NEW SOUNDS

JAMES BLAKE

The British musician, James Blake is probably best known for his innovative work behind the scenes, handling production for a wide number of artists which includes Jay-Z, Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar, Frank Ocean and Beyoncé. But Blake had been making music as a solo performer long before his success as a go-to-producer. After living in Los Angeles for the last ten years, Blake decided to return to his native England. This move helped inspire his latest studio album, "Trying Times" and it is his first recording since departing from Republic Records and joining indie label, Good Boy Records. On the album, Blake reflects on some of the turmoil he had experienced with LA living and settling into a more tranquil state of being back in his home country. Unlike what he has usually done with other artists he had worked with, Blake is able to push even further his disjointed collection of fragmented sounds and beats to transform them into beautifully flowing, hypnotic songs rippling with his expressive, angelic vocals. A brilliantly deconstructed soul record, "Trying Times" takes you on a emotional musical adventure, one that is calmly offbeat and soothingly chaotic.





ELLA LANGLEY

I had become aware of country artist, Ella Langley from her charming single, "You Look Like You Love Me", a duet with Riley Green two years ago. This breakthrough along with a second single, "Weren't for the Wind" from her debut, "Hungover" made this twenty-six year old performer from Alabama one of the biggest new acts in country music of 2025. Now Langley is back with the catchy single, "Choosin' Texas" (co-written and co-produced with Miranda Lambert) that not only went to number one on the country chart but also reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart and even became a major hit globally. Her upcoming second studio album, "Dandelion" will be co-executive produced by Langley, Lambert and Ben West and due out on April 10th. Another recently released single, "Be Her" is also moving up the country and pop charts.





DIONNE WARWICK

One of the true living legends of popular music, Dionne Warwick has been making music professionally for an incredible sixty-five years. Now the iconic eighty-five year old artist has announced a new album, "Dwets" (pronounced "duets") and it will officially become her final recording. Warwick's son, Damon Elliott, is producing the album and Diane Warren has written all of the songs for this collection which will most certainly be a heartfelt and celebratory finale to Warwick's amazing recording career. While the complete list of duet partners and the exact release date of "Dwets" will be announced soon, the first single has been released and features actress and singer Cynthia Erivo on the song, "Ocean in the Desert". This lovely ballad is about friendship and support during difficult times. And Warwick, who does plan to slow down after this album, has stated that she will still be around for the occasional live performance.

RANDOM SIGHT + SOUNDS

Sienna Spiro, a rising pop-soul singer from the UK is gaining attention on this side of the pond with her single, "Die on This Hill", The twenty year old has been performing and writing songs since she was ten, inspired by the records of her parents that included Frank Sinatra and Nina Simone and the hip-hop that was playing during her youth, and dropped out of high school at sixteen to pursue music full time. As is common these days for aspiring musicians, Spiro posted clips of herself singing covers and original songs on social media. Two years ago, she released her first single, "Need Me". Spiro released more music and began performing around London, making an impression at the All Points East music festival. Last year, she released an EP, "Sink Now, Swim Later" on Capitol Records and went on tour throughout Britain. In October, the power ballad, "Die On This Hill", co-written by Spiro with Omer Fedi and Michael Pollack, was released and has gone on to become an international top-ten smash. Spiro is currently putting together her debut album and is in the middle of a headlining tour in the US.





Here is a round-up of new sounds that I'm listening to at the moment: "American Girls", the second single from Harry Styles' recently released album, "Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally"; Mary J Blige is back in fine form with a soulful ballad, "More Than a Lover"; Another single, "Ride" from Jessie Ware's upcoming sixth studio album, "Superbloom" is a shimmering dance track with the video featuring actor, James Norton; Bebe Rexha teams with Brit electro band, Faithless for a high energy, house track, "New Religion" and the first single by country artist, Kacey Musgraves, "Dry Spell" from her next album, "Middle of Nowhere" due out in May.

The sounds of classic disco, which enjoyed the height of its popularity during the mid-1970's, has climbed back up onto the current music charts. Donna Summer's 1978 version of Jimmy Webb's trippy ode to the Los Angeles site, "MacArthur Park" and Anita Ward's 1979 number one worldwide smash hit, "Ring My Bell" both recently made it back to the top ten of the iTunes music chart. Alysa Liu had skated to Summer’s song during the 2026 Winter Olympics and won the gold medal, helping this disco track receive rejuvenated popularity. A viral TikTok trend with "Ring My Bell" made sales and streaming of this song skyrocket this month. Ward, who went from schoolteacher to overnight disco star, only enjoyed success with this one song while Summer had a far more extensive and influential career before passing away in 2012, still known to the world as "The Queen of Disco". Let's get back on the dance floor and get lost in the beat of these songs with the entire seventeen minute epic version of the "MacArthur Park Suite" (which includes another charting single, "Heaven Knows") and Ward performing her hit on the British program, "Top of the Pops":

