31 October 2025 - Michael Jackson - Thriller

The music gods smiled on us when we set the order for this list, which seems arbitrary but is not.

Today, they gave us Indiana, and of course The Jacksons are from Gary.   This includes the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson, who had the biggest selling album of all time.  Its title song is the quintessential Halloween song.  

So yeah, we're doing that today.   

This song has been reentering the Billboard charts year after year.  Last year, it peaked at #20 and I expect it'll do the same this year by the time you read this.   It makes it on the charts everywhere, every year.  The song was huge in the 80s - a disco throwback at the time - and remains huge. 

I was never a huge fan of the song until I saw a live performance.  Michael really knew how to work a crowd, and does so masterfully in this 1998 performance in London.

30 October 2025 - Liz Phair - Supernova

Elizabeth Clark Phair was active on the cross country team and in student government at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois. 

Yep. Not a stage name.

This Grammy-nominated 1994 song, from her 2nd album Whip-Smart, got a fairly large amount of MTV airplay and represented her first visit to the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 78.  Her sweet spot was more the modern rock charts, and this was her biggest hit to date and in fact ever on those charts. 

The song is absolutely an exuberant exclamation of being in love.  

Why yes, she DID say the F word live and didn't just roll her eyes.

The woman literally wrote a song called "Fuck and Run", guys.  Of course she said it live. 

And when it's just her on an acoustic guitar...... yeah, she says it then, too.

But what about on the 2023 tour, celebrating the 30th anniversary of her debut album, Exile In Guyville?  Did she keep it clean?

No.

And, for the record, it opened her encore.  This song wasn't on that album, but since she opens most shows that aren't album tributes with this song, it made sense to play it. 

29 October 2025 - Conway Twitty - It's Only Make Believe

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Conway Twitty.  

That was his original 1958 recording, which would reach #1 on the US Country AND Pop Charts.  He would never make the top 20 on the pop charts again, but would go on to post more than 30 #1s on the country charts through the late 1980.... and made some big hits into the 1990s, right until his death in 1993.  

By the way, if the sound seems Elvis-influenced, it's because The Jordanaires provided background vocals.  It's also in a rockabilly style, which served Twitty well throughout his career. 

Co-written by Jack Nance and Twitty, this song by the Arkansas native would remain his signature song throughout his career. In fact, here he is performing the song in 1990.... a full 32 years after its initial hit run.

Here he is in 1969 performing it.  By the way, his performances are pretty consistent, no? His voice was huge right until the end AND throughout his life. 

He also had a lot of humility about his biggest hit song, and frequently collaborated on covers of it (which ended up being hits in their own right), such as this mid-80's collaboration with Canadian country star Carroll Baker.

28 October 2025 - Alabama Shakes - Hold On

I do love the irony of bands being named after places they are not from.

That, however, is not the case today.  Alabama Shakes are, indeed, from Athens, Alabama. 

This is their only charting song to date in the US - peaking at #93 on the US charts in 2012.  The lead single from their debut album, Boys & Girls, it was also declared the best song of 2012 by Rolling Stone.... and I can't really dispute it.  It's huge. The song is huge.  The guitars are huge.  The vocals are absolutely monstrous.  

Written by Brittany Howard (she's the monstrous vocalist), the song was positively starmaking. 

Just about every live performance sounds exactly like the record.  They're that solid. 

But the end of the SNL performance of this song gives me literal goosebumps.

27 October 2025 - Devo - Whip It

Do you remember where you were when you first saw this video?

Well, this song, the best known one by Akron, Ohio-founded band Devo, is just as surreal and nonsensical as the video.... which leaned into the rumors of a masturbation subcontext in the song (which wasn't there - it was a weird motivational speech for Jimmy Carter). Co-written by Mark Mothersbaugh (the guy with the whip) and Gerald Casale (the guy on the keyboards), they also shared vocal duties.... and I bet you never noticed that there were ACTUALLY two vocalists on this song doing a call-and-response.  

Earlier this year, my sister saw Devo live on what I believe is supposed to be their farewell tour.   They're just as dynamic now as they always were. 

27 October 2025 - The Breeders - Shocker In Gloomtown

Look, if you read Totally Covered, you're going to recognize most of this post. I originally wrote this in 2012.  

The fact is, the most successful band ever to be based out of Dayton, Ohio, is clearly The Breeders.  Best known for their hit "Cannonball", which is a fun song, the group started its adult life - the name was from Kim & Kelley Deal's childhood band - as a collaboration between Kim Deal of the Pixies, Tanya Donnelly from Throwing Muses (both represented in this #AmericanAutumn), and Josephine Wiggs from The Perfect Disaster.  Well, Tanya left to go do Belly (also represented in this #AmericanAutumn), and Kim brought Kelley back to the band to play guitar.

This song is a cover by a song originally performed by Dayton, Ohio's best band, Guided by Voices.  The song was from the 7" - yes, it was on vinyl only - Head to Toe. Look closely in the video, which was shot in Kim's Dayton, OH garage.  The guys peeking in the windows of the garage in disgust?  Guided by Voices.

This was not the only cover on the 7".  A third song - Freed Pig - was also there, a cover of a song by the band Sebadoh.  If you get a chance, check it out - all three songs are among the best The Breeders ever did, including the original title track.

A little footnote to this story - the drummer for the Breeders was Jim McPherson.  He later joined Guided by Voices.

Here's something that wasn't anything I could post in 2012...  the Breeders doing the song live in 2018..... and sounding just like they did in 1994.  

Which is incredible.  I didn't think they'd ever do it live.

27 October 2025 - Guided By Voices - Teenage FBI

Robert Pollard, of Dayton, Ohio, was destined to be a rock star of Grace Potter dimensions. 

(Told ya)

This was the big first single off the 11th GbV album, Do The Collapse.  Known for being a lo-fi band, this album was slick, and produced by Ric Ocasek.  Yes, from The Cars.  This song was huge and had a polished sound - and let Pollard unleash his inner rock star.

Not that it was leashed before this.  But really, this song brings it differently.  Jim McPherson from The Breeders (more on them later) supplies the drums.

That album came out in 1999.

Pollard was still bringing THAT LEVEL of energy in 2019 to his live performances of the song.

By the way - I mentioned that this song was polished and released in 1999, and that's true.  

But also, it was a song that had been retired from their live sets in 1996 - and this is what it sounded like in 1996. 

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....and this is how it sounded in 2013 when they picked it back up again.