Joe Jackson’s 1981 Jumpin’ Jive — his fourth studio album — features a dozen covers of 1940s Swing-era classics.
This album was sandwiched between the punk-tinged New Wave of his first few albums and the more musically sophisticated pop he would deliver on his next album, Night and Day.
The final featured song introduced to me by my daughter Fiona is ‘East of Eden’ by Zella Day, a pop singer who hails from Arizona. Almost every one of these artists has been from a different state, which must say something about how the internet has democratized the music business.
You used to see acts from New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Nashville… but not much in between. It’s nice to see the small town of Pinetop-Lakeside, Arizona, get in the game.
This artist might be the lowest profile of any I’ve featured the past two weeks. Little Hurt has only four songs available for streaming and the band doesn’t even have an official website or a Wikipedia page.
This “band” is actually a solo project by Colin Dieden, founder of the Los Angeles band The Mowgli’s. Dieden left The Mowgli’s in 2019 to start this project, with a goal of writing “really happy sounding music with pretty sad lyrics.”
One of the catchiest songs Fiona has unearthed, ‘Mind Eraser’ is a 2018 single from the band CRUISR, a Philadelphia-based pop trio.
activism,
CRUISR has released a few EPs and, according to their out-of-date website, has a studio album due in 2019. Guess that didn’t happen. The band’s Twitter account is pretty active, though it doesn’t have much to say about music, instead bashing President Trump and promoting social justice. Nice job, CRUISR!
Today’s track is a lot different than the mostly alternative pop songs dominating Fiona’s playlist. Ava Max is a young dance-pop artist born in Milwaukee to Albanian parents who has spent the last few years dropping singles and music videos in advance of her first studio album.
Hearing this song reminds me of what a big Lady Gaga fan Fiona was in her early childhood. Ava Max has been compared to Gaga, and ‘Kings & Queens’ certainly makes that connection clear.
Meet Me In Montauk 