The Ides of March are upon us tomorrow, and Daylight Savings Time has hit. Spring is, well, springing in advance in Toronto, and my work schedule is lightening up a bit to take a few days off this week. That usually means I get to play a lot of music and get caught up with new releases.
So while this edition of my personal chart (link also to the right under ***BILL’S PERSONAL CHART***) is chock full of stuff, the chart activity is pretty minimal. But we do have a new #1! Lady GaGa gets her first chart topper here with “Teeth”, which I think is just an incredibly wonderful and fun song. It will be competing with Penguin Prison’s quirky and amazing free download “Something I’m Not”, which moves from its debut position of 11 to 6 this week. (NOTE: Simon Curtis fans fear not – though “Delusional” will leave the chart after this one, since it’s lasted the maximum 10 chart appearances, new music from Simon is coming soon 🙂 )
A lot of the activity in the chart takes place outside of the Top 10, where there’s a passel of songs battling it out among each other. The more I listen to “Hallelujah” by Justin Timberlake, Matt Morris, and Charlie Sexton, the more I appreciate the careful harmonies and how close it comes to Jeff Buckley’s definitive version – especially given recent renditions of the song which I’ve heard in the past few weeks. Jason Derulo’s “In My Head” is an almost-singalong carried by a great melody. Dan Black’s pastiche that is “Pass That Head Noize” keeps winning creativity points from me, while “Don’t Stop” by Annie is pop/dance at its most adorable.
Evan Taubenfeld’s “Starbucks Girl” is gonna keep moving up my chart until I tire of it, even though it’s only available now on YouTube (I can still hope for a bonus live version on his upcoming CD, can’t I?). Example’s “Won’t Go Quietly” puts me in a good mood (which I’ve needed these past few weeks) and climbs 25-17, the Fastest Riser on the chart. Justin Nozuka’s “My Heart Is Yours” is right behind moving 27-20, an emotional ballad whose closest companion on the chart is “Hallelujah”. BT & Christian Burns’ “Suddenly” gets stuck in the middle but should find its way out of it in two weeks. Other debuts from last week by Pink, Javi, Ellie Goulding, and Vampire Weekend should also strut their stuff in the coming weeks.
Right now I can’t get enough of the energy from songs from Clayton Senne’s Wonderland CD, so the title track debuts at #24. I had this fascination with Massive Attack back in 1994 when they released the splendid Protection CD. After that they remained interesting to me but dropped off my radar. Now reduced to a duo, they seem to be back in the same form as 15 years ago with their new CD Heligoland, from which comes the murky, foreboding sound of “Girl I Love You”, featuring vocalist Horace Andy, at #25.
My final debut is timely. This song has been popping up on my iTouch shuffle in my car a lot lately. I saw the band open for The Midway State in Toronto last summer and was impressed at how tight they are and how lead singer Shaun Frank wins over the audience. Toronto’s The Envy signed this week to Gene Simmons’ record label, so expect to hear more from them soon. “Don’t Let Go” debuts at #29 and is available to you for free by subscribing to their newsletter at their MySpace site. Below’s a video of a recent live performance of the song. Enjoy 🙂
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