25 July 2023 - The Chicks - Not Ready To Make Nice

Remember when the (Dixie) Chicks got in a fight with George W. Bush over the Iraq War.

1) They were right (and I'm pretty sure he'd agree now).

2) This better-than-it-should-be song, which was extremely controversial at the time of its release, ended up being one of their biggest hits.

This song hit the Billboard Hot 100 in 2006 and REENTERED in the top 10 in 2007, after the song won three Grammys, including Song and Record of the Year (the two biggest awards).  Co-writen by the Chicks (they changed the band name in 2020 to avoid association with the Dixie Swastika) and Dan Wilson (the lead vocalist of Semisonic), it is an angry song.  Anger does, however, bring about good music.  

It was an extremely controversial song.  Controversial songs can be good songs, though, and in this case, it is.

I considered including their Grammy performance, which was excellent, but their performance on the TV show VH1 Storytellers was even better and more sublime.

24 July 2023 - Kelly Willis - Take Me Down

As I write this, there is a country song with a lot of controversy surroudning it (mostly based upon its music video).  It's a big hit song.  It's also not very good.  

By the way, I am presently sitting in a small town, saying that, so you could say I tried it ina  small town.  (I feel like that joke isn't going to make sense in a month).

So, at a loss on what to write, I decided to do a week dedicated to country music that doesn't suck.

Of course I'm opening the week with Kelly Willis.  I've written about her before, but everything I've written this far is about her MCA years.  Her three albums for MCA were excellent but poorly marketed.  Her first album for Rykodisk, on the other hand, What I Deserve, was very well marketed.  Its first single, today's song, is excellent, much like her earlier work, and actually got label support.

The song would go on the broad critical accalaim, as would the album, and deservedly so.  Co-written by Kelly Willis and Gary Louris of the Jayhawks, it is now a part of the American music fabric.

Of course she performs the song live.  And it's delightful.

 

21 July 2023 - Billie Eilish - my strange addiction

My Strange Addiction is an American documentary television series that premiered on TLC on..... no, wait.  I mean, that's true, but that's not what this blog is about.

Let's, instead, talk about Billie Eilish's strange addiction..... The Office.  Not that this song is about that - it's probably more tightly tied to the TLC show and perhaps a romantic addiction.  However, this song opens with a sample of Season 7, Episode 17 of The Office, titled "Threat Level Midnight" and contains other sample throughout.  It is a must-see episode that was requested as a going-away gift for Steve Carell.

The song was written and produced by Finneas O'Connell, Billie Eilish's brother.  They are frequent collaborators, and this song might be their high water mark.  It was a mid-level hit - peaking at #43 on the US charts and a top 10 hit elsewhere.  

By the way, their mom, Maggie Baird, once had a voice role on The Office.  Season 4, Episode 18, "Goodbye, Toby (part 1)".  She's the one on the phone with Phyllis when she's asking about an anti-gravity machine.

This isn't an official video for the song.  No such video exists.   However, Billie Eilish has fans, and they made a pretty good video that includes a lot of The Office clips, too.  

This is a song she clearly loves performing live - and the crowd, who knows all the words, love it, too.

20 July 2023 - FIZZ - High In Brighton

What happens when four relatively well-known musician friends decide to start a band together?

Chaos? Maybe.

Hilarity? Absolutely!

Buzzworthy effervescent pop music?  No doubt.

Well, Dodie, Greta Isaac, Orla Garland and Martin Luke Brown did exactly this.   They are four best friends who happen to be independent musicians that made themselves into a supergroup.  

FIZZ's debut single came out three weeks ago, and their album drops in September.  Go preorder it if you want.  No pressure.  The song is about... well, getting high.  In Brighton.  

So, this is so new, there's no way there's any live performances, right?

Wrong.

19 July 2023 - Olivia Rodrigo - vampire

It is SO RARE that we get to hit a song when it's still a hit.  It happens maybe twice a year.

This is the CURRENT, as we write this, #1 song in the United States, Canada, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, and #2 in the UK - and a big hit in a lot of other countries..

Of course, the version of the song that's a huge hit doesn't include the word "famefucker", but we don't restrict bad words here.  

I was a little hesitant to post this three weeks after I had posted another Olivia Rodrigo song.  But then she had to go and announce her second album, Guts, coming out in September, and release this fantastic single on June 30th.

And it is good.  REALLY good.  It's like a mini rock opera, and the video has three acts just like your traditional rock opera.  No Olivia Rodrigos were harmed in the making of this video.

This far, it being such a new song, she's only performed the song (which she co-wrote, like most of her stuff) live one time.

But she did it on piano, and it hits so much different - maybe even a little angrier! - so stripped down

18 July 2023 - The Monkees - Porpoise Song

My sister is going to be very happy with this post.  You see, she was part of a generation in thei 1980s who were the perfect age to see The Monkees reunited (without Mike Nesmith) and a revival of their show by Nickelodeon(!), so she became a really big fan of The Monkees at an early age, and I mean a really big fan.  

It's because of her that I even know to write this post, because, before her, I didn;t know of the existence of Head, a somewhat satirical musical adventure that served as an epilogue to the band's popular television series.  Co-written by Academy Award winning actor Jack Nicholson - yes.  THAT Jack Nicholson - the movie was... well, it was a little trippy.  

It opened with this song (and accompanying visual - this is the opening of the movie, complete with mermaids saving Mickey Dolenz), written by the great songwriting team of Gerry Goffin and Carole King.  It is something of a deep song - and includes not only the band playing the song, but actual porpoise clicks and clacks.  

The Monkees took a lot of shit for being a band for a television show.   Yeah.  I said it.  It was undeserved.  They were a real band, with a lot of talent, who toured together for as long as they possibly could.  Here are three surviviing members (Davy Jones having passed earlier that year) performing together - and I do mean together, and well - in 2012.  

 

Of course, at this point, three of the four Monkees have passed, but the vocalist on this song, Mickey Dolenz, has not, and still tours in tribute to the Monkees  More than fifty years after this song was originally released, he still delivers it in the same huge, theatrical, emotional manner.  

17 July 2023 - Belinda Carlisle - I Get Weak

We're eleven years into this blog - more than! - and we've never, as far as I can see, posted a song written by Diane Warren.  I'm not quite sure how that's possible - she was a huge hitmaker, especially during the 1980's and 1990's, and still writes for top pop artists to this day.

As much as we usually talk about the artists - and we'll get there - the songwriter is the hitmaker in this case.  She's written 32 top 10 US hits, been nominated for 14(!) Academy Awards (winning none but finally recieving an honorary one in 2022, during a year she was also nominated for an award), 15 Grammys (winning one), and two Emmys (winning one).  

She's a well-respected songwriter who has written a lot of hit songs you know well.  This is one of them.  Originally intended for Stevie Nicks, it was given to Belinda Carlisle, who took it all the way to #2 on the US charts, only being kept from that top spot by one of the most enduring songs of all time. 

The video was directed by Diane Keaton.  Yes, that Diane Keaton.