Conservatively speaking, roughly 97% of all Rush fans are male. This means that any hetero-inclined woman who loves this band can pretty much pick her poison when it comes to having a relationship with someone who shares her musical passion. Because of this, I am certain that I am the only man in the world who has been dragged to a Rush concert by his wife.

Cat became enamored of Rush a couple decades back, and I have never acquired that particular taste. I remember the concert as being highly professional, with my favorite part being the amusing backstage video they showed on the big screens after the show was over. In it, they even laughed about seeing a couple women in the crowd. I remember some movie stars joined them but can’t remember which ones. (Cat just looked it up – Paul Rudd and Jason Segel were in it.)

My brothers, especially the youngest one, liked Rush when we all lived at home. Once, he was blasting “Temples of Syrinx” in the bedroom while I was sitting in the living room with my parents. My dad finally couldn’t take it, and yelled out, “What is wrong with that woman? She sounds like she’s sick.” He found it hard to believe when I told him Geddy Lee was a man.

I’ve heard plenty of Rush, is what I’m saying, and I’m just not capable of enjoying them. So, we come to their 1985 album Power Windows, and I’m giving it a fair chance to impress me.

Nope. It’s a Rush album. It’s right after they ended their love affair with the Police, which was epitomized by “New World Man” from the album Signals, which I actually listened to a few times because I got a promo copy. There are hints of the Andy Summers influence on Alex Lifeson’s guitar playing but he’s also playing a lot more bigger chords and heavier riffs. Lee adds a lot of synthesizer bits as well.

I get it. These are impressive musicians. Neil Peart plays about a hundred different rhythms over the course of the eight songs on this album, shifting effortlessly from tempo to tempo, from time signature to time signature, from emphasis to emphasis. Lee’s bass playing encompasses enormous numbers of notes all played in perfect placement with Peart. And Lifeson’s guitar playing is every bit as inventive and wide-ranging as his compatriots on their instruments.

I just don’t care for the songs. Lee’s melodies lay across the chords and beats without ever transcending them. And Peart’s lyrics are literate but strangely incapable of connecting with me. It doesn’t bother me to hear this stuff but I know so many records capable of giving me much greater emotional resonance combined with creative musical conceptions.

Because I know there are more painful records as well, I think this one deserves 4 out of 10 points.

The Everly Brothers – “How Can I Meet Her” 1962 available on The Golden Hits of the Everly Brothers. Sometimes there’s no reason to have a record last longer than two minutes. This single does that with ten seconds to spare. It’s a song with lyrics by Gerry Goffin and music by Jack Keller, who Goffin collaborated with from time to time. Keller, by the way, is the guy who wrote the music for the theme to TV’s Bewitched. Don and Phil nail the vocal harmony on this tale of a guy who protests too much about not caring about woman he sees until the chorus pays off with the title of the song. Don has a neat little spoken part in the middle for a couple lines. The musicians sound like they could take the song into swing territory but are just as interested in letting the kids dance to it. The record is nothing but good stuff.

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Big Maybelle – “The Other Night” 1956 available on The Complete Okeh Sessions 1952-’55. Big Maybelle doesn’t care that this song is sung from the point of view of a young woman – the only way she knows how to sing is with the voice of experience. While Ruth Brown or Lavern Baker may have handled this song with a giddy appreciation for the discovery of love, Maybelle tears through it, taking for granted the delights her young man has given her, and letting her parents know with a matter-of-fact description of what that man told her. It’s a sweet song made sexier with Maybelle’s grit and passion.

Dolly Parton – “Shine” 2001 from Little Sparrow. Everybody immediately thought of the most magnificent Dolly Parton songs – “Jolene,” “I Will Always Love You,” “Coat of Many Colors,” even “9 to 5” – but the first thing I wanted to hear when I learned of her passing was this bluegrass version of a Collective Soul song. I had always enjoyed the original when I heard it on the radio, but Parton stole it from that band. With her vibrato, her purity of expression, her quiet placement of the word “yeah” as opposed to Collective Soul’s full-throated masculine take, Parton teaches us to seek love, to keep our eyes open, and to follow the signs which are given us. She is probably thinking of God as the provider of answers. To her credit, the performance allows us to think of life itself as the experience in question. I have to mention how brilliant are the bluegrass musicians, which include the members of Nickel Creek – Chris Thile on mandolin, Sara Watkins on fiddle, and Sean Watkins on guitar. Taking a song that relies on big thick guitars and playing it on acoustic instruments while somehow making it all sound even more powerful – that’s something that working with Dolly Parton probably brought out in these players.

Les Paul & Mary Ford – “The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise” 1951 single available on The Best of the Capitol Masters – 90^th Birthday Edition. My dad had an album by Les Paul & Mary Ford and I’m sure I heard it plenty in my earliest years of life. Did it have this song, their third biggest hit after “How High the Moon” and “Vaya Con Dios”? I don’t know, but hearing this now did make me feel like a kid again. Ford’s overdubbed vocal parts and Paul’s lightning fast guitar runs give this early 1920s pop song a life I don’t think it ever had elsewhere. The melody is simple and super catchy, and the performance assembled in the studio is impossible to resist.

Frank Sinatra – “One For My Baby (And One More For the Road)” 1958 from Sings For Only the Lonely. This Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen song was originally performed by Fred Astaire in a 40s musical I’ve never seen. While I’m sure Astaire could handle this tricky little song, and I’m sure Tony Bennett, who loved to sing it, did it very well, it’s Sinatra who owns it. (Of course, my father, once again worming his way into one of these blurbs, used to sing the first two lines now and again, but since he never got further into it, I figure his version can’t count.) The song contains the imagery we inevitably associate with Sinatra – in the wee hours sitting at a bar by himself, drinking his misery away. This particular arrangement sounds so intimate, with Sinatra sounding like he’s singing inches from your ear, and a gentle piano accompaniment joined by quiet chords provided by strings. It’s a magnificent performance on all fronts.

If I had encountered Loudon Wainwright III by the time 1985 rolled around, it would have been from his occasional appearances on the TV show M*A*S*H. I had no idea he was a musician then, though by the early 80s, I may have read that he was involved with Suzzy Roche of the Roches, which would have been enough to make me intrigued, as I loved that group to death. (I’m not sure when I learned he had previously been married to Kate McGarrigle, whose music I loved even more.)

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It would be 1986 before I actually owned a Wainwright album, More Love Songs. That one was produced by Richard Thompson, which may have helped my decision to get on board. Somehow, though, I missed the fact that Thompson had also produced the 1985 release, I’m Alright.

Finally getting around to hearing this album made for a revelation. Here are twelve songs as well written, insightful, funny, and self-deprecating as anything he’d done before or since. Thompson brought along some of his associates – Christine Collister sings a little background vocals, Gerry Conway plays some drums, and Danny Thompson adds some bass. Richard himself plays a bit of lead guitar. I knew none of that until I’d finished listening, and I wouldn’t have suspected. The only strong personality on this record is that of Loudon Wainwright III.

I knew the song “One Man Guy” because Wainwright’s son (with McGarrigle) Rufus Wainwright had done a gorgeous version of it on his album Poses. (Interestingly, Richard Thompson’s son Teddy Thompson sang harmony with Rufus and his sister Martha Wainwright.) But I had never heard the original, which is the first track on I’m Alright. Loudon’s version is done solo, which is appropriate for a song celebrating his complete self-sufficiency.

The title track here is a blues parody with Thompson playing some scorching lead guitar over Wainwright’s chugging blues chords. “Woke up this morning I didn’t feel bad / Last night was definitely not one of the worst I’ve ever had.” By the end of the song, he is celebrating his favorite kind of dental floss as something that makes him feel better.

While most of the album is typically about Wainwright’s life and experiences, the song “Not John” is a straight-forward documentation of the death of John Lennon five years before this record came out. It’s got a sweetly melancholy melody with which Wainwright tells of the limousine taking John and Yoko away from the recording studio to their appointment with destiny, where a man from Hawaii named Chapman awaits. It’s a hard song to listen to more than once, which makes its placement in between “I’m Alright” and the amusing “Cardboard Boxes” a little strange.

Side one ended with “Screaming Issue,” one of the greatest songs I’d never heard before. (I’ve seen Wainwright live two or three times, yet apparently this is one he never did live.) Wainwright rarely ever co-wrote songs, but this one was a collaboration with another Roche, Terre It’s got an odd descending melody over a gentle waltz rhythm. The song is about the infant daughter Lucy (Lucy Wainwright Roche, yet another offspring who has made fine records as an adult). She was born in December, 1981 on the same date as her grandfather and as Beethoven, which is the first subject of the song. There is an otherworldly gorgeous vocal counterpoint on the chorus from several singers. Near the end, a violin and bowed bass add even more beauty to the song.

Two songs on side two find Wainwright taking stock of his life and career just shy of his 40^thbirthday. “How Old Are You?” is a fast-paced acoustic rockabilly number with Richard Thompson adding some tasty licks on electric guitar. It’s about the kind of stupid questions people have asked him – “Isn’t time you died or retired?” “How come you didn’t get big like Bob Dylan? How come you didn’t get big like Springsteen?” “When you were young you were so much better?” “Ain’t it true that you’ve got children / I guess that proves you’ve got a sex life.”

“Career Moves” ends the record as he looks back on what is now the first third of his career, but at 20 years seemed like a long time at the time. “I must have broken a million G strings / Picking and strumming and playing these things.” “To stand on a stage doesn’t make me afraid / I’m comfortable up there, it’s gotten me laid.” This one I know I’ve heard before somewhere or other.

I assume “Animal Song” was something he started out making up for his kids – Rufus and Martha would have been too old by the time this record came out, and Lucy perhaps just at the age to appreciate it a list of the sounds animals make, but I have no idea when he wrote it. Because he’s Loudon Wainwright III, though, he added a clever verse of cliches featuring animals. That’s the kind of thing John Prine would have done for a whole song.

“Daddy Take a Nap” is another fun song about parenthood. It’s kind of an old school jazzy tune. When Daddy gets grouchy, he goes to take a nap. “When Daddy gets grumpy like a grizzly bear, leave him hibernating in his lair.” The way Loudon growls on the word “grizzly” would have been tailor made for singing to his kids. Of course, ultimately the song is probably less personal than some, since there’s a verse about Mommy and Daddy fighting over him not having a job.

I am so happy to have finally gotten around to hearing this record – I know there are a few other Wainwright albums I need to check out, too. This one I think feels like it deserves 9 out of 10 points.

Syl & Brenda Johnson – “All I Need Is Someone Like You” 1960s available on Complete Mythology. I never have gotten around to hearing this massive collection of Syl Johnson material – I was always fine with the Hi Records releases, which were right next to Al Green’s classic albums in style and effect. This particular song was recorded with his wife Brenda, and it’s a Chicago-styled soul number with the two of them telling each other how good it is to be married. There’s a comment on one YouTube video which claims the backing track was originally used on some other singer’s record – if so, the Johnsons sit comfortably in its groove.

