One of my favorite recent finds is the New Zealand indie pop band The Beths, who released their first full-length album last year.
Led by lead vocalist and sole songwriter Elizabeth Stokes, the band The Beths most reminds me of (in spirit, if not in sound) is Ben Folds Five. Stokes is the driving creative force of a musically tight trio that brings a melodic, punk-light energy to songs about modern relationships. And they have great backing vocals, too.
Every so often the Billboard charts serve up fodder rich with philosophical implications. Such is the case with the track currently sitting at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100, Lil Nas X’s ‘Old Town Road.’
This one minute and 53 second banjo-fueled “country trap” ditty (the shortest #1 since Herman’s Hermits reached the top spot with ‘I’m Henry VIII, I Am’ way back in 1965) debuted on Soundcloud and became a viral hit, rocketing to #1 on the Hot 100 and the Hot R&B/Hip Hop chart, but (controversially) not the Hot Country chart.
John Hiatt’s 2000 album Crossing Muddy Waters is an entirely acoustic affair, recorded with two backing musicians and no drums. It was the first fully acoustic recording in the legendary singer-songwriter’s storied career.
Today’s random selection is the title track, one that (like many of Hiatt’s songs) has been performed by many others. I can’t imagine you’ll find a more effective version than this one, though.
This is the third Random Weekend appearance of a song from Green Day’s 2004 punk rock opera, American Idiot. While I enjoy the album, it’s telling that I have never posted about it deliberately but only through these random spins of the musical dial.
I’ve always appreciated this album more for the musical variety than the story, which I haven’t taken the time to fully comprehend. Today’s track introduces St. Jimmy, the alter ego of Jesus of Suburbia, and blah blah blah.
At some point this year, Lana Del Rey will release her sixth studio album, titled Norman Fucking Rockwell. Early word was March, but that clearly didn’t happen. Now it’s looking more like summer.
In the meantime, Del Rey keeps dropping tracks from the album. Today’s track is the fourth, although it is a live performance, not a studio recording. It was actually released back in October, after she performed it at an Apple event with Jack Antonoff on piano, but I missed it until now.
Meet Me In Montauk 