Alby's Latest Posts
Song of the Day 11/8: Quincy Jones, “Soul Bossa Nova”
Quincy Jones scored almost three dozen films, including “In the Heat of the Night,” “The Italian Job” and “The Color Purple.” The first of them came years after he wrote this number, but Mike Meyers turned it into a movie theme anyway. Austin Powers wasn’t even a gleam in a satirist’s eye in 1962 – […]
Song of the Day 11/7: Lesley Gore, “It’s My Party”
The late, great Quincy Jones was arguably overqualified to produce this No. 1 hit for 16-year-old Lesley Gore in 1963. He had already led his own 18-piece jazz band on European tours and worked as a composer, arranger and band leader for people like Frank Sinatra and Count Basie. When he turned his attention to […]
Song of the Day 11/6: Frédéric Chopin, “Piano Sonata No 2 in B flat minor, Third Movement (Marche funèbre)”
Something that fits the mood of the day, because the middle section contains hope as well as grief. Chopin composed the funeral march two years before the rest of his sonata, which critics sniffed at but the public embraced. Its opening section has been played at millions of funerals, including Chopin’s own in 1849.
America Is…
…a 10-year-old kid at the amusement park who went on the roller coaster and threw up, then went on the merry-go-round and didn’t throw up but just went around in circles and it wasn’t exciting. So let’s try the roller coaster again!
DL Open Thread Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024
Ugh. I can’t explain it, other than I guess people enjoy a shit show. Well, they’re gonna get one. The floor’s yours.
Song of the Day 11/5: Counting Crows, “Omaha”
The odds are against it, but thanks to the quirks of the Electoral College, if all the toss-up states break just the right way, the presidential race could come down to Nebraska’s 2nd District – Omaha and its suburbs. Adam Duritz thought it represented middle America on “August and Everything After,” the band’s 7-million-selling debut […]
DL Open Thread Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024
I don’t know who first said this or where it originally appeared, but I’ve seen it referenced a couple of times in recent days, and I think it comes closer to anything I’ve heard to explaining why, win or lose, so many people will vote for Trump. His life is a masterclass in white privilege. […]
Song of the Day 11/4: Huffamoose, “Wait”
WXPN’s David Dye is so impatient for the election to be over he devoted an entire show yesterday to songs about waiting. I had completely forgotten about this one, which reached No. 34 on the Modern Rock chart in 1998. Huffamoose, formed by a quartet of Temple University students in the early ’90s, looked like […]
DL Open Thread Monday, Nov. 4, 2024
See what happens when you don’t pay the paperboy? There’s not much point in linking to news stories this late in the day. Use the space to make your predictions, air your concerns, mock Republicans… the floor’s yours. For those who haven’t seen it, Lewis Black had some advice for those all-important undecided voters.
Different Strokes for Different Folks
Two Monica Beard mailers landed in my mailbox yesterday. At first glance they seemed like duplicates, because both showed her against a pink background on the front, with a list of polling places on the back. But they weren’t the same. The one addressed to the Democrat showed thumbnail headshots of all the Democratic candidates […]
Song of the Day 11/1: The Temptations, “Ball of Confusion (That’s What the World Is Today)”
Another song that sadly hasn’t lost any relevance over the past 54 years. In early 1970 Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong took a hard look at the wreckage of the ’60s and proclaimed it an unholy mess that was flashing by while the band played on. When Motown’s Wrecking Crew recorded it they kept playing […]
Song of the Day 10/31: Camille Saint-Saëns, “La Danse Macabre”
Camille Saint-Saëns was one of the most famous and prolific composers of his day, and his serious works are part of the classical canon, but he’s best known to the general public for this short tone poem. He composed the theme in 1872 as a piano piece to accompany a poem called “Égalité, Fraternité” by […]
Song of the Day 10/30: Garbage, “The Men Who Rule the World”
Joe Biden is getting grief for calling MAGAts “garbage,” which I maintain was just him being polite. Garbage got its name when a friend used the term to describe the music they were playing, an amalgam of every genre extent when it was formed in the early ’70s. They’ve remained popular whenever they’ve reformed over […]
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