Work and family life

The Ronettes, ‘Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes’

PHILLES, 1964

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More a Spanish Harlem street gang than a girl group, the Ronettes were pop goddesses dressed as Catholic schoolgirls gone to hell and back. Phil Spector builds his Wall of Sound as his teen protégée (and future wife) Ronnie Spector belts “Be My Baby” and “Walking in the Rain,” while songs like “I Wonder” and “Baby, I Love You” ache with hope for a perfect love that always seems to be impossibly ideal and just within arm’s reach.

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Marvin Gaye, ‘Here, My Dear’

TAMLA/MOTOWN, 1978

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It’s one of the weirdest Motown records ever. Marvin Gaye’s divorce settlement required him to make two new albums and pay the royalties to his ex-wife – the sister of Motown boss Berry Gordy. So Gaye made this bitterly funny double LP of breakup songs, including “You Can Leave, But It’s Going to Cost You.” When he asks “Somebody tell me please, tell me please/Why do I have to pay attorney fees?” it’s one of the most strangely transfixing soul-music moments of all time.

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Bonnie Raitt, ‘Nick of Time’

CAPITOL, 1989

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After being dumped by her previous label, blues rocker Bonnie Raitt exacted revenge with this multiplatinum Grammy-award winner, led by an on-fire version of John Hiatt’s “Thing Called Love” and the brilliant title track, a study in midlife crisis told from a woman’s perspective. Producer Don Was helped her sharpen the songs without sacrificing any of her slide-guitar fire. And as Raitt herself pointed out, her 10th try was “my first sober album.”

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Harry Styles, ‘Fine Line’

COLUMBIA, 2019

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Harry Styles achieved pop greatness with One Direction, but he got even deeper on his own. On Fine Line, he stakes his claim as one of his generation’s most savagely imaginative musical minds. Styles breathes in the 1970s California sunshine of his heroes — Joni Mitchell, David Bowie, Stevie Nicks — with soulful breakup songs. As he explained, “It’s all about having sex and feeling sad.” Yet the music is drenched in starman joy: the ‘shroomadelic guitar trip “She,” the dulcimer-crazed “Canyon Moon,” the Number One juicy-fruit beach orgy “Watermelon Sugar.”

"What Are You Up To

"What Are You Up To" (Korean: 뭐해; RR: mwohae; stylized "What are you up to") is a song by South Korean singer Kang Daniel. It was released on July 25, 2019 by Konnect Entertainment and distributed by Sony Music Korea. The song serves as the lead single from his debut EP Color on Me with lyrics co-written by Kang and resulted in his first music show win as a soloist on KBS2's Music Bank on August 9, 2019.^[1]