2026 OSCAR NOMINEES FOR BEST ORIGINAL SONG

With just a week until the winners of Best Original Song for the 98th annual Academy Awards are announced, here's a rundown of this year's nominees. For her seventeen nomination (the most of any individual without a win), Diane Warren has written a song for a movie that is about herself. "Dear Me" is featured in the documentary, "Diane Warren: Relentless" which covers this songwriter's impressively prolific career with her writing over four hundred songs for some of the biggest pop artists in history. The ballad, "Dear Me", handpicked by Warren to be performed by Kesha, was written about overcoming difficult times while offering a message of hope. "KPop Demon Hunters", which became the most-watched original title in Netflix history, featured a song that attained worldwide commercial success and garnering millions of streams. In this animated movie, "Golden" is performed by the fictional K-pop girl group, Huntr/x who lead double lives as demon hunters. "I Lied To You" is a rousing, blues number in the supernational thriller and box-office smash, "Sinners", performed by musician-turned-actor, Miles Caton and written by the film's composer, Ludwig Göransson and r&b musician, Raphael Saadiq. "Viva Verdi!" is a documentary that looks into the lives of veteran opera singers and musicians that are mentoring young music students. A song from the film, "Sweet Dreams of Joy" is written by English composer, Nicholas Pike and performed by Puerto Rican soprano, Ana María Martínez. And American composer, Bryce Dessner and Australian rocker, Nick Cave have teamed-up to create the title track for the intimate, period drama, "Train Dreams" that details the challenging life of an American railroad laborer.

The nominations are very strong this year with each song more than worthy of winning. But there can only be one winner and I think it will be that brightly exhilarating K-pop song that will get the gold statue this time. And once again, the show does not plan to have all of the nominated songs performed during the telecast. Only "Golden" and "I Lied To You" will be done in special musical segments which is really not fair to the other nominees.

"Dear Me" from "Diane Warren: Relentless" (Music and Lyrics by Diane Warren)



"Golden" from "KPop Demon Hunters" (Music and Lyrics by EJAE, Mark Sonnenblick, Joong Gyu Kwak, Yu Han Lee, Hee Dong Nam, Jeong Hoon Seon and Teddy Park)



"I Lied To You” from "Sinners" (Music and Lyrics by Raphael Saadiq and Ludwig Göransson)



"Sweet Dreams Of Joy" from "Viva Verdi!" (Music and Lyrics by Nicholas Pike)



"Train Dreams" from "Train Dreams" (Music by Nick Cave and Bryce Dessner; Lyric by Nick Cave)

NEIL SEDAKA (1939 - 2026)

Neil Sedaka, the pop performer and prolific songwriter, has passed away on February 27th at the age of eighty-six. After briefly singing with a doo-wop group, the Tokens as a teenager, the Brooklyn-born performer teamed up with Howard Greenfield to write many chart topping songs together at the Brill Building for other artists before becoming a popular recording artist himself, all which happened not long after Sedaka had turned eighteen.

During his time at the Brill, which began in 1958, Greenfield was handling the lyrics while Sedaka writing the music. The team had their first hit with their song, "Stupid Cupid" for Connie Francis that year. They would write other songs for Francis including "Where The Boys Are" which was the theme song for the 1960 movie which she co-starred and became Francis' signature song. 

Sedaka was still determined to become a recording artist himself and signed with RCA Records. His first charting song was "The Diary", which was inspired by Francis not allowing him to read her own journal, reaching number fourteen on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. But his next single, "Oh! Carol" (which was inspired by his former girlfriend, Carole King) became an even bigger hit, peaking at number nine in 1959. More hits followed for Sedaka which included "Calendar Girl",  "Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen" and "Breaking Up is Hard To Do".

Once the British invasion began around 1964, like many of the clean-cut, American pop stars, Sedaka could no longer get his music to chart. He was dropped by his label in 1966 and went back to songwriting full time. Sedaka wrote or co-wrote songs with Greenfield and other writers for The Monkees, the 5th Dimension, Patti Drew and Frankie Valli. But by the early 1970's, Sedaka was back trying to revive his own music career. He found some success touring in Australia and England and was able to rejoin RCA, recording the albums, "Emergence" in 1971 and "Solitaire" the following year. Neither album attracted much attention but the song, "Solitaire" found chart success for Andy Williams and the Carpenters.

