The Best Songs of the First Half of 2023

You guys know how this goes. Fifty songs, alphabetical order, completely correct, playlist at the bottom. 

Babybaby_explores – Duck Song
Man, I wanna go feed some ducks some wonder bread. Not lazily though. That seems like a bridge too far.

Rachel Baiman – Bad Debt
True story: I found out about Rachel Baiman because she was the (impressive) fiddler on an entirely different record (which wasn’t really my thing). Upon researching who did the fiddling, I found her solo work and, well, here she is. 

BIG|BRAVE – the one who bornes a weary load
It could’ve been any of the songs from Nature Morte, honestly. This is genuinely the one I picked because it’s the one I’ve played the most, if play counts can be believed. 

Black Belt Eagle Scout – Don’t Give Up
I don’t know man, sometimes you just want a big, overwhelming outro, you know what I mean? 

Boris & Uniform – Not Surprised
I mean, if you’re going to make a collaborative record that is, frankly, not surprising (I mean, it’s a very good record, but I was pretty able to accurately conjure it up in my head before I actually heard it), you might as well lean into it, you know? 

BRUIT ≤ – Les temps perdus
Their name is French for “noise,” see. Well, I suppose technically it’s French for “Noise ≤”. One must respect mathematical symbols. It’s also not on spotify, so the Bar Italia song in the honorable mentions goes on in its place. 

Grian Chatten – Fairlies
I mean, there’s probably nothing surprising about the singer for a rock band (in this case, Fontaines DC) coming up with a folksy solo record, but it’s nice anyway. Not everything can be cunning. 

Cowboys in The Campfire – Dream
Tommy Stinson has been a member of Guns n Roses for longer than he was a member of the Replacements by, like, a whole lot. That’s weird, right? Anyway, this is his new thing, and it’s very good, which makes me think we might have lucked out in terms of which Replacement managed to be currently productive. 

Indigo de Souza – Not My Body
I would also like to be a redwood tree, and thus unburdened of the possession of a human body. Because, once more: the only thing in all of existence worse than having a human body is having a human brain. 

Deathcrash – Distance Song
I’m just saying, if more bands wanted to make a concerted effort to bring slowcore fully back, it would probably be alright. 

THE END – Black Vivaldi Sonata
Mats Gustafsson has played on, like, fifty albums this year (ok, I think it’s actually four, but it’s only June, and I might also have missed one). All of them are quite good, but I was so taken with this (a Sudan Archives cover) that I had to get it in there. 

Eluvium – Void Manifest
Because sometimes, nice things are nice.  

Fatboi Sharif & Roper Williams – Cinnamon
It says something about the quality of “Cinnamon” that Planet Unfaithful bridges the Backwoodz family (Elucid is on a track) and the Bruiser Brigade (Bruiser Wolf is on another), and neither of those songs is the one that made it. 

Robbie Fulks – Angels Carry Me
This time out Robbie Fulks returns to the bluegrass waters that he came from. Dude could make a Klezmer album and it would 1) still be a Robbie Fulks album and 2) it would rule, but of course, finding him on more familiar ground means it’s an absolute home run. 

Tim Hecker – Living Spa Water
This is probably Tim Hecker at his absolutely most-ambient, and I’m kind of into it. 

Irreversible Entanglements – Nuclear War
Red Hot + Ra finds the benefit-record Red Hot folks handing over Sun Ra’s “Nuclear War” to three different geniuses. The most effective is the most direct, which comes via Moor Mother’s Irreversible Entanglements who, so far, have yet to put a step wrong. 

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit – King of Oklahoma
While it’s true that Weathervanes is too long (every Jason Isbell album is too long), it is also true that his high points are the high points of the genre, and that “King of Oklahoma” is one of his finest stories, even if there are slightly better choruses elsewhere. Also, it’s sad as hell, and, well, I’m a sucker for that sort of thing. 

JPEGMAFIA x Danny Brown – SCARING THE HOES
Longtime readers will surmise there was no way this wouldn’t be here, but jesus christ, that beat. 

Killer Mike – Scientists & Engineers (f Future, Andre 3000, Eryn Allen Kane)
Here primarily because, well, Andre 3000 doesn’t appear on many songs these-a days, obviously. 

Alex Lahey – Permanent
It’s rare that I go for the non-ebullient Lahey song, but this is a devastating little song about how goddamn tedious it is to be depressed. 

