3 September 2020 - Foster The People - Pumped Up Kicks

 Let's be very clear.

This is a very dark song.

To be clear, when Mark Foster wrote and performed the song, he was trying to write from the perspective of a homicidal kid thinking about shooting up his school.  Written in an afternoon, Foster had been writing commercial jingles and plowed through writer's block to get this song done. 

And, for a song that was just a demo, with Mark Foster singing and performing every piece, it's pretty rich and strangely beautiful.  

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Of course, Foster DID put a band together, and they made the song even richer..... but he still does pick up a couple of instruments!

2 September 2020 - 10,000 Maniacs - Like The Weather

 We're almost a decade into this blog, and we've NEVER posted about 10,000 Maniacs on this blog.

Let's fix that today.

25 August 2020 - Lady Gaga ft. Beyoncé- Telephone

This video tells a story that doesn't entirely match the song.  I mean, it's set in a prison - and the song clearly isn't.

And that's OK.   It also doesn't hurt the song.  

What it is is a great song, with a great dance beat, celebrating the great dance song, co-written by Gaga and Beyoncé - and they wrote a song on which they could BOTH showcase their unique voices.  It ended up being Gaga's 6th consecutive #1 song - a feat matched by no other artist in history.  

I mention that Lady Gaga cowrote this song, and I have said numerous times that this woman has a lot of natural musical talent - enough that she uses vocal tricks to her advantage without taking away her timbre.  Which brings me to this live version - from 2017.

Clearly, Stefani really just wants to dance!  But it is the singing in which she excels on this night - and it is huge and CLEARLY pure.

 

Now, Beyoncé has also done this song live.  For some reason, they've never performed it together - but I hope that changes at some point in the future.

I wanted to close this post with this unique version of the song....  it is all on piano.

21 August 2020 - Miley Cyrus - Midnight Sky

It's always good to hear from Miley Cyrus, isn't it? And this is her first single of the year - so it is assumed she made this video during the pandemic.



This song, released literally last week, is clearly about her breakup with Liam Hemsworth - and it's a deeply personal song, in only a way that Miley could be deeply personal. But this is Wicked Guilty Pleasures, not Wicked Guilty Therapy Sessions, so it's got to be enjoyable, and it is. 

Musically, it's straight ahead bass-driven pop with significant synth.  It's a great 80's throwback with a modern feel - and it's fun.  And that's enough. 

17 August 2020 - blackbear - hot girl bummer

We've been pulling out a lot of old music lately, so I wanted to dedicate this week to song of the past twelve months.  

This song, from late 2019, is the first hit by blackbear, aka Matthew Tyler Musto, a man who has made most of his money writing songs for other people.  He has been a recording artist for several years as well, and this was his first hit after seven years of releasing albums.

And it's a doozy.  From the repeated chorus with the chiming bell and guitar going in time with the melody, to the significant bass drops and creative use of Autotune, the song is infinitely memorable.

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That was the 2nd video, and it was clearly big budget.  blackbear had made a low budget one, too.

Now, normally, at this point, I'd be pulling out a live version of the song - and I can do that if you really want (let me know in the comments), but I wanted to do something a little different here.

This is a video from the YouTube page of dancer/model/modern celebrity Dytto - who has 3.63 million subscribers.   This fan video/dance performance is a homage to everything pop culture from Mean Girls, to Kim Possible, to The Purge to Riverdale.  I enjoyed it - possibly more than the official videos - and I hope you do as well.  

10 August 2020 - An "Into the Unknown" Special

I am fairly certain this post isn't starting the way you thought it would, but stay with me.  We will get to Adele Dazim before you know it.

It is a fairly recent tradition of Disney to record their recognizable songs from their feature films in the native languages where their movies are released.  "Let It Go", from Frozen, for example, was recorded in several languages.  

3 Aug 2020 - The Notorious B.I.G. ft. Pam Long - Hypnotize

I've got to be honest - I was always Team West Coast.  I never really understood why I had to choose a side, but I was a fan of the artists coming out of California more than New York, when it came to hip hop in the early to mid 1990's.  

Biggie's flow on this song is just impeccable, and I cannot deny it's a great tune.  I sometimes wonder what would have happened if he and Tupac would have collaborated, and it is incredibly tragic that both voices were snuffed out so young.