Inspired by the March 8 birthdays of The Monkees’ Micky Dolenz, Eagles’ Randy Meisner, Supergrass’ Gaz Coombes, frente!’s Angie Hart, Gary Numan, Peggy March, Keane’s Tom Chaplin, and songwriter Carole Bayer Sager.
Top Songs Of 2016
Herewith, my top 99 tracks of 2016 (playlist below the written list):
1. “Sorry” – Beyoncé
2. “Happy” – Mitski
3. “Wasn’t My Fault” – Christie and the Dream Beats
4. “WTF (Where They From)” – Missy Elliott featuring Pharrell
5. “Starboy” – The Weeknd featuring Daft Punk
6. “Hold Up” – Beyoncé
7. “Tilted” – Christine and the Queens
8. “Lazarus” – David Bowie
9. “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” – Justin Timberlake
10. “The Community of Hope” – PJ Harvey
11. “Broccoli” – D.R.A.M. featuring Lil Yachty
12. “No Problem” – Chance the Rapper featuring Lil Wayne & 2 Chainz
13. “Formation” – Beyoncé
14. “Sister” – Angel Olsen
15. “On My Heart” – School of Seven Bells
16. “Augustine” – Blood Orange
17. “The Wheel” – PJ Harvey
18. “Here” – Alessia Cara
19. “Kill v. Maim” – Grimes
20. “The Pop Kids” – Pet Shop Boys
21. “Wow” – Beck
22. “Nikes” – Frank Ocean
23. “Lipslap” – Kero Kero Bonito
24. “California” – Grimes
25. “T5” – Swet Shop Boys
26. “Work from Home” – Fifth Harmony featuring Ty Dolla $ign
27. “Gardenia” – Iggy Pop
28. “Player” – Tinashe featuring Chris Brown
29. “Flesh Without Blood” – Grimes
30. “Frankie Sinatra” – the Avalanches
31. “Floridada – Animal Collective
32. “When We Were Young” – Adele
33. “Borders” – M.I.A.
34. “Wide Open” – the Chemical Brothers featuring Beck
35. “Highway Vagabond” – Miranda Lambert
36. “Boy Problems” – Carly Rae Jepsen
37. “I Have Been to the Mountain” – Kevin Morby
38. “Crisis” – Anohni
39. “Rich” – Maren Morris
40. “Hands of Time” – Margo Price
41. “Mercy” – Eric Bachmann
42. “The Big Big Beat” – Azealia Banks
43. “Too Good” – Drake featuring Rihanna
44. “Genghis Khan” – Miike Snow
45. “Straight Outta Vagina” – Pussy Riot featuring Desi Mo & Leikeli47
46. “All the Way Up” – Fat Joe featuring Remy Ma, Jay-Z & French Montana
47. “Knickers” – Jidenna
48. “Little Bit of This” – GTA featuring Vince Staples
49. “River” – Leon Bridges
50. “Radio” – Sylvan Esso
51. “Giant” – Banks & Steelz
52. “I Can’t Give Everything Away” – David Bowie
53. “Daddy Lessons” – Beyoncé featuring Dixie Chicks
54. “In Bloom” – Sturgill Simpson
55. “You Want It Darker” – Leonard Cohen
56. “Come Down” – Anderson .Paak
57. “Lake by the Ocean” – Maxwell
58. “One Dance” – Drake featuring WizKid and Kyla
59. “Life Itself” – Glass Animals
60. “Runnin’” – Pharrell Williams
61. “24K Magic” – Bruno Mars
62. “Real Love Baby” – Father John Misty
63. “Send My Love (to Your New Lover)” – Adele
64. “Boyfriend” – Tegan & Sara
65. “Cranes in the Sky” – Solange
66. “Really Doe” – Danny Brown featuring Kendrick Lamar & Ab-Soul & Earl Sweatshirt
67. “Bike Engine” – Stylo G x Jacob Plant
68. “Burn the Witch” – Radiohead
69. “I Wanna Boi” – PWR BTTM
70. “Work” – Rihanna featuring Drake
71. “Fuck Donald Trump” – YG & Nipsey Hussle
72. “Guns of Hysteria” – Annalie Prime
73. “Born Again Teen” – Lucius
74. “City Lights” – the White Stripes
75. “Somewhere in Paradise” – Chance the Rapper featuring Jeremih
