I’ve finally wrapped up the music projects that have been eating up a lot of my time lately. As I do, I find my new music playlist is down around 40 songs. For a good chunk of 2024 it’s been closer to 60 songs. The new tunes have definitely dried up over the past month. Hopefully just a lull before another wave flows before the holidays. It took adding a few old songs to pad this week’s playlist out to a reasonable size.

“Suddenly Last Summer” – The Motels
I was thinking I shared this more often in the past after Labor Day. A check of the blog archives, though, shows I’ve only done it twice before. A good song for a weekend when we will go from 90 one day to the low 40s two mornings later. And then it’s going to be 90 three days later. September in the Midwest is a roller coaster.

“You Wreck Me” – The War On Drugs covering Tom Petty
Last month we got Eddie Vedder. This month TWOD add their entry to the Bad Monkey soundtrack/Petty tribute album. When I heard they were on the LP, this was one of the first songs I imagined them doing. Like the EdVed track, they don’t do much to reimagine the original. Which is fine, because it fits their sound so well.

“I Thought You’d Change” – Hotline TNT
This song came out almost exactly a year ago, and was featured on all the big sites, yet somehow I missed it until this week. Bummer, because it’s a solid mashup of pop and shoegaze. They are signed to Jack White’s Third Man Records.

“A Bit Like James Bond” – The Bug Club
This is fun!

“Casual Drug Use” – Katie Gavin
The second solo single from the lead singer of MUNA. I’m not the first to make this observation but her solo work slides into a space where a lot of country and country-adjacent artists have moved in recent years, while remaining steadfastly pop.

“Wild” – Spoon
So one of my mysterious “Music Projects” was listening to every Spoon album and making a list of my favorite songs. Which I did over the course of about two, two-and-a-half weeks. Then I realized I doubt many of my readers are interested in that list. So I’ll just share the song that I ranked #1. They do have a lot of great ones.

“Until The End Of The World” – U2
Tom Breihan just got to the last song from U2’s Achtung Baby album that reached #1 on the Alternative Rock chart, “One.” In his three entries about AB songs, he referenced other tracks on the album that either were not singles or did not hit #1. So many of them got 8’s, 9’s, and 10’s in his grading scale! A reminder what a great album that was, with almost no misses or songs you skip past. This did not get a big push from the band or label, but still made it to #4 on the Alt chart. He gave it a 10, which was absolutely a deserved ranking.

“Caribbean Queen (No More Love On The Run)” – Billy Ocean
We may have reached the point where all the iconic songs of 1984 have made their chart debuts. Well, almost. I can think of a couple more in the weeks/months ahead. But that great run of the middle part of the year has clearly come to an end. Not that this is a bad song. It went to #1 for two weeks in November. I don’t love it as much as some of the other classics I’ve shared, but it’s still fun and I’ll happily listen to it if I have to.

Famously released first as “European Queen,” it bombed. Only when Billy re-cut this version, and another called “African Queen” that was released in Africa, did it become a smash. Which should have been obvious. European Queen makes me think of someone who is old and stuffy and from a long line of possibly inbred people. Caribbean Queen sounds like someone who is young, fun, and you would do anything to spend time with them. It debuted on the Top 40 this week at #36.