Grand Salami Time! - The Baseball Project

Grand Salami Time! - The Baseball Project

3:21

Grand Salami Time!, 2023

Written by Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey

The title of this song is titled after a line that Seattle Mariners announcer Dave Niehaus would say when a grand slam was hit.  I like how the first line of the song is "Dying quails and frozen ropes," the title of the supergroup's first album.  This whole song is a statement of purpose, crammed as it is full of baseball terms of art, such as "Open the window, Aunt Minnie, here it comes!"  That's Pittsburgh Pirates radio sportscaster Rosey Rowswell's trademark salutation for a home run by a Pirate.  This would be followed by a sound effect of shattering glass.  The gays (and gal) in this band are so talented and exuberant, even a non-fan like myself can't help loving their sports-infused pop rock.

Hope - R.E.M.

Hope - R.E.M.

5:01
Up, 1998

Written by Peter Buck, Mike Mills, Michael Stipe, and Leonard Cohen

This song is not a collaboration between Athens' finest and the Greatest Canadian Songwriter, but, as becomes obvious as soon as you hear it, a credit was given to Cohen due to the song's similarity both lyrically and sonically to his "Suzanne."  Lyrically, the song is addressed to someone facing a medical scare: "You want to trust the doctors / Their procedure is the best / But the last try was a failure / And the intern was a mess."  The addressee looks to science and religion and salvation anywhere, any kind of deliverance, no matter how foolish the hope seems.  "You want to cross your DNA with something reptile."  I read this as having insane hopes, like wanting aliens to come save you with their advanced technology, to undergo a science experiment no matter how far-fetched, like the Lizard in Marvel Comics who wanted to regrow his arm with reptile DNA.  It's grim and terribly touching.

Hot For You - The Blades

Hot For You - The Blades

2:18

single, 1980

Written by Paul Cleary

This slice of crazily catchy New Wave power pop has a sound ahead of its time.  Sure, it evokes the jittery pop of the Buggles and even Elvis Costello, but it's also got the jangle power riffs of the Rembrants.  Lyrically, the song expresses rock's timeless theme of trying to get with the opposite sex, especially as the dreary winter months wane.  "The rain is gone, the sun is stronger now / So cast aside your inhibitions / And your raincoats too / The pretty gals are lying on the sand / They're trying their best to get their bodies tanned." They straddle the line effortlessly between tongue-in-cheek and earnest with that syllepsis and the corny rhyme.

Hellbound Train - Rancid

Hellbound Train - Rancid

1:26

Tomorrow Never Comes, 2023

Written by Tim Armstrong, Lars Frederiksen, Matt Freeman, and Branden Steineckert

This is a blistering old school punk track, powered by new drummer Steineckert's pounding drum line.  Armstrong tosses off a sneering vocal of a lyric that seems to be a summary of Reservoir Dogs: "Crooked people lie, reckless people die / Staying true to yourself 'til the end / Botched up heist, guns weren't nice / When you're shooting your way out of the end."  The lads have written a song about the quiz show scandals of the 1950s, so a Tarantino movie isn't beyond them.

Hit Or Miss - New Found Glory

Hit Or Miss - New Found Glory

3:22

New Found Glory, 2000

Written by Jordan Pundik, Ian Grushka. Chad Gilbert, Cyrus Bolooki, and Steve Klein, 1999

Chad Gilbert, the lead guitarist of New Found Glory, died a couple of days ago.  This song was originally released in the band's 1999 debut album; they re-recorded it for their eponymous sophomore album.  The vocals are pure pop punk of the era, akin to Tom DeLonge's nasal, emo delivery, with elongated vowels that give his voice a whiny tone.  The lyrics tell of a narrator reminiscing about a lost love ("Remember the time we wrote our names upon the wall / Remember the time we realized 'Thriller' was our favorite song"), reflecting that he's missed a lot of chances to repair what went wrong.  It's catchy, but as with so many pop songs, one verse and a chorus are repeated too often for my taste.

Barely Breathing - Duncan Sheik

Barely Breathing - Duncan Sheik

4:15

Duncan Sheik, 1996

Written by Duncan Sheik

Duncan Sheik died a few days ago, way too young, of cardiac arrest,  In the mid-1990s, the era of grunge, wistful pop, and the one-hit-wonder, Sheik was beautiful, talented, and on top of the world.  I, being an angsty Dylan-loving curmudgeon, dismissed most everything on the charts by virtue of their existence on the charts, so this megahit never seeped into my consciousness.  I doubt I ever listened to more than a few seconds of it, despite being in college at the time of its apex.  The acoustic guitar and soft drums form an upbeat melody covering a melancholy mood; the narrator, like so many lost young men, can't explain even to himself his attraction to a damaged soul.  The lyrics are introspective and, if not exactly poetry, reasonably clever: "You really had me going, wishing on a star / But the black holes that surround you are heavier by far / I believed in your confusion, you were so completely torn / It must've been that yesterday was the day that I was born."  Sheik was cut down too early, but it's not a bad legacy to have created something people are appreciating three decades later.

Tradfather - Beoga

Tradfather - Beoga

3:25

Phases, 2025

Written by Beoga

Beoga is a fiddle-based Irish band that plays mostly instrumentals, so one might be forgiven for detecting a certain sameness in their repertoire.  This jaunty tune begins with some "Eye Of the Tiger"-evoking percussion beats before blossoming into a standard fiddle riff with some modern beats.  The only vocals are some "oh oh ey oh" chants in the final thirty seconds.  It's a fine toe-tapper, when taken in moderation.

Before You Go - Lukas Graham

Before You Go - Lukas Graham

3:36

Good Times, 2026

Written by Lukas Forchhammer, Scott Harris, Morten Ristorp

This gentle folk-pop song is apparently a departure for this Danish-Irish band (credited as a band, but in music media, often written up as one person, the vocalist), which typically plays a more grand pop-soul (their hit "7 Years" has 2.6 billion Spotify plays).  Vocalist Lukas Forchhammer (his father's surname was Graham) sings the lyric in a rapidfire falsetto, the words tumbling out from his mouth, with the backing vocals a familiar millennial whoop.  The song is about a dying friend and the injustice of having too little time: "So before you go, could we have a final night? / Let's talk about those summer days and open up that dumb champagne / We saved, but we don't even like."  It's a bittersweet carpe diem.

For Cryin' Out Loud! - Finneas

For Cryin' Out Loud! - Finneas

3:37

For Cryin' Out Loud!, 2024

Written by Finneas O'Connell, Aron Forbes, David Marinelli, and Miles Morris 

Billie Eilish's brother belts this out with a warm, inviting voice that conveys a bittersweet yearning,  The song has an upbeat groove, while the lyrics reflect the chaotic mess that love can be: "Sometimes I see the future / Sometimes I'm not so bright / Sometimes you're looking for a fight."  The song begins with a slightly eerie, solitary drum beat over a synth loop, before the band and vocal come in, with punchy horns giving the song a full, rich sound.

Hey Ma - Aaron Rowe

Hey Ma - Aaron Rowe

4:00

single, 2025

Written by Aaron Rowe

This soulful acoustic ballad is in the form of a telephone call to the narrator's mother.  He's in London, a city that he finds faceless and unfriendly, and wonders how the old hometown is doing.  "Hey ma, I crossed the street today / I said hello to a stranger, but he walked away / I'm sending love from a street where no one knows my name."  Rowe is an Irish sing-songwriter; this, his debut and to date biggest single, has lush instrumentation, the inevitable fiddle, and gorgeous, soaring vocals.