Here’s a track from Don Henley’s 1984 album Building the Perfect Beast, best known for opening track (and bona fide classic) ‘The Boys of Summer.’
That song was written by Henley and Mike Campbell, but all but one other song on the album was written or co-written by Danny Kortchmar, a frequent collaborator of Henley’s. Kortchmar has the sole writing credit on today’s SOTD. He also co-wrote most of the tracks on Henley’s 1989 follow-up, The End of the Innocence.
This is Michael Penn’s first appearance on the blog in three and a half years, when I named his sophomore album Free-For-All my second-favorite of 1992. Today’s song comes from the same album.
I have a theory on why Penn never became a bigger star. I think his lyrics are just too inscrutable. His one hit, ‘No Myth,’ was easy enough to decipher. “What if I were Romeo in black jeans?” is a great, memorable line that doesn’t make you scratch your head like so many of this later songs.
When today’s random song popped up, I was reminded of how disappointed I was in Counting Crows’ 2008 album, Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings.
The concept was half an album of upbeat songs and half an album of slow ballads. What they ended up with was a Goldilocks selection without anything that was “just right.” The first half was annoying and off-putting while the second half put me to sleep.
This is the second song from The White Stripes’ 2003 album Elephant to show up on Random Weekends in the last month. On that post, I noted that the song was the fourth from Elephant to come up randomly. Now we’re at five — more than a third of the album’s tracks.
‘Black Math’ is Jack White’s spin on “We don’t need no education.” It’s a fast and furious screed against doing what you’re told.
Kanye West has been acting a fool long enough now that it’s easy to forget he released some very good music back in the day.
West’s second album, 2005’s Late Registration, remains the early pinnacle of a career that has gone off the rails due to West’s ego and (on a sadder note) his mental health issues.
Co-produced by Jon Brion, who Kanye discovered through his work on the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind score and Fiona Apple’s second album, Late Registration is still a great listen.
Meet Me In Montauk 