And yet still even more holiday music!
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Tunes Du Jour Presents Billie Eilish
If your primary image of Billie Eilish is the whispery, unsettling provocateur from her breakout years, you’re not wrong, but you’re only holding one piece of the puzzle. A look through her work reveals an artist who established a signature sound early on, only to consistently expand, subvert, and deepen it. The journey from the spider-in-your-bed menace of “bury a friend” to the tender devotion of “BIRDS OF A FEATHER” isn’t a rebranding; it’s a natural, documented evolution of a songwriter growing up in public and using her music to process it all in real time.
That initial sound, of course, was undeniably magnetic. In tracks like “you should see me in a crown” and “bad guy,” Eilish and her brother/producer Finneas created a sonic world that was both minimalist and immense. The formula often involved a heavy, floor-rattling bass line, sparse and sometimes jarring sound effects, and her voice, recorded so closely it felt like a secret being told directly into your ear. This approach created a unique kind of tension—a quiet confidence that could feel more confrontational than a scream. It was a sound that didn’t just stand out; it carved its own distinct space in the pop landscape.
Yet, running parallel to this confident persona was a current of profound vulnerability, a quality that has become a central pillar of her work. For every “Therefore I Am,” there has always been a track like “when the party’s over” or “i love you.” These songs strip away the bravado, leaving just a voice, a piano or a gentle guitar, and an unflinchingly honest lyric. This is the mode she returned to for the Grammy-, Golden Globe-, and Academy Award-winning “What Was I Made For?”, a song that distills complex feelings of purpose and identity into a quiet, universally understood query. This contrast between the assertive and the achingly fragile has always been a core component of her artistry.
What’s most interesting, however, is watching how those two streams have begun to merge and produce new forms. The slow, ukulele-led intro of “Happier Than Ever” erupts into a full-throated, cathartic rock anthem, demonstrating a newfound power in outright emotional release. More recently, tracks like “LUNCH” and “CHIHIRO” have pulled her sound toward the dance floor, blending her characteristic vocal delivery with driving, hypnotic synth lines. Her James Bond theme, “No Time To Die,” proved she could deliver classic, cinematic grandeur, while a track like “Your Power” shows a maturation in her songwriting, tackling difficult subjects with a quiet, firm resolve.
Ultimately, this selection of songs showcases an artist who is less concerned with maintaining a single brand and more interested in building a broad and responsive emotional toolkit. She uses different sonic textures to explore different states of being, from the defiant dismissal of “Lost Cause” to the existential dread of “TV” and the warm sincerity of “THE GREATEST.” The initial image of the dark-pop prodigy was an authentic one, but as this body of work shows, it was never the entire story. It was simply the beginning of one.
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Tunes Du Jour Presents Britney Spears
If you scroll through a playlist of Britney Spears’s greatest hits, you’re not just looking at a list of popular songs. You’re tracing a remarkable path through modern pop music, one that is often defined by its distinct chapters. The journey begins with the now-iconic “…Baby One More Time,” a song that launched a career and set a new standard for late-90s pop. Tracks like this, along with “Oops!…I Did It Again” and “(You Drive Me) Crazy,” presented a specific, highly polished image: the approachable girl next door, navigating first loves and heartbreaks. Even in these early days, however, songs like “Lucky”—a surprisingly melancholic look at a famous girl who is crying behind her smile—hinted at the complex relationship with fame that would become a recurring theme in her work.
It wasn’t long before that polished image began to intentionally crack and evolve. The shift is palpable. You can hear it in the slinky, breathless production of “I’m a Slave 4 U,” a track that signaled a clear departure from her previous sound and a confident step into a more adult persona. This era wasn’t just about a new sound; it was about a new narrative. In songs like “Overprotected” and “Stronger,” the lyrics became declarations of independence, pushing back against outside control and expectations. It was a crucial pivot, one where the artist began using her music to comment on her own public journey, a theme she would revisit with even more focus later on.
As her career progressed into the mid-2000s, Spears became a central figure in the electronic and dance-pop wave that would dominate the decade. This is perhaps her most sonically adventurous period, producing some of pop’s most enduring anthems. The frantic, string-driven beat of “Toxic,” the demanding pulse of “Gimme More,” and the robotic sneer of “Womanizer” are all masterclasses in dance floor command. This period also saw the subject matter of her songs become its most self-referential. With “Piece Of Me,” she directly addressed the media frenzy surrounding her life, turning the camera back on the audience with a defiant and clever hook. It’s a bold move that transformed her from a subject of pop culture into one of its sharpest commentators.
Of course, the story isn’t all high-energy production and defiant statements. Woven throughout this catalogue are moments of striking vulnerability that offer a different kind of insight. The simple, piano-led melody of “Everytime” stands in stark contrast to the high-octane tracks that often surrounded it, revealing a quiet fragility. This emotional range is a key part of her artistry. Similarly, her collaborations show her ability to stand alongside fellow icons, from the dance-off with Madonna in “Me Against The Music” to her graceful return on the warm, inviting duet “Hold Me Closer” with Elton John, a track that feels less like a comeback and more like a welcome continuation.
Listening back, from the earnest pop of “Sometimes” to the commanding instruction of “Work Bitch,” what emerges is the sound of an artist continuously recalibrating. Her discography tells a story of growth, defiance, and resilience, all filtered through the lens of pop music. Each song is not just a hit, but a snapshot of a specific moment, capturing a young woman defining herself, a global star navigating immense pressure, and an artist creating a body of work that has profoundly shaped the sound and style of pop for more than two decades.
