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Song of the Day #4,518: ‘They’re Not Laughing At Me Now’ – Elvis Costello

This week’s posts could be filed under an ‘OK Boomer’ label, because I’ll be featuring new work by five white guys in their 60s or 70s.

I have to hand it to this group of artists. Well past traditional retirement age, they’re cranking out interesting and relevant new music. Well, four of them are… one is dead, but his family is releasing new material.

Even so, it’s hard to get too excited about these new albums. These guys are building on towering resumés — how can anything they do have a chance of measuring up?

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Song of the Day #4,517: ‘Song For Bob Dylan’ – David Bowie

‘Song For Bob Dylan’ is a track on David Bowie’s excellent 1971 album Hunky Dory. It’s something between a tribute and a jab at Dylan, one of the biggest music stars in the world at that time.

Dylan was checking out in the early 70s. After producing a string of classic, groundbreaking albums in the 60s, he was releasing gentle country albums Nashville Skyline and New Morning, along with Self Portrait, a collection of odds and ends that was easily his worst work to date.

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Song of the Day #4,516: ‘Waterloo’ – ABBA

‘Waterloo,’ the title track of ABBA’s 1974 sophomore album, was the song that launched them to international fame. It is also the first recording released under the name ABBA, as the band’s first effort was billed to Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid. The quartet quickly realized that going by their first initials, and ordering them as the palindromic ABBA, made a lot more sense.

‘Waterloo’ won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest, and remains the most famous song to do so (at least the most famous on this side of the pond).

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Song of the Day #4,515: ‘God is a DJ’ – Pink

My final 2003 album wasn’t a major commercial success, or musically groundbreaking. It’s just the third studio album by an artist I really like but don’t feature very often: Pink.

Try This was Pink’s follow-up to the smash 2001 hit Missundaztood, which went 5X Platinum and remains her best-selling album, with 12 million copies moved worldwide. That album marked a shift from pop to rock, and Try This continued the evolution of her sound.

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Song of the Day #4,514: ‘Go to Sleep’ – Radiohead

Radiohead had a great 90s, with its three albums moving them from Nirvana-wannabe alt-rockers to one of the most acclaimed bands in the world. Their albums The Bends and OK Computer have been hailed as two of the most important alternative albums ever.

The 2000s saw Radiohead embrace their critical darling status by steering their music away from the mainstream and into electronic, art-pop territory. 2000’s Kid A and 2001’s Amnesiac were embraced by critics and called modern rock masterpieces.

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