Author: Phil Bausch

Here are the details of Taylor Swift’s new album The Life Of A Showgirl.

That’s the main cover, and here are the 12 songs.

Taylor Swift says the release is only these 12 songs, and no extra tracks will be released (as she did on her last two albums).  The big change for this album is that Swift produced it with Max Martin and Shellback.  They assisted Swift with production and co-writing on some of her biggest hits, including those from her album 1989.

Taylor says the songs capture the “infectiously joyful, wild, and dramatic energy” of her life during the Eras Tour.  She described some of the songs as “bangers” with infectious melodies.  The songs are short by today’s standards, with only two songs reaching four minutes.  Eight of the songs are marked as having explicit lyrics, but a “clean” version is also available digitally.  Showgirl was released on October 3rd, 2025.  Most of the reviews from major publications like Rolling Stone and Variety have been very positive.  The BBC says… “It’s a triumph”.

The most obvious hit on the album is “Opalite”.  Other recommended tracks include “The Fate Of Ophelia”, “Elizabeth Taylor”, “Eldest Daughter”, the touching song about the death of a friend, “Ruin The Friendship”, “Honey”, and “The Life Of A Showgirl” (Taylor and Sabrina sound really good together).

Update:  The new album sold over 4-million copies in its first week, including a modern-day record of  1.2-million vinyl albums the first day.  Showgirl is piling-up streaming records worldwide.  In December 2025, Billboard announced Showgirl earned the Album Of The Year title.  Swift has earned the title a record five times.

Update:  A “Taylor Swift Movie Theater Event” ran the same weekend as the Oct. 3rd album release.  Fans were shown the new video for “The Fate Of Ophelia”, plus behind the scenes of the making of the video, comments on each album track, and the lyric videos of the other eleven songs from the new album. The runtime for the Release Party is about an-hour-and-a-half.  The film was #1 at the box office, and grossed over 50-million-dollars globally.

There are four variations of the cover that were on a limited run of CD’s sold on her official site.

The pricing of the orange vinyl album is $29.99.  The regular CD is $12.99, and the limited Deluxe CD’s are $17.99.  (The Deluxe CD’s sold out almost instantly, but were later made available at Target for $14.99 each.)

The songs are all new except for “Father Figure”, which was a 1987 release written and performed by the late George Michael.  The difference here is that the song has new lyrics.  Just one guest star appears, Sabrina Carpenter, who opened for Swift on the Eras Tour and has since become very popular.  She is featured heavily on the final song & title track, “The Life Of A Showgirl”.

Above are some of the extra photos provided with the release information.  Taylor Swift amazingly recorded the album while she was in the middle of the European portion of the Eras Tour in 2024.  Between shows, she would use her days off to fly to Sweden to work with Martin and Shellback.  She said that although she was physically exhausted, she was “mentally stimulated and so excited to be creating.”

Extra:  Special versions with alternate covers and colored vinyl keep appearing and quickly selling out on the official Taylor Swift website.  Here’s an example.

Just before the release of Showgirl, it was announced that Taylor Swift is the first woman to surpass 100-million album sales in the United States.  She only trails The Beatles, Garth Brooks, Elvis Presley, and the Eagles in U.S. sales.

This is the official RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) certification.  The estimate of worldwide sales for Swift is 200-million.

To examine all the controversy surrounding Showgirl, and listen to 4 acoustic versions of songs from the album, here’s the link:

https://ontherecords.net/2025/10/taylor-swift-showgirl-chaos-examined/

Extra:  Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are engaged.  It was announced August 26th, 2025.  Apparently the engagement actually took place a couple weeks earlier, and family members were informed.

It was a Pop/Rock moment.  Travis decided to Pop the question, and Taylor got the Rock!

Fleetwood Mac had three main eras, the late 60s Blues Era, the early 70s Pop Era, and their most famous one, the Buckingham Nicks Era.

