Tuesday, December 29, 2020

Top 20 Songs of 2020, Part 2

 And now we get to the meat of the matter. Here are my Top 10 Songs for 2020, from #10 down to #1.


10. Ayreon - "This Human Equation" Ayreon - This Human Equation

Ayreon is essentially Dutch multi-instrumentalist Arjen Anthony Lucassen with like a million guest singers and musicians. This is a cut from his latest double-album rock opera, Transitus. It finds Simone Simons, the lead vocalist of Epica, stealing the show as The Angel of Death, as she and her Furies try to work out the puzzle that is humanity. Note that The Narrator, whom you hear at the beginning of the track, is none other than Doctor Who's Tom Baker.


9. Tame Impala - "Lost in Yesterday" Tame Impala - Lost in Yesterday

I can't say I was blown away by this Australian indie rock band's latest album, The Slow Rush. But I found this particular song to be one I couldn't get out of my head. It's got such a nice groove to it.


8. Ayreon - "Hopelessly Slipping Away" Ayreon - Hopelessly Slipping Away

Two songs later, and we're back in Transitus. In this track, we find the ghost of our hero Daniel trying desperately to make contact with his lover Abby, as she contemplates taking her own life. They can sense one another's presence, but can't actually communicate. Cammie Gilbert of the Houston doom metal band plays Abby, while Swedish metal vocalist Tommy Karevik (vocalist for bands such as Seventh Wonder and Kamelot) gives voice to the part of Daniel. 


7. Best Ex - "Good at Feeling Bad" Best Ex - Good at Feeling Bad

I have loved Best Ex (formerly known as Candy Hearts) and their singer Mariel Loveland for a long time, and a pair of their tracks made my Top 30 Songs of the 2010s list at the end of last year. This is the title number from their latest EP, and it's a song that would make Stephin Merritt himself feel proud -- and depressed of course. 


6. Nada Surf - "Live Learn and Forget" Nada Surf - Live Learn and Forget

This is the standout track for me from this band's excellent new LP Never Not Together, and it's another song where the lyrics won me over as much as the music itself. If I tried to tell you how many times I've had to learn life lessons over and over, you wouldn't even believe it. But maybe you would, because maybe you do that too?


5. Leslie Mendelson - "The Hardest Part" Leslie Mendelson - The Hardest Part

OK, we're gonna do this whole female singer/songwriter thing one last time in 2020 with this excellent track from hometown girl Leslie Mendelson. I just love the guitar in this song, and Leslie's voice is perfect as well. I don't care what you say, folk gals rock.


4. Off Road Minivan - "It's Harder to Make It Below Third" Off Road Minivan - It's Harder to Make It Below Third

This track is from Swan Dive, the debut album of this alternative rock band from Red Hook, NY. They're another band I was unfamiliar with before this year. This is pretty much a perfect alt rock track. The guitar line is true, and the chorus has a hook that even Mike Tyson would admire.


3. Nightwish - "How's the Heart" Nightwish - How's the Heart

Finnish symphonic rockers have become my favorite band of the modern era, and this is the standout track from their latest LP Human. :II: Nature. It has everything I love about this band -- a standout vocal from Floor Jansen, some nice Celtic pipes from Troy Donockley, and a nice rock beat from the rest of the band.


2. The Birthday Massacre - "Enter" - The Birthday Massacre - Enter

Here's another song with a great hook by Canadian gothic alt rockers The Birthday Massacre. They seem to find a way to place at least one or two of these songs on every LP. I knew the first time I heard this song it was going to make this year's Top 20 list.


1. Jeff Rosenstock - "***BNB" - Jeff Rosenstock - ***BNB

Long Island rocker Jeff Rosenstock is many things: Clever, rude, funny, obnoxious -- and this song shows off all of those traits, as he extols the virtues of renting the rooms of strange people (in some cases, when they don't even know their place is being rented out). It ain't pretty, but it is a great track. And that's why it's my #1 Song of 2020.


Here's the whole YouTube playlist for my Top Songs of 2020, although as I said in Part 1 - they're great individually, but this year, they don't necessarily flow together quite as nicely as I'd like. Top 20 Songs of 2020


Monday, December 28, 2020

Top 20 Songs of 2020, Part 1

For some reason, I struggled with this list in 2020 a little more than I usually do. And I was gonna go and secretly expand it into a Top 25 list by doing five honorable mentions. But screw it. Let's just go for it.

Once again, I'm going to spread this list out over two posts. I'll be covering #'s 20-11 here, and #'s 10-1 in a second post later this week.

Note that these weren't necessarily singles. (In fact, probably none of them were.) They were just my 20 favorite songs of the year.

So here's Part 1 of my list, in reverse order:


20. Torres - "Two of Everything" Torres - Two of Everything

This isn't the first time singer/songwriter MacKenzie Scott (aka Torres) has made one of my Best Of lists. But this one is all about the lyrics, which is unusual for me. A lot of time, I love a song for years before the lyrics even sink in. This time, though, it's the story the song is telling that fascinates me, as Torres sings to her lover's (presumably male) lover, and sort of passive-aggressively taunts him, with questions like, "Does she also call you 'baby'?/You should know she calls me 'baby'." Heh. Poor bastard.


19. Mora Mothaus - "Toxic Snow" Mora Mothaus - Toxic Snow

I don't have a whole lot of information I can tell you about Japanese singer/songwriter Mora Mothaus. Her EP Overture to a Dream was actually the first album I listened to in 2020, and it stuck with me. This song is slow, hypnotic, and oh so cold. And also a little sad.


18. Seether - Dangerous" Seether - Dangerous

OK, I lied before. This one was actually a single, and a fairly successful one. I never really listened to this South African hard rock band before this year, and I was surprised I liked their 2020 LP Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum (which means "If you want peace, prepare for war" in Latin) as much as I did. The song has a nice undercurrent of menace to it, and the video is pretty sick (in a good way).


17. Alexia Avina - "Inner Garden" Alexia Avina - Inner Garden

This pretty, ethereal song is my favorite from the latest LP by Canadian singer/songwriter Alexia Avina. Now when I make my Top 20 Songs list, I do it based on how much I like the songs, not how nicely it fits together as a playlist. Unfortunately, this being the third song in the first four by a somewhat quiet female singer/songwriter, this time the first part of my playlist is a little draggy. Sorry about that. It really is a nice song, though.


16. Enter Shikari - "Modern Living" Enter Shikari - Modern Living...

Sorry guys, another fairly slow song. I've noticed that this album by British alternative rock band Enter Shikari is a bit divisive, at least on the Sputnik Music website. It's got a good rating (3.6/5), and it's getting significant action in the Top 10 Albums of the Year voting. But some people really hate it (and the band). Well, no matter. I can't tell you exactly what I like about this one - it's kind of obnoxious. But like it I do.


15. Psychotic Waltz - "Devils and Angels" Psychotic Waltz - Devils and Angels

Now this one picks up the pace. This is the opening track on the brand new LP by Californian progressive metal band Psychotic Waltz, their first new LP in 24 years. It's a reasonably heavy track, but with a good sense of dynamics that keeps it interesting throughout its 6-minute-plus run time.


14. Lisa Loeb - "Skeleton" Lisa Loeb - Skeleton

Oops, back to the whole chick singer/songwriter thing. What can I tell you, I'm a sensitive male of the 21st century who's in touch with his feminine side, and not at all a toxic male. Yeah, right. Anyway, I think this might be Loeb's best song since "Stay," not that anyone else noticed. This was actually released as a single also, although it didn't go anywhere. But I like it, and since this is my list ...


13. Haley Mary - "The Piss, the Perfume" Hayley Mary - The Piss, the Perfume

Now you might think, given the rest of this list, that this is yet another sensitive singer/songwriter track, but you'd be wrong. This one is actually a fairly raucous shitkicker of a number, by Hayley Mary, the lead vocalist of the Australian band The Jezebels. It's the title track from her first solo effort, an EP released early in the year.


12. Woods - "Just to Fall Asleep" Woods - Just to Fall Asleep

Brooklyn indie folk band Woods is another one of those outfits I just discovered this year, although they've been making albums for more than a decade now. This hypnotic little track probably would have finished higher on this list, except for a weird and abrupt ending. (So be forewarned). But it still deserves its place in my Top 20.


11. Echosmith - "Everyone Cries" Echosmith - Everyone Cries

OK, if ever there was a song that cemented my place in the Sensitive Male of the 2000s Hall of Fame, this is it. But I'm secure with my manliness, dammit! I am! Even if I like some of the same music as a fourteen-year-old girl, I'm secure, I tell you!


OK, that's it for the first half of my list. I have to go and have a good cry now. I'll see you later in the week.