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Tunes Du Jour Presents Randy Newman
If your primary exposure to Randy Newman is the warm reassurance of “You’ve Got A Friend In Me,” you’d be forgiven for missing the bigger picture. If you only know him from the radio controversy surrounding “Short People,” you might have the wrong picture entirely. Listening to a broad selection of his work reveals something far more complex and interesting. Newman is one of America’s most distinct songwriters, a master of inhabiting characters, often to expose their deepest flaws. He doesn’t just write songs about people; he writes songs from their point of view, and he rarely picks the hero of the story to be his narrator.
His most famous method is satire, but it’s a specific kind that requires you to listen closely. The playlist gives us plenty of evidence. He isn’t actually advocating for dropping a bomb in “Political Science” or celebrating unthinking consumerism in “It’s Money That Matters.” He’s putting on a mask, adopting the voice of a jingoistic hawk or a cynical materialist to show how absurd their worldview is. The same goes for the layered, uncomfortable commentary of “Rednecks,” a song that indicts Northern hypocrisy as much as it does Southern prejudice. It’s a high-wire act that relies on the listener understanding that the singer and the songwriter are two different people, a distinction that has sometimes been lost but is central to appreciating his genius.
But to paint Newman as only a satirist is to ignore the profound empathy that runs through his catalog. This is the same writer who can craft a song as devastatingly beautiful as “Louisiana 1927,” a historical account of a flood that feels immediate and heartbreaking. He can capture a deep sense of alienation in “I Think It’s Going To Rain Today” or the quiet despair of “Guilty.” Perhaps the most powerful example of this duality is “God’s Song (That’s Why I Love Mankind),” where a gorgeous, hymn-like melody carries some of the most cynical lyrics ever put to paper. It’s this ability to pair musical beauty with lyrical discomfort that makes his work so compelling and emotionally resonant.
It’s also crucial to remember that Newman began his career as a songwriter for other artists, and his compositions have a sturdiness that allows them to be interpreted in many ways. You can hear this in the playlist. Three Dog Night took the nervous energy of “Mama Told Me (Not To Come)” and turned it into a massive, swaggering rock anthem. In the decade before, singers like Dusty Springfield and Cilla Black were delivering his early, lovelorn ballads (“I Don’t Want To Hear It Anymore,” “I’ve Been Wrong Before”) with the full force of 1960s pop production. More recently, the legendary Mavis Staples found the deep, soulful core of “Losing You,” proving the timelessness of his emotional writing.
Ultimately, exploring Randy Newman’s work is an exercise in listening with an open mind. It’s a collection of American stories told through a unique lens, from the lonely celebrity in “Lonely At The Top” to the romantic simpleton in “Love Story (You And Me).” He uses his signature piano style, a sharp wit, and an unflinching eye for human folly to create a world of songs that are by turns funny, tragic, uncomfortable, and deeply moving. He doesn’t offer easy answers, but he provides a singular and enduring commentary on the strange ways we all get by.
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Tunes Du Jour Presents 2009
Looking at a list of songs from 2009 feels a bit like opening a time capsule. It’s a year that feels both incredibly recent and like a completely different era. The internet had firmly established itself as the primary engine of music discovery, yet the monoculture of massive, universally-known hits was still holding on. It was a year of distinct, confident sounds, where different genres weren’t just blending together, but thriving in their own parallel lanes. From stadium-sized anthems to bedroom-born electronic experiments, the music of 2009 was defined by a remarkable breadth of creativity.
One of the most prominent stories of the year was the flourishing of indie rock. This wasn’t the scrappy, underground sound of years past; this was indie at its most ambitious and critically adored. You had the intricate, harmony-drenched compositions of Grizzly Bear on “Two Weeks” and the hypnotic, looping bliss of Animal Collective’s “My Girls.” These were songs that rewarded close listening. Elsewhere, artists like Bat For Lashes (“Daniel”) and Dirty Projectors (“Stillness Is The Move”) were crafting their own unique sonic worlds, while bands like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (“Zero”) and Japandroids (“Young Hearts Spark Fire”) delivered pure, cathartic energy. It was a moment where “alternative” music felt like it was setting the cultural agenda.
Meanwhile, the top of the charts was being shaped by bold new directions in pop and hip-hop. Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” wasn’t just a song; it was a high-concept art project, signaling a new level of theatricality in pop music. This stood alongside the effortless, feel-good charm of Miley Cyrus’s “Party in the U.S.A.” and Kelly Clarkson’s powerhouse hit-making on “My Life Would Suck Without You.” In hip-hop, the genre’s emotional palette was expanding dramatically. You had Jay-Z and Alicia Keys delivering a timeless, triumphant anthem with “Empire State Of Mind,” while at the same time, Kanye West’s auto-tuned melancholy on “Heartless” and Kid Cudi’s spacey introspection on “Day ‘N’ Nite” were paving the way for a more vulnerable sound. The arrival of Drake with “Best I Ever Had” confirmed this shift toward melody and emotional openness was here to stay.
This wasn’t to say that straightforward rock and roll had been left behind. On the contrary, it was a year of massive, unifying rock anthems. Kings Of Leon reached their popular peak with “Use Somebody,” a song that seemed to be playing in every stadium and on every radio station in the world. The UK, meanwhile, was providing its own distinct contributions, from the grand, theatrical rebellion of Muse’s “Uprising” and the clever songwriting of Arctic Monkeys on “Cornerstone” to the dance-floor-ready energy of Franz Ferdinand’s “Ulysses.”
Looking back at this collection of songs, what’s most striking is the confidence of it all. It was a year where artists were creating fully realized worlds for listeners to step into. Whether it was the raw nerve of The Ting Tings, the grime-infused electro of Dizzee Rascal’s “Bonkers,” or the classic synth-pop of Pet Shop Boys, each track feels like a distinct statement. It was a time when you could have a playlist that jumped from an introspective indie ballad to a global pop phenomenon, and the whole thing made perfect sense. It was the sound of several different musical futures all happening at once.
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