MEMORIES OF PEACE TIME: Here’s a magical (and hilarious) 2013 performance of “Let It Be” by Russian pop star Zemfira singing in Kiev — joined by Ukrainian rock star Sviatoslav Vakarchuk (of Okean Elzy)– they don’t remember the English lyrics so they have to sing while looking at the screen of Zemfira’s phone. Zemfira’s second song, (an anti-violence song which translates as “Don’t Shoot” ) was the same song she later sang at a Moscow concert two days after Russia attacked Ukraine in Feb 2022. (After being harassed and labeled as a “foreign agent” by the Putin regime, Zemfira eventually moved to France). (YT)
My favorite Zemfira song is Не отпускай (Don’t let go). Here’s a live performance (YT) Here’s the original music video and song from 15 years earlier (YT)
I’m the Baby song from the Dinosaurs TV show (YT). Now that’s an earworm!
I have always been a fan of the Eurovision Interval number Made in Switzerland (YT). Wow, here’s an alternate video showing all the staging and behind-the-scene antics. (YT)
Here’s a fun Hello song from Book of Mormon Broadway play (YT) Here also is a Youtube channel of classic Broadway songs being performed, usually by original cast members (YT)
I’ve been finding lots of great articles on Rebeat Mag, especially sixties stuff. Here’s a great profile of Dickie Goodman who created comedy/novelty songs like “Mr. Jaws” (YT) which told a story by using clips from pop songs.
Variations on Fripp & Eno’s “Eve… by Cloudland Blue Quartet. Good album in Emo’s style, but it contains a lot of extra (and I would say unnecessary tracks).
Year of the Hare, Year Of The Tiger and Year of the Pig by Fucked Up. Post-rock/heavy metal soundscapes. Really amazing. Unfortunately I left 3 or 4 other NYP albums by this group; maybe next time?
Preface. I am working on a big project that is semi-related to this column. When everything is ready, I’ll publicize it to death, but for now it will probably keep me from updating this page.
Articles and Interviews
Here’s a goofy Christmas song by Monk Turner — as performed by his daughter. I just love the refrain…. (I interviewed Turner a few years ago. Really amazing musician!)
Emusic/Bandcamp Purchases
Due to unforeseen income and musical antsiness, I bought a few things on Bandcamp and Emusic. Most of the BC stuff are Name Your Price (NYP), and about half the purchases are from Sahel Sounds, a Portland-based label focused on West African music (Niger, Benin, Mali, Mauritania, etc).
I really wish that the collective Bandcamp mind would settle upon a hashtag for NYP. It’s practically impossible to dig up which albums are going on NYP in a particular month.
First, the Bandcamp stuff:
Two albums by 39th & the Nortons. Mourning Waltz and The Dreamers. French garage pop that is surprisingly fun and catchy.
s/t by Namian Sidibe. (Mali) Female singer with melancholy guitar.
At Pioneer Works by Les Filles de Illighadad. 3 female Tuareg singers sing rhythmic, hypnotic songs with guitar. (Niger)
s/t by L’Orchestre National de Mauritania. Long lost recordings from 1968-1975 during a period where a military coup ordered all cultural remnants of the former regime be destroyed.
Zerzura (OST) by Ahmoudou Madassane (Niger). 14 movie tracks. Most begin with 5-15 seconds of natural sounds, followed by the actual music. Described as “Saharan Desert Blues” or psychedelia.
Anou Malane by Abdallah Oumbadougou. (Niger/Benin). Reissue of 1995 studio recording by legendary composer and creator of Tuareg guitar music.
Acturus (DiN 19) by ARC. 2005 release on the UK DiN label. Three live tracks from a trance/EDM performance. I actually love this sound!
Khraniteli 2024 by Blackout Princesses. A collection of one man electronic/synth prog rock/kraut rock. Apparently the composer cleaned up the sound from an earlier release.
RippleFest Texas by Ripple Music label. Recordings from various heavy metal artists during a 2021 concert. Traditional sound with hints of ZZ Top.
Dreams Long Forgotten by Polarcoaster. Downbeat ambient soundscapes by Spanish ambient artist.