Saturday, December 19, 2020

Top 10 Albums of 2020

 So...I'm all caught up on my work for today. (We'll ignore the big home study on my desktop for now...that doesn't count). I've got a snow scene up on my flat screen. I've got a Christmas playlist that would choke a horse on random play. (Which includes many of our favorite local Long Island artists. Just heard Hank Stone two songs ago, and there was some Backseat Devils and Jones Crusher on earlier. Ho, ho, ho!) 

So what better time to look back on this, the most strange of years, and give you my picks for the Top 10 Albums of 2020!

As to what constitutes an "album", my rules haven't changed here. It has to be a full-lengther, which has either 7 or more songs, or runs at least 30 minutes. It also has to be all by one artist -- no multi-artist compilations allowed. As has become my practice in a reluctant nod to the times, digital-only releases now not only qualify, they constituted the majority of new music I listened to this year. (Change sucks!) And as I pointed out last year, I really only consider studio albums for this -- no live or best-of comp albums.

Without further ado, here, in reverse order, are this year's picks.


Top 10 Albums of 2020:

10. Ayreon - Transitus

Ayreon is a progressive metal project that includes about a zillion guest musicians. It was created and is headed by Dutch multi-instrumentalist Anthony Lucassen. Like all of the Ayreon LPs, this album is a rock opera, and like most of them, it's a double album. I'll be honest, there are weak spots here, but they're more than compensated for by the high points. While the leads are decent, in a lot of ways, Transitus is stolen by some of the secondary characters, especially Epica lead singer Simone Simons as The Angel of Death, Toehider vocalist Michael Mills as a talking (and singing) statue, and Long Island icon Dee Snider as the male lead's father. (In fact, Long Island is nicely represented here, as guitar god Joe Satriano also plays on the LP.) And while the idea of having a narrator is kind of hokey, it's sweetened a lot by the casting -- The Narrator is played by none other than the longest-serving Doctor Who actor, Tom Baker. Yeah, the story is pretty mediocre. But the music is lush, so who cares? 

9. Sufjan Stevens - The Ascension

This pick is a little controversial, as a lot of Sufjan fans were divided over the merits of this LP, especially in comparison to his previous effort, 2015's Carrie and Lowell. I get it, and I agree in a way -- Carrie and Lowell is probably a stronger album artistically. Unfortunately, with its themes of mental illness and child neglect, it's also about as much fun as visiting a sick friend in the hospital. For me, The Ascension, with its mild and tasteful electric stylings, is a far more enjoyable LP, and one I'm more likely to keep coming back to. It takes new age music to another level.

8. Woods - Strange to Explain

Woods is a Brooklyn-based outfit that combines elements of rock, folk and psychedelic music. Depending on who you listen to, Strange to Explain is anywhere from their ninth to their eleventh studio album. Suffice it to say these guys have been playing together for awhile, and it shows. I found it to be the kind of LP where you can just close your eyes for a bit and let the music carry you away, which is a good thing. I'm sorry I was never aware of these guys before this year.

7. The Kenn Morr Band - Open Field

I've been following Kenn and his band since the mid-'90s, when he shared the (very tiny) stage of the Crescent City Cafe in Floral Park, NY with artists like Crystal Rose, Dave Isaacs, Chris Peters, Frank Walker and of course Denise's band The Slant. (He's long since moved to Connecticut, but he'll always be a Long Islander in my heart.) He's put out a lot of great music over the years, but this LP is one of his best. As always, the music is gentle and optimistic, anchored by Kenn's deep, somewhat gruff vocals and the band's elegant musicianship. It's always nice to see old friends do well. In this case, Kenn and the gang have outdone themselves.

6. Psychotic Waltz - The God-Shaped Waltz

I somehow missed this California prog-metal band during their heyday in the early-to-mid '90s. I guess it was because I wasn't listening to much (any) prog metal in those days - I was mostly listening to indie college and then local music. Anyway, they're back now after a 24-year hiatus, with an album that just creates a maelstrom of sound. Now I'm going to have to go back over their back catalog. Thanks, guys.

5. Borg - Woodland

I discovered this solo instrumental Swedish Renaissance/Medieval music project earlier this year when somebody entered this album in a folk music contest I was running on the Sputnik Music website. Jacob Ovgren (aka Borg) actually put out three different albums this year, but this one was far and away my favorite. It evokes images of woodlands (duh!), wedding feasts and king's halls. Good stuff.

4. Nightwish - Human. :II: Nature.

Ok, let's just admit from the outset that this is the stupidest album title of the year, and that the album isn't as good as 2015's Endless Forms Most Beautiful. But given that, this Finnish symphonic metal band still manages to fly to great heights here, with tracks like "Music," "Ad Astra," and especially the flawless and exciting "How's the Heart." If live music ever gets to be a thing again, I'm going to have to find a way to catch these guys. They've become my favorite band of the modern era.

3. Nada Surf - Never Not Together

I haven't listened to this New York-based alternative rock band since their debut album High/Low in 1996, on which they had a minor novelty single called "Popular." I don't know if I've ever even given them a second thought since then. But based on this album, wow, have I been missing out. Every year, there are LPs I check out more or less just for the hell of it that blow me away. This was one of those. It's a little bit of alt rock perfection.

2. Agnes Obel - Myopia

I first learned about this classical folk artist this year, thanks to the Sputnik Music Song of the Day contest. Every month, I hear a lot of artists I'm indifferent to or actively dislike on the SOTD list. But in the pile of rubble, every so often, I also find a gem. Agnes Obel is one of them. She makes me think of a Danish version of Kate Bush for the 2020's. There are some truly beautiful songs on here. And to listen to a lot of her fans, Myopia isn't even necessarily her best work. No matter. It totally works for me.

1. Cut Copy - Freeze, Melt

The first time I became aware of this Australian Synth-pop band was in 2017, when their excellent LP from that year, Haiku From Zero, just missed my Top 10 list. (It was just nudged out by LI's own Neil Cavanagh!) But this year, there was no holding these guys back. This is the kind of album all of you 80's fans out there will love. (Denise certainly does.) Trust me when I tell you there's not a weak track on this album. Which is why this LP is my #1 Album of 2020.

So in spite of the pandemic, musicians still managed to put a lot of good music out there in 2020. Which is as it should be.

I'll be back later this week to start my Top 20 Songs of 2020 list.

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Top 10 Local Albums of 2020

Well, it seems that every year I get earlier and earlier with my yearly Best-Of lists. I'm basically done with my listening for 2020, and probably because of the COVID, I listened to (slightly) fewer new albums this year than I did last year. This is a new phenomenon -- I usually promise myself I'm going to listen to fewer, but every year in the past, I've wound up listening to more. So anyway, not only am I ready to go with this list, but my Top 10 Albums and Top 20 Songs lists are also basically ready to go whenever I have time to write them up. (Although I'm toying with increasing the song list to a Top 25 this year. Maybe I'll just do five honorable mentions, to keep that 20 number consistent with years past.)

Once again, here are the rules: To be eligible, it has to be a full-length album of at least seven songs (unless there are one or more epic-length songs). No EPs allowed. It also has to be all by one artist -- no compilations. And this year, for the first time, partially because I got rid of my Post Office Box because of the virus and partially because I'm running out of physical space in my house, most of the albums I bought were digital copies instead of physical CDs. I've resisted going this route for years, but I suppose eventually it was inevitable.

As for the definition of the word "local", as always, I try to keep it very loose. For the purposes of picking a Top 10 Local Albums list, here's what I consider "local": 1. Long Island, for sure; 2. The five boroughs of NYC (especially Brooklyn, where a lot of Long Island bands have run off to); 3. Sometimes Jersey or a little ways upstate, if the mood takes me. (As I've said in the past, I'm not giving away money or anything, so I kind of get to make up the rules as I go along). Also, if a band or artist spent a decent amount of time living on and playing on Long Island or in the City in the past, they get to qualify, even if they've moved to another area of the country.

I'm sure that this was also COVID-related, but we had a lot fewer releases from our local indie artists (at least ones that I was aware of) than we have in years past. 

As I did last year, I'll be including a link to my favorite track from each album. And at the end of the list, I'll give you a link to a YouTube playlist that has them all. Anyway, here, in reverse order, are my Top 10 Local Artists of 2020:

Top 10 Local Albums of 2020

10. Deerheart - All Your Favorite Songs

This isn't the first time that local rocker Tom Ciorciari (aka Deerheart) has made this list. He's always had a great Springsteen/Petty/Mellancamp kind of vibe to him, and this album continues in that tradition. There were actually a number of contenders for my favorite song on this LP, but I'm going with this one: Deerheart - All My Better Years.

9. Binary Code - Memento Mori

Binary Code is a progressive metal band originally formed in Bergen County, New Jersey that now resides in Brooklyn, NY. They've got a sound that's powerful and maybe even a little bleak (making them the perfect band for this past year.) Sputnik Music has this listed this as their sixth full-length album, and who am I to argue? Binary Code - Even Death May Die.