Ted Leo & The Pharmacists – Coming Back to Bloom
Another sad one, this one from a not-on-spotify EP that is, actually, quite lovely and has a very nice song with Aimee Man on it. The playlist has the Broken Record song on it, because, again: this one isn’t on spotify. 

Liv.e – Our Father
I mostly missed Liv.e’s first record, although I remember liking something about it, but this one is the weirdest, most interesting R&B record I’ve heard in awhile. There’s a bunch of songs that could have made it in here, but I went the most aggressive of them, mostly because if you listen to this thing in alphabetical order, you might want something to cut the sadness. 

Mandy, Indiana – Pinking Shears
I will say that I am, officially, a fan of songs that sound like they were written by throwing a box of cutlery down the stairs. It works for me more often than it doesn’t. 

Midwife & Vyva Melinkolya – Hounds of Heaven
Midwife has had an unusually productive year – she’s also made a record as Sister Grotto and done some guest-appearin’ – but this record is clearly something extra-special. The closing track, “Orbweaving”, seems to be getting a lot of the attention, but frankly, I come to Midwife to hear her do Midwife shit, and so this is my favorite. 

Helen Money & Will Thomas – Tilt
Will Thomas has been around on previous Helen Money records, but now receives equal billing. The extra hands are apparent, but the music is still, primarily, Helen Money’s cello from hell. 

Mourning [A] BLKstar – Catch 22
Kyle Kidd has been gallivanting about, but it’s nice to see everybody present on what appears to be a loosey from Cleveland’s foremost R&B experimentalists. 

Meshell Ndegeocello – ASR (f Jeff Parker)
Also, it was really just a great year for people who want to experiment with R&B, and I don’t have a tonne of ways to say that, so here’s a great Meshell Ndegeocello song. 

Nickel Creek – Holding Pattern
Clearly, the first half of 2023 was when I liked it sad.

Oddisee – People Watching
Oddisee might, at this point, have the highest batting average in all of hip hop. 

Kassa Overall – The Lava Is Calm (f Theo Croker)
Not only does this have good advice (don’t touch lava even if it looks like it won’t hurt you!), but it also has Jherek Bischoff, which is just great. 

The Pines of Rome – REDACTED
The Pines of Rome are back! Earlier you can see me implore folks to start more slowcore bands, and Pines of Rome were a slowcore band that was also a country band! The world is slightly better now! 

Benoît Pioulard – Pastel Dust
Pioulard at his most relaxed-sounding is better and more satisfying than I would have thought. 

Quasi – Nowheresville
Janet Weiss had a particularly eventful few years, so it’s extra-special-great to have Quasi come all the way back as well. Excellent news all around. 

Rata Negra – Bien Triste
I had been unfairly sleeping upon Rata Negra until, like, the end of last year. That was a very silly thing for me to have done, and now I must make up for lost time. 

redveil & JPEGMAFIA – black enuff
I’m still not fully all the way in camp redveil, but he manages to hold his own here, so I’m warming up to the idea. I just wish there was more of it. 

Micah Schnabel – Get Rich Quick
I think in order to hear this song you have to buy a postcard from Micah’s bandcamp. But you should do that, because it’s great, and also because he’s great. Anyway, it’s the Ozmotic & Fennesz song in the honorable mentions that goes on the playlist in its place. 

Screaming Females – Brass Bell
Sometimes it’s nice to invite a chorus into your brain to bash it around for awhile, you know? 

Shame – Adderall
This has an inaudible contribution from Phoebe Bridgers, which is, you know, fun. It means that when I’m asked my favorite song she sings on I don’t have to pretend Comedy Bang! Bang! is a song. 

Shapednoise – Family (f Armand Hammer)
He’s quite the accurately-titled musician, actually, since shaping noise is basically what it sounds like he’s doing. And he’s doing it for the benefit of Elucid and Billy Woods, which means, of course, that it’s great. 

Slum Village – Just Like You (f Larry June & The Dramatics)
Slum Village are down to two members, but it doesn’t seem to have caused them any trouble. Well done. 

Colin Stetson – Behind the sky
[a too-long thing about Aristotelean catharsis has been cut for being, frankly, a little out f place with the rest of the words here, and will be published as this parenthetical and an assurance that this song is great, and wildly moving, and also is improved if you listen to it very, very loudly]

Swans – The Memorious
Having shuffled some members around (and picked up Ben Frost!) in between records, a thing that has more-or-less always happened for them, Swans have proven themselves to be as resilient, musically, as ever, and have delivered yet again.

