It’s that time again. For the first time since March, I will take a look at the songs topping Billboard’s Hot 100.
Nine of the current top ten songs are new to the blog. These are the early contenders for Song of the Summer status, though — like a Hillary Clinton superdelegate — my vote has already been committed to DNCE’s ‘Cake By the Ocean.’ We’ll see if any of these songs change my mind.
I debated whether today’s random selection should qualify as a Song of the Day, given that it’s just a truncated snippet. But I decided it’s an interesting enough snippet to warrant a post.
‘Maggie Mae’ (usually spelled ‘Maggie May’) is a Liverpool folk song that a teenaged John Lennon played with The Quarrymen. The Beatles gave it a smirking turn during the sessions that became Let It Be and the result was captured in this 40-second clip that closes out Side One.
Here’s an album I owe a second chance.
Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky was released in 2007, three years after the disappointing A Ghost is Born, and by that time I’d moved on.
2001’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was a ground-breaking masterwork following a handful of excellent releases, but Ghost stopped the band in their tracks. To be honest, I can’t say with any conviction that A Ghost is Born is a bad album. I just know it left me cold.
I’ve written about buying greatest hits albums vs. original studio albums, but of course the real game-changer of the digital music revolution was the ability to easily buy individual songs.
Until recently I didn’t download singles very often, but that’s changing. In particular, I’ve been much quicker to buy radio hits (‘Uptown Funk,’ ‘Cool for the Summer,’ Cake by the Ocean,’ that sort of thing).
Many of my impulse digital music purchases are of artists considered cheesy or uncool. I guess you could call them guilty pleasures, though I’ve never felt guilty listening to a song I truly like.
One such purchase was Bryan Adams’ 1984 smash Reckless. Bryan Adams is decidedly uncool (and Canadian!) but there is no denying the appeal of this album’s hits: ‘Summer of ’69,’ ‘Somebody,’ ‘Heaven’ and ‘Run To You.’
