HOF Inductees: Why Kate Bush Belongs; Ed Sheeran Wins (SNS week of 5/7/2023)

 Last week, the list of those inducteed into what we used to call the "Rock n Roll" Hall of Fame were announced.   While the argument over whether these artists are actually rock is pretty much old and tired, and for me, not really relevant.    For the record, this is who got in:   Willie Nelson, Kate Bush, Rage Against The Machine, Missy Elliott, Sheryl Crow, George Michael, and The Spinners.   Say what you will regarding whether or not these are "rock" artists.    I really don't care anymore.   But since I have a blog to write, I figured I'd focus on this, in particular, Kate Bush.

U.K. Singer-songwriter Kate Bush is one of the inductees to the 2023 class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Ms. Bush had been nominated three years in a row, and finally the third time was the charm for her.   Whether or not you want to believe the reason was because "Running Up The Hill (A Deal With God)" was featured in last summer's season four of Stranger Things, resulting in a #3 Billboard placement and #1 on my blog is up to you.    Variety magazine on their Facebook page, announced the list of inductees, and I found it very entertaining to see naive people's reactions as to why Ms. Bush shouldn't be in there.   

And that's because I felt the same way once before I was "corrected"

Someone named Ed Smith commented on that thread:

"Without use of Google, I would dare 99% of the people reading this to name me one song of hers. I can't think of any. I vaguely remember Rolling Stone used to write about her a lot and I have never heard one song. Great choice for a "hall of fame".

To which Adrian Santiage blindly agreed to Ed's sarcasm:

"Exactly!! I have no idea who she is and supposedly she was big in the '80s which was my "time"

And then Patrick Sterner replied:

"Kate Bush deserves no accolades. She had a couple songs that nobody can remember. Only now do people know her, a million years later, for a song on a Netflix show. "

Oh, but it keeps getting better...Said Matt Gee:

"Had Stranger Things not used "Running Up That Hill," she wouldn't have even been nominated. Soundgarden getting screwed for the second time for Kate Bush's flash in the pan moment is the epitome of a snub."

Thank Goodness Jenna Olszewski gets it:

"I LOVE Kate Bush ! Her whole Red Shoes album was amazing as was the accompanying movie. Hounds of Love album...amazing. Literatley everything she's ever done I love. And I've loved her well before any Netflix show (that I've never watched.) Kate is incredible and has done many incredible things!! "

Then I pointed out that Ms. Bush was nominated two prior times, well before Stranger Things.  Apparently a guy named Nathan Vaughan, who couldn't find anything constructive to say, just replied "Wrong", to which I pasted the nominee list for 2021 and 2022.    He didn't respond.

Okay, so astute readers of this blog will point out that I actually was just as bad when Kate was nominated the first time in 2021.   After all she had just one Top 40 hit in 1985, the aforementioned "Running Up That Hill", which reached #30.    On my blog of February 7, 2021 I wrote:

"Then there's Kate Bush.   Great singer-songwriter from Kent, England.   Yes, she had a hit with "Running Up That Hill", in 1985 (recently covered by Meg Myers, a #4 blog hit in 2019), but, aside from a few more low charters and mediocre-selling albums, Hall of Fame material?  Hardly.   Granted, record sales shouldn't alone determine an artist's greatness, but to be nominated before more deserving artists?   Probably not.  Then again, similar artists like Bonnie Raitt are in, so who knows."

Well, I was immediately taken to task by the likes of The Hounds of Winter's Tom Corea and Tinkers Lane's Ian Roberts that in her native U.K., Kate was a superstar, starting with her first release The Kick Inside, all of her albums reached top 10 across the pond.   Her first single "Wuthering Heights" hit #1, and she followed it with five other top tens.   Of course, chart positions aren't the whole story; her work was critically acclaimed.    She did make the Billboard Hot 100 three other times aside from "Running....", and was a constant presence on the then-new Modern Rock chart in the late 1980's and early 90's.     So, I stood corrected.   Ignorance is indeed bliss.     While no doubt it took Stranger Things to put her "over the top", there's a reason why she was nominated in the first place.

As for the other inductees, we have the "musical excellence" category, which honestly, I don't get, since it's excellence that gets them nominated in the first place, right?    Well, Chaka Khan got in via that category, and although I like Chaka, the band which she started in, Rufus, should have gotten in with her, it was because of that ensemble that she was famous in the first place.   Then again, I made that point last year with Lionel Richie and The Commodores.  Oh well.    Al Kooper and Bernie Taupin also got in via that category which makes more sense, although Kooper was a member of both The Blues Project and Blood, Sweat and Tears.

