12 October 2023 - Van Halen - Poundcake

This week has been a bit of a struggle for me.  Usually, posts come to me so quickly and easily.   This week, not so much.

For weeks like this, I like to have songs queued up - ones that appear to me in some way, shape or form.  Sometimes, that's helpful.  Today, that was helpful, because this is one of those songs.  

And this song really deserves to be queued.  Written by the band, it was the lead single of their 1991 album For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, which every kid on every playground knows spells "fuck" - you've tried to justify using the F-bomb because you were told it was a legal term, right?

That sound you hear at the beginning of the song is not Eddie Van Halen's Frankencaster (how the hell he played that thing, I'll never know), but a Makita power drill.  

Lyrically, this song ain't great.  Musically, the song is dense and interesting and one of the best guitar songs ever written and performed.  

Oh yes.  Eddie did use that drill live.  Take this performance from the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards - where the FrankenMakita is on full display.  

11 October 2023 - Fatboy Slim - The Rockafeller Skank

It's been this long, and this is the FIRST time we've talked about Fatboy Slim in any real way.  Well, there was this remix, but that's it.  

Once upon a time, there was a band called The Housemartins.  They were a major label signed band that lost their bassist right before their debut, so Norman Cook stepped in for their five year existence.  The Housemartins were a guitar band, and that wasn't really what Cook wanted to do.

So, when The Housemartins broke up in 1988, a lot of the rest of the band formed another band called The Beautiful South, but Cook wanted to go electronic, so he formed Beats International, which was a loose collective of musicians.  That loose collective morphed into being just Norman Cook, and so he took on a stage name....

Fatboy Slim.

He hit his commercial success peak in 1998, starting with this song that everyone thinks is called "Funk Soul Brother", but it's not.  It's "The Rockafeller Skank".  In fact, the only lyrics is a sample from some Lord Finesse spoken word stuff.   The song features samples from eight different song.  

This song ended up being a top 10 hit in the US and worldwide, becoming Fatboy Slim's first major hit.

It's also impossible to not dance to this song......

.... which is clearly on display at the 2012 Olympic closing ceremonies. Yes, that's Fatboy Slim on the turntables.  

10 October 2023 - Pixies - Velouria

I can confidently say this is probably the video that was filmed in the shortest amount of time.

23 seconds.

The band is running through a quarry.

You'd have to play it at about 10x speed to see it in real time.

MTV hated it SO MUCH they refused to play it.

It was made to be played on Top of the Pops, a UK show that required a video to list a song on their chart.

They didn't play it, either.  

Which is too bad.  The lead single from their Bossanova album was amazing.  It's got this alien surf sound going on, which is amazing.  The lyrics are odd, based in 1920's Rosicrucians folklore.  How Charles Thompson Iv - a.k.a. Black Francis - got his hands on 1920's Rosicrucian folklore is beyond me, but it makes for an interesting song.  

Yes, someone published the video at real speed.

Yes, they made another video.  No, it's not better.  Yes, it's the same quarry.

Yes, the song sounded amazing when the band performed it live in 2005 in an acoustic setting.

9 October 2023 - Becky G x Karol G - MAMIII

Both Becky G and Karol G were at risk of becoming one-hit wonders in the US, with each of them individually managing a single top 40 hit - Karol with El Chombo and "Dame tu Cosita", and Becky with the out-of-character "Shower".

Surprisingly, this collaboration became the biggest hit to date for BOTH of them - Karol G would go on to have even bigger ones - but this song was a top 20 hit in the US, peaking at #15, and that's on English-language radio, so it's quite the achievement.  Additionally, the song was also one of the biggest hits of 2022 on Latin radio in the US and a huge worldwide hit, especially in the Spanish-speaking world.

The two artists co-wrote the song with Venezuelan artist Elena Rose. It is considered one of the greatest reggaton songs of all time.  That's not me saying that.  That's Rolling Stone.

The two artists have performed the song several times together live, the first time at the Coachella music festival in 2022.  I'd love to tell you it was groundbreaking, but it was pretty much as recorded, which speaks to the vocal strength of both women.

Becky G performed the song solo at the Billboard Women in Music Awards in 2023.  It hits a little differently as a solo song, but she's got a huge voice and can carry it.

6 October 2023 - Olivia Rodrigo - bad idea right?

Posting about Olivia Rodrigo again?

It's a bad idea, right?

Fuck it, it's fine.

I've been posting a lot of Olivia Rodrigo lately.  I mean, a lot a lot!  I'm even considering pushing this post back as I write it.

But this song is just SO good.  It brings a strong 90's pop/rock vibe that still sounds fresh.  Written by Rodrigo and Dan Nigro, this instant classic keeps you involved to the end - and Petra Collins made a great video.

The whole Guts album is really solid and a strong contender for my favorite of 2023.  Literally every song on the album has been a US top 40 hit ALREADY, with this one making it into the top 10.   

5 October 2023 - The Narcissist Cookbook - Courtney

I was in the car one day with my significant other and, well, her name happens to be Courtney.  We were browsing Spotify looking for songs with our names.  Of course, we found "Tony's Theme" but when we got to her name... we found this gem.

Matt Johnston is the folksinger who goes by the name The Narcissist Cookbook.   He writes some really sarcastic stuff.  After listening to this song and the spoken word diatribe after, I think he is convinced that Courtney Love killed Kurt Cobain, but I cannot be sure.  

I am not convinced of that.  

I am convinced that this song is hilarious and will make you think.

Matt Johnston is also clearly a fan of In Utero. He also does a more stripped-down version of this song. 

4 October 2023 - Phantogram - You Don’t Get Me High Anymore

It's been a while since we posted anything by Phantogram.  It's not because we aren't listening to them.  It's because we don't want to bore you with them.  

And yes, we know it hasn't been that long.  But we've posted Lights songs like three times since then.

Anyway, this was the lead single from their 2016 album, Three.  It was a minor radio hit - crossing over to mainstream charts and getting airplay in my hometown Rochester NY - on classic rock radio.  It was a more straight-ahead rock than their prior offerings, which were keyboard heavy.

You know, I don't remember Rochester radio ever mentioning that they were from Saratoga Springs....

Written by a team including Josh Carter and Sarah Barthel of Phantogram, the song is one to remember and is about relationships that get a little stale, as opposed to relationships tainted by getting high on one's own supply.  It's accompanied by a Grant Singer-directed video that's just great and leans heavily into the S&M imagery.  

As you all know, I saw Phantogram live when they toured in support of Three.  They are easily the second best band I've ever seen live.  (Elastica to answer the inevitable question).

I'd absolutely see them again, and they do actively tour.  Here they are in August 2023, performing this song... and following it with "When I'm Small" seamlessly.