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.

Hind's Hall - Macklemore

Hind's Hall - Macklemore

2:49

single, 2024

Written by Macklemore

Recent events having shown that Ed Sheeran is a disingenuous coward who takes his marching orders from billionaires named in the Epstein files, I thought I'd focus on this two-year-old protest song about the ongoing genocide in Palestine.  From Wikipedia: the song's title is a reference to pro-Palestinian activists' renaming of Hamilton Hall at Columbia University to "Hind's Hall" in honor of Hind Rajab, a five-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip.  Macklemore has always been an issues rapper, self-reflective and analytical to the point of turning some fans off, but here his lyrics are scathing and right on target.  "Who gets the right to defend and who gets the right of resistance / Has always been about dollars and the color of your pigment, but / White supremacy is finally on blast / Screamin' "Free Palestine" 'til they're home at last."

Juliet As Epithet - Hamish Hawk

Juliet As Epithet - Hamish Hawk

2:39

A Firmer Hand, 2024

Written by Hamish Hawk, Andrew Pearson, Stefan Maurice and Alex Duthie

This song is more direct and much less florid lyrically than most of the other Hamish songs I've heard and loved.  That's both a good and bad thing, depending on your interest.  Personally, what I fell in love with immediately upon hearing him was the double-barrel blast of his gorgeous voice and his kaleidoscopic, enigmatic explosion of words.  Here, the song is clearly about a love affair that fizzled out.  "So goddamn handsome he makes me anxious / He holds my hand through the sad advances / Why wouldn't he though / I'm just the open secret no-one's ever gonna blow."  It's at a stately tempo, the vocals dignified and subdued, over synths, another change from his typical baroque sound.

Kiss Me When You're Through - WIllie Nelson

Kiss Me When You're Through - Willie Nelson

2:45

The Border, 2024

Written by Willie Nelson and Buddy Cannon

A love letter that twists the genre on its head by playing down the power of pretty words, this gentle ballad cedes that there may be dark times in love.  You may say you hate the other person.  You may not show up for them.  You may not complete their dreams.  "And you tell me that you wish / That you never heard of me / When you close your eyes / I'm not the one you see."  Sometimes love inspires strong feelings of a different kind.  But once that's all out of your system, the narrator says to his paramour, "kiss me when you're through."  Sometimes you don't need words.

Archbishop Harold Holmes - Jack White

Archbishop Harold Holmes - Jack White

2:51

No Name, 2024

Written by Jack White

Jack White delivers this track like a street-corner sermon from a preacher who's half prophet, half carnival barker. Over a stomping, distorted groove, White unleashes a torrent of satirical, manic, and faintly apocalyptic words from the titular preacher: "God spoke to me / Said, "Listen to me I anoint you with the power / That'll get 'em all moving!" / You're agitated? You prayed and meditated? / You're concentrated on getting elevated?"  He promises a gospel of prosperity, "but first you must tell seven friends."  White’s clever lyric takes the main stage here, set against raw guitar-heavy garage-blue.  It's all righteous fury and absurd theater.

Texas Hold 'Em - Beyoncé

Texas Hold 'Em - Beyoncé

3:53

Cowboy Carter, 2024

Written by Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Elizabeth Lowell Boland, Megan Bülow, Brian Bates, Nate Ferraro, and Rafael Saadiq

This song has 743 million streams, and yes, I did hear (and nod my head along to) it when it dropped but I'm a bit late to the party in actually giving it the in-depth it deserves.  It's a boot-stomping burst of country pop swagger, a fusion of Nashville twang and Houston groove that feels both playful and unstoppable. A catchy banjo riff pulls you in first, and then the explosion of the beat with that unmistakable Beyoncé polish: crisp handclaps, tight harmonies, and a rhythm built for the dance floors of line-dancing halls and nightclubs.  Her vocal performance is sly, knowing, effortlessly confident and impressive in range and power. She teases and commands in equal measure, laying down strutting, assertive lines: "This ain't Texas, ain't no hold 'em," she reminds you, as if she's reclaiming the genre and rewriting the rules at the same time. It’s country, sure, but filtered through R&B phrasing, gospel inflection, and pop precision ("Pop your Lexus / lay your keys out").  More than a genre exercise, it's a celebration of Black southern musical heritage wrapped in a high-energy, radio-ready package. It’s clever, catchy, and brimming with personality.  Of course it came with an outburst of criticism from insecure country gatekeepers.  To them I say: "Don't be bitch / Come take it to the floor, now."

