Paula Jean Brown, who joined the Go-Go's as bass guitarist following Jane Wiedlin's departure, co-wrote the song with Jim Whelan, and Wiedlin and Charlotte Caffey sang back-up vocals. "Mad About You" was one of a few songs being considered for the fourth (unrecorded) Go-Go's album. The Go-Go's split, and "Mad About You" and two other songs co-written by Paula Jean Brown ended up on Belinda.
The music video was directed by Leslie Libman. It features Andy Taylor of Duran Duran and Carlisle's husband, Morgan Mason. During one scene she dances to a vinyl LP of Yma Sumac's Mambo!. The outdoor scenes are largely set in or near Palisades Park in Santa Monica, California.
The single's B-side, "I Never Wanted a Rich Man", was also included on Carlisle's first long playing work. The extended version of "Mad About You", originally on the A-side of the 12-inch single, was then included on the album compact disc re-release by Virgin in 2003.
Mad About You Track List:
7-inch single
12-inch single
Three weeks ago, Rick Astley shared his new single "Raindrops" now the icon is releasing the official video which consist of several footages taken from rehearsals to the Reflection Tour stage.
From the folk pop of opener "These Are the Days," it was clear he was more focused than ever. "You've Had It With You" arkens back to the more ragged Replacements vibe, while "MamaDaddyDid" and "Once Around the Weekend" were somewhat paint-by-numbers alt-pop for the era—radio-friendly pop songs, perfect for a soundtrack near you.
The album was full of these mid-tempo, melody-driven adult pop songs that, while fine, fail to really catch fire at first. Paul Westerberg quit drinking around the time of The Replacements' demise and began to mature. Some people never will forgive Paul for simply growing up. His first solo album was an excellent, if slightly uneven record. Until today Eventually was his most fully realized solo album. Every song is excellent and brilliantly ordered in sequence of songs, each song builded on the previous one to create a sum that is greater than its parts.
It starts off brilliantly with "These Are the Days" and continued to grew, "Love Untold" was a heartbreaking ode to two potential lovers who never get a chance to meet. Westerberg’s attention to small details is captured as perfectly here as it’s ever been. It’s those small details that has made Westerberg one of the greatest, if unfortunately underrated songwriters of his generation. He captures all the heartbreak, the angst, the joy and the passion that we all feel from time to time. He knows how to convey what we all feel inside. "Ain't Got Me" was another excellent song that segues beautifully into "You've Had it With You."
Then it came "MamaDaddyDid" revealed his ambivalence towards having children & his own parents’ inability to raise him. Although I guess he had a change of heart a few years later, when he did in fact have a child. "Hide N Seekin" was probably the type of song that his fans crucify him for back then, the one of the most touching songs of his entire career "Good Day," a piano & strings-based ballad, a hopeful, positive ode to being alive sung with heartfelt passion. A tribute to fallen, former Mats guitarist Bob Stinson.
Released on 30 April 1991 "Why Do Birds Sing?" was the 5th., studio album by the US band Violent Femmes. It was the band's last album with original drummer Victor DeLorenzo, who left two years later to devote his time to acting, and was produced by Michael Beinhorn. The album spawned three singles, the hit "American Music," which rose to number 2 on Billboard's Modern Rock chart during the week of May 18, 1991, and became a staple of the band's live shows, also the Culture Club's Hit cover "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me", & the college rock classic "Used To Be."
Why Do Birds Sing? was something of a return to form, if only in terms of having song after song of the kind of weirdly fractured folk pop that represented the band at their most accessible. Upbeat and straightforward album-opener "American Music" was placedssomewhere between campfire song and pop masterpiece, with subtle production details like sleighbells and sparingly used organ runs growing along with the song's steady build. The snarling cover of Culture Club's hit "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me," the band chose to record this unlikely cover: We took it as a challenge,” laughs Gordon Gano, who reworked the majority of the lyrics, making the song sound like a Violent Femmes original. Ritchie adds, "It was an experiment that turned out really well…in fact, we bumped into Boy George once in a hotel bar and he told us, 'That is the best cover of any of our songs anyone’s ever done.'" the inverted girl group appropriation of "Look Like That," and the driving college rock of "Used to Be."
