Feeling Groupie

While I discussed my 25 favorite songs during the last episode of the podcast (with more of a focus on the top 10), I opted to list my 50 favorite songs in this post.  As a note, I considered songs that were released previously if they were on an album released this year but I didn't consider songs released as a single this year when released on a previous album. “Rapstar”, Polo G “Panopticon”, Silent Planet “Back to Oz”, Sufjan Stevens & Angelo De Augustine “Come Thru”, H.E.R. feat. Chris Brown “Thats What I Want”, Lil Nas X “Mood”, 24kGoldn feat. Iann Dior “Bite Me”, Avril Lavigne “Last Chance to Dance (Bad Friend)”, A Day to Remember “Take My Breath Away”, The Weeknd “The Gnashing”, Deafheaven “Leave the Door Open”, Silk Sonic “O Death”, Rhiannon Giddens & Francesco Turrisi “People”, Capital Theatre “Good For You”, Olivia Rodrigo “Love My Hair”, Mickey Guyton “Transparent Soul”, Willow “You Swore Your Love Would Burn”, This Wild Life “Bath Salts”, DMX feat. Jay-Z and Nas...

Recently, the members of U2 released what they called the 10 songs that saved their lives to coincide with the release of their single “Your Song Saved My Life” from Sing 2 .  Since I thought it would be a fun idea for a blog post, I copied the idea and compiled my own list of 10 songs.  While some would try to associate songs with life experiences, I honestly am unable to do that, so I mostly (with one exception) determined this list based on songs that were essential to my musical life.  The first 9 are listed in order that I believe I heard them, though there might be some minor errors in the order.  While it was difficult for me since I had around 70 songs I seriously considered, I chose 10 songs that I think are most important in my life.   “Piano Man”, Billy Joel I tend to doubt that many people remember or can easily identify the first song they ever heard.   I am in the same boat there, though I do have a different sort of memory where I remem...

On December 22 nd , Congress announced that the House Oversight Committee will investigate Astroworld promoter Live Nation related to their role in the festival and the tragedy that ensued.  The committee is launching a bipartisan investigation to the role they played in the event that left 10 dead and hundreds injured.  They requested information related to it by January 7 th and will hold a briefing that will include Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino on January 12 th .  In this post, I have included some information regarding what this means and what I am watching for in this.   What does this mean? Do you remember seeing clips from hearings about Congress asking people questions about issues?   Two in particular that come to mind are hearings related to pharmaceuticals and the horribly uneducated questions related to social media.   This will be some sort of hearing like these, with questions related to Live Nation’s handling of Astroworld and previo...

While the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame doesn’t plan on having their nominating committee meet for the Class of 2022 until after the new year, we still have a pretty good idea of who is eligible based on their guidelines.  Typically, there are 15-18 artists total who are nominated and two first year artists eligible for the first time, which I will assume will remain true here. In this post, I will discuss artists who are eligible for the Hall for the first time and whether I think they have a shot of being nominated this year.   Artists are eligible if their first release was released 25 years prior; in this case, this would be 1996 or earlier (25 years before 2021, when the committee would normally meet had it not been for Covid).   In this post, I am only considering artists who released their first album in 1996 (with the exception of Slipknot, who released a demo album in 1996 prior to their debut album in 1999).   I expect Eminem will be nominated, but the secon...