THINKING IT TO MYSELF:   The other big recent news item salient to my blog is that Ed Sheeran won a lawsuit against the estate of Ed Townshend which contended that his huge hit "Thinking Out Loud", my #1 song of 2015 copyright infringed on Marvin Gaye's 1973 hit, "Let's Get It On".  Townshend, who died in 2003 was a co-writer of the Marvin Gaye song, which hit #1 on Billboard during the summer of that year, and #4 year-end.   The song came in at #28 on my Top 100 that year. 

It wasn't the first time that a Marvin Gaye song was involved in a copyright dispute.    "Blurred Lines", a #1 Billboard hit from 2013 from Robin Thicke, along with T.I. and Pharrell Williams, was sued by the estate of Gaye for sounding much like Gaye's 1977 hit "Got To Give It Up".  In that case, Gaye family won the case for $7.4 Million.

However, regarding "Thinking Out Loud", which in my opinion doesn't sound anything like "Let's Get It On", although apparently the "chord progression" was supposedly similar, but Sheeran, who played the song at the trial, was able to convince the jury that it was an original composition, written from personal experience.

In my opinion, justice has been served.  There are, of course, those who wanted him to lose, probably just for the reason that he is a current artist, and it involved a vintage Motown song.     Look, as much as I am disappointed for what passes as popular music these days, Ed Sheeran is one of the better artists.   I don't like EVERYTHING he's done, but when an artist scores four blog number one's, and has not one, but TWO year end blog chart topper songs ("Thinking Out Loud", and 2017's "Shape of You"), you know he has to rise above the rest of what's out there.    In my opinion, logic and justice won out.

CURRENT CHARTS:   After a week in the runner-up spot, Deb Browning returns to the top position with "Think I Found Forever", making it four non-consecutive weeks for the song.   It is followed by two Colorjoy songs, "Beautiful People" rising to #2, and last week's #1, "Golden Age", at #3.   Two more beach music songs round out the top 5.   The Carolina Queens' "Shoop Shoop Song" moves to #4 (and the contest to guess which of the fourteen beach music women sing what part will soon to be revealed), while Rick and Lesa drop to #5 with "Got It Right (The First Time)".  

The big mover is another beach music song, "Mr. Dream Merchant", by The Castaways.    The beautiful rendition of Jerry Butler's 1967 hit makes a 14-6 move and is probably the first new contender in weeks for the top spot.  Drugdealer's "Valentine" 24-19, Impact Award, and another 60's soul remake, "Love Makes the World Go Round" by The Main Event featuring Sharon Woodruff (32-20) round out the new songs in the top 20. 

The prime movers below #20 are another remake, "Love Really Hurts Without You" by Marissa Kay Small and Jerry Thomas West (63-36), and the Mover of the Week, the soulful Thee Sacred Souls' "Love Is The Way".

Five debuts this week (with two others in the Tremors list), topped by two more women singer-songwriters.    Top Debut goes to Allison Ponthier, a Texas indie-folk singer/songwriter, with her blog debut "Hollywood Forever Cemetary".   It's along the lines of other recent similar singers, but with her own stamp on it.   It sort of straddles those other female eclectic performers at the upper reaches of my chart lately with a dash of country (think Lainey Wilson).  

Another in that genre, Hannah Jadagu, enters with "What You Did".   While her excellent "Say It Now" has been fighting the current to the top part of my list (it's at #26, one off its current peak) after 13 weeks here, her new one has a little heavier presentation in its intro, but it's another worthwhile effort.  Her voice is in fine, understated form.   I'm not giving up on her prior song, but this one should join it in the upper parts of the chart.

I'm sure people have noticed that the SNS 100 has been devoid of pure rock music, not to mention local artists.    The blog was created, in part to spotlight area talent, and except for Colorjoy and Isn't It Always, I really haven't done so lately.   On my Facebook news feed, I saw something by a band called What's Left?, that were playing some local venues in Morristown and Dover, so naturally I had to look them up to see if they had any albums out.   Turns out, they did.    A 2019 EP entitled Don't Look Down contains the track "Do It To Me", which I add this week.   While I've been shying away from pure mainstream rock and metal, largely because it just doesn't grab me the same way that it used to, I'm giving this one a try, change my mind, as it has, at times, that Aerosmith vibe.     It will take a few listens, and since the band is playing pubs and bars near me, I have a chance to check them out.   