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Guy Clark – “Rita Ballou” 1975 from Old No. 1. The first time I heard of Guy Clark coincided with his one and only country radio hit, “Fried Green Tomatoes.” Actually I’m not even sure it was a hit everywhere, but it sure was in St. Louis, and I sold a bunch of copies of that album in my first record store job back in ’83. For many people, “Rita Ballou,” being the first cut on his first album, was the introduction to this masterful Texas singer/songwriter. It’s a jaunty number, full of pep and enthusiasm to celebrate the woman every man wants to love. Of course, Rita is just having fun dancing and enjoying the attention. That doesn’t mean cousin Willard isn’t going to give it his best shot to win her, either for the night or for longer. Clark calls him a fool, but “Lord, I wish I was a fool in your shoes.”

Charley Patton – “Jim Lee Blues” 1930 available on The Rough Guide to Charley Patton. Warning: towards the end of the song, Patton uses a term for African-Americans that is derogatory; he is taking possession of it from the whites, but still modern ears can find it jarring. Also, it’s not the word you’re thinking of. Even when he didn’t sing in blues form, Charley Patton was possessed of the blues spirit. He was the first giant of the Mississippi Delta. On this song, you can hear the power of his vocals – and you can hear the inspiration he must have given Howlin’ Wolf in terms of phrasing and use of a growling tone. The Jim Lee was a steamboat, but it only figures in three of the ten two-line verses of the song. With forceful guitar strumming as accompaniment, Patton tells of his loneliness, brags of his ability to attract women, and refers to an arrest involving moonshine. There is a part 2, with even more evidence of his talents.

Buddy Guy – “Moanin’ and Groanin” 2003 from Blues Singer. I was so entranced with the powerful electric blues records Buddy Guy had been making in the years before this album came out that I don’t think I gave this acoustic record much of a chance. The title Blues Singer should have pointed out to me that the blues has always been primarily a vocal form, no matter how exhilarating guitarists and other soloists have made it. Buddy Guy is a commanding singer, with a repertoire of whoops and growls, and a profound use of dynamics. For this song, originally by Johnny Shines, Guy gives us three verses to let us understand his woman was incredible and now she’s gone. The rest of the time, he shows off an amazing array of acoustic guitar licks. So, yeah, maybe the album title should have been Blues Singer and Guitarist.

Dengue Fever – “Hold My Hips” 2013 from In the Ley Lines. If you’re not familiar with this band, it’s a bunch of white Californian musicians who fell in love with older Cambodian pop music and wedded it to their own garage rock sensibilities, then added a one-time Cambodian pop star named Chhom Nimol to do the singing. They’ve released a dozen albums this century. In the Ley Lines was intended to be a digital-only album but it has been released as an import on LP. This song is a perfect encapsulation of what makes this band so special. Nimol sings the delightful melody while the band cooks along behind her with an organ and guitar heavy arrangement. I’m not at all sure what the song means, but I know I like it.

Lloyd Cole’s first album, Rattlesnakes, had received a lot of critical praise in 1984. I think I heard the song “Perfect Skin” from that record, but otherwise it escaped my ears. When I saw a used copy of the follow-up, Easy Pieces, come in at the record store in ’85, I snatched it up.

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So, this less heralded second album was basically my introduction to Lloyd Cole’s songwriting and singing. I should have been suspicious right away – they had brough Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley in as producers. Those guys were tops at commercial production in England at that time, but I had already been less than happy with their work on Elvis Costello records a couple years earlier.

I gave the record a couple spins back in those days, and aside from “Brand New Friend” and, to a lesser extent “Lost Weekend,” not much of it stuck in my head. I also didn’t like it enough to get any further Lloyd Cole music until the 90s. I slotted Cole into that section of musical artists who were obviously talented but not quite interesting enough to pay close attention to. This may have been a mistake. I don’t know.

Listening to Easy Pieces now, I think it’s a better record than it was given credit for by me or by critics at the time. Cole’s melodies are insinuating, clever things. They sneak up on you, using short phrases and frequent glides across bar lines, not to mention neatly accented rhythms to the words and notes. His singing is unique. Cole has this little ache in his voice which comes out at random intervals, and a lithe vibrato that sneaks in at the end of some lines. And the band itself is smart, arranging all these songs with inventive bits and pieces that fit together perfectly.

The production adds some nice elements, too. Judicious use of strings or brass deepen some of the songs. The mix is bright, but not cloying. Cole’s voice is only a little bit louder than the band behind him, making it a sixth instrument as much as a focus of the songs.

Lyrically, Cole was going for something different from the average pop musician. His songs are full of images, of juxtapositions, of quotations, and of ironic use of the word “Jesus.” (Seriously, three different songs drop Jesus into their stories.)

Take “Brand New Friend,” for instance. “Walking in the pouring rain / Walking with Jesus and Jane.” We’ve got that picture right away, and already we’re wondering what Jesus is doing there. “Jane was in her turtleneck / I was much happier then.” The scene is more complete, and we’ve added an emotional reaction. Also, note the pseudo rhyme of “Jane” with “then.”

Then we’re in another context. “If I were to ask you / What would you do with yourself / If I were to tell you / Would you just talk to yourself?” Is this the song’s narrator talking to the I of the first verse? Are they the same person and is he looking back on the past with the knowledge of what would happen later? All of this is sung in a syncopated manner over a rhythm machine and accordion part that is syncopated in a different direction, before the full band kicks in.

Now it’s time for the chorus, with a brighter, catchier melody. “Am I asking oh for so much / I’m not asking to be understood. Am I asking oh for so much? / I’m just looking for a brand new friend.” The happy times are gone, and he’s looking for new ones, but he’s tempering his expectations. He doesn’t even need to be understood.

The first verse comes back again - Cole frequently repeats whole verses in his songs. And the chorus is repeated, with a different answer at the end. “No, just something that I can hold down / ‘Cos it’s all downhill now.” Uh oh – that doesn’t sound like he has high hopes at all.

Time to switch gears entirely for a faster, even catchier bridge. “Let me count the times that we swore and lied / Let me count the times.” I’m thinking even a turtleneck in the rain isn’t all that happy an experience. “Let me count the times when of course we lied / Well we knew no better, it was no crime.” This is one of the most cynical songs about love I’ve ever heard, with the best that can be hoped for is mutual lack of truth.

At the end, he sings “I, well I don’t know when I’ll be content / But I do know I need a brand new friend.” He’s not expecting anything great, but he’s going to try anyway. Then he and the vocal chorus trade off sumptuous cries of “Brand New Friend” until the song fades away.

As I said, that was always my fave song on this album, but I don’t think I had thought much about what he was singing before. Most of the rest of the song promise similar intelligence at work. And musically, it’s all quite engaging. I’ll give it 8 out of 10 points.

Bert Jansch – “Hey Doc” 1998 from Toy Balloon. There are plenty of songs out there with patients going to the doctor with love problems – it’s a workable metaphor that never feels out of date. Jansch insists he’s never going to fall in love again but I guess he wants the doctor to make that more certain. I think Jansch is channeling some Mose Allison with this fun little song – it’s a jazzy kind of blues, at any rate. Of course, what we really want from Bert Jansch is guitar playing, and he’s dazzling as usual with his finger picking on this number.

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Dinah Washington – “Crazy He Calls Me” 1954 live in Los Angeles available on the CD reissue of Dinah Jams. I learned this song, along with quite a few other standards, from Linda Ronstadt’s What’s New album some 43 years back. It’s no surprise that Dinah Washington sings it with way more nuance – her version is less in your facea nd more a low-key pleasure. And there’s a delightful Herb Geller alto sax solo, too. “The difficult I’ll do right now / The impossible will take a little while.” Has there ever been a better promise made in a pop song?

Johnny Osbourne – “Kiss Somebody” 1981 from Nightfall. Oh, man, Roots Radics! They were the pre-eminent Jamaican backing band in the 80s. They provide one slinky groove behind Johnny Osbourne, who sort of sings, sort of chants this song about a guy who isn’t going to kiss a particular person any more after she was clearly kissing somebody else with the flu. There are versions of this song with some sweet dub versions afterwards, but I’ll let you hunt those down. The single itself is plenty irresistible.

John Anderson – “Countrified” 1986 from Countrified. John Anderson was the first charting 80s country singer I fell in love with. Even so, I missed out on this 1986 album, and this delightful song, written by some guy named Tom Lazaros. It’s all about a guy who loves caviar and pretty city women but equally loves finger lickin’ food and places where you can wear jeans. He’s adamant about holding onto his country side but the last words go mostly to the city side of him. Anderson was always a commanding singer, with ways of emphasizing words and syllables through slight stretches or use of dynamics that made him a stand-out. This song only reached number 44 on the country charts in 1987 – can’t imagine there were 43 better options available at the time.

Charles Bradley – “Golden Rule” 2011 from No Time For Dreaming. Charles Bradley was 63 years old when he released this debut album. He’d been singing soul music for decades and was finally on the path to become a minor star before he passed away six years later. The Menahan Street Band backed him up on this record – they were always a welcome addition to any project from Daptone Records. This song was co-written by Bradley and the band. It’s got a hard groove and is played in a minor key, making it sound exotic. Bradley’s raspy voice questions the trends he saw in America – he had no idea how much worse it could get. His quixotic hope is that we can remember the golden rule, to love one another as we would like to be loved. His passionate pleas remain compelling.

Everybody knows Alligator Records is one of the most vibrant blues labels of the last fifty years. It’s often forgotten – even by the label itself – that there were about a dozen reggae albums released on Alligator back in the early 80s. None of them are in print or available on streaming services. Triumph! By Joe Higgs was the last of these.

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I remember hearing this album when it was new but I didn’t give it enough attention to know if it was any better than just plain good. I was able to find four tracks on YouTube videos, and now I’m thinking this was a major record from a major artist.

Joe Higgs was 45 years old by the time he released Triumph! He had actually been one of the earliest recording artists in Jamaica as far back as the late 50s. He helped nurture the young Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Wailer. He wrote the classic song “Steppin’ Razor” – and eventually won recognition for it in court after Peter Tosh stole the credit for it. And yet, he only released five albums as a solo artist.

Three of the four songs I heard today are love songs, with two happy and one a lament (with hope) for a lost love. “Satisfy My Heart and Soul” and “Come a Little Closer” are lovely tunes, with Higgs’ soulful vocals over sparkling backing from top reggae session players of the time. “Young and Wild” is my fave of the romantic numbers, though. Here, we find Higgs realizing that his lover is ready to leave him, and he plans to let her go with the hope she’ll realize what she’s missing. It also has one of those moments in some reggae songs when he suddenly ups the ante for a single line, sounding as though he’s suddenly realized the situation is more urgent than we thought.

