Indigo Girls - Look Long. In the past, I have found diminishing returns with listening to new Indigo Girls albums. Their debut was a transcendent album for me. Album number two was excellent, and numbers 3 and 4 were very good, and since then, I can't think of anything I've heard that has been worth the time. But you know what? This disc is actually pretty good. As I noted back when I saw them live a year or two ago, Emily's voice has lost some power and gets warbly at times, but still, the music is good, the harmonies are great, and some of the lyrics are still poignant. Funny, random observation (actually, maybe this isn't funny anymore...) is that, in my Spotify queue, this album comes right after a Megan Thee Stallion track and a YG track, and then right after this album is the first song of a Future album. All three of those rap tracks have the EXPLICIT warning box sitting there on Spotify. Meanwhile, the initial song of this album, which is entitled "Shit Kickin'," and therefore is explicit before the music even starts, does not have that warning. Seems weird, that the two white ladies don't get that tag but the three black folks do. Anyway... That track has the most streams, but its also the start of the album, so I am going to go with the second-most streamed track for you. This is "When We Were Writers," with 143k streams.
Nice one - good tune, great harmonies, exactly why I sign up for their stuff. "Let’s pull an all nighter push wood in the fire, It might just look like smoke in my eyes but I’m still burning inside." Reading along with the lyrics to that one is worth it for sure. Makes it really feel like they are happy to still be making good music. "Favorite Flavor" sounds like an old school R.E.M. song, and as such, I am very here for it. R.E.M. is still the guiding force for about 32% of what I love in music. I'm not saying this disc is as good as their classics, but I have enjoyed it. I'll keep it around.
Future - High Off Life. If you have read my thoughts on Future in the past, then you know that he has had a few undisputed bangers, and then a million forgettable auto-tuned bombs. I know that the critics love him, for reasons I can't explain, so I keep going back to him when new music is released, hoping this one will be the one where I finally catch the fever. While on the one hand, I generally like the overall feel of the album (which sounds so dumb, as I write it, but wait for it) but it also just glides on by my ears like a bass-boosted Chevy echoing down the canyon of Congress Avenue. None of the songs are memorable - once I've streamed the whole thing yet again, I recall the Young Boy Never Broke Again track because I keep thinking it is Kevin Gates, I recall the Drake song because he bugs me so much, but otherwise, its just a constant barrage of very good beats and Future robotically bopping along the top. Also, I know you are going to be shocked, but it's way overlong, at 21 songs and 1:10 long. The most streamed songs are all of the collaborations - most of the solo tracks are around the 5 million streams level, but the Drake collab has freaking 425 million streams. <eyeroll emoji>
OK, the video made me smile. And the beat that they break out for Future's part is hard and cool, but Drake just makes it all sadass and introspective sounding and I don't want that half of the song. Just play the dope beat and get out of the way. I was hoping to find a few gems among all of this that I would hold on to, but I think I'm good without anything.
Katie Pruitt - Expectations. Read about her in some sort of Who's Next! article about up and coming artists, and after giving her top single a shot I liked it well enough to try out the whole album. Pretty good - you'd call it county, but not in the same way that most of country music sounds. More like the Taylor Swiftian, ballad love-song type of Country, or the alternative-country stuff of Kacey Musgraves, or the soft-blues of John Mayer at times (see "Expectations"). Hell, I hear Miley Cyrus in "My Mind's a Ship That's Going Down." She can crank it with her voice, like on the album closer "It's Always Been You," and she has some confessional tunes like "Loving Her," a pretty tune about being nervous to use a girl's name in a song for fear that people would figure out that she was gay. I thought "Grace Has a Gun" was going to be the top track here - its got a great set of lyrics and a haunting wooooaahhhh of a chorus that sticks in my head. But instead, it was "Out of the Blue" that tops the stream count with 1.4 million.
Another one with John Mayer-esque guitar licks and sound. And otherwise, just a nice little love song. This album has been a welcome surprise. I find myself singing along to little snippets of it when I'm wandering around the house or walking the dog. Has catchy little bits and a great voice, I like it.
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