This is the third song from Maria McKee’s Life is Sweet to pop up on Random Weekends. Given that this is the only album of hers I own, 12 songs in total, that’s statistically more significant than the fifth random White Stripes song posted yesterday.
Each time a song from this album has surfaced, I’ve had the same reaction, finding it edgier and more intriguing than I expected.
The Random iTunes Fairy has a thing for The White Stripes. Though I have only three of the band’s albums in my library, they have now shown up five times as Random Weekend selections, with four of those selections coming from the celebrated 2003 album Elephant.
None of those songs were ‘Seven Nation Army,’ the band’s most enduring classic, so I guess the Random iTunes Fairy has a thing for deep cuts, too.
Barenaked Ladies’ 2003 album Everything to Everyone was a bit of a stumble following the successes of Stunt and Maroon. While the band’s previous five albums had reached Gold or Platinum status in either Canada, the U.S., or both, this one failed to sell very well in either country.
In fact, no subsequent BNL album would reach those heights either, making this album a real turning point in the band’s career.
At their best, Random Weekends brings songs to my attention that I have long forgotten. Such is the case with today’s selection.
I’ve loved XTC’s 1986 album Skylarking since I was first introduced to it during my freshman year of college (by none other than frequent commenter Dana). Produced by Todd Rundgren, this album is as fine an example of British experimental pop as you’ll ever hear.
The lead-off track of Belle & Sebastian’s 1998 album The Boy With the Arab Strap, ‘It Could Have Been a Brilliant Career’ is a classic example of the band’s early style. I’ll stack the music on B&S’s first three albums against pretty much anything ever.
Nobody does acoustic melancholy like the Scottish septet. They later expanded their sound, branching into pop and even dance music quite successfully, but for me this will always be the quintessential Belle & Sebastian sound.
In the year of A Star is Born and an inevitable Best Actress nomination for Lady Gaga, it’s a little wild to get served up this track from her 2011 album Born This Way.
Gaga has had one of the most interesting and surprising career trajectories ever. From techno pop and avant garde performance art to Tony Bennett duets, soft rock and award-season movie roles.
Brad Paisley has written some of the best love songs I’ve ever heard. ‘Then,’ ‘Little Moments,’ ‘She’s Everything,’ ‘The World,’ the list goes on and on.
So it’s a shame that today’s track, from Paisley’s 2017 album Love and War, doesn’t live up to its predecessors. It sounds to me like somebody trying to write a Brad Paisley love song but not quite hitting the mark.
