"Volare". And Bobby Rydell's English language version is better known today.
But Domenico Modugno wrote the song. And, in 1958, it spent five weeks at #1 in the US, in THIS version, and was the biggest hit of 1958.. all while remaining faithful to its original Italiamn. To compare, Rydell's version hit #4 in 1960 - this was the bigger hit.
Almost certainly the best-known German language song outside of German, this little warning of the apocalypse was a big hit in the 1980s. Yes, people in the US were singing along to their death from nuclear attack.
And who would blame them?? This song is damned catchy.
In a bit of an oddity, an English language version of the song - slightly changing the narrative to be even a little darker - was released THIS VERSION DID NOT CHART, meaning the US audience preferred not to know what they were singing about, I guess.
Marmello were a K-Pop group with a twist - they played their own instruments. They were a bona fide band. Although they disbanded in 2019, we hope for a comeback, which isn't unprecedented in the K-Pop world - because they actually rocked kind of hard for a K-Pop group. I mean, this ain't metal - it's pop-rock - but it's not usual to see.
Less than three weeks after this single was released, the band reimagined the song, slightly changing the lyrics and title to be a rally song for the 2018 World Cup. It rocks just a little harder.
Gloria Trevi spent almost five years in a Brazilian prison on charges of endangering a minor. She was released due to lack of evidence. She has maintained her innocence (and divorced her DNA-provably guilty husband as a result of this).
My point on mentioning this up front is that she missed several years of her very successful music career, and when she was released from prison, she jumped right back in, feet first. She went away a crooner, and came back an EDM hitmaker - and let's be clear. In Mexico, she was welcomed back with open arms, with this and just about every other single she's released being a pretty big hit there.
In Brazil, not so much.
What did NOT change was Trevi's in-your-face style and bold lyrics, which she exhibits here.
For my English-language speaking audience, the title translates roughly to "Teach me". That is about the limit of the amount of French I speak.
Superbus is a French band, and this was a top 20 hit in that country in 2012. However, the band got its start because their lead vocalist, Jennifer Ayache, came to America to perfect her English, after which she wanted to start a band. I suppose the rationale was that English-language songs would sell better? At any rate, this isn't an English-language song (although some of their stuff is) and it did pretty well.
This song, as is a lot of this band's music, is heavily influenced by 1980's music, with a synthesizer playing a strong role.
This is the 900th post on Wicked Guilty Pleasures. It wasn't supposed to be our 900th post.
In fact, this was not a band I had heard OF before I posted #899 yesterday.
I first heard Charly Bliss on February 18th, 2021. They've been around for several years, but for some reason, I only stumbled upon them today. They are now in heavy rotation. This fun, perky, punky song that contains the line "I bounced so high I peed the trampoline" is perhaps my early favorite.
The band has been compared to Weezer, and I hear it. But they're somehow even quirkier than Weezer, and that's a good thing.
You know that I am going to add a live version of this song, right? From the 2017 Audiotree Music Festival in Kalamazoo, MI, you can see that the whole band is full of cohesive energy, with Eva Hendricks a solid frontwoman, and not just a vocalist.
Also, everything I hear about this band is that they are all very nice.
For all these reasons, I rewrote post #900. And I will revisit this band. They are incredible.
This isn't the first time I've posted about New Jersey Music Hall of Famers The Smithereens.
It IS the first time I have posted my absolute favorite song of theirs. Released in 1994 in support of their album A Date With The Smithereens, the Pat DiNizio-penned song is perfectly on brand for the band, if not a little more grungy. This was because we were living in a post-Nirvana world in 1994, and since Butch Vig - the guy who produced Nevermind - was supposed to produce this album, it makes a lot of sense.
However, a couple of weeks before recording was to start, Vig decided to drop the project, which prompted Capitol Records to drop the band. RCA picked them up quickly, and with great producer Don Dixon - who had produced their first two albums - the album was back on.
The song was far from a big hit, but it is a beautiful, angry, desperate breakup song.
Even though DiNizio has passed away, the band lives on with guest vocalists. Here they are in 2019 with special guest Marshall Crenshaw.
"I don't think so" is a line right out of "Going Back To Cali", and this song was supposedly about LL Cool J's misogyny following an interview Kim Gordon did with him for SPIN Magazine. Read it. It's really cringeworthy.
Clearly, Chuck D was OK coming along for the diss - although he seems to be friendly with LL Cool J.
There are a lot of other LL references in this song, which was Sonic Youth's major label debut. All in all, it's a short, digestible song that introduced the bombast of Sonic Youth to a wider audience, and it was their biggest success to date.
No one was released slow songs in the rap genre in 1988.
No one else was James Todd Smith, either.
This video was instantly in heavy rotation on MTV, and not just because of the Martha Quinn cameo at 3:08. No, it was a cool song. Cowritten by LL Cool J and Rick Rubin, the song was inspired by Rick Rubin's hesitance to move to LA - because he thought the girls would be too sexually forward.
