Janet Jackson, "What Have You Done For Met Lately"
Alanis Morissette, "You Oughta Know"
Sinéad O'Connor, "No Man's Woman"
Madonna, "Don't Tell Me"
Fiona Apple, "Paper Bag"
Liz Phair, "Divorce Song"
Patsy Cline, "Crazy"
Marvin Gaye, "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)"
Nina Simone, "To Love Somebody"
Lily Allen, "Smile"
Harry Nilsson, "You're Breakin' My Heart"
Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, "I Hate Myself For Loving You"
Deftones, "Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)"
The Pharcyde, "Otha Fish"
Shel Silverstein, "Pathetic Way of Getting Over Me"
John Waite, "Missing You"
Beck, "Lost Cause"
Joni Mitchell, "A Case of You"
Fleetwood Mac, "Don't Stop"
Prince & the Revolution, "Purple Rain"
You can probably tell that D is having a tough week.
She was born in the '90s, and she knows more about Santigold, Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé than I ever will. Rather than try to be a hip old man, I'm treating her to some of my favorite pop hits from days gone by. I'm sure that she already knows the Sharon Jones version of "What Have You Done For Me Lately," so I'm starting with Janet's original* and running through 20 of the best songs for weeks like this one.
One of my favorite things about making mixes for folks with hipper taste
than mine is that it gives fresh ears to songs like "Crazy," "You
Oughta Know" and "Purple Rain." I'm almost embarrassed to admit that the
most modern rap break-up song I could think of without consulting a
search engine was The Pharcyde's "Otha Fish." Maybe there will be some Kanye on the next one.
I plucked three songs from the last break-up mix I made, but I wanted this one to be a little funnier, hence the Lily Allen and Shel Silverstein. Nilsson offers "You're Breakin' My Heart" instead of "Without You." But of course break-ups suck, and you need to do more than laugh, as most of these songs testify.
The one request that I got when I offered to put this mix together was "not too much rock n' roll." Thus, I've included only two hard rock songs, via Joan Jett and the Deftones, and stuck them next to each other. Not that you'd want to skip over them.
* "You ought to be thankful for the little things/But little things are all you seem to give." How did I miss that?
Near the end of 2011, Quinn, Erica and I put together a playlist dedicated to the feline. Other than a few stray choices (Pantera's "Cat Scratch Fever," smoking the original), metal doesn't offer much for B. Kliban's favorite animal, or at least anything that can prowl with "The Love Cats," "Cool for Cats" or "China Cat Sunflower." Somehow, I lost track of one of the best metal songs ever recorded by a non-metal artist.
Not only could "Black Cat" have appeared on Aerosmith's classic Pump, released the same year, it would have been the heaviest song on the album.
Instead, we get "Black Cat" on Rhythm Nation 1814, Janet Jackson's 1989 new jack swing blockbuster. Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis get nearly all of the songwriting credit, but one thing that I love about "Black Cat" it was Janet's first hit song that she wrote herself. Four albums into her R & B career, Janet takes more Control by inflicting a hard charged riff on her pop senses. Pop and metal haven't been this close ever since, probably because nobody can do it better.
