B.E.R. - The Night Begins to Shine

B.E.R. is a 'band' in the sense that a random group of studio musicians can be a 'band.' In 2005, a dude named Carl Burnett was assigned the task to come up with eighties-sounding song for the Warner Brothers in-house music library to use for any show that needed something like that in the background. Eventually in 2013-14, Burnett and two other dudes, Frank Enea and William J. Regan sharpened up the original song and produced a track called "The Night Begins to Shine." To identify themselves, they just referred to their 'band' by the acronym B.E.R. after their last names.

In 2014, the producer of the animated (and lest I say brilliant) TV show Teen Titans Go!, was looking for an '80s-themed song for an episode called "Slumber Party" and he used dug into the Warner Brothers library and used 10 seconds of "The Night Begins to Shine." Soon (the next season), the song became a favorite of one of the Teen Titans, Cyborg and the song blew up on YouTube. Next thing you know, the song charted up to number 23 on the national Billboards Top 100. Teen Titans Go! then did a four-episode arc on the song. Warner Brothers released a whole ep of songs by B.E.R. Famous people like Fall Out Boy and CeeLo Green did covers.

It's a brilliant song that veers on the right side of parody. Honestly it's better than any of the shlock that Asia, Survivor, Toto, or GTR came up with in the '80s. Bit it's also a cool thing that Burnett, Enea, and Regan get to be famous for 15 minutes (and hopefully make some bank) despite being anonymous muzak makers for Warner Brothers.

 

Angine De Poitrine - Live at KXEP (full performance)

Because it's 2026 and we need new shit. 

The new shit has arrived: 

Birthday Post: Fishmans - Long Season

 

Today, on my birthday, I am listening to the Long Season album by Fishmans, the Japanese band who specialized in a uniquely original mix of dub, electronics, pop, found sounds, and who knows what. The principal genius behind the band, Shinji Sato, unexpectedly passed away in March 1999, right after the release of Long Season (originally released in October 1998), so the music has now been forever suffused with a pall of what-might-have-been. By Long Season, the band was clearly at the peak of its powers, having released a series of absolutely stellar albums. But Long Season was the unexpected apotheosis of that trajectory--four musical movements arranged sequentially that take you on a short journey into the world of reverie. For a largely instrumental piece, the music is neither ponderous nor sombre -- there's a kind of elusive joy in it, but even without knowledge of lead author Sato's death, there's something about the four-chord structure that undergirds the track that feels ... weary. A joy of weariness, if you will. The sun shines bright in the song but imagine a trip across your city in car, your window open to sights and sounds and smells as neighborhoods pass in languid succession. Moments of experience are forgotten the moment you experience them. Nostalgia for the present. Perfect for a birthday....

 

 

If you'd like to dig deeper in the Fishmans universe, there is a great writeup at Pitchfork on Long Season here. In addition, someone at reddit has put together the most insane repository of Fishmans audio and video here.