Formed in 2018, Black Pumas is an American band based in Austin, Texas, fronted by singer/songwriter Eric Burton and guitarist/producer Adrian Quesada. Their music has been described as psychedelic soul, R&B and neo-soul, with strong blues and funk influences, and their distinctive sound alternates between a visceral rawness and smooth soulfulness, and everything in between. They’ve already earned six Grammy nominations over a three-year period for Best New Artist, Record of the Year, American Roots Performance, Album of the Year, Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Album. Their beautiful soulful single “More Than a Love Song”, from their second album Chronicles of a Diamond, takes over the top spot on my Weekly Top 30, after spending four weeks at #3. The song, which has an arresting gospel quality, recently spent six non-consecutive weeks at #1 on the Billboard Adult Alternative Airplay chart.
“Now and Then” by the Beatles (which has dropped completely off the Billboard Hot 100 after just two weeks, but is #2 on the AAA chart) and “Atomic City” by U2 enter my top 10. Two high-energy songs make their debut this week: “Blame Brett” by Toronto, Canada-based all-female indie rock band The Beaches, at #29, and “Pretty Vicious” by British glam rock band The Struts, at #30.
MORE THAN A LOVE SONG – Black Pumas (3)
HONEY (ARE U COMING?) – Måneskin (1)
ONE MORE TIME – blink-182 (2)
DARLING – Western Jaguar (5)
THE AMERICAN DREAM IS KILLING ME – Green Day (8)
MY KINDA GIRL – The 23s (6)
THE DEATH OF PEACE OF MIND – Bad Omens (7)
UNDER YOU – Foo Fighters (4)
NOW AND THEN – The Beatles (11)
ATOMIC CITY – U2 (13)
THE SHAMEFUL – Amongst Liars (14)
ANGRY – The Rolling Stones (15)
YOUR SIDE OF TOWN – The Killers (16)
ATTRACTION – Wild Horse (18)
EVICTED – Wilco (10)
RUN AWAY WITH ME – Cold War Kids (17)
SUMMER OF LUV – Portugal. The Man ft. Unknown Mortal Orchestra (9)
GOOD OLD DAYS – The Revivalists (19)
MY LOVE MINE ALL MINE – Mitski (20)
LOVING YOU – Cannons (12)
WILD – Brian Lambert, Harmoni Kelley & Marc Schuster (22)
The boisterous “HONEY (ARE U COMING?)” by Italian rock band Måneskin remains on top for a second week, while “ONE MORE TIME” by blink-182 holds at #2 for a second week after spending four weeks at #1. “More Than a Love Song” by Black Pumas spends a fourth week at #3, while the Foo Fighters‘ “Under You”, Western Jaguar‘s “Darling”, The 23s‘ “My Kinda Girl” and Bad Omens‘ “DEATH OF PEACE OF MIND” all advance a notch. Green Day enter the top 10 at #8 with “The American Dream Is Killing Me”, while The Beatles‘ “Now and Then” moves up one spot to #11. The song debuted at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 but plummeted to #76 in its second week, indicating that it was heavily streamed upon its release, but that the public seems to have quickly lost interest, which is really too bad.
As we enter the final month of 2023, five terrific songs make their debut on my chart this week. First up is the gorgeous “White Horse” by Nashville-based country-rock artist Chris Stapleton, entering at #26. The lead single from his fifth studio album Higher, “White Horse” was actually released this past July. Next up is “Modern Girl” by alternative pop-rock band Bleachers, headed by singer-songwriter and producer extraordinaire Jack Antonoff. The rousing song, which features some marvelous sax, took a while to grow on me but finally enters my chart at #27. Entering at #28 is the soulful “What Now” by American singer-songwriter Brittany Howard, who possesses one of the more powerful and interesting voices of any artist today. The song is the lead single of her forthcoming second album of the same name. Bringing up the rear are two wonderful dance singles, the first of which is the delightful “How Did You Get Here?” by talented young British singer-songwriter Antony Szmierek, which I learned about from fellow blogger Andy Peterson (who has a great blog titled The Voice Of Unreason). And last, but certainly not least, is “Houdini”, the latest single by impossibly beautiful English-Albanian singer-songwriter Dua Lipa.
