Song #97: "Meet Virginia" by Train

Rizzo Music's Top 100 Songs Of The 1990s continues today with number 97, "Meet Virginia" by Train. "Meet Virginia" came out at the tail end of the 1990s, eventually topping out at #15 on the Hot 100 chart in 1999. This song's catchy intro and fun lyrics fell on welcoming ears and put Train on the road to instant stardom. The song took a while to become popular since most people had not heard of the band at the time, but after their first single, "Free", was featured on the popular TV show Party of Five, it wasn't long before "Meet Virginia" lead their self-titled album to platinum status.

Train is a band that didn't just peak after their first hit. In 2001, they scored their biggest hit to date, "Drops of Jupiter". "Ordinary"  was featured in the ever-popular movie, Spiderman 2, in 2004 and certainly helped them stay in the forefront of mainstream music. Still a very popular band, Train released their newest album, For Me, It's You in 2006, which peaked at #10 on the Billboard charts in the US. Now with Columbia records, they do not show any signs of slowing down.

The music video features Rebecca Gayheart, who recently starred in the TV show "Vanished", who plays the role of Virginia as a new waitress at a diner. It has shots of the band playing as well as lead singer Patrick Monahan eating in the dinner. It's a fairly plain music video but it gets the job done. Here it is:

Interested in other songs from the countdown? Check out the other Top Songs of the 1990s.


Song #98: "How Bizarre" by OMC

Today RizzoMusic continues with the countdown of the Top 100 Songs of the 90s with one of my personal favorites, "How Bizarre" by OMC. Back in 1997 it was impossible to turn on the radio and not hear this song. Led by the undeniable sound of a mariachi trumpet, "How Bizarre" had such a distinct sound in the US, that the song was hard to ignore. Spending 36 weeks on the Hot 100 Airplay chart and peaking at #4, "How Bizarre" put the New Zealand band on the map. The album of the same name went on to sell over a million copies and it reached platinum status not only in the US but in several other countries as well.

OMC, which stands for Otara Millionaires Club, refers to one of the poorest suburbs in Auckland, New Zealand, where the band was formed. OMC was originally a band of about 18 members due to the rich amount of instruments played on their first and only album but before the their single even charted in the US, they disbanded. Pauly Fuemana, the front man of OMC, continued to use the name in his solo career. Unfortunately, due to his lack of success after "How Bizarre", Pauly Fuemana filed for bankruptcy in 2006.

There is not much to this music video. It has the lead singer, Pauly Fuemana driving around in his Chevy '69 just like described in the song. It pictures him dancing, singing and throwing around money. It's a fairly simple music video. Check it out!

Interested in other songs from the countdown? Check out the other Top Songs of the 1990s here


Song #99: "Walking in Memphis" by Marc Cohn

Continuing with the countdown, Marc Cohn's Grammy nominated hit comes in at #99 with "Walking in Memphis". Anchored my Cohn's strong vocals, "Walking in Memphis" hit #13 on the Hot 100 Chart in 1991. Whatever your musical tastes, it is hard to deny the polished sound of this song. Sure, you might not of heard of Marc Cohn, but it is very likely you have heard the song, in one form or another. Cher covered the song back in 1995, and country music band, Lonestar released their version in 2003.

A certified platinum artist, Cohn hasn't had much success outside of this one hit. It's the first single he released and by far his most popular. He went on to release three more albums, the latest coming in 2007 with Join the Parade under the new label Decca. This coming just 2 years after his traumatic carjacking experience. Driving back to his hotel after a concert, a man attempted to carjack his van. When the driver tried to drive around the gunman, he fired, striking Cohn above his right temple. Miraculously Cohn was okay, and was released from the hospital the next day after the bullet was removed.

"Walking in Memphis" has a fairly basic music video with shots of the city and Marc singing and playing the piano. It's was filmed in black and white which seems to take you back to a simpler time. For a song that is all about looking back on the history of the city, the black and white picture fits well. The video is a perfect match for the song. Check it out.

Interested in other songs from the countdown? Check out the other Top Songs of the 1990s.


Song #100: "Take A Picture" by Filter

We start the RizzoMusic's Top 100 Songs of the 1990s countdown with a song that just sneaked in not only into the rankings but into the decade as Title of Record was released on August 24, 1999. "Take My Picture", off the Title of Record album, is by far Filter's biggest hit, topping the Hot 100 charts at #12 and #3 on the Modern Rock charts. Filter was made famous back in 1995 with their minor hit, "Hey Man, Nice Shot". "Take My Picture" is a song that was a minor hit in the spectrum of the whole decade but I feel that encapsulates that classic '90s sound.

