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Song of the Day #5,260: ‘Midnight Rain’ – Taylor Swift

This week I will rank the song’s on Taylor Swift’s new album, Midnights, in order of my preference, continuing a tradition I started with 2019’s Lover.

Midnights is Swift’s fourth album in four years, following the one-two pandemic punch of folklore and evermore, and it finds her in a much different place musically and lyrically. While those records found her telling other people’s stories in an acoustic indie style, this is a highly produced pop album about her personal and professional experiences.

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Song of the Day #5,259: ‘Bright Tonight’ – Garbage

Today’s random selection is a bonus track from Garbage’s 2012 album Not Your Kind of People.

This and other bonus tracks were released as part of a “deluxe edition” of the album, a practice that became more and more common during the CD era. Deluxe editions seemed to fade a bit as CDs gave way to streaming, but I’ve seen more of them creep up lately.

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Song of the Day #5,258: ‘1492’ – Counting Crows

Today’s random selection has the distinction of being my least favorite Counting Crows song. The opening track of the band’s fifth album, 2008’s Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings, ‘1492’ is a loud and graceless rock song that lacks the nuance and melodicism of the band’s usual output.

Following four stellar albums released between 1992 and 2002, Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings was the Crows’ first miss. A concept album featuring one side of rockers and one side of acoustic ballads, the collection produced only a couple of memorable tracks.

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Song of the Day #5,257: ‘It Was Supposed to Be So Easy’ – The Streets

My last 2004 album is one I have heard before, but only once. It made an impression on me not because I found it any good, but because it epitomized the idea of a critical darling that I find unlistenable. A true emperor’s new clothes situation.

A Grand Don’t Come For Free is the sophomore album by English rapper Mike Skinner, who records under the band name The Streets. It’s a concept album that follows a young man’s exploits in losing a thousand pounds and trying to earn it back. Upon release it was hailed as one of the best albums of the year.

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Song of the Day #5,256: ‘Yeah!’ – Usher feat. Lil Jon, Ludacris

My blind spot for R&B music emerges again as I consider Usher’s 2004 album Confessions, a massive hit with which I have almost zero familiarity.

This album, the singer-songwriter’s fourth, was the sixth best-selling album of the entire 2000s in the U.S. and produced four #1 singles. You’d think those songs would instantly ring a bell for somebody who was in his early 20s and an avid music listener at the time.

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