Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Chainsmokers and Coldplay “Something Just Like This” premiered at Brit Awards

Something Just Like This

The Chainsmokers with Coldplay

Writer(s): Andrew Taggart, Guy Berryman, Jonny Buckland, Will Champion, Chris Martin (see lyrics here)

Released: February 22, 2017

First Charted: March 11, 2017

Peak: 3 US, 11 RR, 14 AC, 17 A40, 15 AA, 16 MR, 2 UK, 3 CN, 2 AU, 22 DF (Click for codes to charts.)

Sales (in millions): 10.0 US, 0.76 UK, 21.50 world (includes US + UK)

Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 2802.5 video, 2194.29 streaming

Awards:

Click on award for more details.

About the Song:

The DJ and production duo of Alex Pall and Drew Taggart formed The Chainsmokers in 2012. They experienced their first chart success with 2014’s “#Selfie,” a #16 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. They followed with top-ten hits “Roses,” “Don’t Let Me Down,” “Paris,” and, most notably, “Closer,” a chart-topper for 12 weeks. “Something Just Like This” was the second single from Memories…Do Not Open, a #3 album in the UK and a million-selling, chart-topper in the United States.

Coldplay had an even deeper history, forming in London in 1997. They’d already chalked up seventeen top-ten hits in the UK, including #1 songs “Viva La Vida” and “Paradise,” before their collaboration with the Chainsmokers hit #2. In the United States, it was their fourth top-ten. Meanwhile, they’d topped the album chart eight times in the UK and four in the United States.

Both bands were involved in writing the song. Most of the song was written when the Chainsmokers first met with Chris Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay. SF The Chainsmokers said, “We found some chords that everyone loved and then Chris…freestyled for an hour.” SF

The Chainsmokers explained it is about “a relationship that doesn’t need to be superhumanly perfect, an ordinary love.” SF Martin sings about wanting to be like Hercules or Batman, he knows he isn’t like them but fortunately his girlfriend just wants “a simple relationship with a straightforward guy.” SF

The lyric video set a record for single-day views with more than nine million in its first 24 hours. SF The previous record holder, with 8.2 million plays, was Justin Bieber’s “What Do You Mean?” SF “Just Like This” has gone on to amass more than two billion views.

The song was premiered with a live performance by both bands at the Brit Awards on February 22, 2017. It debuted at #56 on the Billboard Hot 100 and soared to #5 the next week.

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First posted 7/30/2023.

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Songwriters Friends - Songwriters Hall of Fame

Songwriters Hall of Fame

Songwriters’ Friends

The Songwriters Friends isn’t an actual award given out by the Songwriters Hall of Fame, but an acknowledgement of the relationship between the songwriter and the singer. As it says on the website, “The artists listed in this section include the top recording artists of hit songs written by Hall of Fame inductees from the late 1800’s to present day. These artists are chart-topping performers who have all added something unique to the sound of American popular music.”

This honor appears to have been given only once (as opposed to annual Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees) although the website doesn’t indicate when. As of 2026, the recipients of the “Songwriters’ Friends” honor don’t appear to be listed on the website.

See other Hall of Fames.

A

B

C

D-E

F

G

H

I-J

K-L

M

N-O

P-Q

R

S

T-U-V

W-X-Y-Z

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First posted 2/22/2017; last updated 5/29/2026.
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Monday, February 13, 2017

Today in Music (1967): The Beatles released “Strawberry Fields Forever”

Strawberry Fields Forever

The Beatles

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Sunday, February 12, 2017

Adele wins the Grammy for Album of the Year…Again

25

Adele

Released: November 20, 2015

Peak: 110 US, 113 UK, 112 CN, 18 AU

Sales (in millions): 11.0 US, 3.9 UK, 23.36 world (includes US and UK)

Genre: pop/blue-eyed soul

Tracks:

(Click for codes to charts.)