Sallaw by Porya Hatami, Aaron Marin, Roberto Altanasio. ($3) I’ve bought albums before of Iranian sound artist Hatami. Four ambient tracks, each representing a different season.
Tracing by Richard Chartier. 40 minute minimalist soundscape compared to “strange mist.” From one article: Created initially as his contribution to a mooted duo project with William Basinski, the latter rightly declined to add any contribution to what he insisted was already a finished piece.” (The Wire, UK) RJN: Maybe a little too dull for me.
Here is a spreadsheet showing my reviews of music albums over the years. So far I have 470 albums reviewed, and I’ve frantically trying to post about older albums that have meant a lot to me. I feel this is less musical criticism than an attempt to succinctly describe what’s unique and interesting about albums — so I won’t forget them. (In the last 2 weeks I have posted about 20 new reviews, and feel I will easily reach 500 by the end of the year — and will still not have scratched the surface.
COMIC-CEREBRAL AUDIO PLAY ON SPOTIFY (64 minutes) (Link) A decade ago I produced a great audio play by Ohio author Jack Matthews. So cerebral that your mind will explode midway through. Premium Spotify users can listen for free — FYI I did the intro and the narration. The actors were great too.
Here’s a rare live recording of the lesbian pop group Fem 2 Fem singing “Switch (You Bitch)” (YT) Fem 2 Fem has two albums at Archive.org here and here.
I assume that many have already seen this amazing music vid with Saoirse Ronan, but it’s absolutely great (with the Talking Heads note that “We LOVE what this video is NOT—it’s not literal, creepy, bloody, physically violent or obvious.” (YT)
Here’s an early live performance by Spice Girls performing Wannabee at Hotel Babylon in 1996 (YT). Holy cow, here’s a 17 minute interview they did in 1996 after a Japanese tour. (YT) They were eating dinner and talking and laughing about girly stuff. I’ve always thought their first album Spice was incredible.
PRE-TEENS COVER BREAKFAST IN AMERICA. (YT) I am speechless by how gentle and jolly this cover version is. The Graystones are a talented California group of young musicians entering the 7th grade. They also do a version of the Logical Song. (YT)
Here’s some early videos by the Sugarcubes (which Bjork was in before going solo) in 1988. Motorcrash and Deus.
From Library’s ILL, I obtained La Tigre’s 1999 self-titled masterpiece. Wow, it really bowled me over, especially the song Hot Topic (YT). I learned through the album’s wiki page that Hot Topic was a list song (or laundry song). Wiki has a great page about that.
I have been enjoying Eubie Blake, especially his album The 86 Years of Eubie Blake (which is a must listen — here it is on Youtube). The irony is that after his death it was later learned that he was born in 1887 (not 1883), so he was actually only 82. He said he composed Charleston Rag in 1899, but didn’t commit it to paper until 15 years later. His song, “I’m Just Wild About Harry” became the theme song for Harry Truman’s election campaign. His singing pal, Noble Sissle actually sang several of the songs on the 86 Years album. Blake and Sissle wrote the jazz musical Shuffle Along which premiered on Broadway in 1921 and was the first African-American produced show on Broadway (and it starred Josephine Baker — holy cow!).
Of course, the big event is Eurovision — and I have blogged about it at bottom.
I’ve been feeling sentimental about the theme song for Red Dwarf (YT). Here’s a live orchestral performance (with singing and electric guitar) (YT) Here’s a fascinating 29 minute interview with the song composer Howard Goodall (YT) where he mentions two silly songs he also wrote for Red Dwarf. Tongue Tied (YT) and the Arnold Rimmer song (YT). The lyrics for the song are silly and irrrelevant to sci fi. That, Goodall, says, is precisely the point. He consciously avoided a futuristic style for the music or lyrics.
