It’s been more than ten years since I last featured a song by Owsley, the stage name of singer-songwriter and power pop savant Will Owsley. I dedicated three posts to him in October of 2010 after learning that he had died by suicide in April of that year.
Reading those posts now, I was amused to see frequent commenter Dana lamenting the lack of Jackson Browne songs on the blog. He finally got his wish a decade later!
Today wraps up a surprisingly decent two weeks of ‘What the Kids Are Listening To.’ It might be my imagination, but I feel like the top of the Billboard Hot 100 has gotten more listenable over the past couple of years.
I’m skipping this week’s #10 (Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Drivers License’) and #11 (The Weeknd’s ‘Blinding Lights’) because I’ve already featured them. That brings me to #12, which is Rodrigo again with her second single, ‘Deja Vu.’
Cardi B made history with ‘Up,’ the song currently at #9 on the Billboard Hot 100.
When the track hit #1 earlier this year, it made her the first female rapper in history to score two solo #1 hits. The first, of course, was her breakout ‘Bodak Yellow.’ Whatever you think of her music (and I don’t think much of it), you have to give her credit for breaking new ground.
Australian rapper Masked Wolf finds himself at #8 on this week’s Billboard Hot 100 with ‘Astronaut in the Ocean,’ a song he initially dropped back in 2019.
Why is it in the top ten in May of 2021, you ask? Thank TikTok.
TikTokkers the world over have used the song’s chorus to soundtrack videos of weddings, parkour, water-sports, and even welding.
I’m a couple of months late to the ‘MONTERO’ conversation. I never wrote about the Satan sneakers or the devil’s lapdance, or anything else about Lil Nas X’s second #1 single that got the religious right so flustered.
To paraphrase one YouTube commenter, it’s funny how homophobes told Lil Nas X he would burn in hell, and now they’re mad when he takes their advice.
Meet Me In Montauk 