Songs I Love

New Music Friday: The Story (cover) by Japanese Breakfast

You always have to love when an artist that you love covers a song by another artist you love. We’ll somewhat ignore the fact that it only exists because it was commissioned by North Face for an ad campaign. “The Story” used to be Brandi Carlile’s biggest song and the one that people knew if they had any clue who I was talking about. Most often because of it’s use in conjunction with Grey’s Anatomy. Now I feel like Brandi Carlile lives in this weird liminal space where she’s gotten way more popular than she was when I first got into her. I get fewer blank looks when I mention her, but there are still a lot of people who have no clue who she is. Case in point, the first comment on this YouTube video from someone saying they have to go look up Brandi Carlile because they’ve never heard of her. Now I have no clue what might be the song people associate with her.

Anyway “The Story” is still an absolutely fantastic song. Michelle Zauner aka Japanese Breakfast does a fine job doing a fairly straightforward cover it. Brandi brings a rawness to the original version that is not present in this one that is a little more smooth. I do like it and wish as multiple people have said in the YouTube comments that they would make it available on Spotify.

This Land by Gary Clark, Jr.

I’ve been making my way through NPR Music’s Best Songs of 2019 (So Far) playlist. 2019 really has been an excellent year for new music so far. I make my own Spotify playlists of new music that I like from each year. We’re only half way through this year and my 2019 playlist already has 51 songs on it. By comparison my playlist for all of 2018 only has 38 songs on it. One of the songs I put on my 2019 playlist and which I wrote about in one of my new music Friday posts was Gary Clark Jr.’s “Pearl Cadillac”. He is not an artist that I have historically loved as a rule, so I didn’t dig any deeper into his This Land album, but I should have because I finally just heard the title track thanks to the NPR Music list and just wow.

I don’t even know what I can say about this song and its video but holy crap. Gary Clark Jr. is not pulling any punches. He has written a very raw, angry, emotional song about a country that has not dealt with its racial issues no matter how much it likes to tell itself it has. Accompanied by an incredible video, this is one of the most powerful songs I have ever experienced. I wish it had gotten as much attention as Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” rightly did. The fact that it took me who is crazy into music half a year to discover it means it is definitely not having the impact it should. Be forewarned that this song is very NSFW or small children.

Songs I Love: Remind Me by Emily King

I missed my new music Friday post yesterday just because I didn’t feel like writing anything yesterday. The world has conspired to make sure I post something music related this week though. I have adored the song “Remind Me” by Emily King since the first time I heard it last fall, but for whatever reason I never wrote about it here. Then Emily King kept showing up in my life this week. She was on yesterday’s episode of World Cafe, and then today I started listening to this week’s episode of the podcast Switched on Pop and it turns out it was a live episode with none other than Emily King talking about her song “Remind Me”. It felt like a sign that I should finally write about this song.

It’s a lovely little song about someone reawakening love in you after not experiencing it for so long. I love the groove that the song has. They talk in the Switched on Pop episode about things in the song that do things that you as a listener don’t expect like the down chorus and pieces of the chorus popping in at a slight syncopation so that it’s not on the same exact beat as the previous verse which provides a nice little aural surprise. It’s a very satisfying song to listen to.

Songs I Love: Born in the Right Country by River Whyless

It’s been awhile since I’ve written about any songs I love here. It’s not because there haven’t been many songs entering my world that are worthy of being written about but as I’ve said before that my mental energy to write has been almost non-existent hence the few and far between posts around these parts. But I’ve been on a vacation from work, Twitter, and Baltimore and have restored my energy for a few days at least.

River Whyless is a band that I should really listen to more but for some reason just don’t. I like their music and I loved seeing them perform at the Newport Folk Festival a few years ago, so I’m not sure why they haven’t been a band I pay more attention to. Their newest song may just change that. “Born in the Right Country” is the first single off the forthcoming new album Kindness, A Rebel. I would completely dig this song based on the beat and guitar work no matter what lyrics went along with the music. In a time when it becomes more clear every day that the idea of the American dream is a lie this song speaks to the fact that where you end up in life is very much determined by where you are born in life and the systems that are in place are designed to keep people who are already in power in power. Not exactly a cheery song, but one that speaks the truth and to a great tune.

