After teasing the track way back in late 2020 and Spotify apparently released the song prematurely a few weeks ago before pulling it back, SZA has officially dropped her latest single, "Shirt". With production and co-writing with Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins and "Freaky" Rob Gueringer, SZA delivers a smooth ballad about missing her former love and willing to fight his new woman, leaving a trace of her blood on her shirt. The music video is a mini-movie with veteran video director, Dave Meyers behind the camera and actor, LaKeith Stanfield making an appearance. With offbeat, artful visuals, this violent clip is about lovers on a crime spree, leaving several bloody bodies in their wake. And at the end during the credits, SZA teases a brief sample of another song which she revealed is called "Blind". It would seem like a new album should be on the horizon but it's been over five years since her debut was released so it's clear that SZA will only deliver the record when she feels it's ready.
RIHANNA
People have been losing their minds waiting for new music from Rihanna and after almost seven years, the wait is finally over. However, it is not the first single off a forthcoming new album but a song for the soundtrack to "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever", the long-awaited sequel to one of the biggest superhero movies of all time. "Lift Me Up", one of two songs she contributed to the album, is a haunting, mournful ballad that will express a feeling that appears to be part of the plot for the film. The actor, Chadwick Boseman, who played Black Panther, passed away in 2020 from cancer and he was not recast, leaving his absence to be explained in the movie. Since it's been announced that Rihanna will be the performer for this year's Super Bowl half -time show, I have a feeling that an actual new album from the Barbadian pop superstar will appear sooner rather than later.
And to add to the holiday theme of Halloween, Rina Sawayama has released a video for her song, "Frankenstein" from her second album, "Hold The Girl". The British artist reveals how she wants a lover to rebuild her to a better version of herself, no longer wanting to be a monster. The video is set at a wild party and features some dance moves that have a vibe straight out of Michael Jackson's now classic creepy clip, "Thriller".
I had not actually planned on seeing Tom Jones on his LA stop on his tour to support his latest album, "Surrounded by Time" but it was a surprise by my husband and I'm so glad I was able to catch this show. I can't say I was ever a huge fan of the crooning Welshman but I have enjoyed many of his hits including his breakout smash from 1964, "It's Not Unusual" which is one of my all-time favorite songs. I have to say that Jones put on one incredibly thrilling show despite being forced to sit throughout the entire concert due to him still recovering from a recent hip replacement surgery. What makes this even more impressive is that the now eighty-two year old's rich baritone is still quite vibrant and supple, putting the live performances of many of today's singers who are half his age to shame.
Jones began as a blue-eyed soul shouter who enjoyed success almost immediately, covering pretty much all genres of popular music. But once he hit the bright lights of Las Vegas in 1967, Jones turned into a lounge lizard who amped-up his sexy image with half-unbuttoned shirts and tight pants causing women to become so excited that they threw their panties on stage. This glitzy persona also helped Jones lose some credibility as a serious musician. But by the late '80's when Jones' son, Mark took over as his manager, the singer was encouraged to return to basics, guiding him back to his musical roots, leading to a brand new audience discovering Jones.
He opened the show with "I'm Growing Old" and a rendition of Bob Dylan's "Not Dark Yet", two haunting, meditative songs of looking back on a life lived from his latest album, "Surrounded By Sound", the forty-first in his storied career that impressively debuted at number one on the UK album chart, making Jones the oldest artist there to earn a number one record. While there was a certain sense of melancholy that lingered over the evening, Jones remained gregarious and upbeat, moving as much as he could in his chair.
The aim of the concert was to promote the new album, a collection of songs the singer loved or admired from other artists. We heard his versions of "The Windmills of Your Mind", a song Dusty Springfield first made into a hit in 1969; "Pop Star" which Jones shared an amusing story behind Cat Stevens' writing of this song; another Dylan composition from 1976, "One More Cup of Coffee" and the timely, "Talking Reality Television Blues" from alt-country performer, Todd Snider.
But Jones did not forget the songs that made him famous. Not surprisingly, he started with the song that kicked off his career, briefly sharing the story of his background that lead to "It's Not Unusual" becoming his breakout in 1964. There were rousing versions of "What's New, Pussycat?", "Green, Green Grass of Home", "Delilah" and his cover of Prince's, "Kiss" which launched his comeback to the pop charts in 1988.