HONEY (ARE U COMING?) – Måneskin (1)
ONE MORE TIME – blink-182 (2)
MORE THAN A LOVE SONG – Black Pumas (3)
UNDER YOU – Foo Fighters (5)
DARLING – Western Jaguar (6)
MY KINDA GIRL – The 23s (7)
THE DEATH OF PEACE OF MIND – Bad Omens (8)
THE AMERICAN DREAM IS KILLING ME – Green Day (11)
SUMMER OF LUV – Portugal. The Man feat. Unknown Mortal Orchestra (9)
EVICTED – Wilco (10)
NOW AND THEN – The Beatles (12)
LOVING YOU – Cannons (4)
ATOMIC CITY – U2 (16)
THE SHAMEFUL – Amongst Liars (17)
ANGRY – The Rolling Stones (18)
YOUR SIDE OF TOWN – The Killers (19)
RUN AWAY WITH ME – Cold War Kids (20)
ATTRACTION – Wild Horse (21)
GOOD OLD DAYS – The Revivalists (22)
MY LOVE MINE ALL MINE – Mitski (24)
HOLD ME LIKE A GRUDGE – Fall Out Boy (15)
WILD – Brian Lambert, Harmoni Kelley & Marc Schuster (25)
What an exciting chart we have this week, with a new #1 song and new debuts by two legendary acts. Since winning the Eurovision Song Contest two and a half years ago with “Zitti e Buoni”, Italian rock band Måneskin have amassed enormous commercial success and legions of passionate fans, if not always critical acclaim. Formed in 2016 while still in high school, the irrepressible and charismatic foursome consists of Damiano David (lead vocals), Victoria De Angelis (bass), Thomas Raggi (guitar) and Ethan Torchio (drums). I love their bombastic rock extravaganza “HONEY (ARE U COMING)?”, which takes over the #1 spot on my Weekly Top 30 chart after spending three weeks at #2.
Released on September 1st, the song is the sixth single from their most recent album RUSH (previous chart-topping singles from the album include “SUPERMODEL” and “THE LONELIEST”). Though generally favorable, reviews for RUSH were mixed, with Sam Law of Kerrang! writing that Måneskin are “still utterly unstoppable when they tap into the youthful exuberance and fiery eccentricity that got them here in the first place“, whereas Jeremy Larson of Pitchfork called it “absolutely terrible at every conceivable level: vocally grating, lyrically unimaginative, and musically one-dimensional. It is a rock album that sounds worse the louder you play it.” While I think the album is a bit too long (it features 18 tracks, but was reissued on November 10th as RUSH (ARE U COMING?) with a whopping 22 tracks), I love the band’s explosive energy and enjoy most of their songs.
The two very notable debuts, both of which were released on November 2nd, enter my chart quite high this week. The first, entering at #11, is “The American Dream Is Killing Me” by California pop-punk trio Green Day, released alongside “Look Ma, No Brains!” as the lead single from their forthcoming 14th studio album, Saviors, due out next year. Never afraid of making a socio-political statement, band front man Billie Joe Armstrong told Stereogum that the song is “a look at the way the traditional American Dream doesn’t work for a lot of people—in fact, it’s hurting a lot of people.”
Debuting right behind at #12 is “Now and Then” by The Beatles. At first I had mixed feelings about the song and how it came to be, but I’ve come to like it. Released as a double A-side single along with a new stereo remix of their first single, “Love Me Do”, they serve as a kind of “bookends” to the band’s history. “Now and Then” was written and recorded by John Lennon in 1977 as a solo piano demo on his home tape recorder, but was never finished. After his death in 1980, the song was considered for inclusion along with “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love” for The Beatles’ 1995–1996 retrospective project The Beatles Anthology, but shelved due to its poor audio quality. Paul McCartney later remarked that George Harrison disliked the song, calling Lennon’s demo recording “fucking rubbish“. (Wikipedia)
Fast forward to 2023, McCartney and Ringo Starr were able to use the machine-learning-assisted audio restoration technology – originally commissioned by Peter Jackson for his 2021 documentary The Beatles: Get Back– to successfully extract Lennon’s vocals from the original demo. They then added their new vocal overdubs, Harrison’s 1995 guitar tracks along with a new slide guitar solo by McCartney, Starr’s new drum parts, and a string section written by Giles Martin (son of legendary Beatles producer George Martin), McCartney, and Ben Foster, to complete the new version of “Now and Then.” The result is a song that’s, in the words of Benjamin H. Smith who wrote about it for the website Decider, “underwhelming at first, due to its minor key verse and stately tempo, [but] repeated listens pull you in with its its artistry and gravitas“, which was exactly my own personal reaction.
