Carly Rae Jepsen - "Your Type (Young Blood Remix)"

She released what is arguably a perfect pop album with her 2015 Album “E-Mo-tion”, which was a sleeper hit, with bop after bop. Somehow it never seemed to peak on the charts but continued critical acclaim and word of mouth had the album sales on the charts for months. She’s consistently underestimated, and yet somehow she constantly over-delivers.

Earning global success with "Call Me Maybe," Canadian pop star Carly Rae Jepsen spent her formative years absorbing pop culture in her hometown of Mission, British Columbia. After attending the Canadian College of Performing Arts in Victoria, British Columbia, Jepsen competed in the fifth season of Canadian Idol in 2007, ultimately winning third place and performing in the show's nationwide tour. By 2008, she had moved to Vancouver and released her debut LP, Tug of War, which featured a cover of John Denver's 1974 hit ballad "Sunshine on My Shoulders." Three years later, Jepsen's single "Call Me Maybe," which drew from dance-pop and disco, attained worldwide commercial success: it topped the Canadian, U.S., and U.K. charts as well as those of 18 other countries, racked up over 700 million views on YouTube, and won a Grammy Award nomination for Song of the Year. The Curiosity EP, which featured "Call Me Maybe," followed in early 2012. That June, the Owl City duet "Good Time" arrived and peaked at number eight on the Billboard charts. Jepsen's second album, Kiss, appeared in September 2012. It debuted in the Top Ten in Canada and the U.S. and won Album of the Year and Pop Album of the Year Juno Awards a year later. Jepsen began work on her third album in early 2013, collaborating with producers Josh Ramsay, Ryan Stewart, and Max Martin on songs inspired by '80s pop and folk. In early 2014, she began a 12-week run as the lead role in the Broadway production of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella. She returned with new music in March 2015 with "I Really Like You," which became another Top 40 hit. Featuring collaborations with songwriters including Sia, Devonté Hynes, and Ariel Rechtshaid, and producers such as Mattman & Robin and Greg Kurstin, her third full-length, E-MO-TION, arrived that August. The album was a Top Ten hit in Canada and a Top 20 hit in the U.S., and was ultimately shortlisted for the 2016 Polaris Prize. Collaborations with Bleachers and the Knocksfollowed. In early 2016, Jepsen also appeared as Frenchy in the live television performance of Grease and recorded the theme song to Fuller House, the reboot of the family sitcom Full House. In August 2016, she released E-MO-TION: Side B, an EP featuring eight tracks that had been in consideration for the album.

Some days you just need a little pop soundbath to put you right. Let the good vibes wash over you and dance your cares away. I woke up bopping to this song and decided to hold on the that feeling.

So today, with sunshine on my shoulders, I choose Carly Rae Jepsen’s "Your Type (Young Blood Remix)” as my, cheer up Charlie, go on and try, it’s only life - after all, song for a, dance your cares away, devil-may-care, let them try to stop me, Friday.

Go on kids, and have yourselves a bop.

Yann Tiersen - "Tempelhof"

Yann Tiersen  is a French musician and composer. His musical career is split between studio albums, collaborations and film soundtracks. His music involves a large variety of instruments; primarily the guitar, piano, synthesizer or violin together with instruments like the melodica, xylophone, toy piano, harpsichord, accordion and typewriter.

Tiersen is often mistaken for a composer of soundtracks, himself saying "I'm not a composer and I really don't have a classical background", but his real focus is on touring and studio albums which just happen to often be suitable for film. His most famous soundtrack for the film Amélie was primarily made up of tracks taken from his first three studio albums.

Tiersen's music is influenced by the classical training he received when he was a child and by the American and British punk subculture, and by the music he used to listen to as a teenager. His musical style is deceptively simple to recognize but difficult to catalogue. It varies greatly from one album to the next and with the passage of time. His melancholy music and compositional techniques combine elements of Classical and folk music with pop and rock. His delicate but deeply emotional style has been linked to Frédéric Chopin and the great masters of Romantic music, and to Erik Satie, the colourful figure of the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde whose work was a precursor to later artistic movements such as minimalism, repetitive music, and the Theatre of the Absurd. Tiersen is also compared to one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century, the American minimalism, classical–contemporary classical, and ambient music composer Philip Glass, and to British composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist, Michael Nyman, known for the many film scores he wrote during his lengthy career and in regard to him Tiersen is often called the Gallic Michael Nyman.

“I couldn’t play a brass instrument — I tried but I was really bad — I couldn’t play the flute, and the accordion was a keyboard so it was easy.”