“Creation” is another kettle of fish entirely. It’s got these jazzy soprano sax and piano lines running around in the background. The song is rootsier than the lovers’ rock of the other tracks. Higgs is singing of the lack of freedom he sees in African nations, where Ethiopia has foreign intervention, and South Africa has segregation. It’s a spectacular combination of instruments and vocals.

I wish I could hear the whole album again, because it sounds like it’s heading to be an 8.5 out ten.

Mississippi John Hurt – “Richland Woman Blues” 1967 from The Immortal Mississippi John Hurt. Hurt sings this in the voice of a woman. She’s ready for a ride in a tin lizzie, some booze, and, well, you know. As always with Hurt, the finger picking on the guitar is delicate and forceful at the same time. It’s pure beauty. Hurt sings with a tone of nostalgia – this was recorded probably 40 years after it was written, to judge from the lyrical references to the aforementioned tin lizzie and a bob haircut. I imagine he’s remembering the woman who inspired the song in the first place.

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Bill Lloyd – “Standing On the Shoulders of Giants” 2011 from Standing on the Shoulders of Giants. I first knew Bill Lloyd’s music as half of the country duo Foster & Lloyd which I played a lot in the late 80s. Then I heard the delightful power pop record he released just before teaming up with Radney Foster, Feeling the Elephant.He hasn’t been prolific over the years but this 2011 record is well worth seeking out. This title track is a typically exuberant melodic rock’n’roll number. It’s all about answering the poor schmuck who thinks there’s nothing left to create. According to Lloyd, every creative endeavor was built on the backs of the giants who came before. All that, and a good beat you can dance to.

Larry Williams – “Bad Boy” 1959 single available on Bad Boy: The Complete Larry Williams Singles. “Now Junior, behave yourself!” That’s one of the classic rock’n’roll interjections, the sound of adulthood in its miscomprehension of the youngsters of the era. With a solid groove that doesn’t sound far away from a typical Little Richard style – which makes sense, considering the brilliant Earl Palmer is on drums here – Larry Williams tells us of a boy immersed in rock’n’roll culture who, it turns out, is also a bit of a monster. I mean, I can support putting money in a jukebox, and I understand kids who didn’t like going to school, but the idea of feeding a pet canary to a cat and putting a dog in either the washing machine or the dryer, is just nasty. I can’t help loving the song for its energetic feel but I wish for a sequel in which Junior gets his comeuppance.

Bee Gees – “Such a Shame” 1968 from Idea. What? You say you’re an American Bee Gees fan who bought all the albums when they came out and you’ve never heard this song before? That’s because here in the U.S., “Such a Shame” was pulled from Idea and replaced with “I’ve Gotta Get a Message To You.” I’m not going to claim this was a mistake, as the hit song is a much better record. But I will argue that “Such a Shame,” written and including vocals by guitarist Vince Melouney when he was a member of the band, is a pretty cool thing itself. It’s got a sing song melody with lyrics that read to my 2026 eyes as a coded exploration of a gay relationship. “Once in a while he says good night. / Will I care if sometimes he is right?” And then the bridge: “Oh how I tried / I just sat and then I cried.”

case/lang/veirs – “People Have the Power” 2026 from case/lang/veirs 10^th Anniversary. Two excellent singers on each end and one of the greatest in the middle. That’s Neko Case, k.d. lang, and Laura Veirs. Their one and only collaboration will get an anniversary release next month, with bonus cuts including this live take on Patti Smith’s populist anthem. I always think of this song when an election takes down some right wing or centrist position or politician, and we had some of that the other day (though not 100%, of course). But the song is even more about the strength of people working together to accomplish great things. It’s about dreaming and imagination and hope. It may be too pollyannaish but I still respond to it every time I hear it. And this version is now my new favorite.

It’s odd that the voters in Brad Luen’s Semipop Life reader’s poll chose Bonus Fat by the Descendents and not I Don’t Want to Grow Up considering that by 1985 all the songs on the former had been released before while the latter was the band’s brand new record. I saw the Descendents probably in 1986 but I hadn’t ever paid close attention to their recordings. At any rate, I only remembered one song out of eight on this ten minute release.

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The Descendents were an interesting hardcore band, almost cartoony at times. Two of the songs here clock under twenty seconds. Two years later, they would release what has to be at least tied for the shortest song ever recorded, “All.” It lasts one second. There’s another cut on the album, “No, All” which is probably tied for second shortest - it lasts two seconds.

The songs on Bonus Fat include the first two ever recorded and released by the band, “Ride the Wild” and “It’s a Hectic World.” These were done before Milo Aukerman joined the group and gave them a distinctive vocalist. They were also done before hardcore punk changed the band’s sound – these two are rather surf rock sounding.

“Global Probing” was originally available on one of the dozens of hardcore compilations that sprang up in those days. It’s the closest to the Descendents sound I remember that’s included on this record. Milo offers self-help lyrics – “You keep on tryin’ and you don’t give up” tempered by the conviction that most of the time you won’t get what you want.

The other five songs were originally on an early Descendents EP entitled Fat. These include “I Like Food,” which used to be my favorite punk rock song because it’s title seemed so goofily important and it lasted all of seventeen seconds to repeat “I like food / Food tastes good” multiple times. I just checked out the lyrics and saw that drummer Bill Stevenson, who wrote this, threw in a line about teenage girls that reads creepy in the middle of this otherwise goofy song. On the other hand, Stevenson was only 19 when he wrote this, so teenage girls were often age appropriate.

“Weinerschnitzel” is like a rap skit with a hardcore middle section and lasts only twelve seconds. The other three songs – “My Dad Sucks,” “Mr. Bass,” and “Hey Hey” concern the typical hardcore disparagement of parents, the atypical focus on one of those singing plastic fishes you saw on walls sometimes in the late 70s, and the urge to fight some nameless enemy. I should point out that without the internet’s ability to provide lyrics for me, I would never have understood the words of these loud, fast, hard songs.

I think the Descendents made better records later, but I could just be remembering my enjoyment of their live show. I guess I’ll give this one 5 out of 10 points – it’s an average hardcore punk record.

Florence Dore – Hold the Spark. So very many songwriters move to Nashville from other parts of the country that it’s downright surprising to find one who left Nashville to go somewhere else, in this case Chapel Hill, NC. Her music has a bit of a twang to it, but mostly it’s pop rock and fits the city which gave us members of the dB’s and Let’s Active. Dore writes memorable songs and hits the jackpot when the words really jump out. It might be the comedy of “12 Great Minds (Departmental Meeting)” which includes the highly singable hook “12 great minds and 12 ways to fuck it up.” It could be the intriguing encounter with philosophy of “Abacus,” which begins “I sat down with Descartes / Trying to understand the heart.” Or it could be the enormously sweet romance taking place in the bleeder seats of the baseball stadium while the outfielder robs a home run in “Just Like Mookie Betts.” And there’s more where those three came from.

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Rob Bonfiglio – The Over Under. I hadn’t heard this guy’s name but he has some high profile associations. He’s played guitar with both Brian Wilson and Mike Love’s touring bands, he’s been guitarist and musical director for Wilson Phillips, and he’s worked with half the Los Angeles rock legends still hanging around that town. This is the latest of his solo projects, on which he plays practically every instrument. I haven’t heard the others but I can vouch that this is the kind of power pop that should please fans of the Raspberries, Todd Rundgren, and Matthew Sweet, all three of which provide moments of obvious inspiration here. The songs are catchy, the guitars are dynamic, and the album is pure pleasure.

Rodney Crowell – Then Again. If, like me, you were confused hearing Guy Clark, considering he’s been dead ten years now, reciting every other line in the song “Are You One of Us?”, you can relax when you learn this whole album has been sitting in Crowell’s vault for twenty years. Don’t ask me why he didn’t put it out then – I’m just glad to hear it now. These are solid songs, beautifully performed. “If I Could Speak to Leonard” is a lovely tribute to Mr. Cohen. “The Ballad of Artemis and Orion” puts a wondrous modern lingo spin on ancient Greek myths. “Sing Your Heart Out” is the sound of Crowell and backing singers doing just that. I’m not enamored of “The Has-Been Vents His Spleen,” which tries to have its cake and eat it too by pissing on contemporary country music (though, remember it was twenty years ago) while claiming how bad it can be when old people don’t understand young. The song does have some funny lines and rhymes, though, especially the one that goes with Chrissie Hynde.

Ivo Perelman / Elliott Sharp / Cyro Baptista – Triacontagon. I haven’t heard Elliott Sharp in more than 35 years since the days when his records would get marketed to the indie rock scene even though they were really avant-garde jazz/classical/noise. But of course, I trust Ivo Perelman every time I see his name. With Perelman on tenor sax, Sharp on eight-stringed guitar, and another Brazilian, Cyro Baptista on a wide array of percussion and some percussive vocals here and there, this trio record named after a thirty-sided geometric shape is a wild trip through sound and rhythm. I know this is supposed to be improvised music between the three of them but I do hear passages with two clear guitar lines, or guitar and something that sounds like a melodica. I’d love to know how they worked that out. At any rate, I highly recommend the first track, “Dionysus in the Amazon.” If you like that one, you’ll be up for the rest of the album, which gets wilder.

Ambrose Akinmusire & Mary Halvorson – Slo-Mo Neon Luminate Hoverings. The album opens with as pure a trumpet tone as you’ll ever hear, as Akinmusire teases out a lovely melody which earns multiple variations and take-offs from both him and Halvorson on guitar. The record ends with a shimmering tone generated by one of those effects which enable a musician to overdub live, while Akinmusire and Halvorson play strong notes of passion and compassion. In between, we have nine tunes with the duo taking turns in the spotlight and occasionally playing the same pre-composed bits at the same time. There are several tracks with the live overdub thing playing chords behind them. The focus, though, is on the live interplay between these two world class musicians. I’m debating whether I should tell you about the surprise sounds in “This Vivid,” but I think I’ll let you jump like I did when I heard it the first time.

Renee Fleming & Béla Fleck – The Fiddle and the Drum. Renee Fleming is best known in opera circles though she’s done a little jazz – I can’t remember hearing it but there was an album with Bill Frisell some 20 years ago. Here she teams up with producer/banjo player Béla Fleck to tackle the older Great American Songbook, the folk tradition. We’ve got ornithological representation with both “The Cuckoo” and “Pretty Bird,” along with such chestnuts (or should that be pine nuts?) as “In the Pines” and “Scarlet Ribbons.” Fleming obviously loves these songs, and while she can’t shed her classically trained purity, that works well with the serious arrangements Fleck gives these songs. And there are ringers brought in to sing harmony with her – Dolly Parton, Vince Gill, Aoife O’Donovan, Sierra Hull, and Sara Watkins. There’s also an uncredited harmony singer on several tracks who brings a little dirt to counteract the pretty. Best tracks here are the Parton duet on “In the Pines”; the Gill duet on one of Elvis Costello’s most perfect melodies, “The Scarlet Tide” (made retroactively 19^th century by virtue of being written for a Civil War movie); and an a cappella trio of Fleming, Hull, and Watkins on “Pretty Bird” which is to die for.