This song did inspire a response, which will be here tomorrow.
In 1985, the Commodores were what those in the music industry may call "past prime." Their charismatic leader, Lionel Richie, had left the band. They hadn't had a hit in a few years. It seemed like they were done.
And then came "Nighshift". Initially, the band didn't want this song, which was a tribute to two legendary singers who had passed far too young in 1984 - Jackie Wilson and Marvin Gaye, to be a single. Their label insisted, and it ended up being not only an R&B but also a pop hit - one of the biggest of their career. It won the Grammy in 1986 for Best Vocal R&B Performance by a Duo/Group, an honor that was well-deserved.
Suddenly, the Commodores were no longer seen as past prime. This song cemented their own legendary status and proved that there was a market for smooth songs like this.
Of course, you can hear the emotion tied to this song in its live performance. On top of being legends, the band KNEW Marvin and Jackie. When Walter Orange sings "he was a friend of mine", he means it. Eagle-eyed listeners will hear Wilson and Gaye lyrics quoted in the appropriate verses.
I wanted to post something appropriate for today. This second single by Canadian superstar Alannah Myles, the follow up to the huge "Black Velvet", seems to be a good choice.
Except... funny story... It was actually her debut single in Canada. In the rest of the world, the other song came first. In her home country, this one did. And THIS song also got the Juno nomination for Single of the Year in 1990 (it lost to "Black Velvet").
Although often forgotten, this song was a top 40 hit. Alannah Myles is no one hit wonder!!!!!! Anyway, enjoy the video that most of the world enjoyed in 1990.
This is one of those songs with two official videos. Here's the Canadian version.
As we started Buffalo Week, we thought we had a pretty good representation of Buffalo music.
We forgot one huge name, featured in the movie Ace Venture: Pet Detective. So, we're including Cannibal Corpse, death metal pioneers from Buffalo, today.
More than thirty years into their career, Cannibal Corpse is still making music, with a new album dropping in April. However, we invite you today to enjoy a classic song by the band.
This song deserves its own post and an explanation.
The Scajaquada Expressway is Route 198, a highway that runs through Buffalo, NY. Buffalo, as you know, is known for its snow (although Rochester and Syracuse both regularly get more, but DO NOT GET ME STARTED). Let's just say that The Scajaquada is not a place you want to be during a blizzard. During the late 1980s, when this song was released, it wasn't a safe highway.
There's all sorts of Buffalo references in this song. All sorts of Buffalo-area schools that you would have heard on a late-1980s school closings announcement on the radio are referenced, as are several popular news personalities from that period.
Oh, one more thing. Thanks to another lawsuit, when the song was reissued as part of their 1993 album Cereal Killer, they had to spell it "Skajaquada", but I refuse. That's not its name. I also preserved the band's original name here.
Shockingly, just as soon as this Buffalo punk band got a little success, Kraft sued them and forced a name change.
No matter. This novelty tune - amazingly about exactly what you think it is, if you've never heard it - was a Top 20 MAINSTREAM POP RADIO hit. Radio played the hell out of this song. When the single was first released in 1992, it was ONLY available on video - it is the first known video single. Although it did get a CD release later, the sales of the video were enough to earn the single Gold certification.
Prepare to be entertained.
The YouTube comments of this live version include the comment "this song is heavier than it has any right to be."
Not wrong.
This performance from 2019 shows that they haven't faded in the quarter century since this was a new song.
I saw John and Mary twice at St. Bonaventure University in the early 1990's - I want to say 1991 and 1992. When I went to that first show,
1) I had John Lombardo sign my copy of Hope Chest by 10,000 Maniacs - the same copy that Natalie Merchant signed and yes, he signed it first.
2) I purchased their first album, Victory Gardens, and yes, they both signed it.
They were both exceptionally nice. And exceptional performers.
When I went to that second show, they BOTH remembered my name. And were happy to see me.
Now, technically, I saw them a 3rd time at St. Bonaventure, in 1995, after Natalie Merchant left 10,000 Maniacs and that band appeared essentially with John and Mary instead of Natalie - a lineup that pretty much has stuck to this day (John is only a part-time member and Mary did leave the band for awhile), so there's not a lot of John and Mary music anymore, but they don't not exist and they still make music together.
This was their debut single and the song they opened with at that first show.
10,000 Maniacs formed in Jamestown, NY in the 1980s and quickly made a name for themselves on the Buffalo music scene, eventually getting a major label record deal and a broader audience.
This was the band's 4th single from their 1987 album In My Tribe, and despite the heaviness of the song, it was a minor hit for the band. Natalie Merchant and Peter Buck wrote the song, from the point of view of someone seeing a neighbor's child being abused.
The band still performs the song live, with Mary Ramsey on the microphone now. It's still just as poignant.
