It’s crazy to think that Nicki Minaj has seemingly graduated to an elder stateswoman of rap. It’s been only a little more than a decade since her breakthrough album, Pink Friday, made her the hot new thing.
Her success and unique style influenced a whole generation of young women, artists who names now populate the charts and soundtrack our social media: Doja Cat, Megan Thee Stallion, Latto, Coi Leray, Saweetie, and Ice Spice, to name just a few.
Maren Morris, unapologetically liberal and unafraid to speak her mind, has never been a great fit for country music. Now, ten years and three successful albums after she first arrived in Nashville, she is leaving behind the genre for good.
‘The Tree,’ a track from a new EP titled The Bridge, is about that decision. She describes taking an axe to a metaphorical tree with rotting roots and heading to greener pastures. In her case, that means working on a new album with Jack Antonoff, who produced another track on this EP.
This week I’m going to feature some new releases that have crossed my radar over the past several weeks while I was busy diving into the catalog of The Rolling Stones.
I’m very excited to kick things off with a song by an exciting young artist who happens to be my nephew.
Almost exactly five years ago, I dedicated a week to the Daniel Gallup EP, a collection of songs by then-17-year-old Daniel Gallup. Now that young man is a college graduate with an acoustic album under his belt and a new EP on the way.
I featured a song by R&B trio SWV back in July — their sole #1 hit, ‘Weak’ — and at the time I mentioned that they had three top ten songs in the early 90s. Well, here’s another of them.
In the week of October 9, 1993, the top spot of the Billboard Hot 100 belonged to Mariah Carey, whose ‘Dreamlover’ was in the middle of eight consecutive weeks at #1. Carey kept SWV from nabbing their second #1 with ‘Right Here (Human Nature).’
Throwing back to the week of October 8, 1983, we discover what a glorious time that was to be alive.
In the #1 spot on that week’s Billboard Hot 100, you have Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ (already covered on the blog), in the middle of a four-week stint at the top spot. At #2 is today’s SOTD, Air Supply’s ‘Making Love Out of Nothing At All,’ which I’ll get to in a moment.
Rounding out the top five are The Police, with ‘King of Pain,’ Spandau Ballet with ‘True,’ and Stray Cats with ‘(She’s) Sexy & 17,’ making for one hell of a varied and enjoyable playlist.
Meet Me In Montauk 