8. Sufjan Stevens and Lowell Brams - Aporia

This LP finds transplanted Michigan native Sufjan Stevens teaming up with his stepfather Lowell Brams (of Carrie and Lowell fame) to deliver an album of transcendent ambient music that will soothe your spirit and expand your mind. Well played, gentlemen. Well played. Sufjan Stevens and Lowell Brams - Agathon

7. Blue Oyster Cult - The Symbol Remains

Who knew these guys still had an album this good in them? These guys have been rocking since the early '70s, and they've still obviously got a lot left in the tank. If live concerts ever become a thing again, I might have to finally go and check them out. Again, there were a lot of possible choices for my favorite track on this LP, but my dark heart is going with this one: Blue Oyster Cult - Nightmare Epiphany.

6. Off Road Minivan - Swan Dive

This is the debut LP from Dutchess County band Off Road Minivan, and it's a little bit of alt rock heaven. I'm hoping this is just the beginning of a long career. Off Road Minivan - It's Harder to Make It Below Third.

5. Nation of Language - Introduction, Presence

This is another debut full-lengther, this time by Brooklyn-based synth-popper Ian Richard Devaney, aka Nation of Language. This is a man who clearly loves the '80s and takes his inspiration from artists such as New Order and Joy Division. Nation of Language - On Division St.

4. Sufjan Stevens - Ascension

This follow-up to 2015's Carrie and Lowell has divided some of Sufjan's fans, as it's an album in a very different vein. It's more synth-heavy, more airy and less personal, which is just fine with me. I'm not going to claim that every track on here is a winner, but it's a strong enough LP to be a no-brainer to make this list. Sufjan Stevens - Video Game.

3. Woods - Strange to Explain

This is the eighth LP by this psychedelic lo-fi band from Brooklyn, and they've really outdone themselves on this one. It's a little folky, a little brassy, a little synthesized and a lot of fun. This is the kind of album I can safely just let myself get carried away with, and let the music just float me away. Woods - Just to Fall Asleep.

2. The Kenn Morr Band - Open Field

This former Long Islander (and now Connecticut resident) has released eight original LPs over the years (some of them solo efforts, some with his band), and this is one of his best. His gravel-voiced folk style is both soothing and uplifting, and never more so than on this release. In non-pandemic times, he still plays on Long Island at least once or twice a year, so whenever live music makes its comeback, I'd recommend checking him out. The Kenn Morr Band - Open Field.

1. Nada Surf - Never Not Together

I have to confess, I hadn't listened to this NYC-based alternative rock band in many years prior to 2020. But if this is an example of what they've been up to, it's time for me to go and check out their back catalog. It flat-out blew me away how much I enjoyed this LP, how consistent it is, and how many times I kept finding myself going to back to it throughout the year. It thoroughly deserves to be named my Local Album of the Year for 2020. Nada Surf - Live Learn and Forget.

So that's my list. If you'd like to listen to my favorite song from each LP as a playlist, you'll find it (from # 10 to #1, even though YouTube has it labeled oppositely) at Top 10 Local Albums of 2020.

I'll be back sometime within the next few days to post my overall Top 10 Albums of 2020 list. Meanwhile, there's supposed to be snow tomorrow, so be careful out there.


Sunday, December 6, 2020

Review of Runa's "The Tide of Winter"

 I posted this review on the Sputnik Music website an hour or so ago.


Review Summary: This LP is like a warm balm to soothe the hurts and scrapes of a particularly tough 2020.


2 out of 2 thought this review was well written

I really didn't intend to buy any new holiday music this year. 2020, bah humbug, and all that. But I broke down and reversed myself on that notion a week ago, when I heard that Blackmore's Night had a new Christmas EP out. And I fell off the anti-Christmas wagon entirely a day or so after that when I got an email from bandcamp, telling me that Runa had released a new holiday-themed LP.

Most of you guys aren't familiar with Runa. (I know this because I created their Sputnik Music page myself, and so far I'm the only one who has rated any of their albums.) But here's why so you should be:

Runa is a 5-piece Celtic pop band. Their bandcamp page says they're from Philadelphia, but their Wikipedia entry also says that some of the members are based in places like Nashville and Chicago, and that the members originally hail from Ireland, the USA and Canada. It doesn't matter much where they're from, though, because in normal times, they're one of these indie bands who make their living by being on the road almost non-stop, playing Celtic music festivals and other shows pretty much wherever they can get themselves booked.

As you might guess, artists like this are having a particularly hard time making a living right now, which is one of the reasons I decided to review them. (I haven't exactly been prolific lately.) Sting and Rihanna might have to sell a plane or something to make it through the pandemic, and I'm sure they're all sad about having to hole up in their mansions. But for these little touring bands, if they can't play in front of live audiences, their ability to put food on the table is pretty severely compromised.

So anyway, on to this album. I happen to like holiday music, and I've listened to a lot of it over the years. So most new Christmas LPs kind of go right by me with not much reaction. This one has stuck, however, and for two different reasons.

The first is the song selection. Yeah, there are a few of the usual familiar chestnuts on here, like "Silent Night," and "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," and that's all well and good. And they also include some tracks you might expect a band that has some familiarity with traditional folk music to choose, such as "Here We Come A-Wassailing" (as part of a medley with "Sussex Carol") and "Soul Cake."

What I like, though, is there are a lot of songs included that are rarely heard on most holiday albums, like "Christ Child's Lullabye," "Gaudete" and an a capella version of "Please to See the King." And even the most familiar songs are given unusual presentations. For example, just listen to the way they've funked up a well-known hymn like "O Come, O Come, Emanuel."

The second reason this album made an impression is simply that I've always loved this band's sound. Shannon Lambert-Ryan is one of those sweet-voiced Irish vocalists whose voice can melt butter. Add in some nice harmonies and a laid-back and tasteful musical backing from the rest of the band, and you've got a gentle and ingratiating holiday treat.

If you're one of those people who hate holiday music, I get it. And this isn't going to be the album for you. But for the rest of us, The Tide of Winter is like a warm balm to sooth the hurts and scrapes of a particularly tough year. I'm grateful that Runa took the time to record it, and I hope that enough people buy it that it helps them to make ends meet until they can do what they're meant to do - get back out on the road in front of a live audience again.


Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Saturday, December 5, 2020

November 2020 Song of the Day

 OK, here we go with November's exciting Song of the Day. And this month's list was especially scintillating, because I got to be the host. Can you feel the excitement? Yay! (OK, I'm ridiculous.)

For new readers, this blog entry refers to the monthly Song of the Day list on the Sputnik Music website. Each month, one user hosts the list and names a theme. Everyone then recommends songs in line with this theme, and people rate the various song recommendations. The list of November songs can be found at Sputnik Music Song of the Day - November 2020.

1. The theme for the month was Celestial Bodies - songs about the sun, the moon, the stars, etc.

2. I actually made three picks this month, because I'm a pick hog. (Although technically, the third one was a bonus pick.) My two regular picks were a song by Long Island's own Dave Isaacs (with harmonies by the lovely ladies of Buddha Box), "The Moon." Sticking with that moon theme, my second pick was an '80s classic, "The Killing Moon" by Echo & The Bunnymen (which had a late surge and almost won the month. But didn't.) And my bonus pick (one of the bonus picks for the month) was yet another iconic song from the '80s, "Under the Milky Way" by The Church. (Dave Isaacs - The MoonEcho & The Bunnymen - The Killing MoonThe Church - Under the Milky Way)

3. My highest rated song of the month was a 1990's classic, "Sadeness (Part 1)" by Enigma (Enigma - Sadeness (Part 1)).

4. However, this month's winner, in what became a close battle between a number of contenders, was "Moonage Daydream" by David Bowie (David Bowie - Moonage Daydream). (Bowie has been God on Sputnik, especially since his unfortunate passing. I found this to be a fairly middle-of-the-road Bowie song, but it's not all about me. Why, though? Why isn't it all about me?!)

5. We actually had 32 songs this month (thanks to the two bonus picks), 31 of which were available on YouTube. So here's the YouTube playlist: November 2020 Song of the Day YouTube Playlist.

This was actually one of my higher rated months as a whole since at least this past summer. There were some nice picks here, and not too many awful ones. 

Anyway, hope you had a good Thanksgiving month. Onwards to Holiday season!

Sunday, November 15, 2020

Favorite Artists, Part 11: About Blondie

It's taken me a awhile to get to this one -- I think I finished my listening a good month and a half ago. But that was just me being lazy, nothing to do with my love for this band. In fact, I think I'd go so far as to say that Blondie is probably my favorite '80s band. (Even if they did actually release their first four LPs at the end of the '70s, I always associate them with the '80s and the whole new-wave movement.) And they're probably tied with The Good Rats for being my favorite American band. (And ironically enough, I bought by first-ever Blondie album, Plastic Letters, on the same day I bought my first Good Rats album, Tasty. Of course, that's about all those two bands have in common.)