Americans Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks (who had recorded one album using the name Buckingham Nicks) joined the British band in Los Angeles at the very beginning of 1975.  At the time, Fleetwood Mac was not well known in the United States, but that soon changed.  We’ll take a look at the music Fleetwood Mac made when five artists combined their talents…drummer Mick Fleetwood, bassist John McVie, keyboardist and singer-songwriter Christine McVie, guitarist and singer-songwriter Lindsey Buckingham, and singer-songwriter Stevie Nicks.

The above six albums (recorded between 1975 & 1990) make up the bulk of the studio work by the Buckingham-Nicks Era of Fleetwood Mac.  There were two albums after that, but they were not up to par, and one didn’t even chart.  Their Greatest Hits album includes songs from five of these albums.  Here are the songs selected.

It’s a good collection, but feels incomplete, because it’s missing some key songs, including “Landslide”, “Monday Morning”, “Never Going Back Again”, “The Chain”, “Songbird”, “Gold Dust Woman”, “Silver Springs”, “Think About Me”, and more.

Let’s look at their studio albums more closely.  The first two albums of the Buckingham-Nicks Era are “must have” for Fleetwood Mac Fans.

These two great albums from 1975 & 1977 are the two highest-selling albums by Fleetwood Mac.  Their self titled album introduced us to the new lineup, and includes the classic tracks “Monday Morning”, “Rhiannon”, “Over My Head”, “Say You Love Me” and “Landslide”.  It took their hit singles and a lot of touring, but eventually Fleetwood Mac hit #1 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart.

Rumours is one of the most popular albums of all time.  It spent an incredible 31 weeks in the #1 position, and almost unbelievably is still found high on many yearly sales and streaming charts.  Fleetwood Mac fans likely know all of the songs, and most of the tracks received radio airplay, so it’s kind of like a greatest hits collection.

This is the listing from the first CD of my Deluxe Edition, and you can see it includes “Silver Springs”, which had been left off the original 1977 album because of time limitations of the vinyl format.

The next four albums could not possibly live up to the brilliance of Rumours, but they still have some great songs, which are shown on a couple of playlists below.

Thought you might like to see a recommendation for two CD-length “Fleetwood Mac Best” playlists.  These songs are in chronological order, which is usually the best format for collections.  The only variance is that the three songs from Mirage were moved before the Tusk songs in order to keep those eight tracks together.  On the lists you can see which albums the songs came from.

As expected, Rumours has the most representation.  Tusk provides as many songs as Fleetwood Mac, but of course Tusk is a double album.  The surprise here is that Behind The Mask has six very good songs included, even though it’s somewhat of an overlooked album (since Lindsey Buckingham wasn’t on it).

The songwriting breakdown is interesting.  Christine McVie has the most with 16, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham each have 11,  and there are two outside writers.  If you look at almost any sales or streaming statistics, the songs by Stevie Nicks are the most popular.  Of course Nicks emerged as the group’s biggest star, had many solo hits, and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as both a member of the band and as a solo artist.

Here’s Nicks shown during the height of her career…in 1976 as part of the band, and then in 1981 on tour for her #1 smash album Bella Donna.  It included the hits “Edge Of Seventeen”, “Stop Dragging My Heart Around” and “Leather And Lace”.  Bella Donna outsold all but the first two Fleetwood Mac studio albums from this era.

The popularity of Fleetwood Mac has been a phenomenon.  Their main studio recordings seem timeless, and they were an extremely successful touring act for decades.

Extra:  If you want to make a single purchase to get most of Fleetwood Mac’s best recordings, this two-CD Very Best Of Fleetwood Mac is good, and can be found reasonably priced.  I spotted it new for $14.50 on Amazon.

But…if you can make playlists on your streaming service, try putting together the two Fleetwood Mac Best playlists, and see how they sound.

Let It Be has some of The Beatles’ best and most popular songs (three #1 singles), and yet it’s not often on the shortlist of the group’s best albums.  Why?  And why is it that The Beatles released another complete remix of the album years later?

The problem is two-fold.  There was a concept that The Beatles would write and record new songs with no overdubs or “studio tricks” for an album to be named Get Back.  The second part of the problem was that they were filming everything for a documentary.