Born at the end of the decade, it was a product of post-grunge perfection. Not only does it have a classic sound, but the music video is even more classic. Filter made sure to include everything that would make this video a typical 90s music video: a burning wrecked airplane, shots of the band underwater, a mermaid, rooftop bongo drumming, and of course, a room filling up with water. All kidding aside, it was a rather original video and definitely not boring. It's a very catchy tune and has been featured in The Girl Next Door, Little Nicky and Saving Grace.

Though it is very likely you have not heard anything by Filter since "Take My Picture", they are set to release a new record this March. The new album is called Anthems for the Damned, which features an all new supporting cast for lead singer Richard Patrick. Patrick fresh off his side project, Army of Anyone, recruited former Limp Bizkit guitarist and current Black Light Burns vocalist Wes Borland, John 5 formerly of Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie, and drummer Josh Freese formerly of Perfect Circle and Nine Inch Nails, for the new album. That's about all I have to say for this one - typical 90s band, great song, a solid start for the list. Check out the video!

Interested in other songs from the countdown? Check out the other Top Songs of the 1990s.


Top 100 Songs of the 90s

After watching VH1's Greatest Songs of the 90s, I was inspired to start up a series of posts with my picks for the Top 100 Songs of the 1990s. I am going to skip out on the rap songs since I am not that big of an expert on that field of music. I am tempted to include some pop from the 90s but we will see if any of it actually makes the list. I am going to set out a few ground rules for the list and link back to this post for every entry.

Rules (subject to change):
1) An artist can only have up to a maximum of three songs on the list.
2) No rap, Hip-Hop, or R&B will be included on this list.
3) Only singles will be considered for this list.
4) I will accept suggestions but this list is in no way comprised of results from a poll or any form of voting process. It is strictly the opinion of Rizzo Music.
5) And obviously the song must have been released between Jan 1st 1990 and Dec 31st 1999.

Each song will get it's own post with a little history of the song (chart positions, band trivia, song trivia ect.) and the music video. I will constantly update this post with links to each post so that this article may be used to find any song on the list. With each article I will link back to this article so to provide easy access to each song. I hope to write about 1 article pertaining to this list a week so that should set a preliminary completion date for the list on August 20, 2009. It would be nice to finish the list before then but that seems like a realistic date for the amount of work required for this sort of project. Comments? Suggestions? I would love to hear them. Thanks!

Links (More Coming Soon)
Songs 100-91
Song #100: "Take A Picture" by Filter
Song #99: "Walking in Memphis" by Marc Cohn
Song #98: "How Bizarre" by OMC
Song #97: "Meet Virginia" by Train
Song #96: "Down" by 311
Song #95: "Found Out About You" by Gin Blossoms
Song #94: "Greedy Fly" by Bush
Song #93: "The Impression That I Get" by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
Song #92: "Don't Go Away" by Oasis
Song #91: "Touch, Peel and Stand" by Days Of The New
Songs 90-81
Song #90: "Hanginaround" by Counting Crows
Song #89: "Man on the Moon" by R.E.M.
Songs 80-71
Songs 70-61
Songs 60-51
Songs 50-41
Songs 40-31
Songs 30-21
Songs 20-11
Songs 10-1

Be sure to sign up for email updates or subscribe with your favorite feed reader to stay up to date with all of the latest additions to the list. If you are having any trouble with this, feel free to email me at "web at rizzomusic dot com".


The Wallflowers New Tour Dates!

After a brief stint with his solo career, Jakob Dylan seems to have rejoined his fellow band mates -- at least for a while. The Wallflowers website, seems to be revamped back to feature the band as a whole and not just Jakob. There is not much content on it right now but it looks like they are working on it. According to Jacok Dylan's Myspace page, www.myspace.com/jakobdylan, these dates are the first live performances for the group in over two years. This is great news for any fan of The Wallflowers as it means that they are starting to get back together and they seem to be getting things moving. Hopefully they are not just out to play a few shows but are back working on a new album. Anyway, here are the dates. I hope that they are stopping by somewhere close to you.