Tinariwen – Tenere Den
If you’re not familiar with Tinariwen, at least do yourself the favor of looking them up – their story is incredible. If you are familiar with Tinariwen, then you probably don’t need me to tell you to listen to this, because you’re probably listening to it already. 

U.S. Girls – Only Daedalus
You know, most people don’t talk about Daedalus as a successful inventor (although I have made a joke about it in a post before), but he did design a labyrinth that it took several people working as a conspiracy to get out of, and goddammit, the wings were not the problem, it was his idiot son. Anyway. That’s what I like about Meg Remy. She gets it. About Daedalus, I mean. 

War, Sunny – Sweet Nothing
I don’t always pay much attention to New West Records, but I will say that the records they put out that I do like are incredible, and this one is an especially high point. 

Chester Watson – Eyes Closed
I feel like it’s been awhile since I heard Chester Watson, and some wikipedia-ing shows me that it, indeed, has. That’s not to say I don’t have anything to say about this song, specifically, other than “I like it and you should listen to it” but, well. There you have it. 

Wednesday – Chosen to Deserve
You’ve probably already heard about this song. It’s great. It’s one of the few things in the world that’s as great as everyone says it is. There are things about this song, and specifically in its writing, that I find genuinely shocking in their quality. They didn’t sell me until their covers album of last year, but they really absolutely delivered on this one. 

Billy Woods & Kenny Segal – As the Crow Flies (feat. Elucid)
It’s not that I would ever argue that Billy Woods and Elucid should always work together, it’s just that it’s clearly better when they do. 

Xylouris White – Red Wine
Did you know Guy Picciotto (who produced this, and all, of Xylouris White’s records, and serves as a sort of studio-only third member) wanted to put this song on every previous XW record? I’m glad he finally got it in there. 

Zoon – Dodem
And, finally, another band that I somehow missed the first time around, and am happy to catch up on. Truly, the world does contain its joys.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Bar Italia’s “Nurse!” makes the most of that band’s oddball approach, although at a certain point the returns on it do diminish. Chat Pile’s “King” is the standout of their split single with Nerver, Broken Record’s “Blueprinting” is a pretty great song that misses the main list because it hasn’t existed for long enough to have made it up there, Ozmotic & Fennesz’s “Senzatempo” is the highlight of yet another collaborative record, although it’s kept off the list proper by being a little more slight than I’d have liked 

The 2023 Locus Awards

Ah, the Locus Awards, granting hardware to greatness in speculative fiction of all stripes. It’s the output of the house-organ of the SFF, Locus magazine¹, and also, is a sort of fun exercise in the mind-bogglingness of just how much stuff there is in the world. 

¹ which could probably still use your money, so I recommend giving them some. If you do it, like, maybe right now at the time this is posted, you could probably even still watch the awards ceremony. 

A brief editorial aside: one of the things that drives this here website² is its absurdity: these things are decided by consensus (specifically the sort you get via voting), and are the product of the labor-hours of, well, everyone who puts them together and votes on them. So one dude in Colorado³ comes in and decides they’re all wrong on his own. That’s very funny to me.  

² it’s been on my mind because i’m sort of slowly edging toward an update/redesign
³ I forget that most of you don’t actually know me sometimes, so on re-read that does appear to be the first time I’ve actually mentioned this information. Whoops. Is this why people have social media? So that other people can know when they’ve moved to Colorado?

Anyway, this is the one that really gives that one some play: there are over a hundred nominees (not all of them full-length books), and I definitely have not read them all! I made some effort but, you know, summer. Life. Other stuff. So I didn’t get through even as many as I usually do⁴. 

⁴ pity me, all of you

Nevertheless, we wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t always right, so here we find ourselves. Also, despite always being right, in contravention of previous Locus Awards coverage but in direct line with the way I do the rest of the book awards I cover, I will not be opining about the artist, editor, publisher, or magazine categories, because I don’t know the field very well, and I’d have no idea how to evaluate them, really. 

Here we go!

Illustrated and Art Book
Plenty of this seems pretty good, and I’ll probably get to a bunch of it, but I haven’t yet, with the exception of Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda’s second collaboration, The Night Eaters, which i like so much more than Monstress, you probably wouldn’t even believe it. 

