RIP Christine McVie

Christine McVie's sunny 1984 solo hit "Got a Hold On Me" has always been one of my favorite songs of the 1980s. It was her only substantial solo hit — #10 on the Hot 100 and #1 AC — and it bears the instantly familiar upbeat, buoyantly melodic sound that she did so well. At times, she did that thing I love of juxtaposing the euphoric and the melancholy, as in Fleetwood Mac's "You Make Loving Fun," which contains one of my favorite lyrics:

I never did believe in miracles
But I've a feeling it's time to try
I never did believe in the ways of magic
But I'm beginning to wonder why

In the Fleetwood Mac songbook, her style is a nicely balancing counterpoint to the mystical Stevie Nicks compositions and the eccentric ones of Lindsey Buckingham. Songs like "Everywhere," which is currently featured in a TV commercial, "Hold Me" and "You Make Loving Fun" will always be dear old friends.

While McVie's involvement in the surprisingly excellent 2003 Mac album Say You Will was minimal, it disappointed me that they never all got together for one more. For years, another album seemed possible but always stayed just out of reach, while Say You Will showed the spark was still there.

Wordle rips off Lingo, which is coming back to TV

Where's the lawsuit? 

Wordle literally is the concept of the game show Lingo, a word game cleverly infused with some elements of bingo, which first appeared in 1987. The only differences in the word-guessing portion, really, are that Lingo gives the player the first letter, and Worlde provides a handy grid to help keep track of the used letters that are not in the word. I say the differences will not stand up in court. As has been all over the news, The New York Times snatched up Wordle for a big wad of money.

American viewers will best know Lingo for the Chuck Woolery-hosted Game Show Network version, which ran from 2002 to 2007 with more than 300 episodes — a rare bounty for a GSN production. The show originated with a single, obscure syndicated season (1987-88), and there have been a number of successful international versions. In the Netherlands, except for a five-year gap, it has been in production since 1989. So, the concept has been around, and there have been Lingo game apps for the phone.

Now news breaks that CBS is resurrecting the show for primetime. Seems too much to be a coincidence, but news reports indicate the show was in development long before the Wordle craze emerged.

It's fun to see some of the lesser known game shows get the big-budget, big-network treatment — perhaps there will be a car prize ball — but I suspect an hour of Lingo is going to grow tiresome. It seems more of a small-doses pleasure.

And RuPaul as host? Wouldn't be my on my shortlist, or even long list, but maybe he'll work it.

Not a Dry Eye in the House (RIP Meat Loaf)

It seems to me that one of the things Mr. Loaf aspired to be was different, to be an outlier among the top 40 with operatic bombast and radio edits running 5 minutes or more in the latter days, and I admire that. About seven months ago, upon the death of his longtime collaborator and songwriter Jim Steinman, I wrote about what is probably my favorite Meat Loaf song, "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are." Another favorite, "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through," a reverent ode to the music that gets us through this world, is in my current playlist and in the top 3 on my rolling Last.fm chart.

I want to give a nod to a deeper cut, a latter day single that flopped in the U.S., peaking at #82, but did manage #7 in the U.K. For 1995 album Welcome to the Neighborhood, which followed up the incredible comeback of Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell, there were only two Steinman songs in the mix, and Mr. Loaf turned to venerable songwriter Diane Warren for a couple of tracks which would be the first two singles.

The lead single, "I'd Lie for You (And That's the Truth)," seems a rather thinly veiled rewrite and lesser imitation of the massive Bat II hit "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)." I'll argue that had it not been the lead single with big expectations hanging over it, the song might not have tainted the top 40 (it made #13 in the U.S. and #2 in the U.K.).

But second single "Not a Dry Eye in the House" is, for my ears, one of the best tunes Mr. Loaf ever turned out; it's all high drama and hooks and beautifully produced. I love the bridge (Act 1 … The story's just begun! Act 2 … I fell in love with you!) and the gentle fade-out.

It would be his last charted Hot 100 single in the U.S. (prior to his death, of course), and a fitting curtain call.

Music that moved me in 2021

This year was more fun musically than last, I’d say, with interesting things going on like Elton John and ABBA going to the top of the charts again.

One of the pleasant surprises of the year was Duran Duran’s Future Past, a stunningly good album that begs the question of where their muse has been in the last 20-plus years. Released in October, Future Past ends up as my #2 album for the year but may ultimately have more impact in 2022 as the songs work through my playlist. The Durans are often at their best with downbeat numbers, and the song “Future Past” is probably my favorite since the extraordinary singles “Ordinary World” and “Come Undone” resuscitated them way back in the first half of the ‘90s.

