Zrbo's Favorite Songs of 2017

Another year has come and gone - a fairly uneventful one at that. No real major controversies, no major existential crises as a nation comes to grips with its tarnished reputation, no disturbing resurgence of neo-Nazism, nothing really.

But guess what did happen? I actually listened to some music this year... some NEW music. Whereas last year I had essentially given up on modern music, I made a (somewhat) concerted effort this year. And it sorta paid off. Let's get to to it!

Most Disappointing Album:

Taylor Swift - Reputation

If you recall, I had to surrender my goth cred license when I called Taylor Swift's 1989 "a great pop album". Well, give me that license back because I listened to Reputation and I basically just hated it. Gone are the swirling 80s inspired synths and the hummable melodies, instead replaced with... generic club music. No really, I think Taylor's been hanging out with too many DJs in too many velvet rope lined night clubs. This album just sounds like it's designed for those LA/NYC night clubs filled with obnoxiously douchey guys trying to pick up on girls wearing too much makeup and skirts too short, with overpriced bottle service, and $11 Bud Lights (don't forget to tip that weird guy in the bathroom who... hands you a paper towel to dry your hands). I gave it one full listen and never went back. Bring back those synth filled melodies Taylor!

Most Improved Album:

Chrvches - Every Eye Open

Back in 2013 I named Chvrches "Gun" as my favorite song of the year. Then their follow up album Every Eye Open came out in 2015 and while I found it alright, it didn't draw me in as much as I hoped it would. Well color me wrong, I gave the album another listen this year and found that, no, I really do like this album. In fact, going against critical consensus, I actually think I like Every Eye Open just a tad better than their debut album The Bones of What You Believe. Yes, the singles off that debut were stronger, but as a whole I just really dig Every Eye Open. It's got a good flow and I like the male vocalist led track "High Enough to Carry You Over" better than TBOWYB's "You Caught the Light". Not only that, but when I purchased EEO I got the special edition with a few additional tracks. What I love about these tracks are that they continue with the flow of the basic album and they're quite good, with the final song "Bow Down" being one of my favorites off the entire thing.

#5 - Solar Fake - "All the Things You Say"


This song was recommended to me by an algorithm and it looks like the algorithm knows my tastes. Ok, it's really just a club friendly goth song with a hint of euro-dance sprinkled in. The oddly named Solar Fake hail from Germany and as far as I can tell it's just one guy (who also has a VNV Nation cover floating around, too bad it's one of my least favorite VNV songs). "All the Things You Say" isn't that remarkable and I don't really expect anyone else to enjoy it, but it sits comfortably in that dancey EBM space that I love so much.

#4 - Moana Soundtrack - "I Am Moana (Song of the Ancients)"


I have a toddler daughter who's favorite movie is currently Disney's Moana, which means that at the Zrbo household the soundtrack gets played constantly (at least three times a day). Maybe it's just Stockholm Syndrome, but after about a thousand listenings I've grown fond of the soundtrack. While "How Far I'll Go" is the big number, I prefer "I Am Moana". It's not only the big final number, but I like how it serves as a reprise of "How Far I'll Go". Yes, it's got the big loud cathartic ending where the music swells and our hero Moana finds her determination to overcome the challenges against her, but it also has a nicely subdued beginning as we hear Moana's grandma encourage her not to give up. In fact, the part with Moana's grandma might just be my favorite part. It's a good movie and has a soundtrack full of good songs. Oh and it beats that other Disney movie with those two nordic princesses by a mile (a fathom perhaps?).

#3 - When in Rome - "The Promise"


My retro pick of the year, this is one of those songs I've known for awhle but somehow it got lodged deep in my brain this year. It's really just a catchy British new wave single, but once that drum machine kicks in after the initial piano I'm hooked.

Now that being said, you may be curious why you've never heard another song by When in Rome. Well my friend, I recommend reading the AMG Guide review of this album, it's quite the fun read. Some highlights are "a dud of an album", "embarassingly weak", and "the rest of the album is utterly forgettable". Ouch!

