Five Songs is back from the holidays! I'm going to try and keep to a more regular posting schedule around here, rather than the very erratic one from the last several months. It would be nice to get three or four a week at a minimum, anyway. Let's hear what we get for the first one of 2019!
Taylor Swift, "Shake It Off"
I'm sure I've posted this sentiment multiple times, but I'll suggest it again: this might be the biggest hit we've had on here (a mere 2.7 billion views on YouTube!). I trust I don't need to really introduce this song. But this is what an infectious pop song should sound like, and it's delightful.
John Lennon, "It's So Hard"
I guess we're going seriously mainstream today! I'm not really sure that the attempted blues here is super convincing, and the last half of the song in particular seems kind of at odds with the first, more spare half. Not Lennon's finest moment or anything.
All You Can Eat, "Beside An Empty Desk"
Ah yes, those titans of popular music (squints) All You Can Eat, with a song off their world famous album Manga. All You Can Eat were an underground punk band from the Bay Area who didn't leave much of an impact on anything, but made at least one perfectly serviceable album. They apparently had one before this one, but I've never heard it, so I dunno. I guess some things will always remain a mystery.
The Isley Brothers, "I Must Be Losing My Touch"
The Isley Brothers had a career that spanned decades and went through multiple phases. This comes from the period right after they departed Motown and began really guiding their own career, and the album on the whole is tremendous, featuring incredible funk interleaved with some more off-beat songs like this one.
Big Drill Car, "Diamond Earrings"
I'm not sure we've had Big Drill Car on here before, so a little intro: Big Drill Car were a California punk band at a time sort of in the valley between the initial rush of hardcore and the second wave of popularity centering around bands like the Offspring. They were label-mates of All, releasing a couple of albums on Cruz Records that fit right in with All's output of the time, with a pop sensibility to things that owed as much to Cheap Trick as it did to the Buzzcocks. Not that there's anything wrong with Cheap Trick! Both albums are actually very solid, with CD/Tape/Album Type Thing (the name varied depending on the format) probably being slightly ahead (it's the album which has this song on it).