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Dan + Shay ‘Dan + Shay’ (2018)
Dan + Shay is the pinnacle of modern country pop. Lush vocal arrangements transposed over expertly manicured production, with nary a note out of place. It’s effective as hell at being excellent background music that’s easy to listen to and just frankly beautiful in the most inoffensive way. It’s perfect coffee house ambiance music. “Tequila”…
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BTS ‘Love Yourself 轉 Tear’ (2018)
BTS is the largest boy band in the entire world, one of South Korea’s largest exports, have spoken at the United Nations General Assembly three times, and was the first non-English speaking act to sell out concerts at the fabled Wembley Stadium in London and Rose Bowl in California. In other words, they’re absolutely massive…
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Cardi B ‘Invasion of Privacy’ (2018)
A few months back we talked about how Lil’ Kim paved the way for female empowerment in the largely male-dominated world of hip hop, and it’s clear from the outset that Cardi B is an obvious benefactor of Lil’ Kim’s trailblazing ways. Much like Lil’ Kim, Cardi B combines an undeniably dynamic vocal flow alongside…
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Katy Perry ‘Teenage Dream’ (2010)
No one does massive effervescent pop quite like Katy Perry, and no album perfectly encapsulates the shiny bubblegum aesthetic of her prolific career better than 2010’s Teenage Dream. Is it vain, juvenile, and all a bit mindless? Absolutely. But it’s also an absolute pop masterpiece, filled with smash hits that are simply impossible to get…
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Dua Lipa ‘Future Nostalgia’ (2020)
Dua Lipa’s brand of peanut butter smooth disco pop is simply a delight to listen to. It’s incredibly well produced, her voice is magnificent, and the songwriting hooks are crafted with care by the bevy of songwriters who were brought in to help bring the album to life. Future Nostalgia was actually inspired in large…
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Counting Crows ‘Recovering The Satellites’ (1996)
Counting Crows’ breakthrough debut August And Everything After is the group’s most-known album due to the chart smashing hits “Mr. Jones” and “Round Here”, which (outside of being quite good songs) came at a moment in music history when grunge was King. The hippie-influenced roots rock of the Crows was a distinct counterpoint to the…
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Florida Georgia Line ‘Anything Goes’ (2014)
I have pangs of self-loathing every time I listen to Florida Georgia Line for the very simple reason that intellectually I understand what they’re doing is just tapping into sounds that don’t challenge my brain at all, but emotionally I can’t help getting amped up and start singing along every time one of those big…
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Terminal ‘How The Lonely Keep’ (2005)
Terminal is one of those deep cuts that I’ve forgotten about as the years have gone by. It’s been about 20 years since I’ve even thought about them, let alone listened to them. By happenstance I just stumbled upon them a few months ago and ended up taking a spin of their lone album 2005’s…
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White Reaper ‘You Deserve Love’ (2019)
I absolutely love garage rock. The fuzziness of the guitars, the boom-boom-pop of the drums, the chuggy bass lines, the overdriven vocals, the upscale lo-fi ness of it all. Crafting a great garage rock song is a whole helluva lot harder than it actually looks— there’s a fine line to walk in both recording and…
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Andre Nickatina ‘Conversation With A Devil’ (2003)
Yesterday we discussed Mac Dre’s massive influence on putting Bay Area Hyphy music on the map. In re-listening to that album it brought back a ton of memories surrounding Bay Area hip hop during high school and sent me off on a quest to find a lesser-known rapper I couldn’t immediately place but knew was…
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Mac Dre ‘Ronald Dregan’ (2004)
Growing up in the Bay it was impossible to avoid Hyphy music during its heyday during the mid aughts, which coincided perfectly with my formative years in high school. And Mac Dre along with E-40 were indisputably the most influential figures in that scene. I honestly don’t know how much the Hyphy movement translated nationally…
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Augustana ‘All The Stars and Boulevards’ (2005)
It’s only fitting we kick off the month of August with a band that bears the month’s namesake. Just putting that out there. Augustana’s 2006 All The Stars and Boulevards was released during my junior year of high school, a period of time in which college selection really ramps up and prospective college students like…
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G. Love & Special Sauce ‘Yeah, It’s That Easy” (1997)
