Novelty, parody, and sketch songs have never been a major interest of mine. And most of my reviews would sound the same. So this week, instead of writing about the song, I’m going to pick one of its intriguing quirks or a related topic to spotlight. Spotlight: Variable-Frequency Oscillator In 1966, Jerry Samuels worked as a recording engineer for…
Novelty, parody, and sketch songs have never been a major interest of mine. And most of my reviews would sound the same. So this week, instead of writing about the song, I’m going to pick one of its intriguing quirks or a related topic to spotlight. Quirk: “Second verse, same as the first!” Back in 2014, Colton, Brian, and I ranked…
This week, I’m going to share some cover songs that I like. I’ve long believed that someone’s preferred version of a song will almost always be the first one they hear. It’s not a matter of which one truly came first, just which one came first to that listener. Such it is with “The Boys…
This week, I’m going to share some cover songs that I like. My wife and I often talk about cultural institutions from our childhood and how they define our generation. The obvious one is Harry Potter, but it’s far from the only one. Disney‘s Renaissance; news coverage of 9/11; Max Martin‘s Britney/Backstreet Boys breakthrough. While not at…
This week, I’m going to share some cover songs that I like. Gary Jules is not the first person to discover that stripping down a song’s production can give it new interpretive layers. But his rendition of Tears For Fears’ “Mad World” stands out as a particularly excellent example of the practice. The original, though a…
This week, I’m going to share some cover songs that I like. “Locomotion” is one of only a handful of songs to reach #1 Billboard by two different artists, and, to my knowledge, the only one to hit the top 5 by three different artists across three different decades (’60s, ’70s, ’80s). It’s especially peculiar that…
This week, I’m going to share some cover songs that I like. Game of Thrones has become such a massive sensation that you can name-drop “Daenerys” or “Tyrion” or “Jon Snow” in casual conversation and assume people will know what you’re talking about. It’s one of this generation’s great zeitgeists. The show’s fantastic theme song…
This week, I’m going to share some cover songs that I like. Here’s what I wrote about “My Heart Will Go On” when I picked it as my 2015 “Best YouTube Cover.”: I’m a freakazoid obsessive of YouTube covers, and my big discovery of the year was Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox, which recruits former members of…
One idea I’ve had for an Earn This article for years and years is “things I like the idea of, but don’t like in practice.” If you just explain the thing to me, I’ll think it’s awesome. But once I experience it, I’m tepid (or worse). Near the top of that list would be Sara…
This week, I’m going to share some cover songs that I like. On Facebook, I am a member of a group called “Dogspotting.” It’s a fantastic group. Members share pictures and videos of dogs they “spot” during their everyday life. The group has a long set of strict rules about what qualifies as a genuine “dogspot.” One of those…