2 November 2023 - Flower Face - Cornflower Blue

It's a little known fact that I have a lot of draft posts already written.  However, I have many MORE that are completely unwritten except for a video.  There exist a subset of those posts that have a date attached to them.

This one was in that subset.   It had "2024" attached to it.  It was slated for next March.  

And I've been staring at this post, at the top of my draft queue, thinking about busting it out early.  

Over the past two weeks, I have gotten repeated notifications that Flower Face - real name Ruby McKinnon - is recording the followup to her brilliant 2022 album The Shark In Your Water - released on Nettwork Records, her first experience with a record label  

This song, which reminds me slightly of my old Magnus Chord Organ, is beautiful and melancholy and deeply layered.   This song, which came out of a long writer's block and a depressed period for the singer/songwriter, makes me think of Mazzy Star, or even a little bit of a Cocteau Twins influence.  It's haunting, and fitting for today..   

Also, the sharp tone shift at about 1:36 will wake you up.              

The Shark In Your Water has made me a pretty big fan of what Flower Face is doing in music, and I find myself listening to her music a lot lately.   This is why I uncorked this one for post #1500.  It took me more than eight years to get to 1000.  It took me a little over two to get to 1500 - and I wanted to feature a great artist I had discovered in that time frame.  

So, I guess I need a new Flower Face post for next March.

Anyway, here she is, performing the song live.  You can see the emotion she brings to the song a lot more clearly here on her face, even as you hear it in her voice.  

1 November 2023 - Wyclef Jean - Gone Till November

I have been waiting for YEARS to post this song.  

It finally happens today. 

Released in 1997, Haitian rapper Wyclef Jean, ex of the Fugees, crafted a laid-back top 10 hit for himself.   

More impressive is the video, which features a cameo from Destiny's Child (who provide backing vocals).  The best part?  Bob Dylan showing up at the very moment he's mentioned in the lyrics - at about 2:27 of the video.

Of course, it being so laid-back and mellow, the song sounds great live and stripped down, with just Wyclef singing and playing guitar like Bob Dylan.

31 October 2023 - Cliff Richard - Devil Woman

If you know me, you know how much I love Halloween.

Not in the slightest.  

But I do love Cliff Richard, and this song, one of his biggest hits - and absolutely his biggest US hit - was a top 10 hit all over the world.  It sold two million copies worldwide, which was a staggering amount even when album and single sales mattered.  

The song is quite literally about a guy bewitched by a cat who goes to a medium - who, as it turns out, was the devil woman responsible for the bewitching in the first place.   There's no metaphor here.  It tells a story.   

30 October 2023 - DJ Casper - Cha-Cha Slide

Did you even know this song had a name?

You might have, but more likely, you have danced to it at a wedding at some point.

Wikipedia says it best.  "As a line dance song, "Cha-Cha Slide" is often played at dance clubs, school dances, prom nights, birthday parties, ice-skating rinks and roller rinks, B’nai mitzvahs, Quinceañeras, weddings, and sporting events....."   

Let's face it.  It's a song with a group dance you don't need to think about much.  Mr. C tells you what to do.  Slide to the left.  Slide to the right.  Everybody, clap your hands.  Even your Aunt Tillie can do that one.

The song ended up being a legitimate chart hit in the early 2000s, all around the world.  It is, however, better known for making your grandma cha cha at your cousin's wedding.  

Sometimes, this song is billed to DJ Casper, and sometimes to Mr. C The Slide Man.  It's the same guy.  Either way, he passed away earlier this year, but his big hit lives on.  

It's such an enduring cultural phenomenon, it was featured on Orange Is The New Black.  Don't worry - Mr. C was there and he was safe.

27 October 2023 - Pink Floyd - Learning To Fly

This song was the lead single from Pink Floyd's 1987 album A Momentary Lapse of Reason, and was primarily written by David Gilmour, like so much of this era of Pink Floyd music.  

The song is often seen as a metaphor for David Gilmour taking over leadership of the band following Roger Waters's departure, and in that sense, it works.  But also, Nick Mason, Pink Floyd's drummer and a pilot, can be heard in the middle of the song, as if on an airplane radio.

The video was largely filmed in the mountains near Canmore, Alberta, which is a place I have been and mountains I have seen.  

The song was a big hit in the US - on the rock and, to a lesser extent, the pop charts.  This was due to a lot of MTV airplay.  It was NOT, however, a hit in their native UK.

In the post-Waters era, this song was a centerpiece of Pink Floyd shows.  It plays spectacularly live.

26 October 2023 - Smashing Pumpkins - Bullet with Butterfly Wings

This is the last Smashing Pumpkins song I remember liking a lot.  I was a huge fan of theirs... for their first two albums.  Then they released the utterly self-indulgent Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness double album.

I was really excited to purchase that album until I heard it.  It was uneven and, well, overproduced.  

But the lead single from that album.... that was - is - a masterpiece.  It opens with Billy Corgan in acapella, as if to punctuate his sentence "the world is a vampire" with James Iha's guitar coming in on the last syllable.  The origins of the song do come from the Siamese Dream sessions, which probably explains why it's so much better than anything else on Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.

It also became a hit song - surprisinging, their first top 40 hit, reaching number 22 on the Billboard charts and rising on other pop and alternative charts worldwide.

This video is the last time Billy Corgan was seen with hair.  That's actually true - he shaved his head soon after the filming.

They did tour in support of this album, but the band self-destructed soon after.  This is a performance from 1995 that seems to interpolate their new sound as well - but it's still a great performance, one of the last with the classic lineup.

The band eventually broke up in 2000 only to reform in 2006 - and went through some lineup changes.  This iteration from 2023 does include the entire classic lineup except for D'Arcy Wretzky, who I , for one, miss - but that reunion is not likely to happen.

Despite using a different bassist, the band still sounds great, nearly 30 years after this song's initial release.

25 October 2023 - T.I. ft. Kanye West, Jay Z, and Li'l Wayne - Swagga Like Us

If you know me in real life, you probably know where I'm eventually going with this post.  

This song is really T.I.'s by title, but it was written by all four artists - and there's a long list of people with songwriting credits on this one, including one Mathangi Arulpragasam, who goes by a stage name we're getting to - the song was written around a sample that includes her voice - and all the members of The Clash - because THAT sample contains a sample of one of THEIR songs.  We'll talk about Ms. Arulpragasam's song at another point.

The song was produced by T.I. and is pretty much nothing but a lot of boasting.  But it's a collaboration of four rap superstars and their massive egos sharing a song.  

The song won a Grammy for best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group - so all four of them are Grammy winners - and was nominated for Best Rap Song - so ALL those songwriters got nominations.

The song has only been performed live by all four of them one time by my knowledge, but here's where the fun of this post starts.

You know how I mentioned that song sampled by them that led to a songwriting credit for Mathangi Arulpragasam?  Well, that song was "Paper Planes", and Mathangi Arulpragasam is better known as M.I.A.  "Paper Planes", as it turns out, was nominated for Record of the Year at the same Grammy Awards as "Swagga Like Us".   

The same ceremony.

So wouldn't it make sense that she'd just do her sample for them live?

Slight issue: the Grammys happened to be on the same night as the night she was due to give birth.  

Which she did, a day and a half later.

So, you'd expect she'd do her little piece from the corner of the stage and rest?

Nope.

She OUTSHINED those four gigantic egos with a massive pregnancy belly in what is arguably the greatest Grammy performance of all time.  She opened with "Paper Planes" and stayed center stage with the 4 of them the WHOLE time.