I always mean to watch the Country Music Awards but usually I forget. It’s an entertaining show, with the winning duo of Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood as hosts and plenty of memorable performances.
And as artists such as Kacey Musgraves, Ashley Monroe and Brandy Clark join Miranda Lambert and Paisley among my favorites, the number of acts worth watching goes up.
My 9-year-old, Fiona, just started her second year of violin lessons and she’s gotten pretty good at it. I played a little piano as a kid but it never came natural to me, so it’s nice to see one of my offspring exhibit some musical chops.
As a member of the YouTube generation, Fiona spends a lot of time watching violin tutorials. Recently she came across one for Coldplay’s ‘Viva La Vida’ and acquired a whole new appreciation for the song.
When I heard ‘Focus,’ the latest single from Ariana Grande, I told my daughter Sophia I might go ahead and buy her latest album, My Everything, because this was the fourth or fifth enjoyable track I’ve heard from it.
Sure, it’s a rehash of ‘Problem’ (with Jamie Foxx handling the spoken word chorus accompaniment this time around) but ‘Problem’ is friggin’ great.
Sophia pointed out that ‘Focus’ is actually the lead single from a new Grande album — titled Moonlight — due out in the next few months.
It was theoretically possible that Adele’s appeal had faded in the four years since her smash hit 21 dominated the pop culture scene. Sure, ‘Skyfall’ was an Oscar-winning success but we live in an era of short attention spans.
And doesn’t the music world belong to Taylor Swift now?
But those doubts have been shattered, along with a number of records, by the release of ‘Hello,’ the first single from Adele’s upcoming album 25.
Bruce Springsteen has released 18 studio albums, many of them classics. But his sophomore record, released 42 years ago, may well remain his most ambitious.
The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle runs just seven songs long, but each of them is a sprawling left-field masterpiece. Best-known are ‘Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)’ and ‘4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy),’ tracks that (like the whole album) perfectly capture the adolescent yearning of Springsteen’s New Jersey.