It was all unnatural for a group that had become masters of the studio.  It would have likely been more fascinating to observe their regular studio work of creating an album, instead of watching them continually rehearsing to try to perfect a single take of each song while preparing for a possible concert.  The Beatles also grew tired of the constant invasion of the cameras which hampered them interacting normally.

The whole concept also affected how the proposed Get Back album was put together.  Three weeks after filming was finished (the end of January 1969), The Beatles started recording Abbey Road.  So, a lot of the work on Get Back was left to engineer Glyn Johns, who also served as producer for much of the album.  Johns submitted a mix for possible release in 1969 before Abbey Road.

This version was rejected by The Beatles.  To look at the song list, you’d expect it to be good, but Johns had chosen some of the band’s earliest attempts at many of the songs, and the album came off as incomplete and not up to The Beatles’ standards.  Glyn Johns made a second attempt at mixing the album in 1970, but other than adding “I Me Mine” (which Paul, George & Ringo had recorded in January of 1970 for the Let It Be film), the result was similar, and another rejection.

The final attempt at putting together a good album in 1970 was to turn over the tapes to producer Phil Spector.  He assembled the album as we know it, but the concept that this was somehow a “live” album still affected the decisions that were made.

You can see they said this was a “new phase Beatles album”, and that it had the “freshness of a live performance.”  That sort of thinking caused Spector to throw in little bits of studio chatter to kind of give a feeling that the studio songs were somehow live.  He also intermixed actual live recordings with the studio recordings on the album’s track list.  In addition, Spector went against the album’s original concept by overdubbing orchestration onto some of the songs.  There’s certainly a built-in inconsistency as we listen to Let It Be.

In 2003, Paul McCartney put together the album Let It Be…Naked with the approval of George Harrison and Ringo Starr.  The songs from the January 1969 Get Back sessions were remixed using the original concept of only having The Beatles and keyboardist Billy Preston on the recordings.  The album matched the stated goal, but it wasn’t going to replace versions of the songs that were mostly loved.

 I’ve always been really fond of Let It Be, but that’s partly because (like with every album) I made my own playlists.  That was on reel-to-reel tapes, then cassettes, then CDs, and now digital playlists.  Not only did that save repeated wear to the albums, but all the best songs could be placed together, and the lesser songs omitted.  In my review of the 2021 box set, I suggested that the album would have been improved if they had simply given up the idea that “the whole album is live”, and placed the rooftop concert songs together on Side 2.

This version can be made with the songs that were on the original album, plus the “Don’t Let Me Down” rooftop recording from the box set, or the better-edited version from Let It Be…Naked.  The flow of the album is greatly improved.  Here’s Side 1, broken into two 3-song sets (because of time constraints):

Here’s the Side 2 Rooftop Concert:

If you watched the Get Back documentary, you know The Beatles almost didn’t go up to the roof for that concert.  If they hadn’t, there were still enough recordings to put together a studio-only album.

Instead of the rooftop concert, on Side 2, we have the singles of “Get Back” and “Don’t Let Me Down”.  The studio version of “One After 909” is from the Anthology 3 collection.  Then it gets a little creative, using recordings that were made during rehearsals in January of 1969.  This version of “Oh Darling” is extremely different from how McCartney sang it on Abbey Road.  It has McCartney and John Lennon duetting on the song with a light charming touch.  There’s a friendly feel, like their excellent rapport on “Two Of Us”.  The rehearsal of “Oh Darling” has been available on bootlegs for many years.  Here’s the latest mix (Billy Preston’s on keyboard), edited from the box set.

The next song is an often bootlegged blues jam from their January rehearsals, ” The Walk”.

And the album ends with the short quirky “Maggie Mae”.  It kind of gives the album a “Her Majesty” ending like Abbey Road.

Let It Be may not be the very best Beatles album, but there’s a lot to love.

The Beatles top singles?  Highest ranked albums?  Top streamed songs?  Top songs played by musicians?  Biggest selling albums?

