There isn’t a lot of evidence of this on the blog, but I am absolutely SMITTEN by this band. They are in that personal S-tier of mine with Angie McMahon and Sylvan Esso. 1a, 1b, 1c essentially.
Stereo Mind Game, Daughter’s 2023 album, was a masterpiece top to bottom.
These Middle Farm Session recordings are somehow better than that. Lead singer Elena Tonra kills it per usual. She really is an incredible talent.
Hope you’re well on this Tuesday evening. Good friend of mine is a big David Lynch fan, RIP, and said his 2025 motto is “Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole.”
Miss your faces, even if I’ve never seen yours. We’ve somehow connected. Welcome!
Let’s acknowledge the awkward grandma connection between yesterday’s post and today’s for a moment. 🙂
Wow, we made it!! IT’S NEW YEARS’ EVE! Or should I say, NEW YEARS’ THREVE because you get three songs!!!
The full blog playlist linked below has the 504 songs I added in 2023. Apparently I had designs of cutting it down? I dunno, that was a long time ago!
Some are deeper cuts by artists we’ve heard over the past year here, but there are a couple artists that are fantastic who never got featured for a daily post for whatever reason. Enjoy those discoveries!
If you spent a second reading anything I’ve written, or listening to any song I’ve suggested, I am grateful for you!
As I look back on 2024, I’m met with a bit of the melancholies. Lots of change, both internal and external. Ava to college. It’s really been a blur when I think back on it.
“Why do some things stay the same, when some don’t?, we say we’ll stay around, oh we know when we won’t, I’m a gross teenager, trapped in a grown-up shade, need someone to clean up the mess I’ve made, say it will be fine”
The blog was basically a diary for me it feels. Or like a daily musical therapy check-in sometimes. It felt like opening up with a musical writing prompt.
I was happy to see it being a tool to show me how to let go. I started out trying to have posts written ahead of time. Then that started producing anxiety. So then I let myself write them on the day of. Then that started producing anxiety. That’s when it hit me. Why am I giving this so much power of me?
My hobby shouldn’t be homework for myself. It just a took a little shift in thinking to take that little piece of control that I had given up, back. I learned to give myself a little grace when I needed it.
That’s why I’m thankful for self-reflection. It allowed me to let go of that thing. I’ll admit to feeling a little foolish that I gave it that much power in the first place!
“Oh, friend, will you fly with me into fire?, it’s New Years’ Eve, we’re allowed tonight to pretend we are free, promise me, on New Years’ Eve, we forget about our problems, we got time to share all of those things in the New Year, got a problem, baby let it be, hop on on my back, have a happy New Years’ Eve”
Leave some stuff in 2024, trust me. It’s not serving you anymore, so let it go. “Forget about your problems…”
Now we arrive at Happy New Year by Let’s Eat Grandma.
If this isn’t a bopfest I don’t know what is. Listen to it loud. Dance into the New Year. Dance IN the New Year, like when you’re brushing your teeth, cooking dinner, vacuuming. Music is like a magnet for happiness if you let it be.
We have such a limited time here. I don’t look at any of my 43 years as wasted, but I damn sure want to make sure the ones I have left are filled with as much happiness as I can manage. Part of that is leaning into discovering who I am at this age. Find out what makes me happy. Then fill life to the brim with it. Try new things. Push at the walls of myself. I’ve had so much fun listening to music, it has me wondering if I’d have just as much fun MAKING it. Thinking of my guitar that I bought…thinking of shopping for samplers.
A new year is a blank canvas.
What are you gonna paint? BE GOOD, DO GOOD.
“Sparks in the sky until we meet the sunrise, then see the year come into bloom, and nothing that was broken, can touch how much I care for you, because you know you’ll always be my best friend, and look at what I have with you”
“I’m ok with this, been thinking quite a lot about that, how I’d wanted the old us back, it’s okay, to say what you want to say, and that we’ve grown in different ways”
everything, etc. 