iTunes Shuffle 9/26/14

1. Sebadoh - "Rebound"
2. Alison Krauss and Union Station - "Bonita And Bill Butler"
3. A.Dd+ - "Can't Come Down"
4. David Wilcox - "Fearless Love"
5. Frightened Rabbit - "Backyard Skulls"
6. Does It Offend You, Yeah? - "We Are Rockstars"
7. Garth Brooks - "Rodeo"
8. Annuals - "Around Your Neck"
9. Robin Pecknold - "Where Is My Wild Rose?" (Chris Thompson cover)
10. Tori Amos - "Raining Blood" (Slayer cover)

I enjoy these mixes more and more every week. I love, love, love the first two songs. And then straight into hip-hop with A.Dd+. Of course, David Wilcox is one of my all time favorite artists. He is just a brilliant, brilliant man that far too few people have heard. The Robin Pecknold is a beautiful cover of a beautiful song. The Tori Amos is a dark, weird Slayer cover that, somehow, exists. If you've never heard it, listen to the original first and then see what Tori did with it.

And of course, I'm not ashamed to admit I love me some Garth Brooks. Of course, his music isn't streaming anywhere online, because, for somebody who requires cowriters for pretty much every song he releases, Garth is astonishingly prideful and shortsighted when it comes to digital distribution of his music. He doesn't want it online because his albums are apparently such masterpieces, woven together lovingly like tapestries, that they must be consumed whole. I find it funny because Garth Brooks, songwriting genius that he believes himself to be, is like this, but somehow Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen manage to be okay with their fans listening to their music however they choose. Real songwriters understand that once you write a song, or a record, that that's the beginning of a conversation with the people who are listening. Great songwriters, when asked what a song is about, respond, "what does it mean to you?" Because that's how art works.

But not for Garth. We're not getting his great artistic point unless we listen to "Papa Loved Mama" directly followed by a mediocre Billy Joel cover.

#rantover

Enjoy the music. The YouTube video below actually is Garth's recording of "Rodeo," but it's apparently managed to slip by his people because it also has other sounds in it. It'll get taken down eventually.