The Hold Steady has had some low charters in SNS, but they give it another try with "Grand Junction".   The tempo of the song sounds like a cross by "Piano Man" and "Walk On the Ocean" by Toad the Wet Sprocket, although it does veer from both at times.   Bouncy enough to score some airplay points.

The first time I had heard from Moon Taxi, was their "Too High" which reached #1 on my blog in 2017 and stayed there for four weeks.   Two subsequent songs were only mid charters in 2020 and '21, but they return with "Classics".  A mid-tempo song that after a few listens may grab hold and perhaps be their best since "Too High". 

The latest from Donna Missal, the EDM-inspired "Out of Me", and The 1975's "Oh Carolina" are in the Tremors list this week.

SUNDOWN, BETTER TAKE CARE:  Finally, I wanted to note the passing of Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, who died of natural causes on May 1.  He was 84.   While he had four top 10 hits here in the U.S., the very introspective "If You Could Read My Mind" (#5, 1971), "Sundown" (#1, 1974), the personal fave "Carefree Highway" (#10, 1974) and finally, 1976's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" (#2), based on a true story.    However, his career, and first charted song in his native Canada, go back to 1962, when the song "(Remember Me) I'm The One" peaked at #3.  1986's "Stay Loose" was his last to hit the Canadian pop chart at #86, but he recorded well into the new millennium; his final release, Solo, in 2020.

Lightfoot was well respected in Canada, with his backup band staying with him for decades, and he has won many awards north of the border., including the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1986.     

