Eli Young Band's Latest SingleI’ve been vaguely aware of the Eli Young Band’s existence for a while now, but have never really been compelled to seek them out until I spotted their latest entry on the Billboard country charts – a song called “Even If It Breaks Your Heart”. I recognized the title of the song from a song recorded by singer-songwriter Will Hoge a couple of years ago for his album The Wreakage. Could it be the same song? It sure is!
And it’s a great one. Hoge’s song about persevering in a dream – specifically the dream of making it big (or even just making a living) as a musician – deserved to be a bigger radio hit than it was. Had it come out during the late-90s Wallflowers-Counting Crows-Tonic-Matchbox Twenty moment, it just might have been.
Some of the Hoge fans commenting on the Eli Young video have been less than charitable, but I think it’s great that this song is finally a hit for someone. It’s reaching more people than it ever would have otherwise, and not only will the song have a longer “life expectancy” as a result, but it will also inevitably introduce more people to Hoge’s original, and by extension, his whole body of work. Last year, Hoge released his seventh studio album called… Number Seven. Here’s his latest single: “When I Get My Wings.”
#80#80: “WATER” by BRAD PAISLEY.
“Grab your swimming trunks, ice up that old Igloo, and drive until the map turns blue…” All I really need, this time of year, is to not be driving home in an ugly snowstorm with this Brad Paisley song stuck in my head. Don’t get me wrong – I love this song. But in the middle of this Wisconsin blizzard, it hurts.
#79#79: “FOR THE SUMMER” by RAY LaMONTAGNE & THE PARIAH DOGS.
This is the point in the road trip where it dawns on you that you’re never going to actually get to your where you’re going no matter how long you keep driving, so you pull off to the shoulder and have yourself a good cry. Until that State Trooper stops by and tells you to move along. At which point you, y’know, move along.
#78#78: “LITTLE WHITE CHURCH” by LITTLE BIG TOWN.
This is exactly what I would expect an Alabama weddin’ would look like. Huzzah for the gleeful perpetuation of stereotypes by the stereotyped. (Did I mention my huge collection of Broadway cast albums? It’s HUGE. It’s bigger than Cher, even.) Also: If you squint your eyes real hard, Little Big Town looks exactly like ABBA.
#77#77: “SHINE A LIGHT” by McFLY featuring TAIO CRUZ.
Still teenagers when their debut album hit #1 in the UK in 2004, McFly were a boy band more Bay City Rollers than Backstreet Boys, their songs owing more to Big Star and the Beatles than Max Martin and Dr. Luke. Things have changed. Their latest, co-written with reigning king of android pop Taio Cruz (who guests here on vocals) sounds more like a bid to become the UK’s answer to Maroon 5. And it’s awesome. And the video has lots of shiny stuff.
#76#76: “DO-WAH-DOO” by KATE NASH.
The retro-pop lament of the nice girl. Literate and lonely, she holds no illusions about that “other” girl that all the boys think is so sweet. “Everybody thinks that she’s a lady. But I don’t. I think that girl’s shady.” Boys can be so dumb. First of all: Hurray for in-flight choreography! But wait – so Kate’s crushing on a boy who’s a flight attendant? Err… okay.
#75#75: “ONE LIFE STAND” by HOT CHIP.
This is a band I should have loved from the start – five dorky British guys with synthesizers and an abiding devotion to the music of Devo – but they didn’t win me over until the release of their 5th album earlier this year. This is the title track from that album One Life Stand. And of all the LPs I picked up this year, it’s probably the one that’s logged the most mileage on my turntable: a collection of sincerely dorky and supremely dance-able songs about marriage and family.
#74#74: “PRAYIN’” by PLAN B.
The provocative British rapper transformed himself into an old-school soul singer for his latest album, an operatic R&B concept record about love, betrayal, crime and punishment. And he put some amazing visuals out to go along with it. The album’s called The Defamation of Strickland Banks, and Plan B has talked about putting together a feature film around it, building it out of the videos for the album’s songs. And from what I’ve seen so far, Plan B’s videos kick the asses of Ne-Yo’s and Kanye’s latest excursions into grandiose short-filmmaking.
#73#73: “THE HOUSE THAT BUILT ME” by MIRANDA LAMBERT.
“If I could just come in, I swear I’ll leave… won’t take nothing but a memory from the house that built me.” Another fine country tearjerker.
#72#72: “NIGHT & DAY” by CHIEF.
The sound of the band Chief falls roughly halfway between Eagles and the Church (just down the block from Fleet Foxes), 70s-style arena rock melodies, layers upon layers of guitars and other strings, and gorgeous four-part harmonies. The video’s great too, a sort of baroque dinner theater cabaret (with stylized stage violence!)
#71#71: “BETTER THAN TODAY” by KYLIE MINOGUE.
For the third single from her awesome latest album Aphrodite, the international superstar songstress comes down with a severe case of Pac Man Fever. And it’s drivin’ me crazy. Also, I’m going out of my mind. (In a good way.)
Next time around: The recession comes to hip-hop. And R&B. And indie rock.
And the countdown continues… #90#90: “THE GHOST INSIDE” by BROKEN BELLS.
Broken Bells are the non-singing guy (Danger Mouse) from Gnarls Barkley, and the singing guy (James Mercer) from The Shins. Here’s the second single from their self-titled debut album. The video, starring Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks is a sci-fi movie on the dangers of deficit spending. In order to get herself to a fabulous resort planet, space traveling hottie Hendricks pawns all her limbs (and probably compromises her position on the repeal of DADT) and still ends up on a deserted island planet in an intergalactic middle-of-nowhere.