 

 

Moody Guitar Rock

It’s been awhile since I’ve written a post about music that no one is going to read. I’ve been thinking about this one for awhile and am finally mustering up enough energy to write it. This time I’m talking about some recent(ish) songs featuring moody guitar rock. I love the sort of gloomy sounds being created in these songs.

Lo Moon was my new band obsession at the end of 2017. I love every song they have available on Spotify (all 4 of them). I can’t wait until their full album comes out on February 23. I’m still super bummed that I missed the Live Lunch concert they did at WTMD towards the end of last year. I was fully planning on taking a long lunch and going up for it, but then I had to be manager in charge for literally those few hours so I couldn’t leave the building. Hopefully they make it back to Baltimore for a full on concert some time soon.

 

The War on Drugs put out one of my favorite albums of 2017. They are nothing but good for moody guitar rock. I mean in some respects a lot of their songs sound very similar, but I’m here for that sound so I don’t care.

I’m fudging a bit with the last one because while Nathanial Rateliff and the Night Sweats are guitar rock you can’t generally consider them very moody. I feel like the first single off their forthcoming new album takes a turn from the completely jaunty sounds of their first album to something slightly moodier in its undertones. I’m really liking it.

Songs I Love: Ramblin’ Man by The Allman Brothers

In honor of Gregg Allman’s passing I present you with a story about the song “Ramblin’ Man”. When I was in 7th grade my family moved from Georgia to Massachusetts. During that summer between my 7th and 8th grade years my sister and I took tennis lessons at a local tennis club along with our neighbor, a boy a few years younger than us who had also just moved there but from England.

Our tennis instructor was a college kid who to my young 12 year old self seemed infinitely older. To reconcile my memory of this guy with the college guys I interact with on a daily basis takes some work because he will forever seem so much older in my mind. At any rate for some reason he made it his goal to teach us all the lyrics to the song “Ramblin’ Man”. I don’t know why he decided that should happen. I suppose some high minded idea that this music he himself was probably just coming to learn of in college was far superior to whatever pop music we were wont to go on about at the time. I still have vivid memories of singing the lyrics to that song while playing tennis long before I could have reliably told you I had ever even heard the actual song.

Every time I have heard that song in my life since then though I have thought back to that summer and that tennis instructor who in his own mind was deciding to elevate my musical tastes. I don’t remember your name, but thanks for the memories. And thanks to The Allman Brothers who did indeed create some wonderful music that this guys was not wrong about the fact that I should know it.

 

Songs I Love: Hope the High Road by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit

I’ve been meaning to write about this song since it dropped almost a month ago, but I almost never have the mental energy to write blog posts these days. I’m off work today though, so I have no excuse. Jason Isbell and his band the 400 Unit have a new album, The Nashville Sound, coming out in June so probably expect this to the best the first of several posts about it. I know no one reading this really cares because despite my repeated attempts over the years to turn everyone I know onto Jason Isbell’s music I have failed. But I can’t stop, won’t stop writing about how much I love his music.

Prior to hearing this song I wondered how much I might actually like the music from his new album as all the interviews with him I had seen about indicated that it was not going to be full of sad sack songs like the previous two albums that I loved so much. He said it was going to be much more of a rock and roll album with the full backing of the 400 Unit hence it’s a Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit album and not just a Jason Isbell album. “Super 8 Motel” is the most rock and roll of the songs off Southeastern and decidedly my least favorite, so I wondered if I would still feel the same love for the songs on The Nashville Sound.

If “Hope the High Road” is any indication I have nothing to worry about. I am once again going to love this album. It definitely has much more of a rock and roll vibe to it than most of the music off of Southeastern and Something More than Free, but at its heart it still very much sounds like a Jason Isbell song. The lyrics that cut straight to my heart, the great guitar, Amanda Shires voice echoing in the background. I love everything about it.

The full album is released 2 days before my birthday, and then I get to see him in concert 2 weeks after that so needless to say I’m looking forward to June.

My Most Memorable Pop Culture of 2016

Once again it’s time for my post on what was the most memorable pop culture of the year to me. It’s pop culture I consumed in 2016, not necessarily things that were exclusively released in 2016. And once again I point out that this is the stuff that made the greatest impact on me. It’s not a list of the top anything. Even I acknowledge that there are things on this list that I would not put in a top 10 or even top 20 list. They’re not necessarily the best of anything, just the stuff that I enjoyed the most or which had some special meaning to me.