Sedaka's fortunes began to shift around 1974 when he recorded the album, "Laughter in the Rain" in Britain. This title track went on to become a number one hit for the singer in the US in 1975, leading to Sedaka being signed to Elton John's label, The Rocket Record Company and a compilation album, "Sedaka's Back" featured material from three previous records he had recorded in the UK. Then later that year, Captain & Tennille recorded a version of Sedaka's song, "Love Will Keep Us Together", becoming a worldwide number one hit. Sedaka's follow-up album, "The Hungry Years" had the first single, "Bad Blood" (that features an uncredited Elton John) become his second number one hit that year. Another single from the album was a slowed-down version of Sedaka's 1962 hit, "Breaking Up is Hard To Do" which this ballad made it to number eight on the pop chart in 1976, making him the only artist to ever record an entirely new version of the same song with both reaching the Billboard Top Ten.

Unfortunately, Sedaka was unable to maintain this remarkable comeback. He recorded one more album, "Steppin' Out" for Rocket before joining Elektra Records, creating a bit of riff between himself and John but their relationship was repaired years later. None of the albums Sedaka recorded on his new label achieved great success. His last charting song was "Should've Never Let You Go", a duet with his daughter, Dara, which made it to number nineteen on the US pop chart in 1980.

But Sedaka would go on to receive plenty of appreciation for his sweeping and influential work. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1983, a jukebox musical, "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do" came out in 2005 and a theatrical musical biography, "Laughter in the Rain" appeared five years later. Sedaka toured extensively over the last thirty years and even did a series of free mini-concerts online during the COVID-19 shutdown.

BILLY STEINBERG (1950 - 2026)

Billy Steinberg, the incredibly prolific songwriter who was behind many of the most popular songs throughout the 1980's and 1990's, has passed away on February 16th at the age of seventy-five. With his with longtime songwriting partner, Tom Kelly, together wrote or co-wrote with other artists the songs, "Like a Virgin" by Madonna, "True Colors" by Cyndi Lauper, "So Emotional" by Whitney Houston, "I Touch Myself" by Divinyls and "I'll Stand by You" by The Pretenders to name just a few.

Born in Palm Springs and raised in Fresno, Steinberg formed a band called, Billy Thermal and they were signed to Richard Perry's Planet Records. The band's actual breakthrough came only when their songs that Steinberg wrote were covered by other artists like Linda Ronstadt who did her version of "How Do I Make You", the lead single form her 1980, "Mad Love" album and Pat Benatar recorded "I'm Gonna Follow You" for her 1980 album, "Crimes of Passion". After the band broke-up, Steinberg soon moved behind the scenes, working with Benatar the following year on her next album and writing the title track, "Precious Time" and teaming with Kelly to co-write another track, "Fire and Ice". This lead to Steinberg and Kelly being suggested to work with Madonna, a rising artist who was working on her follow-up album to her self-titled debut. "Like a Virgin" would be the lead single and title of that album, reaching number one in 1984 on the US pop chart for six weeks.

This helped this newly formed songwriting team become very in demand and other popular songs Steinberg and Kelly wrote include "Alone" (recorded by Heart), "Eternal Flame", "In My Room" (both co-written with Susanna Hoffs and recorded by the Bangles) and "I Drove All Night" (recorded by Cyndi Lauper, Roy Orbison and Celine Dion). By the mid-1990s, Kelly had lost enthusiasm for songwriting, leaving the business. But Steinberg continued on with his career, going on to co-write with other musicians including Rick Nowels, Marie-Claire D'Ubaldo and Josh Alexander.

RANDOM SIGHTS + SOUNDS

The first time I had heard of Durand Bernarr was when I saw the clip of him racing to the stage during this year's Grammys to accept the award for Best Progressive R&B Album and delivering a humorously exuberant speech of joyous gratitude. But I must shamefully admit that I had not heard of Bernarr's album, "Bloom" which won him the prize. So I immediately set about listening to his record and now understand completely why he was the recipient of this honor.  

The Cleveland, Ohio native was surrounded by music, raised by parents who were involved in the business with his mother being a music teacher and vocal coach and his father was an audio engineer. After learning production by working with his father, Bernarr began his professional career posting videos on YouTube and released a mixtape that featured his versions of popular songs of the day in 2009. Another mixtape that was covers of Erykah Badu songs lead to him working with her as a backing vocalist. Bernarr went on to record some EPs and collaborate with various other artists as a featured vocalist or providing background vocals. He received attention with "Wanderlust" in 2022 and "En Route" was Grammy nominated for Best Progressive R&B Album in 2024. Openly queer, Bernarr is an artist to watch who is boldly pushing r&b in exciting new directions.





