Songs That Remind You of Other Songs (Music Notes) (OT)

A few songs that have been in rotation here at TOP World Headquarters lately—

• "Bad Bad News" by Leon Bridges. The video mucks the song up, so listen to it straight on iTunes or Spotify.
• "The Other Woman" by Caro Emerald
• "Sativa" by Jhené Aiko featuring Rae Sremmurd

I've been on sort of a jag for slow-drag R&B with a hip-hop or World flavor lately. Caro Emerald (Caroline Esmeralda van der Leeuw) is a Dutch torch/pop singer with a touch of retro campiness.

Caro Emerald

The lyrics of her song "A Night Like This," for instance (which sounds for all the world like a pre-existing standard, but isn't), were "based on a specific scene in the 1967 Bond movie Casino Royale." [Wikipedia]. And sounds like it. Both songs come from her 2015 debut, Deleted Scenes from the Cutting Room Floor.

Jhené Aiko's "Sativa" sounds like a cross between Sade and Tom Waits to me.  :-)

Mike

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Comments

[Steven Willard]

Leon is getting some new air play for “I Can See Clearly” due to the Grace Vanderwaal reinterpretation of the 1970’s hit recently performed on Steven Colbert Show. Worth a listen.

[Mike Plews]

Thanks for the Caro Emerald tip. I like what I am hearing. Is it a stretch of does she remind you of Pink Martini?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6E-B5RQUbE

[Jim A]

I love the Leon Bridges stuff I found on YouTube. Thanks for the tip.

His old school groove reminded me of the 2010 Aloe Blacc album, "Good Things". The song Green Lights from that album always improved my mood when I was commuting.

[Wolfgang Lonien]

I've heard Caro before, she's amazing.

But let me invite you over to Wikiloops.com - don't get fooled by the platform's name, it has nothing to do with the Hip-Hop term of 'loops'. Jsut a great and free jammin' platform for you, me, and the rest of us. My first discoveries over there, with awesome musicians from around the globe: https://www.wikiloops.com/album/13092-The+cool+cats+from+the+loops+-+Hit+singles.php

Love that 'At The Blue Note' track for instance, with a really great trombone played by a British keyboard player.

There are two more albums which include my first efforts in collaborating over the interwebs. Enjoy.

[Ade]

Love Caro Emerald's more up-tempo electro-swing tracks. "My 2 Cents" from her second album is in a similar vein to "The Other Woman", but "Coming Back As A Man" and "Excuse My French" from the same collection have a delightfully wicked sense of mischief in the lyrics. Unfortunately, her more recent work has tended towards ballads. Would still love to catch her live one day though.

[Steve Higgins]

I had this as an earworm for ages. It took quite a while to track down what it was. Especially as, when it was running through my mind, it would morph into a reggae version of this.

As one is old-school ska (The Upsetters) and one is big-band swing (Glenn Miller), you wouldn't think they were THAT similar. The human mind works in funny ways. Well, mine does!

[Bill Mitchell]

I'm into Lilly Marlene, 1939. (Today's earworm)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7heXZPl2hik

[Steve Higgins]

Oops, I bogged up the links in my previous post. Herewith more explicit ones:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax5phXqMjCU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_muFwwTSMs

[Steve Biro]

I've been a Caro Emerald fan for a few years now. "A Night Like This" is a great piece. But it doesn't conjure images of the original Casino Royale -- nor anything else from the 1960s -- in my mind the way, say "The Look of Love" does. It sounds like a modern recording of a 1940s or 1950s composition to me.