So why do I rank them so highly? It's not because they were all virtuoso musicians, although they certainly weren't bad. (Well depending on who you asked. I've heard some people trash them over the years. Haters gotta hate.) But I guess I love them for two reasons, neither of which will probably surprise you.

The first is songwriting. These guys have had so many great songs over the years, and I'm not talking about just the singles. And they've had great songs written in so many different styles -- this is a very playful, and prolific band. Some of that might be because it's not like just one, or even two of the band members wrote all of the songs. Deborah Harry has the songwriting credit, or partial credit, for many of their best songs. But both Chris Stein and Jimmy Destri were also full or partial writers for a lot of their songs. And they've never been afraid to throw in a sprinkling of well-done covers of other people's songs, or, in latter years, to out-and-out just invite outside songwriters to write for them.

The second reason is obviously Deborah Harry. She's been the face of the band right from the start, as much because of her personality as her vocals. Harry has also been a decent vocalist, although I'd say that her voice (especially when she was younger) was more cute than particularly beautiful or powerful. But she's also a huge personality, sometimes sexy, sometimes mischievous, often flirtatious, and generally just fun. Let's face it -- Harry has style.

Blondie, of course, was originally known as part of the Manhattan music scene in the mid-to-late '70s. They were part of the same scene that boasted bands like Television, the Ramones, the Talking Heads and Patti Smith, with frequent performances at clubs like CBGB and Max's Kansas City. They were not the band that most of their contemporaries would have predicted would have made it big. But after making a little bit of noise with their first two LP's, the self titled Blondie (1976) and their follow-up Plastic Letters (1978), they broke huge with their late-1978 release, Parallel Lines.

Parallel Lines is as close to being a perfect album as you can get. The 2,000 lb. gorilla was their hit single "Heart of Glass", which producer Mark Chapman helped them rework in an atypical (for them) disco style. The song hit #1 in both the U.S. and the UK, and made Blondie and Deborah Harry into full-blown stars. In all, though, "Heart of Glass" was simply the most successful of six different singles released from the LP, along with such classics as "Hanging on the Telephone" (a Nerves cover), "One Way or Another" and "Sunday Girl". And this LP has deep cuts as well -- there's truly not a bad song on the album.

Blondie followed this up with 1979's Eat to the Beat, which went Platinum in both the U.S. and the UK, the non-album single "Call Me" from the soundtrack of the film American Gigolo, (a #1 single in much of the world, including the UK and the U.S.), and the 1980 album Autoamerican, which also went platinum in both the U.S. and UK.

After this, tensions within the band and a crumbling health situation for guitarist Chris Stein caused them to come crashing back to Earth, and their 1982 album The Hunter was both a critical and commercial failure. The band then went their separate ways, with Harry engaging in a somewhat successful solo career, and an acting career as well, after spending a few years helping to nurse Stein back to health.

If this had been the end of the story, it would have been a damned good run, and a pretty nice career. Happily, though, after a 17-year hiatus, the band got to play a whole second act, beginning with their 1999 LP No Exit (named after the existentialist playwright Jean-Paul Sartre's masterpiece), which was powered by the single "Maria" (a #1 song in the UK.) Unfortunately, their next album, The Curse of Blondie (2003) was probably their worst, which effectively ended their commercial comeback.

Nevertheless, Blondie has released three albums since then, all of which were pretty good (and one of which might be their second best overall, after Parallel Lines.) These were 2011's Panic of Girls (a decent LP), 2014's Ghost's of Download (a friggin' great LP!) and 2017's Pollinator (a creditable effort).

Will there be any new Blondie music? Unclear. Deborah Harry is 75 years old now, and you can definitely hear some ... maturity ... in her voice. (Although I saw her in 2017, and drunken guys in their 20's were still finding her pretty damned sexy.) As of last word, depending on the state of the COVID virus, though, Blondie is still scheduled for a 10-date UK arena tour in late 2021 with Shirley Manson's Garbage as the opening act (a pretty great show. I saw these two bands play together at Bethel Woods in 2017, and it was a amazing.) So anything is possible. 

Anyway, with eleven studio albums released between 1976 and 2017, these guys have already had a rock-solid career, to say the least. I don't know how much more we can expect out them at this point, but anything more would be welcome. Blondie is a terrific band.

Next up in this series: Another female-fronted band who might have played my favorite live show I ever saw - Eurythmics!

Friday, November 6, 2020

October 2020 Song of the Day

 I haven't posted in a few weeks, because there hasn't been much to write about. And there might be even less for the months to come, as we watch the COVID numbers creep back up. Sigh. Anyway...

For new readers, this blog entry refers to the monthly Song of the Day list on the Sputnik Music website. Each month, one user hosts the list and names a theme. Everyone then recommends songs in line with this theme, and people rate the various song recommendations. The list of October songs can be found at Sputnik Music Song of the Day - October 2020.

1. The theme for the month was Childhood Trauma, meaning songs that traumatized you as a child. 

2. Once again, I got to make two recs this month. I also informally let everyone know the one song that actually met that criteria for me, even though it's too stupid and horrible to have used as an actual rec. My two recs were "Nothing That I Didn't Know" by Procol Harum, a sad and somber song that finds the singer singing about a young friend who died a painful death from a disease that was probably cancer; and "D.O.A." by Bloodrock, a 1970's classic that is sung from the perspective of the young victim of a fatal car accident. The one that really traumatized me as a child, though, was "Wreck the Halls" by the Three Stooges, which apparently sent the 2-year-old me running out of the room and crying every time my mother put it on. (Procol Harum - Nothing That I Didn't KnowBloodrock - D.O.A.The Three Stooges - Wreck the Halls).

3. My highest rated song of the month was an absolute classic: Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb". (Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb).

4. Unsurprisingly, this was also the winning song of the month. (You rec one of the most universally acclaimed rock songs of all time, you've got a good chance to win.)

5. We have that rare month where all 31 of the song recs are available on YouTube. (There's usually one or two that are available only on either Spotify or bandcamp.) So here's the playlist for the month: October 2020 Song of the Day YouTube Playlist.

So that's all I have to say for now. Ciao!

 



Sunday, October 4, 2020

Upcoming Music Interests

 Back in January, I tried to make some plans about future musical explorations. Of course, I had no idea that the whole world was going to go to hell in a hand basket in March, so like a lot of people, I got more than a little thrown off by the COVID. 

But I feel like I have a little bit of a better idea now what the upcoming months will look like, even if that look will be somewhat chaotic. And I've begun to crystallize plans for some of the musical explorations I spoke about back in January.

Live concerts look like they're mostly off the table for a while. And maybe that's a good thing, because I was spending way too much money on concert tickets anyway. I can't believe how much I've been able to catch up on my credit cards, etc., without my shelling out a couple of hundred bucks for concert tickets every month.

Of course, one of my primary concerns will still be to keep up with new music. I enjoy doing my Best Of lists every year, and to do them, I have to stay somewhat current with listening to new stuff. I try to mix up my genres a little, but let's face it, I have my prejudices. So as far as the new stuff goes, I'm mostly checking out various forms of rock and/or folk, especially alternative rock, progressive rock and electronic rock, along with some pop and singer/songwriter stuff.

But one of the goals I set for myself back in January was to explore more progressive rock and metal stuff that I hadn't been previously all that familiar with. And while there are certainly bands from other genres of music whose back catalogs I want to explore (like Screaming Orphans and Cut Copy), I've kind of zeroed in on ten artists/bands I really want to focus on. Because let's face it, as much as I love the artists I've been writing about in the My Favorite Artists series, I've been listening to most of them for so long that I really need to leave many of them alone for a while so I can come back to them with fresh ears.

So here, in no particular order, are ten artists I plan to target over the next nine months or so. Some are older bands I've neglected more than I should. Others are newer (although all ten have been around long enough to have created impressive bodies of work.) I've listened to each of them enough to know I like them a lot, but for each, there is still plenty of their discography that I haven't heard yet.

1. Nightwish

This probably won't be a surprise to you, since I named their LP Endless Forms Most Beautiful my Album of the Decade for the 2010's. But this Finnish symphonic metal band continues to intrigue me. There's a lot I like about their latest effort Human. : Nature. (in spite of its stupid name). And their 2011 offering Imaginaerum is also scrumptious. 

One of the most interesting things about these guys is that they've had three different lead singers over their 24-year career. So it will be fun comparing the styles and contributions of each. So far, Nightwish is by far my favorite epic metal band.

2. Mostly Autumn

This British band is one of those artists I never would have discovered without the recommendations of some of my prog rock friends on the Sputnik Music web site. They are really making modern progressive rock the way it should be, with sounds that remind me of everyone from Pink Floyd to Jethro Tull to Blackmore's Night. This is another band that has had two different lead vocalists over the years. So far, my favorite LP of theirs has been 2017's Sight of Day, but I'm looking forward to working my way back to some of their older stuff.

