Music Releases Diary 1/21/2022

               Last week saw quite a few good releases across music, with great songs from Slash, Eddie Vedder, Cristina Vee, Casting Crowns and Skillet, “Call off the Dogs,” “Brother the Cloud,” “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing,” “Scars in Heaven” and “Valley of Death,” the first three being great rockers and the last two being good soothing songs about God’s kindness.  Last night also featured a new single from an upcoming Tribute to Leslie West of Mountain fame, "Theme from an Imaginary Western," by Dee Snider and Eddie Ojeda of Twisted Sister and Rudy Sarzo of Ozzy Osbourne's Tribute album, Quiet Riot, Whitesnake and Dio on bass.  This week will include a collaborative single featuring K.Flay, who I plan to see in March on the 9^th, but that’s only the beginning as this is the first busy release week of 2022.

 

               There are scheduled to be albums by various artists this week/tonight at 9:00 pm across several genres.  Bluesman Keb Mo has one with collaborations with Kristin Chenoweth and Darius Rucker, AURORA, who was the call in the song “Into the Unknown” in Frozen II, also has an album, hard rock group The Ferrymen with Ronnie Romero (ex-Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow) has another, part-Canadian hard rock group Dream Theater (who has several great Classic Rock covers) has an album of demos from 1986-1987 coming out, Herman Rarebell (former Scorpions drummer/co-writer of “Rock You Like a Hurricane”) has an orchestral album coming out and there is also a 1970 live performance by rock group Cactus (famous for their rendition of Blues song “Evil”) seeing release.  I don’t know much beyond those little things, but each one sounds worth a listen, and also Joe Satriani has released the first single from his next album, due out April 8^th.  I will listen to them through Spotify during the next week.

 

               I’d like to end on the note that legalism cannot help you generate compassion to respect people, at least, it didn’t in my experience.  It makes you just obey what’s written and doesn’t inspire you to show true compassion, which comes when you care about the other person’s existence and well-being.  When you care about someone, you then begin to respect them and not treat them as a hollow pawn to put your personality inside.  All people need that, as we are all unique.