"There's a time in life for Hoagy Carmichael. There's a time in life for Claude Debussy. There's a time in life for Jerry Lee Lewis. There's a time in life for Destiny's Child. All these things have their moment." ~Elvis Costello
“Sometimes when I get in the studio, I’m possessed by the ghost of Steven Tyler or something”, Nate Ruess confessed while introducing this song during a 2026 live performance.
And indeed, “No You Don’t” is just the type of over-the-top ballad that Tyler himself might’ve enjoyed overemoting.
Ruess, who walked away from music to raise a family after his band fun. topped the Billboard album charts with 2012’s Some Nights, has reunited the Format, the band he first helped form in 2002. And their Boycott Heaven LP is another top ten smash.
The singer possesses both the ability to write a big chorus and a searing tenor to match its intensity.
“No You Don’t” is like one of those 80’s power ballads, but without all the hair, makeup, spandex and lyrical cliches.
Gesesis’ first album without front man Peter Gabriel accomplished two things: First, it proved to critics that the band could still produce quality music without Gabriel seemingly at the helm. (I say “seemingly” because the band had always been more of a songwriting democracy than Gabriel’s front man status would lead one to believe.)
Second, the album was a bit of a re-set after The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, which had told a modern-day tale with America as its backdrop.
Although Genesis would of course soon take a more modernistic, straight-ahead approach in the Collins era, A Trick of the Tail was at least a temporary return to the more fanciful, pastoral, and English-sounding progressive rock of the band’s first half-decade.
The audio file of the 8-minute Rutherford-Banks composition “Ripples” is just what you’d expect 70’s long-form prog to “look” like: two dynamic peaks (choruses) within the first half of the song, then several minutes of progging about, gradually building to a climactic final chorus. The tried-and-true formula of 70’s Classical-influenced prog.
One thing that separated the great prog rock bands from the lesser ones was the quality of the ensemble playing during those “progging about” bits. And with Steve Hackett and Mike Rutherford on guitar, Tony Banks on keyboards and Collins on drums, this was just what Genesis excelled at.
The reason Genesis didn’t miss a beat with the departure of Gabriel is that they were never about their individual parts. They were about being a great band.
“Reply to This” has been teased by Charlie Puth for 6 years.
Originally titled “Reply 2 This”, an incomplete earlier version was heard during a July 2020 Instagram live stream then shared by Puth on TikTok in August of that year with the message “Tell me to drop it and I will…”
Another TikTok in 2023 featured a snippet of a higher-quality take of the song, with Puth asking “Should I?”
Fans responded in the affirmative of course, but it took until the second half of 2026 when, as part of the expanded edition of his Whatever’s Clever! album, Puth finally gave the song its official release–to a chorus of “Finally!” and “I’ve waited 6 years for this!” but also lots of “The earlier version was better” comments.
So we include the earlier take, preferred by some fans, and let you be the judge.
Whichever your preference, this song has more hooks and lures than a fisherman’s tackle box.
Natalia Lafourcade: “El Lugar Correcto” (Live) (2024)
When Mexican singer/songstress Natalia Lafourcade says, as is her wont at her concerts, “Welcome to my living room”, it feels like you’ve found el lugar correcto indeed.
She writes and plays in a myriad of styles; paints with many colors. But there is gentle, effortless beauty in all her work. And a deep love for the music itselt.
She was born for this.
The Right Place
Sorry, I had to be absent for a moment I had an appointment to attend with myself I had forgotten how to see in a mirror In my face, in my eyes, what inhabits my universe
Forgive me if I cried, cried, cried while dancing I had old pains to attend to from that past Then I returned to that necessary silence To hear the heart speak of the truth
Of the truth that are those sunsets Of the truth that shines in the present time Of the truth that is in those simple things, like breathing
Excuse me, I had to be absent for a moment There was a flower drying inside the house I had forgotten how to keep it company To the solitude of my old garden in Veracruz
Forgive me if I cried, cried, cried while dancing I had old pains to attend to from that past Then I returned to that necessary silence
To hear the heart speak the truth
And the right place is now To walk The right place is now No more is needed And the right place is now To walk And the right place is now No more is needed
Indie folk songwriter Joshua James has been writing spooky, spare, introspective songs “since I got the disease”.
He’s the rare folk singer who can land multiple songs on the Sons of Anarchy soundtrack and release an album of Carpenters covers.
His voice, like his songs, comes across with a gritty and arresting honesty–exactly what you’d expect from a guy who raises chickens, goats and honeybees.in Utah.
On the heels of Elliot Smith’s Academy Award-nominated work (“Miss Misery”) for the Good Will Hunting film soundtrack, he signed with a bigger label and released a bigger sounding album.
Smith was still writing songs of torment, depression and addiction. But adding horns, string arrangements and Chamberlin, Smith at least made the darkness sound more (musically) attractive than ever.
Quoting Jayson Greene’s XO album review in Pitchfork:
“‘Waltz #2”, Smith’s lead single, deals rather conspicuously with the troubled dynamic that Smith observed between his stepfather, Charlie Welch, and his mother, Bunny.
The song is set in a karaoke bar, the characters a man and wife taking turns on the stage. The woman selects “Cathy’s Clown” (”Don’tcha think it’s kinda sad/That you’re treating me so bad?”), while the man returns the message, with a vengeance, choosing “You’re No Good.” “Waltz #2” is a song about people singing subtext-loaded songs to each other.”