#89#89: “HARD TIMES” by JOHN LEGEND & THE ROOTS.
There are only two covers included on my list this year, and this is the second of them, from one of my favorite records of the year. For Wake Up!, John Legend and the Roots, inspired by the political engagement they saw during the 2008 elections, recorded a passionate set of socially conscious soul songs from the late 60s and 70s, many of them long forgotten like this one originally performed by Baby Huey and the Babysitters.
#88#88: “HIGHWAY 20 RIDE” by ZAC BROWN BAND.
Tearjerker alert! Tearjerker alert! Are they a jam band? Are they outlaw country? Are they southern rock? Are they sentimental cornballs? They’re a little bit of all of the above. With a great big beard!
Although they’d already scored a few big country hits (which also had some mild crossover pop success) from their 2008 major label debut The Foundation, it was with their performance at this year’s Grammy Awards that made the band not just the latest country thang, but actually a previously implausible contender for greatest band in the world. This, the fourth single from The Foundation showed up shortly thereafter and became the band’s third Country #1, and fourth Top 40 hit a year and a half after the album’s release.
#87#87: “MORNING SUN” by ROBBIE WILLIAMS.
“After a long and sleepless night, how many stars would you give to the moon…” The third single from Robbie’s latest solo album Reality Killed the Video Star (he’s since re-joined his former bandmates in the British boy-band Take That), this weepy ballad follows Elton John’s Yellow Brick Road all the way to Strawberry Fields and back again.
#86#86: “NEIN, MANN!” by LASERKRAFT 3D.
a.k.a. The German theme song for Paul Lorentz at any given wedding reception. Don’t be daunted by the language barrier – the video provides black-lit hand-drawings as “subtitles” over the actors’ faces. It goes roughly along these lines:
Verse 1: A friend says “Hey, let’s get out of here. The DJ sucks and he’s just playing electro music and not even David Guetta”
German Paul Lorentz reply: “No man. I don’t want to go yet. I want to stay and dance.”
Verse 2: A hottie approaches: “Grab your coat and say goodbye to your friends. I want to take you where the night never ends. You and me, we should be dancing in the sheets.”
German Paul Lorentz reply: “No man. I don’t want to go yet. I want to stay and dance.”
Verse 3: Bouncer: “Really, dude, you should go. The bartender wants to go home. The dj’s falling asleep at the decks. Seriously, go.”
German Paul Lorentz reply: See above.
I like that German Paul Lorentz in the video has a belly like real-life Paul Lorentz. I also like that tick-tock-with-the-tie dance move that he does. I need to use that at my next wedding reception.
#85#85: “MADDER RED” by YEASAYER.
“Never gave a thought to an honorable living, always had sense enough to lie. It’s getting hard to keep pretending I’m worth your time…” Yeasayer’s neo-psychedelic ode to justifiable feelings of family man inadequacy is appropriately doleful, but not especially apologetic. It’s a domestic drama done up in exotic, futuristic colors. It’s hipster ear candy that sounds a lot like something the Thompson Twins would have done in 1982. It’s also got a real music video, but the video’s really gross and it’s, frankly, distracting from the song – which really is lovely. Thus this live version.
#84#84: “SOMEONE ELSE CALLING YOU BABY” by LUKE BRYAN.
If we were living in the 1970s, we’d call this pop/rock and it’d be a song by Eddie Rabbitt or Firefall or England Dan and John Ford Coley… But it’s 2010, so we call it country and it’s by a guy who was likened to a cross between Elvis Presley and Gomer Pyle when he appeared at the center of a challenge of the Donald Trump reality show Celebrity Apprentice. That appearance would help push his single “Rain Is a Good Thing” to #1 on the country charts. This song – an inducement to just break-up with the poor guy already – was the follow-up to “Rain”.
#83#83: “WHAT PART OF FOREVER” by CEE-LO GREEN.
Apparently this ran over the closing credits of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen any of the Twilight Movies. But I LOVE their soundtracks (so far). This song was co-written with a group called Oh, Hush, who appropriately enough, have never posted a band photo or identified their band members who, according to their facebook page, are various male and female superheroes. Here’s a live performance of the song from George Lopez, featuring Cee-Lo’s super-awesome all-girl back-up band.
#82#82: “EGO” by THE SATURDAYS.
Five hotties with superpowers, British accents, and a flair for public revenge. “Don’t tell me that you’re done as far as we go – You need to have a sit-down with your ego.” Did I mention hotties? With superpowers? And British accents?
#81#81: “HOLLYWOOD” by MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS.
Welsh singer-songwriter Marina Diamandis parties it up in a fake White House with cake and cheerleaders, fake Mariylns, fake Elvises, and… wait… is that a fake Barack in there too? At a time when it seems you can’t watch or read the news without hearing some politician talking about things being rammed down throats, it’s sort of refreshing to hear someone sing about “puking” up “American dreams.” And when she confesses she’s “obsessed with the mess that’s America”, it sounds genuine and even sort of affectionate. Sorta like my obsession with the mess that’s European pop music.
Coming up in the next block: one sad song about the summer and one happy song about the summer, one song about a shotgun wedding, and one about wedded bliss.