Graham Coxon – Castle Park. I’ve never spent much time with Blur, and certainly never heard a solo album from Graham Coxon before. Something about the artwork made me think I should give this one a listen, and thus a new pleasure has been found. Coxon’s singing is nothing to write home about, but he does deliver a light, breezy feel to the various emotional states of the songs. In a weird way, this album reminds me of the Kinks in the late 60s – it’s very English, very open arrangements, very catchy melodically.

Tierra Whack – Whack’s Museum. I’m constantly trying to expand my musical horizons, and as such I tend to come late to parties of certain artists. This is billed as a mix tape, not an album, and at less than thirty minutes for a dozen songs, I guess the difference is in the idea that nothing needs to be expansive. I’m thus getting my introduction to this mercurial talent on a tossed off collection of rap songs rather than one of her more conceptual mixed genre records. That’s fine, because these rap songs are highly enjoyable. Whack has a lot of different approaches to her hip hop muse – she can go fast and heavily percussive, she can slow down and twist up the rhythms, she can sound conversational or entirely artistic. There are dozens of quotable lyrics over mostly laconic – and occasionally manipulated – sound beds. I’m keeping my eye on this young woman’s music.

Swamp Dogg – Swamp Dogg Contemplates the Afterlife. Yes, there are songs contemplating mortality – most especially “Final Approach,” which looks at a satisfied soul in the late stages of life, and John Prine’s “Please Don’t Bury Me” which is a typical Prine-ish approach to cataloguing what to do with body parts after death. But there are also songs contemplating life after divorce – the New Orleans inflected and titanically catchy duet with Gary “U.S.” Bonds “Waka Waka Waka” and the searing “Unhappy Song.” And there’s a devastating sad song looking at someone who survives after a death of another – “Daddy’s Little Girl.” All this and a Jenny Lewis cover that improves upon the pretty cool original. Swamp Dogg has been making exuberant soul music for decades – this one ranks with his best stuff.

Sky Smeed – Live at the Rock House. I have no idea if these are all songs first performed on this live album or if they are familiar to long-time fans. I only just discovered this talented singer/songwriter with an acoustic guitar. He’s good at the life story sentimental songs and he’s good at the humorous looks at the world songs. I like the fact that he puts his original “Nine to Five” in the context of Johnny Paycheck and Dolly Parton songs that looked at the concept of work. I love his songs about eating squirrel meat and about catching the extremely large bass. And how can you go wrong with the very John Prine concept of “Bumper Sticker” in which he strings together a bunch of things he’s seen on the backs of cars?

The Cjays – All Sides. Cheryl Hendrixson has made music in other bands in St. Louis but here she is front and center. These are her songs, and they are good ones. The through-line, whether the music is rocking with guitars up front or more atmospherically arranged with keyboards, is Hendrixson’s melodic sensibility. She doesn’t always use conventional hooks – mostly, the entire song serves as a catchy melodic development. I love when she throws in an occasional vocal overdub as a light and bright counterpoint to her lead. Chuck Lindo, who is showing up more and more on St. Louis projects, plays almost all the instruments on the record. I recommend it if you’re looking for adult pop/rock.

RJD2 and Supastition – According To. A veteran hip hop producer meets a veteran MC, and I meet both of them for the first time. I convinced myself on first listen that there were two distinct voices rapping on this record, but then I found out Supastition does it all, while RJD2 lays down the excellent funky beats that harken back to the way hip hop sounded in the early 90s – there’s even a sample of Naughty by Nature doing “Hip Hop Hooray” on one cut. Supastition writes tightly constructed lyrics which are thematically consistent while still leaving room for metaphorical leaps and oddball images. He’s talking here about his life in his middle age, with children and money worries and the loss of friends who die too young. And all of it is enormously entertaining and musically compelling.

Tift Merritt – Sugar. I was thinking I might have missed some Tift Merritt records until I found out this was her first album in almost ten years. So it’s her fault, not mine. Whatever was keeping her away from the studio, though, hasn’t slowed down her writing and singing. She remains one of our finest Americana performers. The songs herein have elements of country, r&b, and rock. But the genres aren’t what attracts me to the record. It’s the heart, the emotions, the searching quality for answers to life’s mysteries – “Following the water for an answer going by / And any kindness I can find.” That last line is repeated many times, and it’s the last thing heard on the record. I’m down for the search myself.

Dallas Good and Richard Reed Perry – Were the Watchtowers. I’m so often out of touch with things. I played this album because I knew it was a posthumous release from Dallas Good of the Sadies, a band I enjoyed even before they collaborated with Neko Case and became famous. I honestly wasn’t aware that Good had passed away four years ago. I had no recognition of the other name on this project, and I just found out after several listens that he’s from Arcade Fire. Good and Reed were working on this record when Good died. There are a couple songs Reed finished afterwards, with help from Neko Case on one, and some other singers on another. Reed and Good had an excellent vocal rapport, with harmonies inspired by the Everly Brothers, I suspect, though the music is very different. There is a lot of expansive sound around their vocals, with drums not taking up much space if they’re there at all. It’s all about melody, and feel, and a sparse but immaculate beauty.

Cécile McLorin Salvant – With Every Breath I Take. Salvant works with the Metropole Orkest on this album. I last encountered that wonderful orchestra, which incorporates classical and jazz influences, when they worked with Elvis Costello 22 years back on his album My Flame Turns Blue. Here, they collaborate with Salvant to come up with distinctive, highly engaging arrangements for songs both familiar – “Send in the Clowns,” “Lush Life,” “Sophisticated Lady,” and “Les Parapluies de Cherbourg” – and new to me at least – the title track, “Barbara Song,” and “Being Alive” to name the standouts. Salvant has ridiculous control of her voice, with a wide range of notes and tones available to her. She incorporates theatrical techniques with her jazz conception. This is a true collaboration between musical worlds, and every song here is emotionally rich as well as musically incandescent.

Steve Swallow – Winter Songs. I guess it’s mildly perverse to record an album in September, 2024 and release it in June, 2026, but name it after the coldest season of the year. Is that more or less perverse than merely numbering the compostions without coming up with imagistic titles? Ah, well, there’s nothing perverse about the music, which is gently intoxicating, quietly insinuating, and just plain lovely. Steve Swallow has been playing jazz bass for more than 65 years – he’s also a fantastic composer of tunes. It’s been a long time since he recorded an album, so my complaints above are merely for fun, not anything to take away from the magic of this record. Swallow is joined by Mike Rodriguez on trumpet; Chris Cheek on tenor sax; Steve Cardenas on guitar, Gil Goldstein on piano; and Adam Nussbaum on drums. The arrangements put the spotlight on everybody at one time or another (save Nussbaum, who is there to support, not lead). I’ve fallen under the spell of this music every time I’ve given it a listen.

Las Instancias – Las Instancias. This Argentinian jazz trio has a nice light bounce to its intricately woven rhythmic and melodic numbers. Shantala Ferreyra plays clarinet; Fermin Suárez is on bass; and Gonzalo Gocoechoa is on drums. Each turns in one or two compositions, with one tune presented in two distinct takes. The clarinet immediately sets this group off from most jazz groups, as that instrument hasn’t exactly taken the world by the storm these past 80 years or so. Ferreyra has a really strong tone, and her improvisations and tunes are all delightful. The rhythm section has a lot of room to maneuver, making for some tricky turns here and there. I will keep my eye out for more from this group.

Ivo Perelman / Matthew Shipp / William Parker / Bobby Kapp – Synesthesia. Apparently, these four masterful improvisers have released records together before but this is my first time encountering them. I’ve heard a whole bunch of tenor saxophonist Perelman in duos and trios - see above - but now I get to hear him in a quartet with drums. And not just any quartet – Matthew Shipp on piano and William Parker on bass are two of the greatest jazz players on the planet. I’m not familiar with Kapp’s work, but he’s one heck of a drummer. On each track, the four musicians take off for parts unknown, with each taking turns leading and following. The rapport between these guys is palpable – this is as incandescent and engaging a set of free jazz as you’ll find anywhere.

Charley Crockett – Clovis. Two albums every year for a whole lot of years now – that’s what Charley Crockett has delivered. And they’ve almost all been full of strong songs, great playing, and mighty fine singing. I wasn’t enamored of his first record this year, Age of the Ram – I thought it bogged itself down trying to be a concept album, and the songs weren’t as catchy. But for Clovis, the hooks are back, the stories are more varied, and the instrumental accompaniment is spectacular. Also, while the cowboy country styles he loves haven’t gotten stale, he does mix in a little more rock feel in the rhythms this time. If you’re looking for an entry point into Crockett’s oeuvre, this might be the best since The Man From Waco.

Patricia Brennan & Sylvie Courvoisier – Talamanti. Here we have a duo recording from one of the best vibraphone (and marimba) players of our time, and an underrated but magnificent pianist. The two instruments form a perfect marriage of sound, whether they are playing the same notes (with all those rich overtones) or bouncing ideas off each other. This is not a free jazz record – each performance is a carefully constructed composition with room for improvisations. It has a wide variety of approaches – quiet, gentle passages alternate with deep rumblings; sometimes the two make enough noise to sound like a bigger ensemble – you can do that with two instruments which make use of two hands apiece. There is beauty dug out of harsh qualities, and there is pain inserted into loveliness. It’s a terrific combination.

Punch Brothers – The Unsung Adventures of Punch Brothers. If forced to name my favorite band of the last fifteen years or so, I can’t think of too many options capable of pushing Punch Brothers off the top of the list. As great as they have been on previous records, their decision to put out an album of all instrumental tunes was a stroke of genius. With fewer formal limits – they don’t have to keep coming back to a vocal part – this is the most democratic music the band has made. Each instrument – mandolin, banjo, fiddle, guitar, and bass – shifts roles constantly, as melodies bounce from strings to strings. There’s a new fiddle player on board – Brittany Haas replaces Gabe Witcher, the first membership change since their second album back in 2010. The beautiful sound of this group is the same, and the adventuresome conceptions never quit.

Rolling Stones – Foreign Tongues. It’s kind of pointless to review Rolling Stones albums anymore. The one a couple years ago impressed me quite a bit at the time, but I haven’t played it since it was new. Now this one is entertaining me quite a bit, and I have no belief I’ll remember it after a few months. They are such pros, and they are putting their hearts into these songs, and the riffs are crunchy and the lyrics are funny and the rhythms roll just like the titular stones. I don’t know what they can do to be any better than this, and I don’t know what I can do to be young enough to hold on to a small number of records and play them over and over and over again obsessively. Because this is the kind of record that would benefit from that.

