I admit that the title of this blog post assumes you get the metaphor of tuning your radio dial. Sorry but it’s hard not to reach for 70s allegories when you are listening to an album so steeped in 70s rock that it almost seems from a different time; There is no way that you don’t hear the 70s in the new Greta Van Fleet […]
Oh my. I am loving this new London Grammar album, Californian Soil. Not only are the songs great, not only are the themes of love and loss universal, but the production is perfect. Real thought has gone into how the songs are arranged, with beats, melodies, and lyrics flowing naturally from one song to the next. There is an arc of increasing emotional intensity to […]
I grew up on roots music. The earliest music I can remember was folk and Celtic songs that my Dad played for me from a reel to reel tape player. Dad also listened to country and even southern rock back in the 70s. I learned to love John Denver when it was decidedly not cool for a teenager to like country or what we now […]
Sometimes I go weeks without hearing anything interesting. Sometimes I’m overwhelmed by waves of new music released practically on top of each other. Last week saw a brilliant release from St. Vincent and a decent, though uneven, EP from Foxes. This week, there is more new music goodness than I can describe. It’s as if the buffet was getting depleted so the kitchen decided to […]
You may have heard the artist Foxes (real name Louisa Rose Allen) on the radio and thought “Now there’s an 80s band I don’t know.” That’s because Foxes could sit well in amongst the effervescent dance pop of the 80s. Her most well-known hit “Better Love” from 2016’s All I Need has the same type of bouncy hooks common in artists like mid-80s dance pop […]
It was no April Fools joke. Last week on April 1st 2021, St. Vincent (aka Annie Clark) released a new song from her soon to be released album Daddy’s Home. Simple put, the song is brilliant. I’ve been a fan of St. Vincent since 2015 when I first heard her album St. Vincent. It was quirky, theatrical, and intense. I dived into the rest of […]
Throughout my life as a music lover, I’ve listened to artists from outside the English-speaking world. Whether it was world music from Africa, such as King Sunny Ade, German 80s dance music (think: Falco), or Scandinavian metal, I’ve always trawled the places outside the American and British music scenes for great tunes. This includes the French-speaking world as well. Back in the late 70s, one […]
Buffalo NY, where I have lived since the 1980s, has always had a rich music scene. Greats like the Goo Goo Dolls and Rick James emerged from the area and went on to international stardom. In addition to our local scene, we also sit in close proximity to Toronto, ON, Canada. Toronto is a much bigger city, the most populous city in Canada, so they […]
I’ve been hosting my blog, Tunes Past To Present, on Medium. While it’s a fine platform, the restrictions on readers makes it difficult for my audience to read what they want. That might make sense when trying to monetize the site through their community but it’s not helping me to connect with others. So, I’m going to move the content here and leave breadcrumbs on […]
I was excited to hear the new Lana Del Rey album, Chemtrails Over the Country Club. I’m a big Lana Del Rey fan and have enjoyed watching her evolve over the years starting with her first album, Born to Die in 2012. Her music is often called Sadcore because of it’s melancholic sound, slow pacing, and themes of loss and despair. Personally, I reject that […]