#33thirds — Public Fediverse posts

#33Thirds: quite useless, according to Oscar Wilde.

Art rockers from Dublin, #A-House are remembered for this amusing novelty.

Lots and lots of great artists - visual, musical, sculptors, literature, sometimes with birth and death dates, all over a Beethoven riff. It had a stop-motion video that pushed the boundaries of 1991.

Track 3 on their album "I Am the Greatest", which is well worth an hour of your day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWEBLSSewmg

#33Thirds: brave enough to post twice today.

Lindsey Stirling, violinist, dancer, entertainer. Bit of a political activist, stands up against forced birth and against gun culture.

"The arena" is track 3 on Lindsey's 2016 album "Brave Enough". The video depicts Lindsey fighting in a bearpit with her critics (portrayed by dancer Derek Hough). It's the best way to sum up #LindseyStirling in one song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MCjU-Du3eI

#33Thirds reaches #TaylorSwift.

Is Taylor Swift the greatest album act of our time? While other contemporary acts release a collection of singles, Taylor explores moods, relationships, life, with great skill and precision. To cherry-pick the hits from "Red" or "Evermore" is to miss the point.

My favourite Taylor album, right now, is "1989". Track 3 is "Style", about her fling with One Direction's hottest single.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CmadmM5cOk

#33Thirds joins the club.

#LucySpraggan came to everyone's attention through The X Factor in 2012.

"Join the Club" came out the next year, strike while the iron's hot. While it's not as funny as "Beer fear", it's true to Lucy. Track 3 is "Lighthouse", a tribute to a solid friend.

Lucy's continued to make honest music, and has found a level of fame she's happy with. I think she's one of the best songwriters in the biz.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9FCIyDh6_o

#33Thirds concludes #Christmas season.

December 2020. Randomly poking around for something festive. #LizzyHilliard pops up, with the album "Cheer!". Hand-drawn artwork, looks interesting.

Turns out to be very interesting, the most impressive album of that dark season. Lizzy is prodigiously talented, little slices of life on an acoustic backing.

Track 3: "Christmas is", a meditation on friends, presents, love, and all the trimmings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiZDy3nkxGI

#33Thirds continues #Christmas season.

In retrospect, "Midwinter Graces" was the point where #ToriAmos fully embraced her classical-crossover status. The album is mostly traditional songs, interpreted to bring out the chill and the ice.

"A silent night with you" is track 3, a lush love song inspired by the familiar Christmas songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riCoTRnkSXE

It's Christmas on #33Thirds!

Across the year, about 10% of my listening is to Christmas and seasonal albums.

#KateBush kickstarted this genre, with 2011's "50 Words for Snow". It's a seasonal work, as much about the dark time of year as any religious celebration.

"Misty" is track three, Kate falls for a snowman, enjoys a night of torrid passion, then wakes up to a giant wet spot and a few twigs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqNoP9l-AtM

#33Thirds is canonised.

"Sainthood" from #TeganAndSara. More direct than much of their earlier work, the album sounds like it could be a New Wave piece from thirty years earlier, mixed with the nascent power pop of 2009.

Track 3 is "Hell", a pop song written by Tegan. Like all T&S work, it's a love song, in this case for her home neighbourhood disparaged in the "news"papers.

That's the Canadian section done. It's Christmas tomorrow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWK1jJiGKPM

#33Thirds gets loose.

I've a lot of time for #NellyFurtado. Singer-songwriter with world music influences, perhaps buried a little too deep on 2006's poppy album "Loose".

Track 3 is "Promiscuous", the big hit single, a dialogue with Timberland. One cannot have too many sex-positive polyamorous bops; one can never hear enough of the shuffling stuttering syncopated beat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J3vgcE5i2o

#33Thirds gets clean.

By 2002, #AlanisMorissette was a global star, known for her feisty and uncompromising feminism. Only now was she secure enough to sing about a very dodgy relationship in her past.

"Hands clean" isn't out for revenge, but harnesses the power of telling the truth with unflinching honesty. It's a welcome cry of empowerment.

Track three on "Under Rug Swept", video by Francis Lawrence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dH289KxkGw

#33Thirds enters Canadian season.

#AvrilLavigne burst onto the scene, a fizzing crackling ball of punky energy. Debut album "Let Go" both embraced and rejected clean pop of Britney-Christina-Simpson, crossed it with Fiona Apple's rebellious spirit and Avril's own teenage experience.

Track 3: "Sk8er boi", a fairytale where the uncouth lad doesn't choose the princess, but is seduced by the singer. If only she had such good taste in real life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIy3n2b7V9k

#33Thirds goes Norsk.

From the fringes of Lilith Fair, #BertineZetlitz joined the dance-pop bandwagon for 2003's album "Sweet Injections". Richard X and Howie B produced in the fashion of the moment.

"Twisted little star" was track 3 and the lead single. Sounds dark, actually rather pleasant and joyful, the inverse to the rest of the LP. Bertine's later career was all dance-pop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAKZBd1MdXg

#33Thirds: Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse.

#NewRadicals were Gregg Alexander and his big hat. One album, "Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too", a critique of late-90s consumerist culture with catchy tunes. Gregg quickly got bored of the life of an international pop star and disbanded the group.

Track 3 is a stream of consciousness about the downward spiral of drug addiction. Rivals anything Little Bobby Dylan wrote.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrJZL77VtCo

#33Thirds shows a #Jewel

"Spirit" was Jewel's second album, released in 1998. It's more pleasant folk songs, written from a modern perspective.

Track 3 is "Hands", a gentle reminder that one person's effort will make a difference, even to the largest task.

