In a special year-end edition of ‘What the Kids are Listening To,’ I will spend the next two weeks looking at the Billboard Hot 100 singles for all of 2022.
If I did my job right last year, most of the songs at the top of the Hot 100 will have already appeared on the blog. And indeed that turns out to be the case. The first single on the chart to not yet show up as a Song of the Day is all the way down at #27. I’ll list the first 26 before getting to that one.
Today’s random selection is the title track from Ashley Monroe’s 2015 album The Blade, the country singer-songwriter’s third solo album.
The Blade is my favorite Monroe album (though to be fair, I haven’t listened to her most recent release in depth). The production gives this batch of songs a rootsy pop-rock flavor that fits her voice and melodies well. At times on this record Monroe reminds me of an airier Bonnie Raitt.
When Christie McVie passed away a few weeks ago, I couldn’t help but imagine the public reaction when her Fleetwood Mac bandmate Stevie Nicks eventually shuffles off this mortal coil. No doubt it will be far more intense.
In part that’s because Nicks is the more flamboyant artist, the scarf-draped mystic who commanded the stage visually while McVie held back. Nicks is also responsible for ‘Landslide’ and ‘Dreams,’ arguably the band’s most popular and beloved songs.
I thought I’d wrap up this first week of the new year by looking ahead to some of my plans for the blog in 2023.
Today’s SOTD has no relevance beyond its title, but it’s pretty decent considering I happened upon it by randomly searching “coming attractions” in Amazon Music. Nodaway is a band fronted by Nashville-based artist Chris Jobe and this track comes from their 2015 EP 500 Days of Whatever.
While no official announcement has been made, it seems likely Rihanna will grace us with a new album this year.
It has been seven years since the billionaire goddess last dropped an album — 2016’s career-best Anti — but her appearance as the halftime performer in next month’s Super Bowl suggests new material is on the way. Why take the country’s biggest stage with nothing to promote?
Meet Me In Montauk 