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Song of the Day #510: ‘Let Her Cry’ – Hootie & the Blowfish

I recently watched the Country Music Awards for the first time in my life and was happy to see Darius Rucker win the Best New Artist trophy (the first black performer to do so). It’s funny that a guy who first hit it big 15 years ago is considered a “new artist” but, to paraphrase NBC, he was new to them.

Rucker has had quite a career resurgence in the country genre. His first three singles, like the album they come from, all hit #1 on the country charts. His big voice and easy-going manner are a perfect fit for that audience.

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Song of the Day #509: ‘Apologies’ – Grace Potter & the Nocturnals

I’m sticking with the talent show today and featuring a song I’d never heard by a band I didn’t know existed. That probably applies to half the songs I heard in the talent show, but in this case I was moved to seek out the original track.

The singers were definitely the shakiest group of performers. As anybody who’s seen five minutes of American Idol knows, there are far more people who think they can sing than people who actually can. It takes some combination of guts and delusion to walk out on stage and perform a tuneless version of some recent radio hit.

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Song of the Day #508: ‘Fifteen’ – Taylor Swift

My wife runs an annual talent show at the high school where she teaches and watching it every year is a very stirring experience. It’s wonderful to sit in an auditorium full of 500 screaming kids going absolutely nuts over something my lady put together.

I’m also impressed by the talent onstage, especially the dancers, who perform acrobatic moves and come up with some very clever choreography. The music is mostly hip hop and the crowd knows every song, erupting each time a new beat kicks in. During the most popular songs, the whole room moves like a living thing as hundreds of bodies bounce up and down in unison.

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Shakira – She Wolf

Of all the artists I listen to regularly, Shakira is perhaps the biggest test of my recent conclusion that it’s music — not lyrics — that means the most to me.

For one thing, Shakira’s best work has been recorded entirely in Spanish, so I have very little idea what she’s saying at all (and I don’t care). And second, her English-language songs alternate between generic love proclamations/condemnations and some of the most oddball, head-scratching lyrics you’re likely to find in a contemporary pop song. This is a woman who once titled a song ‘Poem to a Horse.’

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Song of the Day #507: ‘Do You Want to Know a Secret’ – The Beatles

Here’s the “favorite song” from Please Please Me I alluded to yesterday. There’s something so simple and lovely about this tune, which you can say about so many great Beatles songs. And I love the use of the intro before the main melody kicks in… similar to Lennon’s opening to ‘If I Fell.’

George Harrison handled lead vocals on this one. Normally George sang only on the tracks he wrote (about two per album, starting with the band’s second release) but he also handled several of the covers (‘Devil in Her Heart’ is a standout among that group) and occasionally, as in the case of today’s song, John and Paul let him take the lead on one of their compositions.

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