28 August 2023 - Nine Inch Nails - Only

Look, I know.  It hasn't been that long since we published our first Nine Inch Nails song.

We were doing a thing that week.

Anyway, this is a different, not so loud song.  It's not quiet, mind you - but it's less in-your-face angry and more synth-pop-rock angry.  It's about Trent Reznor's job - as a musician, with real business pressures - and how that clashes with his desires - as a musical artist, and keeping his integrity.  

In 2005, this was the first single off of Nine Inch Nails's fourth album, With Teeth.  That's sixteen years after their - his? - debut, and six years since the previous album.  The video is almost completely CGI - no, Trent Reznor did not stick his face into a pinscreen repeatedly - and the only non-CGI pieces are the hand belonging to David Fincher, who directed the video, and the fuzzy cars you occasionally see in the background.  

As should be no shock, this has become a live performance favorite, and it hits so much louder and harder live.

25 August 2023 - The Beatles - We Can Work it Out

So, this is a weird song in how it's constructed.  Let's breat it down.

Paul McCartney took the first stab at it, writing the lyrics - probably about a relationship he was having with British actress Jane Asher at the time.  She been happily married for forty years, so don't ask her.   He then took it to John Lennon, with whom he came up with the middle part ("Life is very short...")

But you might notice a tempo change in the middle.   That's more than a tempo change.  That's a change to 3/4 time - and that was the brainchild of the uncredited George Harrison.  It, by design, sounds like a waltz, in contrast to the pop-rock sound of the rest of the song.  

The song also goes from optimism in the verse and chorus to a slightly less optimistic and more philosophical tone in the middle.  It's quite interesting to listen to the song go thematically and muscally back and forth.  Paul took the lead vocal roles, with John joining with harmonies in the middle. 

"We Can Work It Out" was release in December 1965 as a double A-side single - along with "Day Tripper" - and quickly became a #1 hit,   It's worth noting that Stevie Wonder also had a hit with the song in the early 1970s with the song.  

24 August 2023 - Charly Bliss - Capacity

"Weezer with Tommy Pickles as a lead singer"

I wrote about Charly Bliss a couple of years ago, and then, I promised to revisit them.  I didn't think it would take me this long - but I got really sick of their earlier stuff, which was very much like Weezer.

This 2019 single by Charly Bliss is possibly their best known song.  Written by the band, the song is sung by lead vocalist Eva Hendricks, and not E.G. Daily.  The lead single from their 2nd album, Young Enough, it's a lot poppier than their earlier work.  

It's an interesting song, about the power of saying no, because, well, you're at capacity.

If you're familiar with their earlier work, you know that Eva Hendricks plays guitar on top of her vocals. As you can see - and pointing to their move from rock to pop - she has moved to keyboard during live performances.  Also, I wish my dining room was this cool.

23 August 2023 - Echosmith - Lonely Generation

"Echosmith Is Back, and Wants Us to Put Our Phones Down."

That's what the Billboard headline read.  

Of course, ignore the lyrics and this sounds like a chipper pop ditty.  You could be forgiven for hearing this as some bright pop song, like "Cool Kids". Lyrically, though - it's not chipper at all.  It's dark and sad, and really does encourage real connection.

The kicker here is that this song was written and released by Echosmith in 2019.... before the pandemic.  That made the lonely generation even lonlier - and makes this song more poignant. 

By the way, I'm not sure if I've said it before, but Echosmith is a sibling band - originally 4, but now 3.  How they fit all that musical talent in one family is a marvel.

Anyway, here they are performing the song live.

22 August 2023 - Big Data ft. Joywave - Dangerous

Big Data is Alan Wilkis, a producer.  His music project is an electronic one.  This song is billed to him and billed as featuring Joywave.  

Wilkis co-wrote the song, but so did Daniel Armbruster, who used to be the other half of Big Data and was, at the time, the vocalist for a Rochester, NY band called Joywave, and its his voice and the band's music you hear in this version.  The song is super bass-heavy, which is cool as heck.

