Good news for those of you waiting with bated breath for the results of my ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’ poll — today a victor will be crowned!
You’ll also get to (or be forced to, depending on your perspective) hear one more rendition of the song. This one is by My Morning Jacket, from The Music is You: A Tribute to John Denver, an album of covers released in 2013.
U2’s latest album, Songs of Experience, debuted at #1, giving the band #1 hits in every decade since the 80s (they are the first band to achieve that milestone). Many of those sales were the result of a deal that packaged a copy of the album with tickets to their current tour, a gimmick many acts are adopting to boost album sales.
As gimmicks go, it’s not as audacious as the one they tried with their previous album, 2014’s Songs on Innocence, when they automatically uploaded copies of the album to every iTunes customer in the world. That didn’t go over so well.
It’s been almost nine months since Tom Petty died of cardiac arrest brought on by an accidental drug overdose.
One of the drugs, fentanyl, also contributed to the deaths of Prince and Lil Peep. This is certainly the only context in which Lil Peep’s name will ever be mentioned alongside those legends.
My last One Direction selection is the third from 2015’s Made in the A.M., not just the band’s final album but their first after the departure of Zayn Malik. Malik released a successful solo album titled Mind of Mine in 2016 and placed a handful of singles on the charts.
I don’t see any drop-off without Malik — in fact, I’d call Made in the A.M. the band’s best album. Of course, I can’t tell any of these guys apart in the first place so I’m probably not the best judge.
My next One Direction song, like the last one, comes from the band’s final album, Made in the A.M. In fact, all five of this week’s selections appear on the band’s last two albums. This is a band that got better and better as they went.
‘Olivia’ is a straight-up homage to the British Invasion, with a melody and production that would have felt at home on any Beatles album.
Meet Me In Montauk 