4th (and Final) Batch of 2021 Music In

Finally. I thought this would put the iTunes library on my PC over 22,000, came up a little short: 21,988 tracks.

• Juana Molina, "Segundo (21st Anniversary)", 2000 (reissued in 2021), 15 tracks, Bandcamp. Her 2nd album (duh). This is really interesting stuff - almost the coveted "Unclassifiable" genre - and easy to listen to. Her more recent stuff was billed as Argentinian punk. This is more indie rock, although it does get a little experimental at times. 4 stars. Here's "¿Quién?".

• Half Moon Run, "Inwards & Onwards", 2021, 6 tracks, Bandcamp. The 5th album I have by this Montreal band. They continue to remind me of The Jayhawks. Consistently strong tunes. 4 stars.
  1 song definitely had some issues. "Fxgiving" seems like an angry breakup song, with the catchy line "I don't celebrate fxgiving" - a clever way of saying "I don't give a f#k" - as the song's main hook.
  Here's "Nosebleeds".

• The Mountain Goats, "Dark in Here", 2021, 12 tracks, Bandcamp. This is basically 1 guy, John Darnielle, from California, supported by various collaborators over the years. He definitely has a distinctive voice and sound and is an excellent songwriter. Some somewhat experimental stuff on this album as well. 4 stars. Here's "When a Powerful Animal Comes". I like the simplicity, and the sax & bass doubling each other.

• Big Red Machine, "How Long Do You Think It's Going To Last?", 2021, 15 tracks, Bandcamp. I was thinking out of Cincinatti, but, no, Eau Claire, WI. A ton of guest artists, including Taylor Swift and Fleet Foxes??? A very good album, very nice tunes, quite a pleasant surprise. 4 stars. Here's the last track, "Brycie".

• Kaidi Tatham, "An Insight To All Minds", 2021, 15 tracks, Bandcamp. From Belfast UK. Jazz? Fusion? Hah, iTunes has Afro-Jazz, I'll go for that. Very good stuff. 4 stars. Here's the title track.

• Cleo Brown, "Here Comes Cleo" and "1935-1951", both 27 tracks. 18 in common, so I cut "1935-1951" down to 9 tracks. I was looking for the Fats Waller song "You've Got Me Under Your Thumb" and saw a version by her. It had an intro! Her Wikipedia article describes her as "The Female Fats Waller". In 1935 she replaced Fats as pianist for the WABC orchestra in NYC! A very distinctive singing style. I already blogged about this at the bottom of this post. An enthusiastic 4 stars.
  Here's 3 by Cleo: 1st, "You've Got Me Under Your Thumb", which led me to her.

  2nd, here's the catchy "When Hollywood Goes Black and Tan".

  3rd, here's "My Gal Mezzanine". Cab Calloway also did this song.

  I liked most of these songs a lot! This was a great find.

• Count Basie & Sarah Vaughan, eponymous, 1961, 14 tracks. Note, the metadata says that Count Basie doesn't actually play on this album. The album is Sarah Vaughan and the Count Basie Orchestra. Kind of like hers from the last post, songs not that great, and I'm not that big a fan of big bands, which this is getting to be. Also, she was experimenting with different scat singing styles and I thought some if it didn't work well. Still, such a voice, 4 stars. Here's "Until I Met You".

A couple of last minute additions:

• Adele, "30", 2021, 12 tracks. Amazing how everyone loves Adele. She is in the crossword puzzles, clue: Largest selling musical artist of the 21th century. Ha ha, yesterday as well, clue: Only person to ever appear on the cover of UK and US Vogue.
  Like all her other fans, I have a personal connection to her - I heard "Chasing Pavement" on a TV music video the 1st time I was in London, UK, on business (2008?), and so was an early adopter. 1 reason I think she is so popular is that her songs are easy and great fun to belt out - think Glee and karaoke.
  4 stars. Here's "Love is a Game".

• Sting, "Soul Cages", 1991, 9 tracks. Rick Beato has recently done 2 shows about String: 1st, "Why Sting is Uncopyable", 16 minutes; 2nd, "The Sting Interview", 59 minutes. The interview is also with Dominic Miller, who has been Sting's guitarist for 31 years. He mentioned his fav album with Sting was "Soul Cages", the 1st he did. I did not have it, so I acquired it. A nice album, 4 stars. Here's "All This Time", which I remember from when it came out in 1991.

Yay, relatively caught up, all but 3 albums purchased in the last couple of weeks, which I will consider the start of 2022.

Now to go back through the Bandcamp recommendation emails dating back to July.