Containing, among other things, my humble effort to bring my fellow sixty(ish) year olds up to date on some current, and frankly, not so current, pop music.
So there I was, doing my usual musical wandering throughout the year, or so I thought.
I'd wandered so far, in fact, that I'd not gotten a single album released this year. I finally realized this in early December. (A lie.)
Was the year so bad, news-wise or personal-wise, that I - consciously or not - didn't want any actual music stamped upon it? Well, sort of. Let's face it, I'd been slacking off for a while.
Hang the DJ (and Some Listeners):
Is it that I don't listen to the radio enough? Other than traffic and weather, does anyone listen to the radio anymore? Sirius XM is just another vast wasteland, this time of music we've already heard enough of. Only people who like music listen to it. Clearly, no one who loves music does.
I don't remember when I originally made a distinction between these two types of listeners, but to keep things short, I'll just say that the Likers are, in fact, the destroyers of music. All they want to hear is what they've heard before. They are the ones ultimately responsible for the same old sh*t being replayed endlessly on the radio. Music Likers are the ones who, well, like it this way. Well, f*ck them.
Music Lovers, on the other hand, have odd tastes and are always exploring. This motivates them to seek out the new and the weird, thus ensuring that new, weird music continues to be created. And even when that new, weird music ultimately gets co-opted and commercialized, it's the Lovers that help keep the cycle of creation going, thus ultimately pleasing everyone.
ANYWAY.
Back to the Situation:
Even if I listened to the radio and actually found some channels providing new music, how, given my/our time constraints and the vast amount of new music, can I distinguish between the flavor of the month and the timeless classic? You really can't unless you commit to living with it for a while. And let's admit that most of that music leaves its underwear on the floor and snores. So after a couple of weeks, you realize you hate it. Thanks, flavor of the month, but let's just be friends. It's not me, it's you.
By this time of the year, Best of the Year lists are sprouting like weeds. The advantage of these lists is that the writers have gone through the infatuation-to-breakup cycle described above, and their choices now are based on the hard-won experience of picking up 2025's musical underwear and deciding if it's really worth it or not.
I'd rather let this process play out before jumping in. The resulting smaller pool of music is much easier to navigate. Sure, I'll miss some good music, but the risk of time wasted in a sea of "okay-ness" is just too great.
So I try to aggregate some of these lists and look for patterns, like which records keep getting mentioned. I then weed out the ones by artists I've already gotten records from. That enabled me to skip high scorers like Rosalia and Bad Bunny. Paramore fan Son Michael will do the heavy lifting for the Jaybee family, keep me apprised of Hayley Williams.
And after failing to pull the trigger any number of times, I finally settled on the five records below:
The lead singer sounds like Karl Wallinger with a cold. Hey, too soon? Karl did pass away recently...
The loping off-kilter tunes renew my love for imperfection, whatever that is. The execution is deceptively sloppy. You'd think they're all jumping out of bed after an alarm starts shrieking, but then seconds later, they're charging right at you as a unit. These guys are sneaky!
Further listens reveal a twisted but urgent sensibility, which wouldn't mean a whole lot, except that the band is all in. Just when you think the singer has lost his way crawling up his own ass, the drummer bashes you (and the band) in the head, and everyone's on the same page again.
They also understand the concept of pretty, but don't lean on it. They are committed to seeing each song through to its illogical conclusion, which means each one of them has something to offer and often, delight.
I greatly admire this record, but I don't quite love it. Checking the bathroom floor as we speak...
Jesus H Christ, this was overwhelming on first listen. The first three songs are fantastic, each in different ways, thus relieving my anxiety that "all pop music sounds the same (to me)" or "pop music is not offering anything new".
She manages to cover a lot of bases here. The opening and title song reminds me of a mellower Sinead O'Connor, the second would sound great on a country station, and the third is just good old rock and roll. And it's not like she's just dipping her toe in. It's hard to believe these three songs are even on the same album. But it works.
The rest of the album couldn't possibly keep up that level of quality, so she very shrewdly doesn't try. She just does a few midtempo crowdpleasers and lets us all relax a bit. And then the last four songs pick things up again for a fine finish.
She writes melodies with the best of them, sings great, and is quite funny. Oh, and Irish!