Movie I Saw in a Theatre

I’m pretty sure I saw more movies in the theatre in 2016 than I have in a long time. I’ve seen 4 movies since Thanksgiving alone, which is very unusual for my life these days. I enjoyed most of the movies I saw, but I’m giving this category to La La Land. It was the one movie I saw this year that I almost immediately wanted to see again. It wasn’t a perfect movie. It didn’t quite live up to its promise as a movie musical. It started out with a bunch of musical numbers and then almost completely dropped them until the end. It was a little uneven, but I still loved it. It’s a beautiful to look at, and I really could just watch Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling interact forever. Their relationship seemed so real. At the time I saw it I was a little disappointed that they didn’t end up together even though realistically that’s what should have happened. Usually I would have enjoyed that ending, but wasn’t in the mood for at the time. In retrospect though I can appreciate it, and whatever my feelings about it were they did not detract from my love of the movie as a whole.

Movie I Watched at Home

Last year I said I should probably retire this category because I don’t watch that many movies at home, and I had a hard time thinking of any. I’m still singing that tune this year, but I’m apparently not quite yet ready to let it go because it’s still here. In doing a review I discovered I actually watched a lot more movies at home than I thought, but I literally had to go back and look because I couldn’t remember any of them. Once I did though the obvious choice was Sing Street. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a sweet little film that takes place in 1980’s Dublin about a teenage boy who starts a band to impress a girl. The songs in it were all written for the movie, but definitely evoke the sounds of 80s music. It’s a delightful little film.

 

Fiction Book

Alas my great streak with books I loved last year did not continue into this year. I did manage to meet my reading goal of 100 books for the year, but there were very few I rated above 3 stars on Goodreads. This category like several other ones exemplified how out of sync I was with pop culture this year. Almost every best of book list I saw had Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad as it’s top pick. I did not care for that book. The fiction book I most enjoyed did show up on most lists as well, so I guess I wasn’t completely off. It was Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. Essentially its a series of connected short stories, which makes it unusual that I would like it that much since I generally don’t care for short stories. The thread that connects them though is following two lines of a family through two sisters on the Gold Coast of Africa, one who is sold into slavery and the other who becomes a slave traders wife from their lives in the 1600s up through present day. Each story is essentially a new generation. It was a wonderful and heartbreaking book that really demonstrates how the sins of the past continue to haunt the present even hundreds of years later.

Non-Fiction Book

I had much better luck with non-fiction books this year than fiction ones. Most of the books I rated over 3 stars on Goodreads were non-fiction. My favorite non-fiction book of the year was another book that was not very uplifting, but was extremely interesting. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond explores poverty and housing through the lens of the city of Milwaukee. Desmond explores the intricacies of housing and the tenant/landlord relationship especially when dealing with people living in poverty. Many books like this seem to take sides, but Desmond does a really good job in following a couple of landlords and their tenants at showing how complicated the relationship and that there are failings on both sides.

TV Show

With as much good scripted television as there is these days I feel like I’m going a little off book in declaring my favorite tv show of the year as Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. It was the biggest surprise to me because I was never the hugest fan of Samantha Bee when she was a Daily Show correspondent, especially towards the end of Jon Stewart’s run when she really seemed to be going off the rails a little bit. I didn’t even plan on watching Full Frontal because I figured it was just going to be more of the same stuff I wasn’t enjoying on The Daily Show, but my husband insisted that we at least try it out and I’m very glad he did. Full Frontal is really smart, and I appreciate having a woman’s voice in the late night world, especially one who will focus on woman’s issues in a way that no one else is. I’m definitely going to need Sam Bee’s outrage to help keep me sane as we move into the horrors of whatever this Trump presidency is about to bring us.

 

TV Episode

I stopped watching Halt and Catch Fire a few episodes into its first season, but decided to get caught up this summer after hearing so many people talk about how much better the second season was. So in a way it’s a little surprising to me that my favorite episode of the year was from the third season of this show. Season 3, Episode 7 – The Threshold is a great hour of television. Donna and Cameron’s relationship and their building of Mutiny together was the heart of season 2 and what turned this show into something worth watching. Watching it fall apart in this episode was sad but wonderfully acted and excellent to watch.

