Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello hit #1 with “Señorita”

Señorita Shawn Mendes & Camila Cabello

Writer(s): Shawn Mendes, Camila Cabello, Andrew Wotman, Benjamin Levin, Alexandra Tamposi, Charlotte Aitchison, Jack Patterson, Magnus August Høiberg (see lyrics here) Released: June 21, 2019 First Charted: July 6, 2019 Peak: 11 US, 12 BA, 14 RR, 4 AC, 13 A40, 16 UK, 17 CN, 11 AU (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 5.0 US, 1.8 UK, 16.1 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 2010.94 video, 2704.29 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello first collaborated on “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” a song from Mendes’ 2015 debut album Handwritten. They connected and knew they wanted to work together again. SF Their second effort together struck gold – well, multiplatinum in thirteen countries. It also won an American Music Award, two MTV Video Music Awards, and a People’s Choice Award. It also won Best Single of the Year at the Juno Awards. The song was conceived at a Charli XCX session, but she decided not to release it herself, saying the “Latin pop flair just wasn’t right for who I am because I am not a part of that culture.” SF Andrew Watt, the producer, sent a rough chorus to Shawn Mendes, suggesting it as a duet. Mendes agreed, saying Camila would be the only person with whom he could do it. Mendes and Cabello made some changes to the melody and lyrics, using FaceTime to tweak some lyrics together. Then they met up to record in the studio together. Producer Benny Blanco lauded their chemistry together. WK In the “smooth Latin love song” SF the pair “croon about their fictious romance,” SF although they would end up an actual couple for more than two years. The Fader’s Shaad D’Souza praised the single as “effortlessly steamy and wonderfully lightweight.” WK Medium’s TJ Lovell called it “a sexy ode to a vacation rendezvous that allows the pair to flex their undeniable chemistry.” WK The song debuted at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and eventually dethroned Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy” to ascend to the pole position. It reached the peak in more than 30 countries. WK It was the second chart-topper for each of them in the UK. It was his first trip to #1 in the U.S. and her second, following “Havana.” Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Shawn Mendes DMDB encyclopedia entry for Camila Cabello SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia First posted 4/2/2022; last updated 5/4/2024.

Lana Del Rey released Norman Fucking Rockwell!

First posted 1/13/2021.

Norman Fucking Rockwell! Lana Del Rey

Released: August 30, 2019 Peak: 3 US, 11 UK, 3 CN, 4 AU Sales (in millions): 0.14 US, 0.1 UK, 0.29 world (includes US and UK) Genre: alternative rock

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. Norman Fucking Rockwell (11/1/19, 44 UK) Mariners Apartment Complex (9/12/18, 93 AU, 79 UK) Venice Bitch (9/18/18, --) Fuck It I Love You Doin’ Time (5/17/19, 59 US, 60 CN, 42 UK) Love Song Cinnamon Girl How to Disappear California The Next Best American Record The Greatest (9/13/19, --) Bartender Happiness Is a Butterfly Hope Is a Dangerous Thing for a Woman Like Me to Have, But I Have It (1/9/19, 99 UK) Total Running Time: 67:38

Rating: 4.241 out of 5.00 (average of 20 ratings) Quotable: “The most majestic chapter of Lana Del Rey’s continuing saga of love and disillusionment under the California Sun.” – Fred Thomas, All Music Guide Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: Lana Del Rey’s sixth studio album came two years after she released Lust for Life in 2017. She revealed that the album was nearly ready in September 2018. Mariners Apartment Complex and Venice Bitch were released as singles that month, but it would be another year before the album emerged. Flood magazine noted that Del Rey tackled larger themes than previously. WK Consequence of Sound characterized the album as “tales of complicated, consuming, romantic love, and overt odes to the tarnished dream of California.” WK No Ripcord called the album “a remarkably sharp pop record that retains her fascination with pop-culture iconography and the rosey simplicity of a post-war America where classic rock and blue jeans ruled and takes them to much deeper places.” WK All Music Guide said “the lush sonics and intimate narratives of Norman Fucking Rockwell! draw out hope from beneath desolate scenes.” AMG Sonically, the album draws “on the influence of classic American pop while integrating modern touches like trap beats and millennial cultural references.” AMG It taps into ‘70s classic rock, folk rock, and minimalist trip hop, WK referencing Crosby, Stills & Nash; Eagles; Led Zeppelin; Joni Mitchell; Neil Young; WK and the “witchy mystique” AMG of Stevie Nicks. Slant magazine’s Sal Cinquemani called it “a heady collection of psych-rock and piano dirges.” WK “Mariners Apartment Complex” and “the apocalyptic The Greatest sound…like the best of ‘70s FM radio reworked around [Del Rey’s] smoldering, exhausted vocals.” AMG She also serves up “a faithful reading of Sublime’s Doin’ Time” which fits her “moody approach, becoming an extension of her own expression rather than a goofy, ironic cover.” AMG Pitchfork’s Jenn Pelly said the album established Del Rey “as one of America’s greatest living songwriters.” WK Rolling Stone’s Rob Sheffield said she “as finally made her pop classic.” WK The end result is “the most majestic chapter of Lana Del Rey’s continuing saga of love and disillusionment under the California Sun.” AMG

