Music In, 2023, Batch 3

• The Mountain Goats, "Jam Eater Blues", 2001, 3 tracks, bandcamp. Mountain Goats is confusing me, publishing a lot of small collections of old tracks like this. So, 3 stars.

• Harry Nilsson, "The Point!", 1970, 14 tracks. Somebody told me I had to get this album, so I did. Hmmm. A theme album about a place where everyone's head comes to a point, except for the protagonist. Social commentary, I guess. I remember the song "Me and My Arrow" (his dog), an OK song but not particularly a fav. The rest of the album is lackluster and additionally has alternating spoken sections advancing the narrative. I really didn't care for it much. 3 stars.

• Chris Hillman, "Bidin' My Time", 2017, 12 tracks, bandcamp. Hillman was the original bass player for The Byrds. He moved into country rock, americana. I changed the genre for this album from Country to Southern Rock. I think I saw where Tom Petty produced the album, and the 3 Byrds' songs on the album are done like Petty did "Feel A Whole Lot Better" - as very faithful renditions of the Byrds' originals, complete with 12 string guitar. Notable to me is my fav Gene Clark song, "She Don't Care About Time".

  I saw Hillman (maybe with Herb Pedersen?) the year (2007?) we had a subscription to Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour in Lexington. I think I remember reading that he was somewhat of a christian cultist. I am sad to say that he may have progressed to christian nationalism. 2 of the songs - "Given All I Can See" and "Such Is The World We Live In" - are full of RWNJ and MAGAt dog whistles. 1 star for those. 4 stars for the rest. Here's 1 of The Byrds' tunes, that he cowrote with Jim McGuinn Back In The Day, "Here She Comes Again".

• Kaidi Tatham, "The Only Way", 2023, 11 tracks, bandcamp. The 4th of his albums I have acquired. I continue to like the Afro-Jazz sounds. 4 stars. Here's "Not Suffering (feat. Matt Lord)".

• Andrew Bird, "Outside Problems", 2023, 9 tracks, bandcamp. These are good tracks, but, Bird has been very prolific lately, and these are all instrumentals, so I think I'm going to go 3 stars instead of 4.

• Madeline Kenney, "A New Reality Mind", 2023, 11 tracks, bandcamp. I 1st saw Kenney several years ago when she opened for Soccer Mommy at The Burl in Lexington. She continues to be very productive, and her style continues to evolve. 4 stars. Here's "I Drew A Line" - nice sax part.

• Willie Nelson, "To All The Girls", 2013, 18 tracks. I saw a reference to this somewhere and decided to give it a go. It is Willie singing duets with 18 different female artists, as complete an all-star list as you can imagine. I would guess all covers, of Willie & other people's songs. Great harmonies, great harp parts, great pedal steel, really fun and easy to listen to. 4 stars. Here's "After The Fire Is Gone", with Tina Rose - originally a Conway Twitty & Loretta Lynn song.

• Bonnie "Prince" Billy, "Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You", 2023, 12 tracks, bandcamp. 1 of Louisville's favorite sons does us all proud on this album. Some top notch tunes. Great vocal harmonies. 4 stars. Here's "Behold! Be Held!".

• Aimee Mann, "Queens of the Summer Hotel", 2021, 15 tracks. Aimee Mann is back! And she sounds just like Aimee Mann! And the tunes are great! I can't believe I am just now getting this album - yet another example of the ongoing enshittification of the Internet. This is the 10th album of hers (including the "Magnolia" soundtrack) that I have. I'm sure many of those were purchased from Apple or Amazon, but they won't tell me she has a new album (they used to) because they want me to buy a subscription to their fucking streaming services. No thanks, assholes.

  What a pleasure this album is to listen to! I think most of the harmony singing is her. 4 stars. Here's "Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath".

• Becca Mancari, "Left Hand", 2023, 12 tracks, bandcamp. This is the 3rd album of hers I have. Very nice tunes. I remain a sucker for chill vocals, particularly female vocals. 4 stars. Here's "Over and Over".

My pc in Lexington got fried a couple of months ago - based on the Avast anti-virus package's recommendation, I moved a file into quarantine and lost my mouse - oops! But, yay, it just yesterday, after having been rebooted a few times, started working again! So I moved all the new music from my MacBook, rated all these songs, and now hopefully will be able to sync my iPhone. Fingers crossed ...