Category Archives: Music Review

Lisa Marie’s 20 Favorite Songs of 2020

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Every January, I list my favorite songs of the previous year and, every January, I include the same disclaimer.  My favorite songs are not necessarily the favorite songs of any of the other writers here at the Shattered Lens.  We are a large and diverse group of people and, as such, we all have our own individual tastes.

If you ever visited the TSL Bunker, you would be shocked by the different music coming out of each office.  You would hear everything from opera to death metal to the best of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.  And then, of course, you would reach my office and you would discover that my taste in music pretty much runs the gamut from EDM to More EDM.

Now, usually, I do try to listen to a variety of music.  You can go to my Song of the Day site — Lisa Marie’s Song of the Day — and see that I do occasionally listen to other types of music.  But, I have to be honest.  2020 was not a year that inspired me to really leave me comfort zone.  If anything, music provided me with some much needed consistency in an otherwise chaotic year.  2020 was a year that made me want to dance until it was all over and, for the most part, my favorite songs of the year reflect that fact.

Before I list my songs, I should make something else very clear.  These are my favorite songs of 2020.  I’m not saying that they’re necessarily the best songs of 2020.  I’ll leave that debate for others.  Instead, there are the songs that I found myself listening to over and over again.  These are the songs made me dance.  These are the songs that made me sing.  A few of these songs relaxed me when I needed to be relaxed.  These are songs that I liked.

You might like them.

Or you might not.

That’s the beautiful thing about art.  Everyone experiences it in their own individual way.  For instance, if you want to see an example of the different tastes of music that you’ll find here at TSL, be sure to check out Necromoonyeti’s top albums of 2020.  And also go to Days Without Incident and check out some of the songs that Leonard has posted.  To quote my friend Shirley Loh, “we all like different things.”

Here are my favorite songs of 2020:

20) No Sleep by Jessie Frye

19) Ghost In These Streets by Kate Vogel

18) Matches by Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys

17) You Do you by Dillon Francis and BabyJake

16) Into the Abyss by Zeds Dead x REZZ

15) Teacher by Chromatics

14) Stardew by Purity Ring

13) Everybody Here Hates You by Courtney Barnett

12) Swimming in the Stars by Britney Spears

11) Don’t Wanna by Haim

10) Preach by Saint Motel

 

9) Famous Monsters by Chromatics

8) Break my Heart by Dua Lipa

7) Feel Something by Armin van Buuren feat. Duncan Laurence

6) Dance Again by Selena Gomez

5) Phobos by Space 92

4) Pomegranate by deadmau5 & The Neptunes

3) Castles In The Sky by i_o

2) The Steps by Haim

1) A Good Song Never Dies by Saint Motel

Finally, allow me to offer up two honorable mentions to my favorite cinematic musical moments of the year.  From Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga:

And from What Did Jack Do?:

TSL Looks Back at 2020:

  1. Lisa Marie’s 16 Worst Films of 2020 (Lisa Marie Bowman)
  2. My Top 20 Albums of 2020 (Necromoonyeti)
  3. 25 Best, Worst, and Gems That I Saw In 2020 (Valerie Troutman)
  4. Top 10 Vintage Collections (Ryan C)
  5. Top 10 Contemporary Collections (Ryan C)
  6. Top 10 Original Graphic Novels (Ryan C)
  7. Top 10 Ongoing Series (Ryan C.)
  8. Top 10 Special Mentions (Ryan C.)
  9. Top Ten Single Issues (Ryan C)

 

Music Video of the Day: Penthouse and Pavement by Heaven 17 (1981, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

I only recently discovered this band.  Heaven 17 is an English band, one that is still together.  The band was made up of two former members of The Human League, keyboardists Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware, and singer Glenn Gregory.  Gregory had been Marsh and Ware’s original choice to serve as the lead singer of the Human League but, when he proved to be unavailable, they went with Philip Oakey instead.  Oakey had a different vision for the The Human League than Marsh and Ware so Marsh and Ware ended up leaving the band and forming Heaven 17.  This time, they were able to get Glenn Gregory as their singer.

