For the next two weeks, I’m taking my first look in six months at “What the Kids are Listening To,” a snapshot of the top songs on Billboard’s Hot 100 (as of November 10).
Sitting at the #1 spot is Adele’s ‘Easy On Me,’ which has occupied that perch since its debut a month ago.
At #2 is ‘Stay’ by Australian rapper Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber. The pair previously collaborated on a track for Bieber’s album Justice, released earlier this year.
‘The Night’s Too Long’ is one of two songs on Lucinda Williams’ self-titled 1988 album to become hits for other artists.
Patty Loveless recorded this track for her 1990 album On Down the Line and put it on the country charts for 19 weeks.
Two years later, Mary Chapin Carpenter recorded ‘Passionate Kisses’ for the album Come On Come On and found success on not just the country chart, but Adult Contemporary and the Billboard Hot 100. That recording won Williams a songwriting Grammy for Best Country Song.
‘Swan Swan H’ is the penultimate track on R.E.M.’s 1986 album Lifes Rich Pageant, though it was listed last on the packaging because a cover of the song ‘Superman’ was left off.
This album was the band’s fourth, and the first to move into more rock territory after the murky alternative pop of their first three releases. I slotted this album as #3 on my list of R.E.M. releases when I ranked them back in 2008.
Aimee Mann’s latest album came out a week ago today (though it hasn’t yet been released as I write this). Queens of the Summer Hotel is an interesting project, a batch of songs written for a planned stage musical based on the 1993 memoir Girl, Interrupted by Susannah Kaysen.
The book, about the author’s experiences as a young woman in a psychiatric hospital, seems like a weird fit for a musical. A 1999 film adaptation worked well enough, winning strong reviews for star Winona Ryder and an Oscar for co-star Angelina Jolie. But setting such dark and unsettling material to music? I don’t know.
Tori Amos. To quote Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars, “Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.”
The indie singer-songwriter released her 16th album, Ocean to Ocean, last month. And while I feel like she has been missing since her heyday in the early 90s, this is actually her fifth new studio album in the past decade. In fact, the four years between this record and her last is the longest she’s gone between releases in her career.
Meet Me In Montauk 