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Marjorie Liu & Sana Takeda, The Night Eaters, Vol. 1

Non-Fiction
Look, I want to like Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes more than I do. I love Terry Pratchett dearly, but like, I love his work, not his, you know, life. His bees and goats and old computers and whatnot. So as an opportunity to think about one of Earth’s finest writers slash humans, a plus plus to Rob Wilkins, I’m still impressed by the scope of the Ritter’s Visual History of Science Fiction Fandom. Also, I’ve read very little of this, which is pretty embarrassing in this particular case.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: David & Daniel Ritter, The Visual History of Science Fiction Fandom, Volume 2

Collection
You know, ordinarily I would avoid a best-of, but it so happens that, five years ago, I started reading my way through each volume of Gardner Dozois’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction anthologies⁵, and one of the things that this has yielded was a marked increase in my appreciation for Lucius Shepard. Since, first and foremost, I like to take advantage of this opportunity to talk about stuff that I’m super-into: y’all should go try to enjoy Lucius Sheperd as well, if you haven’t already. Also, this is probably the opinion I am going to be least willing to defend wholeheartedly, because I really like Sam J. Miller a lot, also.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: The Best of Lucius Shepard Vol. 2

⁵ I’m doing this in between things, so I really have not gotten very far, but I started basically when he died. For more on why I’m doing this and how it matters biographically, feel free to ask me about it.

Anthology
I am not, despite my best efforts, always as good about reading material from cultures far from my own as I probably should be, and to that effort I am once more happy that Lavie Tidhar is here to help, as he almost always is.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Lavie Tidhar (ed), The Best of World SF Vol. 2

Short Story
This is one where I did, in fact, read all but one of them⁶. Many of them were considered previously, and will probably be considered again, but there was still some really good stuff in here. That said, it’s probably still going to be “Rabbit Test,” (it comes, as the Nebulas did, down to “Rabbit Test” and “Dick Pig”) and rightly so⁷. 

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Samantha Mills, “Rabbit Test” 

⁶ and that one, Ai Jiang’s “Give Me English” is still difficult to track down, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying
⁷ but if you didn’t read “Dick Pig” back when I told you to before, you should do so now. 

Novelette
And here we are at the only other category where I read everything nominated. A pretty good field this year, actually. Greg Egan’s “Solidity,” is maybe my favorite thing I’ve ever read by him, and Suzanne Palmer’s “the Sadness Box” (about what it means to be able to make decisions) was particularly great. Also, I was delighted to read Seanan Maguire’s “In Mercy, Rain” – I didn’t know it was going to be a Jack and Jill story, and I really like the way it worked. I’ve enjoyed thinking about “If You Find Yourself Speaking to God, Address God With the Informal You” in the time since I read it, so this one goes to John Chu.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: John Chu, “If You Find Yourself Speaking to God, Address God With the Informal You”. It makes me hope that there’s something hiding around the pike with a shorter title, because otherwise it’s just going to keep winning stuff, and I’m going to keep having to type all that out. 

Novella
While I’m really enjoying Alix E. Harrow’s Fractured Fables, of which the second book was nominated here, and which I expect to say some things about come World Fantasy Awards time, the primary contenders here are basically the same as they were at Nebula time, which also makes the winner about the same.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Becky Chambers, A Prayer for the Crown-Shy

First Novel
I’ve been so into Neon Yang for so long that I forget that everything before this has been novellas and short stories. So I’m happy to say: Neon Yang is the winner here, because they are great, and The Genesis of Misery is great. I do feel a bit bad for Isabel Cañelas’s the Hacienda, because it would have won in most years.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER Neon Yang, The Genesis of Misery

Young Adult Novel
Unraveller had its moments, especially when it finally got rolling, but getting there was a bit of a chore, which makes it, sadly, my least-favorite Hardinge so far. But it does clear the way for The Scratch Girls, which I did quite like.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: H.A. Clarke, The Scratch Daughters

Horror Novel
In addition to the usual unfathomably-large pool of nominees, there’s also the fact that there’s  a tie in this category. Now, admittedly. I know there’s a tie because the Locus website tells me there is, but I have no idea which two books tied, so I’ll assume it’s two of the ones I didn’t read and then move on past it. Anyway, I am always impressed by Paul Tremblay’s ability to do his thing⁸, and I will also say that in this case, I came down on the opposite side of the “was this real/not real” divide than his work usually sends me down. Ask me about it when you see me next. Also, it isn’t really as good as Sarah Gailey’s Just Like Home, which managed to build an incredible atmosphere and then blow it all to hell in the end (metaphorically. I’m not, like, spoiling the ending of Just Like Home⁹.