And Jones ended the evening with what would have been his encore but since he couldn't go back and forth from the stage with any ease, he just continued on with two songs from musicians from the early days of rock & roll that he greatly admired: Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" which we got a story of how he and Elvis went to see the legendary rocker together while they both were working in Vegas and "Great Balls of Fire" by "the Killer", Jerry Lee Lewis, the recently departed rock & roll wild man. Despite his somewhat limited physical abilities, the still quite charming Jones managed to put on an absolutely captivating show.
Loretta Lynn, the legendary country music singer and songwriter has passed away peacefully in her sleep on October 4th at the age of ninety. She had still been recording, releasing her fiftieth studio album, "Still Woman Enough" just last year and performing although she was forced to slow down after having a stroke in 2017.
Lynn may have taken on the traditional aesthetic expected of a female country singer, elephantine hair and flowing, frilly dresses, yet her music was far from conventional. Her songs, many of them self-penned and based on lived experiences, boldly took on common themes in a way that was confrontational and challenging while reflecting on subjects in song that were not usually discussed publicly at the time, especially by a female artist.
As detailed in her popular 1970 hit song, "Coal Miner's Daughter", Lynn was one of eight children born to Clara and Ted Webb who was a farmer and later, coal miner in Butcher Hollow, KY. The family struggled financially and the fifteen year old Loretta fell in love and married Oliver "Doolittle" Lynn who was seven years her senior. One reason she was happy to leave home was so she didn't have to take care of her younger siblings yet she became a mother of four by the time she was eighteen.
The family moved to Washington state in search of work. After overhearing Loretta singing along with the radio, "Doo" bought his young wife a guitar. She taught herself how to play and began writing her own songs. Lynn began performing at honky-tonks and talent contests before her life changed when businessman, Norm Burley heard her sing on a local television show. He got her to Los Angeles to meet producer, Don Grashey, signed her to his indie label, Zero Records and had her record the song that Burley heard Lynn perform that she wrote: "I'm a Honky Tonk Girl". The song became a hit in 1960, reaching number fourteen on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, largely due to the Lynns traveling across the states to country music stations to get them to play the record.
She later met the Wilburn Brothers, a country music duo who had a publishing company, and they helped Lynn get signed to a major label, Decca Records. Beginning with the single, "Success" in 1962, Lynn had a long string of top ten country singles, going on well into the 1970's. Some of her early hits were "Blue Kentucky Girl", "Wine, Women, and Song", "Before I'm Over You", "What Kind of a Girl (Do You Think I Am)" and "Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' (With Lovin' on Your Mind)", the 1967 number one song that became the first Gold record written by a female Country artist.Yet some of her most popular songs (which she had written) were also the most controversial. This included "Dear Uncle Sam" which dealt with the human cost of the Vietnam War; "Fist City", "Your Squaw Is on the Warpath", and "You Ain't Woman Enough (To Take My Man)" were all about cheating and the aggressive lengths she will go to stop a woman from trying to steal her man; "Rated "X" talked about the stigma around divorced women and "The Pill" from 1975 which Lynn boldly proclaimed the benefits of birth-control pills. In 1971, Lynn began a musical partnership with Conway Twitty and the duo enjoyed five consecutive number one hits through 1975.
A film based on the 1976 autobiography Lynn co-wrote with George Vecsey was made in 1980 with Sissy Spacek starring as the country singer and Tommy Lee Jones appearing as her husband. "Coal Miner's Daughter" went on to become a box-office hit, receiving seven Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and winning Spacek the Oscar for Best Actress.
After many years of great popularity and success, by the 1990's, with country music shifting more towards a slick, pop-oriented sound, Lynn's style of music fell out of favor. But Lynn had a career resurgence in 2004 by teaming up with an unlikely source: Jack White of the alt-rock band, the White Stripes. He produced "Van Lear Rose", which Lynn wrote or co-wrote all of the tracks, and this collection, merging classic country with thrashing rock, became a critical and commercial success, crossing over to the pop charts and winning the Grammy Award for Best Country Album of that year.
Lynn was one of the most honored and successful artists in country music having seventy-eight songs chart on the Billboard Hot Country Song chart with fifty-three reaching the top-ten, had ten number one albums, won three Grammy Awards, thirteen Academy of Country Music Awards including ACM Artist of the Decade (1970's), a recipient of a Kennedy Center Honors in 2003 and she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013.
Lynn was married to Oliver Lynn for almost fifty turbulent yet loving years until he died at age sixty-nine in 1996. The singer is survived by three sisters including Crystal Gayle who became a popular country singer in the mid '70's, four of her six children and seventeen grandchildren.