Heaven 17’s first album was called Penthouse and Pavement and the album’s title track was both their first single and their first video.  The video features not only corporate espionage but also the three members of the band pretending to be corrupt businessmen.  That Heaven 17 was a much more overly political band than The Human League is obvious from listening to the song’s lyrics.

The band, incidentally, was named after one of Alex’s favorite bands in A Clockwork Orange.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Paradise City by Guns N’ Roses (1988, directed by Nigel Dick)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Paradise City seems to be the Guns N’ Roses song that’s liked even by people who don’t like Guns N’ Roses.  (My cousin John, who was once the lead singer of a band called Carlos Is A Bastard, still refers to them as being Guns N’ Poses.)

Paradise City is a good song and a good video.  The video keeps things effectively simple, with clips of the band performing the song at Giants Stadium mixed in with behind-the-scenes footage of the band.  All of the members of the band look like they’re getting along and, at no point, do Slash and Axl look like they’re about to come to blows.  It’s a look at Guns N’ Roses that definitely goes against their later reputation for intraband strife.

This is what I like to call a “They sure can play” video because the emphasis is on the band as professional musicians who know what they’re doing and who aren’t just spending all of their time doing drugs and entertaining groupies.  I’m usually not a fan of these type of videos because they often feel phony but it works for Guns ‘N Roses because they really could play.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Suicide Blonde by INXS (1990, directed by Richard Lowenstein)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Despite the title, Suicide Blonde is not about suicide.  (That, of course, still doesn’t make it any less difficult to watch Michael Hutchence sing a song with the word suicide in the lyrics.)  Instead, it’s about a woman who colors her own hair, literally “dyeing by hand.”  It was a phrase that Hutchence first heard used by his then-girlfriend, Kylie Minogue.  Minogue said she was going to dye her hair “suicide blonde” and Hutchence was so taken with the phrase that he crafted a song around it.

This video was directed by Richard Lowenstein, who directed several videos for the band and often made use of the type of composited imagery, in which the band members seem to travel across the screen separated from what else is happening, that appears in Suicide Blonde.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: How The West Was Won And Where It Got Us by R.E.M. (1997, directed by Lance Bangs)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

This song is from one of R.E.M.’s more underrated efforts, New Adventures in Hi-Fi.  As to what the song is actually about, there are many differing interpretations.  That’s kind of the par for the course when it comes to R.E.M.  The most frequent interpretation that I’ve seen is that Michael Stipe is singing about himself and all of the things that he wants that are unattainable.  Or it could be that Michael is actually singing about all of us and saying that no one will ever get what they want.  I’ve read at least one message board post that claimed that this was yet another song about the death of Kurt Cobain.

The music video was directed by Lance Bangs, who is still directing music videos to this day and who is married to Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney.  Bangs was also heavily involved with MTV’s Jackass, a show that changed the culture for better or worse.  Incidentally, Lance Bangs does not appear to be related to Lester Bangs.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Learning to Fly by Pink Floyd (1987, directed by Storm Thorgerson)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

I usually wouldn’t ever consider sharing a Pink Floyd video, despite enjoying some of their music.  Roger Waters is simply too odious a figure for me not to feel conflicted about sharing any video that he was involved with.  Fortunately, Waters wasn’t involved with Learning to Fly, which was the first video that Pink Floyd released after Waters left the band and David Gilmour took over.

In fact, the song is almost a middle finger directed at Waters.  Waters claimed that Pink Floyd was moving too far away from being about the music and expanding minds so what did GIlmour do?  He composed a song about how much he enjoyed flying his private airplane.  Oh, I know that a lot of people will tell you that this song is also about Gilmour learning how to lead the band in Waters’s absence but come on.  We all know that it’s ultimately about David Gilmour having his own plane while you don’t.

The video, which features a Native American shaman and a man turning into an eagle after jumping off a cliff, is just pretentious enough to fit in with the Pink Floyd’s work during the Waters era.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: The Big Crash by Eddie Money (1984, directed by Martin Kahan)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In his video, Eddie Money returns to his roots.

