One Republic is still hanging out in the Billboard top ten with ‘Counting Stars,’ spending its 39th week on the chart at #7.
Right behind it is Beyoncé’s ‘Drunk in Love,’ the second single from her surprise self-titled album. I’m still expecting ‘XO’ to rule these charts one of these days — I just can’t imagine such a magnificent song by such an iconic artist flying below the radar — but this one will do for now.
The two male vocal leads from Pentatonix, Mitch Grassi and Scott Hoying, produce a YouTube side project called Superfruit in which they crack wise on camera and deliver some pretty amazing songs.
A couple of weeks ago I linked to their performance of the Frozen soundtrack, with fellow Pentatonix member Kirstie Maldonado in support.
I continue to be impressed by just how good Beyoncé’s surprise album is.
It’s easily the best thing she’s ever done, and has only gotten better with repeated listens.
It’s almost as if she was holding back, releasing inconsistent, bland albums as a set-up for the industry-rattling detonation of this thing.
Or maybe she’s just getting better at her day job.
Like everybody who writes about music for fun or profit, I was thrown for a loop by Beyoncé’s surprise self-titled Dec. 13 release. All those year-end wrap-ups were suddenly and hopelessly out-of-date.
This release was the biggest popular music story of the year, both for what it means for the industry and because of its perfect, top secret execution by one of the most scrutinized women in the world.
Through some cosmic coincidence, Beyoncé happened to be playing the Staples Center in Los Angeles the very week we were in town. If fate had cooperated, we would have run into her at a restaurant or something and I would be posting a photo here of myself at her side. No such luck.
I jokingly suggested that the family should attend the show (jokingly because it was long sold out and the only available tickets online went for hundreds of dollars apiece) and my wife suggested it would be absurd for me to attend a Beyoncé concert because I don’t know most of her songs (as if that matters).
Meet Me In Montauk 