Arts and Entertainment
Song of the Day 9/5: Smash Mouth, “All Star”
Steve Harwell, the longtime lead singer for Smash Mouth, died Monday of liver failure brought on by years of alcoholism. He was 56 years old and had been in bad shape for a decade, several times appearing inebriated and disoriented on stage. He quit the band after a particularly ugly incident in 2021. Smash Mouth […]
Song of the Day 9/4: Aretha Franklin, “Muddy Water”
When the news broke about Burning Man 2023 turning into a soggy hellscape, did anyone feel anything but schadenfreude? Like most things that start out being the province of the cool kids, this annual gathering in the Nevada desert had long since become bogged down with rich people pretending to be cool kids, so it […]
Song of the Day 9/2: Jimmy Buffett, “A Pirate Looks at 40”
Summer’s over, all right. Jimmy Buffett, who founded a billion-dollar fortune with a humorous break-up song featuring a popular cocktail, died yesterday at age 76. Along the way he founded two restaurant chains, wrote two novels and a memoir, topping both the fiction and nonfiction New York Times best-seller lists, and lent the Margaritaville moniker […]
Song of the Day 9/1: Len Barry, “1-2-3”
Here’s some blue-eyed soul one for your Friday night dance party. Len Barry was the lead singer for the Dovells, the Philadelphia doo-wop group who reached No. 2 in 1961 with the “Bristol Stomp.” He left for a solo career in 1963 and scored another No. 2 hit in 1965 with this tune by John […]
Song of the Day 8/31: Graham Nash and David Crosby, “Frozen Smiles”
Mitch McConnell’s freeze-up yesterday seems like a gift for all those people who wished something would shut him up, but it’s also a reminder – and old people need them often – of what you get with a Government of Grandpas. When Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young broke up in 1971, each of the quartet […]
‘Bulo’s Fave Tunes: August, 2023
Quality and quantity. Let a few good ones go since I didn’t want this to be too unwieldy: Betcha weren’t expecting this. I wasn’t: Power pop doesn’t suck: A great artist–and a reassuring presence. He’s been away too long, thrilled he’s back: This music soothes me: Kids, before even WMMR, there was a brief period […]
Song of the Day 8/30: The Wonder Stuff, “The Size of a Cow”
I swear this isn’t a reference to Donald Trump, though it could be. Not because he’s the size of a cow – hey, give him his due, he’s a 6’3″ monument to unearned male vanity – but because, like the song’s narrator, he’s blown up his problems that big. The Wonder Stuff came out of […]
Song of the Day 8/29: Big Star, “The Ballad of El Goodo”
Power pop was, in a way, the first alternative rock. In the early ’70s, a time when the heavy rock of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple was ascendant, three bands assembled power pop from the discarded sounds of the second British invasion and the Byrds. Badfinger and the Raspberries actually sold some records at the […]
Song of the Day 8/28: Al Green, “Perfect Day”
Soul legend Al Green hasn’t released an LP since 2008 or a single since 2018, so he got a lot of attention last week when he dropped a cover of the Lou Reed classic “Perfect Day.” At 77, he’s still got a fine instrument, even if he reaches for fewer high notes than you might […]
Song of the Day 8/26: Vince Gill, “Danny Boy”
Guest post by Nathan Arizona If country music is leaving a poor taste in your mouth thanks to Jason Aldean’s confrontational “Try That in a Small Town” or Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond,” you can cleanse your palate with another newly-released song by a country artist, a song about as beloved as any […]
Song of the Day 8/25: Santana feat. Michelle Branch, “The Game Of Love”
You can better understand the sentiment behind the line “hope I die before I get old” when you see what reactionaries some of rock’s elder statesmen have become. Eric Clapton and Van Morrison revealed themselves – well, re-revealed themselves – as selfish twits during the Covid crisis. Now Carlos Santana has come out, mid-concert, as […]
Song of the Day 8/24: The Tubes, “She’s a Beauty”
The biggest surprise about the right-wing freakout over drag queens is that they haven’t yet shifted the focus to porn. If they’re going to get upset over men putting women’s clothes on, imagine their reaction to women taking their clothes off. Maybe they’re just so accustomed to sex being used to sell everything else that […]
Song of the Day 8/23: The Specials, “You’re Wondering Now”
The stories about all those Jan. 6 co-conspirators crying the blues about their legal bills … as someone put it, they signed up for fucking around, not finding out. As always with Trump, the finding out involves being stuck with the invoice. The Specials popularized this 1964 ska tune by seminal producer Coxsone Dodd (credited […]
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