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Lana Del Rey AMG All Music Guide review by Fred Thomas WK Wikipedia

Dave’s Music Database Hall of Fame: Album Inductees (Aug. 2019)

Originally posted 8/22/2019. January 22, 2019 marked the 10-year anniversary of the DMDB blog. To honor that, Dave’s Music Database announced its own Hall of Fame. This month marks the third batch of album inductees. These are the top ten best-rated albums of all time (with at least 20 ratings from various sources including All Music Guide, Amazon, CD Universe, New Musical Express, Q Magazine, Rolling Stone, and USA Today. (Click here for a full list of sources.) Two of them were previously inducted – Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue and Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde, – leaving eight inductees in this round. See the full list of album inductees here.

Beach Boys Pet Sounds (1966) Inducted August 2019 as a “Top Rated Album.”

“In everything written about this album, ‘genius’ and ‘masterpiece’ are two words that invariably appear.” SP “The former is applied to the album’s creator and spiritual avatar, Brian Wilson,” SP who humbly “set out to construct the greatest pop record ever made.” SP By general accounts, he succeeded; it is “a pop milestone” SP “considered by many to be one of the most influential albums ever.” SM “This is more than just an album by a great American band; it’s THE great American pop album.” CDU Read more.

Derek & the Dominos Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (1970) Inducted August 2019 as a “Top Rated Album.”

Eric Clapton was a superstar by 1970 when he formed the supergroup Derek & the Dominos with fellow guitarist Duane Allman and members of Delaney & Bonnie, with whom he’d just toured. This was their only studio recording, but it proved to be “one of the few blues-based classic rock albums which avoids dull predictability or Led Zep-ish testosterone riffs.” PK It gave Clapton “his greatest album” AMG and made for “one of the all-time classic dual-guitar albums.” VH1 Read more.

Bob Dylan Highway 61 Revisited (1965) Inducted August 2019 as a “Top Rated Album.”

This is “Dylan’s most relentless and flawless album,” TL but also his “most accessible.” NO It “changed the face of popular music, and serves as proof of his legendary status as one of the true masters of both words and music.” NO In hiring a full rock band, “powered by Mike Bloomfield’s slashing guitar lines and Al Kooper’s bracing, rudimentary organ,” TL “Dylan didn’t abandon folk music; he just hauled it forward a few centuries. Out went acoustic hymns of protest, in came a whirlwind of images – mad, random, yet cruelly precise.” BL Read more.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience Are You Experienced? (1967) Inducted August 2019 as a “Top Rated Album.”

This is “one of the quintessential statements of psychedelic rock” NRR and “one of the most groundbreaking guitar albums of the rock era.” NRR Hendrix “expanded the sonic possibilities of the electric guitar” TL “radical new techniques in feedback and distortion” RV and other things “no one ever dreamed about trying.” DV The songs “sound as revolutionary and as far beyond category today as they did the day they were recorded.” TL Read more.

Velvet Underground & Nico Velvet Underground & Nico (1967) Inducted August 2019 as a “Top Rated Album.”

While it took ten years for VU’s debut to crack six figures, AMG there’s a classic line from producer Brian Eno that “everyone who bought one…started a band.” JD This is “chapter one of alternative rock” BL and made VU “the poster children of the avant-garde;” TL they “proved that rock, too, can be art.” RV “Glam, punk, new wave, goth, noise, and nearly every other left-of-center rock movement owes an audible debt to this set.” AMG Read more.

