Your (Almost) Daily Playlist: 6-14-23

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Culture Club’s “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me“ takes me back to Newbury Comics in Cambridge, Massachusetts in late 1982. There was a TV in the shop that showed music videos. That was my first exposure to this song and to Boy George. I was transfixed, partly because the song is so good, and partly because I couldn’t figure out the singer’s gender. We only knew of two genders back then. Though I had not yet been recruited into the homosexual lifestyle, I became fascinated with Boy George. It helped that his band’s music was so good, for a while anyway. His solo catalogue has some worthwhile numbers as well.

Boy George was born on this date in 1961.

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Your (Almost) Daily Playlist: 1-3-23

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James Mtume (b. January 3, 1946) is best-known for his oft-sampled “Juicy Fruit,” though he also has writing and producing credits on records by Stephanie Mills, Roberta Flack, Spinners, Levert and Phyllis Hyman and also played on records by Miles Davis, McCoy Tyner, Lonnie Liston Smith, Sonny Rollins and Gato Barbieri. He died just a few days after his birthday last year.

Today’s playlist includes Mtume’s best-known track plus 29 other juicy cuts.

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Records of the Year

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The Grammy Awards are being presented tonight. Woo. It’s billed as “music’s biggest night,” just as May 7 through May 16 is billed as “the biggest week in American birding,” if only because ten days is a lot for one week. Birders. Am I right, people? Performers at this year’s Grammys include Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak doing their new song, because what better way to celebrate the music of 2020 than with a single that was released last week? Performers I’m looking forward to include Miranda Lambert, Cardi B, HAIM, Megan Thee Stallion, Brittany Howard, Doja Cat, Dua Lipa, and Billie Eilish, whose “Everything I Wanted” is up for Record of the Year. That’s my favorite of the nominees, though I think the award will go to Beyoncé for “Black Parade,” and I have no problem with that. However, if the award goes to that record I never heard of until I started typing this sentence, sneakers will be thrown at my television (though that record may be good for all I know). For Album of the Year my vote goes to Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters, as it was handily the best album of 2020. It probably won’t win, seeing as it wasn’t nominated. What was nominated over Apple’s album? That Coldplay album you forgot about and the Jacob Collier album you never heard of until you started reading this sentence (though that album may be good for all you know). Of the albums nominated, I’d pick HAIM’s. It’s very good. Not Fetch The Bolt Cutters good, but very good nonetheless. If HAIM win I hope they hand their award to Fiona Apple live on the telecast, which would be super impressive, seeing as they won’t be in the same room. I’m sure tonight’s show will include a tribute to dead people done by living people who are no match for said dead people. I’d rather want a montage of clips of the dead people performing when they were living people. <Fill in the blank> screaming is not representative of what made Aretha Franklin amazing. No disrespect to <fill in the blank>, but there’s more to being the Queen of Soul than having a mic and ovaries.

It’s easy to shit on the Grammys, as they are so shittable, but to be fair, not every Record of the Year is as terrible as 1988’s recipient, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Here are thirty of the better winners:

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Throwback Thursday: 1972

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This Throwback Thursday we revisit 1972. What happened in music in 1972?:

Michael Jackson had the first of 13 solo US #1 Hot 100 singles with a song
about a rat.

Chuck Berry had his first US #1 single with a song about his penis.

Roberta Flack spent six weeks at #1 on the US Hot 100 with a song she
released in 1969.

Helen Reddy rerecorded a song from her 1971 album I Don’t Know How To Love Him. It became the first of her three US #1 Hot 100 singles and became an anthem for women’s equality.

The Staple Singers scored their first of two US #1 Hot 100 hits with a classic song that had only one verse.

Neil Young scored his only US #1 Hot 100 single.

Some of the other classic singles to peak in 1972 are “American Pie,” “Let’s Stay Together,” “Me & Mrs. Jones,” “Without You,” “If You Don’t Know Me By Now,” “Alone Again (Naturally),” “Lean On Me,” “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone,” “School’s Out” and “The Harder They Come.”

David Bowie released The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders
from Mars.

The Rolling Stones released Exile on Main St.

Elton John released Honky Château.

As far as music goes, I’d say 1972 was pretty pretty pretty pretty good. Even the bad songs were good! Here are thirty highlights.

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