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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 5, 2021 22:09:57 GMT -5
There's 76 more to go. And at some point I will do a list of my favorite albums of 2020. What's your spotify username? I like to follow a few persons and listen to what they listen to when I don't know what to listen to. That's a lot of "listen to" in a sentence... Tim Schneider.
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Post by antoine on Jan 6, 2021 9:09:35 GMT -5
What's your spotify username? I like to follow a few persons and listen to what they listen to when I don't know what to listen to. That's a lot of "listen to" in a sentence... Tim Schneider. You probably have the most poplar name on all Spotify.... Didn't take any chance and followed them all... Thanks!
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 6, 2021 11:19:24 GMT -5
Most listened to songs of 2020
#75 - Starting Over - Chris Stapleton
The title job of Stapleton's 2020 album is just a great opener. Catchy. Lyrically sound. Great theme. Just a quality look at making changes in life with someone who will support you.
Unfortunately I didn't love the album itself. It seemed eclectic for the sake of being different. But this tune is great as is "Maggie's Song," which might have made the list if the album had dropped earlier in the year.
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Post by Prince Hal on Jan 6, 2021 12:16:37 GMT -5
The official song of one of my favorite states.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 6, 2021 12:20:57 GMT -5
The official song of one of my favorite states. It's been on heavy rotation for me today.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 7, 2021 11:27:48 GMT -5
Most listened to songs of 2020
#74 - Cigarettes and Coffee Blues - Lefty Frizzell
I really love this song and it frequently hits my list, both Lefty's version and the one by Marty Robbins. It's a near perfect example of 50s honky-tonk.
The song was a bit of a comeback for Lefty, his first decent charting record in almost five years as he'd been fighting with his record company and had a couple of serious car accidents. He'd only have three more top 15 songs in his career.
I will say that this performance has a pretty subdued pronunciation of cigarettes, which comes out in the recorded version as cigar-rats.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 8, 2021 12:14:34 GMT -5
Most listened to songs of 2020
#73 - Who's Gonna Build Your Wall? - Tom Russell
It's hard for me to believe this song is over 13 years old. It's still just as relevant now as it was then. I love Tom Russell. He fills this odd gap between Country, Folk and Americana music. But he is ultimately a great folk singer and songwriter.
And this lyric absolutely nails my feelings;
"But as I travel around this big old world There's one thing that I most fear It's a white man in a golf shirt With a cell phone in his ear"
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 10, 2021 16:06:53 GMT -5
Most listened to songs of 2020
#72 - If We Were Vampires - Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit.
So...yeah. Isbell is pretty much as good as it gets as a lyricist at the current time. I've become increasingly convinced this is his best work. It's certainly among his most beautiful and haunting. And Amanda Shires does some great fiddle breaks.
I'm a little surprised this is this low.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 11, 2021 11:19:43 GMT -5
Most listened to songs of 2020
#71 - River of Fools - Logan Ledger
I had never heard of Ledger before this song came up on one of my Spotify playlists. Ledger had been playing around Nashville for a while before being discovered by T-Bone Burnett who delayed his retirement to produce Ledger's first album. This song wasn't on that album but was a single that was done for Amazon.
The album had somewhat mixed results, but this is just a great single. It reminds me a lot of Roger Miller in the best ways. Ledger is a voice and a songwriter to keep an eye on. There is a live version on YouTube but the sound leaves lot to be desired.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 12, 2021 11:21:09 GMT -5
Most listened to songs of 2020
#70 - James McMurtry - Just Us Kids
The title song off McMurtry's 2008 album is a meditation on getting older and life's changes along the way. McMurtry is just five years older than me, so I identify with a lot of this. And there's a nostalgia factor of hanging out with friends as a kid and then turning around thirty years later and drinking a beer in the high school parking lot before the Homecoming game with old friends.
"Just us kids hangin' out today Watchin' our long hair turnin' gray Not so skinny maybe not so free Not so many as we used to be"
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 13, 2021 10:49:22 GMT -5
Most listened to songs of 2020
#69 - Ruby - Dave Rawlings Machine
This one first showed on last years list. I was a bit surprised to see it again, though not shocked. This is a nice ballad by Dave and Gillian. I do particularly like this video with Ketch Secor sitting in on fiddle.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 14, 2021 11:08:16 GMT -5
Most listened to songs of 2020
#68 - Lemon Tree - Trini Lopez
I was deeply saddened when Trini Lopez passed away last year. Mom was a big fan and I grew up listening to his music. The music I most associate with her is that of Lopez, Roger Miller, Charley Pride and the huge 10 or 12 album set of music from the 1950s.
So with Trini's passing I listened to quite a bit of his music for a few weeks. I'm a little surprised this is the only one to show up, but it was second only to "If I Had a Hammer" as his biggest hit and best known song. I could only find one live performance of this song on YouTube and the sound is awful, so we'll go with a studio cut.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 15, 2021 10:37:49 GMT -5
Most listened to songs of 2020
#67 - What've I Done to Help - Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
I'm pretty sure this was the first song I heard off Isbell's newest album "Reunions." It's not a perfect song, though I think it's very good. It's really a four minute song that's clocking in at a bit over six.
Ultimately it's Isbell calling out himself and all of us for not working to make the changes that we want. Inertia and self-interest are far easier than changing ourselves or our world. As with almost any song from 2020 it's almost impossible to find a decent live version.
"We just stopped looking down, down, down Now the world's on fire and we just climb higher 'Til we're no longer bothered by smoke and sound Good people suffer and the heart gets tougher Nothing given, nothing found"
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 19, 2021 10:19:54 GMT -5
Most listened to songs of 2020
#66 - The Road Goes on Forever - Joe Ely
Yeah, this is Robert Earl Keen's song (we'll see him in a few days) but Joe Ely's cover lands here instead. It was Ely's cover that first got the song some attention, followed by a huge cover by The Highwaymen. Since then it's has emerged as Keen's signature piece.
This is old-fashioned story-telling that hearkens back to when murder ballads and true outlawry was one of the bases of country music. Unfortunately the best live version of the song on YouTube is one in which Ely forgot an entire verse of the song (it's kind of a long song). But this one has decent audio.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 19, 2021 12:07:13 GMT -5
Because I don't put enough music stuff here...
Ten favorite albums of 2020.
#10 - Western Centuries - "Call the Captain"
Western Centuries hail from Seattle, but their listening base is moving outward. I guess you'd say they're firmly Americana with roots in country and bluegrass with lyrics that are contemporary and address the concerns of the band-members. And they're a true band, with no over-arching "leader." In this they remind me a bit of the Drive-By Truckers.
This album runs the gamut from traditional country to honky tonk to Americana woke to a bit of cosmic cowboy with Jim Lauderdale guesting. We'll see my favorite track off the album coming up on my Spotify list. So I'll leave this with Western Centuries and Lauderdale taking the piss on one of the more ridiculous ideas of the last four years.
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