Favorite Music of 2019

Another good year for WXPN-type music (although my favorite radio station for some reason decided not to do a listener poll this year). Other songs, not so much. And most of my favorite folks released albums last year, rather than in 2019.

 

Songs (AAA division) 

1. Outside Of This Town – Christone “Kingfish” Ingram (#82, WTMD Top 89)
2. Harmony Hall – Vampire Weekend (#5)
3. Keep Your Head Up – Preservation Hall Jazz Band
4. Juice – Lizzo (#73)
5. You Got It Wrong – Jeb Loy Nichols
6. Falling Down The Stairs Of Your Smile – New Pornographers (#20)
7. Saw Lightning – Beck (#29)
8. Armor – Sara Bareilles (#80)
9. When Am I Gonna Lose You – Local Natives (#23)
10. Trouble In Paradise – Rufus Wainwright
11. Hello Sunshine – Bruce Springsteen
12. Goin’ Back To Philly – Tommy Conwell & The Young Rumblers
13. Overexcited – Guster (#26)
14. This Life – Vampire Weekend
15. All Your’n – Tyler Childers (#51)

 Songs (other) 

1. Circles – Post Malone
2. Better – Khalid
3. Old Town Road – Lil Nas X
4. thank u, next – Ariana Grande
5. Good As Hell – Lizzo

 Albums 

1. Blinded By The Light – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
2. Kingfish – Christone “Kingfish” Ingram (#20, mvyradio Top 25)
3. Daylight – Grace Potter (#8)
4. Western Stars – Bruce Springsteen (#21)
5. 40 – The Stray Cats

Defining the 2010s

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/12/26/s-were-decade-what-exactly-six-columnists-tell-us/?arc404=true

 

The Washington Post asked six of their columnists to characterize the past decade. Two particular quotations stood out for me.

 

From Dana Milbank:

The rise of social media — Facebook and Twitter — aggravated and amplified the fissures [within America]. Though it gave voice to millions, it proved ruinous to traditional media and, with it, any sense of a shared, objective truth. It gave rise to demagoguery, gave an edge to authoritarianism and its primary weapon, disinformation, and gave legitimacy and power to the most extreme, hate-filled and paranoid elements of society.

 

From Molly Roberts:

[W]e soon found we weren’t only giving each other access to our photos and thoughts, our likes and our loves. We were allowing the [social media] platforms access to a whole mess more, and those platforms were letting third parties see it, too. To maximize our engagement, those platforms played on the preferences all our sharing revealed — which meant shoving inflammatory content in our faces and shoving us into silos. All that connection ended up dividing us.

Big Brother on campus

A truly scary Christmas morning article:

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/24/colleges-are-turning-students-phones-into-surveillance-machines-tracking-locations-hundreds-thousands/

Serendipity #78

Fresh Air – Quicksilver Messenger Service

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ejj81Y2ZlM

Heard 12/15/2019 around 12:00 at honeygrow (Rockville)

Shuffle #125 (November 30, 2019)

In Liverpool – Suzanne Vega

When It Began – The Replacements

Running On Empty – Jackson Browne

The Rockafeller Skank – Fatboy Slim

Truckin’ – Grateful Dead

Since You’ve Been Gone – Aretha Franklin

Glory Bound – The Grass Roots

Time Is Tight – Booker T. & The MG’s

Little Ghetto Boy – John Legend & The Roots

Happy Thanksgiving!

While there are many things for which to be thankful, I decided to come up with a list of all the musicians that I’m glad I saw perform before it was too late. (I’ll revise this periodically as needed.)

 

Paul Barrere (Little Feat) 

LaVern Baker

James Brown

Ruth Brown 

Eva Cassidy 

Ray Charles

Clarence Clemons (E Street Band)

Pat DiNizio (Smithereens) 

Danny Federici (E Street Band)

Aretha Franklin 

Danny Gatton

Lesley Gore 

Richie Havens
Etta James

Sharon Jones 

Kirsty MacColl

Art Neville 

Charles Neville
John Prine
Adam Schlesinger (Fountains of Wayne)
Mary Travers (with Peter, Paul and Mary)

Junior Walker

Jesse Winchester 

Favorite Musical Artists: Indigo Girls

The Indigo Girls occupy an interesting middle niche in the music business ecosystem: not exactly household names, but more than cult favorites. They’ve received multiple Grammy nominations (with one win) and, with a run of six consecutive albums that went either gold or platinum, probably don’t have to worry about where their next meals are coming from. Yet, fortunately for their fans, they’re not so big that they can’t play venues such as Wolf Trap or the Maryland Hall for the Performing Arts (with reasonable ticket prices), or appear on the River Stage at XPNFest. And we can also be thankful that they didn’t become so acclaimed that they spawned a bevy of imitators trying to become the “new Indigo Girls”; it would be difficult if not impossible to improve on the original.

 

Concert notes: 2018 2015 (Wolf Trap) 2015 (XPNFest) 2014

 

Favorite Songs:

 

Southland In The Springtime

Fill It Up Again

Watershed

Closer To Fine

The Wood Song

 

Hammer And A Nail

Power Of Two

This Train Revised

Cold Beer And Remote Control

Galileo

 

Chickenman

Rise Up

Sugar Tongue

Get Out The Map

Least Complicated

 

Welcome Me

All That We Let In

Moment Of Forgiveness

Kid Fears

Shame On You

Shuffle #124 (November 27, 2019)

Daydream – The Lovin’ Spoonful

Dreamin’ – Johnny Burnette

Sweet Emotion – Aerosmith

Ordinary People – John Legend

The Sound Of Crying – Prefab Sprout

Volcano – Jimmy Buffett

Long Journey Home – Del Amitri

Long Distance Runaround – Yes

A Sign Of The Times – Petula Clark

Shuffle #123 (November 23, 2019)

The Boy’s Gone – Jason Mraz

Wall Of Death – Richard & Linda Thompson

Beautiful Day – U2

Wonderful! Wonderful! – Johnny Mathis

The Unforgiven – Metallica

One Man Wrecking Machine – Guster

Shimmy, Shimmy, Ko-Ko-Bop – Little Anthony & The Imperials

Hollywood – Rufus & Chaka Khan

Please Come Home For Christmas – The Eagles

Two takes on the “Sideshow Bob” defense

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-republicans-no-harm-no-foul-defense-of-trump-doesnt-hold-water/2019/11/15/d6843666-07d3-11ea-818c-fcc65139e8c2_story.html  (Ruth Marcus)

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/11/14/one-defenses-trump-is-literally-tv-sitcom-joke/ (former “Simpsons” writer Bob Oakley)