Category: Music

Fall is the season of New Things

It used to be that the fall season was dangerous to my wallet because it marked the start of a book publishing wave. It still does, and I still have a really long list of upcoming books that I want to read, but… I’m older. I’m more wiling to wait. More willing to not own the books, but to borrow them from the library. Part of this is simply that I live in a small house and THERE IS NO MORE ROOM FOR BOOKS.

However; music seems to have stepped up its fall release game. I ended up purchasing four new albums this month. Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS. Madison Beer’s Silence Between Songs. Morgan Wade’s Psychopath. And ZZ Ward’s Dirty Shine.

Somehow I picked up Madison Beer’s Life Support and was startled at how much it stayed in my listening rotation. Only one song was an absolute oh god, no, I don’t like this. I’m not sure how I feel about Silence Between Songs yet. The latter half of it is definitely stronger than the first. But I do not approve of orchestral arrangements added to pop songs where the entire point seems to be adding just…. swoopy strings. Do MORE with an orchestra, please.

GUTS is… oh I love it. It’s super fun, and for me, it’s the best kind of nostalgia–new nostalgia! Rodrigo really evokes the teenage feelings I had while listening to Avril Lavigne, but it’s new material, so a win. I love pop-punk-princess music and there just isn’t enough of it around to suit me. I want to keep listening to new music, not just stagnate in the music of my teens. Plus, frankly, a lot of it doesn’t hold up. Duran Duran does, though. I will die on that hill!

Morgan Wade’s Psychopath was the one I was anticipating most, and on first listen, I was disappointed. It feels like there’s too much “stuff” obscuring her voice and the heart of her songs. Plus, there are the damned swoopy strings. That said, this album has grown on me a lot and I’ve found myself looking for reasons to put on my headphones and sing along. “Losers Look Like Me” is both catchy and bitter–which could really be Wade’s brand. Both she and Olivia Rodrigo end their albums on a note of personal despair. Morgan Wade struggling with the struggle to stay clean and sober and alive; Olivia Rodrigo with the expectations she has of herself and her fear of failure.

ZZ Ward is an antidote to all of these albums. The other three are all very confessional, and ZZ Ward’s Dirty Shine is more of a story record. It’s full of attitude and bravado and criminal behavior. It’s a Bonnie & Clyde sort of album with a mash up of musical genres. I think I listened to it for three days straight, and find myself humming bits and pieces of all of it. GUTS might be my favorite album of these four, purely for the teenage nostalgia feeling, but ZZ Ward’s Dirty Shine is super and I bet I’ll be using her songs as soundtracks to my writing for a long time. Also, for some unaccountable reason, her album has a video trailer that’s all about werewolves. And her video for On One has spaghetti western zombies in it.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=5XVkIVXMYWc%3Fsi%3D1QU82ryzLlG_Ywji
So much good noise in this song! I love it!

In praise of music videos

One of the things I love best about the internet is youtube. I know, I know, it’s a potential hellscape waiting to fill my head with toxicity, but I’m careful! I use youtube for two things, and two things only. Troubleshooting guides and music. And youtube is utterly wonderful for music.

Part of it is–I am the MTV generation. Not what MTV became–reality tv and some clever scripted shows, animated or otherwise–but the original “I want my MTV” music video source. It was just so insanely cool and new, you have no idea.

It’s a no brainer: music shapes emotional response and adds weight to stories. It’s why movies have soundtracks! To help cement a mood. And music videos? I think they warped my brain from the very start. All my first writings were basically music videos with words: Lots of emotion, lots of drama, lots of style–not necessarily a cohesive narrative. Even now, after decades of writing experience, the best scenes for me are the ones that have a soundtrack and a mental music video. (The soundtrack in my head, FYI, for Sylvie Shadows is the Kidneythieves’ Underneath. underneath I fight your wars, over and over again)

Anyway, the point being youtube not only gives me access to music I wouldn’t hear otherwise in the repetitious radio wasteland, but it gives me access to stories. With music. That’s awesome.

It’s also where I hear about new music from my favorite artists first! That’s an amazing mood booster. A crappy day, and a quick trawl of youtube and hey! ZZ Ward has a new song out! (She does! Forget About Us. Came out the 16th!) Suddenly my day is at least 50% better, or at least, has a better soundtrack than my own miserable thoughts.