Allison Russell – In the Hour of Chaos. At the record store when this album was released, we had a bit of a discussion as to where Allison Russell should be filed. Sometimes she’s a folkie singer/songwriter, sometimes a contemporary r&b chanteuse, and never does she sound like anybody else. For this album, she recruits a baker’s dozen of guest vocalists to harmonize and rhapsodize with her. The songs skirt the edges of the genres I mentioned above but those are mere jumping off points. Melody takes center stage, and the arrangements are all there to emphasize that quality. There are several songs here – notably “No Springtime” with Joy Oladokun and Julie Williams, and “Love Is a Golden Lion” with Devon Gilfillian – which are positively swoonworthy.

The Kinks – “Mr. Songbird” recorded 1967 sometimes available on The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. There was a whole thing back around 1967 of rock bands doing light, lilting, la-la-la type songs. The Kinks were among the best at this. I first encountered this song when a friend taped his copy of The Great Lost Kinks Album for me. Ray Davies had planned to put this on Village Green but changed his mind, so for a long time it was not very well known. With a Mellotron sounding a little like a flute warbling away behind him, Davies urges the bird to uplift his spirits with a song. Nothing against birds, but I’m happier hearing the Kinks singing myself.

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Smokey Robinson & the Miracles – “The Tears of a Clown” 1967 original but remixed in 1970 for a single and included on every Smokey compilation ever. First, I am horrified and saddened by the allegations against Robinson of sexual assault which have come to light. But whatever he’s become, at one time he was a musical genius. You don’t need me to tell you – just listen to this record. I don’t know how I was today years old before I found out Stevie Wonder actually wrote the music for this song, and asked Robinson to come up with words. Smokey recycled his line about Pagliacci from “My Smile Is Just A Frown (Turned Upside Down)” and put sad lyrics to this extremely bright song. I love the structure of it – there’s a verse, then a different melody for a second verse, then that chorus, then it’s sort of repeated with a different take on the second verse. Oh, and the bassoon hook (or is that a baritone sax?) behind the singing! Pure magic!

Status Quo – “The Clown” sometime in the late 1960s available on Status Quo, a 1978 compilation. Sometimes being a clown isn’t a choice. In this gut-wrenching table, the singer has been dumped, and now everybody thinks he’s a fool for putting up with her shenanigans. I love this song – it’s from Status Quo’s late psychedelic baroque period, I think. I have to admit my knowledge of the constantly shifting Status Quo history is extremely limited. The singer – Rick Parfitt? – calls Steve Marriott to mind with his soulful complaints, and the record is pumped up with some heavy horns.

Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry – “Dark Road” 1957(?) available on Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry Sing, released 1991. I admit I haven’t spent much time with this very popular blues duo, mostly because they always struck me as shallow compared to the greats of the genre. But listening to this cut this morning, I’m concentrating much more on their strengths – the shambolic way they harmonize on the vocal, with McGhee always being just off the lead of Terry, as if he was learning the song from the other’s vocal; the litheness of Terry’s harmonica, which holds the song together and which takes the only solo on the record; the feelings of sorrow, fatigue, and hope which permeate the way they sing the song. Maybe I’ve been too much of a snob to appreciate them, or maybe I’m just in the right mood today.

Jackie Moore – “Wonderful, Marvelous” 1971 single available on The Complete Atlantic Recordings. “You may have known lots of girls long ago / But they were just the warm-ups for our big show.” I honestly don’t remember Jackie Moore, even though she was there in my sweet spot for discovering Top 40 and R&B radio. She’s clearly an excellent soul singer, building up a store-house of passion and exclamatory loving as this record goes on. She’s backed up here by the Dixie Flyers, the powerhouse session musicians led by Jim Dickinson that played on countless rock, country, and soul records back in those days. Throw in a crack horn section, and you’ve got a pretty entertaining record relegated to a b-side originally.

I was all in on the Paisley Underground in 1984. The Bangles, the Three O’Clock, the Rain Parade, the Long Ryders, Green on Red, the Dream Syndicate – each of these groups had knocked me out with their debut albums by that time. And I’m still enamored of their music.

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The record that really sealed the deal for me was called Rainy Day, a collection of cover songs performed by differing iterations of members from most of those bands. As I hadn’t spent the 60s and 70s immersed in rock culture, this album introduced me to a lot of songs including “I’ll Keep It With Mine,” “Flying on the Ground Is Wrong,” and “Rainy Day Dream Away.” More importantly, it introduced me to the concept of side projects for musicians – this record made all these bands I loved seem like a real community.

Neither Dan Stuart of Green on Red nor Steve Wynn of the Dream Syndicate had anything to do with the Rainy Day album. Perhaps that was why they decided in 1985 to do their own communal project, roping in members of their bands and the Long Ryders to produce an album credited to Danny & Dusty called The Lost Weekend. It also probably had something to do with the Dream Syndicate’s label A&M Records still thinking they had a potential hit band on their hands so why not release something like this, too. (I know this was covered in Wynn’s excellent book I Wouldn’t Say It If It Wasn’t True but I can’t remember off the top of my head and I put my copy in a safe spot because it was autographed but that means I’m not 100% sure where it is in the room of hundreds of books and CDs.)

Long out of print and not streaming, you can find seven out of the eight songs from the record on YouTube – why hasn’t somebody put up “Miracle Mile” to complete the set? I haven’t played this album in decades but it’s still quite a delightful listen. Stuart and Wynn were clearly having a blast trading verses with each other to build up into songs. My faves come from “Song For the Dreamers”: “Lady luck drives a pick-up truck / She runs numbers for Pearl S. Buck / She’s got a life like a wild coyote.” Or this one, from “Baby, We All Gotta Go Down”: “Samson met Delilah in a bar / Cause they wanted to bury the hatchet real far / Well after seven shots / Even old Samson was seeing spots / Hey, baby, we all gotta go down.”

The band is made up of Long Ryders Sid Griffin and Stephen McCarthy on guitars with Wynn; Long Ryder Tom Stevens on bass; Green on Red pianist Chris Cacavas; and Dream Syndicate drummer Dennis Duck. The arrangements sound as if they were worked out quickly, with everything there in support of the singing. Wynn takes a couple of long guitar solos, and there are a few nice riffs thrown in over the chord changes in some songs.

Dan Stuart has a voice that verges on whining, while Steve Wynn has a somewhat limited vocal range himself. Yet both are highly effective vocalists on their own records and here. I think it’s a matter of projection and characterization – they are believers in their lyrics, and they both have a way of upping the musical ante with just little pushes in the way they sing. On this record, each of them, but especially Stuart, play around with fake voices, accents, and even falsetto. It’s all part of the spirit of fun involved with the album.

The album ends with a spirited take on Dylan’s “Knocking On Heaven’s Door,” recorded before the song had become as ubiquitous and spiritually empty as it has after Guns N’ Roses ruined it for everybody a few years later. Stuart and Winn treat it as a lovely song with an intriguing storyline, as opposed to pretending it’s a holy text associated with mourning.

The Long Weekend is not an essential album in any collection, but it’s a damn fine one to pull out now and again. I’m glad I was reminded to give it a listen today. I think it deserves 7out of 10 points.

Richard Thompson – “Can’t Win” 1988 from Amnesia. You could always tell a Mitchell Froom production back in the late 80s – he would pile on a lot of keyboards, and all kinds of guest musicians. This particular song, though,is much less filled up – Thompson’s lead guitar lines, a richly strummed acoustic, Froom’s warm organ playing, the liquid bass played by Tony Levin, and an 80s gated drum used with taste played by Mickey Curry. Oh, and the gorgeous vocal harmonies provided by Clive Gregson and Christine Collister. As Richard sings of the ways life is stacked against the average person, the song builds and builds, leading to a wrenching guitar solo from my all-time favorite six-string slinger.

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Joan Jett – “You Don’t Know What You’ve Got” 1981 from Bad Reputation. After Joan Jett found herself a free agent when the Runaways disbanded, she recorded her first solo album either before forming her long-time backing group the Blackhearts, or simply without them. I’m not certain of the timeline. She had hooked up with songwriters and producers Ritchie Cordell and Kenny Laguna. These three co-wrote this and other songs (including the now ubiquitous title track of the album). “You Don’t Know What You’ve Got” is basically a killer hook and a nice chord progression but Jett sells it with her rock’n’roll heart and her glam rock yelps. Oh, and drummer Joel Turrisi – a guy not even famous enough to have a Wikipedia page – makes great use of his tom toms to make the song even more effective.

Brothers Lazaroff – “Sisters and Brothers” 2018 from Sisters and Brothers. This St. Louis band has released almost a dozen albums this century, all of which are well worth hearing. This title track from their third most recent full-length is an unsettled call for universal connection. The summer is cold, there’s a head hanging from a tree, and then there’s an offer of a meal to a new friend. The song begins with a siren sound, then we get the lovely chords and melodic interpretations from guitars, horns, piano, and violin. Eventually, the mix grows louder and fuller, and cries of “My sisters and brothers” fight their way with all the instruments (and a choral backing vocal) until it all peters out in an inconclusive manner. So, time to start the song again and see if the goal can be achieved.

Louis Jordan – “Messy Bessy” 1954 single available on Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five. I’m always ready to cut a rug when I hear some jump blues, and Louis Jordan practically invented that style. This is a typically exhilarating blast of swinging piano, bass, and drums with horn punctuations. Jordan talk/sings his urgent concerns for his girlfriend Bessy, who gets too wild in public when she drinks too much. I choose to believe that when he tells her “Don’t get messy Bessy” that he’s planning to reward her by getting messy in bed with her when they get home, though of course it’s 50s r&b so it could mean he’ll punish her if she does drink too much. That aside, there are so many wonderful lyrics in this song, my favorite being “Now she ain’t high class like I am / So sometimes she gets carried away.”

The Searchers – “Sweets For My Sweet” 1963 from Meet the Beatles. The Searchers were right there at the same time in the same place as the Beatles, and at first it seemed they would follow the same trajectory into the pop heavens. But, as enjoyable as the Searchers records would be, they didn’t have the songwriting or the driving urge to push the envelope that their rivals from Liverpool had. “Sweets For My Sweet” followed the Beatles “From Me To You” to the top of the British charts in 1963. It was a Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman number originally recorded by the Drifters two years earlier. The Searchers version is just plain solid Merseybeat, with an adolescent-in-love vocal from Tony Jackson. I think it’s a lovely little record.

For a couple years in my mid-twenties, I was really enamored with hardcore punk. At the time, it felt like a freeing rush, an exhilarating bash of noise with just enough structure to hold onto. I remember the first time I sang in front of a punk band – it was as if a blast furnace was rocketing me into the air, and everything that came out of my mouth was just a way to keep me from leaving the atmosphere entirely.