3. Strawbs

These guys are one of the quintessential British folk prog bands of all time. I've certainly made myself familiar with a lot of this band's classic 1970s material, but they have such an extensive discography that there's way too much of it I've never listened to. Now is the time to start catching up. 

4. Renaissance

See # 3 above. Their back catalog isn't as huge as Strawbs', because they took a long hiatus from 1983 until 2001. But I've always loved Annie Haslam's exquisite voice, and seeing them live twice in the last three or four years has whet my appetite to complete my experience with this great band's music.

5. Virgin Steele

I'll be honest - this band's mostly-metal style, and David DeFeis's high-pitched hard rock vocals are a little out of the wheelhouse of my usual musical taste. But their complex music, "barbaric romantic" themes and propensity for creating heavy metal operas with deep (and classical mythological) story lines are certainly attractive to me. And like Dream Theater, whose discography I completed sometime last year, they get extra points for their Long Island origins.

6. Hawkwind

I don't know how I missed these guys for so many years, but I'm embarrassed to say I never listened to a Hawkwind album prior to 2018. My only excuse is that as far as I can tell, these British progressive space rockers got almost no airplay in the U.S. in their heyday, especially in comparison to contemporaries like Pink Floyd, The Who, etc. But I plan to make up for lost time now. I can already tell you that Warrior on the Edge of Time (1975) and Quark, Strangeness and Charm (1977) are all-time classics, and Hall of the Mountain Grill (1974) didn't suck either. And they've continued making albums for all these years - they even have a new one (as The Hawkwind Symphony Orchestra) coming out in a few weeks. Ridiculous.

7. Radiohead

No, Radiohead isn't exactly prog rock. But thanks to the complexity of their music, they do share certain characteristics with it. For years I just couldn't get interested in these guys. I think some of it was I was just annoyed at the pretentiousness with which they refused to play "Creep" for all those years. As someone who worked as a telephone teen crisis counselor during the '90s. I can't tell you how many kids used to call me who deeply identified with that song, and I never liked the way the band kind of shit all over it (and by extension, the kids who loved it) because they thought they were above it. It probably didn't help that I had a hard time getting into Thom Yorke's piercing vocals. But when I listened to A Moon Shaped Pool in 2016, I finally got it. And now, I kind of hear them as the Pink Floyd of the 1990s and early 2000s.

8. The Flaming Lips

Likewise, this is another band who certainly can't be classified as classic progressive rock. But again, their psychedelic and experimental leanings hearken back to various aspects of Pink Floyd. Much like Radiohead, I was initially put off by the strange vocal stylings of their singer Wayne Coyne. I bought Transmission from the Satellite Heart back in 1993, but my strongest memory of them back in that period was of Beavis and Butt-Head making fun of them. ("I know a guy/with orange hair/And he sucks!") I definitely got into them a bit more with Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002). But it wasn't until the somewhat maligned Oczy Mlody (2017) and its magical unicorns (the ones with the purple eyes, not the green eyes) that I really started to appreciate them. Now I want more.

9. Ayreon

This is more of a musical project (by Dutch musician Arjen Anthony Lucassen) than a band, but whatever. I listened to 2017's The Source, and while I liked it OK, I wasn't blown away by it. As I've delved deeper in their discography, however, I've found myself deeply impressed, particularly by 2008's 01011001 and 2013's The Theory of Everything. This is another epic, operatic rock project. And their latest album even features narration by Doctor Who's Tom Baker. Jelly Babies, anyone?

10. Epica

This is yet another female-fronted symphonic metal band. I have to admit, I haven't yet experienced any of their seven (to date) LPs. But I do have their latest three EPs, including this year's excellent The Quantum Enigma B-Sides, and their lead singer Simone Simmons has also done a number of terrific guest appearances on the various Ayreon albums. So I feel I'm in pretty safe hands here.

So that's what I've got planned for the months ahead. How about you?


Saturday, October 3, 2020

September 2020 Song of the Day

In the wackiest year ever, we had a wacky month for Song of the Day in September, with something of a split decision as to what the winning song was. I'll tell you what happened, but first, let me bring you up to speed.

For new readers, this blog entry refers to the monthly Song of the Day list on the Sputnik Music website. Each month, one user hosts the list and names a theme. Everyone then recommends songs in line with this theme, and people rate the various song recommendations. The list of September songs can be found at Sputnik Music Song of the Day - September 2020.

Now you'll notice that although September only has 30 days, this month's list has 31 songs. And that's where we got into trouble. Because after the list of recommendations filled up, one last rec came in, and the host allowed it as a "Bonus". Yeah, you can see where this is going, can't you?

1. The theme of the month was Great Songs by Corny Artists. Now this got us off to a strange start, as people had pretty diverse definitions as to what constituted a "corny" artist. (And for a lot of the participants, many of whom are younger than my socks, their definition of "corny" seemed to equal "old". OK, cool, whatever.)

2. Once again, I got to make two recs this month. I chose "Not My Type: Dead as Fuck 2" by the comedic horror-themed band Motionless in White, and the theme song of NYC rock cabaret act Witches in Bikinis, "Witches in Bikinis" (Motionless in White - Not My Type: Dead as Fuck 2Witches in Bikinis - Witches in Bikinis). Neither song went over all that well with this lot of philistines, although WIB scored the higher of the two. But hey, I'm used to it.

3. The song I rated highest was the Dexys Midnight Runners classic, "Come On Eileen" (Dexys Midnight Runners - Come on Eileen.) This, of course, was the bonus song. My highest rated song that was actually recommended for one of the 30 days of September was "Stay" by pop icon Lisa Loeb (Lisa Loeb - Stay.)

4. And, of course, the song that the group scored highest as a whole was - wait for it - "Come on Eileen" by Dexys Midnight Runners (See #3 above for the link). Why? Because it's f***ing "Come on Eileen" by Dexy's Midnight Runners, you silly reader, you. It's awesome. But ... oh, yeah, it was only actually a bonus song. The non-bonus song that the group rated highest was "Undun" by The Guess Who (The Guess Who - Undun). Because apparently, The Guess Who are corny now? Who knew? Certainly not me.

5. Anyway, all 31 of this 30-day month's song recs are available on YouTube for once. The link is September 2020 Song of the Day YouTube Playlist.

So in the end, the official winner was the Guess Who song "Undun", with Dexys Midnight Runners scoring an honorable mention (even though it scored higher than the official winner.)

I need a drink now. See you next month.

Friday, October 2, 2020

Screaming Orphans and The Best of the Pitchfork Festival (Not)

 Last week, for whatever reason, I really found myself jonesing for some live music (or as close as I could get.)

I guess it actually even started the weekend before, when Denise turned me on to a short concert Erasure did a day or so earlier for BBC's Radio Two. Referred to as "Live at Home", the concert was a little more than a half hour long, and featured Vince Clarke playing from his home, and Andy Bell and his backup singers singing from Bell's lovely English garden. 

This was followed by a pre-taped "concert" (of sorts) by a DJ/music producer who I later learned was named Ellen Allien. Allien and a male friend (who looked like every caricature of a douchy club guy you could ever imagine) danced their little tushes off on her Berlin rooftop as she programmed her various gizmos to play a whole bunch of techno. I'm usually not into that form of music at all, but for some reason, I enjoyed this. (I even picked up a copy of Allien's latest LP, Auraa a few days later.)

So anyway, after this musical doubleheader, I went actively hunting for some more this past weekend. I came up with two possibilities. One was a live concert by Screaming Orphans that could be watched on their Facebook page, scheduled for Saturday at 5PM. (I found about this because I'm on their mailing list, and they sent me an email.) The other was The Best of the Pitchfork Music Festival, which was scheduled that same day at 7PM on YouTube. I figured that the combination of these two events would scratch my live music itch. I was half right.

Screaming Orphans are an Irish pop/Celtic band comprising four sisters. They're not actually orphans -- originally, their parents were involved in the band, but when they dropped out, the girls kind of felt like orphans. Apparently, they've been doing a series of online concerts during the COVID, playing live every other week and challenging themselves to dig deep into their repertoire by refusing to repeat any material from one concert to the next, all the while dodging the fascist FaceBots, Facebook bots that troll live Facebook broadcast to make sure no one is playing cover songs. (The girls were actually able to play cover songs, but they couldn't name them -- the bots recognize spoken words instead of music.)

Anyway, although they probably talked a bit too much between songs (see my review of the Mree concert a couple of weeks ago), the ladies put on a very enjoyable show. I guess they've been sheltering together (?), because they were all squeezed into what appeared to be a living room together. Highlights of the show included "You and Me" from their Lonely Boy LP, a cover of the Buffy Sainte-Marie song "Black Black Black" (but don't tell the bots) , "Finally Free" from their Toy Theatre album, and a cover of the Paddy Reilly classic "The Fields of Athenry" (but again don't tell the bots). In all, the concert ran an hour and forty-five minutes. Although I've got financial issues of my own right now, I gave them a small tip through Paypal, because these gals are primarily a performing band and usually make their living by playing showcases and Celtic Music Festivals the world over. Of course, those have all been cancelled by the coronavirus.