Here is just a tiny fraction of the enduring music by the incredibly gifted Loretta Lynn and these are a few of my favorites:
"Unholy" is a new release that features the inspired pairing of Sam Smith and Kim Petras. First teased on TikTok back in August, this hyper-pop dance track (which was co-written by the non-binary performers) is about a family man leaving his comfortable life behind for a brief moment so he can sneak off to secretly get his freak on. "Unholy" just came out a little over a week ago and has already reached number one in four countries including the UK. This is the first single from Smith's upcoming fourth studio album but no release date has been revealed yet.
The New York-based, indie band, Yeah Yeah Yeahs first emerged during the turn of the 21st century, at a time when alt-rock was still a major presence in the pop music scene. The single, "Maps" from their 2003 debut, "Fever To Tell" brought worldwide attention to the band, receiving rapturous praise and award recognition. It has been almost ten years since their last album, "Mosquito" and the trio that makes up the band: Nick Zimmer on guitar, Brian Chase on drums and lead vocalist, Karen O, had not planned on taking such a long break but the starting of families, other artistic pursuits and the pandemic created an unexpected delay in coming back together.
But the wait is over and Yeah Yeah Yeahs are back with"Cool It Down". While the band has certainly matured (with the members all now in their 40's), they have lost none of their edge. This bold yet brief collection (running a little over thirty minutes) is filled with offbeat, punky electro-pop, taking on themes involving the global climate crisis and concern for future generations. The singles, "Spitting Off the Edge of the World" (featuring art-pop performer, Perfume Genius) and "Burning" are both accompanied by stunningly vivid music videos.
Here are some new songs that are enhanced by visually exciting music videos:
And I am sad to report the passing of Coolio, the rapper who was one of the early winners of the Grammy for Best Rap Solo Performance for his 1995 single, "Gangsta's Paradise", on September 28th at the age of fifty-nine. Born Artis Leon Ivey Jr. and raised in Compton, CA, he began making music after working a variety of odd jobs. Making connections in the local rap scene in Los Angeles, Coolio recorded a few singles and later became part of the group, WC and the Maad Circle in 1991. He was signed as a solo artist to Tommy Boy Records and released his debut album, "It Takes a Thief" in 1994. The single, "Fantastic Voyage" became Coolio's first hit, reaching number three on the Billboard Hot 100.
Sampling Stevie Wonder's 1976 song, "Pastime Paradise", "Gangsta's Paradise" was part of the soundtrack for the Michelle Pfeiffer-lead, 1995 movie, "Dangerous Minds" and became an incredible worldwide success, reaching number one in nineteen countries and selling over six million copies. Coolio's follow-up album, also called "Gangsta's Paradise", featured two other hits, "1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin' New)" and "Too Hot".
I recognized the steady, Caribbean beat of "All Night Long" almost immediately, hearing it either on the SiriusXM '80's channel or pulsing in the background of some store, and then realized that this Lionel Ritchie hit was almost forty years old. As the song played on, I also knew that this would certainly become a chart-topper today, despite the hip-hop and throbbing EDM that dominates much of the pop music scene at the moment. In fact, much of Ritchie's musical output would still be embraced by people if they were released today. The reason I believe is that the songs Lionel Ritchie created are classically structured and emotionally driven, allowing them to remain timeless by avoiding the over-produced spectacle and trendy concepts which is the norm in pop music right now.
After briefly considering to become a priest, Ritchie continued on a musical path while attending the Tuskegee Institute. He had joined several bands before connecting with a group of musicians that would become Commodores in 1968. They eventually were signed to Motown Records and found immediate success with the title track off their 1974 debut album, "Machine Gun", a funky instrumental that reached the top-ten on the r&b chart and number twenty-two on the pop chart. Commodores continued with funk music for a while before shifting more towards soul, leading to their first number one r&b hit in 1976 with "Just to Be Close to You", a love ballad that Ritchie wrote and performed lead vocals.
While the band continued to score with the funky dance tracks, "Brick House" and "Lady (You Bring Me Up)", it was the alluring love songs that Ritchie wrote which included "Sweet Love", "Easy", "Sail On", "Still" and "Three Times a Lady" that took Commodores to the next level, crossing over to the top of the pop charts. And these popular songs made Ritchie a very sought-after songwriter. After having written the number one hit for country artist, Kenny Rogers with "Lady" in 1980 and the chart-topping love ballad, "Endless Love" (for the film of the same name) which he traded vocals with Diana Ross the following year, Ritchie decided it was time to move on from Commodores.