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So I imagine that’s how Guy Picciotto felt as the frontman for Rites of Spring, the short-lived but heavily influential Washington, D.C. punk band whose self-titled one and only album came out in 1985. I remember carrying this record in the store, but I don’t think I heard it at the time. If I had, I might have connected with its ability to be both average hardcore and completely unusual at the same time.

The band – Picciotto on guitar and vocals, Eddie Janney on guitar, Mike Fellows on bass, and Brendan Canty on drums – was made up of people from other DC punk bands both before and after. You may recognize the names of Picciotto and Canty from Fugazi. Or if you’re a jazzier fan, you may recognize Canty as drummer with the Messthetics who have made records with James Brandon Lewis.

Picciotto was singing – or barking, I guess – lyrics that concerned his personal life, his relationships with women, his confusions about life. (For example, here’s a couple lines from the song “Nudes”: “I want to talk, like I’m talking to myself / I want to reach, but I could be someone else.”) This was not the norm in hardcore punk at the time.

The Rites of Spring album turned out to be heavily influential on the later development of emo. I’ve never understood the concept of naming a genre after the fact that the music contains emotions, but I guess I understand that at the time of its beginnings here, punk rock was much more aiming at political and social targets.

The songs by Rites of Spring were inventive, with lots of twists and turns, and flowing chords or intriguing single note patterns. The bass, which could have been more in your face, was creative. Here’s the part that floors me – Canty’s drumming was enormously complicated but tended to hit snags at random passages. It also didn’t help that the combination of whatever kit he had at the time and the recording technique sounded like he was banging on trash cans. I know his later work has been much more impressive than it is here, though you can tell he had more ideas than the average player.

After all this, though, I remain unmoved by Rites of Spring. I was older than the average punk at the time, and I was listening to lots of other music, too. This made it easier for me to outgrow this stuff. I still like some of the records I loved then – Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Hüsker Dü – but I’m not looking for music to just be loud and fast anymore. Rites of Spring could have hit me in the sweet spot forty years ago, but now it just sounds like an interesting variant.

So, I guess it deserves 3.5 out of 10 points. I guess I’d rather hear Phil Collins.

Davy Graham – “Angi” 1961 from an EP released a year or two later called 3/4 AD. Aside from magnificent, what is this? It’s a finger-picked acoustic guitar instrumental that could easily be transposed for a jazz combo but it’s just as much clearly in the folk tradition. Davy Graham was the first of the gigantic English folk-influenced guitar players – John Renbourn and Bert Jansch were clearly inspired by him. In fact, they both performed this tune. As did Paul Simon, which is where those of you who have never heard any of the English players before might have heard “Angi.” Fun fact, the opening riff has the same downward chord progression familiar from Richard Hell’s “Blank Generation” and the Stray Cats “Stray Cat Strut,” though the rhythm is slightly different. I never get tired of spending two and a half minutes with this delightfully catchy and intricate little tune.

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Porter Wagoner – “Tore Down” 1974 from Tore Down. This song was co-written by Wagoner and Tom Pick – no relation to your humble scribe. It’s a bright and spritely little country song with a down and in the dumps lyric – somebody’s been drinking way too much and now he’s awake and paying the piper. Fortunately for us, the singer’s misery is set to a very catchy tune and an even catchier steel guitar lick that underpins the record. Wagoner was one of the first country stars I was able to recognize, thanks to his sixties syndicated television show. But I never paid attention to him as a singer until much later – he’s always in the pocket, delivering the lyrics and the tunes with gusto and feeling.

Wynton Marsalis – “Fuschia” 1983 from Think of One. I was only a couple years into learning about jazz when I discovered this second album from a trumpet player who was almost three years younger than I was. I remember being blown away that somebody that young could sound so assured, so completely aware of what he was doing. The band was young, too. There was Wynton’s brother Branford on saxophone (soprano on this tune); Kenny Kirland, who wrote “Fuschia” on piano; Jeff “Tain” Watts on drums; and either Phil Bowler or Ray Drummond on bass. For a few years, I followed all these players (except the bassists), convinced that this was a new thing for people my age. Eventually, Wynton started making pronouncements against a lot of other jazz that I was loving. And eventually I realized just how much of a debt this music owed to mid-sixties Miles Davis and Wayne Shorter. But hearing it again for the first time in decades, I’m still struck by just how beautiful this tune is, how emotionally fulfilling the solos by Branford, Wynton, and Kirland are.

The Maniacs – “Chelsea 77” 1977 single available on Punk 1977. It’s kind of gone down the rabbit hole just how many punk rock singles came out in England back in the heady days of figuring out how easy it was to be in a band. The Maniacs released exactly one 45. I’m not going to claim this is an all-time lost classic, but it sure does have all the right stuff to have competed with the bigger bands of the time. They play loud and fast and hard. The singer spits out the lyrics, with a lot of variations on the song title. My favorite parts are when he stutters – “Ch-ch-ch-chelsea 1977.” I really think if I’d stumbled on this in one of the many import 45 remainder bins that dotted record stores in 1978, I might have loved it.

Motörhead – “Steal Your Face” 1984 from No Remorse. I remember buying No Remorse because it was a great compilation of all the best Motörhead songs – I hadn’t owned their previous albums because it took me a few years to get over my kneejerk anti-metal posture. (Not that I spent much time the rest of my life on too many other such bands.) I didn’t realize there were actually a few brand new songs on the double LP, including this barnburner which introduced Phil Campbell as the latest in a line of guitar players. Motörhead at its best didn’t mess with the formula much – they pounded the bass and drums, riffed hard on guitar and ripped to shreds the lead parts, and let Lemmy growl his wild lyrics as if he was singing to the heavens – he always sounds the way he looked, with the microphone held up above his face. But that formula produced a lot of inimitable classics, including this one.

I spent much of 1985 sharing an apartment with two roommates who had inexplicably acquired either one or both of the early 10,000 Maniacs self-released EPs. We were perhaps the only Midwestern household to be thrilled when the band released a major label album that summer, and shortly thereafter appeared in St. Louis opening for R.E.M.

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The Wishing Chair is the only 10,000 Maniacs album I ever loved. At the time I didn’t know either name but it’s obvious to me now that having Joe Boyd produce the debut album and Peter Asher produce the commercial breakthrough follow-up In My Tribe should have been symbolic. Boyd was able to capture the mixture of folk, psychedelia, and occasional African influences because he’d been around the block with all those styles in his career. Asher was able to sand off the intriguing edges and put singer Natalie Merchant higher in the mix to make the band pretty but less substantial.

It wasn’t the production differences I blamed at the time, though. It was the departure of one of the band’s two guitar players, John Lombardo. I honestly don’t know for certain if he was the one who played all the lead lines I loved on The Wishing Chair. I think he did, as that style of melodic counterpoint on guitar was never a feature of the band thereafter, and I remember him as a focus of the live show. He certainly co-wrote several of the songs on the first album, but Robert Buck, the other guitar player, had his hand in some as well.

10,000 Maniacs was a collective in the early days, with everybody contributing songwriting skills to the mix. Natalie Merchant was barely 21 by the time the first album came out – she learned everything about being in a band while still a teenager.

One thing she hadn’t learned yet was enunciation – honestly, I can’t pick out more than a dozen lyrics on the whole album despite it being something I played all the time when it was new. Since, however, I had recently become enamored of Cocteau Twins, who were making up words, and I was already a big fan of R.E.M. who might as well have been doing the same, I was fine with a singer who sounded like she was working in a new language. Her voice was irresistible, a full alto which glided up to the bottom of the soprano range. There were no tricks in her singing – she simply delivered the melodies, which often had enough rhythmic and harmonic tricks to provide all the interest we needed.

A singer, two guitars, keyboards, bass, and drums – this was all I asked for as long as the music was so consistently infectious and inventive. “Back O’The Moon” was probably my instant fave, with that swirling organ and Merchant’s frequent ejaculation of the word “Jenny.” But “Can’t Ignore the Train” and “Scorpio Rising” are two other songs almost as memorable. While the rest of the album doesn’t quite hit these highs, there is nothing here that is not enjoyable.

Strangely, when The Wishing Chair was put on CD, the song order was jumbled up from the way I learned the album, and two songs, originally released as b-sides on a 12” single, were thrown into the mix. One of them, “Daktari,” sounds to me as though Joe Boyd had let them hear some of his African soukous tapes before they wrote it. This was my favorite discovery revisiting the album now as I had never heard this cut back in the day.

10,000 Maniacs would go on to great commercial success, and Natalie Merchant would end up with a solo career. None of that was terrible, but none of it lived up to the musical delights delivered on the debut album. I’ll give The Wishing Chair 8 out of 10 points.

Bukka White – “Pinebluff Arkansas” 1937 single available on Mississippi Blues Giant. Bukka White was among the best of the second level of Delta blues artists back in the 1930s. He sang with conviction, and he liked to throw in a proto-howl at the beginning of lines. His guitar playing was firm, mostly sticking to chords on this song. “Pinebluff Arkansas” is listed as the a-side of his 1937 single which also included “Shake ‘Em On Down,” possibly his biggest hit. I don’t really know enough about the record biz of that era. It’s a song about a guy who has a woman in Pinebluff, Arkansas begging him to get back to town and give her some action so her bedsprings will stop- groaning. He must be impressive if even the bed is horny.

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The Modern Lovers – “Astral Plane” 1976 from The Modern Lovers. Jonathan Richman channels sexual desire into a mystical spiritual connection hope on this typically Velvet Underground-inspired dark rocker. This band made one perfect record before Richman changed his focus and decided his music needed to be quieter and brighter. But alongside future Talking Head Jerry Harrison on keyboards, future-Car David Harrison on drums, and future trivia question answer Ernie Brooks on bass, Richman made itchy teenage angst into an art form. I always wondered if he read Doctor Strange comic books, which is where I encountered the astral plane, but it’s not as though Steve Ditko invented the concept. At any rate, while the rhythm section churns, and Harrison’s keyboards swell with dissonance, Richman sings with the urgency of one who can’t figure out how to approach the person he thinks he loves. And then he plays one rickety yet angular guitar solo, too!

MFSB – “Get Down With the Philly Sound” 1975 from Philadelphia Freedom. MFSB was the premier instrumental dance band of the 1970s. This album cut is a prime example of what made them so great. Heavily syncopated drums, percolating congas, mind-bendingly elastic bass, wah-wah guitars, sinewy strings, snappy horns, and in this case, a sax that just blows hard and long. The tune is catchy and simple, the arrangement full of dynamic changes, and there’s no way this couldn’t get a dance floor moving unless the people on it were determined to only do the polka.