Here's a 2020 live performance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn5lBcoIFp0

#33Thirds does the #PetShopBoys

"Liberation" is track 3 on the Shoppies' 1993 album "Very". Live for today, the song's message, and live honestly and openly and with #pride

Like all PSB songs, there's a #queer subtext if you want to see it.

"To free in me
the trust I never dared
I always thought the risk too great
but suddenly I don't hesitate"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtlM1F8guPc

#33Thirds has a career-defining song.

#Train have had a dozen substantial hits, but only "Drops of Jupiter" has made any impact on culture. Classic rock with a country tinge, Train have never courted critical acclaim, they've just sold records by the bucketload.

The title track to 2001's album is metaphor layered on simile, with a dash of symbolism. Pat Monahan says it's about his late mother, we could take it as a journey of self-discovery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xf-Lesrkuc

#33Thirds reaches the interval act.

#Madonna spent most of the 90s making movies, and seemed to have cornered the market in meaningful slow songs. 1998's "Ray of Light" saw the 39-year-old mother of one return to her disco roots.

On the title track, Madge takes contemporary electronica, and adds bells and whistles. It's almost a song she could have recorded in her 1980s imperial phase, and it's still coming from two weeks in the future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3ov9USxVxY

#33Thirds gets soulful

"Little" Louie Vega and Kenny "Dope" Gonzalez made a very different album. A lot of Latin influence, plenty of jazz, a good deal of salsa, and all served on a base of disco. The #NuYoricanSoul album flows and grooves, it's one to hear straight through.

Track 3 is the ecstatic "It's alright, I feel it", sung (and co-written) by Jocelyn Brown.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtRtLyfl1FY

#33Thirds goes for #Belly.

The indie supergroup Belly made two albums in the 1990s. Their debut, "Star", is the stronger album in totality, but I've never liked its third track "Dusted".

1995's follow-up "King" is tighter, more poppy and less somnambulent. Its third track, "Red", would have fit straight onto quality radio if only they hadn't been distracted by mopheads from the north. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeyUNv9u4Fk

#33Thirds

Of course #kdlang gets into this project.

"Ingénue" is a late-night cabaret album, rich and sumptuous. It's written and sung in a romantic language not quite that of regular pop, or the country idiom that k d had previously worked in. How very #queer.

"Miss Chatelaine" is track 3, where k d cosplays in the ballgowns of femininity, and jokes at how ludicrous she looks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY-_m6vUTUY

#33Thirds spent 99p on an album in the HMV sale. "Prince of the Deep Water" by The Blessing, who you might remember for "Highway 5".

William Topley is able to sing a tremendous blues-rock-soul-gospel hybrid album. Gospel comes to the fore on the seven-minute epic that is track 3, "Hurricane room".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kesomrqNYn0

#33Thirds concludes its Scottish segment with 1992's biggest new album.

Annie Lennox had been part of The Eurythmics for a decade. Then they split.

After recharging her batteries, Annie made a rich piano-led album, lush arrangements in stylings reminiscent of swing-era jazz.

Track three is "Precious", a cry of joy following the birth of her daughter Lola.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQCHd__Zd1w

#33Thirds speaks Gaelic.

#Runrig brought distinct music from the Highlands to the world. 1991's album "The Big Wheel" is Simple Minds and Big Country writ large. Hearty singalongs, intimate affection, and they conjure up grandiose vistas.

Few are grander than the crowded river on track three. "Abhainn an t-sluaigh", the river of the people. A meditation on how industrialisation has changed the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krFweAtOyv0

#33Thirds is in a Scottish section, as was I in the early 90s.

#DeaconBlue were purveyors of quality soft rock. "Fellow Hoodlums" was their 1991 album, I found it the most difficult LP to get into of their 80s-90s heyday, but rewarding for that effort.

"Your swaying arms" was the lead single, a yearning for an absent lover.

In the absence of an official video, here's a #TOTP performance from good old Top of the Pops.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjioGexBj1s

#33Thirds goes ethereal, with the #CocteauTwins 1990 album "Heaven or Las Vegas". Their least inaccessible work, track 3 is the gentle, joyful, lead single "Iceblink luck".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn7UVG2U2mo

#33Thirds gets warm and fuzzy.

#BrendaRussell released a hit-packed album in 1988. "Get Here"'s title track was made famous by #OletaAdams, "Dinner with Gershwin" by #DonnaSummer. "Midnight eyes" remains a lost gem.

Track 3 became Brenda's signature hit, tells the story of a couple who only stay together because he plays piano in the dark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7u5GtSIC5k

#33Thirds has #Frankenstein's song.

Third track on their breakthrough album "Bridge of Spies", "China in your hand" is based on Mary Shelley's pioneering sci-fi work, making life from bits and pieces found around the lab. The lyric alludes to Shelley's work.

Here's the Christmas #TOTP performance, where the band is assaulted by an inflatable snowman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcJeVPua07I

#33Thirds has a bit of Ken Bruce Pop.

It's from #FleetwoodMac, and their massive 1987 album "Tango in the Night".

Track 3 is "Everywhere", a song of lasting love. It's accompanied by a lustful video, based on the classic poem "The Highwayman".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YF1R0hc5Q2I

#33Thirds resumes its chronological effort.

We're in 1985 for #PrefabSprout's album "Steve McQueen". It's the apex of Peter Powell Pop, music with grace and style and intelligence.

On this sort-of concept album, Paddy McAloon covers most virtues and vices. Lust gets track 3, "Appetite". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS0hpiN_z3g

#33Thirds day 3

Twofer Friday concludes with another track three featuring Paul McCartney.

Before embarking on his solo career, he'd played with local group #TheBeatles.

They made a high-concept album, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", full of eastern mysticism and thinly-coded drugs references.

Track 3: "Lucy in the sky with diamonds".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naoknj1ebqI