and 3 from A White Sportcoat And A Pink Crustacean (1973)
Track 4 from Living And Dying In 3/4 Time (1974)
Tracks 5 and 6 from A1A (1974)
Track 7 from High Cumberland Jubilee (1976)
Track 8 from Havana Daydreamin' (1976)
Tracks 9 and 10 from Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes (1977)
Tracks 11 and 12 from Son Of A Son Of A Sailor (1978)
Tracks 13 and 14 from Volcano (1979)
Track 15 from One Particular Harbour (1983)
Track 16 from Last Mango In Paris (1985)
Track 17 from Off To See The Lizard (1989)
Track 18 from Fruitcakes (1994)
Track 19 from Beach House On The Moon (1999)
Track 20 from License To Chill (2004)
Track 21 from Take The Weather With You (2006)
Track 22 from Songs From St. Somewhere (2013)
Track 23 from Songs You Don't Know By Heart (2020)

I'm actually the son of a Parrothead, kind of. In the 2000s my late father had a few friends that loved Jimmy Buffett and he started going along with them to concerts, so in his later years I heard quite a bit of Buffett around his house, although I never went to one of the shows with them. When I went through Buffett's albums over the weekend after the news broke, I recognized more of his songs than I thought I knew. I've referred on here a few times to my gig as a teenager running sound for my friend who gigged around Delaware as an old-fashioned crooner, he mostly did Sinatra-type stuff, but "Margaritaville" was probably the most 'recent' song in his set, I was always expected to lead the "salt, salt, salt" chants. 

Buffett's debut Down To Earth was released on a tiny label and sold in small numbers (its follow-up, High Cumberland Jubilee, would remain unreleased for a few years until he had made a name for himself that the label could capitalize on). But "The Captain and the Kid" was the one song on that first album that sort of foreshadowed the sound and identity Buffett would soon establish, and he re-recorded it on a couple later albums. 

Buffett had a 'Big 8' set of signature songs that were played at every concert for many years, which consisted of 7 singles as well as "Why Don't We Get Drunk." That song appeared on the b-side of his first charting single, "The Great Filling Station Holdup," and the infamous "why don't we get drunk and screw" chorus made the song popular on jukeboxes even if the song was never quite suitable for radio play. "Making Music For Money" was written by Alex Harvey, and recorded in 1974 by both Jimmy Buffett and The First Edition (a few years later, First Edition frontman Kenny Rogers recorded the song on his biggest album, The Gambler). Both Buffett and Rogers sound convincing singing the song, even though they both went on to make a ton off money off of music. One of the cool surprises of Buffett's later albums is that he covered the great Crowded House song "Weather With You," the original of which was a hit all over the world but not released as a single in the U.S. 

A lot of artists who were commercially successful in the '70s just completely fell off the charts in the '80s, and Jimmy Buffett is a pretty extreme example. Buffett had several platinum gold albums in the '70s, and several more in the '90s, but none of the eight albums of original material he released in the '80s have been certified. The exception is his 1985 compilation Songs You Know By Heart, which collected songs he released in the '70s and became his best-selling release, going platinum seven times over. Most of that albums' certifications were in the '90s, when Buffett really became a one-man cottage industry, releasing books and opening restaurants and bars. The only non-singles on that release were "Why Don't We Get Drunk," "Boat Drinks," and "Son of a Son of a Sailor," which was the only song Buffett ever performed on "Saturday Night Live" (there were 2 musical guests that night). 

Buffett's final album was a deep cut-themed sequel of sorts, 2020's Songs You Don't Know By Heart, with acoustic renditions of lesser known songs from his catalog, which he'd perform on request on his web series during the COVID-19 lockdown. "Twelve Volt Man" on one of those low-selling '80s albums, One Particular Harbour. 

Bob Dylan has covered "A Pirate Looks At Forty," and in a 2009 interview, Dylan called Buffett one of his favorite songwriters, praising a couple songs from A White Sportscoat And A Pink Curstacean, the single "He Went To Paris" and the deep cut "Death Of An Unpopular Poet." For his part, Buffett does a very goofy Dylan impression for one line on "We Are The People Our Parents Warned Us About." 

It kind of surprised me to learn when I was younger that Buffett had started out as a country singer, and had lots of success on the country charts in the '70s, since I just thought of his big hits as soft rock. But his Alabama roots become more evident when you listen to his albums. And eventually mainstream country started to sound a lot like him, beginning with Kenny Chesney's Buffet-referencing 1998 hit "How Forever Feels" and especially after Buffett's appearance on Alan Jackson's "It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere," probably the biggest country hit of 2004. Now, the country charts have been full of songs about getting drunk on boats and beaches for a couple decades straight, although fairly few of them have the same wit and panache that a real Jimmy Buffett song has. 

