Are you a sucker, like us, for pop songs? Before you become a quivering mass of artificially imposed emotionality, detox now by joining us at singer Frank Sinatra’s home from 1954 to 1995 beside the 17th fairway of Tamarisk Country Club in Rancho Mirage CA. With the help of a special friend, writer Marcel Proust, we will break down why pop songs do what they do to us. Marcel, you have the mic.
These tunes…offered me their secrets, ogled me, came up to me with affected or vulgar movements, accosted me, caressed me as if I had suddenly become more seductive, more powerful and more rich; I indeed found in these tunes an element of cruelty; because any such thing as a disinterested feeling for beauty, a gleam of intelligence was unknown to them; for them physical pleasures alone existed…But while I was humming softly to myself the notes of this tune, and returning its kiss, the pleasure peculiar to itself which it made me feel became so dear to me that I would have left my father and mother, to follow it through the singular world which it constructed in the invisible…Although such a pleasure as this is not calculated to enhance the value of the person to whom it comes, for it is perceived by him alone…I felt myself more powerful, almost irresistible. It seemed to me that my love was no longer something unattractive, at which people might smile, but had precisely the touching beauty, the seductiveness of this music…suddenly grown intimate.
Discography in progress
Cairo FM (2026), Alewya
Don’t Look Any Further (2026), Meshell Ndegeocello
Summer Skin (2026), Desire
Touch Touch (2026), Haute & Freddy
Solid (2025), Cut Copy
Alice in Orchidverse (2024), Jane Paknia and Hagop Tchaparian
Bloom (2024), Maribou State
Caroline (2024), Baby Rose
Clementine (2024), Yannis and the Yaw
Distrust the Magician (2024), Unessential Oils
Glades and Avenues (feat. Theodore) (2024), Equitoriale
Out of Sight (2024), Jim Noir
Reason Why (2024), Sophie
Run! (2024), Willow
Safe and Sound (2024), Parcels
Triangular Girl (2024), Pearl & The Oysters
Under the Sun (2022), Lady Wray
Got Me Worried (2021), Django Django
Dis Generation (2016), A Tribe Called Quest
Empire State of Mind (2009), Jay-Z and Alicia Keys
Wake Up (2006), Clara Hill
Such Great Heights (2003), The Postal Service
Check the Rhime (1991), A Tribe Called Quest
True (1983), Spandau Ballet
Rock Lobster (1978), The B-52s
Float On (1977), The Floaters
Sail On, Sailor (1973), Beach Boys
I’m Eighteen (1970), Alice Cooper
Glowing (1969), The Rationals
Theme from Valley of the Dolls (1968), Dionne Warwick
Darlin’ (1967), Beach Boys
Try to Remember (1964), The Brothers Four
Manhattan (1959), Blossom Dearie
A Fine Spring Morning (1957), Blossom Dearie
acknowledgment
Morning Becomes Eclectic, KCRW, Santa Monica
photo credit
Heather Thatcher, driver of getaway car
rev. September 1, 2026