First we’ll look at the rankings the Muse Group put together showing which songs musicians are looking up through their sites.  To no one’s surprise, songs by The Beatles are looked up the most.  But which ones?  Here’s a chart showing the songs being checked out by guitarists and by pianists (players of other instruments are not included).  The data is for 12-months ending June 25th, 2025.  (Chart enlarges with a click.)

You can see “Let It Be” is the top song with both guitarists and keyboardists.  In fact, eight of the songs are on both lists.  The change from the guitar tabs list to the piano score list is that “Come Together” and “And I Love Her” drop off, and “Eleanor Rigby” and “Penny Lane” are added.  Songs written primarily by Paul McCartney are the top four on the guitar list, and four of the top five on the piano list.  George Harrison has his three best songs on both lists.

The above data was the inspiration for gathering other interesting rankings of The Beatles’ music, and putting them in easy forms that can be saved with screenshots (click to enlarge).  Here’s the streaming ranking.

The above list shows the overall popularity of Beatles songs on Spotify streaming through last year.  It’s amazing that the most listened to song wasn’t even a single, just an album track.  Other non-singles are “Blackbird”, “In My Life”, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, “Ob-la-di Ob-la-da”, and “Norwegian Wood”.

This list shows how The Beatles’ singles performed on the Hot 100 chart.  “Hey Jude” spent 9-weeks at #1 in 1968.  We can see the 1964 surge of Beatlemania with the high rankings of “I Want To Hold Your Hand” and “She Loves You”.  In the top 10 are two songs from Let It Be, two songs from Abbey Road, and two songs from A Hard Day’s Night.

There are a couple of surprises.  “Twist And Shout” only made it to #2 (held out of #1 by “Can’t Buy Me Love”), and “Please Please Me” only made it to #3.  The stats for two songs that did not make the list, #1 “Penny Lane” and #1 “Eight Days A Week”, look better.  They had about the same number of weeks in the Top-40, and were ranked higher.  “Twist And Shout” did re-enter the Top-40 in 1986 when it was featured in the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, so that probably gave it an extra boost, but “Please Please Me” seems out of place.  Here’s a look at The Beatles #1 singles in chronological order.

The Beatles had a total of 47 Top-40 hits in the U.S. from 1964 to 1970.  The final total for them was 52, after a random release of “Got To Get You Into My Life” in 1976 (#7), the “Twist And Shout” re-release in 1986 (#23), and the post-Beatles singles of “Free As A Bird” (#6), “Real Love” (#11), and “Now And Then” (#7).  The last three singles were released in 1995, 1996 and 2023.  The Beatles’ biggest chart-topping year was 1964 when they had a still-record six #1 hits.

Moving from songs to albums…which Beatles LP’s hit #1 on the Billboard 200 chart?

It’s surprising how the above list isn’t readily available in a simple accurate form.  One list even had British album versions on it that weren’t available in the U.S. at the time.  Another list showed the Yellow Submarine Soundtrack as #1, but it peaked at #2.  Still another list erroneously said the American album Introducing The Beatles was illegally released and was withdrawn from the market.  They said that was why Meet The Beatles was considered The Beatles first U.S. album.  The truth is that Introducing The Beatles, which is very similar to the Please Please Me album, was the first Beatles album released in the U.S.

The Vee Jay Records album contained recordings that Capitol Records had declined to release.   Capitol lost in court to stop Vee Jay from continuing to produce the album, and the companies eventually agreed that the song rights would revert to Capitol in October of 1964.  Introducing The Beatles was very successful, reached #2 on the Billboard album chart, and stayed there for nine weeks.  It was held out of #1 by Meet The Beatles, which was released 10 days later (January 20, 1964), but rose quicker on the charts and stayed at #1 for 11 weeks.

Capitol Records added to the confusion by naming their 2nd release The Beatles Second Album when it was really The Beatles third U.S. release.  Apparently Capitol wanted to pretend Introducing The Beatles didn’t exist.  When they later obtained the rights, Capitol released their version of the album in 1965 and named it The Early Beatles.

