Three hours on Monday night. Two more on Tuesday night. A lot to cover, so I’m just gonna dive in with my highlights. The Paradise theme song Almost Paradise got a remix! Shout-out to songwriters Ann Wilson of Heart and Mike Reno of Loverboy for still getting that bag.🎶💰 Jesse introduced a new game -... Continue Reading →
[cue David Bowie] Ch-ch-changes . . . THE MOST CONSEQUENTIAL CHANGES EVER CAME TO PARADISE!! OK, that’s just me mocking The Bachelor franchise’s tendency to mock themselves with their self-referential (self-reverential?) proclamations. But with a new showrunner (Scott Tedi) taking over the franchise1, some badly needed fresh air blew over the season Premiere of Bachelor... Continue Reading →
Recently, I watched a 2022 video1 that cited 16 songs that are 30+ years old and have over 1 billion plays on Spotify. Intrigued and curious, I wondered if that list had grown since then. Much has been made of the dominance of “catalog” songs, defined as tracks that are three years or older, in... Continue Reading →
Obsession • an idea or thought that continually preoccupies or intrudes on a person’s mind: he was in the grip of an obsession he was powerless to resist. My body shakes. I get goosebumps from my arms down through my legs. I don’t want to breathe lest my senses be directed somewhere other than my... Continue Reading →
Back in 2013, in my Idol Musings blog devoted to the TV show, I wrote about the Beach Boys song Good Vibrations. The context was Final 6 Week, and the Idolists had two themes to perform: the Burt Bacharach-Hal David Song Book and Songs You Wish You Wrote. Here’s what I wrote about the latter.... Continue Reading →
Gotta love Eurovision. Where else can you have a song contest featuring loving odes to saunas, espresso, and, uh, the joys of sex? And the song about sex got the fewest votes of the three? What the Hell Just Happened, as the U.K. entry may have sung (they did). Apparently, unrequited love is better than... Continue Reading →
Who’s going to win Eurovision? I don’t know, but I do have some idea. I’ve learned that there are strong clues in the betting markets. I’m fascinated by the intensity of Eurovision betting, and because I’m obsessed with analyzing numbers, I set myself to study how close the betting markets were to the Final results.... Continue Reading →
Ray's Musings 