Holiday Tunes Links
A couple articles about Christmas music to share. First, the Legend himself, Darryl McDaniels, aka DMC, talks about the surprising RUN-DMC holiday classic, “Christmas In Hollis.” I say surprising because an awful lot of people scoffed when it appeared on the first A Very Special Christmas album next to songs by Madonna, Springsteen, Mellencamp, U2, and Whitney. “That’s not Christmas…
Favorite Songs Of 2013, #7
7 – “Royals” – Lorde What a run. I first heard of Lorde late last year (iTunes tells me I added “Royals” to my library on Jan. 26, 2013). Then, the novelty of a sixteen-year-old New Zealander making interesting music was enough to get her some attention. By spring all the cool music websites were in love with her. Come…
Favorite Songs Of 2013, #8
8 – “Diane Young” – Vampire Weekend Modern Vampires of the City is getting a lot of Album Of The Year run. While I liked it a lot, too, I may be one of the few who liked their last album, Contra, more. It was tough to pick a favorite track from this fine collection. But this song’s frenetic tempo…
Favorite Songs Of 2013, #9
9 – “I Don’t Know How” – Best Coast As I wrote when I first shared the video for this song last month, singer Bethany Cosentino drives some critics nuts with her repetitive lyrics. But I love her. And I love how this song begins as a droning, (indie rock) torch song and then gains (false?) confidence through the middle…
Favorite Songs Of 2013, #10
Here we go. The top 10, one per day for the next two weeks. Enjoy. 10 – “Amsterdam” – Gregory Alan Isakov. Most gorgeous song of the year. That final verse, “Oh churches and trains…” Mercy! You can have your Mumford and Sons. I’ll take Isakov for beautiful, warm, country-tinged neo-folk.
Favorite Songs of 2013, 20-11
My Favorite Songs Lists are always works in progess. Each January I start a new list in iTunes called XX Favs, where XX = that year. As I listen to music over the next 11 months or so, I toss my favorites into it. A few times during the year I’ll scan the list, delete songs that no longer delight…
Seasonal Sounds
The era of cheap and easy streaming music makes it easy for anyone to assemble a pretty nifty playlist for the holidays. However, you need to go beyond just your favorite songs. You need to dive into Christmas albums and build sets that can be spun for hours as the soundtrack for your parties, dinners, and Christmas morning celebrations. The…
Not So New Wave
There’s no real way to tease this, other than to suggest you go look at it. New Wave Artists Aging Gracefully Well, not all of them are aging gracefully. Be on the lookout for: Boy George (!), Tears For Fears (???), and Simon LeBon (WTF). I think it’s safe to say that Pete Burns has had the most profound change…
American(s) Music
Note: I’ll kick off my look back at the music of 2013 later this week. Here’s an appetizer about music in, but not of, 2013. I forget what the motivation was, but for some reason last night I decided to check and see when season two of The Americans was supposed to start. Unofficially, I found early February. Which is…
Old = Good But Never Great. Pearl Jam Lightning Bolt Review
For some reason it’s been very hard to write up my thoughts about Pearl Jam’s Lightning Bolt. Not because I don’t like it; I do. Not because it follows the same basic formula the band has been using for nearly a decade; that is true but that doesn’t make it indistinguishable from the last two albums. Not because there’s nothing…