G. Love & Special Sauce are a throwback to the days when bands would cut their albums live in the studio in a single room together, embracing all the tiny imperfections and letting them shine through in a quest to capture that distinctly human sound of a collection of musicians creating together in real time.…
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MxPx ‘Life In General’ (1995)
At one point in my life during middle school MxPx was my favorite band. The lyrics filled with young teen angst, straightforward vocal melodies, fuzzy electric guitars, and snap crackle drums sounded absolutely perfect to my 12-year old ears. They were also one of the rare punk bands approved by my mom to listen to…
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Jimmy Eat World ‘Bleed American’ (2001)
I love a great album opener. It is a manifesto for an album that not only sets the stage but also defines what comes after it. Bleed American has an incredible opening song. The title track is hands down my favorite Jimmy song of all-time for about a million different reasons, the primary one being…
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Matthew. ‘CAMBRIA: The Lost Sessions’ (2023)
So this is a fun one! Today we’re doing a write up of my newest EP entitled CAMBRIA: The Lost Sessions that just hit streaming services while your wee little heads were asleep. Before we go into each individual track and the meaning behind them, a little history lesson on how this EP came to…
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Sinéad O’Connor ‘Lion and the Cobra’ (1987)
Yesterday’s tragic passing of Sinéad O’Connor at the age of 58 has rocked the music world. O’Connor’s advocacy for mental health, human rights, and victims of child abuse has made her a protest rock icon over the years, traits that ultimately transcended her artistic endeavors. Her own longtime personal struggles with trauma certainly influenced this…
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Dead Kennedys ‘Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables’ (1980)
Known for their brutal and sardonic political commentary, Dead Kennedys were a prominent figure in the early wave of punk that rose to prominence in the early 80’s. Their satirical take on everything from political figures, the punk movement itself, and the banality of American consumerism was controversial at the time and led to a…
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Justin Townes Earle ‘Kids in the Street’ (2017)
Americana has been having somewhat of a renaissance in the past decade or so, both in pop culture as well as in popular music, and the late Justin Townes Earle was a beloved figure in that sphere of the world. He possessed an unrelenting honest approach to the craft of songwriting that both celebrated the…
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Cyndi Lauper ‘She’s So Unusual’ (1983)
Cyndi Lauper is an icon in nearly every sense of the world. Her wild hairstyles, feverishly flamboyant in all their neon glory, is a distinct calling card she’s continued to this day ever since introducing punk fashion into the pop mainstream. Her work as an advocate for the LGBTQ community during a time when it…
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Kavinsky ‘OutRun’ (2013)
Kavinsky is a French electronica producer which is important in that it’s very clear from the jump that this album is produced overseas. European electronica has a very distinct style compared to American electronica in a couple of different ways, the most telling to my ear in that it’s a little cheesy and oftentimes has…
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Less Than Jake ‘Hello Rockview’ (1998)
When we listened to Mighty Mighty Bosstones seminal 1997 album Let’s Face It earlier this year I described ska as “the genre of music that’s playing on a loop in a toddler’s head”, which still stands as one of my favorite genre descriptions that I’ve made on this site since I embarked seven months ago…
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Willie Nelson ‘Red Headed Stranger’ (1975)
Willie Nelson’s 1975 album Red Headed Stranger was a watermark moment for country music in that it moved the genre beyond a collection of singles pressed onto a 12-inch circular piece of polyvinyl chloride (i.e. a vinyl record) and into a singular world that had a common thematic structure. Put another way, the art of…
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The Wonder Years ‘The Greatest Generation’ (2013)
Pop punk has been having a moment in the past few years, experiencing a resurgence since it lorded over the pop music culture in the early 2000’s. And Pennsylvania’s The Wonder Years, who have been carrying the torch since the late aughts, are a huge part of that resurgence. It’s sort of funny to think…
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Ben Rector ‘The Joy of Music’ (2022)
Ben Rector is somewhat of a singer-songwriter darling, rising to prominence in 2015 off the back of his Billboard-charting single “Brand New” which put him firmly on the map in the mainstream. A handful of world tours and smash-hits later, Rector got married and had three kids. And while he never was an artist who…