Song Title (Writers) [Time] (chart date, peaks on charts)

  1. Hello (Adele Adkins/Greg Kurstin) [4:55] (10/23/15, 110 US, 13 UK, 17 CN, 16 AU, 116 AC, 17 A40, 14 AAA, 10a RB, sales: 13.45 million worldwide)
  2. Send My Love to Your New Lover (Adkins/Max Martin/Shellback) [3:43] (12/12/15, 8 US, 5 UK, 10 CN, 13 AU, 13 AC, 12 A40, 2 AAA, sales: 1.55 million worldwide)
  3. I Miss You (Adkins/Paul Epworth) [5:48]
  4. When We Were Young (Adkins/Tobias Jesso Jr.) [4:51] (12/12/15, 14 US, 9 UK, 9 CN, 13 AU, 6 AC, 3 A40, 10 AAA, sales: 1.55 million worldwide)
  5. Remedy (Adkins/Ryan Tedder) [4:05] (12/12/15, 87 US)
  6. Water Under the Bridge (Adkins/Kurstin) [4:00] (12/12/15, 26 US, 16 AAA, sales: 0.5 million)
  7. River Lea (Adkins/Brian Burton) [3:45]
  8. Love in the Dark (Adkins/Samuel Dixon) [4:46]
  9. Million Years Ago (Adkins/Kurstin) [3:47]
  10. All I Ask (Adkins/Bruno Mars/Philip Lawrence/Christopher Brody Brown) [4:32] (3/5/16, 77 US)
  11. Sweetest Devotion (Adkins/Epworth) [4:12]

Total Running Time: 48:24

Rating:

3.847 out of 5.00 (average of 37 ratings)

Awards:

(Click on award to learn more).

About the Album:

After the monstrous success of her 2011 sophomore album 21, Adele considered quitting music. After all, how do you follow-up one of the most successful albums of all time? She suffered from writer’s block, but was inspired to work again after the birth of her first child in October 2012. She said then that she wanted her son to “know what I do.” WK She met with producer Greg Kurstin, after which she said “it all poured right out of me.” WK

She made a conscious attempt to move away from the break-up themes which dominated 21 and also added added synths and drum pads to give the album a modern sound. WK She initially wrote an entire album about motherhood which she scrapped because it was “too boring,” WK although she did keep Sweetest Devotion, an uplifting track written as a tribute to her son. WK

She told Rolling Stone the final product was about “yearning for her old self” and “melancholia about the passage of time.” WK To that end, she crafted songs such as When We Were Young, which explored Adele’s “uneasy acceptable of adulthood,” the album’s key theme. WK

“25 didn’t quite achieve the cultural impact of 21,” BB “but by no means did Adele disappoint on her third studio album.” BB “It was still an industry phenomenon, scoring the largest sales week in SoundScan history with over 3 million copies sold in its first week – an unfathomable figure in any era, let alone where sales totals have long been shrinking.” BB It went on to easily be the best-selling album of 2015, moving more than 17 million by year’s end. WK With sales continuing into 2016, it became the biggest selling album of that year as well. WK

“The set contains the perfect melancholy soul hits to put her unbeatable vocals on full display, from Water Under the Bridge to ‘When We Were Young’ to Hello – all of which are the type of crossover smashes that made us fall in love with the British powerhouse in the first place.” BB “Hello” was a soul-driven piano ballad which Telegraph described as having “a very luscious wall of sound.” WK It was the first single and a monstrous #1. It went on to win Grammys for Record and Song of the Year and racked up more than 2 billion views on YouTube. The song took six months to finish. WK

In addition to working with Tedder and Paul Epworth again, Adele also collaborated with Max Martin and Shellback, Danger Mouse, and the Smeezingtons (which includes Bruno Mars). WK

The track Send My Love Your New Lover was a reworking of a song Adele wrote when she was thirteen and inspired by Amy Winehouse’s Frank album. She and Ryan Tedder, who worked with her on 21 and 25, went to lunch after unfruitful sessions and Adele heard Taylor Swift’s single “I Knew Your Were Trouble.” When Tedder told Adele it was produced by Max Martin, she reached out to him and they reworked “Lover.” WK

On February 12, 2017, Adele made Grammy history as only the second woman (after Taylor Swift) to win the Album of the Year twice for a solo effort. Adele first pulled off the feat with 21. In fact, Adele won all five Grammys for which she was nominated.

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First posted 3/1/2019; last updated 3/5/2024.

