Pretty much every Ryan Adams song from his mellow, acoustic, alt-country phase is a good listen. They’re not all mind-blowing (though a few are) but you can’t go wrong putting them on in the background while you go about your daily life.
I feel the opposite about his harder-edged albums, which sound more like noise than music. Is it just that he’s really good at the one and not so good at the other? Or maybe it’s just my tastes.
One of the nice things about Random iTunes Weekends is that I’m sometimes introduced to a brand-new song from my own collection.
I have no idea who Maria McKee is or how her album, Life is Sweet, ended up in my music library. I assume I got it at a dollar sale in a cut-out bin back in the days of CDs.
Having not heard this song, I’m assuming McKee is a country artist in the vein of Mary Chapin Carpenter. I’m not even sure what I’m basing that guess on, to be honest.
The Random iTunes Fairy is in a nostalgic mood this weekend. We got an early 00s track from Guster yesterday, and now here’s Jude, an artist who ascended briefly in the 90s before falling quickly to earth.
Jude’s 1998 album No One is Really Beautiful is a fun and innovative bit of alt-rock, showcasing his unconventional vocals and his knack for mixing balladry with white-boy funk.
Guster is one of those bands that lives off of my radar until I hear one of their songs, and then I wonder why I don’t listen to them way more often than I do.
When the title ‘Red Oyster Cult’ first popped up as today’s Random Weekend selection, I had no idea what to expect. I’ve heard and enjoyed the album Keep it Together many times, but not closely enough to know the song titles.
For the second straight year, my wife’s birthday falls on a Random Weekend day, allowing me to play the old “whatever song comes up is your birthday dedication” game.
Last year the needle landed on the Cirque du Soleil version of The Beatles’ ‘I Am the Walrus.’ Let’s see what 2014 has in store…
Meet Me In Montauk 