A slow music week for me, so this week’s list will be more oldies than…uh, newies?

“let down” – Paris Jackson
When I first heard this I had no idea who Paris Jackson was. Or, more correctly, I did not remember. Then I heard it again and the DJ on SiriusXM noted she was Michael’s daughter. Mind blown. Not what I would have expected from The King of Pop’s kid. Maybe it is just sharing a title with a track off of OK Computer, but I hear a definite Radiohead vibe to the music that backs her up, which really makes this track work for me.

“All Around You” – Joensuu 1685
More great space rock from Finland.

“Everybody Everybody” – Black Box
I read this review of the horrible way the music industry treated Martha Walsh this week. C+C was pretty good, but this was always my favorite Walsh-fronted track from the early ’90s.

“Don’t Let Him Know” – Prism
This has been kicking around in my potential Friday Playlist songs list for months, and I kind of forget why. I know it showed up in either the extras or the comments of a The Number Ones post at some point. Pretty sure that was because it was written and produced by Jim Vallance and Bryan Adams, before they became a songwriting tour de force a few years later. It’s a pretty solid song, perfect for where pop-rock was in 1981.

“Red Eyes – Live” – The War on Drugs
TWOD released their first-ever live album, Live Drugs, today. It focuses on songs from their past two albums, so I picked the one that was my favorite song of the 2010s to share with you. More importantly, it sounds like they are well into their next studio album and there’s a decent chance we will get it sometime in 2021.

“Rock With You” – Michael Jackson
We’ve got his daughter, might as well play one of Michael’s songs, too. One of my brothers in music, E-bro in ATX, shared a little thought experiment he did with his wife and his adult daughter. They discussed what if, because Michael was likely a horrible person who did horrible things to children, you could only listen to three songs from his catalog again? Pick three and discard everything else he recorded.

He shared this with me over a year ago, and I’m still struggling with it. “Billie Jean” or “Beat It”? Or both and cut “The Way You Make Me Feel”? Do I pick a Jackson 5 track instead of a solo track?

And which song from Off the Wall do I choose? Most days I think I would pick this, which is Michael and his purest and happiest and most normal, which would help to tamp down the knowledge of who he became. This is also one of the greatest videos ever.