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Song of the Day #1,525: ‘4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)’ – Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen’s presence on my list of favorite artists is a relatively recent development. I’ve always appreciated his work, and have held a few of his albums in high esteem, but only in the past year or so have I dived deeper into his catalog and realized the breadth of his talent.

Impressively, Springsteen earned this reassessment by releasing a series of excellent albums over the past seven years. At a time when most artists would be opting for rock-n-roll retirement, he has delivered some of the best work of his career.

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Song of the Day #1,524: ‘Statue Song’ – Stew

Stew (stage name of Mark Stewart) is another of those oddball artists who don’t really fit well into any of my musical genome categories.

Both as a solo artist and with his band The Negro Problem, Stew has explored jazz, punk, avant garde and cabaret. He has written a couple of musicals, one of which (Passing Strange) became both a Tony-winning Broadway play and a Spike Lee movie. He’s really unlike anybody else I listen to.

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Song of the Day #1,523: ‘February’ – Dar Williams

Initially I wasn’t sure if I should include Dar Williams in the set of artists I’m examing for the musical genome project. I own most but not all of her albums, and I know only a couple of them by heart. She has released her share of generic Lilith Fair soft rock snoozers.

But she has also written and recorded some of the best songs I’ve ever heard. ‘When I Was a Boy,’ for example, is a song I would list among my very favorites, not just for its musical and lyrical qualities but because it speaks to me on a deep emotional level. She can do that, and has, more than a few times.

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Song of the Day #1,522: ‘Walt Grace’s Submarine Test, January 1967’ – John Mayer

Some frequent readers of this blog might consider it appropriate that I’m posting a John Mayer song on September 11 — one painful experience commemorating another, or something like that.

I know Mayer has many detractors, but he also has legions of fans, a surprising number of which are critics. He’s the rare lightning rod who seems better respected by serious music critics than serious music fans.

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Song of the Day #1,521: ‘Brighter Still’ – Ron Sexsmith

Canadian singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith straddles the line between ‘Folk Rock Derivative’ and ‘Pure Pop’ in my musical genome. He got his start as a folk singer before expanding his sound over a dozen or so albums to include pop and jazz influences.

He never has delved into country, though, so he won’t be the first artist on my list to make a clean sweep. And while he has made use of increasingly varied instrumentation, his weapon of choice is the acoustic guitar, not the piano.

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