Hey! an understated Michael Bublé song!

I've been listening to one of three Canadian stations that are programmed on my stereo and I tend to stay with this one the most because it's selection is so quirky. 96.7 WCHR has an eclectic format like Doug FM, but has radio DJ's who actually announce the song titles. 96.7b also tends seems to bridge a longer time span than 93.9 or 89.9. The playlist on 96.7 can go from Fergie to ELO to Heart and back again in the span of 30 minutes or less. Being a child of Adult Contemporary radio, it's a great station that generally doesn't require a lot of flipping around on my part. So I was sitting here obstensibly getting ahead with some work (it's just not happening tonight, *sigh*), when a song comes over the radio with lyrics like, "You're a carousel/you're a wishing well..."

I've heard the song before and thought the lyrics were kinda catchy, but I couldn't place the voice, so it's TO THE GOOGLE SEARCH BAR! and there it is: "Everything" by Michael Bublé.

Geoffrey and I first heard Michael Bublé when he made a guest appearance on the Barenaked Ladies Holiday album, "Barenaked for the Holidays." He was the non-Steve and non-Ed voice on "Elf's Lament," which once it gets stuck in your head, will rattle around in there, even when it isn't the Christmas/Kwanzaa/Hanukkah/Solstice season. It's a fun romp and he kinda sounds like Rory Bremner, who is a massive UK personality, but probably best known for being on BBCA reruns of Whose Line is It Anyway? Come think of it, he kinda looks like him too. But I digress...

Given how much I like swing and how much I enjoyed Harry Connick, Jr.'s soundtrack to When Harry Met Sally, and really got into Big Band and Swing music, I was kinda surprised to find myself not totally enamored with Bublé's full album releases. A song or two of his would show up on a wedding CD or on the radio and I would just sort of go, "Hunh." I do understand his appeal - he's cute and young (I will admit he does have a nice smile) and he's dating an actress (Emily Blunt) and he's been well-received all over the world. But somehow, his singles just haven't really done it for me. The songs themselves are usually not to blame, but the arrangements seem overblown. It's almost like he's trying too hard - and not having the fun he did being smarmy and lounge-lizard-like on "Elf's Lament."

"Everything" is still not the Michael Bublé from "Elf's Lament" - to me he kinda sounds like a more upbeat and pop-y Maroon 5/Stevie Wonder blue-eyed soul singer. I don't know if Bublé is the man to bring swing back to popular music, and maybe he's not even really trying. I am sure he would say that he is simply trying to share the music he loves with the world. Harry Connick, Jr. was also supposed to do herald the second coming of big band and swing, but he seemed to have lost favor with the radio stations once he got engaged to a Victoria's Secret model and women everywhere could no longer feel as though he was singing just to them (which incidentally coincides with the last big Harry Connick, Jr. single I really dug, which was '"I Just Whisper Your Name"). I guess it's one of the reasons I used to collect 45's and then Cassingles and now iTune's downloads - I don't have to like an artist's entire oeuvre.

Ultimately, I think this song is very sweet and I fully expect it to be a Hallmark "Cards with Sound" just in time for Valentine's Day or as an anniversary card. If this was still 1997, I would still expect this song to be part of the "Mad About You" soundtrack. Given that Bublé is about the same age as I am, I am not surprised that this song, which is one of the songs he's written or co-written on his latest album, has that sort of vibe to it. Here's the video, which is also sweet and funny:



^_^