It’s cold outside There’s no kind of atmosphere I’m all alone More or less
Let me fly Far away from here
Fun, fun, fun In the sun, sun, sun
I want to lie Shipwrecked and comatose Drinking fresh Mango juice
Goldfish shoals Nibbling at my toes
Fun, fun, fun In the sun, sun, sun Fun, fun, fun In the sun, sun, sun
Post-Eurovision Notes
As you know, Americans normally cannot watch the final performance on YouTube; it is geo-blocked. However, I noticed that some of the National Finals (NF) are streamable in USA. So YT links will go to the portion of the NF which show the song in question.
I have deliberately avoided watching the semi-finals, but I did take a peek at the 2nd semi-finals. Long enough to watch the great Australian Milkshake Man video (YT). Amazed that it didn’t qualify for the finals. Also, Ireland not making the finals?! At least Albania and Ukraine qualified.
Okay, I’ve watched the whole thing. Twice (more or less).
The biggest Eurovision surprise was the delightful Made in Switzerland song (YT) which educated people about the history and culture of Switzerland. It also had a surprise appearance of Petra Meade (who is a Swedish comedienne and frequent Eurovision host). I suspect the William Tell stuff is just tall tale/silly history, but apparently there is a literary tradition of inventing wild adventures for that character.
Overall, I didn’t particularly care for Austria’s song (the singer was too high-pitched for my liking, and the melody wasn’t that pleasant either. Frankly, I was surprised as hell that it placed so high.
I loved Latvia’s Tautumeitas song. (YT) They sing some divine harmonies, and their choreography was also terrific. The performance was too arty, so I didn’t expect them to win, but I had hoped that they would place highly (and they did).
I was pleasantly surprised by Italy’s song by Lucio Corsi (YT) It was so sunny and pleasant, a far cry from the heavy metal Maneskin of a few years ago.
Subtle songs get missed by voters but are ranked highly by the juries. I was pleasantly surprised by Zoe Me of Switzerland (YT) (and it was ranked very highly by juries), but it received zero points by the voting audience.
I liked Israel’s son by Yuval Raphael, and she scored 2nd overall. Not my first choice, but a lovely song and lovely singer. Reading online, I discovered that she faced a horror during the Hamas attack. She hid in a shelter with 50 other people, and one of the terrorists threw hand grenades in her shelter, killing everybody but 11 people. Yuval hid for 8 hours behind the bodies, even sustaining injuries herself. Her song is one of healing and hope. This kind of story reminds you that one can hold a grudge against a government for its policies, but not against individual citizens, who may be victims themselves. Should it matter that the singer be a victim of the political violence? I don’t know, but it’s unavoidable. (YT)
Update: It appears that several countries have lodged formal complaints about the presence of Israel at the festival because of their actions in Gaza. Israel engaged in an aggressive campaign to encourage people in other countries to vote for the song — including an ad in Times Square in NYC! Maybe Eurovision should revisit guidelines about how to promote a country’s song. In this case, Israel only did so-so on the juror’s vote, but phenomenally well on the call in voting
I loved Klavdia of Greece. (YT) Her voice was beautiful, it’s a great melody and the staging was beautiful and simple. I feel almost the same way about Sweden’s Claude and Poland’s Justyna Steczkowska (YT) . I would have been happy with any of these three winning. The dizzying choreography of Poland’s song definitely gave it a Ruslana vibe. For the record, I haven’t listened to much Polish pop music, but the little that I have heard is always terrific! (Also, the Eurovision songs all tend to be great showcases for singers’ voices.
I was struck by two things: first, a lot of countries did not appear this year. That includes Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia Moldova, and obviously Russia, Belarus, Turkey, Hungary and Morocco. I imagine the financial costs of participation is a factor and also perhaps some of the more conservative (and Muslim) governments don’t see eye to eye with the super-tolerant values of Western Europe. Although some small countries participate, frankly it is rare for any of them to do that well (Of course, big countries like UK, Germany and France don’t do that well either, but at least they have more money to burn).
Pre-Eurovision — Thoughts
This week has finally arrived. Tuesday and Thursday are the semifinals for Eurovision, and the finals are Saturday afternoon. All the shows are broadcast live on Peacock and can be streamed later.