Date - Time - Venue - City
Oct 7 2007 - 7:15P - BayFest - Mobile, Alabama
Oct 18 2007 - 10:00P - 9:30 Club - Washington DC, Washington DC
Oct 19 2007 - 8:00P - Keswick Theatre - Glenside, Pennsylvania
Oct 20 2007 - 9:00P - Borgata Music Box - Atlantic City, New Jersey
Oct 21 2007 - 7:30P - Somerville Theatre - Somerville, Massachusetts
Oct 22 2007 - 8:00P - Highline Ballroom - New York, New York
Oct 27 2007 - 8:00P - Dream Catcher at Viejas - Alpine, California
Oct 28 2007 - 7:30P - The Grand Cabaret, Pala Hotel & Casino - Pala, California
Nov 7 2007 - 7:30P - Park West - Chicago, Illinois
Nov 8 2007 - 8:00P - Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort - Mt. Pleasant, Michigan
Nov 10 2007 - 8:00P - The Pabst Theatre - Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Nov 11 2007 - 8:00P - The Fitzgerald Theatre - Minneapolis, Minnesota


Jimmy Eat World's New Single "Big Casino"

It's time to give you guys a little update on Jimmy Eat World's new album, Chase This Light. Still scheduled for an October 16th 2007 released, they just recently announced their new single to be "Big Casino". You can listen to it on their currently under construction new website or download it on Itunes. When you pre-order the new album, you will also receive two bonus tracks when the album is released, "Take 'Em As They Come" and an acoustic version of "Dizzy".

The track listing for the album is as follows:
1. Big Casino
2. Let It Happen
3. Always Be
4. Carry You
5. Electable (Give It Up)
6. Gotta Be Somebody's Blues
7. Feeling Lucky
8. Here It Goes
9. Chase This Light
10. Firefight
11. Dizzy

There is a great opportunity from Ticketmaster when you pre-order the new album. You will receive a password to buy Jimmy Eat World concert tickets for their 2008 tour before they go on sale to the public.

Jimmy Eat World also announced their 2007 Fall Tour which is as follows:
9/29 - Queen Creek, AZ - Schnepf Farms(The Edge Radio Show)
9/30 - Redlands, CA - Greek Amphitheater
10/2 - Santa Cruz, CA - The Catalyst
10/3 - Davis, CA - Freeborn Hall
10/4 - Reno, NV - Grand Sierra
10/6 - Salt Lake City, UT - Utah State Fair Park
10/7 - Missoula, MT - Wilma Theater
10/8 - Calagary, AB - MacEwen Hall
10/10 - Vancouver, BC - Commodore Ballroom
10/11 - Seattle, WA - Showbox Showroom
10/12 - Bellingham, WA - Performing Arts Center
10/14 - San Francisco, CA - The Filmore
10/16 - Los Angeles, CA - The Wiltern
10/18 - Anaheim, CA - House of Blues
10/19 - San Diego, CA - House of Blues
10/20 - Las Vegas, NV - The Joint

According to their website there are also more dates to be announced in the next few weeks.

That is about all I can tell you about Jimmy Eat World for now. I would just like to say how much I love the new single, "Big Casino". If this song is any indication of how good the album will be, I will be a very happy man. I will leave the complete analysis of the song for the full album review. Since they don't have the real video made for the song yet, I'll leave you with a live version of the song. Be sure to go to www.jimmyeatworld.com to listen to the studio version.


Collective Soul - "Afterwords" Album Review

Collective Soul's new album Afterwords was released on August 28th on Itunes and at Target. Unfortunately for me, my digital music store of choice, Rhapsody, does not have the new album. So I just decided to listen to the new album in it's entirety at CollectiveSoul.com where if you click on the boom box on the table in the group picture you can control each track. I was thinking of buying the album at Target but the listing on Target.com says that the album is 31.98 and will be released September 5th. You would think that if a great band like Collective Soul provided you with an exclusive opportunity to sell their new album that they wouldn't mess it up this badly. Hopefully they recognize their mistake soon and fix it before they lose out on potential sales.

This is the first album I have reviewed in a while but I decided that anything by Collective Soul is worth reviewing and at the very least giving a listen to. The album has eleven new tracks including their newest single, "Hollywood". The run time for the album comes in at just over 40 mins, a fairly short album with an average song time of about 3:40. This is their first studio album since Youth was released in November of 2004. The album kicks off with "New Vibration", a song with that classic Collective Soul sound, a solid guitar riff and Ed's signature voice. Should become a concert favorite similar to "Counting The Days" was on their last few tours. The next song is one of my all time favorites from Collective Soul, "What I Can Give You". It was one of those songs for me that I just had to listen to it over and over, and made it pretty tough for me to get through the whole album so that I could review it. It doesn't quite have the epic sound of "Run" or "The World I Know" but it comes pretty close.

