open.spotify.com/playlist/…
“Cheap Regrets” - The Districts Looking through my Liked Songs playlist in Spotify and my iTunes library, I don’t know that I’ve ever listened to this band. Apparently this song is a departure from their usual sound. I really dig its blend of modern dance, classic disco, and indie rock.
“It Helped” - Yakima When I think of Scottish music, I generally have a particular sound in my head. While not all Scottish acts fit that sound, they often butt up against it.
Chart Week: January 15, 1983 Song: “Your Love Is Driving Me Crazy” - Sammy Hagar Chart Position: #27, 6th week on the chart. Peaked at #13 for two weeks in February/March.
One of the disappointments of the iHeart Radio Classic American Top 40 channel is that only so many of the old countdowns have been digitized and, thus, countdowns are often repeated. Sometimes I’ll hear the same one twice in a week or so.
I thoroughly enjoyed the CFP national championship game Monday night. Well, I enjoyed everything about it except a certain politician’s appearance before the game (I switched away just as L was yelling at me to get him off the screen) and how the game was an example of the biggest problem with college football today: four hours to play a game is ridiculous.
Anyway, the game itself was excellent. To remind you, my pick was LSU 31, Clemson 28.
What a weekend of sports! Hoops and football gave us plenty to discuss.
KU Hoops I guess Baylor had to win in Lawrence eventually, right? For a decade Scott Drew has been bringing ranked teams into Lawrence. Some years they kept it close until very late. A few years they probably should have won. But KU always made the plays in the last minute as the Bears wilted and left with yet another L.
Happy Friday. It is warm and rainy in Indiana, feeling more like April than January. I’m sure we’ll pay for this down the road.
open.spotify.com/playlist/…
“Texas Sun” - Khruangbin and Leon Bridges. What a lovely, interesting song, combining Khruangbin’s world music influences with Bridges’ old school soul sound. They have a four song EP set for release next month.
“Alien With a Sleep Mask On” - Ratboys. Oh hell yes, the first real banger of the year!
Time to share what I watched over the stretch from mid-November through New Year’s Eve. Although some holiday programming is included here, I’ve only included things that were new or unique to this year.
Pursuit of Happyness The first movie that S watched that I got pulled into during this stretch. I enjoyed this but, good God, it was sooooo freaking depressing. I like sad songs but movies that last two hours and are just constant downers are too much.
Time for a final 2019 wrap up, this time the books I read last year. To start quick summaries of the final four books I read in December.
Killing Floor - Lee Child I’ve seen the Jack Reacher books in airport bookstores, at grocery stores, and in other locations over the years that made me dismiss them as just another pulpy, low-brow series. Sometime this fall, though, I read in a rather respectable publication that Lee Child’s series was actually quite good.
My busy-ness, sickness, and laziness over break kept me from posting my thoughts about The Rise of Skywalker and Eddie Murphy hosting Saturday Night Live. Allow me to rectify…
Skywalker I saw The Rise of Skywalker the Sunday before Christmas with two of my brothers-in-law. I also saw The Force Awakens with them, and the local b-i-l of that duo saw The Last Jedi with me. So it was good company.
Before I get to the notes, a quick warning that if you still access this site via thebrannanblog.net address, that site name will be going away at the end of the month. Please update your bookmarks to reflect dsnotebook.me as the correct address.
We are back at it today. Well, kind of. M started at her normal time today, but they are going to their first semester classes for 20 minutes each then will be dismissed for the day at 11:15.
Wow, is it Friday already? Time to kick off the new year with some new tunes.
open.spotify.com/playlist/…
“All Is On My Side” - Sam Fender. Two weeks ago one of my brothers-in-music sent me a message saying that he was really craving some new War on Drugs music. Two days later this song dropped and I pointed out that his wish had been granted. Fender once again takes the TWOD sound and pops it up a bit.
Happy New Year, everyone!
We had our annual boring New Year’s Eve, with a twist. Although we stayed in, M had five friends over for the evening. As we were banishing them to the basement for the evening, S and I cleared out our liquor cabinet and beer fridge down there. It’s the first time we’ve ever done something like that. Although we were reasonably sure the items contained in each would not have been disturbed by M and her friends, we wanted to prevent anyone making a bad choice.
My January 1 stats are always wack, thanks to the flood of Christmas music I listen to each December. With it being a new year and new decade, I will adjust this time to show both my year/decade most listened to artists.
2019 Hatchie - 212 Middle Kids - 183 The War on Drugs - 177 Frightened Rabbit - 165 Prince - 154 Strand of Oaks - 150 Pete Yorn - 149 Sam Fender - 132 Bruce Springsteen - 127 Better Oblivion Community Center - 125 2010s Frightened Rabbit - 3024 The War on Drugs - 2316 Ryan Adams - 2137 Pearl Jam - 1583 The Clash - 1122 Radiohead - 880 The Beatles - 868 Wussy - 815 Crowded House - 814 Dum Dum Girls - 809 Complete stats available at my Last.
I love the turning of the calendar. A new year is an opportunity to look back on what you’ve experienced over the past 12 months while building anticipation for what is to come in the next 12. When the decade is rolling over, that just makes it more fun.
I have vivid memories of Christmas break 1979, watching various decade-end retrospectives on TV, hearing ads that pulled the arrival of the ‘80s into their copy, and getting very excited about the new year.
As my post yesterday said, we have closed out the family portion of our Christmas break. Here’s what we were up to over the last week.
Like every year, Christmas Eve was a day of manic getting ready. There was prepping as much food as possible for the brunch we were hosting the next day. That included detailed evaluations of what foods/beverages could spend a night in a cooler and what items needed to stay in the steady cool of the fridge.
youtu.be/e6QDVE67j…
“The Week Between” - Jonathan Coulton and John Roderick Our house has cleared out. Folks departed last night and this afternoon and now we’ve hit the lull after all the frenzy of the Christmas season. Perfect for listening to this song.
youtu.be/AYwCZqzrm…
Every Sample from Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique
I figure most of you are on alternate schedules this week. So here’s a bit of a different take on the Friday vid. This person has taken every song sampled on the Beasties’ legendary Paul’s Boutique album and IDed them then offered a snippet of each set against their use on the album. It’s a pretty fun listen if you are as into Paul’s Boutique as I am.
Last week was wild and wacky, which kept me away from my blogging duties. I’ll share some notes to try to get caught up before Christmas.
Family News I’m very much a creature of habit. I can adjust most of the time. But when things get too out of whack, I do struggle. Last week we had four different schedules for five days of school. That really messed with my head and I was never sure what day it was or where I was supposed to be.
youtu.be/yXQViqx6G…
“All I Want for Christmas Is You” - Mariah Carey This is right up my alley: a holiday music classic that just made chart history.
Twenty-five years after its release, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is currently the #1 song in the country.
Because of weird chart rules, it did not officially qualify as a charting single for years and years. But as those rules have been relaxed in the streaming age, “AIWFCIY” has consistently charted in recent years, peaking as high as #3.
There were some happenings around our house this weekend.
The big event was M’s first true high school dance on Saturday, her winter formal. As you would imagine, this has involved several weeks of preparations both for her attire and who she would attend the dance with. And then the direct prep dominated our Saturday morning and afternoon when she got her nails and hair done.[1] She ended up inviting three friends over to get ready at our house then take pictures and ride to the dance together.
This was not a classic year for music. There were only a couple albums that I listened to more than a few times, only one of which that I went back regularly over the course of several months. There were long stretches in the year when there were no new songs that I was crazy about. But there were still enough solid songs for me to make my annual list.