6 December 2024 - Zoe Ko - DIRT

Zoe Ko is an up-and-coming artist.  Originally a pop artist from NYC, she's added a lot of rock influence to her sound of late.  

She has a heck of a TikTok following as well.  

Anyway, this is one of her newer singles, with the rock influence.  It is absolutely a better sound than her earlier work, and it suits her wel. 

By the way, she's also performed this song live, and, I may like it better this way.  It seems like she's a very genuine person and an engaging performer, and the stage suits her better. 

Of course, then there's the DIRT(ier) version with Sophie Powers (whose name you might have noticed on the drum head in the video above) and Emi Grace - it's just a little grungier and still pretty cool.

5 December 2024 - The Temptations - Ball Of Confusion

I have a lot of respect for the old Motown sound and what they did.  I have never been a fan of the music itself.

As an adult, I have gone back and listened to a lot more of it, and 1) it's a lot deeper than I thought it was and 2) I like it a lot more than I used to.

Take today's artists.  This is a group that has had a LOT of hits, and been around since 1960, and are STILL AROUND, nearly 65 years later.  The group is older than I am, by a LOT.  This classic song, released in 1970 and written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, was a very big hit, reaching #3 on the US pop charts and hitting similar heights in the UK.

But listen to the lyrics.  It's not some lighthearted song.  It's about racism and war and politics.  It is very much a protest song - anti-war AND anti-racism.  And it's powerful.  

Yes, there have been deaths, and there have been lineup changes.   In fact, Otis Willians is the only surviving original member.

But still, they tour.

4 December 2024 - iskwē ft. Nina Hagen - I Get High

I debated saving this great song for March - iskwē is Canadian - but 1) it's great 2) Nina Hagen is from Germany, which is very much not Canada.

iskwē is not the name on her Canadian birth certificate - that is Meghan Meisters - but it *is* a Cree word, and in fact she is a Cree Métis and a citizen of the Manitoba Métis Federation, which Canada recognizes as a soverign and official government. In Cree, her name is written ᐃᐢᑫᐧᐤ and translates to "blue sky woman", which a lot of media like to reference.

The artists co-wrote this song with Damian Taylor, and it's very very cool.  It appears on iskwē's fourth album, nīna, which is not an overt homage to her collaborator on this song, but rather the Cree word for "me". 

I've been a fan of iskwē for a while, but I've never posted her stuff here, so here is it.  

3 December 2024 - Helium - XXX

Yesterday, I posted about an artist I discovered last week. 

Today, I am posting about an artist I've known about for thirty years, and that's not just Helium.  It's Mary Timony, who has continually made music since the late 1980s.   I rediscovered her music this year, but didn't post that here.  I instead used this opportunity to throw back to an old favorite, by a band that guided a lot of my early taste - a grungy/poppy combination that works.  

And, by the way, Mary Timony STILL performs her Helium catalog solo.

2 December 2024 - Soccer Mommy - Driver

I want this December to be the strongest month we've had this year.  You see, I have discovered a lot of new music this year. It's been one of my goals this year to do this - to listen to music that isn't just the same thing over and over.

And last week, I dove HEAD first into that with a bunch of Coachella posts - a theme I'll be revisiting through April.  But as I was discovering that group of artists, I accidentally discovered a few others I had never heard of.

So, this week, I'm going to be posting songs by artists I have NEVER posted before.  

The first is Soccer Mommy (real name: Sophia Regina Allison), who released her fourth album a couple of months back.   Evergreen is that album, and it is a contender for my favorite of 2024.  This song features heavily on that album - a "light hearted love song", according to her - and is thus far the only one from the album to chart, garnering a lot of adult alternative airplay.

Anyway, she's a revelation and you should check her out now. 

Prior to the album's release, Soccer Mommy performed the songs live in a more intimate setting.  Here's "Driver" in a more stripped down manner. Her performance is accessible and down to earth - which is a trait most of her music shares. 

29 November 2024 - d4vd - Feel It

David Anthony Burke is 19.  He is part of a generation that made YouTube videos and then got copyright strikes, so his mom suggested he make his own music.

Well, that worked.  He's made a style of music that is a combination of funk and.... anime?  Yeah.  Let's go with that.  This song was written for the Amazon Prime animated series Invincible, of which he was already a fan.   For a song written for a streaming platform animated series, it is heartfelt and earnest - and makes me want to watch the show. 

It is very much a love song, and a beautiful one at that. 

d4vd will be performing at Coachella next year, and if this performance is any indication, he's going to be great.

28 November 2024 - Japanese Breakfast - The Ballad of the Witches' Road (Pop Version)

Happy Thanksgiving, Americans!

Japanese Breakfast, who will be featured at Coachella, are from Philadelphia.   They are so named because vocalist and primary songwriter (and bestselling author) Michelle Zauner thought a Japanese breakfast would be exotic to Americans.

She probably had a point.

This song was not written by Michelle Zauner. It was written by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Bobby Lopez, probably best known for writing the music for Frozen and Frozen II.  Disney had them write this central song for the television show Agatha All Along, now playing on Disney+ (YOU SHOULD GO WATCH THAT!). 

Did this song make Japanese Breakfast a household name? No.  Did it give them a bigger audience?  Well, they're playing Coachella next year, aren't they?  (They also played it in 2018 and 2022, so, probably a bad example....)