Here’s a look at how some of the songs released in or near 2021 placed in my top 100, which includes songs old and new and is based on play counts as monitored by Last.fm:

#1 Be the One • Dua Lipa // It was a very Dua Lipa kind of year, and this single from her previous album emerged as my favorite apart from her Elton John collaboration. She has kind of taken on the Queen of Pop role that Gaga squandered over the last few albums. Lipa is also in the top 100 at #21 with “Hallucinate” and #74 with “We’re Good,” and she finishes as the #7 artist of the year.

#2 Anyone • Justin Bieber // Bieber has really carved a niche with melancholy and evocative grooves like this and “Sorry.” Dance with me under the diamonds / See me like breath in the cold is one of my favorite lyrics of the year.

#15 Got Me • Laura Mvula // The British R&B singer delivered one of the most interesting singles of the year. Its groove continually makes me think of Billy Ocean’s “When the Going Gets Tough,” in a good way.

#32 Unwanted • Rick Astley // Suggests Astley should still be making albums of danceable pop.

#38 Cold Heart (Pnau Remix) • Elton John & Dua Lipa // It’s hard to describe what this is — sort of a dance remix of 1989 ballad hit “Sacrifice,” (which by happenstance topped my rolling chart last year), wrapped in a very clever mashup with “Rocket Man,” “Kiss the Bride” and “Where’s the Shoorah?” It’s brilliant, but I wonder if it could have been even more so with a bridge somewhere in the second half. It had the longest run at #1 on my rolling chart and would have finished higher if it had come along earlier in the year.

#39 Free Woman • Lady Gaga // Sometimes a song works better outside the context of its album, and I have found that to be true for some of the tunes from the rather monochramatic Chromatica.

#48 Magic • Kylie Minogue // Kylie’s Disco album is surprisingly not particularly disco, sounding instead like just another pop album, really. There’s nothing anywhere near the disco-ness of Kylie oldie “Your Disco Needs You.” Nevertheless, the single “Magic” lived up to its name.

#53 Don’t Shut Me Down • ABBA // The new album Voyage is solid if not the mind-blower we were hoping for after all this time, right? The lovely ballad “I Still Have Faith In You” also makes it in at #89.

#57 Golden • Harry Styles // Not a name I would expect in my top 100, and he gets here by evoking a style of music that was never my cup of tea, but it works beautifully.

#68 Your Fandango • Sparks & Todd Rundgren // The incomparable combination of wit and musicianship that is Sparks ushered in the first time ever that I’ve played Rundgren. Love the castanets and the unmitigated glee of the insanity going on here.

#80 Golden G String • Miley Cyrus // My interest in Cyrus’ outstanding Plastic Hearts album carried over into ’21 enough to make it the #1 album of the year and Cyrus the #9 artist of the year, which opened with synth masterpiece “Midnight Sky” sitting at #1 on my first rolling chart of ’21. The raucous “Night Crawling (feat. Billy Idol)” also makes the year-ender at #98.

#81 Once I Saw the River Clean • Morrissey // The Mozzer never quite fades away, and the electronic sheen on recent album I Am not a Dog on a Chain was a welcome complement to his eccentric songs.

What’s so hot about the Hot 100? // We have three points of crossover this time, up from one last year. These minor miracles are:

— Save Your Tears • The Weeknd // #2 Billboard; #26 Me

— Anyone • Justin Bieber // #74 Billboard; #2 Me

— We’re Good • Dua Lipa // #90 Billboard; #74 Me

A close call was Ritt Momney’s “Put Your Records On,” a quirky cover of the Corrine Bailey Rae song that got inside my head but finished a bit outside my 100 while landing at #93 in Billboard, despite getting no higher than #30 on the Hot 100 weeklies.

Go here to view prior years' recaps.

RIP Anne Rice

I haven't read any Anne Rice in more than 20 years, but I'll always fondly associate her early vampire novels with the time when I was a teen and really getting into reading voraciously (something which came crashing down when I entered the real world of employment/slavery). As a Christmas gift, my aunt bought for me a paperback set of the first three novels, despite her initial objections to buying something titled The Queen of the Damned. 