The band's penchant for sardonic and juvenile humor remains intact on the faux-blues stomp of "Girl Trouble" and the shadowy clunk of "Make More Money," a bitter revenge story of the tormented high school nerd becoming a rich rock star. When Why Do Birds Sing? was first released, the Violent Femmes were already a decade into their career, enjoying cult success but still living mostly in the shadow of their debut. The album would be one of their most commercially successful up until that point, despite some critics finding it disjointed and a little too all-over-the-place stylistically.
The album felt more solid, with its lesser moments strung together by some of the best songs the band ever penned, and production that makes space for both the Femmes' anxious demeanor and their not-so-secret love of big, dumb pop songs. As the band recorded Why Do Birds Sing?, they found themselves returning to their classic Violent Femmes-era sound, particularly with songs like "Out The Window" and "Look Like That." They also revisited several compositions from their earliest days, including "Girl Trouble," "Life is a Scream," and "Flamingo Baby."
The album pushed the Violent Femmes into their highest level of mainstream success—nearly a decade into their career. Over the next few years, the band became a must-see act at festivals like Lollapalooza and Woodstock '94, while their videos could be seen regularly on MTV. As the group was embraced by a new generation of fans, Violent Femmes entered the Billboard 200 for the first time since its release.
The accompanying UK B-sides, "The Horrors", "A Song" and "St. Louis", continued the dramatic change in style for Blur first evidenced on the "Stereotypes" single, being stark and raw, foreshadowing the stylistic shift that would realize itself on their eponymous follow-up album.
The inspiration for the song was a visit by Damon Albarn to his grandmother in Lincolnshire. He stopped off at Grantham railway station and when inside the gentlemen's toilet, he noticed a piece of graffiti on a similar theme to the song's title.
Reviews praised the single considered probably the best track off "The Great Escape",This should restore Blur's status as a more-than-convincing chart band." Even Morrissey quoted the single by saying he liked it at the time.
The music video for "Charmless Man" was directed by British film writer and director Jamie Thraves. It starts with a man (the Charmless Man, played by Jean-Marc Barr) running down a dark street with a makeshift bandage or wrapping on his right hand, while cross cut edits show Blur playing in a music hall.
Track List:
1. UK 7-inch and cassette single
2. UK CD Single
3. European CD Single
Nearly 20 years in the business, it would be impossible for a band not to have already established or discovered its signature sound. The band had clearly defined their position with the previous "Where You Stand" back in 2013, which were reaffirmed with "Everything At Once" with a truly distinct and unique sound.
You can clearly noticed that with tunes such as "What Will Come" whose optimistic lyrics set the tone for the nine songs that followed. "Magnificent Time," which had already been released, has all the makings of a crowd-pleaser at a concert: rhythm, lyrics, and feeling. "Radio Song" reminded at times of one of the band's classics, "Love Will Come True." While there were completely different things, they evoke the same degree of romanticism. This romanticism faltered with "Paralysed" and "Animals," even though they attempted to innovate using strings and excellent bass chords that were sadly wasted here.
At this point, the album had become slightly monotonous, so it's quite fitting that "Everything at Once" is included here; it's elegantly catchy with a touch of energy and vitality. "3 Miles High" was unremarkable, as is its successor, "All of the Places." However, "Idlewild" stood out from this sea of familiarity. With a change in tone and vocals for the chorus, it was the most daring song. It managed to somehow fly off the radar without straying from Travis's essence. Then the closer "Strangers on a Train," perhaps it was not memorable, it was a good ending with a hint of spirituality.
The Cranberries music is driven by the distinct singing of vocalist Dolores O'Riordan, similar to previous albums, Dolores used her powerful voice to set the mood in many different ways, such as the tearful farewell in When You're Gone, to the emotional soft protest song, War Child, to the strange and bittersweet Will You Remember?. And maybe her best performance on the album was the opener, Hollywood. Dolores O'Riordan's voice was again one of the key elements of The Cranberries, and she certainly did not disappointed on To the Faithful Departed.
The album itself was a sort of a mixed bag. Across fifteen songs there were some filler tracks such as Will You Remember?, The Rebels, and Bosnia all of them were quite dull. Will You Remember?, was just Dolores singing over a music box and did not add anything to the album. However, To the Faithful Departed had some excellent material, such as the rocker Hollywood; the fast paced songs Forever Yellow Skies and I Just Shot John Lennon, which featured the rest of the band at their best; the catchy, mid-paced single Free to Decide; the softer, ballady sounding Electric Blues, a song featured Delores at her best; the list goes on and on. To the Faithful Departed reached out to fans of several genres, whether it be a rockers and those who prefered mellower songs like When You're Gone and War Child, or those who just want to listen to laidback songs such as I'm Still Remembering, there is a song everyone could find appealing.