I also want to address the video because, well, it's not at all what I expected. Queuing it up I assumed I would see some wimpy looking British guys with big hair in outrageously dated 80s attire, like what you might find in the video for Real Life's "Send Me an Angel" or A Flock of Seagull's "I Ran". Instead there's a beefy looking almost 90s looking Eddie Vedder type and some other guy in a baseball cap who might be described as a "lad" (there's also a third guy but he barely features). And then the video itself is surprisingly cinematic. It looks like it might be from one of those 80s soundtrack videos where it cuts between the performer and the movie (think "St. Elmo's Fire"). But no, it's just this strangely cinematic video that cuts between the bandmates composing the song and a sophisticated looking woman who they're writing their promise to (Perhaps this is a Cyrano de Bergerac situation and the other two guys are composing the song for the Eddie Vedder type?) For a song from 1988 it looks like a video from 1995. It's just... strange.

#2 - Bruno Mars - "24k Magic"


Look, something that was actually popular in the year two thousand seventeen! I'm not really a Bruno Mars guy, but in what can only be the highest accolade that Mr. Mars would want to hear, the first time I heard this song on the radio I thought it was some long lost Michael Jackson track. "Maybe this was off of one of his later albums, like Blood on the Dancefloor?", I thought. Of course, once I heard some lyric about "hashtag" I knew I was wrong, but this is precisely the kind of song I could imagine the late Michael doing if he were still around as a sort of comeback song where he lends his vocals to a younger, more popular act. This song just has this fun build and release where it seems to draw inspiration from a variety of acts. The falsetto is straight from the aformentioned Jackson, parts sound similar to Grandmaster Flash's "The Message", and the build up right before the chorus reminds me of a song I can't quite put my finger on. Anyways, I like it.

#1 - Adele - "Fastlove"


What a complete reinvention of a song. I've always enjoyed George Michael's "Fastlove" but in an easy-listening throwaway-pop kind of way. Yeah yeah George, you're a lothario out on the prowl to find women to have sex with in the back of your BMW, I get it. But it's all kind of breezy and fun, right? Well, let Adele show you how it's done. She transforms the song so completely that it practically becomes a funeral dirge. Especially when she gets to that final verse ("In the absence of security...") it nearly becomes suicide inducing. I've listened to the original a hundred times, but she draws out this pathos that was always hiding just beneath the surface that I had never noticed before. Also, props to whoever put together that backing video behind her, because it just lines up perfectly (skip to 1:50 to see the performance).

The Stealth Attack Of Rick Nowels

The history of popular music is littered with figures who have contributed, in ever-so-clandestine fashion, to the soundtrack of our lives, and yet have done so without ever becoming household names in their own right. You've got your George Martins, your Al Koopers, your Brian Enos, your Norman Whitfields, your Rod Tempertons, your Trevor Horns - to name a mere half-dozen or so. But few of these figures have merited less blog posts than Rick Nowels.

Yes, Rick Nowels. Most people, if pressed, couldn't even name one single song that Rick Nowels has composed. But if those same people simply started naming a string of song titles at random, they might eventually name a Rick Nowels song by accident. Let me show you what I mean.

You know that song by the New Radicals (AKA Gregg Alexander), "You Get What You Give"? The one where that guy who would end up having only one hit in his entire career threatened Beck, Marilyn Manson, and Courtney Love by saying he'd "kick their ass in"?

Co-written by Rick Nowels.



You know that song by Jewel you hear in the motel lobby, "Standing Still"? The one that kind of rips off the bridge melody of Springsteen's "My Hometown," but where at least she doesn't sing about how small her hands are?

Co-written by Rick Nowels.



You know that song by Dido, "White Flag"? The one with a romantic/military metaphor more awkward than ABBA's "Waterloo" and a chorus hook so insinuatingly catchy that it should probably be banned by the Geneva Convention so that it's never employed as a torture device on prisoners of war?

Co-written by Rick Nowels.



Even Madonna once got into the Rick Nowels action, or three times, rather: she co-wrote a trio songs with this international man of mystery on Ray of Light, including a hit I don't quite remember hearing much at the time, "The Power of Good-bye."



How does he do it? Maybe he's just a really fun dude to hang out with late at night. For whatever reason, when mainstream pop stars need to fill out their next album with an extra song or two, and they're stuck in the mud, they call Rick Nowels. He's like the Mr. Wolf of Adult Contemporary pop. Here is a list of artists who, since the turn of the millennium, have called on the secret services of Mr. Nowels: Keith Urban, Cee Lo, Nelly Furtado, John Legend, Geri Halliwell AND Mel C ... hell, even Yusuf Islam, the Muslim reincarnation of Cat Stevens, teamed up with Nowels when he recorded his secular comeback album An Other Cup in 2005. Recently he's developed a fruitful partnership with Lana Del Ray, which I'm certain I would make a witheringly snarky comment about ... if I had actually heard any of Lana Del Ray's music.