The song has generally been well received by many critics who felt it was a worthy finale for the Beatles, however, some have been less generous, with a few bloggers I follow bitterly denouncing the entire project. Be that as it may, “Now and Then” has already topped the music charts in the UK, Germany, and Austria, and last week debuted at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100, making it the highest-charting song by the Beatles since “Free as a Bird” reached #6 in 1995.
Also worth noting on this week’s chart is the 10-point jump of U2‘s anthemic “Atomic City” (another song I was initially ambivalent about, partly because the chorus sounds a lot like Blondie’s “Call Me”), which is currently #1 on the Billboard AAA chart. With songs out now by both the Beatles and Rolling Stones, as well as veteran acts U2, Green Day, Wilco, Foo Fighters and blink-182, one can be forgiven for wondering what year we’re in!
HONEY (ARE U COMING?) – Måneskin (2)
ONE MORE TIME – blink-182 (1)
MORE THAN A LOVE SONG – Black Pumas (3)
LOVING YOU – Cannons (4)
UNDER YOU – Foo Fighters (6)
DARLING – Western Jaguar (8)
MY KINDA GIRL – The 23s (9)
THE DEATH OF PEACE OF MIND – Bad Omens (10)
SUMMER OF LUV – Portugal. The Man feat. Unknown Mortal Orchestra (11)
EVICTED – Wilco (12)
THE AMERICAN DREAM IS KILLING ME – Green Day (N)
NOW AND THEN – The Beatles (N)
RUNNING OUT OF TIME – Paramore (5)
WHEN WE WERE CLOSE – Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit (7)
HOLD ME LIKE A GRUDGE – Fall Out Boy (15)
ATOMIC CITY – U2 (26)
THE SHAMEFUL – Amongst Liars (20)
ANGRY – The Rolling Stones (21)
YOUR SIDE OF TOWN – The Killers (22)
RUN AWAY WITH ME – Cold War Kids (23)
ATTRACTION – Wild Horse (24)
GOOD OLD DAYS – The Revivalists (25)
DIAL DRUNK – Noah Kahan (13)
MY LOVE MINE ALL MINE – Mitski (27)
WILD – Brian Lambert, Harmoni Kelley & Marc Schuster (28)
I watched the film The Music Man last night on Turner Classic Movies, and was reminded of how much I love the song “Till There Was You”, both the version sung by Shirley Jones in the film, and the later cover by the Beatles. After reading a post by Randy of MostlyMusicCovers blog for yet another blog PowerPop, about the Beatles’ song “Ain’t She Sweet”, I decided to write a post about “Till There Was You”.
The Music Man, which along with Singin’ in the Rain is my favorite movie musical, began as a stage musical written by Meredith Willson. The show opened on Broadway in December 1957, and became a huge hit, running for 1,375 performances and winning five Tony Awards, including Best Musical. The film version, released on June 19, 1962, also went on to become one of the biggest films of the year and was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. (I still remember seeing it in the theater as an 8-year old kid, and loving it.) The film’s composer Ray Heindorf won the film’s sole award for Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment.
Both stage musical and film were directed by Morton DaCosta, with actor Robert Preston playing the title role of the charming traveling salesman and con artist Professor Harold Hill both on stage and in the film. The film also starred the stunning Shirley Jones as town librarian Marian Paroo, along with Buddy Hackett, Paul Ford, Hermione Gingold, Pert Kelton, and a young Ronny Howard.