The Introducing The Beatles album had two songs fewer than the U.K. Please Please Me album.  In America the songs “Love Me Do” and “P.S. I Love You” were put out as a single on the Tollie label, instead of Vee Jay.  For The Early Beatles, Capitol was able to add back those two songs, but didn’t include the Lennon-McCartney written “Misery”, “There’s A Place”, and “I Saw Her Standing There”.  It was understandable that the last one was left off since it was on Meet The Beatles, but for the fans, Capitol should have included the other two and added “From Me To You”.

And which Beatles albums sold the most?

These are The Beatles’ 12 regular studio albums ranked by their official sales (hits collections are not included).  Two American albums, “Meet The Beatles” & “Beatles ‘65”, are shown because they were the biggest part of the sales combined with the British versions, “With The Beatles” & “Beatles For Sale”.

When you look at how many great songs and albums The Beatles put out from 1962 to 1970, it’s amazing what they accomplished.  It’s over six decades after they started, and no one else has even come close to their quality and their level of success.

Before The Beach Boys released “Surfin’ Safari” (their first Top-40 hit in September of 1962), Surf Music was mostly guitar instrumentals like “Misirlou” and “Let’s Go Trippin’” by Dick Dale & The Del-Tones.  It was The Beach Boys who added the singalong factor to songs about surf, cars, & girls.  Their success brought other artists, songwriters, and producers to try to capture that magic too.  See if you can remember the songs and artists who added to the West Coast sound.  Most of them were one-hit wonders, so the names aren’t easy to recall.

Before we get to those, here are The  Beach Boys’ friends and sometimes co-songwriters who had some major hits.

Jan Berry (on the left in the middle photo) and Dean Torrence performed as Jan & Dean.  They had hits in the late 1950s, but it wasn’t until 1963 (a few months after “Surfin’Safari” and “Surfin’ U.S.A.” by The Beach Boys), that Jan & Dean hit #1 with “Surf City”.  The song really was a collaboration by the two groups.  Brian Wilson wrote the music, Jan Berry wrote the words, and then Brian sang harmony with them on the recording.  All of Jan & Dean’s big surf-style hits came in 1963 and 1964… “Drag City” #10, “Dead Man’s Curve” #8, “ The Little Old Lady From Pasadena” #3, and “Sidewalk Surfin’” #25.  That last one was a remake of The Beach Boys song “Catch A Wave”, but with new lyrics by Jan Berry.  Trivia note:  That’s Dean Torrence singing lead vocals with Brian Wilson on The Beach Boys #2 hit “Barbara Ann”, recorded in 1965.

Now we come to other songs and artists of the surf era that are more like answers to trivia questions.

Here are some mid-1960s hits that sound a lot like The Beach Boys.  First the titles so you can see if you know the songs and guess who did them.  Then the names of the artists will be listed a little lower in this article.

1. G.T.O. (Little GTO) #4, 1964
2. Hey Little Cobra #4, 1964
3. California Sun (In That Warm California Sun) #5, 1964
4. Little Honda #9, 1964
5. New York’s A Lonely Town (When You’re The Only Surfer Boy) #32, 1965
6. Sandy #27, 1966

Surf instrumentals remained popular in the early 60s.  Here are four of them.  See if he titles remind you of what they sounded like and who did them.  The artists’ names are farther below.

1. Pipeline #4, 1963
2. Wipe Out #2, 1963
3. Penetration #18, 1964
4. Walk Don’t Run ’64 #8, 1964

Hollywood tried their best to get in on the surf craze with movies staring Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon.  Annette was popular from being on the Mickey Mouse Club, and Frankie was a Teen Idol from music and films.  The movies were successful, but the plots were thin and the humor was mostly silly.

Ready for the names of the artists?