Eddie was born in Brooklyn.  His father was a cop.  His grandfather was a cop.  His brother was a cop.  It was expected that Eddie would become a cop too.  Even while he was pursuing a career in music, Eddie joined the NYPD.  However, while he was still in training, Eddie was told that he would not be allowed to wear his hair long if he was a member of the NYPD.  That was the last straw for Eddie, who later said that he could not imagine spending the next 20 years of his life with short hair.  He left the force and returned to music.  Unfortunately, the band he was in suspected that he was an undercover narc and kicked him out.  Meanwhile, his father tore down and destroyed every Jimi Hendrix poster that Eddie had hanging in his room.  Perhaps realizing that New York was no longer going to be a friendly place to live, Eddie headed for California and the rest, as they say, is history.

In this video, though, Eddie is back in New York and working out the of the 18th precinct.  While he investigates crimes on the streets, a runaway is sucked into a dangerous lifestyle.  Eddie has longish hair in the video so he finally got to be a cop without having to cut his hair.

This video was directed by Martin Kahan, who also did videos for KISS, Scandal, Michael Bolton, and a lot of other people who probably would never have made it as a member of the NYPD.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Breakin’ … There’s No Stopping This by Ollie and Jerry (1984, directed by Joel Silberg)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Drummer Ollie Brown and bassist Jerry Knight were two Detroit-based sessions musicians who were also members of Raydio, along with Ray Parker, Jr.  In 1984, Brown and Knight were hired to provide songs for the soundtrack of the upcoming breakdancing movie Breakin’.  There’s No Stopping Us was named after a line that was spoken by one of the characters in the film and it was meant to not only reflect what was happening in the movie but also Ollie and Jerry’s own struggle and determination to make it in the music biz.

The video is made up entirely of clips from the movie.  (The video’s credited director Joel Silberg also directed Breakin’.  It seems if anyone deserve credit for the video, though, it’s the editor who put it together.)  Jean-Claude Van Damme was an extra in Breakin‘ and supposedly, he can be spotted dancing in this video.  I think I spotted him at the 2:32 mark, dancing in a crowd, but I could be wrong.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Heaven’s On Fire by KISS (1984, directed by David Lewis)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

This is yet another KISS video from the era when the band was performing without their makeup because who needs a memorable gimmick when you can just be another overage hair metal band singing about banging groupies?

This video begins with Paul Stanley’s hands on fire.  Judging from the rest of the video, which features scenes of KISS performing mixed with scenes of KISS entertaining their fans, those hands probably weren’t the only thing that felt like it was on fire by the time filming on this video was completed.

Over on the imdb, director David Lewis has exactly two credits.  One is for this video.  The other is for directing a Linda Ronstadt television special.  Both of them came out in 1984 so it appears that Lewis went straight form Linda Ronstadt to KISS.  That was probably quite a journey.

Speaking of journeys, KISS eventually put the makeup back on.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: It’s A Mistake by Men At Work (1983, directed by Tony Stevens)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Like yesterday’s music video of the day, today’s entry is an anti-war song from 1983.  This time, it’s from Australia’s Men at Work and, as opposed to yesterday’s earnest video from Europe, the video for It’s A Mistake takes a darkly satirical approach to the song’s themes.

After starting out with toy soldiers and stop motion animation, the video segues into the members of the band portraying children who go from playing war to being invited into a tent by an American officer, where they discover a bunch of other officers having a party.  War is all fun and games when you’re not the one doing the fighting.  When the children grow up and all pursue different careers (businessman, activist, doctor, and road workers), they’re still drafted to serve in the military.  Whilst the soldiers fight, the generals gather in an underground bunker and one of them accidentally launches the nukes while trying to stub out a cigar.

Despite or maybe because of it’s anti-American sentiments (even Ronald Reagan gets a satiric shout-out in the song), It’s A Mistake actually charted higher in the States than in the band’s native Australia.  In Australia, it peaked at 34 while in the States, it hit 6.

The video was directed by Tony Stevens, whose entire directorial output pretty much consisted of music videos for Men at Work and Midnight Oil.

Enjoy!