—Yann Tiersen

Tiersen started playing piano and violin at a young age. In 1983, when he was thirteen years old, he broke his violin and bought an electric guitar. Tiersen only returned to his childhood instrument years later after searching for string sounds to sample. In his albums, Tiersen composes and arranges music incorporating several instruments including keyboards such as piano, electric piano, Fender Rhodes,  organ,  harpsichord,  Bontempi  and  toypiano, Korg and Moog synthesizers, Mellotron, accordion and melodica, strings as violin, viola, violone and cello, different types of electric, acoustic and bass guitars,  mandolin,  banjo,  ukulele,  bouzouki  and oud,  brasses, like horns, and woodwind instruments such as saxophone, clarinet, bassoon, pipe, oboe and flute, percussions like drums, vibraphone, marimba, tubular bells, tom, cymbal, glockenspiel and tam-tam, and also the sounds produced by Leslie speaker, music box, carillons, typewriters, cooking vessels, chairs, a car or a bicycle wheel. Tiersen plays all of these instruments both in the studio and in concert.

So today, with the rain falling gently around my heart, I choose Yann Tiersen’s "Tempelhof" as my, grey like the color of the sky in her eyes, mist like damp cheeks lifting back into the air, small hearts growing under winter’s snow, song for a, there’s laughter if you listen, music above your head, one more drop back into the ocean, blue blue blue Thursday.

Stephen Sondheim & Bernadette Peters - "Stay With Me"

This song has been rumbling through the back of my mind for the past few days. Like a dream that you can’t quite remember, hints and whispers seem to drift around you, just out of reach, at the edge of your periphery. So today I took it upon myself to look it up and give it a hearty listen.

What strikes me is how beautifully intricate the emotional nuance of this song is. She is pleading and yet knows at the back of her heart that this is a losing battle. She is giving so much of herself that she forgets to take care of herself also. She flashes between rage and hope, despair and fear, love and joy, all in milliseconds of music. It’s a brilliant piece and it is made even more so by the incredible talents and subtle color shifts of Bernadette Peters. Her beautifully flexible voice transitions seamlessly through the delicate shifting shades of her emotions.

This song was once again brought beautifully to life by the incomparable Meryl Streep in the movie adaptation. While Meryl was incredible, and her choices (some different and some the same) were spot on, I can not say she was better than Bernadette. They both crafted beautifully rich characters.

So today, with sand slipping through my fingers like rain through a paper cup with no bottom, I choose Stephen Sondheim & Bernadette Peters’ version of "Stay With Me" from Into The Woods, as my, hold on as long as you can, tears like rain, tears like tissue paper, song for a, into the gray, don’t go chasing waterfalls, accept the things you cannot change, Wednesday.

I’m also giving you Meryl’s version, because it is certainly worth listening to again.

Carol Channing - "Before The Parade Passes By"

Broadway said “Goodbye, Dolly” to a favorite performer and lost one of its most distinctive personalities when Carol Channing, the original Lorelei Lee and Dolly Levi, passed away from natural causes on January 15, 2019, at her home in Rancho Mirage, California. Channing was the last in a long line of stage clowns who found the perfect role and stuck with it. With her saucer eyes, yard-wide smile, tornado of cotton-candy hair, and flexible voice which could go from a gravelly bass to a child-like squeak, she always played a variation on the dumb-like-a-fox blonde, manipulating every situation to her advantage. She first gained fame as the avaricious but charming Lorelei in the musical version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondesin 1949, but she assumed theater royalty status as the titular matchmaker in Hello, Dolly! in 1964, returning to the role many times including Broadway revivals in 1978 and 1995. Like Rex Harrison with Henry Higgins, Zero Mostel with Tevye, and Yul Brynner with the King of Siam, she became forever identified with the role.

And happily so. Channing told the New York Times in 1977, “I did Dolly 1,273 times in four years without missing a single performance, and on the night I closed I cried my eyes out in the dressing room. But I’ll tell you something — thank God I can keep doing Dolly until I’m 90.” Ultimately, she played the role over 4,500 times and traveled with a separate suitcase for her false eyelashes. She also carried her own specially-prepared organic food in a canvas bag, always asking waiters to heat it up for her.

She was born in Seattle in 1921, the only child of George and Adelaide Channing. The family later moved when her newspaper editor father got a job in San Francisco. He later became a lecturer for the Christian Scientist movement and this led to young Carol’s first exposure to show business. Her mother recruited her to help distribute the Christian Science Monitor backstage to city’s theaters where she became enchanted with the stage. “And I stood there and realized – I'll never forget it because it came over me so strongly – that this is a temple,” she related to the Austin Chronicle. “This is a cathedral. It's a mosque. It's a mother church. This is for people who have gotten a glimpse of creation and all they do is recreate it. I stood there and wanted to kiss the floorboards.”

George Burns with whom she appeared in a summer tour explained her humor to The New York Times in 1976, “It’s her openness, her theatricality that makes her funny, she emphasizes her bigness. She makes you notice her eyes, her mouth. That’s why she can go out there, sing a perfectly straight song like ‘Hello, Dolly!’ and get laughs. You don’t even think about the song. You’re watching her capsize a character. So Carol’s humor, ultimately is her manner. It’s a style she invented herself. She mimics the golddiggers of the ’20s and ’30s…She lovingly mocks the character. She’s the dumb blonde, but she’s not that dumb…She never was. Carol makes us understand that joke. Her dumb blonde becomes larger than life.” 

