Tag: Music

Breathe (2 AM) – Anna Nalick


@HabsoluteDog
This video is so early 2000s and I’m so here for it it’s insane. God I miss those days.

@sklishumanbusybeing
2026, anyone?

@thejanglezclan
“Life is like an hourglass glued to the table” is an underrated powerful lyric.

Nalick’s first single from her Wreck of the Day album was “Breathe (2 AM)“, which peaked at No. 45 U.S. and went 3× Platinum on the Billboard Hot 100, and went huge on Adult Contemporary and Adult Top 40. It was heavily played on AAA and Hot AC stations across the U.S., along with light airplay on Pop stations, and Nalick became one of 2005’s biggest newcomers. Her video for the track got very heavy airplay on VH1 and some MTV airplay as well. At the time of the writing[when?], Wreck of the Day has sold over 615,000 copies with a gold certification from the RIAA, and a No. 20 peak on the Billboard 200. In New Zealand, Wreck of the Day reached the Top 15 albums on the Top 40 Albums Chart.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Nalick

Daisy Chain Fields – 2026

Daisy Chain Fields is a charitable American music festival held at Great Park in Irvine, California. Inspired by Lilith Fair, it was founded by American singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo and took place on August 29, 2026; Rodrigo has stated she has hopes for it to be an annual event. It featured performances by Bikini Kill, the Breeders, Chappell Roan, Devon Again, Die Spitz, Doechii, Eli, Garbage, Mitski, Not for Radio, Quiet Light, Rachel Chinouriri, Santigold, and Rodrigo herself (with special guests Alanis Morissette, Sarah McLachlan, and Stevie Nicks). The women-led line-up forwent financial compensation to appear at the festival. The event raised $20 million United States dollars in total; proceeds went toward ten charities supporting various causes such as women’s issues and labor rights.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisy_Chain_Fields

American Music – Violent Femmes

Why Do Birds Sing? is the fifth studio album by Violent Femmes, released on April 30, 1991. It was the band’s last album with original drummer Victor DeLorenzo, who left two years later to devote his time to acting, and was produced by Michael Beinhorn, best-known then for his work with Red Hot Chili Peppers on Mother’s Milk and The Uplift Mofo Party Plan.

The album featured the single “American Music,” which rose to number 2 on Billboard’s Modern Rock chart during the week of May 18, 1991, and became a staple of the band’s live shows.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Do_Birds_Sing%3F

Edgar Wright on Monkee’s Movie

https://www.criterion.com/current/top-10-lists/161-edgar-wright-s-top-10

Bob Rafelson
Head
Head is my favorite film that stars a musical artist, by some degree. And yes, that includes the brilliant A Hard Day’s Night. However, the Monkees’ triumph of a movie is a Pyrrhic victory, because Head accelerated their demise, as it sees Dolenz, Nesmith, Tork, and Jones push the self-destruct button. Directed by Bob Rafelson and cowritten by Jack Nicholson, the movie shows the Monkees tearing down their wholesome network-TV, pre–Fab Four image with wild style. Much has been read into this stream-of-consciousness movie, with its overlapping dream sequences, surreal song numbers, and drug-influenced chaos. The simplest way of describing it is this: the Monkees are sick of being on their network show and attempt to break out of the studio lot, literally and figuratively. There are several scenes where the Monkees are trapped in a box, a live number where they are revealed to be plastic mannequins, and bookending sequences where the members commit suicide.

So basically, the Monkees want out.

There have been some claims by the Monkees since the film came out that this message was projected onto it by Rafelson and Nicholson, but the script was clearly born of a very real frustration with their image. The movie bombed in 1968, because not many Monkees fans wanted to know that their idols had painted-on smiles. What remains is a gem of rock music cinema, with great songs and images throughout. Plus, as depressing as the theme of entrapment is, it’s frequently very funny.

I got to interview Dolenz about it at a New Beverly Q&A once. A young audience member quizzed him on the deeper themes, and he just replied, “Man, I was twenty-three . . .”

Come on Eileen – Dexys Midnight Runners

Dexys Midnight Runners (known as simply Dexys from 2003 to 2026) are an English pop rock band from Birmingham. They are best known in the UK for their songs “Come On Eileen” and “Geno”, both of which reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart, as well as their cover of Van Morrison’s “Jackie Wilson Said (I’m in Heaven When You Smile)”, which reached No. 5. They achieved five other UK Top 20 singles. Outside of the UK, the band are largely considered a one hit wonder, with “Come On Eileen” also having topped the US Billboard Hot 100. With extensive airplay on MTV, they were associated with the Second British Invasion.