The timing was perfect for me to then move from one event to the other. But unfortunately, the other event was less than perfect. 

Pitchfork is a web-based music publication that originated in Chicago, but is currently based in New York. They host a yearly summer music festival (which I always thought took place in Brooklyn, but apparently actually occurred in Union Park in Chicago.)

Naturally, like everything else involving crowds, this year's festival was cancelled. So they decided to put together a Best of the Pitchfork Festival event, and to debut it last Saturday at 7PM. Most of the artists involved aren't people I typically listen to, but they did list Beach House as being one of the bands involved, so I figured it was worth a shot.

Unfortunately, not so much. The tape started with a live performance by Grimes. OK. But the damned thing kept freezing and reloading to the point where it was unwatchable. But the time I clicked a few buttons to try to watch it on my Amazon Firestick, Grimes was finished and there was some hideous rap group playing. This was followed by an ad for the left-wing social advocacy group Movement for Black Lives. After a summer of protests and riots, I was in no mood for this, so I ditched the concert and switched over to the UFC Fights.

So Screaming Orphans si, Pitchfork Music Festival no.

Friday, September 11, 2020

A Brand New Continent. (But It Sunk Too)

 So we already had a new Continental Recfast tournament on the Sputnik Music website, the second of 2020. And I already got eliminated, this time in the third round (my earliest elimination ever.)

Sharkattack gave up the contest. (He offered it to me, but I always feel funny running a contest that relies on my own taste. Also, I can barely keep up with my own music, let alone listen in depth to a bunch of recs made by my fellow Sputnik Music Users.) So a different User, bloodshy took it over. This was OK, except I had to try to attune myself to the tastes of a completely new person.

Bloodshy likes a lot of Metalcore, which, of course, I'm lost on. But I also noticed that he gave 5 ratings to bands like Beach House and Eisley, so I figured I could work with that.

I made it through the first two rounds, North America and Europe, with bands like Future Bible Heroes and Deep Cut. But he threw us a curveball in round 3, and named the "continent" as outer space. (This meant that the artist had to have a celestial body in their name, or make a lot of space music.)

I considered several different options. I thought about going with the eponymous Walk the Moon LP, but there was nothing in bloodshy's ratings history to tell me he had any interest in that kind of light alternapop. I thought about the Venus Hum album Big Beautiful Sky, but after listening to it, decided it wasn't consistent enough. I thought about my old friends The Space Robot Scientists and their first album (which featured, among other treats, the classic "Fuck You Doctor.") But bloodshy seems to loathe punk, so I figured he wouldn't like them. I even considered Jefferson Starship's Red Octopus album (which would have netted me a + .2 bonus to my score, because it wasmade prior to 1998). But again, I saw no indication that this would have been a good match for his musical preferences.

In the end, I went with another classic album by a Long Island band, Zia's gem, Big Bang! As it turned out, I lost because bloodshy hated Elaine Walker's vocals, although he did kind of like the track "Space Man". Oh well. Maybe next time.

Pity, because the next continent he named was Australia, and I felt like I had a winning pick here, the new LP by Cut Copy. (You'll likely be hearing more about this one in a few months when I start posting my Best of 2020 lists.)

Anyway, here was my breakdown of the albums I rec'd and bloodshy's rating (out of 5):

Round 1 - North America - Future Bible Heroes - Memories of Love (USA) 4.2
Round 2 - Europe - Deep Cut - Different Planet (England) 4.1
Round 3 - Outer Space - Zia - Big Bang! (Outer Space) 2.8 (Eliminated)

I always feel if I'm going to lose, at least let it be with an album (or song) that I like. I've always loved Big Bang!, and especially tracks like "Nibiru", "Plastic" and "Space Man". So it's all good.

Wednesday, September 2, 2020

August 2020 Song of the Day

So we've made it through almost 6 months of the COVID. Woo hoo! Anyway, August kind of sucked for me as far as SOTD went. I had one of my lowest monthly scores ever, and I didn't like the winning song at all. (My recs were impeccable, of course.)

Anyway, yeah, Song of the Day. For new readers, this refers to the monthly Song of the Day list on the Sputnik Music website. Each month, one user hosts the list and names a theme. Everyone then recommends songs in line with this theme, and people rate the various song recommendations. The list of August songs can be found at Sputnik Music Song of the Day - August 2020.

1. The theme for the month was Unlikely Collaborations and/or Featured Artists.

2. I got to make two recs this month, and went with two of my favorite artists. The first was "Time Stands Still" by Rush (featuring Aimee Mann), and the second was "A Rose By Any Name" by Blondie (featuring Beth Ditto of Gossip). The Blondie song scored a respectable 3.08, but Rush only scored a disappointing 2.56. What was that old quote about pearls before swine? (Bitter much, Rich?) Rush - Time Stand Still (featuring Aimee Mann)Blondie - A Rose By Any Name (featuring Beth Ditto).

3. The song I rated highest was "Un Hombre" by Exquirla (which is a collaboration between Toundra and Nino de Elche) Exquirla - Un Hombre.

4. However, the highest rated song of the month was "Crystallise" by Keleketla! (which is a collaboration between Coldcut, Tony Allen, Shabaka Hutchings, Antibalas and South African rapper Yugen Blakrok). I have to tip my hat to this song, as it won the month certainly no thanks to me; I only rated it at 1.7. It's a mixture of atonal jazz and hip-hop, two of my least favorite genres. Keleketla! - Crystallise.

5. 29 of the 31 recs for the month are available on YouTube. The link for the YouTube playlist is August 2020 Song of the Day YouTube playlist.

I'm hoping for a better September, as my overall average score for August was only 2.65. Most months average higher than 3. 

So that's it for now. See ya soon.

Sunday, August 23, 2020

August Doldrums

If you notice, I haven't written anything in three weeks, and that's because there hasn't been anything much to write about.

On a personal front, the major things going on is I'm facing partial unemployment -- my company just cut everyone's hours and salaries to 40%, and we go on employment for the rest, which means I'll be making about 70% of what I was before. This is doable, at least in the short term, provided I can ever actually get registered for the unemployment. I've already put about 5-1/2 hours into the process, but apparently I'm the one person out of the eight or nine at my company who are doing this (all the full-timers) who still isn't fully registered. Have I ever told you guys how much I hate the various branches and departments of our government. (At one point in the process, they transferred me to someone who was supposed to be a specialist for the program I'm going on, only to find myself talking to the New York State Police. The unemployment people have been transferring people to and giving out the wrong number!)

Last weekend was kind of weird, as my family headed upstate to celebrate my niece's birthday/high school graduation. It was the first time I've had the house to myself (with just the three cats) since pre-COVID days. It was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it was delightful to be able to go to the bathroom any time I felt the urge without being doo-dee-dooed (our family's term for when you're just about to head into the bathroom, but somebody cuts you off and gets in there before you). It was also nice to be able to hit the bed for a nap without having to negotiate a room change with my wife. (She usually works out of the bedroom and I work out of the living room, so if I want to take a nap, she has to move her whole base of operations. More often than not these days, if I get hit with that sudden urge to sleep, I just drop off uncomfortably in my recliner rather than go through the whole room-exchange process.) But I also missed them, and after five months of togetherness, it was unusual to be home alone. I was worried I might have to fend off Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern.

I have been listening to a lot of music, especially stuff from 2020, as I work my way toward my 2020 Best-of-the-Year lists. I guess the most interesting albums I've heard lately were Auri by Auri, and Every Bad by Porridge Radio.

Auri is a side-project type band that includes Tuomas Holopainen and Troy Donockley from Nightwish and the Finnish vocalist Johanna Kurkela. The band is a little folkier and a little less grandiose than Nightwish, but retains many of the elements I like best about Nightwish's music. (Holopainen must be an interesting character. He seems to only love operatic female vocalists, but he also must be hard on them -- he's burnt through three of them over the course of nine Nightwish studio albums.) The Auri album is from 2018.

Porridge Radio (PR) is a British indie rock band from Brighton, UK with a sassy female vocalist. In some ways, they remind me of Florence + the Machine, except that vocalist Dana Margolin is less of a belt-out-it vocalist than Florence Welch - she talks as much as sings - and at least on this LP, PR is more consistent in their songwriting. (I've often described Florence + the Machine as being Annie Lennox in desperate need of a Dave Stewart.)