Album

Music is where my tastes really did not converge with critics or other music listeners as my favorite songs and albums really didn’t show up on any best of 2016 lists. My favorite album of the year was Joseph’s I’m Alone, No You’re Not. Joseph is a group of three sisters who have wonderful harmonies but some of their songs also have a great pop sensibility. I love this whole album, and I hope to be able to see them play more of the album live in 2017.

 

 

Song

I suspect the song I’m putting in this category has a bit of recency bias. I suspect that if I first fell in love with this song say back in March instead of November that I’d probably be sick of it and wouldn’t be including it here, but Wrabel’s 11 Blocks was the song that I loved to sing along to in the car more than any other song this year and the one I always hoped I would hear on the radio when I was driving which is what it earns it this spot. Realistically my choice here should have been Joseph’s SOS (Overboard), which I love and is probably the song I listened to most this year.

 

Concert

Every year my real favorite concert experience is going to the Newport Folk Festival. This year that was no exception. I was already beat down my 2016 at the end of July and that weekend was such a balm for my soul, but I always like to pick another show from the year for this category since Newport being a festival isn’t really a single concert. This year my favorite concert was Garth Brooks. I never got to see him back in the 90s, so I’m glad I finally got the chance. He is an amazing performer and manages to make an arena show feel intimate and so fun. It was so fun to sing along to all those songs of his I loved and also to see Trisha Yearwood perform some of her songs. They are some of the first country artists I ever fell in love with and it was great to finally get a chance to see them live.

 

Broadway Theatre Production

In last year’s post I named Hamilton my favorite theatre production of the year and said I’m going again in April of 2016 so maybe it will be my favorite show of 2016 too. Let’s be realistic. It was. But I also saw other great Broadway shows this year. So even though the best show I saw was Hamilton again, I’m going to put She Loves Me in this category. The production starred Laura Benanti and Zachary Levi and it was delightful. I even paid to re-watch it online when they broadcast a recording of it later in the year.

Baltimore Theatre Production

My favorite theatre production that I saw in Baltimore snuck in at the last moment. It was the touring production of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. The Broadway production won the Tony for Best New Musical in 2014 and I’ve wanted to see it for years. It was never something that I felt that I needed to see on Broadway though given the limited number of shows I get to see there each year. I always knew I was going to wait until it toured to see it, so I was happy that it finally came around as part of our season tickets to the Hippodrome this year. It was a great show and well worth the wait. It was extremely smart and clever and a show the likes of which I haven’t seen in a long time.

Podcast

I already gave away in a post a few weeks ago that my favorite pocast this year was Out of the Blocks, a local Baltimore podcast from Aaron Henkin and Wendel Patrick. Their tag line One City Block, One Hour of Radio, Everybody’s Story pretty much describes what the podcast is about. It’s a fascinating look at the city and in the human condition. I highly recommend it to everyone not just people from Baltimore.

Podcast Episode

If Out of the Blocks didn’t exist Mark and Sarah Talk About Songs would have gotten my vote in the previous category. Instead they’ll get the mention in favorite podcast episode. I of course had to pick the episode where they discuss the song I requested, Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You”.

Songs I Love: 11 Blocks by Wrabel

Music is always healing for the soul, so it’s time to get back to writing about songs that I love around these parts. I’m sure it’s going to get way overplayed on the radio and I’ll wind up hating it in a few months, but right now I am Ob-sessed with the song 11 Blocks by Wrabel. Let’s not talk about how many times I’ve listened to in a row.

The music is super catchy and it’s easy to sing-a-long to because the lyrics are fairly simple and they repeat a lot. I like the image the lyrics paint of someone who is in a new relationship but can’t stop thinking about his ex, what they’re doing, and how easy it would be to drop back into their life. Now excuse me while I go listen to it a dozen more times on repeat.

Songs I Love: Red Earth & Pouring Rain by Bear’s Den

I am currently obsessed with the song “Red Earth & Pouring Rain” by the band Bear’s Den. They’re a London based band and this song is the title song off their sophomore album. I don’t remember hearing anything off their first album, so I’m not sure if it really got any play in the US or if it just flew under my radar. At any rate I’m in love with this song and the whole album really. It sort of reminds me of slower 80s guitar rock. I feel like rock of all kinds has fallen out of fashion, so I’m always happy for it to show up in my life.