Category Archives: song of the day

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Song of the Day #3,980: ‘Bootylicious’ – Destiny’s Child

My musical landscape was so narrow at the turn of the millennium that Destiny’s Child somehow completely escaped my attention. The trio’s 2001 album Survivor was a massive hit but not one I listened to even once.

One great thing about the streaming era is the freedom it gives you to listen to any number of different genres without the monetary risk. In fact, the more new music you consume the more of a bargain you’re getting for the $10-15 per month you’re spending with Apple, Amazon or Spotify. Back in 2001, I wouldn’t have dropped $12 to buy an R&B album on spec. Today, I’d at least give it a shot.

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Song of the Day #3,979: ‘Darker With the Day’ – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

After counting down my own favorite albums of 2001, I now turn my attention to ten albums from that year that I don’t know well. This is the part of the Decades series that is usually both reassuring and disappointing for me.

The fact is, I almost never unearth any albums in this process that break into my regular rotation. So that tells me I must be doing a pretty good job rooting out the things I like in the first place. But on the flip side, I’d really like to find some new gem that has a real chance of cracking my own list of favorites.

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Song of the Day #3,978: ‘Volcano’ – U2

U2’s 2014 album Songs of Innocence is best remembered as the record Apple uploaded for free to every iTunes user, a move Tim Cook described as “the largest album release of all time.”

It was also a move that revealed just how little relevance U2 had to the new generation, as the predominant reaction by millions of young people was “What the hell is a U2 and why is it on my phone all of a sudden?”

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Song of the Day #3,977: ‘The Day and the Time’ – Shakira

‘The Day and the Time’ is a track from Shakira’s 2005 album Oral Fixation, Vol. 2, an English-language record that was released five months after Fijación Oral, Vol. 1, a Spanish-language counterpart.

Most of the songs on each album are unique, but two overlap. Today’s track is the English-language version of a song called ‘Dia Especial.’ The same music is used but Shakira’s vocal track is replaced.

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Song of the Day #3,976: ‘High Water (for Charley Patton)’ – Bob Dylan

I toyed with some other titles, but I was never in any real danger of not listing Bob Dylan’s Love and Theft as my #1 album of 2001.

This was the Bard’s 29th studio album, in his fifth decade of recording, and it’s as vital and playful as anything he put out in the 60s. He released his meditation on death and aging, Time Out of Mind, a couple of years earlier, and people might have easily mistaken it for a swan song. Instead, Love and Theft suggested it was a rebirth.

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