I’ve been sitting on this idea for about a year. It felt too obvious, but then I ran into a really busy stretch, and then suddenly obvious sounded AWESOME. So here we are.
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This show was originally going to be about shiny things. I thought of precious metals, and then opened things up to include any gem that would be included in jewelry. Gold, silver, rubies, diamonds, all that stuff.
Continue readingI’m bringing the mope this week, love birds. If I know anything about love, it’s that it dies a slow, painful death when the month of February rolls around. Seriously, for two Februarys in a row in college, all of my friends and I saw our relationships come to an end. The following year, we threw a party to celebrate it, and that annual party tradition carried on for another ten years. The breakups, thankfully, didn’t.
Bands making their DH debuts this week include Alison Moyet, The Bangles, Deon Estus, David Gray, Elliott Smith (what), Kate Bush (WHAT), Simply Red, Vitamin Z, and World Party. Wait, really? Sorry, Mr. Wallinger. I just assumed I had played you by now.
The March show is still being built, but I’ll give you a hint as to its theme: the giant crab in “Moana” would approve.
Thank you, as always, for listening.
The idea came, as a lot of my ideas do, from a Duran Duran song. Do I have enough songs to do a full show about dreams? As I quickly discovered, the answer was no. I have enough songs to do five or six shows about dreams.
Artists making their Dizzy Heights debut this week include Asia, Alice Cooper, Bram Tchaikovsky, Cliff Richard, Daryl Hall, A Flock of Seagulls, Freiheit, Paul Williams, The Posies, Pseudo Echo, Rainbow, and Emily Browning courtesy of the Sucker Punch soundtrack.
Thanks for listening!
I make a mention, right away, that I hadn’t played every possible royal family title in a song, which was a complete lie. The first five songs cover them all. I had about 10 minutes to record those first two bits before it was time to pick up the girl at soccer practice. Mistakes were made.
Speaking of the girl, this was her idea. Every song references one royal family member or another (by title, not specific people), and the biggest surprise? How few songs there are with ‘princess’ in the title. I thought there would be tons of them. I had maybe four.
Artists making their Dizzy Heights debut this week. ABBA, Charli XCX (as a solo artist), The Dukes of Stratosphear, Jude, King, The Kings, Juice Newton, and wait, Neil Finn?!?!?! What? (This is actually his ninth time on the show, but his first as a solo artist.)
Thank you, as always, for listening.
“Sunday Sunday, here again, a walk in the park…”
“Monday, I could wait ’til Tuesday, if I make up my mind, Wednesday would be fine…”
I’ve been toying with this one for months. So many choices! Most in the titles, but some in the lyrics. Everyone likes referencing days of the week, although Thursday needs to fire its publicist, because virtually no one sings about Thursday.
Artists making their Dizzy Heights debut: Bay City Rollers, The Easybeats, Kenna, Morphine, The Pogues, and Soulwax.
Oh, and here’s the clip I reference at the very end.
Thank you, as always, for listening.
Here’s another Name That Tune idea carried over (I’m afraid to even look to see how many of the same songs I used). There are LOTS of songs that start with the word ‘Don’t,’ and even after doing this massive, two-hour show, I still have 220 songs in iTunes set aside for future volumes of this theme. That is not a typo.
Bands making their Dizzy Heights debut: The Alan Parsons Project, The Communards, David Byrne, Devo (WHAT), Elvis Presley, The Flirts, Hamilton, Joe Frank, & Reynolds (one guess), Husker Du, Kenny Loggins (with special guest), Jane Child, Los Lobos, Michael Jackson, Night Ranger, Paul Carrack, Phil Collins, and Wang Chung. Dang, that’s a lot of debuts.
Thank you, as always, for listening.
The idea comes from an old joke that an ex-girlfriend made long ago: “We should never use the words ‘never,’ ‘ever,’ ‘always,’ or ‘forever’ when describing us.” She was not wrong, but from the ashes of that (spectacularly) failed relationship comes this show, and over half of my defunct Mope Like Me column, so at least something good came from it.
Artists making their Dizzy Heights debuts this week: The Assembly, The Association, Shirley Bassey, The Buzzcocks, Aretha Franklin, Deborah Harry & Iggy Pop, Raphael Saadiq, The Stranglers, Walter Meego, and my cat Harvey! He hops up at the 1:05:55 mark.
Thank you, as always, for listening.
No talkie bits this week. First day of school for the kids, birthday celebrations, picking the boy up at camp, blah blah blah.
This idea is definitely a one-shot thing, at least in its current form. I went after song titles that were two words, each starting with the same letter. And I went A to Z, almost literally (with apologies to the letters Q and X). Of course, I broke my own rules twice, when I used a song with an ampersand (hey, it was the letter U, I got desperate), and in one instance, I used a title that was the same word twice, which is not alliteration but repetition (again, letter Y, got desperate).
Multiple people asked me to use “Disco Duck.” And believe me, I thought about it, then thought better of it.
Artists making their Dizzy Heights debut this week: Ben Folds (solo), Burning Sensations, Elvis Costello (WHAT), The Go-Betweens, The Go-Go’s, Guided by Voices, k.d. lang, The Kinks (this cannot be happening), Neurotic Outsiders, Stone Poneys, Tasmin Archer, and Tom Petty. Seriously, thank goodness for Tom Petty, or I don’t have a ‘Z’ song.
Bands coming back for another tour of duty: Basement Jaxx, Franz Ferdinand, The Housemartins, The Jezabels, Joe Jackson, Pet Shop Boys, Propaganda, The Rolling Stones, Squeeze, The Ting Tings, The Trashcan Sinatras, and Tribe. Speaking of Tribe, I pull a segue that my 1993 self would high-five.
Thank you, as always, for listening.
This was originally supposed to be one show featuring songs with colors in the title, but about 600 suggestions later, it was clear that the colors needed to be split up into their own shows, and even then there is enough material to do multiple shows of the primary colors, and maybe the secondary ones as well.
I chose to start with blue so I can play a song from Tom Bailey’s solo album Science Fiction that stabbed my inner lovestruck teenager in the heart. From there, I went, well, everywhere, but there is a thread of melancholy that goes nearly from start to finish. Blue is more than just a color, I guess.
Artists making their Dizzy Heights debut this week: Billy Idol (wait, what?), The Charlatans, David Gilmour, Electric Light Orchestra, Fine Young Cannibals, Gus, Michael Johnson, Peter Murphy, Real Life (wait, WHAT?), The Smithereens (I have no words), The Undertones, and Yaz (even fewer words).
Thank you, as always, for listening.