Many of the songs on this album spoke out against certain issues at the time like Heroin abuse in Salvation, or anti-war protests in songs like Bosnia and War Child. Dolores' writing felt preachy, something. Other songs, such as The Rebels, I'm Still Remembering, and Joe featured the typical Cranberries themes such as love and reminiscence of the past as usual.
Shoegaze had definitely reached its pinnacle in 1991, it was the year when My Bloody Valentine's "Loveless" came out, also Ride's "Nowhere" had been released a year before, these two albums earned a huge acclaimed from their audiences in the UK. Inspired by the likes of Slowdive and Ride, Chapterhouse were part of the short-lived Shoegazing scene of the early 90s, but unlike other acts who acquired a set of guitar pedals and headed off to the nearest recording studio, they mixed beats with their wall-of-sonic-guitar-fuzz to create records to stimulate both the mind and the feet!
Chapterhouse's Whirlpool mixed rock freakouts like those found in "Guilt", and the effect-laden
"Falling Down", with drum-driven trips like the fast-moving "Breather",
and the poppy "Pearl." Whirlpool
took its samples and heavily rhythmic beats and mixes them gloriously
into a sea of jangly, distorted guitars especially on lead single
"Pearl". The pop melody was not hidden in this album, it was brilliantly twisted into ways never thought possible by the likes of
this reviewer. Other songs used samples for a similar blending of
cultures, showcasing the band's hard rock side with "Falling Down", a
song which may sound obnoxiously filled with wah-wah pedal foolery but
pays off - like most of these songs do - with an anthemic chorus which glorifies rock until an explosive climax.
The vocals, were one of the key element especially in opener, "Breather". A seductive,
out-of-breath, and atmospheric, they uplift the album with their sense
of content, yet shroud it also in mystery with unintelligible lyrics, there where certain wrong elements like "Treasure" a 6:22 track that practically no one care about it, antoher low points were "Autosleeper" & "April" as the low points on the record too.
The 4CD set – which comes in the usual deluxe hardcover book and card sleeve editions opens with Bruce Springsteen’s "My Hometown" – the last single from the mega-selling Born in the USA before moving on to Bryan Ferry and Sting with "Windswept" and "Love is the Seventh Wave". Both of those songs are classic Vault tracks: great tracks off classic albums (Boys and Girls and The Dream of the Blue Turtles, respectively) that peaked WAY short of where many assume they did (neither cracked the UK top 40). Go West’s "Eye to Eye" was only a single in the US, while ABC's "Be Near Me" was released both sides of the Atlantic, but fared much better Stateside. This disc continues with offerings from Fine Young Cannibals, China Crisis, Simply Red, Thompson Twins and the Art of Noise.
The second disc has an alternative flavour, at least initially, with songs from Cocteau Twins, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Dream Academy and New Model Army before widening it’s net and scoping up minor hits from the likes of Tina Turner, Matt Bianco, Chris Rea and Squeeze.
CD3 has a dance floor slant with tracks including Cameo’s brilliant "She's Strange", Sheryl Lee Ralph's "In The Evening", the Stock Aitken Waterman produced "The Heaven I Need" by The Three Degrees and Divine's cover of "Twisting The Night Away". Elton John & Millie Jackson's "Act of War" was a minor hit a few years before Nikita revived Reg's commercial success in the UK.
CD 4 has the kind of artists oftenly find on US compilations from the 80's such as Pat Benetar, Bon Jovi, John Mellencamp, Kim Carnes, Dio, The Cars, Rick Springfield etc.
NOW Yearbook Vault ’85 will be released on 15 May 2026.
Track List:
CD 1
The Afghan Whighs released another new track, "Duvateen." According to a press release, it's named for the light manipulating material, "which here serves as a symbol for morality." The song builds up a huge swell of sentimentality around Greg Dulli's peerless voice as he reflects on his own life journey. When I finished "Duvateen," it felt like my life passing before my eyes. The references to the teacher chasing me down the hall reminded me of my childhood. Digging a hole was an obvious allusion to a grave. I’m at a precipice in life where I can look behind and clearly see the forest of my youth, but I can also see the path to the other side. And it’s going to inform what I do for the rest of my days, said Dulli.