If you live in Western New York, you know who Ani DiFranco is. She's one of the first artists to eschew major label flirting with her and go off in her own direction.... and still remained financially viable and visible to big names in Hollywood. While she left Buffalo many years ago, that is where she grew up and recorded much of her earlier music.
A lot of times we post the first hits by bands. This was one of the last songs by the Goo Goo Dolls that wasn't a gigantic hit - and on the first album where Johnny Rzeznik was primary lead vocalist (he had previously been an occasional vocalist and fulltime guitarist), which set up the big stardom to come. This song is far more straight-ahead rock and less acoustic-driven than their later hits, but that doesn't make it bad. Lyrically, it is a song of despair and anguish over a breakup.
Primarily filmed at what was Pilot Field in downtown Buffalo, NY, the band's hometown, the band's first ever video serves as a tribute to Buffalo, showing a lot of familiar sites around the city (yes, I can mentally drive the first few seconds of the video). Bit of an "inside baseball" fact for someone who spent a fair amount of growing up in the Buffalo area - at 2:27, the video is filmed ON the border between the United States and Canada - something of a no-man's land, between the two flags on the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls.
So, since they're big hit makers, I'm sure they don't play their old stuff anymore, right?
My mother would have been 74 years old today. She passed away last year, in March, after a long battle with a disorder known as posterior cortical atrophy, so this is my family's first birthday of hers without her. As something of a tribute, I felt it right to pay tribute to a band she enjoyed.
As a kid, and really, into adulthood, my mother's favorite band was The Beach Boys - she was a teen in the 1960's, after all. Now, as a kid, I heard songs like "Surfin' USA" and "California Girls" and thought they were kind of cheesy. As I grew older, though, I realized how difficult such harmonies could be, and I, too, gained an appreciation for them.
And then I discovered Pet Sounds. That is an amazing album, and if you haven't listened to the audio experimentation that's going on there, you need to go listen to it now. It's an incredible albums - Brian Wilson's masterpiece. That album helped me appreciate the earlier AND later works of the band as well.
This song, co-written by Brian Wilson and Tony Asher, opened Side 2 of Pet Sounds and is regarded by many as the greatest song ever written. This version, which was a top 40 hit, featured rare vocalist Carl Wilson on lead, which was a stroke of additional genius in an already great song.
Of course, the song became a live staple. Here is the band performing the song in 1980, the last time the original members of the band (Brian, Carl, and Dennis Wilson, along with Al Jardine) would appear on a UK stage together.
Kind of. Shakira and will.i.am were working on this song in 2008, and finally got around to recording and releasing this fantastic, strangely intimate collaboration. How many callbacks to old Shakia songs do you hear? How many times is apl.d.ap using terrible Spanish? All we know is, it's a fun song.
The song is presently on the Billboard charts, as we write this, #35 with a bullet. The video was filmed in Los Angeles (the Peas) and Barcelona (Shakira), and yet it looks like they're in the same room.
The mid-90's brought us a lot of angry-sounding female singer-songwriters, largely due to the appeal of Liz Phair. Yep, I'm giving the credit to Liz. Fight me in the comments.
Some were excellent. Some were awful.
Poe managed to stand out from that crowd by bringing members of Suicidal Tendencies and Guns 'n' Roses into the studio with her. Her music was - is - borderline experimental folk-punk. Her first big single was "Trigger Happy Jack", a justifiably angry song that makes what I think is a pretty obvious statement in the chorus.
One great thing about Poe is that she is just as emotive live as she was on video. Watch her throw her whole body into this performance.
Believe it or not, this instrumental classic was written for a TV show.... by a comedy writer. The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was the show, and Mason Williams was the head writer. Williams wanted the song to be fuel for the classical guitar, so he titled his piece "Classical Gasoline". It was abbreviated on the call sheet as "Classical Gas", and that's the title that stuck.
The Smothers Brothers were interested in launching new musicians on their show, and so they gave Mason a chance to perform his song... which he did in 1968. The song ended up being a massive hit, reaching #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also earned Williams a couple of Grammys - the song won three total.
He's backed on vinyl by famed session musicians The Wrecking Crew, and on the show by the Smothers Brothers Orchestra - I think it was an orchestra? - and it's still so dense and layered and beautiful today.
Tom Cochrane was already a star in Canada when this song become an absolutely gigantic hit. But it almost didn't happen.
Cochrane used to be the lead vocalist and songwriter for a band called Red Rider, and he wrote a song called "Love Is A Highway". The band never recorded it, because he considered it unusable...
...but picked it back up a few years later for his 1991 solo release Mad Mad World, retitled and retooled. It was a fun and happy song that became a huge worldwide hit.
When Mad Mad World was reissued for its 25th anniversary, Cochrane included the original demo on the album. You can hear that it's a very different song, but also, you can hear where the big hit came from.