Running - Pearl Jam

Running - Pearl Jam

2:19

Dark Matter, 2024

Written by Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard, Mike McCready, Eddie Vedder, and Andrew Watt

I like Pearl Jam when they're slow and introspective, but I like it even better when they take the wheels off and embrace their punk sides.  Sounding like a meaner, leaner Bad Religion fed through a Seattle amp stack, they tear through the song, which features some of Vedder's most rapid-fire vocals and intense, machine gun drumming.  The lyrics are similarly thrashing and urgent, the pleas of a drowning man.  "Got me diving, got me diving / Got me deep, I get the bends / When I'm summoned, or too late coming."  Vedder is intense even in a low growl, but here he and the band are playing like their lives depend on it.  It's desperate, it's alive, it's immediate.

Chased the Setting Sun - The Old 97's

Chased the Setting Sun - The Old 97's

2:42

American Primitive, 2024

Written by Ken Bethea, Murry Hammond, Rhett Miller, and Philip Peeples

A tale of loving and leaving with Hammond on the vocals, with his cowboy twang, and train whistle croon on the held notes, adding a much appreciated jolt of country to the Old 97's, their Americana alt-country now diluted by Miller's usual, albeit terrific, pop-rock sound.  Murry boasts, or maybe laments, his tendency to leave a woman angry and spreading lies about him ("She's howling 'bout my cruelty / For any who will hear."  But he remains unmoved: "We'll ride about and care aloud some glad and gilded song / About a red dirt river road with thrills to tag along."

Miss America - The Castellows

Miss America - The Castellows

3:31

single, 2024

Written by Nicolle Galyon, Will Bundy, Ellie Balkcom, Lily Balkcom and Powell Balkcom

The Castellows are a traditional country-bluegrass trio of sisters from Georgia. This song personifies America as a country girl who headed west, left her roots, "got Rocky Mountain high," and got a little gritty and dirty in the city. Then it laments How Things Used to be Better Before Something Undefinable But Probably Progressive Happened: "But I miss America, on her front porch / Before she ever had to lock her doors / When she was still outspoken / Back before her heart got broken." It's a nice image— a free-spirited Southern woman who's lost her way but might yet rediscover the identity she always meant to have. But beneath the lovely harmonies and nostalgic twang, it's uncomfortably close to hillbilly white-pride sentiment. And that "when she was still outspoken" line? People who long for a time before they had to worry about all those nasty immigrants never stopped speaking out. A deceptively pretty song, but really just a softer, subtler "Try That in a Small Town."

Suzie Chapstick - Green Day

Suzie Chapstick - Green Day

3:16

Saviors, 2024

Written by Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tré Cool

As the lads in Green Day age, their sharp edges grow softer.  This song could be from Weezer or Fountains of Wayne, or even a late 1960s love song (without the Instagram mention).  It's a brooding, gentle pop number, bemoaning a lost love.  "Will you dedicate a song to me? / Do you want me to just go away / I just want to be your nobody / Is there any chance that I can stay?"  It's a perfectly pleasant pop-rock song, but for those of us who discovered Green Day through Kerplunk in the early 1990s, it's hard not to wonder what those snotty, angsty lads would think of this glossy sweetness. 

Lazy - They Might Be Giants

Lazy - They Might Be Giants

3:12

single, 2024

Written by Irving Berlin, 1924

The Giants treat this hundred-year-old song with respect, letting the fantastic rhyme scheme ("I want to peep / Through the deep / Tangled wildwood / Counting sheep / 'Til I sleep / Like a child would") speak for itself.  I love the interior rhyme and multi-word rhymes that the old masters of the era, like Berlin and Cole Porter, used.  I'm not sure, because I'm not very familiar with the Crosby or Monroe versions, but I believe that the Johns have cheekily added some lyrics about Mr. Dickens and Omar Khayyam.  Their lyrics ("I hate to hurry through life and worry...") fit in wonderfully to the existing lyrics, so either they're using a full lyric that didn't get recorded, or they're masters of the craft themselves.

After the War - Peter Breinholt

After the War - Peter Breinholt

4:30

single, 2024

Written by Peter Breinholt

I've never heard of this musician, but he's a recording artist based out of Salt Lake City who's been publishing music since 1993.  I was surprised to learn this, as I thought I heard a faint but distinct German or Nordic accent in his singing.  This song is the homecoming of a soldier at Christmastime, set after some unspecified war.  He is stunned, ebullient at what he sees, the town all covered in white and a choir singing.  It's a story song, an epic, chugging to a triumphant finish punched up with bells and horns.