⁸ a phrase which here means “make a story where you don’t know if anything supernatural is happening or not” 
⁹ I would not, in fact, have even worried about it except I need to clarify that it does not, in fact, end the same way as The Shining. Which is, I guess, a spoiler for The Shining. 

Fantasy Novel
We have, in this category, some worthy contenders for the way things went at the Nebulas, at least. NK Jemisin’s The World We Make is, surprisingly, the end of at least a major part of the story begun in the first one, which surprised me – I thought it was totally going to be a middle book. Nevertheless, it told a story that was impressive in its scope, and really stuck the landing. Naomi Novik’s The Golden Enclaves also brought its large, wide-ranging story to an end, and while I expected it a bit more, that doesn’t make it any less effective, nor does it make the surprise that provides the development of the end any less uh…surprising. Anyway, all of this means that this one comes down to the same Kuang/Griffith/Muir triumvirate as the Nebulas, and Kuang takes home this one too. 

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: RF Kuang, Babel

Science Fiction Novel
The Spare Man probably deserves points for being the most fun of all these, but really: Sea of Tranquility is a masterpiece, and it should probably win a lot more awards than it’s going to¹⁰. Quick without being overly tense, interesting without being over-explained, and tidy as a pin, it’s the best thing in this field – which is pretty strong – by a pretty wide margin.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Emily St. John Mandel, Sea of Tranquility

¹⁰ it was shockingly not nominated for a Nebula, and since god only knows what’s going to have happened with the Hugos, it’s probably best not to count on that one, either. 

And there you have it. Tune in next time when I do basically this same thing again. 

An updated (but no less considered) ranking of every current inductee for the rock and roll hall of fame (not quite as shamelessly punting as usual)

So it’s been three induction classes since I drew the Considered Look at Every Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominee¹, and, wouldn’t you know, they keep inducting people, so I figured it was probably time to take another look at it. 

¹ appropriate links are here, which is also, handily enough, the old version of this very ranking. 

Plus, you know, things have been busy ‘round these parts, and it’s a pretty good time to do this sort of thing. I’ve added the last few years worth of nominees in there, and have reshuffled the list around as I feel appropriate. It’s fun to rank things, after all, and also fun to see just how wrong I was even just three years ago. 

Some of the changes are, in fact, just the insertion of new inductees, and some of them are revisions reflecting the way my relationships with them have changed. Both will almost certainly happen again. 

As previously, bands are considered on the strength of their best and most vital material, with secondary concerns to longevity and consistency, but they’re a somewhat-distant secondary. 

Please to enjoy.