My book notes reveal that I was reading Interview With the Vampire at the time I graduated from high school in 1991, and I read the next two within a few months. My notes also indicate that I liked Queen best of the first three books, although that was not how I remembered it before digging out those old pages that meticulously document the books I read. I also read The Tale of the Body Thief, the fourth of The Vampire Chronicles series, a few years later, and that concluded my consumption of Rice's work. I think I sensed by that point she had said what she had to say. At times, I felt the series sagged under the weight of excessive historical detail, but I ultimately bestowed highly favorable ratings on each of the first three novels.

I admire Rice's deadly serious approach to the subject matter; she aimed to elevate the genre with an eye to being a lasting influence, and I believe she succeeded. I'm not sure the sophistication of the Sookie Stackhouse and True Blood stories would have emerged had Rice's treatment of the genre not happened. The idea of a vampire living as a rock star was a groundbreaking departure from caped bloodsuckers crawling up the exterior walls of castles to a young woman's window in the dead of night.

We'll be looking to the upcoming AMC series Interview With the Vampire, coming in 2022, as a fitting tribute to the queen of vampire horror.

Netflix's Midnight Mass is a revelation

I've taken note of the name Mike Flanagan. 

I've not seen much of his previous work. I liked Doctor Sleep (2019), the sequel to The Shining. A few years back, I panned his Ouija: Origin of Evil but noted some inspired flourishes; and, more recently, I bailed out on his The Haunting of Hill House series after one episode (we're going to give it another shot). But watching the seven-episode Midnight Mass proved to be a religious experience of the sort I haven't felt since the first couple of seasons of True Blood and, in movies, since the stunning twist of The Sixth Sense.

There aren't many new ideas in horror, and that's where Midnight Mass really delivers, taking the concept of the vampire to a place that some might find blasphemous, but I found its melding of vampire lore and Christianity brilliant and exciting. In terms of good and evil, it turns the concept of the vampire inside out. And it does so at a leisurely pace across seven hours; it takes a bit to fully realize what's going on here as the story establishes its territory with the return home of Riley Flynn (Zach Gilford), a troubled young man, and the arrival of Father Paul (Hamish Linklater), a young man of the cloth who … well, to say much more would enter spoiler territory.

There are no jump scares; it doesn't need them. The music, which often consists of gorgeous choir renditions of sacred hymns, and the sparingly used, something-creepy-is-about-to-happen parts, is outstanding. There are enormous passages of fascinating, hypnotic dialog, often delivered by Linklater, who was good as the brother on sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine and is Emmy-worthy here. Another cast standout is Samantha Sloyan as Beverly Keane, an overly pious clergywoman whose intentions are always suspect.

At times, Midnight Mass becomes a profoundly philosophical meditation on existence, life and death. We immediately watched it a second time — something we never do — to revel in the nuance and the slow-burn dread. We're still haunted by it, still dissecting and discussing the details. As lifetime horror fans, we think it's an important work in the genre. I don't remember for certain if I've ever bestowed a divine 5 out of 5 rating to any piece of entertainment on this blog before, but here one is.

Seven things about Spotify's 2021 wrapped

 

1 // I don't usually post about Spotify's yearly recap because the bigger picture of my listening comes via last.fm scrobbling, which aggregates all of my listening on Spotify and the things that I play from my computer, but this year will be an exception. My overall year-end recap will be forthcoming, of course …

2 // In a bit of a shocker, Wrapped tells me I listened to more music this year than 65 percent of other listeners in the United States. I wouldn't have expected this, since I almost never listen at work, and with last.fm I'm rarely in the top 50 percent.

3 // I was a bit surprised to see Erasure as the most played artist (spoiler: They will not be #1 on the aggregated list). It must stem from the fact that I did not purchase a physical copy of their last album, The Neon, or any of its offshoot releases, such as the Ne:Ep. It's a decent album but not one I feel like I played that much. Their songwriting is not as sharp, in my view, over the last several albums. Wrapped says I was in the top 1 percent of Erasure listeners.

4 // Wrapped says I listened to 63 genres, and that's a good thing — I'm proud to be eclectic. New wave coming out on top is a reflection of all that '80s music, and too much of it gets labeled that way.

5 //  The artists on those top songs are, in order, Bieber, Dua Lipa, Simple Minds, Johnny Hates Jazz and Griff. Then and now, now and then.

6 //  Kudos to fairly obscure electronic / chillwave artist Brothertiger for edging into the top 5 artists. That's largely on the strength of his excellent rendition of Tears for Fears' Songs from the Big Chair album in its entirety.

7 // December 1 is too early to close the chart year — there are weeks to go.