So, I hated this on first listen. A young lady singing superciliously. A band that is practically clinical in its precision. Oh, I know that sounds like LOADS of fun, but I assure you there is no fun here at all. That would be wrong.
But it's probably great for younger men than me, who don't value humor enough. A little of that good old British sarcasm would have gone a long way.
Second time around, I took in the dynamics, which were really not bad. The young lady has a good voice. Very agile. Very sure of itself. Not completely over the top. Is it the actual music that leaves me cold?
Third time, how utterly boring. These dramatic peaks and swoops don't do a thing for me other than induce nausea. Old age, I'm guessing. Mine, not hers.
I was so afraid that trying another genre and not liking it would make me feel old. I was wrong. It's when I'm in a familiar genre and the music sounds alien to me that makes me feel old.
It's weird, though. I have it on right now, and it's not outright bad. In fact, it's pretty well produced and engineered. It's just, well... f*cking annoying. The young lady who's singing is sure technically proficient, but I find her totally unconvincing. It's the actual proficiency itself I find annoying.
I say all this to anyone who listens to this record and is baffled by my reaction. Is it because she sounds like she's got it all figured out? Is it because she's convinced she's good and I'm not? (Convinced, I mean.)
This one is making me rethink my rule of going into new albums cold, meaning no previews?
If it was terrible, I could at least have a good laugh about it. As it is, it makes me hate my life.
Now licking my wounds and seriously considering using previews (the aural equivalent to checking the pool for water before diving in) before purchases, I retreated into the past. Early one Friday morning, I'm scrolling through my Amazon (as opposed to my iTunes, as opposed to CD or freakin' LP) library and, who do I see but poor old D'Angelo! The album in question, Black Messiah, works pretty well at 8am. But less than halfway through, it hits me that I've been toying with getting this Dijon album. Per my last post, soul is not my forte, but throw in psychedelic, and you've got me interested, so I took the plunge.
It's not quite as dense and lo-fi-determined as D'Angelo, which is probably a good thing. The main thing post-Heartworms is that it's not ANNOYING. What a relief!
And once taken on its own terms, it turns out to be the work of an energetic young man with a winning enthusiasm that never descends into a "I'm working hard so you're sort of obligated to like this" vibe. In fact, all sails by with melodic, rhythmic, lyrical, and ambient charm. Damn near adds up to capital-J level Joy! It's not quite there, but small-j level joy is fine, too.
First listen: a little light, too pretty. FRENCH. But hear me out!
Second: Pretty and mellow (but not in that real negative way) dance music.
Third: The songs - well, the melodies anyway - are taking shape for me. There is some autotune on the vocals, but it's used for rhythmic, rather than melodic, effect. So I'll let it go this time.
Fourth: The prettiness should have worn thin by now, but hasn't. And the overall atmosphere hasn't turned into an Enya-fest either. The details are emerging, so I'll go out on a limb and say she's doing pop music. Dance/Electro/Ambient pop music, which may be my favorite kind because the "Ambient" sort of cancels out "Dance", which means I can just sit on my ass and listen, by which I mean, not do any actual dancing.
Mrs. Jaybee says she sounds like Ariande Grande. I sure wouldn't know.
There's also a modesty here that is miles better than that other record I won't name. Alas, what makes it pleasant also takes away from its impact.
B+
Pulling Rank:
So my best of 2025 is looking something like this:
1. Geese
2. CMAT
3. Dijon
4. Oklou
Let us not speak of Heartworms. To paraphrase my new mayor, I hope to never utter her name again, and I wish her the very best over on that other side of the Atlantic, where they seem to like that sort of thing.
But did this last-minute catch-up work? Kind of, but it wasn't fun. It wasn't organic. I would much rather have picked these records up throughout the year. But that just speaks to my lack of confidence in finding the records that speak to me. Assuming they still exist.
Looking Behind and Ahead:
Next time, we'll see how these records stack up against the rest of the music I've been listening to this year.
Based on the final results of all those end-of-year polls, I'm sure I'll be picking up more 2025 music next year, but what I really want to do is pick up 2026 music at that time.
Hopefully, it will suit me, or I will grow into it. If not, I'll just go back to wandering. I'll wear an ID tag so you all can steer me home again.
