Broken Record

I read somewhere recently that most people become hardened into their musical tastes by the time they turn 30 years old; and those people rarely explore new music after that. Which is a shame because, as I've mentioned here before, discovering new music is actually good for your brain. So it's just as interesting to me how I find new music as it is what those new favorite songs turn out to be. For example, I found Cloud Cult on a Tidal indie feed. I found Sara Bareilles from YouTube algorithms putting her songs in front of me. Boyfriends turned me onto things like The Eels and David Gray. Here are four amazing women artists who came to me in meandering ways over the last few decades. They are as top-notch as any male artists out there but somehow find themselves left out of many, many important lists.  One of these artists I came across after the age of 35. The other three I discovered after I was 40. Paloma Faith Paloma Faith isn't known in the U.S. (I know because I kee...

I want to start by saying this morning I came across the recent GQ interview of Mick Jagger . Note the article is listed under the GQ department of "Wellness."  "Mick Jagger’s Guide to Longevity Includes High-Intensity Exercise and No Drugs: It’s a no to saunas and cold plunges, and a yes to laying off the drinking after 40. Ahead of the release of the 33rd Rolling Stones album, Foreign Tongues , GQ spoke to the legendary frontman about staying alive." Well, Jagger doesn't actually say "No drugs." He says no drugs all the time or no drugs in excess . But that's splitting hairs here because at the point I read a headline like this I feel like I'm in the movie Clue walking alongside Madeline Kahn, Leslie Ann Warren, Eileen Brennan, Christopher Lloyd, Michael McKean and Martin Mull, going door to door with a spent-up soul finding dead bodies in every room. Celebrity wellness is relevant to me because I've been writing a lot about celebrity h...

First let's give a quick sky-point to Peabo Bryson who just passed away recently. We were just talking about him recently here on the Celine Dion post with his songs like " A Whole New World " (with Regina Belle in 1992) and " Beauty and the Beast " (with Celine Dion in 1991). There's also his big hits " If Ever Your In My Arms Again " (1984) and " Tonight I Celebrate My Love " (with Roberta Flack in 1983) and this song I discovered recently and love, " Feel the Fire " (1978).

  I was gone for five minutes. Like five minutes. (Not really five minutes.) And so much happened from my musical favorites list. Unbelievable. Like I was gone for 10 days at most. And all this new stuff was both stressful (because I couldn't attend to it, tied up as I was with family arriving for my mother's interment, that being the end itself of a five-year long transitioning) and yet it was also very comforting, that I would have something to look forward to afterwards and that something would go on when all the realizations of my mother finally being gone were ready to set in.  Actual Funeral Music  This is not actually a post about music for funerals. But my mother did have requests for music, particularly Andy William's singing "Battle Hymn of the Republic" in 1968 (her final political sayonara)...  ...and a recording of a my Dad's cousin (no longer with us) singing "His Eye Is On the Sparrow" which she loved and which is played digitally and ...