Last year I did a deep dive into the very short career of Jim Croce, and one of the discoveries that stuck with me is that his ‘Time in a Bottle’ was the third posthumous single to reach #1 on the Hot 100.
Naturally, that had me wondering which other songs had done so before and after Croce’s. It turns out there are nine of them, and I’ll spend this week writing about the ones I haven’t already featured.
My knee-jerk reaction to sampling was negative. Back when Puff Daddy was lifting the music of ‘Every Breath You Take’ and simply rapping over it, I was incredulous that such a practice could pass as artistry.
I still feel that way about sampling as egregious as that. Recently, Pit Bull and Christina Aguilera lifted the glorious introduction of A-Ha’s ‘Take On Me’ for their otherwise bland track ‘Feel This Moment‘ and it reeks of laziness.
(On a side note, has Pitbull ever released a song that didn’t feature some other artist?)
When I hear the name Otis Redding I immediately think of ‘Sittin’ By the Dock of the Bay.’ And that’s a nice enough song, but nothing that rocks my world.
But the other day I got the latest issue of Rolling Stone and there’s a feature on the 100 best singers in rock-n-roll history. Redding came in somewhere in the top twenty, with a glowing write-up of his talents. The song they mention is ‘These Arms of Mine.’
Later the same week I was reading another article on the lead singer of Fall Out Boy (I’m not sure why) and he mentions Otis Redding and ‘These Arms of Mine’ as strong influences. So I figured the coincidence meant I had to track down the song pronto.
Meet Me In Montauk 