I’ve written quite a bit about my love of the melancholy Frank Sinatra — Only the Lonely, In the Wee Small Hours and all that good stuff.
But it’s hard to deny the appeal of Sinatra’s flip side, the uptempo, jazzy style epitomized on 1956’s Songs For Swingin’ Lovers. This album was the unlikely successor to In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning, making for one of the best one-two punches in music history.
Liz Phair’s 2003 self-titled album was her most commercially successful but her most critically savaged.
Phair is the indie rock queen who was credited with starting a frank, feminist revolution within the alternative music scene through the release of her debut, Exile in Guyville. On this record, she teamed up with pop hit factory The Matrix to record songs that would have felt at home on an Avril Lavigne or Britney Spears album.
No Doubt was one of the great 90s bands, and their Tragic Kingdom one of the great 90s albums.
I didn’t really follow the group much past this record, but it’s impressive to see Gwen Stefani looking even more gorgeous two decades later. Honestly, it’s hard to differentiate the woman in this 1995 video from the woman who coached on the last season of The Voice.
‘You Got the Silver,’ from The Rolling Stones’ classic 1969 album Let it Bleed, is arguably the best song to ever feature Keith Richards on lead vocals.
Richards didn’t steal the mic from Mick Jagger very often — maybe once per album — but on some of his tracks it’s hard to imagine anybody else, even Mick, doing a better job.
Once in awhile it hits me that I’ve been writing this blog for a damn long time.
When ‘Dear John,’ the opening track of Aimee Mann’s excellent concept album The Forgotten Arm, came up as today’s random iTunes selection, I figured I’d featured the record, if not this song, before.
And sure enough, I did… five and a half years ago.
Meet Me In Montauk 