You knew I had to drop Rochester in there.  I lived there for 26 years, after all.  

It's kind of blurry who this should be billed to.  What isn't blurry is that this collaboration is both the biggest hit Big Data ever had, but also the biggest hit Joywave ever had.  

The video is violent and depicts the marketing of an athletic shoe that incites violence.  

The lyrics video took a different approach - showing the dangers of, well, big data.  An accompanying app - which seems to not work anymore - would make a video out of your Facebook timeline.  Seriously.

What also is not blurry is that Joywave doesn't perform with Big Data.  They are separate bands, with separate members.  The male vocalist (who's doing a lot of the electronic work as well) is Alan Wilkis. Not gonna lie, I like this version, too.   

(Update: 4 October 2023) Joywave actually didn't play this song live until 2021.  They chose their hometown of Rochester, NY to pull it out for the first time.  They also pulled out not one, not two, but THREE bass guitars to make sure you could hear that sound from space.

21 August 2023 - Siouxsie & the Banshees - Kiss Them for Me

It took ten albums for Siouxsie & the Banshees to find commercial success in the United States, but they did it in 1991 - with this single.  Yes, it was a more mainstream pop move - some called it a sellout, but they already had a major label deal, so I don't think it was.   

The song took its title from a 1957 Jayne Manfield film - and the song was very much about Mansfield.  It's full of references to her, from the word "divoon" in the 2nd verse (a word Ms. Mansfield was known to use frequently) (notice that Siouxsie is in a heart-shaped swimming pool when she sang that lyric in the video, as that's one of the things the term was in reference to) to the third verse reference to the car crash that killed her (while sparing Mariska Hargitay for a future as Olivia Benson).

I am rarely surprised by my blog.  I knew Siouxie & the Banshees broke up in the 90's and, that was it for them, save for a brief reunion in the early 2000's/   What I did NOT know is that Siouxie Sioux herself is back to performing, after a long hiatus (although she did have a solo career as well), and headlined the Cruel World Festival in Pasadena, CA, this year.

The performance is in a different key than the original, but her stage presence is undeniable.

18 August 2023 - Roxette - The Look

Something I think you didn't know - Roxette had four number one hits in the United States - which is one more than they had in their home country, Sweden.

This song, from 1988's Look Sharp album, was their first in the US (it did not reach #1 in Sweden - the only song, in fact, to top both the US and Swedish charts by the band was "Joyride", which, despite my prior attempt at humour, was not only a minor hit - ironically both their last US #1 and their first Swedish one). 

Dual vocalist/guitarists Per Gessle and Marie Fredriksson played togeher from the mid 1980s until 2019, when Fredriksson passed away from complications from a brain tumor.  Gessle wrote this song as an exercise when he got a new synthesizer and was learning how to operate it.  It's an oddly consructed song, with weird chord progressions that no one reading this blog is going to hear about from me.   

I loved this song from first listen, and yes, I have the 12" single of the song around here somewhere.

As I stated earlier, the band performed together for a long time - until a few years before Marie's death.  This performance is from 2009 - with less epic hair, but just as epic performance.  

The band rerecorded the song in 2015, as part of an advertising campaign - with a new mix and new vocals.  It would be a Swedish Top 40 hit.

It's a different song - far more focused on electronic music and tuned to the slightly reduced vocal ranges of Fredriksson and Gisele.  It wasn't the last thing Fredriksson would record (they released another album in 2016) but it's one of the last, and that makes it somewhat sad.  

Marie toured with Roxette and announced that she could not any longer in 2016.  You can see her still performing her heart out, even sitting down, in 2015, which was one of her last live performances.

Per Gessle briefly reuinted the band in tribute to Marie under the name PG Roxette.  They did a tribute show for her and of course included this song - with him singing some of her part and other background singers picking up the rest.