It’s also on YouTube — but geo-blocked for Americans unless they use a browser with a VPN and spoof as a European. Actually if you have checked, most of the European finals from previous years are also unavailable to U.S. users on YouTube even though you can usually watch the Semi-final performances for most of the acts.
For the three years I lived in Europe, I had never heard of Eurovision. Several years after I had returned to the States, I first heard about it when the Ukrainian singer Ruslana won the whole damn thing in 2004 (YT). After that I followed Eurovision in a lackadaisical way. But over the next decade, I developed a religious fervor for Eurovision. By 2021 I had became an outright proselytizer for the Eurovision religion to the barbarous American natives.
I have blogged about it, tweeted about it and even done a podcast about it on a global music podcast a few years ago. The podcast host was barely aware of Eurovision, and just a few days ago I mentioned it in passing to a South-American-born DJ living in Houston, and he also had never heard of the biggest music competition in the world. My teenage nieces and nephews had also never heard of it — although in the last year or two moments from past Eurovision performances have shown up randomly in their TikTok feeds.
Last year, I had been discussing the whole Eurovision thing with a British artist now living in Spain. He had certainly heard of Eurovision, but had stopped watching it a decade ago because it was getting “too gay” for his tastes.
However, my Irish-American mom — who also watches the Grammy Awards religiously, got into the show and admits that it’s pretty fascinating — even though by the third hour she usually call it quits. Telling her that Ireland is one of the heavyweight contenders in Eurovision history (along with Sweden, Italy and now Ukraine) probably increased her curiosity, although last year it turns out that Irish’s entry, Bambi Thug sang an almost unlistenable Industrial Metal song called Doomsday Blue where she screams and dances with Satan inside a pentagram. In addition to being non-binary, neo-paganist and dressed in BDSM outfit and a firm supporter of Palestinian rights (Bambi Thug was specifically forbidden by the Eurovision contest from wearing a Palestinian flag in her performance), my Mom decided that she still preferred the traditional Irish songs like My Irish Eyes are Smiling and Danny Boy. (As it turns out, Bambi Thug placed 6th — the highest rank that Ireland has had in 20 years. Some of Bambi Thug’s other songs are much more listenable — though still very witchy).
One of the most amazing things about Eurovision is that there is no prize except the satisfaction of winning. Last year Eurovision host (and female comedian) Petra Mede announced that for 2024 only there would be a special bonus prize for the 1st place winner — it would be a box set of Season 3 of the Gilmore Girls. Last year’s competition had its up and downs, including an international sing-a-long of various obscure Eurovision gems. “Lyrics will appear onscreen during the screen to help those singing along at home,” Petra said. “And if you already know the lyrics to all these songs, then you will know that you really are a homos– I mean– a true Eurovision fan.”
Every year has some stinkers and some ridiculous performances and some gems which never made it out of Semi-finals. Here’s some wonderful little gems from 2023 which scored close to last place in the finals.
Mia Nicolai & Dion Cooper (Netherlands)
Mimicat (portugal)
So my predictions about who will win the contest never materialize. One year, the act I had predicted would win the whole thing ended up receiving the 2nd lowest score. The unpredictability of Eurovision has to do partly with the demographics of EU residents voting with their phones. Who could predict for example that the songs from Israel would consistently land near the top of the Eurovision heap regardless of the political turmoil going on in Gaza? Eurovision is on an island totally devoid of politics. Nobody worries about Donald Trump or for that matter what crazy things are happening in the USA. Nobody talks about the Ukrainian war (although I wouldn’t be surprised if what finally ends the Ukrainian invasion are a bunch of crazed Eurovision fans who take Putin hostage until he gets Russia back into the contest). First place winner for last year (Nemo) is a Swiss non-binary pansexual who once called on his Switzerland to recognize a third gender. Here’s their winning song, The Code.
As for this year? Who knows. I’ve heard that Sweden has a song performed in a sauna. I’m pretty sure that whatever Germany, France and England send will be close to last place. I’d love to see a smaller country like Albania win it — smaller countries typically don’t do well.
