On the same college trip I mentioned yesterday, my family went into the only kind of record store that exists anymore — one that sells vinyl. My daughter Sophia, who received a turntable from a friend for her last birthday, perused the bargain bin for buried gems.
What she found was Just Sylvia, a 1982 album by country pop singer Sylvia Hutton. She didn’t know the music, but really liked the “aesthetic” of the album cover. That was worth her $1.
I recently attended a college football game and was amused by the man sitting behind me, who was more into the classic rock occasionally playing over the stadium sound system than he was into the game.
When the opening notes of The Who’s ‘Baba O’Reilly’ played, he said “Baba O’Reilly. First track on Who’s Next. 1971.”
At one point, he pontificated that the secret weapon of the band Yes was not lead singer Jon Anderson but bassist Chris Squire. You get the picture.
It took the breakup of Ariana Grande’s engagement to land her her first Billboard #1 single. Just minutes before the episode of Saturday Night Live where Pete Davidson acknowledged the unlikely couple’s split, Grande dropped this sweet ode to her exes.
In the first verse, she namedrops her four celebrity mates: Davidson, rapper Big Sean, dancer Ricky Alvarez, and late rapper Mac Miller. She doesn’t specify which taught her love, patience or pain, or why one of the four apparently didn’t teach her anything.
Miranda Lambert’s final solo track on the new Pistol Annies album is her most straight-forward response to date to her divorce from Blake Shelton.
This beautiful ballad explores the end of a relationship that existed entirely in a spotlight. She compares their marriage to a framed painting, a rodeo and a country song — all objects of public scrutiny. She recognizes that, in the general conversation, her love affair was a fleeting diversion: “We’re just another thing they’ll all forget about / They’ll be standing around laughin’ like nothing ever happened.”
Pistol Annies’ third album, Interstate Gospel, dropped last week and, no surprise, it’s another wonderful collection of traditional country music with a strong feminist bent.
Not to shortchange Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley, who are both very talented, but this album is further proof that everything Miranda Lambert touches turns to gold.
Meet Me In Montauk 