“Till There Was You” appears late in the musical and film, when Marian reluctantly agrees to meet Harold at the footbridge during the ice cream social, a big event in the small town of River City, Iowa where the story takes place (the footbridge was a spot where couples met for romantic encounters). After having previously spurned all of Harold’s attempts to woo her, Marian makes a 180-degree turn with regard to her feelings about him, telling him how much he’s come to mean to her, which she expresses in the song. Jones had a beautiful singing voice, which earlier had landed her coveted roles in the film musicals Oklahoma! and Carousel (she also won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for portraying a prostitute in the 1960 film Elmer Gantry), and her rendition of the song is deeply moving and heartfelt.
Turn your speaker volume up for this movie clip, then be sure to turn it back down for the Beatles’ version:
The Beatles version was produced by George Martin and recorded at Abbey Road Studios in July 1963. It was released that November in the UK as part of their second album With the Beatles, and was also included on their American debut album Meet the Beatles!, released in the U.S. in January 1964 (it was the first album I ever bought, as a 9-year old besotted with the Fab Four). It was the only song from a Broadway musical ever released by them. For the recording of the song, Paul McCartney sang vocals, accompanied by George Harrison and John Lennon playing acoustic, classical guitars in a Spanish style over a bolero bongo beat played by Ringo Starr. I like how Paul sings “soar” in place of “saw” in the lyrics.
Interestingly, Paul first heard “Till There Was You” from a 1961 cover version by Peggy Lee, when it was played by his older cousin Bett Robbins. He said that he “had no idea until much later” that it was from The Music Man. The song was part of their pre-recording repertoire in 1962, and they performed it at the Star Club in Hamburg. Also, Meredith Willson’s widow later remarked that her husband’s estate eventually received more income from the royalties of the Beatles recordings of “Till There Was You” than it originally received from the actual play. (Wikipedia)
There were bells on a hill
But I never heard them ringing
No, I never heard them at all
'Til there was you
There were birds in the sky
But I never saw them winging
No, I never saw them at all
'Til there was you
Then there was music and wonderful roses
They tell me in sweet fragrant meadows
Of dawn and dew
There was love all around
But I never heard it singing
No, I never heard it at all
'Til there was youThen there was music and wonderful roses
They tell me in sweet fragrant meadows
Of dawn and dew
There was love all around
But I never heard it singing
No, I never heard it at all
'Til there was you
'Til there was you
Today’s Song of the Day Challenge theme is “A song from your childhood” and my pick is “She Loves You” by The Beatles. It ranks among their greatest songs, and is one of my all-time favorite Beatles songs.
Anyone who was a kid or teenager in the early to mid 1960s remembers the first time they heard a song by The Beatles. They started out playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg, Germany in 1960, and in October 1962, their first single “Love Me Do” was released in the UK. “She Loves You” was released in the UK in August 1963, where it became the best-selling single of 1963, and remains to this day the top-selling Beatles single ever in the UK.
Because of contract disputes with their American label Vee-Jay Records, “She Loves You” ended up being released in the U.S. by Swan Records in September 1963. Shockingly, it sold only around 1,000 copies and failed to chart. But after the meteoric success of the Capitol Records release of “I Want to Hold Your Hand” launched the so-called “British Invasion” of the American music scene at the end of 1963, “She Loves You” finally entered the Billboard chart in late January 1964, and spent four weeks at #2 behind “I Want to Hold Your Hand” before replacing it at #1 that March.
It’s such a joyful and exhilarating song that resonates with young and old alike. The lyrics are from the perspective of a go-between, who tells a friend that his estranged girlfriend still loves him, and that he needs to apologize to make things right with her:
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
You think you’ve lost your love Well, I saw her yesterday It’s you she’s thinking of And she told me what to say
She says she loves you And you know that can’t be bad Yes, she loves you And you know you should be glad
She said you hurt her so She almost lost her mind But now she says she knows You’re not the hurting kind
She says she loves you And you know that can’t be bad Yes, she loves you And you know you should be glad, ooh
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah And with a love like that You know you should be glad
You know it’s up to you I think it’s only fair Pride can hurt you too Apologize to her
Because she loves you And you know that can’t be bad Yes, she loves you And you know you should be glad, ooh
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah With a love like that You know you should be glad With a love like that You know you should be glad With a love like that You know you should be glad Yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
ECLECTIC MUSIC LOVER 