“Archbishop Harold Holmes” – Jack White
What an idiot I am! White dropped his No Name album on streaming services two weeks ago, and I listened to it a ton after we got home from vacation. Then, somehow, I forgot to include a track in last week’s playlist. Again, idiot. This track is soooo White Stripes-y, with his spitfire vocals straddling a line between dark & menacing and hilarious & nonsensical. And, of course, riffs on top of riffs on top of riffs.
“Takes One To Know One” – The Beaches
I’m not sure I believe that a song this marvelously sunny and poppy comes from a band that calls Toronto home. “God, you’re a piece of work. Takes one to know one.” That seems like that could apply to most couples.
“Monster” – Best Bets
There are some serious The Lemonheads vibes in this track. A nearly impossible band to do an internet search on, about all I can find about them is that they are from New Zealand.
“This Room” – Lotte Gallagher
Not a daughter of either Liam or Noel, but rather a very talented young lady from Melbourne.
“Koalas” – Tess Parks
Let’s combine elements from earlier songs. Another artist from Canada singing about one of Australia’s most famous residents.
“Glass” – Glom
And now another band that is impossible to search for, for some reason. Maybe it’s more because search is broken thanks to ads and AI and other nonsense than bands coming up with stupid names that search engines think are related to everything but the actual band.
“Room at the Top” – Eddie Vedder covering Tom Petty
The second EdVed cover of the summer. This one is pretty straight forward, but it really fits Eddie’s voice. It is from the new Apple TV show Bad Monkey. Apparently the entire soundtrack is a Petty tribute album. The War on Drugs, Kurt Vile, and many other folks you know will be on it.
“Cruel Summer” – Bananarama
I struggled with what to pick for this week’s 1984 video. There were a couple songs I would love to write about in RFTS at some point, so I skipped them. There was a terrific ballad that had already snuck inside the top 30 in just its third week. Instead I chose this, which seemed to fit since I didn’t include a summer song in my Spotify playlist this week. It first hit in the UK in 1983, then in the US in ’84 after landing on the Karate Kid soundtrack. This week it was #32 in its fifth week in the Hot 100, on its way to a peak of #9 in September. I gotta admit, I was never really into Bananarama. They were just too goofy for me, even at age 13. Especially this video.