1. G.T.O….Ronny & The Daytonas
2. Hey Little Cobra…The Rip Chords
3. California Sun…The Rivieras
4. Little Honda…The Hondells (covering a Beach Boys song)
5. New York’s A Lonely Town…The Trade Winds
6. Sandy…Ronny & The Daytonas (their only other hit)

Instrumentals

1. Pipeline…The Chantays
2. Wipe Out…The Surfaris
3. Penetration…The Pyramids (who shaved their heads as a gimmick)
4. Walk Don’t Run ’64…The Ventures (an update of their #2 hit in 1962)

(Send this to your older music friends, and see how they do on the quiz.)

The popularity of surf and car songs was mostly from 1962 to 1965.  By that time, there was Folk Rock and more serious music taking over.  Maybe that’s why it’s still fun to go back and listen to those early hits.

By the way, there’s some misperception that The Beach Boys started with surf songs, and then moved on to car songs; however, the car song “409” (the engine size of a Chevrolet Impala SS) was the flip side of their first hit, “Surfin’ Safari”, and was on their first album.  The group’s earliest albums all included songs about surfing, cars, girls, and the West Coast lifestyle.  They were out there havin’ fun, in that warm California sun.

It always happens when one of our music stars dies…all of a sudden people buy & stream their albums and songs.

On iTunes the day after Brian Wilson’s death, The Beach Boys had the top three selling digital albums…their Classic Pet Sounds, and two of their greatest hits collections.  At the top of the singles chart were “God Only Knows” and “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”, plus “Good Vibrations” at #6.  Even on the Music Videos chart there were three Beach Boys songs among the mostly new videos in the Top 10, “Surfin’ U.S.A.”, “I Get Around”, and “God Only Knows”.

Well-known artists from the last six decades have relayed how much they love the recordings and songwriting of Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys.  The Pet Sounds album and the song “God Only Knows” have definitely been mentioned the most.  Pet Sounds has actually been criminally under purchased in the past.  It took from 1966 to 2000 for it to sell one-million copies.  It’s great to see it sitting at #1 in digital sales.  It’s only $9.99, and that’s less than the price of a burger at most restaurants these days.  Even if you just stream it, please listen closely to the clever and original arrangements of both the vocals and the instrumentation.

There are quite a few Beach Boys greatest hits collections, and here’s a ranking of the best three.  Song lists are included that you can click to enlarge.

#3

Endless Summer is a very good 20 song collection of The Beach Boys songs about surfing, cars, and girls, but it only covers 1962 through 1965.  So…no Pet Sounds songs like “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” & “God Only Knows”.  On this digital version, they did include 1966’s “Good Vibrations” as a bonus track.  About half of the tracks are in mono.  The price is $11.99 on iTunes.

#2:

For a few dollars more, you can get Sounds Of Summer.  It says it’s The Very Best of The Beach Boys, and that’s pretty accurate.  Most Beach Boys fans would be satisfied with the 30 songs in this career-spanning collection.  It’s mostly killer, not filler, so it’s a good choice.  The price is just $14.99.  The reason it’s #2 here is because quite a few songs are in mono (unless the digital version was updated), and the #1 choice has 20 more songs for a very little increase in price.

#1:

50 Big Ones is the most complete as it contains all but one Beach Boys’ Top-40 hit, and is mostly in stereo.  The price is $19.99.  Fifty songs is a lot, but once you have them in your computer, you can divide them into two playlists, and put them in chronological order.  That way you hear the history and development of The Beach Boys.

“Caroline, No” is not on the hits collections.  It’s the only one of The Beach Boys’ 35 Top-40 hits missing from the 50 Big Ones album.  That’s probably because the single was released under Brian Wilson’s name, even though it’s on Pet Sounds.  You can’t go wrong with buying that album too!

Above are The Beach Boys in 1964, a little before they changed their hair to fit in better with The British Invasion.  1964 was the year they got their first #1 hit with “I Get Around”.  They did a good job of representing America in a friendly competition with the Brits, and they did it with their own original West Coast sound.  In fact, The Beach Boys were very popular in England.

Brian Wilson’s passing (at the age of 82) on June 11th, 2025 was a sad day, but his talents as a songwriter, singer, arranger, and producer will be enjoyed for decades to come.