The Who Who’s Next (1971) Inducted August 2019 as a “Top Rated Album.”

Many consider this “the Who’s crowning achievement.” MU It “set a hard rock standard that even its creators struggled to emulate.” CD Lead singer Roger “Daltrey fully comes into his own,” EK Pete Townshend’s guitar playing “alternates between delicate acoustic picking and earthshaking riffing,” SM and dummer Keith Moon and bassist John Entwistle play as if theirs “were lead and/or melody instruments.” EK “You essentially have four lead players…In the hands of any other musicians it would have repeatedly collapsed into chaos.” EK Read more.

Stevie Wonder Innervisions (1973) Inducted August 2019 as a “Top Rated Album.”

Innervisions stands as Stevie Wonder’s masterpiece.” RV It is “the summit of the wunderkind’s blend of funk-addled synth-pop and socially conscious lyrics.” UT “Introspective, melancholy, sassy and uplifting, it transcends all notions of soul as schmaltz.” WR It is “by far his most political work” RV with “songs addressing drugs, spirituality, political ethics, the unnecessary perils of urban life, and what looked to be the failure of the ‘60s dream.” AMG Read more.

Neil Young After the Gold Rush (1970) Inducted August 2019 as a “Top Rated Album.”

Young had already been a member of the highly-influential Buffalo Springfield and worked with Crosby, Stills & Nash on the blockbuster Déjà Vu album when this, his third solo album, was released. This collection of “country-folk love songs” AMG “represents the morning after the mayhem, both personal and cultural – the sound of Young waking up with a post-‘60s hangover, catching his breath, and trying to sort through the wreckage.” TL Read more.

On This Day in Music (1969): The Woodstock Festival Began

August 15-18, 1969 Woodstock

The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was held on Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in Bethel, New York in 1969 from August 15 to 18. It was one of the largest musical festivals in history with over 400,000 attendees. Performers included Joan Baez, The Band, Joe Cocker, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Crosby Still Nash & Young, the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Santana, Sly & the Family Stone, and The Who. It is considered a pivotal event in music history and a defining event for the counterculture generation. As stated at the Bethel Woods Center website, “The world was rapidly changing and a group of young Americans were searching for their place within it. In that time of conflict and uncertainty, three days of peace and music seemed to be just what a divided nation needed. What began on a stage in the middle of a small New York farm field ended on the world stage…Those three days of music, mud, and memories would birth an entire cultural phenomenon.” BW Woodstock has been celebrated with a 1970 documentary, multiple albums capturing the original performances, anniversary festivals, and the song “Woodstock” by Joni Mitchell, which was famously recorded by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. For more important days in music history, check out the Dave’s Music Database history page. Resources and Related Links: Dave’s Music Database: “History Index” Dave’s Music Database: Woodstock Albums Dave’s Music Database: Woodstock “Remembered” – by Someone Who Wasn’t There BW BethelWoodsCenter.org “The Story of a Generation” WK Wikipedia.org Woodstock Wiki: Setlist First posted 8/15/2011; updated 8/24/2023.

50 years ago: Blind Faith “Can’t Find My Way Home” released on debut album

Can’t Find My Way Home Blind Faith

Writer(s): Steve Winwood (see lyrics here) Released: August 9, 1969 (album cut) First Charted: -- Peak: 4 CL, 1 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): -- US, -- UK, -- world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 30.76 video, 49.31 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: In 1969, Eric Clapton had already established himself as one of the world’s premiere guitarists via his work with John Mayall, the Yardbirds, and Cream. Steve Winwood had developed similar credentials with stints in the Spencer Davis Group and Traffic. When they united forces as Blind Faith – along with drummer Ginger Baker of Cream and bassist Ric Grech of Family – it made for “an unprecedented and arguably unmatched collection of talent and rock stardom.” UCR The collective made for one of rock history’s greatest supergroups, but they only recorded one album and ventured out for a one summer tour before splitting. Nonetheless, the album topped the UK and American charts and “the strength of its songs and performances have made it a lasting favorite for rock fans.” UCR Like British contemporaries such as Led Zeppelin, Van Morrison, and the Rolling Stones, Blind Faith “seemed to discover a similarity between American blues and soul music and the folk traditions of their own United Kingdom.” AMG While Clapton, Winwood, and Baker all contributed to Blind Faith, the “striking, dreamy piece” AMG “Can’t Find My Way Home” “stands out as the definitive statement.” UCR Winwood, “in a dreamy falsetto, sings a lyric that on first glance seems to be a simple love song, but in actuality might be intended to reflect a spiritual journey of some kind.” AMG He was also “blessed with amazingly soulful vocal abilities and an innate sense of American roots music.” AMG The song showcases his “sweet vocal floating atop the intricate acoustic guitar work,” UCR an uncommon role for Clapton, SF “while bassist Grech and drummer Baker provide subtle but effective rhythms to drive it along. Jimmy Miller’s warm and inviting production helps make the song all the more essential.” UCR Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Blind Faith DMDB encyclopedia entry for Eric Clapton DMDB encyclopedia entry for Steve Winwood AMG All Music Guide SF Songfacts UCR UltimateClassicRock.com (6/20/2013). “Top 100 Classic Rock Songs” WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 7/16/2022; last updated 7/22/2022.

