I guess the Random iTunes Fairy is in a mischievous mood this weekend.
Out of more than 200 songs by the greatest rock band of all time, she has chosen to offer up The Beatles’ worst recording: ‘Revolution 9.’
To be fair, this is the 19th Beatles song to appear on a Random Weekend. I guess the l (bad) luck of the draw was going to settle on this one eventually.
I’ve covered the horror, international and animated films of 2023, and now it’s time to tackle pretty much everything else.
As I write this I’ve seen 96 movies released in 2022, the most I’ve seen from any recent year and yet still a couple of dozen short of everything I want to see. Some of the titles I’m still waiting to catch up with include Till, The Whale, To Leslie, and a handful of foreign language and documentary releases.
In the meantime, I’m going to write a few words about the movies between #11-40 on my list, minus the titles I’ve already covered this week.
I’ve mostly stuck to themes on these Beatles weekends, picking two songs from the same album, two songs by George Harrison, two sides of the same single, etc. This week I’m eschewing a thematic connection and just highlighting two great songs.
‘Blackbird’ has always been one of my favorite Beatles songs. I remember first becoming aware of it during the summer after my junior year in high school.
Ben Folds once said that every band in the world formed by taking some piece of what The Beatles did and turning it into their own thing. According to his theory, The Beatles are the superset from which all popular music is derived.
It’s a good theory and one that’s easy to support when you listen to just about any modern pop or rock band. I’ve read a lot of praise of Radiohead recently, about how their output in the 00’s revolutionized popular music… but is there really anything on Kid A that doesn’t sound a little bit like ‘Tomorrow Never Knows,’ ‘A Day in the Life’ or ‘Revolution 9?’ Give me a break.
Meet Me In Montauk 