76. “Sister of Pearl” – Baio
77. “U-Turn” – Tegan & Sara
78. “Shut Up Kiss Me” – Angel Olsen
79. “Moth to a Flame” – Chairlift
80. “Blackstar” – David Bowie
81. “A Burning Hill” – Mitski
82. “Pretty Pimpin’” – Kurt Vile
83. “Break” – Kero Kero Bonito
84. “In the Night” – the Weeknd
85. “Elevator Operator” – Courtney Barnett
86. “Piece of Me” – MK featuring Becky Hill
87. “Love and War” – Banks & Steelz featuring Ghostface Killah
88. “Cold Light” – Operators
89. “Vice” – Miranda Lambert
90. “Water under the Bridge” – Adele
91. “Dorothy” – Kevin Morby
92. “Say U Want Me” – Chris Farren
93. “Lifted” – CL
94. “Sound & Color” – Alabama Shakes
95. “Cash Machine” – D.R.A.M.
96. “Drone Bomb Me” – Anohni
97. “Who’s Gonna Miss Me?” – Loretta Lynn
98. “Lift Me Up” – Vince Staples
99. “Cool Out” – Matthew White and Natalie Press
Click here to like Tunes du Jour on Facebook!
Follow me on Twitter: @TunesDuJour
Follow me on Instagram: @GlennSchwartz
Cool New Music
A Tunes du Jour reader asked me to post a playlist of current tunes I’m enjoying. I’m more than happy to oblige.
Here are twenty recently-released tracks that get a lot of play in my home:
Click here to like Tunes du Jour on Facebook!
Follow me on Twitter: @TunesDuJour
Kurt
“I’d rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I am not.”
– Kurt Cobain
“That kid has heart.”
– Bob Dylan
“He had a touch most guitarists would kill for.”
– Chuck Berry
“His music is powerful, very intense. That sort of power is rare. You hate to lose somebody like that, someone who keeps the music alive and moving ahead. Not many guys like him come along.”
– Bruce Springsteen
“Nobody dies a virgin. Life fucks us all.”
– Kurt Cobain
“I went to see Nirvana at a small club called the Pyramid on Avenue A in New York City. It was hard to hear the guitar, but the guy playing and singing had a vibe; he hopped around like a muppet or an elf or something, hunched over his guitar, hop hop hop, hippety hippety hop. I loved that. When he sang, he put his voice in this really grating place, and it was kind of devilish sounding. At the end of the set he attacked the drum kit and threw the cymbals, other bits and finally himself into the audience. Later I saw the same guy passing the bar. He was little, with stringy blond hair and a Stooges T-shirt. I felt proud.”
– Iggy Pop
“Nirvana was the first band in years that I really loved… They were the band I felt a lot of hope for, for the whole music scene.”
– Patti Smith
“If any of you in any way hate homosexuals, people of a different color, or women, please do this one favor for us… Don’t come to our shows and don’t buy our records.”
– Kurt Cobain
“He really, really inspired me. He was so great. Wonderful. One of the best, but more than that. Kurt was one of the absolute best of all time for me.”
– Neil Young
“Such a beautiful flame never burns very long. The really brilliant flames seem to consume themselves, and then they’re gone. Maybe Kurt was meant to be here long enough to put us on the right path.”
– Tom Petty
“If you’re really a mean person you’re going to come back as a fly and eat poop.”
– Kurt Cobain
“Nirvana made everything else look silly.”
