Elvis Costello, "Alison"
One of the singles off of Costello's debut album, this song is probably one of the more famous tunes simply because Linda Ronstadt covered it, a cover that really bares the soft-rock heart of the ballad. Anyway, it's a great tune, one of the standouts in his catalog. I'm old enough to admit that soft rock is fine.
DJ Vadim, "Getting Friendly"
Hm, "Getting Friendly With Music" isn't a bad name for a blog.
The Sorcerers, "Summoning the Monkey God"
Taking inspiration from Ethiopian jazz, the Sorcerers play a fun brand of funky jazz that is explicitly cinematic. This album is intended as a soundtrack to a non-existant movie, presumably some kind of adventure/horror/exploitation flick. I like that kind of high-concept thing. More fake soundtracks! Anyway, it's good stuff, very recommended.
The Ocean, "Triassic"
This is the second album of a concept pair of albums that aims to explore paleontology and geologic periods. This is how the album opens, and I'm gonna level with you: I ain't smart enough for this. At least not the conceptual part. I just wanna hear people do cool shit with instruments. And here's the good news: I'm well-practiced in ignoring the content of metal lyrics, so I can just ignore them here and be a knucklehead listener. Judged on that basis? Pretty good!
Iron & Wine, "Boy With a Coin"
I've mentioned before that "sensitive guy with a guitar" is a real hit-or-miss genre for me. And it's not entirely clear to me what exactly sets one of these dudes apart from the others. But Iron & Wine works for me, pretty much every time, and it's not totally obvious why that is. I could kind of cop out and say "well, the songs are just better!" but that's just kicking the critical can down the road, because I can't explain why the songs are better. As always, the rotten, hollow core of this blog is frequently exposed by my utter incapability to describe things. "Music good!" I bleat at the computer, hoping it somehow translates that into something insightful. "write a music blog entry about iron and wine written in the style of a smart person" goes into the Chat-GPT box, in desperation.