Adding to the problems are that family events are conflicting with this year’s Eurovision schedule. (This is like the third year in a row!). That means I have to avoid social media and news until Sunday noon, when I can watch the stream unencumbered by schedules and out-of-town family here for the weekend.
In the meantime I have created a Spotify playlist called Magnificent Purple Babies with about 13 hours of old and new Eurovision songs. Enjoy!
I have noticed that full shows of old Eurovisions are available to Americans. The 2009 show in Moscow is universally considered to be the best show, and the 2021 post-Covid Show is also terrific.
For 2009 Eurovision, besides the wonderful winning song by Alexander Rybak (at the 1:27:32 mark), there was a gorgeous song by Estonia’s Urban Symphony (1:08:17) Turkey (1:19:52 ) and a (seriously) great song by Greta Thunberg’s mother (24:52 )
I just love that Estonian song Rändajad (YT) and its singer Sandra Nurmsalu (when she was singing with the Urban Symphony group).
One reason Eurovision is so unknown in the Americas is that you can’t watch most of the performances on YouTube. ESC geo-blocks the vids from regions whose country has not licensed the content.
But Americans can still watch the music vids for the song — and ESC puts the unblocked music vids on their channel.
They have been in my peripheries for a long time, but I finally got around to listening to Sixpence None the Richer and realized that 1)I really love the group’s sound and 2)the singer Leigh Nash comes from New Braunfels, Texas. They had a few hit songs around the turn of the century, such as Kiss Me (YT)
SMUT. Here’s a comic song by Tom Lehrer (1928-2025) praising smut. (YT) “I’ve never quibbled if it was ribald… Who needs a hobby like tennis or philately; I’ve got a hobby. It’s re-reading LADY CHATTERLY…”
Non-Eurovision Music Stuff
Wow, Talkingheads released a music video of Psycho Killer …. 50 years later. And it stars Saoirse Ronan. (YT)
Jabee (BC, Youtube) is an Oklahoma-based rap singer. Very versatile and has lyrics which tap into calls for social justice.
Freegal/Library/Archive.org Acquisitions
Slowly I’ve been downloading music from Freegal.
Various Eurovision stuff: GoA, Sunstroke, Mimicat, Kalush Orchestra, Katja Ebstein, Dai Freyr, Alexander Rybak, Rosa Linn. Destiny, “Je me Casse,” Salvador Sobrai.
Also the album Pop Trip by Pogo Pops (a 90s Norwegian pop group). I’ve been watching the great Norwegian show Pernille with an amazing soundtrack. The title song (which we only hear 5 seconds of); after much searching, I discover that it was “You don’t own me” by Saygrace and it is based on a 1963 song by Leslie Gore. Saygrace’s Live version is much better and cleaner than her European rap duet megahit (YT).
Great song by Mina (“You are my destiny”)
I’ve noticed that a lot of bootleg concerts from the 1970s-2000s are downloadable from Archive.org. There’s only one hitch: the recordings are in .flac format (and so you can’t listen to them in the embedded player on archive.org ). Fortunately, there is an easy solution. Download a zip of the flac files, unzip and then batch convert to mp3/.m4a/opus by using the free conversion tool freac. The other hitch is that some of the flac files don’t have good metadata. I would recommend editing the .flac metadata before doing the conversions. The first album I downloaded contained track information for another live concert. Welcome to the wonderful erroneous world of bootlegs.
I mentioned before that I stopped my subscription to Emusic. That gives me time to actually listen to the albums I download and maybe listened to once or twice.
in 7th grade I also listened to classical music on my city’s NPR station — though it was maddening having to wait for the end of the piece for the DJ to announce what we had just heard. (Amazing fact: did you know that many classical pieces were longer than the usual 3 minute pop song?) I remembered my joy and frustration at hearing a magical orchestral melody on the radio and then never finding out the name of the piece. I remember waiting months before I heard that same melody on the radio again — this time, I made sure to listen to the very end — turns out the piece was Beethoven’s Pastorale Symphony…. That was a year before I received a tape recorder which gave me the ability to record random things from the radio onto a 60 minute 2 sided cassette. I still remember what was on that first cassette I made — Barber’s Piano Concerto played by Robert Browning (YT) . It rocked my world!
