23 December 2024 - Tate McRae - It's ok I'm ok

So, if you look at my Spotify Wrapped, you'll see an artist that looks like something of an outlier.

Tate McRae. 

And yet this Calgary native is out there, making music that's giving us all Britney Spears flashbacks. Of course, the video is just as campy as the music as well.  

By the way, she writes her own stuff, which is impressive.  The song is about a woman who is very happy to see her ex is not with her anymore - and she's warning the new girlfriend.  It's a clever song. 

The song was a top 20 hit in the US and a worldwide hit overall.  Which is great.  The song is damn catchy. 

The way she debuted this song was kind of crazy.  It was just an encore she pulled out during a show at Madison Square Garden - completely out of left field.  No one saw it coming.  Except, I assume, her dancers and other tour crew.  Her record label.  Her management.

OK, I didn't see it coming.

20 December 2024 - Cindy Lee - If You Hear Me Crying (and Diamond Jubilee)

Yesterday, I said the consensus best album of 2024 was Brat. 

That's kind of true.

The reason that's only kind of true is because Diamond Jubilee, the two hour magnum opus of Cindy Lee, a stage name/persona of Pat Flegel, is kind of challenging that wisdom.  It was not released via traditional streaming channels (which is slightly annoying) - it's on Bandcamp and of course YouTube (without ads!!!).  It's really great and worth checking out. 

Oh, you don't want to seek it out yourself?  Fine.  Here's the ENTIRE Diamond Jubilee album.  

Although Flegel is Calgary-based, that album cover photo was taken in Lethbridge.  Fun fact. 

19 December 2024 - Charli XCX - 360

OK, let's address the elephant in the room.  

At the end of each year, I look at a lot of year-end Top 100 Albums lists.  

The consensus #1 this year is Brat.

Where you all were when I was all about True Romance, I don't know. But Brat is an excellent album, and I'm glad Charli is finally breaking through with a good album. 

You know, I used to post a LOT of her music.  

(And yes, normally I am listening to the song I'm writing about while I am writing about it, but right now, I'm listening to "Nuclear Seasons").

I'm not gonna lie.  A lot of her music in the middle, I did not like, including at least one song I posted on ths blog.  This writer's opinion is that Brat is her best album since at least Pop 2 and probably Sucker. 

This was the 2nd single from Brat, and a pretty solid hit worldwide.  The video features Ms. Aitchison not taking herself too seriously, which is endearing and not the first time she's taken that approach. 

When she hosted SNL, she didn't take herself too seriously, either.  And clearly singing it live. And, by the way, having literal Julia introduce her here is so Julia. 

18 December 2024 - Kendrick Lamar - Not Like Us

For the rest of the year, we're going to highlight some of the biggest and most acclaimed albums of 2024.  

Kendrick Lamar - an artist I have struggled to get into, because I know critics love him - came with an album that was a consensus top 10 - GNX.  But his biggest hit of 2024 was a non-album track, all about Drake.  

It's not a positive review of Drake.  It is, in fact, a pretty harsh criticism concerning allegations of pedophilia and sexual misconduct.

But damn, it's a catchy and sharp song.  And it's on pretty heavy rotation for me now. 

Lamar is pretty up-front about his hatred of Drake, and he doesn't shy away from performing this song.  Take this LA performance from earlier this year, when he performed it FIVE TIMES IN A ROW.

17 December 2024 - Danna Paola - 1Trago

Yes, I watched Élite right until the end, and yes, it was a huge letdown at the end, although I *loved* the very ending. 

I mention this because, as I have mentioned previously, Danna Paola acted on that show for several seasons. Her performance as Lu was underrated and transcendent and should have made her a global star.

Thankfully, her music has done exactly that. Her latest album, Childstar, an allusion to the fact that she was, indeed, a child star, is a platinum-selling hit in her native Mexico.  If you are watching a Latin American Spanish version of the movie Wicked, you'll also recognize her as the voice of Elphaba, a role she also played on the stage (at age 18, already pretty deep into her career).

But can we just sit back and appreciate the banger?  It doesn't matter if you don't speak Spanish.  It rules.   

16 December 2024 - Adina Howard - Freak Like Me / Girls On Top - We Don't Give A Damn About Our Friends / Sugababes - Freak Like Me

It's been a while since I did a special post like this.   But when I was reminded of this Adina Howard classic (more on how I was reminded in a second), I remembered how sexy and hot and freaky this song was. Relying heavily on George Clinton and Bootsy Collins samples, the song just slaps.

It was also a HUGE hit in 1995, reaching #2 on the US pop chats and charting similarly worldwide. 

In 2001, producer Richard X put together a bootleg mashup that combined Adina Howard's song with Tubeway Army's "Are Friends Electric".  He released it under an alias, Girls On Top, and called it "We Don't Give A Damn About Our Friends".   It became a huge underground hit. 

Adina Howard was not a fan of releasing this version commercially, which Richard X wanted to do.  

So, he called the Sugababes.  

Who recorded this. 

It was well recieved in the UK, where it was a #1 hit.  

Now, for some reason, the Spotify AI DJ thought I would want to hear this song last week, and boy, was the Spotify DJ.... spot on.  It made a hot and sexy song so much better.

By the way, Sugababes are still together, and performing, and getting a bit of a bump. Here they are performing live this summer at Wembley Stadium. 

 

Adina Howard is also still performing her song live, as she did last summer in Rochester, NY.  Sure, it isn't Wembley, but hey, it's still pretty awesome. 

13 December 2024 - Jenny Owen Youngs - Hot In Herre

On my Spotify Wrapped, this cover of a Nelly classic is #79.

It has, in fact, been in pretty heavy rotation for me for YEARS.

And yet, this was NEVER posted.  On EITHER blog.  

You know my new rules - covers can live here, too.  

I think this song really translates incredibly well to acoustic guitar. 

Here's what I really love about this: Jenny sings it so earnestly.  She's got some respect for the source material.  She doesn't shy away from the curse words, especially live, which is an even livelier version that I love even more. 

By the way, the full band version also works.