Music Discoveries Aug 2025-Sept 2025

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Articles and Interviews

Here is a spreadsheet showing my reviews of music albums over the years. So far I have 470 albums reviewed, and I’ve frantically trying to post about older albums that have meant a lot to me. I feel this is less musical criticism than an attempt to succinctly describe what’s unique and interesting about albums — so I won’t forget them. (In the last 2 weeks I have posted about 20 new reviews, and feel I will easily reach 500 by the end of the year — and will still not have scratched the surface.

COMIC-CEREBRAL AUDIO PLAY ON SPOTIFY (64 minutes) (Link) A decade ago I produced a great audio play by Ohio author Jack Matthews. So cerebral that your mind will explode midway through. Premium Spotify users can listen for free — FYI I did the intro and the narration. The actors were great too.

Here’s a great better late than ever obituary by Giovanni Russonello of jazz singer-trumpeter Valaida Snow (whose compilation I reviewed today).

Emusic Purchases

1. List begins here

Bandcamp Purchases

1. Begin

Youtubey/Podcasty Things

Here’s a rare live recording of the lesbian pop group Fem 2 Fem singing “Switch (You Bitch)” (YT) Fem 2 Fem has two albums at Archive.org here and here.

I assume that many have already seen this amazing music vid with Saoirse Ronan, but it’s absolutely great (with the Talking Heads note that “We LOVE what this video is NOT—it’s not literal, creepy, bloody, physically violent or obvious.” (YT)

Here’s an early live performance by Spice Girls performing Wannabee at Hotel Babylon in 1996 (YT). Holy cow, here’s a 17 minute interview they did in 1996 after a Japanese tour. (YT) They were eating dinner and talking and laughing about girly stuff. I’ve always thought their first album Spice was incredible.

PRE-TEENS COVER BREAKFAST IN AMERICA. (YT) I am speechless by how gentle and jolly this cover version is. The Graystones are a talented California group of young musicians entering the 7th grade. They also do a version of the Logical Song. (YT)

Here’s some early videos by the Sugarcubes (which Bjork was in before going solo) in 1988. Motorcrash and Deus.

Here’s a live Gorillaz performance at the 2006 Grammy’s.

Freegal and Library CDs

From Library’s ILL, I obtained La Tigre’s 1999 self-titled masterpiece. Wow, it really bowled me over, especially the song Hot Topic (YT). I learned through the album’s wiki page that Hot Topic was a list song (or laundry song). Wiki has a great page about that.

I have been enjoying Eubie Blake, especially his album The 86 Years of Eubie Blake (which is a must listen — here it is on Youtube). The irony is that after his death it was later learned that he was born in 1887 (not 1883), so he was actually only 82. He said he composed Charleston Rag in 1899, but didn’t commit it to paper until 15 years later. His song, “I’m Just Wild About Harry” became the theme song for Harry Truman’s election campaign. His singing pal, Noble Sissle actually sang several of the songs on the 86 Years album. Blake and Sissle wrote the jazz musical Shuffle Along which premiered on Broadway in 1921 and was the first African-American produced show on Broadway (and it starred Josephine Baker — holy cow!).

Jody Miller.

Reviews (Rateyourmusic/Personal Reviews, etc)

See also my rateyourmusic profile and my review spreadsheet.in Google Docs.