Arts and Entertainment
Song of the Day 6/3: Gladstone, “A Piece of Paper”
June 1 marked the 25th anniversary of the launch of Napster, the file-sharing network that destroyed the music industry as everyone knew it. Stories marking the date mostly focus on the its negative effects on artists and record labels, but a few acknowledge why it spread so fast and so far – it was the […]
Song of the Day 5/31: Nazareth, “Guilty”
Yes, that’s Scottish rockers Nazareth covering Randy Newman on their breakthrough 1975 LP, “Hair of the Dog.” The tune, from Newman’s controversial “Rednecks” album of the year before, got lots of blues covers back then, notably by Bonnie Raitt and Joe Cocker. Though Nazareth is lumped into the hard rock genre, it covered lots of […]
‘Bulo’s Fave Tunes: May, 2024
My kind of month. Tons o’ diversity. So many cool songs that I’m calling an audible and releasing this list two days early–already have a couple for June in the can: I know, I know. Had one of her songs on here last month. I like this one more: My kind of newgrass! Do we […]
Song of the Day 5/29: Gotye, “Somebody That I Used to Know”
This song has been having a moment – I’ve heard it recently not only on the radio but on the supermarket muzak, and it showed up in my YouTube feed. I thought this was just the random output of an algorithm that decided the No. 1 hit of the year in 2012 was ripe for […]
Song of the Day 5/28: Iron Butterfly, “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida”
Doug Ingle, who wrote, sang and played organ on “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida,” Iron Butterfly’s iconic 1968 hit, died last week at age 78. Ingle was the last surviving member of the lineup that recorded it. The 17-minute title track took up one entire side of the band’s second album and was a lot better known back in […]
Song of the Day 5/27: Richard Sherman, “Feed the Birds”
Richard Sherman, who died last week at 95, penned the lyrics to hundreds of Disney songs from 1960 to 1973 while he and his composer brother, Robert, were employed as staff songwriters for the studio. They churned out the songs for more than a dozen films, both animated and live-action, while also finding time to […]
Song of the Day 5/24: Amy Winehouse, “Love Is a Losing Game”
Guest post by Nathan Arizona We’ve heard a whole lot about Amy Winehouse’s troubled behavior before she died of alcohol poisoning in 2011 at age 27. It sounds like we learn more than we need to about her personal relationships in the new biographical movie “Back to Black.” But you know what would good to […]
Song of the Day 5/23: Paul Simon, “Graceland”
For supermarket tabloids, Elvis is the gift that keeps on giving, even though he’s been dead for nearly 50 years. A headline the Weekly World News might have invented declared that Graceland, Presley’s Memphis mansion-turned-tourist attraction, was up for public auction. A finance company claimed Lisa Marie Presley died with an unpaid loan of $3.8 […]
Song of the Day 5/22: Pixies, “Monkey Gone to Heaven”
Theme music for the heat dome over Mexico that’s causing monkeys to fall dead from the trees. Black Francis wrote “Monkey Gone to Heaven” about the environment 35 years ago, before we even knew about global warming (thanks, Exxon!), so his examples of degradation are ocean dumping and the ozone layer. The latter part of […]
Song of the Day 5/20: King Willonius, “Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Body”
It’s not exactly life imitating art, more like reality imitating reality TV, but the Catfightin’ Congresswomen of Washington could be the hottest new show in the capital. In last week’s episode, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Domestic Longhair) told Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Abyssinian) that Crockett couldn’t see through her false eyelashes. Crockett responded by referencing a […]
Song of the Day 5/19: Dolly Parton, “9 to 5”
Dabney Coleman, who died last week at 92, was best known for playing arrogant, venal characters in movies and television, especially during the ’80s, when he starred in the sitcoms “Buffalo Bill” and “The Slap Maxwell Story” and the movies “Tootsie” and the one mentioned at the top of every obit, “9 to 5.” Though […]
Song of the Day 5/17: Childish Gambino, “Redbone”
Actor Donald Glover has been busy the last several years, notably by playing Lando Calrissian in a Star Wars prequel and starring in an Amazon Prime series, a remake of “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” that Glover created himself. His hip-hop alter ego, Childish Gambino, had rarely surfaced after the unfortunately timed album dubbed “3.15.20” was […]
Song of the Day 5/16: Louis Prima, “I Wanna Be Like You”
The sad spectacle of Trump’s gaggle of suckups convening outside his trial in New York – in matching outfits, no less – made me think of this tune from Disney’s 1967 animated “Jungle Book.” The Disney people had to pitch the idea to Prima, who responded, “You want to make a monkey out of me? […]
Recent Comments