The album cover, photographed by Punk magazine's Roberta Bayley, features the four members leaning against a brick wall in New York City. The record company paid only $125 ($693.46 in 2024) for the front photo, which has since become one of the most imitated album covers of all time. The back cover depicts an eagle belt buckle along with the album's liner notes. After its release, Ramones was promoted with two singles, which failed to chart. The Ramones also began touring to help sell records; these tour dates were mostly based in the United States, although two were booked in Britain.
Violence, drug use, relationship issues, humor, and Nazism were prominent in the album's lyrics. The album opens with "Blitzkrieg Bop", which is among the band's most recognized songs. Most of the album's tracks are uptempo, with many songs measuring at well over 160 beats per minute. The songs are also rather short; at two-and-a-half minutes, "I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement" is the album's longest track. Ramones contains a cover of the Chris Montez song "Let's Dance".
Ramones was unsuccessful commercially, peaking at number 111 on the US Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart. Despite its poor chart performance, it received glowing reviews from critics. Many later deemed it a highly influential record, and it has since received many accolades, and since then Ramones has been widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential punk albums of all time, and it had a significant impact on other genres of rock music, such as grunge and heavy metal.
Ramones began playing gigs in mid-1974, with their first show at Performance Studios in New York City. The band, performing in a style similar to the one used on their debut album, typically performed at clubs in downtown Manhattan, specifically CBGB and Max's Kansas City. In early 1975, Lisa Robinson, an editor of Hit Parader and Rock Scene, saw the fledgling Ramones performing at CBGB and subsequently wrote about the band in several magazine issues. The group's vocalist Joey Ramone related that "Lisa came down to see us, she was blown away by us. She said that we changed her life; she started writing about us in Rock Scene, and then Lenny Kaye would write about us and we started getting more press like The Village Voice. Word was getting out, and people starting coming down."
On September 19, 1975, Ramones recorded a demo at 914 Sound Studios, which was produced by Marty Thau. Featuring the songs "Judy Is a Punk" and "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend", the band used the demo to showcase their style to prospective labels. Producer Craig Leon, who had seen the Ramones perform in the summer of 1975, brought the demo to the attention of Sire Records' president Seymour Stein. After being persuaded by Craig Leon and his ex-wife Linda Stein, Ramones auditioned at Sire and were offered a contract, although the label had previously signed only European progressive rock bands. The label offered to release "You're Gonna Kill That Girl" as a single, but the band declined, insisting on recording an entire album. Sire accepted their request and agreed to release a studio album instead
In January 1976 the band took a break from their live performances to prepare for recording at Plaza Sound studio. Sessions began later that month and were completed within a week for $6,400; the instruments took three days and the vocal parts were recorded in four days. In 2004, Leon admitted that they recorded Ramones quickly due to budget restrictions, but also that it was all the time they needed.
The band applied microphone placement techniques similar to those which many orchestras used. The recording process was a deliberate exaggeration of the techniques used by the Beatles in the early 1960s, with a four-track representation of the devices. The guitars can be heard separately on the stereo channels—electric bass on the left channel, rhythm guitar on the right—drums and vocals are mixed in the middle of the stereo mix.
The songs on Ramones addressed several lyrical themes including violence, male prostitution, drug use, and Nazism. While the moods displayed in the album were often dark, Johnny said that when writing the lyrics they were not "trying to be offensive". Many songs from the album have backing vocals from different guests. Leigh sang backing vocals on "Judy Is a Punk", "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend", and in the bridge of "Blitzkrieg Bop". Tommy sang backing vocals on "I Don't Wanna Walk Around with You", "Judy Is a Punk", and during the bridge of "Chain Saw". The album's engineer, Rob Freeman, sang backing vocals for the final refrain of "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend". Leon wrote in the booklet for the album's 2016 reissue that when layered background vocals appear on the album, they are primarily Freeman's contributions combined with some of Leon and Dee Dee's, and a great deal by Leigh, "all compiled and compressed to create an effective cyborg backing vocal creature." The album's length is 29 minutes and four seconds and it contains 14 tracks.
The opening "Blitzkrieg Bop" was written by Tommy, and originally named "Animal Hop". Once Dee Dee reviewed the lyrics, the band changed the wording, the name, and partially the theme. According to Tommy, the song's original concept was about "kids going to a show and having a good time", but the theme became more Nazi-related after its revision.