Anyway. Brilliant artists, all. But there's only one singer to whom Rick Nowels truly belongs, and will belong forevermore. From Lips Unsealed:

Miles, who wished that Belinda, despite its impressive sales, had been edgier and more in the style of IRS acts, forgot to pick up the option on my contract with IRS and I found myself a free agent. My management and I decided to shop around for a new deal. Miles was furious. But we thought, Why not test the market?

Uh, Miles, I hate to break it to you, but "edgier and more in the style of IRS acts" was definitely not the direction Belinda was itching to head in here. I wonder how "furious" he was about losing Belinda once he heard the ... um ... not-entirely-edgy product that eventually came out on her new label.

It turned out to be a shrewd move. After a bidding war between several major labels, I signed with MCA in the U.S., kept my foreign rights till after the next record was finished, and eventually made seven figures on both sides of the Atlantic.

Michael Lloyd expected to work with me again, but [MCA president] Irving [Azoff] had another producer in mind. I was given the difficult, if not heartbreaking, task of telling Michael, who was understandably upset. I felt awful, but it was one of those things. The silver lining was my new executive producer Rick Nowels, who had scored major triumphs working with Stevie Nicks, another MCA artist. In fact, Stevie had suggested he try to work with me. In a way, we may have been destined to partner. It sure felt like it when we met. We had instant chemistry.

Somehow you knew Stevie Nicks was going to have a hand in the Belinda zaniness at some point, didn't you?

Rick was tall and blonde, a Californian from head to toe, very passionate and a little eccentric. He wrote songs with Ellen Shipley, an amazing artist in her own right. They created songs specifically for my voice. For me, it was a brand-new and exciting way of working. I had never been anyone's muse.

When Rick and I talked about the album and how we envisioned it - what we wanted it to feel like and how we wanted the listener to feel - I had the sense he was reaching into my soul, removing tiny pieces, and magically turning them into songs ... At the same time, I had never worked as hard. Rick made me sing parts forty or fifty times. I could never figure out what specifically he was listening for. Thank God he eventually heard it, though, or I might still be there.

Hah! But you know what? That's the way it should be. Great singers shouldn't even understand what it is about their singing that is great. They should lack any and all self-consciousness. All Belinda needed to do was step up to the microphone, bring it, and let the Stealth Attack do the rest. At any rate. While Nowels' hits with Belinda would certainly not be his last, I would venture to say that they would arguably be his best. Although I'm a little curious about that Geri Halliwell/Mel C material. Oh come on, don't tell me you're not.

Two Valeries Are Better Than One

You want to know how hot Steve Winwood was in 1987? Let me tell you how hot. Steve Winwood was so hot, he could release a remix of a single he'd already released in 1982, which had already flopped, and watch the remixed version turn into a huge hit. But, the things is, "Valerie" kind of deserved it.

Because, let's face it, "Valerie" got stiffed the first time around. This one had it all: chugging synth bass line, bouncy octave-jumping synth riff, smooth Winwood vocal, enigmatic lyrics that were radio-friendly without being embarrassing, suspenseful bridge followed by soaring chorus, solo played by the guy who made the music for Pole Position, and even a nifty, swiftly dramatic ending. I mean, what else did the people want? Still, you never know which way the fickle winds of '80s Yuppie Rock are going to blow.

Speaking of wind. The video for "Valerie '82" opens with Winwood battling a terrifying silver Chromakey effect, his sport coat falling prey to the electronic pellets. He swiftly wins the battle and finds himself restored to his usual appearance, but in the aftermath, apparently everything on Earth has been wiped out other than a giant fan, although judging by the look on his face, he's not worried in the least. Well, he can't be that warm, with the wind in his arms, is what I'm thinking. When he plays the keyboard, his fingers become enveloped in swirling, silver waves of ... energy? Metallic plasma flow? At 3:37 he tempts the laws of physics by duetting with his superimposed self, the hand of one Winwood punching the other Winwood directly in the face, which would probably hurt if he wasn't, you know, such a wimp. Let's just say that the atmospheric conditions of the video have given already-sardonic YouTube commentators a second "wind":

They should call him Steve Windwood. No?