The Stooges

James Brown and the Famous Flames

The Velvet Underground

Miles Davis

Johnny Cash

Stevie Wonder

The Beatles

Neil Young

The Ramones

Nirvana

Tom Waits

The Band

Jay-Z

Randy Newman

Black Sabbath

REM

Pink Floyd

Led Zeppelin

Sam Cooke

the Byrds

Creedence Clearwater Revival

Nina Simone

Cheap Trick

Public Enemy

The Who

The Isley Brothers

Metallica

Al Green

The Cure

Tina Turner

Lou Reed

John Lennon

Willie Nelson

Bill Withers

The Zombies

Bob Marley

Leonard Cohen

The Jimi Hendrix Experience

The Rolling Stones

Nine Inch Nails

Paul McCartney

The Notorious BIG

Bob Dylan

Pearl Jam

The Kinks

Radiohead

Bruce Springsteen

Parliament-Funkadelic

U2

Patti Smith

The Four Tops

AC/DC

Marvin Gaye

Missy Elliot

David Bowie

Rage Against the Machine

The Clash

Ike & Tina Turner

Little Richard

The Cars

Sex Pistols

George Michael

John Lee Hooker

The Everly Brothers

Elvis Presley

George Harrison

Duane Eddy

The Staple Singers

Booker T & The MGs

Dolly Parton

Otis Redding

Eminem

Foo Fighters

Roxy Music

Jerry Lee Lewis

The Go-Gos

The Jackson 5

Prince

Genesis

Carl Perkins

Sly & the Family Stone

ZZ Top

Run-DMC

Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps

Bobby Womack

The Animals

Alice Cooper

Jimmy Cliff

Duran Duran

Elton John

Janet Jackson

The Yardbirds

Isaac Hayes

Beastie Boys

Talking Heads

Simon & Garfunkel

The Spinners

Elvis Costello & The Attractions

Joni Mitchell

NWA

Roy Orbison

Eurythmics

Solomon Burke

Frank Zappa

Dusty Springfield

Cat Stevens

Eddie Cochran

Chuck Berry

Aretha Franklin

Lloyd Price

Ray Charles

Bo Diddley

Tupac Shakur

Green Day

The Supremes

Earth Wind and Fire

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five

Electric Light Orchestra

Dire Straits

Deep Purple

Joan Baez

Curtis Mayfield

the Temptations

Yes

Brenda Lee

Michael Jackson

Peter Gabriel

The O’Jays

The Ventures

Dr John

Bobby Darrin

Todd Rundgren

The Pretenders

Gene Pitney

Martha and the Vandellas

Whitney Houston

Aerosmith

The Beach Boys

Rush

Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo

Lynyrd Skynyrd

Paul Simon

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Fleetwood Mac

Neil Diamond

Linda Ronstadt

Hall & Oates

The Righteous Brothers

Fats Domino

Sheryl Crow

Wilson Pickett

Small Faces/Faces

Jackie Wilson

The Four Seasons

Gladys Knight & The Pips

Janis Joplin

Sam & Dave

The Impressions

Billy Joel

Heart

Etta James

Buddy Holly

Jefferson Airplane

Clyde McPhatter

Buddy Guy

The Shirelles

The Young Rascals/The Rascals

Crosby Stills & Nash

The Ronettes

Big Joe Turner

Richie Valens

Percy Sledge

The Dave Clark Five

Albert King

Joan Jett & the Blackhearts

Queen

The Flamingos

The Moody Blues

Kate Bush

Steely Dan

The Hollies

Laura Nyro

Donovan

Lionel Richie

John Mellencamp

Bonnie Raitt

Bill Haley and the Comets

The Police

Del Shannon

The Lovin’ Spoonful

The Allman Brothers Band

Jimmy Reed

Van Morrison

Buffalo Springfield

Ruth Brown

Bob Seger

Jeff Beck

Little Anthony and the Imperials

Rod Stewart

The Drifters

Hank Ballard and the Midnighters

Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers

LaVern Baker

Little Willie John

The Platters

The Moonglows

The Dells

Smokey Robinson and the Miracles

Steve Miller

The Coasters

Darlene Love

Muddy Waters

Bee Gees

Traffic

Dion

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band

Santana

T Rex

ABBA

Van Halen

Bobby “Blue” Bland

Donna Summer

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Depeche Mode

Bon Jovi

Def Leppard

Blondie

The Doors

James Taylor

The Doobie Brothers

Carly Simon

BB King

Cream

Ricky Nelson

Jackson Browne

Stevie Ray Vaughan & double Trouble

The Mamas & The Papas

Stevie Nicks

Chicago

Carole King

Eric Clapton

Journey

Guns n Roses

Madonna

Grateful Dead

Eagles

Kiss

A Considered Look at Every Grammy Best New Artist, Part 4

So in previous Considered Looks, I looked at things that were specifically enshrined, either by popular money-spending opinion or by a single, deeply flawed organizational body. Now I’m going to look at something more incremental – the Grammy Award for Best New Artist. 

I’ve mentioned it before, but the Grammys are, like most large industry-type awards shows, heavily intertwined with advertising the things they’re awarding. There’s an aspect of the awards that has to do with both shoring up the credibility of the awards themselves and with selling more copies of the albums¹, thus making the record label system that also props up the Grammys themselves more prosperous. It’s a sort of symbiosis – the grammys exist to drive sales, which itself helps the labels and industry-sectors that require those sales to continue doing business go along with the existence of the Grammys.