For a more complete look at Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys, use this link:

https://ontherecords.net/2024/02/brian-wilsona-look-back-updated/

Billboard Magazine recently published an article showing the artists who spent the most weeks at #1 on their album chart.  First, we’ll show you the results, and then take a deeper dive.

As you can see, The Beatles have the most weeks at #1 by far, and Taylor Swift has the second most (update:  Swift has 98 weeks as of January 2026).  Of the nineteen artists on the list, most of them have either died or are unlikely to produce any new music.  Other than possible Greatest Hits or anthology releases, the artists most likely to add to their #1’s through new recordings are Taylor Swift, Adele, Drake, Eminem, and Morgan Wallen.

There are definitely surprises.

Who knew The Kingston Trio (Folk artists from the 1950s) would tun out to be the American group whose albums  spent the most weeks at number one?  Their biggest album, At Large, spent 15 weeks topping the chart.  The only other 1950s solo artist besides Elvis Presley is Harry Belafonte, and who expected that?  His album Calypso accounted for 31 weeks of his 37 at number one.  Other long-running albums were Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours at 31 weeks, and Michael Jackson’s Thriller with 37 weeks.

Besides The Beatles, the only 1960s artists on the list are The Rolling Stones and The Monkees.  The Stones had nine #1 albums from 1965 to 1981.  The Monkees’ time at the top fell within just 13 months, with four albums from November of 1966 to December of 1967.  The lone American Rock band to make the list is the Eagles.  It would be nice to include Fleetwood Mac, but although they were based in America in the 70s, they’re only two-fifths American.

The top two artists, The Beatles & Taylor Swift, not only have the most weeks at #1, they have the most albums that made it to that position.  The Beatles have 19 #1 albums that topped the Billboard 200.

Taylor Swift now has 15 albums in a row that reached #1 on the Top 200 album chart, with The Life Of A Showgirl being her 15th.  Above you can see Swift has 9 #1’s in just the last six years.  Swift’s 2006 first album, Taylor Swift, “only” hit #5, but it was #1 for 24 weeks on the Country chart.

It was her 2024 album that spent the most weeks (17) at #1.  Tortured Poets was the most streamed album in the world that year.  According to Spotify, Swift had three of the Top 10 most streamed albums globally in 2024, and no one else had more than one.

These days, it’s easier for well-known artists to get a number one album, because of the rush of streaming and sales the week it comes out.  It used to take time for music listeners to become aware of albums (they had to buy physical copies instead of instantly being able to listen to them).  Normally, the albums would work their way up the charts as the artists toured to support them.  Also, if singles from the albums became hits, people were more likely to take a chance on purchasing the albums.  On the other hand, today’s albums can fade fast unless people find enough good songs to warrant repeat listenings.

Sometimes we take a chance on concerts that don’t feature artist we know really well.  We only have two albums by The Wallflowers, plus songs Jakob Dylan performed in the Echo In The Canyon movie about the musicians of Laurel Canyon in the 1960s.  But, when we saw The Wallflowers were going to be in our hometown of Eugene, Oregon, we bought tickets.

The show was sold out at the 750-seat McDonald Theatre.  We ended up sitting in the balcony.  As you can tell by the marquee, the big draw is Jakob Dylan, the 55-year-old son of music legend Bob Dylan (84).

Jakob’s voice has always sounded a little smoother than his dad’s, but the similarities are very obvious.  The first album by The Wallflowers was released in 1992, but it was their 1996 album Bringing Down The Horse upon which their reputation and career were built.

The album includes their best known hits… “One Headlight”, “6th Avenue Heartache”, and “”The Difference”.  The only member of the group still active is Jakob Dylan, but that’s okay when he’s the lead vocalist and main songwriter.  The rest of the band was made up of talented backup musicians who have been with Jakob for about five years.

Jakob Dylan’s profile sure looks a lot like his dad’s.  As we watched the band, it was obvious how good all the musicians were, but there was a problem.  The lead vocals were too buried in the mix.  We could see Dylan was making an effort to convey the lyrics, but they were nearly impossible to discern, even for my wife, who has excellent hearing.  Compounding the problem was our unfamiliarity with many of the songs.

