Twostepcublog

" Something To Talk About " - Bonnie Raitt from the album Luck Of The Draw (1991) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #5 (one week) Weeks in the Top-40: 15 Today's song of the day comes from blues-rock legend Bonnie Raitt , who came from an unusual background for a blues artist; the daughter of a Broadway stage legend, John Raitt ( Oklahoma! , Carousel ), she was born in Burbank, a suburb of California not really known for its hard-luck tales. A radical college student, it was a chance gig in New York that caused critics to spread the word about her live performances, and from that she was signed to a record deal. Bonnie released her self-titled debut record in 1971, which was warmly received but didn't sell much. Her second effort, Give It Up , put her on the Billboard albums chart for the first time (#138). She continued to release albums until her break in 1977, when the record Sweet Forgiveness spun off her first minor hit single with a cover of Del Shannon's 6...

Last year: "2016 was a truly fucked up year." 2017: "Hold my beer." Well, it seems like the aftermath of the calamitous (and most probably rigged) 2016 election gave the United States a heaping morsel of "how many shitty things can happen AT THE SAME time" along with "how can the government be stacked with the absolute worst people on earth". Between the Creamsicle's filling of the White House administration with the swampwater he promised to drain, along with the daily gun death massacre totals, along with the planet saying "fuck this" and trying to kill us in a various amount of ways, it's been a total shitshow of a year. As the sane among us wait for any bit of encouraging news from the investigation to this con artist, and taking measly scraps of comfort from elections in Virginia and Alabama, it looks like human potato head Ajit Pai is trying his best to destroy the internet forever. Meanwhile, in the artistic world, ...

" It Hit Me Like A Hammer " - Huey Lewis and the News from the album Hard At Play (1991) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #21 (one week) Weeks in the Top-40: 6 Today's song of the day comes from the pop-rock workman's band Huey Lewis and the News , who had started out the new decade with their single " Couple Days Off ", which just missed the top ten on the American pop chart in the summer of 1991. The second single from their Hard At Play album would be the easy-going pop of "It Hit Me Like A Hammer". Written by Lewis with uber-producer "Mutt" Lange (who actually didn't produce this song - it was Steely Dan's engineer Bill Schnee), the song had Huey in the character of a loner who finally falls for a lady hard... "It Hit Me Like A Hammer" became Huey and the News' seventeenth top-40 hit (and final "physical" top-40 single) on the Hot 100 singles chart in September of 1991. The song also climbed all t...

" Can You Stop The Rain " - Peabo Bryson from the album Can You Stop The Rain (1991) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #52 This week's "robbed hit" comes from R&B singer Peabo Bryson , who after years of success in the urban contemporary music world finally scored a top ten pop hit in the summer of 1984 with " If Ever You're In My Arms Again ". However, since adult contemporary music, most specifically soul-based easy-listening music was waning on mainstream pop radio, Peabo was having a hard time following that success up. It wasn't until 1987 when a duet with Regina Belle, " Without You ", from the Bill Cosby movie Leonard Pt. 6 , landed him a #8 hit on Billboard 's Adult Contemporary radio chart (as well as #89 pop and #14 R&B) that things began to turn around. Two years later, with his album All My Love , Peabo's new jack swing-lite cover of the Al Wilson soul classic " Show & Tell " ended up going to #...

" Pop Goes The Weasel " - 3rd Bass from the album Derelicts Of Dialect (1991) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #29 (one week) Weeks in the Top-40: 6 Today's song of the day comes from the New York-based rap group 3rd Bass . Made up by rappers MC Serch (local boy Michael Berrin from Far Rockaway) and Prime Minister Pete Nice (college student Peter Nash) along with DJ Richie Rich from Brooklyn, the trio released their debut record The Cactus Album in November of 1989. With production and street cred provided by Public Enemy's The Bomb Squad and Stetsasonic's Prince Paul, the album was a critical and commercial success, with three hit singles in the urban market. Their first release, " Steppin' To The A.M. ", had the sound and flow of a Public Enemy cut, and hit #54 on Billboard 's R&B chart and #5 on their Rap Singles list. Their second single was the comical yet somewhat socially conscious track " The Gas Face ", which landed the tr...

" Shiny Happy People " - R.E.M. from the album Out Of Time (1991) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #10 (two weeks) Weeks in the Top-40: 11 Today's song of the day comes from the alternative rock gods from Athens, Georgia, R.E.M. , who landed the biggest hit of their career in America with the epic " Losing My Religion ", which reached the top five on the pop chart in the summer of 1991. The band then promoted the jangle-pop album cut " Texarkana " to rock radio, which was written mostly and sung by bassist Mike Mills. It reached the top ten on both the Mainstream Rock (#7) and Modern Rock (#4) charts in Billboard magazine. As "Losing My Religion" was peaking on the pop Hot 100, the band released their second physical single from the album, "Shiny Happy People". Like the big hit from their last album Green , " Stand ", the song was a bright and mindless hippie anthem on the surface but hidden in the lyrics is just enough s...

" My Name Is Not Susan " - Whitney Houston from the album I'm Your Baby Tonight (1990) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #20 (one week) Weeks in the Top-40: 6 Today's song of the day is from the late Whitney Houston , whose third album had gifted her a pair of #1 pop hits with the title track " I'm Your Baby Tonight " and " All The Man That I Need ", along with a top ten hit in the ballad " Miracle ". The fourth single released from the record would be the sassy new jack swing-ish track "My Name Is Not Susan". Produced by the then red-hot team of  L.A. Reid and Babyface and written by Eric Foster White, who was coming off of two big hits with the vocal group Hi-Five, the song had Whitney confronting her lover about a case of mistaken identity. She vamped it up in the music video, doing the "wig trick" to play both women in the scenario. The pop/R&B radio version and the video featured a rap from British artist M...