You may not know that I have a nephew at music school who is playing for a well known university jazz band. He plays trombone and tuba, so my ears perk up whenever I hear a good part in a song for one of those instruments. Some faves:
Breakfast in America by Supertramp (YT). Heard this hundreds of times, but I never noticed the tuba until recently.
Age of Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In by 5th dimension. (YT) Actually this is backed by multiple Wrecking Crew stars; the arrangement and recording is incredible! I read on the wiki page that the instruments and vocals were recording separately, which made it so power-packed.
Articles, Interviews & Lists
Here’s a list compiled by a redditor about best albums of the year from the 1960s to the present. Even though these lists are kind of boring, I have missed a lot of the albums although I have generally heard of all the musicians.
Reddit favorite albums of the year from 1970 to 2024. That may simply reveal the demographics of reddit users, but some unusual choices here: lots of Tool, Green Day and Radiohead. Still, surprising to see Rage Against the Machine, Gorillaz, Smashing Pumpkins.
Reviews
Youtubey/Podcasty Things
Lynsey De Paul does a comic interview with a very famous musician (YT).
From my days living in Albania, I learned about some great Albanian singers. I was particularly taken by Eli Fara, who sang at folk festivals in the 1980s. There was one really amazing folk melody which she sang from that era. I spent a long time trying to find it again and found it –only to lose it again. I could have sworn that I had ripped one of her CDs and downloaded some versions of the song I liked, I can’t find anything.
Here’s a mini-playlist (YT) of Eli Fara‘s songs — mostly her older stuff. Aha, I found a medley with the song in it. It’s on the first track — for the first two minutes.
I just spent almost an hour trying to find a Cantopop song by Joey Yung that I listened to over and over 20 years ago. It took viewing almost 100 music vids on YouTube, but I finally found it (I recognized it in the first 2 seconds). Ahh, relief. (YT)
EPIC DANCE NUMBER. I really dig Sports Car song by Tate McRae and the amazing dance routine which was performed live on SNL last week. (YB) This dance number is brilliant in so many ways — singer is hot too. The Official video (which is interesting but strange) uses this theme of the voyeur/stripper and the “sports car” is a reference to the voyeur’s wealth. The live performance takes a totally different (and totally appropriate) tack! Here’s a 10 minute discussion with the singer/songwriter and the music producer.
80s DADA-PUNK SONG: This is the first time I’ve heard of the Flying Lizards. Where were songs like this when I was growing up? If I had seen this music video during the early years of MTV, I would have FREAKED OUT! (YT) Here’s an early interview (YT) and a later interview with the lead singer (YT1 and YT2)
I listen to a lot of random musical tracks that I get from various places (legally). I usually hate Christian rap/gospel songs, but I found a song which has stuck in my head. I searched for it and found this fun and upbeat dance video. (YT) The singer Josiah Caleb lives in Dallas, and apparently, he got a group of teenagers to dance along. (He runs a catering business).
I admit, I expected already to know a lot of these “secretly German” songs. But this enjoyable 20 minute vid mentions a lot of cool songs and musicians that were brand new to me. (YT)
UPCOMING MUSICAL DISTRACTION: Exactly 1 month from today will be the Eurovision Song Contest finals (Saturday May 17). (For a single afternoon at least, I will not have to think about a Russian war or my own country’s increasingly autocratic behavior). I cannot wait! (YT)
This handy guide is for music lovers who want to avoid using Spotify. My two tips are 1) getmusic..fm for codes to get free albums on bandcamp and 2)upload your music collection to ibroadcast.com to stream it any way you want. (Free + Freemium versions) . I never really have had a problem with Spotify (although the premium versions are too expensive). They are good ways to sample albums before buying digital versions. Bandcamp is a much better way to support musicians –especially for Name Your Price (NYP) albums, but many of the albums on bandcamp are very expensive — costs too much unless you’re 100% sure you want it or want to buy it as a way to support your musician. I wish that more albums cost less than 5$, but they’re more like 10-20$.
