For just about every band I’m featuring this week, I can name a maximum of three songs off the top of my head but after that I’m at a loss.
For Blondie, it’s ‘Call Me,’ ‘Heart of Glass’ and ‘The Tide is High.’ I’d probably recognize a couple of others if you played them for me, but I sure can’t come up with them on my own.
In what’s emerging as a theme this week, I present Duran Duran, another 80s band that mostly escaped my radar when I was younger (and to this day).
I loved ‘Hungry Like the Wolf’ but by appreciation of the British New Wave band pretty much started and ended there.
Hall & Oates is another band that has eluded me over the years. I’m certainly familiar with their biggest hits — ‘Sara Smile,’ ‘I Can’t Go For That,’ ‘Kiss On My List,’ ‘Private Eyes’ — but I’ve never owned an album of theirs nor could I tell you much about them.
My most significant exposure to Daryl Hall, in fact, came through his duet with Elvis Costello on the latter’s ‘Only Flame in Town.’
Hall & Oates’ music is often described as blue-eyed soul or white soul, two labels I find hilarious. Does that make Darius Rucker black country?
I’ve completely missed the boat on The Cure, for better or worse. I know almost nothing about them apart from front-man Robert Smith’s resemblance to Edward Scissorhands and a passing familiarity with a few of their most popular songs.
I certainly had no idea that the band had released 15 studio albums dating back to 1979. In fact, 1987’s Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me — the successful album that featured today’s Song of the Day — was The Cure’s ninth release. I didn’t exactly consider them a one-hit wonder but no way did I imagine they had that kind of longevity.
‘Stomach Vs. Heart’ is the bizarre first track of Barenaked Ladies’ bizarre third album, 1996’s Born On a Pirate Ship. This song is a perfect example of the offbeat musical and lyrical sensibility that makes BNL such a love-them-or-hate-them proposition.
Personally, I can’t imagine anybody hating them. But I guess if you are turned off by show-offy, self-aware lyrics and general quirkiness, then you will be turned off by Barenaked Ladies.