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Spitalfield ‘Remember Right Now’ (2003)
Spitalfield is one of those emo bands that you sort of had to go to high school in the mid-aughts to really appreciate. They were the hip emo band that influenced a ton of bands in the scene but never really had their big break like fellow Midwest emo bands The Get Up Kids and…
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Garth Brooks ‘Double Live’ (1998)
I don’t do too many live album reviews for a handful of reasons, the primary one being they end up effectively being a compilation of hit songs for many artists and not necessarily a true reflection of what an album stands for. We’ve made exceptions this year (1971’s At Fillmore East by The Allman Brothers…
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The Statler Brothers ‘Flowers on the Wall’ (1966)
The Statler Brothers were a gospel country quartet that rose to the prominence in the late 60’s and early 70’s, enjoying an extensive career that lasted until their final goodbye tour in 2002. Infusing their gospel music roots with traditional country instrumentation and barbershop quartet inspired vocal arrangements, the group was known for being one…
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Pecos & the Rooftops ‘Pecos & the Rooftops’ (2023)
Pecos & the Rooftops is a throwback to mid-2000’s alternative rock and modern country (think Nickelback meets Dylan Wheeler) and is here to do nothing but keep it simple and straightforward. The band actually shot to prominence off their single “This Damn Song” which was released over four years ago and got incredibly popular during…
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Moe Bandy & Joe Stampley ‘Just Good Ol’ Boys’ (1979)
Moe Bandy and Joe Stampley were outlaw country stalwarts in the mid-70’s. Taking influence from the rough and tumble honky tonk of Hank Williams, their individual solo careers were filled with barroom ballads covering topics like lost love, cheating, and whiskey (three topics that are natural fits together) and helped drive redneck regalia to the…
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Mr. Jukes ‘God First’ (2017)
Inspired by a trip around the world that began with a two-week stay in the hold of a cargo ship (yes, really), Jack Steadman delights in his debut album God First. After a mutual hiatus of his longtime band, the Bombay Bicycle Club frontman Steadman the festival-anthem indie rock focus and tapped into the classic…
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Alice Cooper ‘Billion Dollar Babies’ (1973)
As the original shock artist, Alice Cooper’s influence on rock and roll spans nearly five decades long. His live shows were legendary for their theatrics and featured elements like magical stage illusions, pyrotechnics, guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, and baby dolls. He was basically the Tim Burton of 70’s rock, and one of the first…
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Depeche Mode ‘Violator’ (1990)
Depeche Mode’s Violator took the gothic undertones of 1985’s Black Celebration and turned it up about 11 notches to create a massive arena-ready avalanche of brooding synths that cascade throughout the entire album. We’ve mentioned this about a few bands in the past (The xx being a notable example) but Depeche Mode manages to blur…
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Harvey Danger ‘Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone?’ (1997)
Filled with sardonic wit and blissfully fuzzed-out guitars, Harvey Danger’s debut album Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone is a chef’s kiss representation of all the things that made 90’s alternative so titillating. Sean Nelson’s sneering and detached vocal approach is frankly a match made in heaven alongside Jeff Lin’s overdriven guitars, Aaron Huffman’s bouncing…
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Vulfpeck ‘The Beautiful Game’ (2016)
A throwback to the early era of funk with massive rhythm sections, Vulfpeck is a concept band that plays with the idea of what a German band would sound like if they did a rendition of American funk music. It’s a vibe. Vulfpeck first rose to prominence in 2014 with Sleepify, an album with 10…
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Plans For Revenge ‘Burns, Scars, And Memories’ (2004)
In high school I was in a band called The Days of Stillness (awful name, yes). We were marginally successful in a high school garage band sort of way– played 10+ live shows in the local area, recorded a four song EP, and had our crowning achievement by playing at a rally in front of…
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About the Author
Jason Matthew Plank listens to copious amounts of music and writes about one album each day. He is currently active in the bands Related to Strangers (post-hardcore) and Kindergarten Cartel (punk covers of children’s nursery rhymes).
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