So this week, what I want to do is showcase some of the music that has made a difference to me in the past six months. Let’s start with something pop-rock and fun. Voilá Figure You Out which is not only an earworm, but the start of a 5 music video series. It’s fun! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Library Haul!

It’s that awkward time of the year where we’re careening between holidays and the dreaded LIBRARY CLOSURES.  It’s not like I’m not surfeited with books in my house, but the very idea of a holiday without any library books to hand is… alarming.

So I zoomed in today after work and picked up:

The Guilty Dead: Monkeewrench #9Creatures of Want and RuinPop the Clutch: Thrilling Tales of Rockabilly, Monsters, and Hot Rod Horror

Priest of Bones (War for the Rose Throne Book 1)Kill the Queen (A Crown of Shards Novel Book 1)

Because I never trust pictures to really be worth a thousand words, the books are:

PJ Tracy’s The Guilty Dead, which is a Monkeewrench mystery.  This is a strange series for me.  Some of them are excellent.  Some of them are tragic.  And some of them just sort of misfire.  The authors seem to cram other types of genre into their mystery so each book can be a pretty different reading experience.

Creatures of Want & Ruin by Molly Tanzer. The title made me think it was a sequel to Creatures of Will & Temper, which I quite liked.  But if so, it’s a sequel by setting, rather than protagonist.  That’s all right by me.  Hopefully, this one the dog won’t eat.  I had to buy the first book from the library after the puppy got hold of it.

Pop the Clutch: Thrilling Tales of Rockabilly, Monsters, and Hot Rod Horrors.  Totally not my kind of book, but hey it fell off the shelf that I was browsing and it’s a library–it costs me nothing to give it a try (unless the dog gets involved).  So I took it home.

Priest of Bones by Peter McLean.  Technically, I have borrowed this book before.  But, I had just cracked it open, decided I really liked the voice of the book, when it came due.  The downsides to quickly browsing the “new releases” shelves when I’m in a hurry.  It was back; I am going to read this one first this time.  Seems like it’s going to do the difficult work of treading the path between “gritty” (bleh!) and “realism” well.

Kill the Queen by Jennifer Estep.  Long ago, I bought Spider’s Bite, but never got around to reading it and misplaced it.  It’s here. Somewhere. In one of the book piles. But for now, the idea of an epic fantasy with a modern urban fantasy sensibility seemed deeply appealing.

Also picked up: Rick Springfield’s newest CD The Snake King.  (The man is STILL MAKING MUSIC!  Is it any good?  I will find out!)  And Camila Cabello’s self-titled CD.  I like the “Havana” song.  It’s catchy.

5 am and miscellany

So the puppy needed to go run amok at 5am; a heavy work load currently means she’s been a bit neglected and the boredom has built up.  So out she went into the yard, a neon pink flashing circlet around her neck–have you ever tried to find a black dog in the dark??  Then the little old mini schnauzer wanted to go out as well.

Twenty minutes later, every one is inside, given a cookie, and taken back up to bed.  I lay down and the 5am questions began: how screwed up is my shoulder/neck tonight?  Should I take an advil or a muscle relaxant or will I be able to fall back asleep?  If I do take a pill, I will have to eat something, and while I’m contemplating the idea of wandering back downstairs to joylessly eat a few saltines, Jeffrey (the schnauzer) prompted an entirely new set of questions: Where does he GET the damned spiders and why has he put one on my face!!!

This is a recurring question, sadly.  I swept the spider off, turned the lights back on, and cleared my sheets of an annoyed wolf spider.  Then I took the dog back downstairs and removed the other spider clinging to his fur.  This is the second time Jeffrey has come in from the yard in the middle of the night wearing spiders that he generously shares with me.

I am going to have to institute a spider check at the door, to go along with the other procedures: no sticks? No rocks? Feet not too muddy? Did you roll in something I don’t want to smell in the house?  Are you wearing spiders???

I am very grateful to not be alarmed by spiders.

Still fighting the revision, though I’m hopeful that once I get through chapters 18-22, matters will get easier.  No snippet today though.

Listening to Meg Myers’ Take Me to the Disco.  So far, a lot of powerful songs. My favorites are probably Jealous Sea, Little Black Death, and Funeral.   Also listening to Kandle and really liking her as well. Discovered her via July Talk’s Peter Dreimanis doing backing vocals for When My Body Breaks.