Valerie probably went inside, it's too windy.

There is no wind. His hair always does that on its own. Isn't it glorious?

I have a FEVER, and the only prescription is MORE WIND MACHINE!

We bought that wind machine and dammit, we're going to get our money's worth.

This music video literally blows

The wind machine blew him back to his home planet

Oh, how that YouTube humor just blows me away. But I digress. This original version of "Valerie" appeared on Talking Back to the Night, his follow-up to Arc of a Diver, and while it made it to #13 on the US Mainstream Rock chart, it petered out at #70 on the US Hot 100 and #51 in the UK. Oh, the shame! Like jazz on a summer's day, it floated away on the breeze of listener indifference. The Yuppie Rock Gods sensed a great injustice, one that required remedy, but one that could only be rectified when the time was right.

Well, some day, some good wind blew "Valerie" back to us. And that day ... was 1987.

In 1987, Winwood released a not-quite-greatest-hits album called Chronicles, and included a few remixed versions of older songs, supposedly to entice those fans who must have been looking for the tiniest excuse to plunk down some change for any old Winwood product they didn't already have. Upon revisiting "Valerie," the first thing he apparently thought was "The drums ... they just don't ... rumble enough. They need to be more ... rumbly." And lo, the drums did rumble. "And an imitation snare effect! There's no imitation snare effect!" Consider it done, Steve. Now this sucker had some pizzazz to it. He also added in some extra guitar licks around 1:30 for that "hickory smoked" flavor. "Valerie" was like the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion of '80s Yuppie Rock songs: it had the brains, heart, and courage to be a hit single the whole time, but it just hadn't believed in itself. The remix peaked at #9 in the US, and #19 in the UK.

Looks like ol' Steve-o had a bit more money for the video this time around, although he personally seems to have spent the same exact amount of time making it. The director opted for some sort of "pastel and pencil sketch" look, which has probably aged better than the silver magnetic wave effect, although it kind of feels like it belongs in a lost Sesame Street segment. Then he interspersed it with blurry "strobe effect" shots of Steve and his band in some blue-tinted nether-region. A different actress "plays" Valerie this time around, which leads me to wonder: did the two actresses ever meet each other? Did they ever talk about the beautiful bond that they'll always share, no matter where life takes them?



A few years ago, I was trying to download a higher quality version of "Valerie" so that I could include it on a mix I was making (called, of course, Summer of '88), and when I listened to the version I'd downloaded, boy, you have never seen a more confused Yuppie Rock fan in your life. "This isn't 'Valerie'!" I thought in indignation. "This is like some ... demo version or something!" Little did I know, but I had downloaded the original version. Having only ever heard the remix, at first I thought the original was sorely lacking, but in time, it has grown on me. Today I will stand before you and say that I enjoy both versions almost equally. But according to the heated debate on YouTube, I might be the only one:

I love this original version much better. It's a bit more raw, synth and keyboard wise.

After being used to the 1987 remix, hearing this original version from 1982 feels like a breath of fresh air. :)

I actually like this version better than the '87 version. Musically, It sounds more raw and not polished, the vocals aren't drowned by the synths and I love how this version has the saxophone-like synth sounds from "While You See A Chance"

I greatly prefer the original. In comparison, this is just so heavy handed and over produced.

It's as if Winwood was listening to the original track and thought "Shit, can I make this more 80's than 80's?"

this way better then the original

I lke this version more than the 1982 one, but both are freaking good songs.

remix version for the win am i rite?

personally I prefer this over the original, but nonetheless both are badass classics

This is the mix for this song I prefer. The 1982 cut lacked bite in the drums.

That rare thing where the remix version is better than the original.

Love this version. Its like putting Franks Red Hot sauce on the original.

remix? many of us considered this to be the main song

Let me just say that this 1987 remix is MUCH better than the original 1982 version. Well done Steve for having the sense to re-release it

This version is actually better than his original 1982 release. A no brainer, right????

The 1982 version? Meh. The 1987 remix? One of the best songs of the 80s!

The first time I heard this version I had just smoked a joint. I didn't know it was a remix, and to this day I still remember thinking, "That must be some really good weed because I am hearing all kinds of things I never noticed before."