The band’s name was derived from Dexedrine, a brand of dextroamphetamine used as a recreational drug among Northern soul fans to give them energy to dance all night.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexys_Midnight_Runners

Stone’s Fans Do Not Miss Minor Details

4 out of 5 stars
Not bad but needed a better editor
Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2026
Format: Hardcover
Verified Purchase
Quite good, but he needed a better editor. There is a whole series of errors: Mona was not the lead track on their first British LP, it was the fourth; in one spot he says that the B side of Let’s Spend the Night Together is Lady Jane; he mentions Herbert Hoover when he means J. Edgar; it’s Memory Motel, not Memory Hotel; the shows at the Oakland Coliseum in 1969 were both inside and both at night, there was no afternoon outdoor show that caused the fans to be sluggish from the sun; Brian had a Rolls, not a Bentley; the 1967 European tour was Mar-April so when they played Jumpin’ Jack Flash at the NME show in May of ’68 it was not nearly two years since they’d been on stage. And there are many many many more errors like this. The writing is good, but all these errors make you wonder about the accuracy of other things he says.

From review of:
The Rolling Stones: The Biography

Record Store Acquisitions

10 Out Of 10, Real World Records
Ten years of Real World Records. One defining track from each year.

Real World Records was founded in 1989 by WOMAD and Peter Gabriel to provide talented artists from around the world with access to state-of-the-art recording facilities and audiences beyond their geographic region.

https://realworldrecords.com/

Eponymous is the first greatest hits album by the American alternative rock band R.E.M., released in 1988. It was their last authorized release on I.R.S. Records,[6] to whom they had been contracted since 1982, having just signed with Warner Bros. Records.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eponymous_(album)

From Google AI:
Eponymous describes something (like a book, band, or brand) that is named after a specific person, or the person whose name is used. It frequently refers to a title character whose name is the same as the work itself (e.g., Jane Eyre or Harry Potter).

Best of Sonny Rollins
One of Sonny Rollins’ greatest strengths has always been his ability to infuse a classic ballad with an almost preternatural sense of ineffable freshness. Perhaps it was due to that full, rich, chewy tone, or perhaps his incredible rhymthic sense, or perhaps the sly and intelligent humor that underlay so much of his music. Probably it was all of that and more. Those gifts make these early Blue Note cuts a rewarding experience–my particular all-time favorite being, the ever-moving, “How are Things in Glocca Mora?”

Amazon

Jerky Boys 2  is the second comedy album released by prank call artists, the Jerky Boys. The album was released on August 16, 1994, and was the final Jerky Boys album released on the Select Records label, distributed by Atlantic Records. Like their debut album, it also went Platinum. This album was also nominated for a Grammy Award in 1995 for Best Spoken Comedy Album, but lost to Sam Kinison‘s Live From Hell…

Trivia: English rock band Radiohead named their 1993 debut album, Pablo Honey, after the first call on this album (apparently having heard it on a bootleg tape), well before release of this material on CD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jerky_Boys_2

Tattoo You is the sixteenth UK and eighteenth US studio album by the English rock band the Rolling Stones, released on 24 August 1981 by Rolling Stones Records. The album is mostly composed of studio outtakes recorded during the 1970s, and contains one of the band’s most well-known songs, “Start Me Up”, which hit number two on the US Billboard singles charts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tattoo_You

Purchases made at the Twist and Shout store on Colfax in Denver:
https://twistandshout.com/
Recommended

Day Tripper – The Beatles

“Day Tripper” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles that was released as a double A-side single with “We Can Work It Out” in December 1965. The song was written primarily by John Lennon with some contributions from Paul McCartney and was credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership. Both songs were recorded during the sessions for the band’s Rubber Soul album. The single topped charts in Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands and Norway. In the United States, “Day Tripper” peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and “We Can Work It Out” held the top position.