“Old Town Road” became biggest #1 in Hot 100 History

Old Town Road Lil Nas X with Billy Ray Cyrus

Writer(s): Montero Hill/Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross/Kowa Roukema (see lyrics here) Released: December 3, 2018 First Charted: May 4, 2019 Peak: 119 US, 16 A40, 19 CW, 118 RB, 12 UK, 118 CN, 113 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 17.5 US, 2.4 UK, 21.75 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 3439.98 video, 2690.90 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: At 19 years old, Montero Lamar Hill (professionally known as Lil Nas X) released his debut single, “Old Town Road.” On August 3, 2019, it spent its 17th week atop the Billboard Hot 100 making it the biggest #1 in the chart’s history. The song’s U.S. chart run has been marked by eight weeks in which it accumulated twice as many chart points as the runner-up song, a feat last accomplished by Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” in 1992-93. WK Hill initially wrote the song out of frustration at being discouraged by his parents and sister. After writing it, he spun the meaning so that “old town road” was a symbol of success. WK YoungKio, a Dutch record producer, produced the beat a year before the song’s release by sampling Nine Inch Nails’ “34 Ghosts IV.” Hill bought the beat for $30. WK He released it independently and after creating memes to promote the song, it was picked up by users on TikTok, a social video sharing app. The song got picked up on radio when the daughters of two different program directors – DJ Riddler in Houston and Indianapolis and Joe Mack in Memphis – showed their dads the TikTok memes. RS The song grew so quickly in popularity that radio stations had to download the audio from YouTube. WK The song had the rare distinction of debuting simultaneously on the Hot 100 and Billboard’s R&B/hip-hop and country charts in March 2019. However, after its #19 debut on the latter, Billboard magazine disqualified the song, saying it didn’t fit the definition of the genre. WK The move sparked controversy as some, such as music critic Robert Christgau said, “Taking ‘Old Town Road’ off the country chart strikes me as racist pure and simple.” WK When asked if he consider it a country song, Lil Nas X said, “the song is country trap. It’s not one, it’s not the other. It’s both.” WK Hill was signed to Columbia Records on March 22, 2019 and then they distributed the single. WK The song hit #1 the week ending April 4, 2019. At one minute and fifty-three seconds, it was the fifth shortest single in the history of the Hot 100 to reach #1 and the shortest since 1965 when Herman’s Hermits topped the charts with “I’m Henry VIII, I Am.” WK In the wake of the controversy about whether or not the song was country, a remix was released featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, best known for the 1992 country hit “Achy Breaky Heart.” That resulted in 143 million streams in a week, breaking the previous record of 116.2 million streams by Drake’s “In My Feelings.” WK The song exceeded 100 million streams in each of the next eight weeks, landing 9 of the 11 highest streaming weeks in the history of digital music. WK Another remix featuring Cyrus and Diplo was released on April 29. WK Various versions of the song topped the charts in more than a dozen countries. WK Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Billy Ray Cyrus BB Billboard (7/10/2019). “Will 'Old Town Road' Break the All-Time Hot 100 Record? Everything You Need to Know About Lil Nas X's Historic No. 1 Run” by Andrew Unterberger RS Rolling Stone (4/17/2019). “Fueled By Controversy, Lil Nas X’s ‘Old Town Road’ Is on a Record-Breaking Run ” by Elias Leight WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 7/6/2019; last updated 3/31/2024.