Music Week

Expanded blog post, February archive (in progress).

Tweet: Music Week: 31 albums, 1+3 A-list

Music: Current count 43642 [43611) rated (+31), 30 [30] unrated (+0).

New records reviewed this week:

• _thesmoothcat & Wino Willy: Ready, Set (2024, Sinking City): [bc]: B+(*)
• Being Dead: Eels (2024, Bayonet): [sp]: B-
• Kimmi Bitter: Old School (2024, self-released): [sp]: B+(**)
• Body Count: Merciless (2024, Century Media): [sp]: B+(***)
• Kaitlin Butts: Roadrunner! (2024, Soundly Music): [sp]: B+(*)
• Luke Combs: Fathers & Sons (2024, Columbia Nashville): [sp]: B+(**)
• Ernest: Nashville, Tennessee (2024, Big Loud): [sp]: B+(**)
• Jake Xerxes Fussell: When I'm Called (2024, Fat Possum): [sp]: B+(**)
• Homeboy Sandman: Nor Can These Be Sold (At Least by Me) (2024, self-released): [bc]: B+(**)
• Ale Hop & Titi Bakorta: Mapambazuko (2025, Nyege Nyege Tapes): [sp]: B+(***)
• Inert: 2Inert (2024, self-released): [sp]: B+(**)
• Sarah Jarosz: Polaroid Lovers (2024, Rounder): [sp]: B+(**)
• Cody Jinks: Cody Jinks Sings Lefty Frizzell (2024, Late August): [sp]: B+(*)
• Merce Lemon: Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild (2024, Darling): [sp]: B+(*)
• Post Malone: F-1 Trillion (2024, Mercury/Republic): [sp]: B
• MC Lyte: 1 of 1 (2024, Sunni Gyrl/My Block/Vydia): [sp]: B+(**)
• Scotty McCreery: Rise & Fall (2024, Triple Tigers): [sp]: B+(*)
• Lizzie No: Halfsies (2024, Miss Freedomland/Thirty Tigers): [sp]: B+(**)
• Joy Oladokun: Observatiosn From a Crowded Room (2024, Amigo): [sp]: B+(***)
• PyPy: Sacred Times (2024, Goner): [sp]: B+(***)
• Red Clay Strays: Made by These Moments (2024, RCA): [sp]: B
• Reyna Tropical: Malegría (2024, Psychic Hotline): [sp]: B+(***)
• Chase Rice: Go Down Singin' (2024, Broken Bow): [sp]: B+(***)
• Serengeti: Palookaville (2024, CC King): [sp]: A-
• Brittney Spencer: My Stupid Life (2024, Elektra): [sp]: B+(**)
• St. Lenox: Ten Modern American Work Songs (2024, Don Giovanni/Anyway): [sp]: B+(***)
• Billy Strings: Highway Prayers (2024, Reprise): [sp]: B+(*)
• Jesse Terry: Arcadia (2024, Wander): [sp]: B+(***)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

• Homeboy Sandman: Rich 2.5 (2023-24 [2025], self-released): [sp]: B+(***)
• My Black Country: The Songs of Alice Randall (2024, Oh Boy): [sp]: B+(***)
• Super Disco Pirata: De Tepito Para El Mundo 1965-1980 (1965-80 [2024], Analog Africa): [sp]: B+(***)

Old music:

• None

Grade (or other) changes:

• Loud, Fast & Out of Control: The Wild Sounds of '50s Rock (1951-59 [1999], Rhino, 4CD): [cd]: [was: B+]: A
• Corb Lund: El Viejo (2024, New West): [sp]: [was: B+(***)]: A-

Megan Moroney: Am I Okay? (2024, Columbia Nashville): [sp]: [was: B+(***)]: A-

Unpacking: Two packages, still unopened.

Daily Log

Nathan J Robinson tweet [02-02]:

My biggest worry was that Trump would be popular, because he would have learned lessons from the first term. I forgot that Trump has the brain of a goldfish and learns nothing. Looks like his presidency will be a calamity. Now my big worry is that there is no credible opposition.

Daily Log

Benjamin Balthasar tweet [02-01]:

Democrats are takign the path of Starmer's Labour: crush yr left wing base, offer nothing substantive, and wait obediently for the GOP to wreck the country so - as the only alternative - they can pick up the scraps in a country that no longer expects anything from government

Tweet tries (but is foiled by X) to link to Doug Sosnik: [01-31] Trump Is Already Failing. That's the Key to a Big Democratic Rebound. Article notes: "Doug Sosnik was a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton from 1994 to 2000 and has alao advised governors and U.S. senators."

Jan 2025