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Today in Music (1797): Haydn’s String Quartet No. 3 in C major (Emperor) premiered

String Quartet No. 3 in C major (Emperor)

Franz Josef Haydn

Composed: 1797

First Performed: February 12, 1797

Published: 1799

Peak: --

Sales (in millions): --

Genre: classical > chamber music

Parts/Movements:

  1. I. Allegro
  2. II. Poco adagio – cantabile
  3. III. Menuetto. Allegro
  4. IV. Finale. Presto

Average Duration: --

Rating:

4.695 out of 5.00 (average of 5 ratings)

Awards:

(Click on award to learn more).

About the Work:

Haydn’s third string quartet grew out of visits to London from 1791 through 1795. After returning to Vienna, he told Baron von Swieten, a friend and patron for numerous composers, that, in light of the threat from Napoleon, the Austrian empire needed “something to rally patriotic hearts and spur military recruitment the way ‘God Save the King’ did in England.” HB

Swieten was instrumental in arranging “for a prominent poet to write ‘Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser’ (God Save Emperor Franz),” HB a tribute to Emperor Francis II. Haydn integrated “a set of variations” WK of the piece in the second movement of his string quartet, hence its nicknames of Emperor and Kaiser. It became “the centerpiece of one of his boldest and brightest quartets” HB

Haydn’s work became “an instant and enduring classic” HB and “quickly acquired national status.” HB In 1847 it became the national anthem of Austria-Hungary. The same melody was later used for the German national anthem, WK adopted by the Weimer Republic in 1922. HB

“The tune has also been turned into Christian and Masonic hymns. Haydn always loved it. In his final years, when he was unable to compose (an unknown illness changed Haydn from a vigorous, creative 70-year-old to a feeble 71-year-old), he would play it on his piano and weep.” HB

Regarding the rest of the quartet, “its first movement mixes energetic high spirits, intricate counterpoint, and some harmonic adventures that foreshadow Schubert.” HB “The third movement continues the first movement’s intriguing juxtaposition of major and minor, but is, rhythmically speaking, a fairly conventional minuet, which is a surprise coming from a composer who liked to stretch the minuet form beyond its dance origins.” HB

“The finale is a violent tempest in C minor that looks back to Haydn’s Sturm und Drang period of 30 years earlier, and forward to Beethoven’s early quartets of a few years later. When the key of C major finally reappears in the coda, it seems less an inevitable development than torrential rain finally ending and the sun coming out, even while the wind is still blowing.” HB

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First posted 2/22/2026.

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Monday, February 6, 2017

Today in Music (1967): The Byrds Younger Than Yesterday released

Younger Than Yesterday

The Byrds

Released: February 6, 1967

Peak: 24 US, 37 UK, 5 CN, -- AU Click for codes to charts.

Sales (in millions): --

Genre: folk rock

Tracks:

Song Title (Writers) [time] (date of single release, chart peaks)

  1. So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star [2:05]
  2. Have You Seen Her Face [2:25]
  3. C.T.A. – 102 (Hippard / McGuinn) [2:28]
  4. Renaissance Fair (Crosby / McGuinn) [1:51]
  5. Time Between (Hillman) [1:53]
  6. Everybody’s Been Burned (Crosby) [3:05]
  7. Thoughts and Words (Hillman) [2:56]
  8. Mind Gardens (Crosby) [3:28]
  9. My Back Pages [3:08]
  10. The Girl with No Name (Hillman) [1:50]
  11. Why (Crosby / McGuinn) [2:45]

Total Running Time: 29:11

1996 CD reissue bonus tracks:

  • It Happens Each Day
  • Don’t Make Waves
  • Lady Friend [2:30]
  • Old John Robertson
  • My Back Pages (alternate version)
  • Mind Garden alternate version)

The Players:

  • Roger McGuinn (vocals, guitar)
  • David Crosby (guitar, vocals)
  • Chris Hillman (bass, vocals)
  • Michael Clarke (drums)

Rating:

4.209 out of 5.00 (average of 33 ratings)

Awards:

(Click on award to learn more).