Scenes ‘n’ Soundwaves 100 Playlist

May 7, 2023

This Week	Last Week	ARTIST-Title	Weeks on List
1	2	NUMBER ONE: DEB BROWNING "Think I Found Forever"▲ (Single Only) (4 Weeks at #1)	9
2	3	Colorjoy - Beautiful People●	8
3	1	Colorjoy - Golden Age▲	10
4	6	The Carolina Queens - The Shoop Shoop Song (It's In His Kiss)	7
5	4	Rick Strickland and Lesa Hudson - Got it Right (The First Time)●	16
6	14	The Castaways - Mr. Dream Merchant	10
7	8	Goldie Boutiiler - Cowboy Gangster Politician	9
8	5	Say She She - In My Head●	11
9	7	Devon Gilfillian - All I Really Wanna Do	12
10	10	Marlisa Kay Small - Anyway	5
11	9	Depeche Mode - Ghosts Again	11
12	13	Orbis Max with Lisa Mychols ft. Ed Ryan - R U OK	7
13	16	Jimmy Ogburn's Salt Luvs Pepper ft. David Cornelius - Love Me Like I Love You	11
14	17	The Heavy - Hurricane Coming	8
15	15	The Arcs - Keep On Dreamin'	6
16	12	Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Wolf	9
17	11	Rev. Bubba D. Liverance and the Cornhole Prophets - Ti Ta Ti Ta Ti Ta Ta▲	17
18	18	Steve Lacy - Helmet	9
19	24	TOP 20 IMPACT OF THE WEEK: DRUGDEALER "Valentine" Album: Hiding In Plain Sight	5
20	32	The Main Event Band ft. Sharon Woodruff - Love Makes The World Go Round	3
21	20	Allie Privette - Ain't Nobody	12
22	19	Arlo Parks - Weightless▲	13
23	27	Hannah Goodall - The Girl Who Once Loved You	5
24	28	Beck - Thinking About You	11
25	29	Colorjoy - Drops of Honey	5
26	26	Hannah Jadagu - Say It Now	13
27	23	Sam Fender - Spit of You	12
28	31	Miya Folick - Bad Thing	6
29	30	Inhaler - Love Will Get You There	10
30	33	Juliet Callahan - Depth of Soul	5
31	34	Pink Slips Band - Ought To Be A Song	8
32	22	Deb Browning and  Six Piece Suits - It Don't Get Better Than This	27
33	21	Tim Izzard - Walk the Walk	15
34	36	SZA - Kill Bill	10
35	25	Death Cab For Cutie - Pepper	14
36	63	Marlisa Kay Small and Jerry Thomas West - Love Really Hurts Without You	2
37	37	Edie Bens - Don't Love You Anymore	11
38	41	The National - Tropic Morning News	8
39	42	Hozier - Eat Your Young	7
40	39	The Blue Stones - Don't Miss	10
41	35	Jenna Ren - Fools Gold	14
42	43	Donna Missal - Flicker	7
43	50	I-42 Band - Beach Fever On My Mind	5
44	81	MOVER OF THE WEEK: THEE SACRED SOULS "Love Is The Way" (Single Only)	2
45	51	Marsha Morgan and Sylvia Johns Ritchie - Boys Will Be Boys	6
46	44	Say She She - Trouble●	25
47	52	The Wombats - Dressed to Kill	8
48	38	Miley Cyrus - Flowers▲	17
49	55	Milky Chance - Living In a Haze	6
50	61	The Heavy Heavy - Go Down River	3
51	62	Tim Izzard - Alice Pearl	4
52	72	Jerry Powell - One More Summer Night	3
53	57	Metric - False Dictotomy	4
54	65	Tennis - Forbidden Doors	3
55	47	Danielle Ponder - So Long	9
56	54	Michigander - Superglue	9
57	64	TYTILLIDIE - Body On Me	6
58	77	Colorjoy - Blue Eyed Addiction (Renewed Version)	2
59	56	Portugal. The Man - Dummy	6
60	49	Stephen Sanchez - Until I Found You●	17
61	60	Lizzo - Special	5
62	48	Caroline Rose - Miami	13
63	40	The Revivalists - Kid	11
64	45	The Arcs - Eyez	14
65	70	Grouplove - Hello	4
66	46	Stephen Sanchez - Evangeline	10
67	53	Starbuck - I Love Doing Nothing	13
68	73	Ed Sheeran - Eyes Closed	4
69	74	The Cowsills - Rhythm Of the World	4
70	59	Linkin Park - Lost	10
71	75	The Beths - Watching the Credits	3
72	78	Jenny Lewis - Psychos	4
73	76	Tame Impala - Wings of Time	8
74	80	JW Francis - Swooning	4
75	58	Nick Waterhouse - Late In the Garden	9
76	85	Colorjoy - Vacant Side	2
77	68	Deb Browning - 3 More Minutes●	48
78	---	TOP DEBUT: ALLISON PONTHIER "Hollywood Forever Cemetary" Album: Shaking Hands With Elvis (EP)	1
79	90	Wayne Free - Our Paradise	2
80	82	St. Paul and  the Broken Bones - Sea Star	4
81	88	Isn't It Always - Laced Love	3
82	92	boygenius - Not Strong Enough	2
83	89	The Carolina Blue Dots - Your Love	3
84	---	Hanna Jadagu - What You Did	1
85	66	Gary Lowder and Smokin' Hot - Don't Let Her Go	15
86	69	Ria Mae - The Old Me	17
87	67	Beaches - Orpheus	11
88	71	Tennis - Let's Make a Mistake Tonight	13
89	83	Blake Shelton - No Body●	29
90	95	Paramore - The News	2
91	87	Lainey Wilson - Heart Like a Truck	22
92	---	What's Left? - Do It To Me	1
93	84	Orbis Max - Whatever You Think It Is	10
94	---	Moon Taxi - Classics	1
95	94	Goose - Hungersite	3
96	91	Backseat Lovers - Growing/Dying	4
97	---	The Hold Steady - Grand Junction	1
98	99	Gary Lowder and Smokin Hot - I'll Be Loving You Always	2
99	93	Carolina Dreamers - Sugar Pie Baby	14
100	98	M83 - Amnesia	7

Tremors:

101.  Donna Missal, "Out of Me"

102. The 1975, "Oh Caroline"

103. Morgan Wallen, "Last Night"

  

Songs with the greatest increase in favorite points over the prior week.   ● Songs with 25 or more plays on iTunes/iPods ▲   Songs with 50 or more plays. ▲Song garnered most plays on Spotify in current or past month.  ● Song among top 3 most plays on Spotify in current or past month.

  

Songs on the SNS 100 are included on the following public Spotify playlists

 

Scenes ‘n’ Soundwaves Top 40:  Contains songs in positions 1-40 on the SNS 100

Scenes Up and Coming:  Songs below #40 that are moving up the chart.

Scenes Recurrents: Songs which have dropped below the top 40 but are still on the SNS 100

 

 

Tremors: Songs which have steady or increasing points but not enough to chart on the SNS 100.