Last week was much more sparse in terms of musical releases than usual, there were good covers on the Minions Soundtrack, namely Gary Clark Jr.'s version of "Vehicle," Thundercat's rendition of "Fly Like an Eagle," Phoebe Bridgers' version of "Goodbye to Love" and Weyes Blood's cover of "You're No Good." Rina Sawayama had an excellent single last week as well, the full album should be a good release, coming in early September. Generation Radio also had a good single and sounds like it could be the next great American rock band, channeling an arena rock style reminiscent of Bon Jovi and Journey. Gia Woods also had a good single for LGBTQ+ audiences.
Since it's more-or-less the halfway point of the year, I decided to list my favorite albums thus far on Twitter, here, I'm going to do the same and include singles I also really liked and releases I'm looking forward to in the second half. Easily my favorite albums this year have been Guns N Roses' EP, Miley Cyrus' live album's deluxe edition, Envy of None's debut album and Carrie Underwood's album. The Dead Daisies released a quartet of superb live singles and one studio recording that hints at an upcoming album, the Avila Brothers brought together Billy Ray Cyrus and Snoop Dogg for an excellent song that blends Country and Rap and is reminiscent of Billy Ray's "Old Town Road" with Lil Nas X, Idina Menzel and Charles Kelley did a wonderful rendition of "We've Got Tonight" for a Kenny Rogers tribute concert, Def Leppard's "Take What You Want" and "This Guitar" sound great for their tour, Iconic's "Fast as You Can," "All I Need" and "Enough of your Love" are great showcases of Nathan James' vocals and the dueling guitars of Michael Sweet and Joel Hoekstra, who may have turned in the best guitar work this year and the live version of "Cheaper to Drink Alone" by Black Stone Cherry is outstanding. The big releases I'm looking forward to the most are Ozzy Osbourne on September 9th and Noah Cyrus on September 16th, with a little excitement towards Demi Lovato on August 19th, Rina Sawayama on September 2nd and FLETCHER on September 16th.
I got Demon Slayer and Fire Emblem Warriors; Three Hopes for Switch, Demon Slayer is okay, I would probably enjoy it more if I were more familiar with the Anime/Manga its based on. It is nice to hear Abby Trott's voice outside of Fire Emblem, her character of Nezuko is much more aggressive than Annette and I like to joke that someone is keeping pastries from the Blue Lion mage, sending her into a frenzy. She's really fun to play as in VS Mode, more so than her brother Tanjiro, the protagonist is in Story Mode, though each character has a rather violent special move, so if that bothers you, you've been warned.
Fire Emblem Warriors; Three Hopes is much like Hyrule Warriors; Age of Calamity and Persona 5 Strikers gameplay wise, only featuring the cast of Three Houses. You're in an alternate version of Fodlan, playing a different mercenary who finds Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude before they find Jeralt's mercenaries. Due to this, the Black Eagles prevent Monica from being replaced by Kronya and she becomes a member of the team (we also find out the real Monica is a lesbian with a massive crush on Edelgard). Now, we're waging a war against both the Central Church of Seiros (having restored the Southern Church) for its ideals of Crest-based leadership and Those Who Slither In The Dark for their Dr. Mengele-type experiments, unfortunately clashing with the Kingdom of Faerghus and Leicester Alliance for keeping us from our goals. Meanwhile, Jeralt's mercenaries now apparently serve Dimitri and Byleth is almost impossible to defeat.
Due to the feelings by this game, I've realized I'm scared about what could happen to the singers, musicians, voice actors and other women, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latin Americans and LGBTQ+ people who've meant so much to me over my life in this time when hate speech is getting such a platform. Twitter is a double-bladed lightsaber, you can talk about rock music and check in on those people, but the trending topics are almost always a gut punch. Just a name I know trending sends fear through me because I imagine all the hate-filled comments, since I've been on the internet for 20+ years, I've seen a lot of hate-filled comments in my day, especially towards musicians and directors.
This week may be a bit quiet as well, we do have a new Journey album coming out, the first in 11 years. Also, Switchfoot is releasing a Deluxe Edition of their album from last year with new tracks, and finally, Dio's Holy Diver is getting a re-release and a remix (it's a 40th anniversary project, though the album was released in 1983, not 1982). Today, July 7th, is also Ringo Starr's 82nd Birthday, so best wishes to him and may he keep on rocking.
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