Living Colour’s Vernon Reid was born on this date in 1958. A handful of Living Colour tracks are included on today’s playlist.
Your (Almost) Daily Playlist: 11-6-22
Today’s playlist celebrates the November 6 birthdays of Eagles’ Glenn Frey, Living Colour’s Corey Glover, Guy Clark, The Sir Douglas Quintet’s Doug Sahm, The Jive Five’s Eugene Pitt, Conchita Wurst, Juanita Hall, and Robert Ellis; and the November 7 birthdays of Lorde, Sloan’s Chris Murphy, The Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon, Shamir, Johnny Rivers, Toro y Moi, Dee Clark, Texas’s Sharleen Spiteri, Courtney Marie Andrews, Jellybean, and David Guetta.
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Your (Almost) Daily Playlist: 8-21-22
Today’s playlist celebrates the August 21 birthdays of Kelis, The Clash’s Joe Strummer, The Prodigy’s Liam Howlett, Kacey Musgraves, System of a Down’s Serj Tankian, Jackie De Shannon, Kenny Rogers, Ernie Maresca, and David Morales; and the August 22 birthdays of Wu-Tang Clan’s GZA, Tori Amos, John Lee Hooker, Tears for Fears’ Roland Orzabal, Craig Finn, Alice in Chains’ Layne Staley, Bangles’ Debbi Peterson, Living Colour’s Vernon Reid, Dale Hawkins, Dua Lipa, The Archies’ Ron Dante, Chuck Brown, and Evelyn Thomas.
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Queer Music of the 1990s
What makes compiling lists of queer music by decades more challenging as we move forward in time is that the number of songs from which to choose keeps increasing greatly. For today’s playlist, I started with a list of several hundred songs by out LGBTQ+ acts or with LGBTQ+ subject matter, from which I whittled it down to the 30 tunes below. I second guess myself a lot. Should three of the first four songs be by straight-identifying acts? Should I include a lightweight novelty number over something by Maria McKee? (I decided yes, though I love Maria.) I didn’t necessarily choose my favorites. Instead I went for songs/acts that were on some level trailblazers. Here they be:
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Throwback Thursday: 1988
Nineteen eighty eight was, on the US pop music chart, one of those in-between years. The “New Wave” British invasion had greatly subsided and England wasn’t as much of a presence on the charts as it was a few years earlier. Rap was increasing in popularity and hitting the top 40 more frequently, though it was still a far cry from the dominant position it holds today. Of the hip hop song’s on today’s playlist, only two made it onto the Billboard Hot 100 – LL Cool J’s “Goin’ Back to Cali,” which peaked at #31, despite selling a million copies, and Rob Base & D.J. E-Z Rock’s “It Takes Two,” which peaked at #36, despite selling two million copies. Alternative music lived up to its genre name as an alternative to the music on the pop chart, so if you wanted to hear Sonic Youth or The Dead Milkmen or The Primitives, you had to tune into college radio or the stations on the left side of your FM dial. Those artists, alongside U2, R.E.M. and INXS, could be found on Billboard’s Modern Rock chart, which premiered in September of 1988. New Jack Swing tracks from artists such as Keith Sweat remained popular on Black radio and crossed over, while Black artists such as Tracy Chapman and Living Colour failed to make much of an impression on Black radio. So-called Hair Metal was a presence on the pop chart; grunge would help fix that in a few years. Configuration-wise, CDs outsold vinyl LPs for the first time in 1988, though cassettes outsold both.
Here are thirty of 1988’s finest:
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Your (Almost) Daily Playlist (11-6-20)
Inspired by the November 6 birthdays of Eagles’ Glenn Frey, Living Colour’s Corey Glover, Mike Nichols, Juanita Hall, Robert Ellis, Conchita Wurst, Sir Douglas Quintet’s Doug Sahm and The Jive Five’s Eugene Pitt.
Your (Almost) Daily Playlist (9-13-20)
Inspired by the September 13 birthdays of Fiona Apple, Don Was, Chicago’s Peter Cetera, Blood Sweat & Tears’ David Clayton-Thomas, The Church’s Steve Kilbey, Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine, and Swizz Beats.
Prince: Compositions
Around ten years ago, while I was working at Warner Music, we were trying to think of catalogue projects that may engage Prince. One of my suggestions was a two-disc set in which one disc consisted of Prince songs recorded by others and the second disc was Prince’s demo versions of songs made famous by others.
Two weeks ago Warner released on Tidal Prince’s Originals, demo versions of songs Prince wrote that were recorded by other acts. (It hits others streaming services tomorrow, with CD and vinyl releases coming as well.) I’m not saying Warner took my idea without giving me credit; I’d be surprised if I were the only person who thought of it.
Today’s Tunes du Jour playlist is the concept of the other disc of my proposed set – songs Prince wrote or co-wrote performed by other acts. It’s not exactly what I envisioned that disc to be, as many (MANY!!) of the songs I would choose are not available on Spotify. There’s all the Paisley Park material that reverted to Prince (Vanity 6, Apollonia 6, Mazarati, Jill Jones, The Family, Ingrid Chavez, etc.), as well as commercially-released covers that for whatever reason are missing, by artists such as Foo Fighters, Robyn, Jesus and Mary Chain, Mavis Staples, Eels, and Living Colour.
Even with those limitations, not a bad list. Enjoy!
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