Feeling Groupie

I previously introduced this new series, which is a spinoff of the previous Fictional Festival series, one only featuring artists who released albums in 2022.  This post discusses a lineup for a rap/hip hop festival.  For more information about the series in general, please see  this post . I did not account for beefs when determining the lineup.  Further, this lineup was completed in 2023, and does not account for an ongoing feud that involves several artists, centered around two of the headliners for this festival (go figure).  As such, I would not have booked the Friday headliner had I been creating this lineup this year. Lineup Friday Drake Nicki Minaj A Boogie wit Da Hoodie Steve Lacy Dreamville Latto Yo Gotti GloRilla Big30 Del the Funky Homosapien & Kool Keith (FNKPMPN) Tobe Nwigwe Finesse2Tymes Cochise DJ Premier Roy Woods J.I the Prince of N.Y Foushee Kaliii Lakeyah Killy Bobby Sessions The Life Giving MC ...

I previously introduced this new series, which is a spinoff of the previous Fictional Festival series, one only featuring artists who released albums in 2022.  This post discusses a lineup for a hard rock/metal festival.  For more information about the series in general, please see  this post . After I finalized this lineup, 3 acts either broke up or cancelled their tours, so I replaced them with a note. Lineup Friday Korn Ghost Suicideboys Halestorm Alter Bridge Amon Amarth August Burns Red Asking Alexandria Red Black Stone Cherry Palaye Royale $not The Warning Jeris Johnson Obituary The Halo Effect Carolesdaughter Bleed from Within Thornhill Wargasm Backxwash Fires in the Distance   Saturday Slipknot Five Finger Death Punch Megadeth Brantley Gilbert Cypress Hill In This Moment Nothing More The Hu Between the Buried and Me The Devil Wears Prada Architects* Memphis May Fire Upchurch Cory Marks Stray from the Path Ra...

I previously introduced this new series, which is a spinoff of the previous Fictional Festival series, one only featuring artists who released albums in 2022.  The first post in the series is a lineup that is similar to Warped Tour.  For more information about the series in general, please see this post . After I finalized this lineup, 3 acts either broke up or cancelled their tours, so I replaced them with a note.   Lineup Friday Yeah Yeah Yeahs Run the Jewels I Prevail Dirty Heads In This Moment Frank Turner Wet Leg State Champs Jawbox The Interrupters Fit for a King Upon a Burning Body* The Linda Lindas Northlane Terror Vein.fm Hunny Blind Channel Bedouin Soundclash Lowertown Pet Needs Robin Brown   Saturday Death Cab for Cutie** Coheed and Cambria Pixies Parkway Drive Flogging Molly Sleeping with Sirens Lil Xan Spiritbox The Black Dahlia Murder City Morgue Counterparts We Came as Romans Memphis May Fire St...

Last year, I did a series that I called the Fictional Festival series where I made festival lineups for fictional festivals of different genres that I created using only artists who released albums in 2021.  I planned on releasing a series last year that included artists who released albums in 2022, but I got busy; as such, I'm finally just releasing these now.  The logic behind this is that often artists will tour to support an album, so I considered artists who released studio albums, compilation albums, EPs, live albums, select re-release albums, and more.  I didn’t consider artists who released singles but no albums because it is not as common for an artist to tour to support the release of a single. Like last year, I completed several festivals of different genres.    I will release them in order of completion, with the first to be released being a Warped Tour inspired festival and the last being a general festival. As a generic setup for most festivals, I ...

Every so often, I find the new releases on the Billboard 200 to be fascinating since there are several stories or circumstances surrounding them; I consider the week of September 30 th , 2023 (looking at the units between September 15 th -21 st ) to be one of those.  I previously wrote a blog post about another entry on the Billboard (October 10 th , 2020), which I had considered the most interesting week I had seen in a while, and this gives it a run for its money.  This chart contained an attempted (and likely ill-fated) comeback, a change in genre, a remix album, albums that test the changes in the calculations of the charts, some declining artists, surprises in placement, a bigger name establishing themselves, rising artists, and more.  There also were some notable releases that didn’t chart, some of which were included in the post.     1:   Nostalgia , Rod Wave When Rod Wave hit number 1 with this album, there wasn’t that much fanfare about it,...

Even though the Grammys have already passed, there is one topic related to the Grammys that I never discussed:  what I would vote for if I had a vote.  I selected several awards to chose my winner for and discussed a brief breakdown/description. As a disclaimer, I do not have a vote for the Grammys, so my vote doesn’t have any impact on anything.   Further, there are limits on the number of awards/categories a voter can vote for.   I did not follow these guidelines, but opted to vote for a wide variety of awards.   I did not vote for any album award that I reviewed fewer than half of the nominated albums (for instance, if an award had 5 album nominees and I listened to 2 albums, I didn’t select a winner, though I would have if I listened to at least 3).   General Field Record of the Year I didn’t like “On My Mama” and wasn’t the biggest fan of “Vampire”, so those were promptly eliminated.   While I liked the other 6, I found myself torn betwe...

This post is a recap of my predictions for the Grammys.  In addition to the winner, I ranked each in order by likelihood of winning in my opinion (note that this is not the order that I think they will finish in; rather, this is the order of who I think is most likely to win, which would most likely not match the final vote tallies, which are never released).  For more information about each award, check out the corresponding podcast episode.  I'll give the caveat that I was torn between a few for several awards, so it's entirely possible that the overall percentage of awards that I get right is not high; that said, I expect several that I get wrong will include ones where the winner was one I thought was possible. General Field Record of the Year “Flowers”, Miley Cyrus “Anti-Hero”, Taylor Swift “Kill Bill”, SZA “What Was I Made For?”, Billie Eilish “Not Strong Enough”, Boygenius “Worship”, Jon Batiste “On My Mama”, Victoria Monet “Vampire”, Olivia Rodrigo ...