It’s great that Spotify automatically generates a list of the 100 songs I listened to most during the year. I’m also happy with the big list of songs I compiled myself, the one that has practically every 2018 release I heard and liked. But, as with all of life, hard choices are ultimately required, and […]
I’ve already posted here about my “Your Top Songs of 2018” list from Spotify as well as the “2018 Radio” playlist I’ve spent the year assembling. Today’s post is about lyrics. The difference between a good song and a great one can be that one lyric that just stays with you. These are the lyrics […]
In addition to my own annual music lists, Spotify makes one for me (posted below). I love this about Spotify. It pays for the subscription all by itself. There’s another service called Last.fm that I have used for years that does something similar, collecting data on music you’ve streamed across a variety of platforms and […]
I listen to a lot of music. In the morning making Kiddo’s school lunch, on the train to work, in the office, on the train home, in the kitchen making dinner, in the car. I have music on almost all the time. I choose the music intentionally. Spotify has a mind boggling array of radio […]
It’s the next installment of the year in music, this blog’s annual exercise in working out its author’s need to categorize and share the songs and albums from the previous 12 months the he liked. It’s not for everyone. But you might find something useful. Today, EPs. EP stands for “Extended Play,” and it refers […]
I had never heard Lucy Dacus before “Addictions” was released as a single off her March 2 album, Historian (Matador). Her 2016 debut went right by me, so the restrained voice I was hearing, backed by this subtly grinding lead guitar and hippity-skippity percussion (and were those horns?) was an utter novelty. “Huh,” I thought. […]
My grown up music wheelhouse is the folk, Americana, and even country of lyrical crooners and brooders. But pop music is my DNA. Synthesizers are in my blood, and big, dramatic vocal hooks are in my bones. Blame it on the top 40 radio countdowns I devoted my weeknights to in junior high. Here are […]
2018 produced some really great edgy Americana albums from acts like Neko Case and Will Hoge. But there were also a handful of releases you would generally call “Americana” with less edge and more soul. Here are the four I spent the most time with. Amos Lee’s My New Moon (Dualtone) has some absolute gems […]
The Year in Music on Christmas Eve? You betcha. Today I give you five albums from 2018 that appealed to my country receptors. I don’t know what brought it on, but I endured a major country music phase in high school, and those years left behind a serious sensitivity for twang, particularly twang tinged with […]
The Year in Music rolls on with the first full-length albums I’m keeping from 2018. They’re both from pop-friendly punk acts that have never really tracked with me before. My friend Jeff sent me a Smoking Popes song in mid-October with a note that they’re a punk band he’d sort of lost track of. I’m […]