– Bono
“Cobain was very shy, very polite, and obviously enjoyed the fact that I wasn’t awestruck at meeting him. There was something about him, fragile and engagingly lost.”
– William S. Burroughs
“Birds scream at the top of their lungs in horrified hellish rage every morning at daybreak to warn us all of the truth, but sadly we don’t speak bird.”
– Kurt Cobain
“He was an incredible writer and an incredible singer. And when I met him I found him to be a very special person. He was one of those special people. There was a light inside him that you could see. He had a charisma that went beyond his physical presence.”
– PJ Harvey
“I am not gay, though I wish I were, just to piss off homophobes.”
– Kurt Cobain
“The only person I have any respect for as a songwriter over the last 10 years is Kurt Cobain. He was the perfect cross between Lennon and McCartney. He belted it out like Lennon, but his melodies were so Paul McCartney.”
– Noel Gallagher
“Remember Kurt for what he was: caring, generous and sweet.”
– Krist Novoselic
“I still dream about Kurt. Every time I see him in a dream, I’ll be amazed and I get this feeling that everyone else thinks he’s dead. It always feels totally real, probably because I’m a very vivid dreamer. But, in my dreams, Kurt’s usually been hiding – we’ll get together and I’ll end up asking him, “God, where have you been”
– Dave Grohl
“If you die you’re completely happy and your soul somewhere lives on. I’m not afraid of dying. Total peace after death, becoming someone else is the best hope I’ve got.”
– Kurt Cobain
February 20, 1967 – April 5, 1994
#1 In Glenn’s Ten On This Day Throughout History
Today’s playlist is made up of songs that were at #1 in Glenn’s Ten on this day, in chronological order. A few of the songs are not on Spotify, so I’ll give you YouTube links so you may experience them.
Originally intended to be the b-side of a George Harrison single entitled “This Is Love,” supergroup Traveling Wilburys’ “Handle With Care” was my #1 on this day on 1988. Per the liner notes of this album’s reissue in 2007, the word “wilbury” came from a remark George Harrison made to producer Jeff Lynne about errors made while recording – “We’ll bury ’em in the mix.”
Despite referencing Santa in its title and being a December #1 in 1991, De La Soul’s “Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa” in not a Christmas song. It’s about a girl seeking revenge on a sexually-abusive parent.
“I Got My Education” performed by New York house duo Uncanny Alliance was my #1 this day in 1992. It hit #2 on Billboard‘s dance chart. The duo released one album and neither member was ever heard from again.
My #1 on this day in 2005 was The White Stripes’ “Walking with a Ghost,” a cover of a song released just a few months earlier by Tegan and Sara.
Here are the other #1s from this day in Glenn’s Ten history, except for 1985’s entry, as I cannot locate the book where I maintained that year’s lists.
Ten Facts About Björk
1. Her last name is Guðmundsdóttir.
2. Her first album, entitled Björk, was released in December 1977 when she was twelve years old.
3. Before forming The Sugarcubes, Björk was in the bands Spit and Snot and Tappi Tikarrass. The latter is Icelandic for “Cork the bitch’s ass.”
4. When they formed The Sugarcubes, Björk was married to the band’s guitarist. They divorced and he married a woman who became the band’s keyboard player.
5. The Sugarcubes’ biggest US hit is entitled “Hit.” It spent five weeks at number one on Billboard’s Modern Rock chart.
6. Her single “Earth Intruders” reached #84 on Billboard magazine’s Hot 100 chart. It is Björk’s highest-placing single to date on that chart.
7. She wrote “Bedtime Story” for Madonna. The 1995 single was Madonna’s first to miss the US top 40 since before her breakout hit “Holiday” twelve years earlier.
8. Her performance in the motion picture Dancer in the Dark won her the Best Actress Award at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival.
9. Her album Medúlla is mostly a capella. One song has a piano, one a bass synthesizer, and another a gong. The remainder of the sounds is created by human vocals.
10. Today is her birthday. I don’t know if she’s smoking cigars.