Five Faves: Howard Stern Performances
The original "shock jock" and lifelong music lover has hosted some marvelous live performances over the years. Here are five of my favorites.
Five Faves is an ongoing listicle series presenting a collection of five of my favorites from a specific category—songs, albums, videos, books, movies, quotes—just about anything is fair game. This isn’t intended to be a definitive “best of” list but more of an in-the-moment list of things that have moved me or brought me joy.
Hey folks, I know it’s been a while, but life has been kinda busy for me lately. Since relocating to the UK to live—we arrived at our Airbnb in the Lake District on January 6th—we’ve been busy looking at houses and starting to work through the logistics of a new life in a new country. I’m pleased to say that earlier this week we had an offer accepted on a lovely house! Although it’ll take time—we’ve heard 12-18 weeks on the longer end and 8-12 weeks on the shorter end—we’ve now managed to secure both a surveyor (the house is 400 years old) and a solicitor and hopefully life will begin to calm down for us a little.
We cast a wide net in our search, covering almost 700 square miles, while managing to view a total of 18 properties over the course of ten days. The 17th property was the charm. Although we already had four other properties already on our short list, we knew we’d found the dream home. We forced ourself to do the the necessary due diligence by giving second viewings to two of our remaining top four, but we knew in our hearts that we’d found the one. Fingers crossed that everything works out, but at least we have two solid options if something falls through.
In this installment of Five Faves I’m covering a batch of my favorite live performances from the Howard Stern Show. Stern is arguably one of the greatest radio personalities the world has ever seen. After five years spent toiling in relative obscurity in the Hartford (1976 - 1979) and Detroit (1979 - 1981) markets, Stern accepted a job in Washington D.C. in March 1981 at which point his ratings began to soar. One year later Stern had landed at WNBC in New York City and although his outlandish and “obscene” behavior had begun in DC, it would continue to progress and later be deemed so extreme that he’d be fired from WNBC in September 1985. Two months later Stern signed a five-year contract with rival New York radio station WXRK; his show entered syndication in August 1986, initially in Philadelphia, and eventually grew to 60 markets. Stern would go on to have the highest-rated morning program in New York between 1994 and 2001 and ultimately gained a peak audience of 20 million listeners.
Many people, rightfully so, remember Howard Stern as the original “shock jock” due to the litany of racist, sexist and misogynistic and just plain offensive screeds that he spewed for much of his career. Indeed, between 1990 and 2004 the Federal Communications Commissions issued $2.5 million dollars in fines to owners of radio stations that carried Stern’s show. From 2004 onwards, his show has been carried on Sirius Satellite Radio, which is exempt from the FCC’s broadcast regulations. Stern has apparently toned down his behavior in the last five years, a mellowing that he credits to five years of intensive psychotherapy.
Personally, I’ve never listened to Stern’s show, or read his book Private Parts (or seen the movie); I’m really not that interested in his shtick or in supporting his retrograde views of the world. Having said that, I do credit him for hosting dozens of amazing live performances on his show over the years. Over the last decade, the audio and video quality of these performances has improved immensely and we no longer have to settle for blurry video and subpar audio. While these performances are, for the most part, far more restrained than the live female performances I shared last time, they are nonetheless engaging and compelling.
As usual, these are presented in alphabetical order by artist name. Happy listening, I hope one or all of these brings you joy!
Alanis Morissette - You Oughta Know
Twenty years after the release of her breakthrough album Jagged Little Pill, Alanis steps into Howard's studio and lays down an absolutely gorgeous acoustic version of her smash hit “You Oughta Know”. The ease with which Alanis belts this song out, albeit in a restrained yet powerful way, is a wonder to behold. Just two guitars and a voice - it doesn't get much better than this!
Brandi Carlile - Madman Across the Water
Howard refers to "Madman Across the Water" as arguably one of Elton John's best songs and, despite only hearing it for the first time through this 2021 performance, I'm inclined to agree. Outside of his bigger and more obvious hits, I'm not a huge follower of Elton John so my opinion should be taken with a healthy grain of salt, but this feels like one of the more mysterious and complex songs that Bernie Taupin ever penned for Elton. While "Tiny Dancer" and "Levon" were the album's big hits it's this track that drew me in the most when I sampled the album.
In terms of the performance, Brandi Carlile's powerful but effortless performance elevates the song to an almost spiritual level. The guitar work of twins Phillip John and Timothy Jay Hanseroth, who are well known for their two decades of work with Carlile, is just flawless, particularly during the last couple minutes in which they are mesmerizing. The string players are equally brilliant and the orchestration is gorgeous. A stunning performance.
Please feel free to share the Joy with anyone else you know that loves music! Because, after all, sharing is caring, right?