She was an alien from another world who came to earth to show us how to laugh a little harder and how to be a little more honest with ourselves. Her signature style will forever be mimicked and never be forgotten. Goodbye Dolly, though the sky shines brighter with another glowing star, down here on earth things are just a bit more dim without you.

So today, with guts and gusto, I choose Carol Channing’s iconic version of “Before The Parade Passes By” as my, go on and get back in, don’t let the colors lose their place, hold on to the sparkle as long as you can, song for a, gifts given with unending generosity, the dream of a world where you can be both, small miracles in tiny little frames, Tuesday.

Rasberries!

Laura Nyro & LaBelle - "It's Gonna Take A Miracle"

It was first an R&B hit in 1965 for The Royalettes, who reached the Top 30 on the U.S. R&B chart and peaked at number 41 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and number 37 on Cash Box. Years later is was recorded by Laura Nyro & LaBelle, and there was some kind of magic found in that recording. The hope mixed with despair found some kind of ephemeral balance that leaves the listener questioningly hopeful.

Laura Nyro achieved critical acclaim with her own recordings, particularly the albums Eli and the Thirteenth Confession (1968) and New York Tendaberry (1969), and had commercial success with artists such as Barbra Streisand and The 5th Dimension recording her songs. Her style was a hybrid of Brill Building-style New York pop, jazz, rhythm and blues, show tunes, and soul.

Between 1968 and 1970, a number of artists had hits with her songs: The 5th Dimension with "Blowing Away", "Wedding Bell Blues", "Stoned Soul Picnic", "Sweet Blindness", and "Save the Country"; Blood, Sweat & Tears and Peter, Paul and Mary, with "And When I Die"; Three Dog Night and Maynard Ferguson, with "Eli's Comin' "; and Barbra Streisand with "Stoney End", "Time and Love", and "Hands off the Man (Flim Flam Man)". Nyro's best-selling single was her recording of Carole King and Gerry Goffin's "Up on the Roof", and in 2012, Nyro was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

So today with hope and despair mixed together in a pearly mist obscuring the future, I choose Laura Nyro & LaBelle’s version of “It’s Gonna Take A Miracle” as my, go on and find your happy, the sunshine that you make, sing your first song you think of, song for a, little miracle, silver hearts, protect the soft spots, Monday.

I’m also giving you the original Royalettes version, it’s really sweet.

The Bird and The Bee - "My Love"

I’ve been obsessed with this band for almost a decade. Not just because Inara George is a friend that I’ve watched rise to indie stardom, or the fact that she’s wickedly funny and insanely talented, but because their music is genuinely great, listenable, and ultimately timeless. So when this song came on this week in the car, I laughed and took a trip down memory lane.

Multi-instrumentalist Greg Kurstin and doe-eyed vocalist Inara George draw upon a fondness for jazz standards and '60s Tropicalia to deliver the stylish tones of the Bird and the Bee.

The Bird and the Bee's self-titled LP was released in 2007 by Blue Note Records, spawning a number one hit on the U.S. Hot Dance Club Play chart with a remix of the sassy "Fucking Boyfriend."

Please Clap Your Hands After enjoying positive press from such outlets as NPR, the pair returned to the studio. Please Clap Your Hands, a five-song EP featuring a cover of the Bee Gees' "How Deep Is Your Love," arrived in September 2007, and the duo heralded its release by joining Rilo Kiley on a fall tour. Two digital EPs, One Too Many Hearts and Live from Las Vegas at the Palms, helped placate the group's audience in early 2008, while Kurstin and George readied a second album, which eventually arrived in the form of 2009's Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future.

They’ve been indie darlings for their entire career, and they certainly bring a bit of nostalgia to any sound they create. I’m stoked to see what they bring to their next project.

So today, with the sun shining a bit brighter, I choose The Bird and the Bee's “My Love” as my, with a clap and a tap, every little twist, good things are on their way, song for a, remember when, we were children once too, love is a game you never stop playing, Friday.

Brandi Carlile - "Every time I Hear That Song"

Because it’s been a year, and I still feel you wrapped around me like a blanket I can’t seem to get my feet untangled from in the middle of the night. Not that I want to get untangled from you, but that you’re wrapped so tightly around me, in so many ways, that I couldn’t even if I did want to. You are a constant inspiration, and yet in the strangest moments you come up and stop me in my tracks. I like to believe that you’re slowing me down to make sure I stay focused on the exact target that I started off aiming at. You’re like a constellation guiding my ship when the North Star is hard to come by. Not always there but when you are you’re bright as day.

I miss you. We all miss you. Yet, we are grateful beyond words for the time we had with you, and yet 100 more years wouldn’t have been enough. Thank you for your inspiration, for your guidance, and for your reminders to slow down, steady ourselves, and remember our goals.

So today, with heartbreak bound by promises I choose Brandi Carlile’s "Every time I Hear That Song", as my, by the way - I forgive you, sail on silver kitty, one more starship away, song for a, one year without and 10 years with, still on the positive side of the equation, go out and find it, Thursday, one year anniversary.

Robyn - "Missing You"

because we still miss you