"Beat on the Brat" was said by Joey to have origins relating to the upper class of New York City. Dee Dee, however, explained that the song was about how Joey saw a mother "going after a kid with a bat in his [apartment building's] lobby and wrote a song about it". "Judy Is a Punk" – written around the same time as "Beat on the Brat" — was written by Joey after he walked by Thorny Croft, an apartment building "where all the kids in the neighborhood hung out on the rooftop and drank."
"I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" – the album's slowest song – was solely written by Tommy and pays homage to love songs by pop music acts of the 1960s, particularly the John Lennon-penned Beatles song "I Should Have Known Better". The song used a 12-string guitar, glockenspiel, and tubular bells in its composition, and was said by author Scott Schinder to be an "unexpected romantic streak". "Chain Saw" opens with the sound of a running circular saw and was influenced by the 1974 horror film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. At nearly 180 beats per minute, "Chain Saw" had the fastest tempo of the album's songs and, according to Rombes, is the most "home-made" sounding. "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue" contains four lines of minimalist lyrics that depict youthful boredom and inhaling solvent vapors found in glue. "I hope no one thinks we really sniff glue," said Dee Dee.
"I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement" is also minimalist, and inspired by horror movies. The entire text is composed of three lines, and the composition was based on three major chords. With a playing time of 2:40, it is the longest piece on the album. "Loudmouth" has six major chords and is harmonically complex. "Havana Affair" has a lyrical concept incorporating the comic strip Spy vs. Spy by Cuban-born illustrator Antonio Prohias.
Written solely by Dee Dee, the lyrics of "53rd & 3rd" concern a male prostitute ("rent boy"), waiting at the corner of 53rd Street and Third Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. When the prostitute gets a customer, he kills the customer with a razor to prove he is not a homosexual. "Let's Dance" was a cover version of the hit song by Chris Montez, "I Don't Wanna Walk Around with You" consisted of two lyric lines and three major chords. One of the group's earliest compositions, written at the beginning of 1974, it was the opener on their first demo. It then segues into the closing track "Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World", which refers to a Hitler Youth member.
Peggy Suicide was recorded and released following two lo-fi Cope albums - Skellington and Droolian - which had not gained official distribution and caused friction with Cope's label Island Records. Cope's previous Island release, My Nation Underground, had not satisfied him, and he had rejected its heavily produced, pop-friendly sound in favour of a one-take, more politicised approach as expounded by former White Panther John Sinclair in his book Guitar Army. Cope was later to refer to this book as "my holy book", and it set the method for all of his subsequent recording.
Several familiar Cope collaborators were on the record - multi-instrumentalist Donald Ross Skinner, drummer/percussionist Rooster Cosby and keyboard player/onetime Cope producer Ron Fair. There were also contributions by new associates in the shape of former Smiths drummer Mike Joyce and future Spiritualized lead guitarist Michael Watts (better known as Mike Mooney or "Moon-eye").
On the album's songs, Cope laid bare many of his personal convictions including his hatred of organized religion and his increasing public interest in women's rights, the occult, alternative spirituality (including paganism and Goddess worship), animal rights, and ecology. He had referred in passing to these beliefs in previous songs, but never so directly. The album was written in the aftermath of the British anti-poll tax riots in 1990. Cope had taken part in the protest, and several songs on the album refer directly to its events.
Cope's forthright new political stance was reflected in the song "Leperskin", which refers to the contemporary British prime minister Margaret Thatcher (who resigned between the recording of Peggy Suicide and its release) as an "apostolic hag". For one particular track, the anti-police tirade "Soldier Blue", Cope sampled Lenny Bruce's live album The Berkeley Concert and mixed in samples of the Poll Tax Riot.
The album's title was a derivative of Buddy Holly' song "Peggy Sue" the opener "Pristeen" had elegance and melancholy that gained in intensity to moved into the representative "Double Vegetation", other remarkable tunes were the singles "Beautifulo Love" a catchy tune with a calypso sound and the funky "East Easy Rider", other catchy tracks were "If You Love Me At All", "Drive She Said" and the short "Head", while the endless "Safesurfer" with a huge intro with guitar just like Hendrix welcomes a 3 minutes narrative by Cope, "Not Raving But Drowning" regained the Caribbean percusion with psychedellic guitars and then the reflexives "Promised Land" & "Las Vegas Basement" to close a magnificent album.