The only other musical thing I have to tell you about it is a recent live YouTube concert. Last weekend, with the fam away, I really had only three things on my calendar. I had a work meeting scheduled on Saturday morning (which is one of the reasons I didn't go upstate with the others); I had a televised UFC card on Saturday night (which my DVR didn't record for some reason, but to tell you the truth, I didn't really miss it); and for Friday night, I had an EP-Release Party by Mree, broadcast on YouTube.

Now Mree is actually Marie Hsiao, a young singer-songwriter from New Jersey. Her music falls somewhere between the genre's of indie-folk and dream pop. It's soft, with lovely, ethereal vocals. In 2019, her song "In the Kitchen" from the EP The Middle came in at #5 on my Top 20 Songs of 2019 list. She has a new EP out this year called The Bloom, which I really like. Unfortunately, I can't say the same about this concert.

One of the things that's been driven home to me time and again over the last decade or so since the closing of The Pisces Cafe was just how high the level of professionalism there was compared to some things I see from other parts of the country. A lot of the artists there were young, but I guess they watched and learned from the more experienced artists who performed there regularly, so that whatever level they were at as songwriters and musicians, their shows were at least generally run in a pretty crisp fashion.

I don't want to trash Mree. I think she's immensely talented, and as far as I can tell, she seems like a really pleasant young woman. But here's what happened.

First off, although the show was scheduled for a 9PM start, it was at least 9:12 or so before she came on the air. (It could have been later - I don't remember anymore.) I figured there must be technical difficulties going on, and I almost gave up on the show entirely when the dead screen finally came alive.

OK yay! Time for some music. Well...not so much. Mree still wasn't set up properly to start. Apparently she was trying to broadcast to Twitch and YouTube at the same time, and her video monitor was going back and forth between them and confusing the hell out of her.

Now I'm going to give her a little bit of a break here. These online concerts are still pretty new for most artists. A lot of them had never even tried such a thing prior to the COVID, so they - and the people who are trying to help broadcast them - are learning as they go. I haven't watched a lot of live shows on the Internet, but I've seen both Leslie Mendelson (and My Father's Place) and Blackmore's Night have problems with them. I guess the person who has done the best so far was Jeremy Gilchrist, and from what Denise tells me, he's got some other stuff going on right now and probably won't be on again anytime in the near future.

But the gist of the problem was this - for most of this show, Mree spent a ridiculous amount of time talking off the top of her head between songs and getting totally distracted by watching the chat rooms. When you could actually get her singing, the music was beautiful, but the delays, and the absent-minded chatter drove my poor little ADD brain berserk, to the point that I couldn't wait for the concert to be over. In all, it lasted about an hour-and-a-half from when I first tuned in until she played what she announced as her last song. She was going to stay on the air afterwards for a question-and-after session afterwards. And unless her audience talked her into going back on her word and playing more music at some point, it must have been a hell of a question-answer session - the show is up on YouTube now, and it's listed as being two hours and forty-two minutes long.

My point in all this isn't to bury Mree. I kind of hope she never reads this. (Of course you know how those things work out - witness the Wonderous Stories-Tommy debacle.) Or if she does read this, I hope she takes it to heart and realizes that what I'm really writing about how to not your fans crazy during live (or live broadcast) shows.

My point is to tell young artists to try to think about how things feel from your audience's point of view. People are there to hear the music. If you have an interesting story to tell about the song you're about to play, excellent. But if you take a ton of time between songs, and if you just talk off the top of your head, or chatter on because you're nervous, it's going to be a frustrating experience for those listening at home. If there's a chatroom going, great - get somebody else to run it for you, so you can concentrate on the music.

Having said all of that, let me just repeat that Mree's new EP is excellent, and if you at all like her style of music (she's very Enya-esque), pick it up, and give it a listen. Having heard her two most recent EP's, I'm definitely going to pick up some of her earlier albums and check them out. If you want to hear this concert, it's there on YouTube, but don't judge her by that - she is much, much better than you'll see her here.

That's about it for now. The only Sputnik Music contest I've been involved in lately is a '90s One-Hit-Wonder contest. So maybe I'll tell you about it once it has concluded.

Anyway, I have to pee something fierce, and Denise just doo-dee-dooed me again it. Dammit! I've got to go!

Sunday, August 2, 2020

Favorite Artists, Part 10: About The Police

The late '60s and early '70s were truly a golden time for music. But change is inevitable, and somewhere around the mid-'70s, unbeknownst to me, a revolution was underway. (Well, actually it started even earlier than that, but the mid-'70s was when this new movement first started seeping into the public consciousness.)
Playing instruments. What's that? For some rebellious teens in England, it was all eff Yes, give us The Sex Pistols.

Punk got big quickly, but for the public at large, it was a short trend. Yes, after the artsy pretensions of bands like ELP and Rick Wakeman (and I love those guys, but they did go to excess sometimes), there was a (probably much-needed) movement towards simpler, rawer, more aggressive music.

But after a year or two, people started noticing, "Hey! Most of this sucks!" So rock evolved again, and bands with actual musicians started taking some of the better parts of punk rock (like the raw energy), and using them to create music that was more sophisticated. (I know, I'm oversimplifying here. But the gist of what I'm saying is true.)

One of the better bands that did this was The Police. They blended punk with reggae and even a little jazz to form a tasty brew that was all their own. They formed in London in 1977, and released their first album, Outlando's d'Amour, in 1978. I first heard them shortly thereafter on WNEW-FM, and I liked them right away. 

I'm sure the first Police song I heard was "Roxanne." It was something of phenomena - who can forget Eddie Murphy butchering it in his jail cell at the beginning of 48 Hrs.? And even though it's one of those songs that's been around so long I can't really hear it anymore (and I suspect neither can Sting), it is a great song. It's a classic story - boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, girl keeps on whoring around, literally "walk(ing) the streets for money," boy tries to sing her out of it.

But when I bought the LP, it was immediately apparent these guys were no one-hit wonders, as this first album also featured another pair of powerful singles, "Can't Stand Losing You," and "So Lonely."

The follow-up, Reggatta de Blanc (1979) was even better. "Message in a Bottle" was a huge hit in the U.S., and I liked it a lot, but the song that really grabbed me was "Walking on the Moon". I can remember laying in my bed in the dark, listening to this through headphones with closed eyes. By this time I was a young man of 22, floundering about, trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life, and the loneliness theme of both songs really hit me. And as an added treat, the LP also had a couple of other minor classics, "The Bed's Too Big Without You" and "Bring on the Night". In two albums, The Police had already put together a collection of singles that most bands would kill for. 

I also had a special love for the title track, "Reggatta de Blanc." It's one of those songs that doesn't have any real lyrics, just Sting singing something that sounds like "Dee-oh, dee-oh, dee-oy-oh." At the time, I was mad about Fantasy Baseball, and my team was called The Hughes Deodorants. And in my mind, this was the theme song that played when my beloved Deos ran out to take the field. (I think he's actually singing, "E-oh, E-oh", but what the hell.)

Let me say a few things about The Police's sound - Sting is a very distinct vocalist. His high-pitched voice isn't necessarily for everyone - in fact, it can get pretty strident in his upper range. But it can be very beautiful, and it's certainly a very expressive voice. And while I could take or leave the little jazz flourishes in their music (and that's even more true about Sting's later solo stuff), I loooooved that infusion of reggae. And let's face it, for a three-piece outfit, these guys had a pretty full sound - these boys could all play their instruments. Add that to some top-notch songwriting that included way-above-average lyrics, and what was not to love?

Many people consider their third album, Zenyatta Mondatta to be their worst album (to the extent that they had a worst album), but for years if you'd have asked me, I'd have said it was their best. It's only within the last two or three years I've been forced to admit that wasn't true. But more about that later. The band themselves were a little disappointed by it. One of the big hits off of this one, "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" is a pleasant but relatively vacuous little number about inarticulateness. (And you can see it was kind of a callback to "Reggatta de Blanc".) But the one that really hit me was "Don't Stand So Close to Me." It's a whole little movie in and of itself, an anxious yet sensual tale of forbidden love. You can almost feel the singer's longing. (Sting being a former teacher, I suspect there was a touch of the autobiographical in this one.)

There were a number of other tracks on this album that I also liked, even though none of them were released as singles. These included "Man in a Suitcase", "Canary in a Coalmine", "Voices Inside My Head", and "Bombs Away". And "When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around" also garnered a decent amount of airplay.

Ghost in the Machine (1981) was the one Police album I never fully warmed to, and I didn't buy a copy until years after it came out. In fairness, though, I seem to be in the minority about this, and there are certainly some gems here. These include "Spirits in the Material World" (and how many times did freaking Sting get to recycle that line about the umbrella?), "Secret Journey" and "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic".
I never really got either "Demolition Man" or "Invisible Sun", though.

Unfortunately, after this, the band got so big that tensions were inevitable. Sting took up acting, appearing in films like Brimstone and Treacle and that godawful David Lynch version of Dune. (I usually love David Lynch, but this film was hot garbage.) Andy Summers cut a really good album with King Crimson's Robert Fripp. Stewart Copeland wrote a very successful movie score for the film Rumble Fish. And the heads were getting too damned big to all fit in one band.