About the Album:

“The Byrds’ fourth album saw the group expanding on the eclecticism of 1966’s Fifth Dimension.” RD “Younger Than Yesterday was somewhat overlooked at the time of its release during an intensely competitive era that found the Byrds on a commercial downslide. However, time has shown it to be the most durable of the Byrds’ albums, with the exception of Mr. Tambourine Man.” AM

It is “ambitiously wide-ranging, beautifully performed, and featuring some of their most lasting work.” RD “David Crosby, Roger McGuinn, and especially Chris Hillman come into their own as songwriters on an eclectic but focused set blending folk-rock, psychedelia, and early country-rock.” AM

The Songs

The album featured the chart hits So You Want to Be a Rock & Roll Star and My Back Pages, yet another Bob Dylan cover. Have You Seen Her Face was also a minor hit.

“Thoughts and Words was a flower-power anthem.” AM “The jazzy Everybody’s Been Burned may be Crosby’s best composition” AM and “ranks among the finest of all Byrds tracks.” RD It features “Crosby’s crystal-clear, heartfelt vocal complemented by Hillman’s fluid bassline and a wonderfully understated McGuinn guitar solo.” RD

However, Crosby’s “Mind Gardens is one of his most excessive.” AM It is “a piece of psychedelic philosophizing complete with Shakespearean references.” RD He also “contributed the sparkling Renaissance Fair, inspired by a medieval festival held by an L.A. radio station.” RD

“CTA-102 saw the Byrds experimenting with studio trickery to produce sci-fi sound effects.” RD “The bluegrass-tingled Time Between” AM and The Girl with No Name offered “the group’s first serious inroads into country music.” RD

Here are more details about some of the songs on this album.

So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star

The Byrds

Writer(s): Roger McGuinn, Chris Hillman

Recorded: Nov. 28 – Dec. 1, 1966

Released: 1/9/1967 (single), Younger Than Yesterday (1967), Greatest Hits (compilation, 1967), History of the Byrds (compilation, 1973), The Byrds (box set, 1990), 20 Essential Tracks from the Boxed Set (compilation, 1992), The Very Best of (compilation, 1997), The Essential (compilation, 2003), There is a Season (box set, 2006)

B-Side: “Everybody’s Been Burned”

Peak: 29 BB, 28 CB, 27 GR, 31 HR, 9 CL, 5 DF Click for codes to charts.

Sales (in millions): --

Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 5.74 streaming

Awards:

(Click on award to learn more).

About the Song:

“The sardonic So You Want to Be a Rock & Roll Star was a terrific single” AM that “satirized teenybop faves such as the Monkees, who had achieved massive success without playing on their own records.” RD Roger McGuinn said the song came about when he was reminiscing with Chris Hillman. “We were looking at the teenybopper magazines, like Tiger Beat and looking at the tremendous turnover…It was like a big merry-go-round. So we said, ‘Let’s write a little satirical song about it.’ The screaming I recorded myself with a cassette recorder during one of our concerts over in England.” SJ

Critic Dave Marsh attacked the song for being “a lyrical crock,” saying it sounded “pretty sanctimonious coming from the two biggest folkies in the Byrds…That is, from two guys in the group who most felt that they had sold their ‘soul to the company / That is waiting there to spell plastic wares.’” DM

However, Marsh also acknowledged that “for all its cautionary admonitions, the music makes ‘Rock ‘n’ Rol Star’ so enticing that it’s surely spawned more bands than it’s discouraged.” DM Tom Petty was certainly a Byrds’ devotee; he recorded a live version of the song in 1985 that became a top-ten album rock hit.

My Back Pages

The Byrds

Writer(s): Bob Dylan

Recorded: Dec. 5-8, 1966 at Columbia Records in Hollywood, California

Released: 3/13/1967 (single), Younger Than Yesterday (1967), Greatest Hits (compilation, 1967), History of the Byrds (compilation, 1973), The Byrds Play Dylan (compilation, 1979), The Byrds (box set, 1990), 20 Essential Tracks from the Boxed Set (compilation, 1992), The Very Best of (compilation, 1997), The Essential (compilation, 2003), There is a Season (box set, 2006)

B-Side: “Renaissance Fair”

Peak: 30 BB, 26 CB, 22 GR, 26 HR, 14 CL, 10 DF Click for codes to charts.