8:01 AM

My Top 100 Singles of 1978

Tuesday, September 05, 2023


 




















Here's the Spotify playlist: 

1. The Cars - "Just What I Needed"
2. Meat Loaf - "Paradise By The Dashboard Light"
3. The Rolling Stones - "Miss You"
4. Jackson Browne - "Running On Empty"
5. Electric Light Orchestra - "Mr. Blue Sky"
6. Bill Withers - "Lovely Day"
7. The Police - "Roxanne"
8. Queen - "Fat Bottomed Girls"
9. Parliament - "Flash Light"
10. Van Halen - "Runnin' With The Devil"
11. Steely Dan - "Deacon Blues"
12. Bob Seger - "Hollywood Nights"
13. Little River Band - "Reminiscing"
14. Donna Summer - "Last Dance"
15. John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John - "You're The One That I Want"
16. Bee Gees - "Stayin' Alive"
17. Chic - "Le Freak"
18. Elvis Costello & The Attractions - "Pump It Up"
19. The Who - "Who Are You"
20. Cheap Trick - "Surrender"
21. The Police - "So Lonely"
22. Gerry Rafferty - "Baker Street"
23. Warren Zevon - "Werewolves Of London"
24. Player - "Baby Come Back"
25. George Thorogood & The Destroyers - "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer"
26. Van Halen - "Eruption/You Really Got Me"
27. Joe Walsh - "Life's Been Good"
28. Steely Dan - "FM (No Static At All)"
29. Elvis Costello & The Attractions - "Radio Radio"
30. Parliament - "Aqua Boogie (A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop)"
31. Styx - "Come Sail Away"
32. Journey - "Lights"
33. The Cars - "My Best Friend's Girl"
34. Billy Joel - "My Life"
35. Teddy Pendergrass – “When Somebody Loves You Back”
36. Heatwave - "The Groove Line"
37. Bruce Springsteen - "Badlands"
38. The Only Ones - "Another Girl, Another Planet"
39. Eddie Money - "Two Tickets To Paradise"
40. Plastic Bertrand – “Ca Plane Pour Moi”
41. X-Ray Spex – “Oh Bondage Up Yours!”
42. Rick James – “Mary Jane”
43. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - "I Need To Know"
44. Sylvester - "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)"
45. Chaka Khan – “I’m Every Woman”
46. Talking Heads - "Take Me To The River"
47. Kool & The Gang - "Ladies' Night"
48. Elvis Costello & The Attractions - "(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea"
49. Van Halen - "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love"
50. The Isley Brothers - "Footsteps In The Dark"
51. Jackson Browne - "The Load-Out/Stay"
52. The Police - "Can't Stand Losing You"
53. Steely Dan - "Josie"
54. AC/DC - "Whole Lotta Rosie"
55. The Trammps - "Disco Inferno"
56. Alicia Bridges - "I Love The Nightlife"
57. George Thorogood & The Destroyers - "Who Do You Love"
58. Heart - "Straight On"
59. Patti Smith Group - "Because The Night"
60. Blue Oyster Cult – “Godzilla”
61. Teddy Pendergrass – “Close The Door”
62. Billy Joel - "The Stranger"
63. Chic – “Everybody Dance”
64. Rose Royce – “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore”
65. George Jones - "Bartender's Blues"
66. Kate Bush - "Wuthering Heights"
67. Genesis - "Follow You, Follow Me"
68. Jimmy Buffett – “Cheeseburger In Paradise”
69. Toto - "Hold The Line"
70. Rod Stewart - "Hot Legs"
71. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - "Listen To Her Heart"
72. Robert Palmer – “Every Kinda People”
73. Lynyrd Skynyrd - "That Smell"
74. The Rolling Stones - "Shattered"
75. Village People - "Y.M.C.A."
76. George Thorogood & The Destroyers - "Move It On Over"
77. Van Halen - "Jamie's Cryin'"
78. Earth, Wind & Fire – “Fantasy”
79. The Clash - "Tommy Gun"
80. Chic - "Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)"
81. The Commodores - "Three Times A Lady"
82. Todd Rundgren - "Can We Still Be Friends?"
83. Andrew Gold – “Thank You For Being A Friend”
84. Exile – “Kiss You All Over”
85. Nicolette Larson – “Lotta Love”
86. Queen - "Bicycle Race"
87. Paul Simon - "Slip Slidin' Away"
88. Funkadelic - "One Nation Under A Groove"
89. Styx - "Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)"
90. John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John - "Summer Nights"
91. Raydio - "Jack And Jill"
92. Boston - "Don't Look Back"
93. The Rolling Stones - "Beast Of Burden"
94. Randy Newman - "Short People"
95. Anne Murray – “You Needed Me”
96. Peter Gabriel - "D.I.Y."
97. Journey - "Wheel In The Sky"
98. Bruce Springsteen - "Prove It All Night"
99. Warren Zevon - "Lawyers, Guns, and Money"
100. Rod Stewart - "You're In My Heart (The Final Acclaim)" 

Rest in peace to Jimmy Buffett, "Cheeseburger In Paradise" was a good one. 1978 was probably the peak of disco, and so much of this list feels like it's either disco, post-disco (with "Miss You" being probably the best instance of a rock band engaging in disco on its own terms), or deliberate counterprogramming to disco's dominance. Speaking of the Stones, "Shattered" was always an amusing song to me, and there's a cover of it that I never get tired of: Eddie Vedder on guitar and actress Jeanne Tripplehorn delivering the lyrics in character as Julie Andrews. "Just What I Needed" was the token cover of a popular song that my high school screamo band would play, I enjoyed playing it but it kind of annoyed me that it was such a comical contrast to our original material, now I try to make music that aspires to something closer to Ric Ocasek's pop craft. 

Previously:

8:00 AM