Category Archives: song of the day

by

Song of the Day #2,935: ‘Love Can Go to Hell’ – Brandy Clark

brandy_clark_big_day_small_townCountry songwriter turned performer Brandy Clark received critical acclaim and modest commercial success with her 2013 debut 12 Stories, an album I called the 7th best of the current decade a couple of years back. It’s that good.

Three years later, Clark has released her sophomore effort, Big Day in a Small Town, and it’s another winner. It has some of the same tricks up its sleeve as 12 Stories — no-nonsense female protagonists, hard-luck stories, gently ribald humor. It could easily be titled 12 More Stories. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Continue reading →

by

Song of the Day #2,934: ‘If I Lost You’ – Garbage

garbage_strange_little_birdsAlt-rock band Garbage was one of my favorite acts of the 90s, releasing three excellent albums between 1995 and 2001. Their blend of grunge and techno felt entirely new during the dawning of the new millennium.

The band waited four years to release their next album, 2005’s Bleed Like Me, and it felt like a step backward. The band must have sensed that, too, because they went on an indefinite hiatus that seemed a lot like a break-up.

Continue reading →

by

Song of the Day #2,933: ‘I Wish I Was’ – Maren Morris

maren_morris_heroI have a few more new albums and songs to cover this week, starting with Hero, the major label debut of Texas native Maren Morris.

The 26 year-old Morris is a new-school country performer in the vein of Kacey Musgraves, with a modern sensibility and a love of pop and hip-hop that reveals itself in between the bars of her otherwise traditional country tunes. She also has a penchant for profanity, about which a New York Times reviewer wrote that “she’s breaking what may be country’s last remaining taboo.” You mean Johnny Cash never dropped an f-bomb?

Continue reading →

by

Song of the Day #2,932: ‘Puttin On the Ritz’ – Rufus Wainwright

rufus_does_judyI was about to write something about thoroughly gay Rufus Wainwright’s decision was to recreate Judy Garland’s Carnegie Hall concert song for song. But the sentiment seemed familiar. And sure enough, two years ago another song from this album popped up on a Random Weekend and prompted that very sentiment.

In fact, I’m pleased enough with the little joke I told then that I am simply going to repeat it now:

Continue reading →

by

Song of the Day #2,931: ‘Schuyler Defeated’ – Hamilton cast

hamiltonToday’s Random Weekend selection is a short transitional track from the Hamilton soundtrack. ‘Schuyler Defeated’ lasts only a minute but, like every song in the Pulitzer and Tony-winning musical, it has plenty to say.

Musically a reprise of show-stopper ‘The Schuyler Sisters,’ this song sees Alexander Hamilton’s father-in-law defeated in the Senate by Aaron Burr, who to this point has been Hamilton’s friend.

Continue reading →