Sales (in millions): --

Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 26.35 streaming

Awards:

(Click on award to learn more).

About the Song:

“No one covered Bob Dylan songs more masterfully than the Byrds, and this is one of their most richly satisfying Dylan interpretations of all.” SS The Byrds burst out of the gate in 1965 with a #1 cover of “Mr. Tambourine Man,” one of four songs originally written by Dylan that appeared on their debut album. This was their second most successful Dylan cover, after the aforementioned “Mr. Tambourine Man,” reaching the top 30 on the Billboard Hot 100.

“My Back Pages” is “a confession by a young man who had been aflame with the ideological passions of youth that the world is not as black and white as he had imagined. It was a renunciation of politics and ‘finger pointing’ to focus on introspection.” SS Dylan first recorded it for his 1964 album Another Side of Bob Dylan, but it was “a less than vibrant original performance.” SS He recorded it in the early morning hours and sounds tired. The Byrds, however, “brought out the song’s full potential.” SS “With vivid lyrics, the reedy McGuinn voice and jangly twelve-string Rickenbacker guitar, and those timeless group harmonies in full glory, this is an undeniable classic.” SS

Have You Seen Her Face

The Byrds

Writer(s): Chris Hillman

Recorded: 11/28/66 – 12/1/66 at Columbia Records in Hollywood, California

Released: 5/22/1967 (single), Younger Than Yesterday (1967), The Byrds (box set, 1990), 20 Essential Tracks from the Boxed Set (compilation, 1992), The Essential (compilation, 2003), There is a Season (box set, 2006)

B-Side: “Don’t Make Waves”

First Charted: 6/3/1967

Peak: 74 BB, 73 CB, 58 HR, 39 CL Click for codes to charts.

Sales (in millions): --

Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 4.62 streaming

About the Song

“This is Hillman’s first solo credit…The inspiration came after Hillman attended recording sessions for ‘So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star’ and he wrote it when working with Hugh Masekela and other South African musicians.” MC-58 His songwriting style “offset Crosby’s jazz/psychedelic experiments and McGuinn’s increasing obsession with studio trickery.” MC-58

“His understated Harrison-singing-a-McCartney-song vocal style is a subtle counterpoint to his melodic Beatlesque bass lines. The song is like Merseybeat shot-through with the new hip Los Angeles scene.” MC-58 “It’s like an early version of Britpop melodicism.” MC-58

Lady Friend

The Byrds

Writer(s): David Crosby

Recorded: 4/26/67, 6/14/67, 6/21/67 at Columbia Records in Hollywood, California

Released: 7/13/1967 (single), Younger Than Yesterday (1996 reissue of 1967 album), History of the Byrds (compilation, 1973), The Byrds (box set, 1990), 20 Essential Tracks from the Boxed Set (compilation, 1992), The Essential (compilation, 2003), There is a Season (box set, 2006)

B-Side: “Old John Robertson”

Peak: 82 BB, 77 CB, 71 HR, 41 CL Click for codes to charts.

Sales (in millions): --

Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.50 streaming

About the Song

This was the only A-side from the Byrds that was written solely by David Crosby. The song appeared on the CD reissue of Younger Than Yesterday. “This work of great maturity is one of the band’s finest moments” MC-65 and “one of the Byrds’ greatest singles.” MC-64

“With its glorious reverb,” MC-64 “three-part harmonies, jazzlike drumming, and chorus of trumpets flying over the rapturous guitar riff, it sounds like an angelic choir on amphetamines” MC-65 The “punchy rock production, the horns, in particular, preempt a lot of late-1960s psychedelic rock.” MC-64 “It should’ve been a Summer of Love hit” MC-64 “considering it has the same euphoric feel as The Turtles’ ‘Happy Together’ or one of those harmony-soaked Association tracks) like the bridge on ‘Never My Love’).” MC-64

“Crosby oversaw the whole recording and eventually replaced his bandmates’ backing vocals with his own. The group felt it was a good song but were furious he’d gone back into the studio without telling them. Hillman reckons this is where it started to fall apart with Crosby.” MC-65

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First posted 4/7/2008; last updated 10/23/2026.

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