Abdullah Ibrahim – “Zimbabwe” 1986 from South Africa. Abdullah Ibrahim died last month, leaving behind an astonishing array of beautiful music recorded over more than sixty years. This tune is from a live album, and it shows some of the tricks he could use to make his music so compelling and intriguing. Opening with a repetitive left hand riff that continues throughout the song, he begins adding little flourishes with the right hand before alto saxophonist Carlos Ward plays a beautiful and spiritual melodic line which he will repeat several times. Then Ibrahim slashes with his right hand some quick melodies which take over attention. Unexpectedly, you start hearing what you think is a third hand on the piano until you realize it’s bassist Essiet Okun Essiet bowing his big fiddle. Throughout the performance, your ear keeps being diverted away from what you think is the focus. Your heart feels the whole thing at once.

The Marshall Tucker Band – “Feel a Drunk Comin’ On” 1983 from Greetings From South Carolina. It took me fifty years to realize the Marshall Tucker Band were a lot more than just one of those bands we used to trip up rookie employees at record stores when we told them to alphabetize records or CDs. (There is nobody named Marshall Tucker in the band, so file under M.) I saw a version of the group a couple years after this, but that was really an entirely different outfit with only Toy Caldwell and maybe one other original member. Anyway, this isn’t from one of their greatest albums, but this song is a delightful little country shuffle featuring Caldwell’s plaintive yet relaxed vocal and his excellent dobro solo. Maybe you’ll like it more than you think you will if, like me, you were automatically suspicious of a country rock band loved by all the hard rock fans of the 70s.

I remember the first time I heard Killing Joke. I think it was at a party, or else it was when I visited the Washington University college radio station KWUR. I remember distinctly being knocked out by the thick swirl of guitars creating a rhythmic sludge that somehow felt liberating. I couldn’t wait to hear it again.

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Unfortunately, whenever I got the chance to hear the same first album in a different environment, it left me completely cold. So much so that I questioned whether it was the same record I was hearing. After that, I may have heard a song here and there in my life but I pretty much dismissed Killing Joke from my life.

Now we come to the placement of Night Time, the band’s fifth LP, in the 1985 rundown. For the first time since 1980 or thereabouts, I listened to an entire Killing Joke album. And I didn’t hate it.

The swirling guitars I mentioned above were there, if perhaps wedded to more danceable rhythms than I remembered. The guitar sound of Killing Joke is based on that particular 80s effects pedal that blurred everything in a distinctively effective way. The guitarists also enjoyed playing chords beyond just the usual major and minor. They didn’t play many single note lines at all, even on the catchiest riff of the album for the song “Eighties.”

The rhythm section offered less variety – bass and drums pounded away without changing their parts up much within each song. It’s not that they were limited players, as each song could be quite different rhythmically. They were simply going for a repetitive, mind-numbing effect which wedded to the guitars and the occasional synthesizer chording to induce dancing trances. I suspect the future EDM auteurs were taking notes.

The singer was the least interesting part of the band. At best, he sounded like Robert Smith of the Cure without any of his quirks. Just as often, he simply blended into the sound of the band without drawing much attention to himself at all. Hooks and melodies were not the strong point of this record, aside from the aforementioned “Eighties.”

I doubt I’ll go out of my way to play this or any other Killing Joke records again, but I also don’t expect I’ll run very far if I ever accidentally encounter them. That’s something good to know. I’ll give this one six out of ten points.

Cleveland Eaton – “Are You Out There Somewhere Caring” 1975 from Plenty Good Eaton. Since this song bites almost completely the melody and chord changes of “If Loving You Is Wrong I Don’t Want to Be Right,” I like to assume Eaton is singing from the point of view of the guy whose wife is cheating with the singer of that song. He’s holding on to the hope that she is still caring for him even when she’s in another’s arms – “If you’re out somewhere caring / Our love will always be.” Eaton was the bass player for the Ramsey Lewis Trio in the 70s, but he was young enough and hip enough to be paying attention to the funk on the radio. This song is a ballad and is one of only a couple tracks with vocals on the album. I love the way Eaton occasionally slips into the growl of Sugarfoot from the Ohio Players. Even more, I love the way the band of hardy studio musicians dig into the groove of this extended cut.

Quincy Jones – “Dreamsville” 1964 from Quincy Jones Explores the Music of Henry Mancini. Quincy Jones did a lot of things in his long, long musical career, so many that I’ve never even seen this record before. It’s easy listening, but it’s a whip-smart take on bachelor pad music. Henry Mancini had a rich melodic gift, and “Dreamsville” is an absolutely luscious tune. Jones wraps it up in intriguingly articulated chord voicings from the horns, delicate tinkling from the piano, a lightly swinging rhythm from the bass and drums, and a sweet saxophone solo from none other than Roland Kirk.

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Big Maybelle – “Ocean of Tears” mid-1950s b-side available on The Complete Okeh Sessions 1952-1955. Big Maybelle embodied what most people think of as a blues diva. She had the gigantic, gravel-drenched voice, and she held nothing back when she sang. She didn’t strictly sing blues all the time, though. This song is r&b, a fine groove with a hint of Latin rhythm. Maybelle is in a familiar position – her lover has left her, and she’s drowning in an ocean of tears. And, yes, she sounds hurt, but she also sounds powerful enough that we don’t worry too much about how she’ll get through this problem.

Jimmy Rogers – “Rock This House” 1959 single available on His Best. Since rockabilly music was essentially a combination of blues and country, it’s fascinating to hear a record by a blues artist that clearly took that influence back. Guitarist Reggie Boyd played on many Chess blues records – he starred on this one. His catalog of rockabilly riffs played with a jazzman’s touch absolutely rules here. The band rips the joint behind him, and Rogers sings the kind of doggerel that is familiar to fans of the genre, albeit with an awareness of its origins in blues records several years before this one. Rogers, of course, is a great guitarist himself – he played several years with Muddy Waters in the first part of the 50s. To make this record great, he stepped into the background, and let Boyd take over.

Miles Davis – “It’s About That Time” recorded 1970 released in 2014 on Miles at the Fillmore: Miles Davis 1970: The Bootleg Series Vol. 3. This box set includes four complete live performances by Miles Davis and his group of future superstars – Chick Corea on electric piano; Keith Jarrett on organ; Dave Holland on bass; Jack DeJohnette on drums; Airto Moreira on percussion; and Steve Grossman (alright not a superstar but a pretty good player nonetheless) on soprano saxophone. This performance is from the June 18, 1970 show. “It’s About That Time” was originally heard on one of my fave Miles albums, In a Silent Way. Honestly, the live versions – of which there are many available – barely remind me of that record. Most of the time, the music is wilder, funkier, and more on the edge of exploding. Miles himself is playing some great trumpet here

Jeff Parker & ETA IVtet – Happy Today. Guitarist Jeff Parker leads a taut quartet in two long-form improvisations recorded live in front of an enthusiastic crowd. There’s actually a video of the performances up on youTube.

I’ve been meaning to watch it because I’m curious where some of the sounds I hear come from. Parker is credited with guitar and electronics and Josh Johnson is credited with alto saxophone and electronics. Sometimes there are drones which must come from the electronics mentioned but I want to see it. Add in Anna Butterss on bass, and Jay Bellerose on drums and percussion, and you get lots of sonic possibilities. They also tend towards minimalism, with lots of static sections which somehow mysteriously move into something else – and this is all made more exciting as each player drops little ideas which may or may not be picked up by the others. I know they’ve done a couple records earlier but this one is the first I’ve heard, and it’s a doozy.

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Willie Nelson – Dream Chaser. Ninety-three years old and still making powerful music, Willie Nelson is almost beyond belief. This new album is filled with mostly new songs, all in collaboration with others. Producer Buddy Cannon gets his hand in on almost every cut, but other co-writers include Bobby Whitlock and some guy named Bob Dylan. As on many country records with all these songwriting credits, it somehow all ends up sounding personal. Nelson’s voice isn’t quite as sharp as it used to be but his skills at using what he has to convince us of the truth he’s singing have never wavered. The title track is probably the cut here with the best chance of inclusion in some eventual playlist of his 100 greatest songs – of all the times he’s sung about aging, this one feels the most intimate, as it is really about his own creative process.

Immanuel Wilkins Quartet – Live at the Village Vanguard Vol. 2. Here we have five more tracks from the music recorded at the Village Vanguard by Wilkins and his band – Micah Thomas on piano, Ryoma Takenaga on bass, and Kweko Sumbry on drums. There’s no weird repetition thing as there was on Vol. 1. Instead, you get the band cooking on all cylinders, with Wilkins and Thomas taking long, soaring choruses of improvisational excitement. We’ll talk more in a bit when I discuss Vol. 3.

Brother Wallace – Electric Love. I’m frequently suspicious of soul revivalists these days but Brother Wallace convinced me he’s the real deal. He’s spent plenty of time making music in the church, so once he teamed up with producer/guitarist/co-writer Dan Taylor of The Heavy, it was just a matter of letting it all out in the secular arena. He’s such a good singer, and the music is so invigorating that I don’t even mind the typical modern approach of compressing all the sounds into as narrow a dynamic band as possible. Turns out this can actually work if the excitement level is already right where it needs to be. “Gone With the Wind” blatantly pulls a hook from “I Can’t Help Myself” by the Four Tops, and “Hope of Fools” transposes the guitar lick from “Use Me” by Bill Withers to piano. Brother Wallace does not bring shame to those sources.

Immanuel Wilkins Quartet – Live at the Village Vanguard Vol. 3. If you only want one of the three volumes – and honestly, the three together are overwhelmingly good – I recommend this one. It’s got four cuts – a ballad, a free jazz possibly spontaneous composition, a blues, and a hard bop burner. The first two blur together, as the quartet comes to the end of the ballad and Wilkins takes the rhythm of drummer Kweko Sumbry and begins a twelve-minute duet while the other players take a break. The last three minutes of Wilkins’ solo here finds him speaking in tongues. Then pianist Micah Thomas, accompanied by Sumbry and basist Ryoma Takenaga, goes hard for six minutes before Wilkins comes back with more ideas. Near the 21^st minute, Wilkins does something I can’t figure out, possibly with his mouthpiece, that sounds a little like an organ and then becomes otherworldly. After 24 minutes of this, the blues, led by Thomas, sounds very cool for 15 minutes.

Jim Jones All Stars – Cat Fight. There’s another member of the Heavy, drummer Chris Ellul, turning up among the garage rock All Stars assembled by former Thee Hypnotics vocalist Jim Jones for this powerhouse bash-em-out set of rock’n’roll. I’ve not kept up with the garage rock scene too well but I suspect there’s not a lot of revivalists with the combination of energy, chops, and catchiness found on this record. Jones has a strong vocal presence, and he’s clearly in charge here, riding the propulsive grooves of the band. There are horns, and a little bit of soul music influence comes across, though it’s probably second hand. If you’re gonna play music from a long-ago style, you might as well infuse it with this much passion and commitment.

