Arts and Entertainment
Song of the Day 2/3: Aoife O’Donovan, “Passengers”
El Somnambulo did not include anything from Aoife O’Donovan’s new album “Age of Apathy” in his January new music roundup, so I’ll plug it here. O’Donovan gained attention as frontwoman for the Boston-based neo-bluegrass outfit Crooked Still. This tune doesn’t sound like Crooked Still — more like Belly-era Tanya Donelly, which is more than OK […]
Song of the Day 2/2: Joni Mitchell, “The Circle Game”
Neil Young’s protest against Spotify has found sympathy among some of his old friends. Graham Nash and, more significantly, Joni Mitchell have also asked the streaming platform to remove their music. It appears other artists are taking the opportunity to complain about the service’s stingy fee setup as well. Young and Mitchell go way back, […]
‘Bulo’s Fave Tunes: January 2022
Only one song from last January’s list made it onto my 50 Fave Tunes Of 2021. (It finished at #2, but still…) That will not be the case this time around. A remarkable month for new music. Gee…should I expand this year’s list to, oh, 100? Didn’t think so: Nathan Arizona’s Fave Of The Month?: […]
Song of the Day 1/31: Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, “Pablo Picasso”
Google Maps claims I live an 11-minute walk from the Picasso Museum in the Marais, but if I pace myself to this song it’s more like eight minutes. You can tell from the lyrics that Jonathan Richman is a true art lover. Richman recorded the song in 1972, but it wasn’t released until the first […]
Song of the Day 1/29: Philip Glass, “Freezing”
Though it’s just a trifle amid the long career of minimalist composer Philip Glass, “Songs From Liquid Days” is reportedly among his best-selling albums. For the 1986 album Glass scored lyrics by David Byrne, Paul Simon, Laurie Anderson and Suzanne Vega, who wrote “Freezing.” Vocals are by Linda Ronstadt, accompanied by the Kronos Quartet.
Song of the Day 1/28: Neil Young, “Hey Hey My My (Into the Black)”
For John Kowalko Neil Young refuses to fade away. He pulled his music off Spotify this week after he gave the service an ultimatum: Either you drop Joe Rogan over spreading Covid misinformation or I’m gone. He’s gone, and for an obvious reason: Rogan is the linchpin of Spotify’s highly profitable podcast division, while Young […]
Song of the Day 1/26: Jane’s Addiction, “Been Caught Stealing”
Yeah, I know, the guy is probably suffering from something worse than PTSD, but how could I resist? Besides, I like the song, even if I think Perry Farrell is an odd duck. This video was all over MTV when it came out in 1990 on “Ritual de lo Habitual,” and the song stayed big […]
Song of the Day 1/25: Arcade Fire, “Games Without Frontiers”
I have featured Peter Gabriel’s song about international diplomacy before, but it seems apt today in light of all the recent media saber-rattling. Besides, I had forgotten about this cover Arcade Fire recorded for 2013’s “And I’ll Scratch Yours,” a Gabriel-commissioned project featuring artists whose songs he covered on “Scratch My Back.” The recurrent phrase […]
Song of the Day 1/24: Smith, “Baby It’s You”
“Baby It’s You” was released as a single by first-ballot Hall of Fame groups the Shirelles and the Beatles. But the band who scored the biggest hit with the Burt Bacharach composition (with lyrics by Mack David, Hal’s older brother) was a now-forgotten group called Smith. The band was playing in a Los Angeles bar […]
Song of the Day 1/23: Laura Nyro, “And When I Die”
Readers following the thread spawned by Wednesday’s Song of the Day know that El Somnambulo has no love for the second Blood, Sweat and Tears LP, which spent seven weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart and spawned three No. 2 singles, including this tune, written by a 17-year-old Laura Nyro. Nyro wasn’t […]
Song of the Day 1/22: Naked Eyes, “Always Something There to Remind Me”
Burt Bacharach has written hundreds of songs, most from the 1950s through the 1980s. Of those, 73 have made the US Top 40. This one took the longest to get there. Bacharach wrote it in 1963, when he recorded a demo of it with Dionne Warwick. Two different singles were released in 1964, by two […]
Song of the Day 1/21: Meat Loaf, “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth”
Michael (nee Marvin) Lee Aday, better known by his stage name, Meat Loaf, died yesterday, age 74, just nine months after the death of Jim Steinman, who composed “Bat Out of Hell,” the album that made Meat Loaf a star. That LP, rejected by numerous record companies, is the third-best-selling album in history. An estimated […]
Song of the Day 1/19: Three Dog Night, “Shambala”
Three Dog Night is a band I appreciate a lot more now than back when they were popular, because when they were popular they were also deeply uncool. Listening to them these days it’s hard to understand why. Granted, they didn’t write their own music at a time when singers weren’t considered “artists” unless they […]
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