#NewMusicMonday • October • 2020

A YEAR of #NewMusicMondays  

January-March • April-May • June • July-August • September • October • November • 
My Favorites of 2020

Tomorrow and the days ahead will be one of the most important times in U.S. history. So, we're all going to need some good music to get us through the week. This week's #NewMusicMonday is packed with new songs and covers, and at least ten old songs that you probably have never heard before. Those ten songs are from Tom Petty's 1994 album, Wildflowers. Tom Petty, Mike Campbell and Producer, Rich Rubin spent two years making Wildflowers as it originally was going to be a double album with 25 songs. Well, the record company stepped in and as usual mucked things up and said it would be better as a single album that eventually got whittled down to fifteen songs. Here I present the remaining ten songs scattered throughout the playlist with a trailer video of the new super deluxe box set, Wildflowers and All the Rest, just released October 16th. 

At the end of the playlist, I also include a great interview by Malcolm Gladwell with Rick Rubin.

Here's a couple of links that you may want to circle back to and view.

• Wildflowers and All the Rest (YouTube 25 songs)
• Tom Petty's 70th Birthday Bash 

Happy Birthday to Tom on what would have been his 70th Birthday on Oct. 20 and to John Lennon who would have been 80 on Oct. 9. I have included several John songs in the playlist done by artists in honor of his birthday. Damn, both of these guys should be alive today to still give us new joys with their great talents.

As we approach our historical election tomorrow, I have included several new songs that are hopeful toward a change from our current wannabe regime and back to our democratic principles. I'm just so tired of being tired about Trump and now I'm scared to death he is going to win re-election (sometime this month). If that happens, I'm mentally preparing myself for a depression hangover that I hope I can snap out of sooner than later. After 2016 and the last four years, nothing can surprise us anymore, so it's best to prepare for both scenarios with either: the Trump shit show's victory and gloating with no plan for anything, or Biden's win and a new start with strategic planning to tackle the pandemic, economy and our world standing, just to name the tip of the melting iceberg. During these sad years, the end of the innocence came much too quickly for this generation of young people.  

On the lighter side, music will always be here to help us whether we're up or down. There's a life motto that I have adopted from Paul McCartney's Hey Jude lyric - Take a sad song and make it better. So my take from that powerful line-  I/we have the ability to change something negative into something better, by our actions. Together we can, make it better. My ol' buddy and friend to the blog, Paul Hobbs has a new song that I lead with in the playlist, Charity Begins At Home. So no matter the outcome, tomorrow or next week, we can start working to make things better by starting at home with our family and friends. This last paragraph was corny as hell, but I'm going to get up and go install a light above my workbench right now before I delete it.

Enjoy my friends and stay well.

#NewMusicMonday • July-August • 2020

The Listener

A YEAR of #NewMusicMondays  

January-March • April-May • June • July-August • September • October • November • 

My Favorites of 2020

Recently, I've had a couple of people ask me what my blog is about. The short answer is I write about rock 'n' roll. Since 2015, it's a passion where I developed a process over time that I compare to fishing. I cast my digital fishing pole into the river of musical streams.

To create a blog, I always start at the end. The end is the playlist, the second part of the blog. I spend the most time on any blog making the playlist because it's the heartbeat, the music itself that motivates me to organize a group of songs and then write about them.

The actual first part of the blog, the writing is always the hardest part. Sometimes like this week, I don't have much to say about the songs because it's new music that I don't have experiences to tie them to, other than I like the songs I've caught. Sometimes, I wonder how many people actually listen to an entire playlist that I've created? I'm guessing a handful. I like to think my playlists communicate a message- the songs selected and their linear order, an iteration with its own rhythm and if explored, probably reveals more about me than the writing of the blog.

I have two kinds of playlists. One, songs compiled from my youth in long-term memory, and two, songs compiled from recent times and often experienced as fun short-term memories.

The long-term playlists are often like fishing in a familiar fishing hole, you just cast your line with bait and wait, and then you catch that big song from long ago and just slowly reel it in.

The new songs have an exciting element of the unknown, you're fishing with a lure, casting out and quickly reeling it in with only your shiny lure staring back at you. But every now and then you catch a fresh new song, a keeper for a week, or one that actually becomes a long-term favorite.

In this metaphor, the bait or lure is my musical sense, my personal preferences to beat, rhythm, melody, vocals, lyrics, and the musical instruments used, and then categorized as an artist's musical sound, style, and/or genre.

In the past several weeks of putting this #NewMusic playlist together, I have been examining my musical taste in both my old and new likes, and my recent dislikes that stereotype most pop music today by assuming every young person must have an electronic pulse sound in the song in order for them to buy it.

Now, take my 'digital lure fishing' method to catching songs and it's something like 'speed dating' where couples sit for a minute, talk, the bell sounds, and then you move onto the next table. I cast my 30 second lure- listen to the intro, does it grab me, or skip to the second quarter, continue to listen or skip to the third quarter, continue to listen, or it's one and done with that song. This may sound cold, but my method gives a lot of artists and bands I have never heard of a fighting chance with my musical 'Crap-O-Meter.'

So, it's a lot like fishing, mostly misses but a few wonderful hits too. This week I discovered new favs for the first time- Josh Ritter, Kathleen Edwards and the band, Travis as well as new material from recent favorites as The Killers, Black Pumas, and The Lemon Twigs. Also, a couple of new old songs from The Rolling Stones, Green Day, and Prince.

My hope is that you're saying, "Cool thanks for sharing this new music." Or,
"Seriously Doug, you mean you have never heard of Travis until last week, and you call yourself a music blogger?"

Enjoy my friends and stay well out there.