International
Song of the Day 8/13: Nena, “99 Luftballons”
Guest post by Nathan Arizona A lot of sabers are rattling these days, except nobody uses sabers anymore. The threat from Russia in the Ukraine and maybe China in the Pacific is all about the nukes. It’s a familiar situation, and bands in the ‘80s were really feeling it. Detente with the Soviet Union was […]
Song of the Day 8/7: Nini Music, “LongMa”
I bet when Nancy Pelosi was digging to China as a little girl, she didn’t think she’d find Taiwanese folk metal when she got there. I assume this showed up in my feed because I was reading stories about Taiwan; until a couple of days ago I never even considered that such a genre might […]
Song of the Day 7/23: Queen, “Bicycle Race”
This year’s Tour de France isn’t over, but the winner was determined this morning when teammates Wout van Aert and Jonas Vingegaard finished 1-2 in Stage 20, a 40-km individual time trial. Vingegaard, who’s more than 3 minutes up on pre-race favorite Tadej Pogacar, will wear the yellow jersey when the Tour finishes with its […]
Song of the Day 7/13: Graham Gouldman and Brian May, “Floating in Heaven”
NASA has released the first batch of images captured by the Webb space telescope, and rock’s top astrophysicist, Brian May, has teamed up with 10cc songwriter Graham Gouldman on a new tune to celebrate the occasion. You’ve probably seen this widely reproduced image showing scores of galaxies. What you might not have seen is how […]
Song of the Day 7/7: The Who, “Boris the Spider”
Despite what Pete Townsend says in the introduction, it’s not a very strange song — it was just decades ahead of its time when it debuted on “A Quick One” in 1966. Yeah, sure, it’s supposedly about a spider. He couldn’t very well have called it Boris the Johnson, now, could he? That would have […]
DL Open Thread Friday, June 24, 2022
So what do we call them? The Dingleberry Six? Five Jackoffs and a Jill? The Jan. 6 committee named five congressmen who asked Trump for preemptive pardons over their little putsch, along with hearsay that Madge Taylor Greene did, too. Her response: Nuh-uh, you’re the Nazi. The more interesting news was yesterday’s FBI raid on […]
Song of the Day 5/31: Sex Pistols, “God Save the Queen”
With England set to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee, marking her 70 years on the throne, it seemed like the perfect time to release a TV series about the Sex Pistols’ constantly controversial 2½-year existence, and the tumultuous times the band both caused and reflected — particularly because reactionary governments and social movements again seem […]
Song of the Day 4/29: Kool and the Gang, “Too Hot”
Maybe it’s too common to be news anymore, but the Indian subcontinent is suffering under a brutal heat wave. Temperatures have been 10 degrees above normal for weeks and have reached 112°F. In related news, CO2 levels at Mauna Loa set a new record at over 422 ppm this week. “Too Hot” was the second […]
Song of the Day 4/13: Julian Lennon, “Imagine”
Julian Lennon, now 59 years old, never sang this song for the public until last week, when he released this video, along with this statement. He’s accompanied by Nuno Bettencourt, best known as lead guitarist for Extreme. The War on Ukraine is an unimaginable tragedy… As a human, and as an artist, I felt compelled […]
Song of the Day 4/8: Pink Floyd and Andriy Khlyvnyuk, “Hey Hey Rise Up”
Russia’s unprovoked assault on Ukraine has brought about many unexpected changes. This one is minor, but it made news in the music media: It prompted Pink Floyd to record its first new song in 28 years. Well, not all of Pink Floyd — Richard Wright is dead, and Roger Waters is still, well, Roger Waters,* […]
Song of the Day 3/30: Ray Charles, “What’d I Say”
Joe Biden ad-libbed nine words in his speech in Poland and pundits all weighed in, for or against. I’m only following the story by headlines, but it sounds like Joe didn’t think he’d said anything wrong, and it took a while to convince him to walk it back. So now every pundit is weighing in […]
Song of the Day 3/24: U2, “Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of”
As the Ukraine War grinds into its second month, this seems like a fitting commentary on Vladimir Putin’s predicament. Bono wrote the song, which appeared on the band’s 2000 LP “All That You Can’t Leave Behind,” after the suicide of his friend Michael Hutchence, lead singer of INXS, as an argument against suicide. Seems like […]
Song of the Day 3/21: Бетон (Beton), “Kyiv Calling”
You know how musicians can avoid being sued for copyright infringement? Ask the copyright holders for permission. That’s what Ukrainian punk band Бетон, transliterated as Beton (“concrete” in Ukrainian), did before they repurposed The Clash’s 1979 cri de coeur as an anthem of resistance against the Russian invasion of their country. It was quickly granted. […]
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