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Song of the Day #3,342: ‘Sailing’ – Christopher Cross

My Amazon Echo recently introduced me to “Yacht Rock,” a musical genre that I’d somehow never heard labelled quite that way. Soon after, I discovered that the Love channel on Sirius/XM is, in fact, a Yacht Rock channel (it’s #70 on your satellite dial, recently moved from #17).

Yacht Rock has been called the West Coast Sound or, more generally, Soft Rock, and is typified by smooth, melodic, catchy songs with high production values and clean vocals. Think Kenny Loggins, The Doobie Brothers, Christopher Cross, Hall & Oates, you get the picture.

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Song of the Day #3,341: ‘Hell of a Season’ – The Black Keys

I last featured a Black Keys song in late January. Like this one, it was a ‘Random Weekend’ selection from the 2011 album El Camino.

I feel about today’s song exactly how I felt about that one, so I will reiterate what I said then:

Sometimes a Random iTunes Weekend selection pops up and I just got nothing. No feelings about the band or the song one way or the other. No anecdote about how the selection made it to my music library in the first place. Nothing.

Such is the case with today’s SOTD, ‘Mind Eraser’ by The Black Keys. Fine song, reminiscent of every other Black Keys song I’ve heard, but that’s it.

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Song of the Day #3,340: ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ – Taylor Swift

We’ve had a whole lot of discussion about Taylor Swift on this blog in recent weeks, mostly centering on her choice of subject matter (namely, herself). I maintain that Swift’s obsessive focus on her own personal drama diminishes her as an artist.

Two days ago, Swift released the first single from her upcoming album Reputation, and I’m sorry to say it reinforces that negative impression.

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Song of the Day #3,339: ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ – The Beatles

The final Montauk Madness post honors The Beatles, who won the bronze medal over Bob Dylan with 63% of the vote.

In an alternate universe, the Fab Four would be our overall winners. They lost to Elvis Costello in the semi-finals after an influx of Costello votes from a fan site, and otherwise would likely have won. Had they advanced to the finals, I’d give them pretty good odds against Billy Joel.

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Song of the Day #3,338: ‘The Louvre’ – Lorde

While we wait for the result of our final matchup, I’ll offer up another Montauk Madness regret. This is an artist who hadn’t even released her sophomore record when the contest started, and therefore wasn’t eligible according to my two-album rule.

But if I could tweak the space-time continuum a bit and put Lorde’s Melodrama in my earbuds prior to April, she would have awkwardly danced her way into the lineup.

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