Song Of the week Archives | Page 30 of 39

125: Bee Gees, ‘Holiday’

I say ‘The Bee Gees’ and you snicker. But before these three white Australian brothers started sounding like three black American sis-tahs, they were compared favorably with, ahem, The Beatles. The Brothers Gibb – Incarnation #1.

136: James Taylor, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel – ‘Wonderful World’

What happens when three of the finest singers of our times get together to record a pop paean to pimply passion?

131: Nickel Creek, ‘Somebody More Like You’

Children – anyone under thirty – should be seen, not heard. It’s unreasonable that Newgrass whippersnappers as young as Nickel Creek should absorb entire traditions, from bluegrass to country rock, and forge a mature, refined, sophisticated style all their own. And they’re just the tip of the ice cream cone.

November 22, 2018 by jeff New Acoustic Rock Song Of the week 2

130: Thelonious Monk, ‘Let’s Call This’ (Monk’s Advice to Lacy)

You talk about a different drummer? Thelonious Monk inhabited a not-so-parallel universe. He played very few notes, and those unpredictable. Metronomes were witnessed imploding in his presence. He pounded the keyboard with extended, flat fingers. He got up in the middle of a song to dance. He wore funny hats. Sometimes he just refused to talk. But he gave soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy some unforgettable advice about how to be a ‘cool’ musician. Or maybe about How To Be. “A genius is the one most like himself,” Monk says. Clearly, Monk was exactly like Monk.

November 15, 2018 by jeff Jazz Song Of the week 4

122: George Harrison (The Beatles), ‘You Know What to Do’ b/w Buddy Holly, ‘You’re the One’

So you thought (as I did) that you know every George Harrison/Beatles recording and every post-puberty Buddy Holly recording? Here are two you don’t know. And you just may have a hard time telling them apart.

October 25, 2018 by jeff Rock Rock and Roll Song Of the week 3

129: Franz Schubert, ‘Death and the Maiden’

In Renaissance art, the Death and the Maiden allegory depicted irresistible Death seducing a hot virgin without any clothes—think of a slasher movie directed by Ingmar Bergman. In young Franz Schubert’s string quartet, this motif becomes a hyper-energized meditation on his impending demise.

October 18, 2018 by jeff Classical Song Of the week 6

119: Tom Harrell, ‘Train Shuffle’

Loath as I am to resort to gimmickry, it’s hard to ignore the back-story of trumpeter Tom Harrell’s paranoid schizophrenia. He hears voices, maintains ‘a tenuous contact with reality’, is heavily medicated, and speaks like a zombie who’s just seen a ghost. Until he puts his horn to his lips, when he’s instantly and magically possessed by an utterly coherent aesthetic expressiveness.

September 27, 2018 by jeff Jazz Song Of the week 8

160: Smokey Robinson & Aretha Franklin, ‘Ooh Baby, Baby’ (Live)

Two remarkable voices from the same ‘hood, Smokey and Aretha, velvet and steel, a magical meeting in a magical song. It’s not chemistry, it’s alchemy. Watch it and say a little prayer of thanks for being present at the creation.

August 16, 2018 by jeff Rock Rock and Roll Song Of the week 9