David Gray - Babylon
David Gray's fourth album, 1998's White Ladder stands as one of my favorite albums from what was a great year in music; it's an album I go back to regularly and there's not a bad track to be found. Similar to the Morissette track above, this rendition is stripped back to guitar and vocals but in this case it's really not that different from the original. The absence of the original's subtle bass and percussion provides space to appreciate Gray's voice which still carries the same emotional weight but has matured with age; he sounds marvelous.
Harry Styles - Sledgehammer
Harry Styles' cover of Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" is by far the most joyous of the five performances. While I've never really had much interest in One Direction's music, I've been a big fan of Styles' solo work, particularly his 2017 self-titled debut and 2023's Harry's House. For someone who's experienced massive success and fame for almost half of his life, Styles comes across as an extremely down to earth and charming guy, someone who clearly loves what he's doing. The sound quality and audio mix on this performance (as on the Carlile performance) is just amazing. The band is on point, particularly Sarah Jones on drums, and they lay down an awesome groove while provide beautifully delivered backing vocals for Styles' pitch perfect rendition of this Peter Gabriel classic. A joy to behold.
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Miley Cyrus & Metallica - Nothing Else Matters
Similarly to my limited experience of One Direction, I had very little experience of Miley Cyrus until earlier this decade. I had, of course, been aware of some of her biggest hits and the controversy surrounding some of her live performances, but I had her firmly slotted into the "teeny bop pop" category and really wasn't that interested in her music. And then, in October 2020, I saw the video of her live rendition of Blondie's Heart of Glass. My immediate reaction? When the fuck did Miley Cyrus turn into a rock goddess!?! She absolutely kicked ass with that performance and she immediately captured my attention. I dove down a YouTube rabbit hole and began finding numerous examples (her Glastonbury 2019 set and Zombie at Whisky a Go Go are worth checking out) of her wonderful performances and truly came to appreciate her talent.
There's so much to love about this performance, starting with Metallica frontman James Hetfield's admission of his fears around presenting the song to his bandmates followed by Cyrus' discussion of what the song meant to her when she first performed it at Glastonbury. In terms of the performance itself, Cyrus' lower register vocals are just so gloriously gritty and she’s able to retain that hard edge once she opens up later in the song. Hetfield, for his part, is clearly reveling in the moment, both appreciating Cyrus' vocals and delivering the perfect counterpoint with his harmonizing vocals. Once again, the band, as you'd expect for guys that have been playing together for four decades, is perfect. On a song that Elton John has called "one of the best songs ever written" (do yourself a favor and check that segment out), this is a performance that never fails to take my breath away.
As always, I’d love to hear what you thought about these picks. When you’re finished reading, listening and watching, please hop into the comments.
What are your thoughts on Howard Stern? Love him? Hate him?
Which one of these is performances is your favorite?
Were any of these artists, songs or performances new to you?
Were you particularly surprised or impressed by any of the performances?
Do you have a favorite Howard Stern performance? If so, drop a link!
Well, foist things foist, Mark (I'm afraid I'm channeling my spirit animal, Bugs Bunny, today!)....what an adorable little shanty you've found! Or, as Bugs' pal Daffy, would say, "An imposing pile!" Truly gorgeous, I must say, and worth waiting the x-amount of months for!
I know you've utilized your "Five Faves" before, but this brilliant subject on Stern's musical guests really caught my attention. I know I'm way behind on what he was doing in his (what I'm perceiving as his) heyday. When coupled with "Live From Darryl's House" (which I was far more likely to follow), it's all quite a bit of rare live performances to explore! Great idea, in other words, to plumb the depths of Howard's musical largesse!
Wow, Mark! Gorgeous house! I take it from your note to my post that everything worked out with it, logistically? Yeah, I suppose those 400 year old houses weren’t designed for routers and wifi — I imagine it can get through blocks of stone okay? :) Is it possible I could be jealous even after just moving into my own new, gorgeous, spacious home? Looks big enough for guests, should I make it out there one day (or to escape a crumbling country).
I grew up listening to Howard Stern. I was a teenage boy so liked his juvenile, sex-obsessed banter/skits. The movie version of his story is surprisingly sweet. He did apologize of sorts for his racist, sexist, shock-jock years, and has become a much better interviewer and empathetic listener. I had seen the Brandi Carlisle video before and it gave me goosebumps. It’s one of my top-3 EJ songs. I’m a huge fan of his first 5 or 6 albums. They are stone-cold classics.
All the performances are riveting. I was never a big Alanis fan, but that version blew me away. I think Miley Cyrus is one of the best interpreters of other people’s music of her generation. I’ve seen dozens of collaborations and covers and there’s a reason the greats are performing and recording with her. She’s the real deal.
The Harry Styles was super fun as well — it’s so clear how talented he is, and good looking and seemingly charming and like Alanis says, “It’s not fair!” I forgot who the 5th one was. I’m sure I loved it too.
Congrats again on the new house and on your Fabulous Five series!