This summer, the world finally caught up with “Weird Al” Yankovic.
His unique brand of spot-on parody (and the occasional polka track) has been consistently enjoyable for more than three decades, but it took the era of Facebook and viral videos to finally deliver him a #1 album.
He promoted that album, Mandatory Fun, through a daily release of YouTube clips and the fans took it from there.
As years have passed, I’ve increasingly looked at R.E.M. as a band that broke up in 1997, with Bill Berry’s departure. The band put out ten albums before that point and five after, but those five never quite felt like “real” R.E.M. albums.
I found something to love in each of them when they were released (even Around the Sun, by far their weakest record) but looking back on R.E.M.’s career in total, it definitely splits into two eras.
I was surprised to see that this is only the fourth Coldplay song to make the blog in six years of Song of the Day posts.
It’s not that I’m a huge Coldplay fan, but they have a big enough profile (and enough good songs) to make the cut more than four times out of 2,209. And two of the four have come on Random Weekends, at that.
Finishing up this week’s look at the Billboard Hot 100 is Charli XCX, whose ‘Boom Clap’ sits at #13.
Charli XCX is a new name to me, but the 21-year-old British songwriter has put her stamp on a couple of recent hits. One is the ubiquitous ‘Fancy,’ on which she sings the chorus, and the other is Icona Pop’s ‘I Love It,’ which she both wrote and performs on.
Rounding out spots 8-11 on the Billboard chart are a quartet of songs I’ve already featured as part of my focus on hit singles this year. If I’ve learned one thing it’s that there isn’t much turnover on this list.
At #8 is John Legend’s ‘All of Me,’ in its 42nd week on the chart. Ninth is Sia’s ‘Chandelier,’ entering the top ten for the first time. In the tenth spot is Calvin Harris’ ‘Summer,’ which didn’t own the season the way he must have hoped when he recorded it. And at #11 is Pharrell Williams’ ‘Happy,’ still chugging along.
Meet Me In Montauk 