It is tough to follow that up but the album continues with "Never Here Alone", a fun song with an upbeat tempo and a message of putting the pain of yesterday behind you and looking forward to the future. Next up is "Bearing Witness", also one of my favorites from this album. They slow it down a little bit and create a great love song that is not for everyone. The great thing about Collective Soul is that it is a band that draws in all kinds of fans with their broad range of appeal. They attract fans of hard rock with songs like "Where The River Flows" and "Heavy" and the more soft rock fans with "Needs" and "Run". The Fifth track, "All That I Know" was one of the songs that they played when I went to their last concert. It really is a great concert song and they had the whole crowd singing the "Do Do Do Doot Doot Doot Doot Doot Doot Doot Doot Doot Doot Doot Doot Do". It a memorable song that can put a smile on your face every time you hear it. "I Don't Need Anymore Friends" is the next track and a unique one at that. Front man Ed Roland takes a back seat on this track as lead guitarist Joel Kosche sings his heart out. The song itself isn't anything mind blowing but Joel does a good job taking on the lead vocal job. Placed in the middle of the album it gives the album as a whole a nice break and welcome change for any Collective Soul fan. The seventh track, "Good Morning After All", is the longest one on the album coming in at 4:23. This song about God and hope is a nice addition to the album.

Yes, you guessed it. "Hollywood", the eighth song on the album is next. It's one of those made for radio songs that they really did a good job on. It's catchy and sure to be a crowd-pleaser just as "Better Now" was for "Youth". With only three songs left on the album, they give you one more foot tapper, head nodding, song before the slow it down with the last two songs. "Persuasion Of You" has a nice chorus but probably my least favorite song on the album. It's not a song that I would skip over but I think that the verses just fall a little flat. They bounce back with "Georgia Girl", a song where everything just seems to fit perfectly together. They add the sweet sounds of the piano in this one and it reminds me of how well the violins fit into "Needs". They finish out the new album with "Adored", a great song to finish off a far from disappointing album. A beautifully written love song is the way that all good albums should end and this album did just that.

To be honest, I wasn't really sure what to expect from this album. I got a taste of it at their concert this summer but wasn't sure if Collective Soul still had it in them to put out another solid album. Clearly, I should not of doubted them as they made a great album that, if I ever make it out to Target, I will surely pick up. Undoubtedly, I had my favorites in this album but I have to give them a lot of credit for making 11 more than solid songs. I have a feeling that a lot of these songs will grow on me the more I listen to it. It is clear that Collective Soul has been on the decline as far as mainstream popularity but I hope that all fans of this band give this album a chance because I can't see how you could be disappointed by an impressive effort like this.

I give "Afterwords" four stars out of five and hope that you give it a listen. Thanks for reading the review and hope you liked it.


Recently Discovered Songs - Top 10 Songs You Should Know Playlist

Lately I have been listening to a lot of music, most of which I never heard before. A lot of it has been from some of my favorite artists, but some have just been random songs that I have come across. I have been going through some old albums as well as some new ones and I decided to make a new playlist with some of my new favorites.

I would just like to make a note of Dishwalla, a band that I recently rediscovered and started to listen to them extensively. Know most for their classic radio hit, "Counting Blue Cars", they are a band that is much deeper then their one hit wonder status. If you happen to like "Coral Sky", which is in this playlist, I suggest you check out more of their latest album, which is self-titled. Some of my favorites from that album are "Above The Wreckage", "Collide" and "40 Stories". If your more of a fan of their older music you should definitely check out their Live... Greetings From The Flow State album. Well, that's it for this week. Hope you enjoyed it.

Top 10 Songs You Should Know - Week 20 - August 20-26 2007
1. Goo Goo Dolls - Big Machine
2. Dishwalla - Coral Sky
3. The Smashing Pumpkins - Neverlost
4. Big Head Todd and The Monsters - Bittersweet
5. Hootie & The Blowfish - Old Man & Me
6. Death Cab For Cutie - Photobooth
7. Better Than Ezra - Heaven
8. Depeche Mode - Policy Of Truth
9. Bush - Letting The Cables Sleep
10. The Wallflowers - Here In Pleasantville

Here's the link for the whole playlist: Recently Discovered Songs

Looking for more playlists? We've got plenty.


Collective Soul's New Album "Afterwords"

Collective Soul is still alive and kicking. One of the most popular rock bands of the 90s, they scored big hits with "Shine", "Heavy", "Run", "The World I Know", "Precious Declaration", and "December". They have recently released their new single, "Hollywood", which is now available for download on Itunes. They also revamped their website at www.collectivesoul.com where you can listen to the new single for free. The website is looking a lot more professional then their previous one and it is a lot easier to navigate.

They are currently on tour with Live and Counting Crows promoting their new single as well as their new album, "Afterwords", to be released this month on the 28th. At their shows they are giving out music download cards to the first 300 attendees for the opportunity to download "Hollywood" for free. I had a chance to hear Collective Soul in concert with Live this summer and they were outstanding. They played some of their new album and it sounded pretty good. I am a pretty big fan of "Hollywood" and hopefully it will get some play time on the radio this fall. As soon as more information on the rest of the album becomes available I will be sure to let you know.