Taylor Swift has released the music video for her single, "Opalite" which came together following her appearance on the British chat program, "The Graham Norton Show" and features the guests that was on her episode; Karyn White has finally returned to music with "You Gonna Want Me Back" that has the r&b vocalist, who made a splash with her self-titled debut back in 1988, delivering a fresh, midtempo groove; No Na is an Indonesian girl group that is receiving attention on this side of the world thanks to their latest single, "Work" and their energetic music video.

Another artist I slept on was Rochelle Jordan and her third studio album, "Through The Wall" released last year. This collection is an explosive mix of funky progressive soul and sleek electronic sounds that will leave you exhilarated as you are dancing through the night. Born in London and raised in Toronto, Jordan has been creating music since 2012, releasing her debut album, "1021" two years later which featured fairly traditional r&b. But it wouldn't be until almost seven years later when she would return with her follow-up, "Play with the Changes" which was due to some health issues and a battle with her former label over her artistic expression. With this album, Jordan was able to experiment further with underground dance and house, finding that she was in her element. A performer who is not sonically aggressive, Jordan prefers to keep her luxurious beats smooth and steady to help elevate the dance floor.

And I will close by paying tribute to Chuck Negron, one of the vocalists of the pop-rock group, Three Dog Night, who passed away on February 2nd at the age of eighty-three. Born and raised in New York, Negron (whose father was nightclub performer, Charles Negron) sang in local vocal groups as a teen. He headed to Los Angeles after being recruited to play basketball at CAL State. His interests soon returned to music and in 1967, Negron, along with fellow singers, Cory Wells and Danny Hutton came together to form a musical group called Redwood, They were briefly signed to the Beach Boys' imprint record label, Brother Records. But during recording sessions, Brian Wilson was producing their demos and not happy with their sound. The rest of the Beach Boys soon wanted him to concentrate on their band's next album so Redwood was dropped. Not long after, these vocalists assembled their own backing band with Ron Morgan on guitar, Floyd Sneed on drums, Joe Schermie on bass, and Jimmy Greenspoon on keyboards and became "Three Dog Night" which refers to the practice of using dogs for warmth in the outback with "three dogs" indicating a freezing night. 

Beginning with their 1968 self-titled debut album that featured their first pop hit, "One" which was a cover of Harry Nilsson's song, Three Dog Night went on to have twenty-one top-forty singles including three reaching number one. But legal battles, internal conflicts and drug abuse, the band imploded by 1976. Negron had his own struggles with serious drug addiction, even living for a period on Skid Row in Los Angeles, before seeking recovery and finally getting clean by 1991. He found his way back to music, recording four solo albums including "Negron Generations" from 2017 which featured him with two of his daughters. Here are a couple of Three Dog Night songs that Negron sang lead vocals on:

CONTROL: THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY

I can't believe that it's been forty years (February 4, 1986, to be exact) since the release of the breakthrough album by Janet Jackson, "Control". I remember like it was yesterday when the first single, "What Have You Done For Me Lately?" was dropped, a blunt feminist anthem with a funky beat that was enhanced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis' progressive production. More hit songs followed (with seven of the nine album tracks released as singles) and Jackson would no longer be in the shadow of her very famous brothers as "Control" went on to become a worldwide smash, selling more than ten million copies.

As a teenager, Jackson was largely focusing on acting, appearing in the television shows, "Different Strokes" and "Fame", and not really interested in pursuing music. But her father and manager, Joseph got her a recording contract with A&M Records. Jackson went on to release two albums, a self-titled debut in 1982 and "Dream Street" two years later. Both albums were collections of bubblegum soul that received scant attention and failed to give Jackson, who had very little creative control, much of an identity as a musical artist. 

After deciding to take charge of her career, the then nineteen year old first fired her father and then hired her label's A&R manager, John McClain to help guide her into the next phase. He introduced her to Jam and Lewis, who were former members of the funk band, The Time. The trio clicked and went to work together to create her next album with Jackson even co-writing and producing for the first time.

"Control" was made intentionally to appeal primarily to the African-American community with the feeling that if it crossed over to the pop charts, that would be an added bonus. And the album did have a major impact on both the r&b and pop charts. This was also during MTV and the age of the music video which helped bring even more attention to the singles, "Nasty", "When I Think of You", "Let's Wait Awhile" "The Pleasure Principle" and the title track, assisting them in riding high on the charts.

This album has since gone on to become a highly influential and groundbreaking collection, helping to usher in the sounds of contemporary hip-hop soul with Jackson now considered to be one of the preeminent female artists of popular music. Here is a reminder of the enduring legacy of "Control" and the extraordinary artistry of Janet Jackson: