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Song of the Day #5,731: ‘Eternal Sunshine’ – Ariana Grande

In the mid-2010s I was briefly an Ariana Grande fan. I was particularly enamored of her 2014 album My Everything and its follow-up, 2016’s Dangerous Woman. Dangerous Woman, in particular, is a stellar pop collection.

Then, between 2018 and 2020, Grande put out three straight albums that left me cold. Sweetener was fine but unremarkable. Thank U, Next, despite its massive sales and trio of hit singles, went in a direction I just couldn’t follow. I barely listened to Positions. I pretty much wrote her off.

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Song of the Day #5,730: ‘Deeper Well’ – Kacey Musgraves

Kacey Musgraves won an Album of the Year Grammy for 2018’s Golden Hour, a wonderful blend of moody pop and her gentle country sound. It was her third strong release in six years (not including a Christmas album), and at the time it looked like she was on her way to superstardom.

Her 2017 marriage to singer Ruston Kelly ended in divorce in 2020, prompting a break-up album that promised to be a real beauty. Instead, 2021’s Star-Crossed was a muddled misfire, an artsy album that shared none of the DNA that made her earlier work so compelling.

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Song of the Day #5,729: ‘Capricorn’ – Vampire Weekend

The upcoming album I’m most excited about is Vampire Weekend’s Only God Was Above Us, the indie band’s fifth release and first since 2019’s Father of the Bride.

Not only is this one of my favorite bands, but I was completely unaware they were recording new material, let alone that an album was due in early April. What a welcome surprise!

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Song of the Day #5,728: ‘Texas Hold ‘Em’ – Beyoncé

After five weeks of movie posts, I’m ready to get back to music. It turns out a lot of new songs have been released over the past couple of months, and I’ll dedicate the next two weeks to catching up with some of them.

I have to start with Beyoncé, who used a Super Bowl Verizon ad to announce her upcoming album. Act II (full title to come) is a follow-up to 2022’s Act I: Renaissance, and the second installment of a planned trilogy. While Renaissance paid tribute to the Black Queer house and disco music of the 70s, this one is a country album, paying tribute to the “overlooked history of the American Black cowboy.”

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Song of the Day #5,727: ‘Thriller’ – Michael Jackson

The week of March 10, 1984, was a great one on the Billboard Hot 100.

In the top spot you had Van Halen’s ‘Jump,’ followed by Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.’ Rounding out the top three was Nena’s ’99 Luftballons,’ a rare hit not in the English language.

What a great mix of songs. What a great decade!

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