I owe U2 an apology. When Songs of Innocence was creepily uploaded onto my phone, along with that of every Apple customer in the country, I initially panned it.
I don’t know if, like millions of others, I was turned off by the marketing ploy and held that against the record. Or maybe it’s just a grower. But I’ve come around to viewing it as a great late-career addition to their already impressive discography.
Lorde dominated the pop music conversation in 2013 but remained largely off the radar last year.
That is, until she took the reins of the latest Hunger Games soundtrack and reminded everybody how awesome she can be with its first single, ‘Yellow Flicker Beat.’
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.
Lucinda Williams’ sprawling double album, Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone, is a lot to wrap my brain around.
It certainly contains some throwaway tracks — I can easily imagine this release pared down to a stellar single disc — but in its ambitious, oversized form it feels at times like a summation of her impressive career.
Meet Me In Montauk 