9 September 2021 - Cœur de Pirate - On s'aimera toujours

I held out as long as I could.

Literally.  This song has been out for a WEEK.  It was a midnight release on September 2nd, and I had listened to it no less than 30 times by 2am.   I even tweeted about it.

I stayed up late to listen to the new @beatricepirate song like thirty times.

It's that good.
https://t.co/XOoWsTNPFx

— Anthony D'Orazio (@RedArgyle) September 2, 2021

If you had asked me in February if the term "la chanson française" was going to be used more than once on this blog in 2021, I would have said you were crazy.  And yet, here I am, copying and pasting that damn œ for like the fifth time this year.  (I went back and looked.  It's the seventh time, which might even beat my Charli XCX rate of posting).  

But now I am going to tell you why this one is different and it has absolutely nothing to do with Béatrice Martin's pregnancy.  You see, I started down this journey into francophone music near the end of February, when I really wanted to find an artist that sang in French who was also Canadian to feature in my little #MapleLeafMarch thing.  And, I stumbled about this one accidentally - when I was researching another post by another artist that I'll gush over another day - and did a deeper dive. 

What I found was an incredibly complex artist that had a foot in the modern world and another in a classic French music world.  Her entire catalog was spectacular and unlike anything I had ever heard - a lot of piano, for sure, and a lot of words I did not understand.  In fact, French had been a language that completely baffled me, despite my background in romance languages.  

During this deep dive, some new music was released, literally all of which has been covered on this blog.  It's all been exceptional.  

Then came September 2nd, and a new song was released, and I was excited to hear it.  What I heard, however....  it was far far far more than I expected.  You see, in a life, there are songs you may hear that just make you stop and remember where you are.  These are songs that you can hear over and over again, and never get sick of them. They are songs that change the way you look at music forever.  

I've had that feeling a few times in my life, and I can tell you exactly where I was when I first heard each one of them.  From the disco-tinged opening violin strains of this song, to the very last "tremble", this song had me.  I urge you to listen to this song.  You are going to forget it's entirely in French.  

The video was recorded in Lachine, QC, Canada, at the famous lighthouse there, and no, none of those balloons went in the water.  It also looks to me like it was done in one take, without edits, but I have no proof of that.

(Update: 9 September): Since I wrote this, literally today, her new album Impossible à aimer was announced, including this song, to be released October 15th.  

8 September 2021 - Cyndi Lauper - She Bop

12 year old me did not know this song was about female masturbation.  I just knew that I loved the song.  And yet this song was on the PMRC's "Filthiest 15" list of truly filthy, filthy songs.  That's right.  The "Parental Advisory" sticker on some albums is largely due to this song.  

It was, despite that, a huge hit song.  And why wouldn't it be?  It's darned catchy.  The video, which is probably part of the song's overall appeal, is considerably more wholesome than this filthy, filthy song. 

Is it more obviously filthy in its acoustic version?  Maybe.   It's more obvious to me that I should have realized what the song was about at 12.  

7 September 2021 - Dire Straits - Money For Nothing

I seriously, SERIOUSLY debated whether or not to post this song.  The 2nd verse, in a modern era, is really troubling.  Indeed, the Canadian Broadcast Services Council has banned the song in an unedited form, because of that lyric.  And I don't really disagree with that decision.  

In context, I decided to do it.  Here's why:  

1) the narrator of the song is intended to be an ignorant man.  The use of that one slur IS intentional, and not complementary to the narrator. Mark Knopfler intentionally wrote an ignorant character you are supposed to despise.  

2) from a historical standpoint, coming four years after the advent of MTV, it was the first big hit song to acknowledge that channel's influence.

3) MTV still uses Sting's "I Want My MTV" that he sang for this song in their promotional materials.  

4) I wanted to illustrate how far we have come as a society since 1985.  That slur was just casually tossed about in the 1980s - and today, it's horrifying to hear.  

Forgetting that lyric for a moment, the song itself is great, combining the 80s synth sound with some terrific guitar work.  The song itself is a gem, the video iconic.  

6 September 2021 - GTR - When The Heart Rules The Mind

What happens when a couple of prog-rock veteran guitarists get together and make a straight-ahead rock album?  Well, that's what Steve Howe of Yes and Steve Hackett of Genesis did when they got together and formed GTR.   

The project was short-lived, but yielded one pretty good album.  Also featuring Jonathan Mover from Marillion on drums and Max Bacon on vocals, it was quite the superproject.  This was their debut single and went to #14 in 1986.  The band fell apart when their studio sound - sans keyboards (because Steve Howe was sick of that sound from his time in Asia) - didn't work live.  

But let's go back to this song.  It's a standard 80's rock song - less prog, more straightahead - but that doesn't make it bad.  It's a good song.  Co-written by Hackett and Howe, and produced by another Yes/Asia alum, Geoff Downes, it's a song that sounds dated and yet still present.  

3 September 2021 - Mary's Danish - Underwater

It is rare that I can share one of my favorite songs of all time, by one of my favorite bands of all time.  I know that's not true, but just listen.  Then I'll talk about it.  The song is that good.

Mary's Danish was a LA band that released three studio albums and a live EP.  Yes, I own all of them.  This is from their last, 1992's American Standard. The band was short-lived, which is odd (and completely the fault of their record label, Morgan Creek), because the dual lead vocals from Gretchen Seager and Julie Ritter were legendary - they didn't both sing lead on EVERY song, as their voices tended to hit different styles - Grethen tended towards the harder pop/rock songs, whereas Julie had a bit of a twang that lent itself to a folksier/bluesier sound - but they sure did on this one.  Guitarist David King passed away this summer, so they are unlikely to reform again.  

But they left behind many versions of this song. Take this one, a B-side to this very single.  It's an alternate take that some call "acoustic" but was probably the demo.

 

The band made the rounds of the late night talk shows, and performed this song many times.   Let's start with Leno.  The Tonight Show was recorded in the band's hometown Los Angeles, and boy, did Jay ever look uncomfortable introducing them.... 

Get out of here with your Burbank propaganda.

Next, we go to Letterman.  Dave was far more comfortable introducing them.  I know that because I watched it live.  This recording cuts off his intro.

Also, do you remember CD longboxes?!  Man, those were the days.  

(postscript: if you want to read the heartbreaking story of why Mary's Danish broke up, go here.  They say it far better than we could)

2 September 2021 - Transvision Vamp - Born To Be Sold

People who know me well know what my favorite albums are.  If you read this blog last year, I revealed that Velveteen by UK hitmakers (who did next to nothing Stateside) Transvision Vamp is high on that list.  At that time, I posted a really REALLY angry song - my favorite song on that album.

But here's the thing that makes that album so perfect.  There are no bad songs on there.  NONE.  They released two other albums - this was their second - and they were all good.  This one was borderline perfect.  

This song was a hit in the UK and Australia in 1989 and 1990, respectively - and it's a quiet tribute to a lot of pop icons throughout the ages - it's a song full of name drops.  Wendy James can deliver quiet and she can deliver loud, and she proves it on this album.      

1 September 2021 - Santigold - The Keepers

We have come to Santigold.

Santigold is one of a new wave of avant garde artists that have given new life to traditional genres, like pop, rock, and R&B, fusing them all with an electronic sound and lyrical depth not seen previously.  This fusion brings a new sound - one that eschews genre.

This song - co-written by Santigold - dives into the subject of the degradation of American culture while we, the keepers, are asleep at the wheel. I do encourage you to not listen to the lyrics the first time you listen.  It's an aurally interesting upbeat pop song, different than anything you've heard before.