The moment you have been waiting for! Or possibly not. But here are my picks for the best music of 2025 — some of which may have changed by the time you are reading this. And my shifting list is one reason I’m only getting around to posting this on New Year’s Eve. Another reason for
It’s my annual(ish) post of my choices for best music of the year! Is this actually the best music of 2024? Is that a serious question? ‘Cause, well, no, of course it isn’t. I am not a music critic, haven’t heard all the music released in 2024, and musical taste is highly idiosyncratic. But these
Yes, it’s the post you have all been waiting for! Or possibly not. I mean, hey, I’m not a professional music critic. But I do listen to a lot of new music. Since our musical landscape feels both more happily eclectic and more fragmented (where do you find new music?), I thought you might enjoy
Since the pandemic is now over-ish, I’m posting what I had intended to post as my final “Plague Song,” last March: Carsie Blanton’s “Buck Up”! I never quite got around to it last year. Several reasons. The pandemic doesn’t have a definitive end point because, well, we will still need vaccinations, which are unequally distributed,
While I too am fond of nostalgic detours into the music of my youth, there’s lots of great new music! These days, it’s harder to find — or, it feels that way to me. But I’m always listening, making note of what I like, and… compiling this Best of 2022 playlist! I was going to
This song — written in 1979 — imagines war in the US. Though war is not happening in the US (at the time of this writing, anyway), war is always happening somewhere. After Russia attacked Ukraine this week, Talking Heads’ “Life During Wartime” — with its images of urban warfare, urgent insurgency, limited food — has been
I found myself playing “Thank You for Being a Friend” on the guitar, discovered it was quite easy to play, and decided that yes – the theme from The Golden Girls is an apt song for our Corona Era. And so: Though written by (and even a pop hit for) Andrew Gold in 1978, the abridged
Since They Might Be Giants Are my favorite band and have several songs suitable for the Corona Era, you’d think I would have performed one of their tunes for this series before now. But I haven’t. Here’s my “Happy New Year 2022” plague song – “By the Time You Get This,” from the band’s I Like
Welcome to your second pandemic Christmas (or Solstice or Hanukkah or whatever you celebrate)! Since you and I and the plague are still here, I’m doing a holiday installment of my ongoing PlagueSongs series AND sharing seven – that’s right, SEVEN! – playlists of mostly secular seasonal music. Enjoy! Let’s start with the song, written by
I keep thinking that each PlagueSong is the last one I’ll post. But then both the plague and I continue on. And so, I do another. This time, since we’ve just finished season two of Ted Lasso, I give you the theme to that show! Written and performed by Marcus Mumford and Tom Hove, the