For us, the evening was saved by a strong ending.  “One Headlight” and “Who’s That Man Walking ‘Round My Garden” provided a solid finish to the main concert.

When the band returned for an encore, Dylan was wearing a hat, and we had the surprise of two excellent cover songs… “Wild World” by Cat Stevens, and “The Waiting” by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.  Tom Petty, who often included covers in his shows, would probably have enjoyed another band covering his song.  Then The Wallflowers closed the evening with their own hit, “The Difference”.  That burst of five really good songs in a row made the whole concert worthwhile.

Taylor Swift is overjoyed!

She had been massively disappointed when she was unable to buy the rights to her own recordings six years ago, but today, May 30th, 2025, Swift announced she has purchased all her early recordings from Shamrock Capital.  Taylor published some photos with her first six albums that she hadn’t previously owned.

Taylor said… “All of the music I’ve ever made now belongs to me.”  Every aspect of her career, including videos, concert films, art, photography, and unreleased material, are all under her control.  Swift praised Shamrock Capital for their handling of the sale, and she said the price was reasonable for both sides, and not the high amount speculated in the media.  Shamrock paid $300-million, so the number was likely somewhere north of that when Swift bought the rights.  The popular estimate is $360-million.

So where does that leave “Taylor’s Version” of her Reputation album?  Fans have been expecting the re-recorded album to be released any day, but Taylor says she hasn’t even recorded a quarter of it.  She says she “kept hitting a stopping point”, and that it may be the only one of her first six albums that can’t be improved upon.  So what about the other album that hasn’t been released in Taylor’s Version?

Better news on this one.  Taylor says the new recording of her debut album is complete, and “I love how it sounds now.”  Unfortunately, no release date was announced.

Taylor Swift’s fight to own her recordings, and the unusual step she made of re-recording her first six albums was a big deal in the music industry.  The “Taylor’s Version” albums were massively successful, and some other artists have made similar moves.  All the attention the Swift saga received has made a difference for artists entering the music industry.  Swift said… “Every time a new artist tells me they negotiated to own their master recordings in their record contract because of this fight, I’m reminded of how important it was for all of this to happen.”

Update:  Swift also owns her new album…The Life Of A Showgirl …Oct. 3, 2025.

Although it was sad to hear of the passing of Rick Derringer, the music he left us is anything but sad.   There’s the fond memory of listening to the 45 of “Hang On Sloopy” in my room in 1965.

This was the first record I bought that had a lead singer who was a teenager like me.  Rick Derringer was only 16 when he sang the lead vocal, and 17 when the record came out in July of 1965.  By October, “Hang On Sloopy” was #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.  The song became a garage band classic, and I sang it with my band at dances in the late 60’s.

Later in 1965, The McCoys’ Rock cover of the Jazz classic “Fever” hit #7.  I bought that one too, and even their under-the-Top-40 single, “You Make Me Feel So Good” (#53) in 1966.

Rick Derringer went on to perform solo, and with his own group, Derringer, in the 1970s.  His biggest solo hit was in 1973 with a song he wrote, “Rock And Roll Hoochie Koo” (#23).

(Rick performing with his band Derringer in 1977)

Rick Derringer was a Grammy-winning producer, and an excellent guitarist who performed on many hits with famous musicians.  His stint with Ringo Starr And His All Starr Band brought Rick to Eugene, Oregon in 2010.  Here’s what he looked like back then.

We heard him perform “Hang On Sloopy” and “Rock And Roll Hoochie Koo”, and of course he played with the band all night.  Somewhere during the 45-year gap between when I first heard The McCoys and when Rick performed here, the full version of “Hang On Sloopy” was released (of course I bought it), and that’s the one he sang.  If you hear the verse about a “red dress”, that’s the long version from before it was edited down to the hit single.

Rick Derringer…singer-songwriter-guitarist-producer…was 77.