Ritchie released his self-titled debut solo album in 1982. There were three smash singles, "You Are", "My Love" and the US number one hit, "Truly" which helped continue him on course as an incredible hit-maker and major pop artist. Ritchie's follow-up album, "Can't Slow Down" certainly lived up to it's title. The album featured five top-ten hits (including two, "All Night Long" and the ballad, "Hello" reaching the top of the US Billboard Hot 100 chart), sold over twenty million copies worldwide and went on to win the 1983 Grammy for Album of the Year.
Ritchie continued writing for other projects as well with 1985 being a banner year for him. He helped take Ross back to the pop charts by writing and producing "Missing You", a loving tribute to Marvin Gaye, which also went to number one on the r&b chart; writing and performing "Say You, Say Me" for the movie, "White Nights" which went to number one on the US pop chart and won Ritchie an Oscar for Best Original Song and teaming up with Michael Jackson to create the charity single, "We Are The World" that assembled an all-star cast of popular musicians of the day to perform, selling over twenty million copies with the proceeds going towards providing food and relief to starving people in Africa.
His 1986 album, "Dancing on the Ceiling" was well received with five popular singles but did not achieve the same level of commercial success like his previous solo albums. Following a tour to promote the album, Ritchie decided to retreat from the music business for a little while. But it would be ten years before he would return with a new studio album, "Louder Than Words". During his time away, soul music had evolved into groove-driven, urban contemporary and Ritchie's 1996 collection was an attempt to update his easy-listening r&b sound, working with Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, Babyface and David Foster. Yet the album failed to generate much attention.
Ritchie has continued to work since then, releasing several albums (including "Tuskegee", a well-received collection from 2012 with Ritchie teaming up with several country music artists to perform together many of his popular songs) and touring across the globe. The now seventy-three year old artist can be seen currently as one of the judges on the revival of the television singing competition show, "American Idol", appearing since 2018. And he will be inducted later this year into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Some may consider the soulful balladry of Lionel Ritchie a bit old-fashioned. But his songs have made an indelible impact in music, continuing to influence and be enjoyed by each new generation. I have selected two of my favorite songs from Mr. Ritchie and while they may not be his best known, these songs do display his amazing skill of combining pop, classic soul with a touch of country to create his unique sound.
After five years, the brash, melodious voice of Björk has returned to captivate us with new music. "Atopos", which is a Greek word for "strange", is the first release from the Icelandic singer's forthcoming tenth album, "Fossora" due out on September 30th. As to be expected from her previous idiosyncratic work, this intriguing song is a strange jumble of sounds and thoughts. With an experimental techno beat disrupted by violent bursts of six bass clarinets, "Atopos" loosely interprets the concept of atopy which is trying to describe emotions that are inexpressible in words. The music video for "Atopos" is a visual wonder with the expressive performer dazzling us with wacky yet beautifully alluring costumes and make-up.
Largely written while in quarantine during the pandemic back in her native Iceland, Björk has stated that "Fossora" (which is a femininized version of the Latin word for "digger") is a "mushroom album", referring to the new collection as more warm and earthy, far removed from the electro-based dreamscape from her 2017 album, "Utopia", as she copes with transition, with the fifty-six year old artist dealing with the recent loss of her mother and her children growing up and leaving the nest.
Although she has only just turned thirty in August, Demi Lovato has had a very complicated life, filled with glorious highs and devastating lows. Beginning her professional career as a child actor on the Disney Channel before moving on to find even more acclaim as a pop music artist, struggling in between with serious problems involving addiction, mental health issues, sexual trauma and gender identity. The singer has been very open regarding her troubles throughout, even participating in a recent docu-series, "Demi Lovato: Dancing With The Devil" which deals with her personal and musical journey.
Over the course of her recording career, Lovato has experimented with genres, dabbling in rock, r&b, dance and power-pop. Now with her latest, "Holy Fvck", the singer has gone full punk-rock on her eighth studio album. But Lovato clearly has something to say with the album, dealing directly and honestly with her continuing struggles with substance abuse, relapse and sexuality, using the dark, edgy sound to effectively express her rage and frustrations. Lovato has stated that "Holy Fvck" feels like her most authentic album, wanting to push herself musically and lyrically. I think she has certainly accomplished that with a collection that really reveals her pain and a strong desire to recover from her past. Lovato has just begun a tour through North and South America to support the album, so be sure to check her out while she's out on the road.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