So what did they do on their inevitable way out the door as an ongoing project? The bastards put together what in retrospect I've come to realize was the best album of 1980's - 1983's Synchronicity.

Holy shit, is this an album! It's got singles ("Every Breath You Take", "Wrapped Around Your Finger", "King of Pain"), it's got depth (the two parts of "Synchronicity", especially "Synchronicity II". Yeah, I know that was also released as a single - leave me alone, I'm riffing here.) It's got underappreciated little gems ("Tea in the Sahara", "Murder By Numbers", "Miss Gradenko"). It's even got mania ("Mother"). I loved this LP from the beginning, and I think the only thing that really kept me from appreciating just how great it truly is for many years is that I was just so attached to Zenyatta Mondatta that I couldn't admit to myself that the band had made an even better album than that one.

So the boys went on tour, and by the time the tour was over, they were proclaimed the "The biggest rock band in the world" by many critics, a sentiment with which I agreed.

Sadly, they broke up after that.

It didn't happen right away. They went on hiatus. Sting made his first solo album. Summers made another album with Fripp. Copeland wrote another film score. In 1986, they tried to get back together to record a sixth album. But the only thing that came out of it was "Don't Stand So Close to Me '86", and by then, they were probably singing this each other. (Actually, Copeland broke his collarbone and couldn't play the drums. But the sentiment of the song was true - they pretty much couldn't stand being near one another any longer.)

And me, like an idiot, just assumed they'd always be around. So I never saw them live.

Andy Summers had a long career after that. He recorded a bunch of solo albums, the last in 2017. I have to admit, I've never listened to any of them, and I didn't listen to any prior to this write-up, because I didn't want to listen to stuff freaking forever, I wanted to start writing. I do love those two albums he made with Robert Fripp, though, especially the first one, I Advance Masked (1982).

Stewart Copeland has had probably an even more storied post-Police career than Summers. He's become known for writing the scores of for various films, television shows and video games. When my wife and I adopted our two children, one of the shows my daughter and I bonded over was Dead Like Me. It's about a young woman who is accidentally killed when the toilet from the disintegrating Mir space station crashes down on her during her lunch break on the first day of a temp job, and she becomes a grim reaper. I always liked the score from that show. It's one of Copeland's.

As for Sting, we all know what happened to him. He became a megastar, releasing a series of hit albums. I've mostly liked his solo work, except for some of the jazzier stuff or the songs where he lets his voice get all high and strident ("If you looooooove somebody, If you loooooooooooovvve someone, set them free!", or "If I ever loooooze my faith in you!")

He's written and recorded some truly beautiful ballads ("Fields of Gold", "When We Dance", "Shape of My Heart"), created some great jazzy little ditties ("Englishman in New York," "Fragile", "Moon Over Bourbon Street", "Seven Days"), and released some very Police-sounding anthems ("Fortress Around Your Heart," "The Russians", "We Work the Black Seam") .

He's also experimented with Arabic music ("Desert Rose") and country music ("I Hung My Head", "Fill Her Up"), recorded an album of 16th Century British folk music (Songs From the Labyrinth (2006)), recorded an album of old Christmas folk songs and madrigals (If on a Winter's Night ... (2009)), written and performed in a Broadway musical (The Last Ship (2014)) and gone back to his reggae roots with an LP on which he collaborated with the reggae singer Shaggy (44/876 (2018)). Not everything he's done has been a winner, but overall, he's had many more successes than failures. (And although it didn't have a long run on Broadway, Denise and I did get to catch The Last Ship before it closed. Yeah, the story was kind of dumb, but Sting's score was pretty sublime.)

When Denise and I first together, it soon became apparent that if Sting ever came a-callin', she'd be dumping my sorry butt in a hot minute. She not only loved his music, she loved him. She and I saw him live on a number of occasions, and at a variety of venues (including Jones Beach more than once). She used to get mad at me when I'd tell her that I thought Sting was kind of a jerk for not agreeing to a Police reunion to toss those other two guys a payday. But I meant it. Yeah, they were doing OK, but he was jetting around the world, saving the seals and all that. Why not give Summers and Copeland one last shot at some real buckos?

So in 2007, I finally got my wish. The Police reunited for one last tour, and Denise and I got to see them live at Jones Beach. (Even though unlike me, she was smart enough to have also seen them in their heyday.)  No, it wasn't the same as if I'd caught them on that Synchronicity tour, but it was still pretty great. Will The Police ever reunite again? Who cares, they're all geezed out now! Seriously, I don't really need for them to do it, but if they did, I'd certainly pay attention.

So that's my write-up about The Police. In the end, they only released five little studios albums, but they made them count. Summers and Copeland, and especially Sting, have all added to the legacy of the band with the things they've done since that original breakup. But in the end, as much as I like Sting's solo stuff, he wouldn't have made the My Favorite Artists list by himself. His work has been artful, often subtle, and far-reaching. But The Police as a band were far punchier, and for a time, they truly deserved the title of "The Biggest Rock Band in the World".

Next Up: I'm excited to start my listening soon in preparation for the next article in this series, which should be up in three months or so. I'm not telling you who it's about. (Pause). Ok, you twisted my arm. It's Blondie! See ya then.

Saturday, August 1, 2020

July 2020 Song of the Day

Dammit, the Blogspot people have been effing around with the format on here, and now I can't find anything. What is it with web people that they can't resist mucking about with something that's perfectly fine? The front page looks so damned horsey now.

Well, nothing to be done. I'm sitting here listening to the new Joe Satriani album, so I'm going to keep myself chill, and hardly wish them leprosy or anything.

Anyway, here's this month's Song of the Day update. For new readers, this refers to the monthly Song of the Day list on the Sputnik Music website. Each month, one user hosts the list and names a theme. Everyone then recommends songs in line with this theme, and people rate the various song recommendations. The list of July songs can be found at Sputnik Music Song of the Day - July 2020.

1. The theme for the month was Songs From/About Your Home Town. 

2. There were obviously so many amazing choices to choose from, but I went with "Hero (I Don't Wanna Be)" from my old buddies This Island Earth. Sadly, many of my fellow Sput Users are a bit pop rock impaired, so it didn't score that highly with most of them. The feeling was mutual, as I didn't care for many of their picks either, so my average rating for the month was 2.79 (out of 5), one of my lowest scores ever. (That's what they get for hitting me with three hip-hop songs in one month.) This Island Earth - Hero (I Don't Wanna Be).

3. I had a two-way tie for my highest rating this month between two classics: "Blister in the Sun" by Violent Femmes, and "Welcome to the Black Parade" by My Chemical Romance. Violent Femmes - Blister in the SunMy Chemical Romance - Welcome to the Black Parade.

4. However, the highest scoring song of the month (of which with Denise would most assuredly approve) was another classic, "Enjoy the Silence" by Depeche Mode. Depeche Mode - Enjoy the Silence.

5. In all, there were actually 32 recs for July, as the host for the month allowed a latecomer to add a bonus track to the end of the playlist. The link for the playlist for the month, minus the 3 songs that aren't up on YouTube, is July 2020 Song of the Day YouTube Playlist.

Anyway, hope you're all staying safe, and maybe even going back to work, as New York State is starting to open things up again. Also, I'm done with all my listening, so I hope to have that write-up about The Police done sometime this week (or maybe even tomorrow, depending on the workload from my job and my own level of laziness.) And no, we're NOT going to defund them, you sick so-and-so's. (What would Sting do without his private jet?)

Also, as an addendum, they've finally released the new Go-Go's documentary on Showtime (which I think is still free for most of you who have Optimum Cable during the Covid.) Denise and I watched it this morning, and if you're a fan (like we are - that was one of the shows the Covid made us miss out on this summer), I think you'll find it pretty enjoyable. Man, given their lifestyles, those five gals are damned lucky to still be alive.

That's all for now. As my son used to say when he was 10, while running rings around me in his racing video game, "Peace Out, Suckas!"




Wednesday, July 22, 2020

My Continent Sunk

As I feared, I got eliminated from Shark's Continental contest this week. Turns out the guy loves punk but hates pop punk. I had a bad feeling. So here were my results for the year:

Round 1 - North America - The Good Rats - Tasty (USA) 3.8
Round 2 - Asia - Isao Tomita - Snowflakes Are Dancing (Japan) 4.3


Round 3 - Africa - Awilo Longomba - Coupe Bibamba (Congo) 4.2
Round 4 - Australia - Bodyjar - How It Works (Australia) 2.2 - Eliminated

Pity, too, as I had some good thoughts on South America and Europe. Oh well. Maybe next year. (Shark also eliminated the guy who rec'd a Dead Can Dance album, so at least I'm in good company.