Thursday, July 16, 2020

Music Releases 7/17/2020

Happy Thursday, everyone.  Yes, it is Thursday, even I’m losing track at times, but it’s time to shine a spotlight on some new music releases available at 9:00 pm PDT.  Before that, I’d like to get into some musical stuff I found out about in the last week.  Spotify has apparently changed their shuffle rules regarding albums, I can’t go into the album and select tracks to go into my personal playlist of new music (which I call “Unheard” for obvious reasons), I can only do that with tracks from the playlists that already exist on Spotify.  This means I’ll have to set aside time for each release individually, rather than listen to them all shuffled together.  It’s not a terrible thing, it’s just frustrating to have to do something new after 15 months of doing it one way. 

Last week, Katy Perry also announced a new album called Smile; the cover features her dressed as a clown complete with a round red nose and white makeup.  She’s released several singles since I’ve been on Spotify and the title track to this album is easily the best single she’s released for this album.  Also, Black Stone Cherry teamed with Monster Truck to make a protest song under the name The Cherry Truck Band called "Love Become Law."  It's always refreshing to see people from the South take up Social Justice, reminding us that stereotyping everyone in the red states as racist and homophobic is inaccurate, there are quite a few white people there who care about the problems people not like them face, in fact, that was the point of "Sweet Home Alabama," to remind Neil Young that not every person in Alabama was racist, mostly just those who loved the governor at the time.  There are also new WWE entrance themes for Bayley and Liv Morgan I didn’t know about until Sunday and both are great pieces of music.  Both women are among my favorite wrestlers in the sport and it’s nice to hear new music for when they head out to the ring.  My all-time favorite is still “The Truth Reigns” for Roman Reigns, however.  On Tuesday night, Joan Jett’s track from the Marc Bolan/T-Rex Tribute album due out in September, previously mentioned in Kesha’s bio back in June, was released.  Kesha did “Children of the Revolution” and Joan Jett’s done “Jeepster,” which I previously heard recorded by the Hollywood Vampires, a supergroup formed by Alice Cooper, Joe Perry and Johnny Depp.  The Vampires’ version was louder, but this version confirmed “Girl I’m just a Vampire for your love” wasn’t a lyric change Alice Cooper made for the supergroup, and Joan Jett delivers the lyrics very well, making it another great cover.

On a comedic note, I didn’t know Rihanna’s “Don’t Stop The Music” by that title until Sunday, I had first heard it at a San Francisco Giants game in 2010 and misheard “Please don’t stop the music” as “Weasels at the movies.”  I knew those weren’t the actual lyrics, but since I didn’t know what the real ones, finding the song was impossible (especially since I didn’t know what would happen if you asked a music store employee “what’s the song that sounds like it’s saying ‘weasels at the movies?’”).  Thankfully, Spotify suggested it for a Pop Music playlist, I put it in “Unheard” and finally figured out what the words were.  Admittedly though, sharing the story on Facebook gave me a lot of joy, with comments like “I like yours better, it raises questions like ‘what kind of movies do weasels like?’” and “Pitch this to Disney.” (I especially like this, because every time I misheard the lyrics, I thought of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”)

Without further delay, here are the major releases I’m looking forward to this week.

The Aces: Under My Influence-I don’t know much about this group, but the album art suggests they are four young women and they released a great LGBTQ+ love song from this album called “Kelly.”  They have other enticing song titles for this album like “My Phone is Trying To Kill Me.”  “Kelly” presents a nice upbeat pop sound that sounds good for dancing and has a great drum beat and a nice guitar line and I hope to hear more songs like that on this album.

The Dead Daisies: The Lockdown Sessions-This is a 4-track Live EP performed by The Dead Daisies, recorded semi-recently with new lead singer/bassist Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple/Black Country Communion/Kings of Chaos/2 tracks on Billy Ray Cyrus’ Thin Line album).  This will feature Glenn Hughes’ debut single with the band “Righteous Days,” as well as him singing Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Classic “Fortunate Son” and Humble Pie’s “30 Days in the Hole.”  I’m guessing this EP may have been recording and mixed through online chat collaborations due to the pandemic, but since music releases have kept being released and there have been very few slow weeks, it seems to be working.

Kansas: The Absence of Presence-Yes, that’s right, classic rock band Kansas, responsible for 70’s radio rock hit “Carry On Wayward Son,” is releasing a new album.  However, Kerry Livgren, who wrote that song, is no longer with the band (he is making music, but I forgot the name of his current band).  Kansas’ first three singles off this album show they’ve still got that hard rock fire, backed with some strings.  They’re enjoyable to listen to and I hope the whole album continues in that direction.

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