Lennon described “Day Tripper” as a “drug song” in 1970,[10] and in a 2004 interview McCartney said it was “about acid” (LSD).[11] The song title is a play on words referring to both a tourist on a day-trip and a “trip” in the sense of a psychedelic experience.[12] Lennon recalled: “Day trippers are people who go on a day trip, right? Usually on a ferryboat or something. But [the song] was kind of … ‘you’re just a weekend hippie.’ Get it?”[8][13] In Many Years from Now, McCartney says that “Day Tripper” was about sex and drugs; he describes it as “a tongue-in-cheek song about someone who was … committed only in part to the idea. Whereas we saw ourselves as full-time trippers …”[14]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_Tripper

Shallow End – Superchunk

Well, you’re barking out what you think
And you’re drinking your expensive drinks
You’re in your car and you’re on the phone
Think you better follow that cord back home

Is that a pearl I’m supposed to keep?
‘Cause you are putting me to sleep
Well, I know you think you’re deep, alright
But you should stay in your shallow end

Now you’re feeding me watery drinks
And I’m singing while your sunfish sinks
You got a ponytail dragging you down
Like the cloud that follows you around

Is that a call I’m supposed to keep?
‘Cause you are putting me to sleep
Well, I know you think you’re deep, alright
But you should stay in your shallow end

Incidental Music 1991–95

NOTE:
One of the first things I remember looking up on the internet was the name of this song. I’d heard it on the radio and recognized the voice, so I figured it was a Superchunk song. I believe I posted a message on an alt music site/message board, something like, “What song has the lyrics ‘I know you think you’re deep… You are putting me to sleep…'” Got a response and bought the CD.

Hot N Cold – Katy Perry

“Hot n Cold” is a song by American singer Katy Perry from her second studio album, One of the Boys (2008). She and Max Martin co-wrote the song with its producer Dr. Luke, with additional production from Benny Blanco. The track was recorded in December 2007 at Dr. Luke’s Studios and Legacy Recordings, both based in New York City, New York, and Conway Recording Studios, based in Hollywood, Los Angeles. “Hot n Cold” was released as the album’s second single on September 9, 2008, and was the first single to be released after the album. “Hot n Cold” is primarily a bubblegum pop, dance-pop, disco, and pop rock record with elements of power pop and electronic rock, and its lyrics address an unstable romantic relationship caused by a partner’s mood swings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_n_Cold

RIP Sonny Rollins

Tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins, the “Saxophone Colossus” who was schooled by bebop’s legends as a prized sideman and became their peer as a formidable leader, improviser and composer, has died, according to a social media post from his family. No cause of death was cited; he was 95.

Sporting a burly tone, a tart sense of instrumental humor and keen melodic and harmonic ingenuity, Rollins was acknowledged as a jazz voice as groundbreaking as that of his friend and contemporary John Coltrane, with whom he unforgettably locked horns on “Tenor Madness” in 1956.

https://variety.com/2026/music/news/sonny-rollins-dead-jazz-saxophone-colossus-1236758510/

See also:
Sonny Rollins Interview – NY Times Magazine

Dance as Form of Communication – Rolling Stones, Sonny Rollins anecdote

Rollins’s music encompasses one of the most generous dispositions in modern music. It glistens with oversized and contagious energy and bespeaks the character to sustain a course of singular purpose, despite the blandishments of the hip and the enticements of the powerful, with imagination and grace.

Visions of Jazz: The First Century
Gary Giddins

“I think when the creative person ends, he continues in the next existence. I’m a person who believes this life isn’t the be-all and end-all of everything. A spiritual person doesn’t feel like that.” –S.R. (2009) 2/2

Sonny Rollins
https://x.com/sonnyrollins

Lively Up Yourself – Bob Marley & The Wailers – Live At The Rainbow Theatre, London / 1977

via Google AI:

“Lively Up Yourself” by Bob Marley & The Wailers is a celebratory reggae anthem urging listeners to shake off negativity, energize their spirits, and embrace joy through dance and music. It encourages a vibrant, active, and positive life, serving as an invitation to “wake up” and dance (“skank”), freeing oneself from stress.

Lively up yourself and don’t be no drag
Lively up yourself, oh, Reggae is another bag
Lively up yourself and don’t say no
Lively up yourself, ’cause I said so

You, what you gon’ do?

You rock so, you rock so
Like you never did before
You dip so, you dip so
Till you can dip through my door
You skank so, you skank so, oh yeah

What you got that I don’t know?
I’m trying to wonder, wonder why you
Wonder, wonder why you act so (lively up yourself)
And don’t be no drag
Lively up yourself, oh, Reggae is another bag
(Lively up yourself)

(Lively up yourself) oh, keep livening up your woman in the evening time
And take it, take it, take it, take it
(Lively up yourself) I wanna be lively myself
Got no socks and no shirt (lively up yourself) I gotta lively up myself
(Lively up yourself)
(Lively up yourself) your woman in the morning time
(Lively up yourself) your woman in the evening too, now
Now! (lively up yourself)
(Lively up yourself)

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natty_Dread#Content