Genesis Owusu – Redstar Wu and the Worldwide Scourge. Has it been five years since Smiling With No Teeth, the debut album of this fascinating Australian rapper? That one was all electro beats and aggressive rapping. I missed out on his 2023 follow-up but this new one has me under its spell. There is a lot more 80s New Wave in the music – think the Cure or New Order, only with a compelling Aussie accented rapper at the helm. His lyrics are frequently complex takes on politics and personal stories. “The Worldwide Scourge” covers global warming, capitalism, right wing resurgence, the VENN diagram of women’s fear and black expression, hatred of abusers including politicians who run wars, and the ways different minorities are made to fight each other. Among other things. The music is catchy and hard at the same time, and Owusu sounds like no other rapper I know.

The Coral – 388. You never know what you’re going to get when you pick up a new release by the Coral. I’ve been consistently entertained by them since I fell in love with their debut album back in 2001. That record’s ability to throw back to mid-60s British Invasion rock’n’roll was what grabbed me; the staying power turned out to be their love of melody and desire to constantly reinvent their style. This new record has a lot of early reggae and early 60s soul music influence. Singer James Skelly lets his bandmates offer harmonized responses to his lead melodies. The guitar playing is that chitter-chattering lead thing from early reggae; the drums have a crisp snare and plenty of echo on them. The tunes unwind slowly, with lots of open spaces, and they turn out to be just as catchy as those the Coral have offered over the years. The vibe is laid back but the writing and performances are strong.

Marisa Anderson – The Anthology of UnAmerican Folk Music. Apparently, the titular Anthology is actually part of the amazing record collection of Harry Smith, who put together the famous Anthology of American Folk Music back in the 1950s. He seems to have collected a thousand or so records of music from around the world. The extremely talented guitar player Marisa Anderson – whom I’ve never heard but I can hear her skills on this album – gained access to the collection, and decided to interpret nine of the songs originally recorded in the middle strip of Asia, from Syria to Afghanistan to Pakistan to Cambodia and Vietnam. She uses overdubs on guitar, keyboards, accordion and more, and a guest-starring violinist named Gisela Rodriguez Fernández. I don’t know how much of this record is her and how much comes from the source material but I do know it’s all exquisitely beautiful. The world is a gigantic place, and there is so much more music in it than even those of us who have explored a lot could ever dream existed.

Paul McCartney – The Boys of Dungeon Lane. I heard this the day it was released, which was in the same week as hearing McCartney sing on Saturday Night Live and the Stephen Colbert finale. That week, I was saddened. Paul McCartney, possessor of one of the greatest voices in rock and pop history, could no longer sing. There were so many notes missing from his range, it was painful. Still, the songs were obviously strong, and he was clearly making a very personal record, filled with memories and contemplation of his youth, as would be expected of someone on the cusp of turning 84. I gave it another listen, and suddenly I wasn’t hearing what was missing, I was hearing what was there. Beautiful melodies. Inspired guitar parts. Clever arrangements. The aforementioned heartfelt lyrics. And a singer who was aware of the ravages time had taken on his vocal chords and had figured out ways to make his new voice work. Sometimes that meant talking the words, sometimes it meant pushing the limits of what he could hit. By the time I’d given it a couple more spins, I was convinced this is a terrific record.

Guided By Voices – Crawlspace of the Pantheon. I guess I’m back on the GBV train, as this is two in a row I’ve liked. You know what you’re gonna get from Robert Pollard’s projects – lots of noisy rock’n’roll with twists and turns, guitar chords you don’t hear every day, and melodic creativity. It’s just sometimes these things combine to make for a much better record than other times, and this one is, pound for pound, one of his best. I think whatever that chord is that scronks at the very beginning of the record sets the tone – I knew I was gonna like this one right away.

Norah B. – Couple Hours Out. Here are six more songs from this young talented St. Louis singer/songwriter. She has an exceptional melodic sensibility and then develops intricate arrangements to present her songs in the best possible light. Multiple vocal overdubs create atmosphere around her lead singing or stack up into compelling and sometimes surprising harmonies. She also provides guitar playing that utilizes chord changes you don’t hear every day. Lyrics are slices of life – driving 45 minutes to see a romantic partner or the disquiet evoked by a chipped tooth are typical subjects. I really think she’s an extraordinary musician worthy of all the attention she can receive.

New Jazz Underground – Hoodies. Here we have three young jazz musicians who have come up with an inventive and invigorating new approach to the music. Mixing hip hop rhythm influence with blues and classic jazz, their debut full-length album includes thirteen cuts with memorable melodies and strong improvisation. Saxophonist Abdias Armenteros wrote most of these tunes – he plays both tenor and soprano horns and sings a couple cuts to boot. I think he’s especially exceptional on soprano. The rhythm section of bassist Sebastian Rios and drummer TJ Reddick put an emphasis on swing while bringing in a lot of fresh rhythmic and harmonic ideas.

Alan Braufman – Anthem For Peace. I never encountered Alan Braufman’s celebrated 70s records, nor his return to form earlier in the 20s. But seeing that Patricia Brennan was playing vibes on this new one, I gave it a listen and was knocked out. Braufman plays alto sax and flute, and the band also includes Luke Stewart on bass and Chad Taylor on drums. The thing that stands out is the melodies of these tunes. Every one is memorable without being cloying or simple – Braufman obviously believes in hooking listeners at the start of his songs. Then he and Brennan can go as wild or as inside as they want for the improvisations. Several of these tunes sound like the kind that in the olden days would have become standards for other jazz players to add to their repertoires.

Golems of the Red Planet – Surf Masada. With 613 tunes to choose from, you’d think I’d have actually heard at least one of John Zorn’s Masada compositions by now – these are all written in Ashkenazi Jewish modes. Alas, I have a huge blank space for Zorn’s music after about 1990. This group combines surf rock instrumentation with a string quartet and plays ten of Zorn’s numbers. It’s absolutely delightful stuff, all rumbling guitars, insistent beats, and a variety of string tones. All these songs are catchy, too – I have learned that Zorn’s melodic capabilities are much richer than I thought back in his wild man 80s days. I don’t know if this is a primarily studio band or an ongoing collective – either way, this is a fun debut record.

Corook – How Do I Relate to You? Corook’s album last year was a delightful and insightful mix of emotions about living a non-binary life of loving and exploring. Now she’s back with an even more tuneful EP with songs about dealing with family members on the wrong side of the MAGA line, about considering the length of time two people will live together, about the complicity we can’t escape in this consumer culture, about stealing one’s power back, and more. Believe it or not, these themes are delivered joyfully, even when they’re downers – Corook is committed to the bit of pop delights. Here’s hoping they have more than six songs in them this year.

Vince Staples – Cry Baby. Your guess is as good as mine as to why I haven’t connected with Vince Staples before this. A cursory listen to some tracks from the last album show me that he’s changed up his sound to make this one a more rock oriented record. It’s still plenty funky, but the live band is shaping more than just grooves. And Staples is rapping in sync with them, making for truly enjoyable listening. But you’re not supposed to just revel in the sonics. Staples is talking about the frustrations of being black in America, and he’s not impressed with anybody who doesn’t see what’s going on. “America the beautiful I’d like to take a look at you / It’s hard to see past the stars from behind the bars, know they love to throw the book at you.”

The Legendary Rich Gilbert – Pedal Steel in Orbit. I’ve told you as often as I can about how talented Mr. Gilbert is – I’m doing my modest bit to make that “Legendary” adjective more realistic. Whether on his solo albums, or with the Zulus or with Eileen Rose or with any number of projects over the past – including but far from limited to appearances on the first Uncle Tupelo album – Gilbert displays technical prowess wedded to musical invention and emotion. This album has not a single electric guitar on it – Gilbert plays every stringed part on pedal steel – there are also keyboards, bass, and drums. The compositions are exhilarating and complex – I have no idea how his or any brain can come up with so many bits to put into an instrumental song. Riffs, licks, chords, and slides are all over the place, even if you can’t always picture the pedal steel being responsible.

Angelika Niescier – Chicago Tapes. Here’s a European alto saxophonist teaming up with a bunch of young Chicago avant garde musicians and creating nearly an hour of intensely exciting music. I am not familiar with any of the names on this album – neither Niescier nor Jason Adasciewicz on vibes, Nicole Mitchell on flute, Mike Reed on drums, Dave Rempis on alto and tenor saxes, and Luke Stewart on bass. I can tell you they live up to the Chicago reputation for exploratory jazz established so long ago by the AACM. Everybody is closely listening to everybody else, picking up on shifts in direction so that the music can almost seem planned out in advance. It’s free and it’s glorious stuff.

Adam Brodsky – American Epitaph. Brodsky made a minor splash in anti-folk music (the folkie arm of punk rock) circles back around the turn of the century but I never heard of him until this, his first album in more than two decades, was trumpeted by Robert Christgau in his last monthly column. Brodsky is one of those guys who makes a virtue out of not being a great singer – he just gets up there and belts out what’s on his mind to the accompaniment of strummed guitar and sometimes a basic rock band backing. Here, he writes some furious and insightful songs about the state of our nation – to quote “Nazis in the White House,” the title alone of which should let you know where he’s coming from, “Singing songs and marching may not change my country / But I still do it every day so my country don’t change me.” There are songs where he uses other ways of talking about what we’re going through, including the very moving “Birthday Cake” sung to a sister who died just before Trump was elected. My fave though is “Gentle,” with its verses about Steve Carlton, Ricky Henderson, and their similarity to those who still want to fight to save our country. (If you’re not a baseball fan, those two players kept going well past their primes in a quixotic attempt to hold on to their youths; the metaphor, I hope breaks down on my word “quixotic.”)

Mike Campbell & the Dirty Knobs – Mission of Mercy. This is the fourth album of Mike Campbell’s post-Tom Petty band the Dirty Knobs. Let’s get the elephant out of the room – Campbell’s vocal timbre and phrasing are dead ringers for that of his long-time friend Mr. Petty. He lacks just the star power. At any rate, I’ve enjoyed all four of these albums but this one might be a cut above. It certainly has at least two songs to love – the Beach Boys-influenced title track and “Done to Me” which reminds me of Huey “Piano” Smith and his Clowns. The Kate Pierson guest vocal on “Bongo Mania” is a lot of fun, too. It’s professional guitar-driven rock’n’roll with taste and solid songwriting. I’ll take that any day.

Olivia Rodrigo – You Seem Pretty Sad For a Girl So In Love. Third album and its clear she’s going to be a lifer. I don’t know if this one is better than the first two – Rodrigo emerged as a fully formed songwriter with a gift for melody, a penchant for big hooks, and an ability to clearly convey the emotions of interacting with people who are attractive to her yet frequently let her down. All of that is here once again, with an added heavy dose of Cure worship. Robert Smith sings a duet with her, two or three songs clearly echo back to the musical approach of late 80s Cure, there’s a reference to “Just Like Heaven,” another song called “The Cure,” and another use of the word. Mostly, though, there is a joy in making music, a thrill in just building up a song until it hits a melodic release. This works beautifully thirteen separate times here.