This Elvis Costello track shows up on one of the reissues of his 1983 album Punch the Clock.
It’s a testament to the depth of Costello’s catalog that a song this good can end up as a forgotten B-side, and also that after months of Costello Weekends, plenty of Random Weekend appearances, and a bunch of other Song of the Day posts, I still have to much great material of his to mine.
I started listening to Pink sometime in the late 2000s, when her latest album Funhouse was charting well and receiving a lot of critical acclaim.
I also enjoyed her next album, 2012’s The Truth About Love, but after that I stopped keeping up with her releases. She has dropped two studio albums since then that struggled to find an audience. Last year’s Hurts 2B Human hasn’t even cracked 100,000 U.S. sales, while most of her earlier releases were in the millions.
Continuing my ranking of Taylor Swift’s albums…
Taylor Swift’s sophomore effort, 2008’s Fearless, turned her into a major star and remains her best-selling album to date, reaching Diamond status and selling more than 12 million copies worldwide. It was the best-selling album by anybody that year, making Swift the youngest artist in history to achieve that feat.
This album starts off like gangbusters but begins to falter after its midpoint. Five of the first six tracks made the cut for me, but only one of the last seven.
Before I start my ranking of Taylor Swift’s seven albums, a few words on my methodology.
First, I listened to all seven albums in chronological order. Some I know quite well; others were relatively new to me. I then listened to them again, and eliminated the songs from each that I either dislike or don’t deem necessary. Luckily, I ended up with a different number of surviving songs from each album, giving me a nice ranked list.
The second Taylor Swift non-album track I’d like to highlight is ‘New Romantics,’ a bonus cut from 1989.
Like the rest of that album, ‘New Romantics’ eschews Swift’s country-pop sound for pure pop, embracing the 80s influence referenced in the album’s title.
I’m not sure why this song didn’t make the album’s final tracklist. It’s one of her very best efforts. I guess it’s smart to hold back some really good material in order to sell the deluxe edition.
Meet Me In Montauk 