¹ this is why the eligibility period cuts off not at the calendar year, but rather at the beginning of the fall major-release glut – those albums just came out and sold a bunch of copies (in theory) over the holidays, and don’t need the boost of an awards show in February as much as someone whose record came out the previous summer might. This is all fairly-simplified, but also I’ve gone over it a bunch in previous Grammys writeups, so I’m trying not to repeat myself too much. 

More specifically, though, the Best New Artist Grammy is more interesting than, say, Artist of the Year because there’s a bit more of a nebulous idea of what it is even meant to represent. It’s a sort of “rookie of the year” award², which comes with the generalized expectation that not only did this act/band/musician/whatever have a good year, but that they would continue to do so. Since there’s no easy way to predict anything at all in the world of music, and least of all commercial or artistic success, this means that it’s interesting to see who, of all the people that had a good year in any given Grammys eligibility term, managed to have any other good years. 

² although the terms of eligibility have occasionally meant that “new” is a pretty liquid term. 

That also, of course, leads one naturally to the oft-repeated notion that the category is cursed. There are, of course, no such things as curses, but it is interesting to see how, even when things were “healthy” for the Record Selling Industry they were unable to sustain the kind of success they were honoring here with any real consistency, and, for the better part of the last couple of decades, the award has shifted from one marking pop success to one that seems to be doing….something else, with some weirdly credibility-focused-seeming choices that seem less predictive and a more a way to get an award to folks with more cult followings that would otherwise not pay attention to the Grammys. 

Journey with me into the general morass of the folks that the record selling industry decided were, at one point, promising youngsters, and how correct they might have been! Or not! 

Previous Considered Looks can be found here and here (and going backwards from each). Previous parts of this series can be found here, here and here

Debby Boone
WHO IS SHE: Pat Boone’s daughter, coming in fresh off of “You Light Up My Life”, a catastrophically terrible song. 

WHO DID SHE BEAT: You know, given that she beat Shaun Cassidy, Andy Gibb and Foreigner, I’m not entirely sure she was the wrong choice. Good grief, what a terrible set of nominees. 

WAS SHE NEW: Sure, if you can apply “new” to the children of pop stars, I suppose. 

AND…?: Someone (Pat Finnerty, I think?) once described all of Matt Sorum’s drum fills in “November Rain” as falling into the “Pat Boone Debby Boone” patter³, which is pretty funny, and also accounts for almost all of the thinking about Debby Boone I’ve done in the last, oh, decade or so.  

³ meaning the drums follow that pattern every single fuckdamned time. 

CURSED: She did have some later success as a country singer, so she wasn’t entirely devoid of luck, but she never really made it happen on the pop charts again. Furthermore, all of us are cursed to the aforementioned catastrophically terrible song.

A Taste of Honey
WHO ARE THEY: Somehow, A Taste of Honey are the only disco act to win BNA. That seems weird, I think? I mean, it’s weird that they won the same award that Debby Boone won the year before, but that’s the kind of thing that always happens with the Grammys. Anyway, A Taste of Honey wanted to boogie oogie oogie til they just couldn’t boogie no more. 

WHO DID THEY BEAT: The Cars, who were, like Boston (see previously), riding a pretty unimpeachable debut album. 

WERE THEY NEW: Sure. 

AND…?: I mean, I only know the one song, and it sucks, so there’s not much to say here. They were an entirely studio-generated phenomenon relatively early in that process, so if you’re interested in that sort of thing uh…there you have it. 

CURSED: They certainly never had a hit, although their 

Rickie Lee Jones
WHO IS SHE: If she strikes you as a pop star whose music and thing are so bland they defy any kind of factoid-based insertion, allow me to say: her name is very difficult for me to remember how to spell. She once gave an interviewer an answer to something where she talked about “little fluffy clouds,” giving the core sample and title to a much better song (The Orb’s “Little Fluffy Clouds”) than anything she ever actually recorded herself⁴

⁴ newsflash: I still do not like vocal jazz. You’ll hear about it a lot. 

WHO DID SHE BEAT: Weirdly, she beat the last person ever to be nominated for a Best New Artist Grammy for a comedy record⁵: Robin Williams. The Blues Brothers (?!) are here too, and while their album isn’t a comedy album as such, they were funny. But really: Robin Williams is who she beat, which seems insane. 

⁵ you’ll remember Bob Newhart won one of these back in part 1. 

WAS SHE NEW: Yes

AND…?: If she and Tom Waits could have stuck it out as a couple for a few more months, Tom Waits could have attended the Grammys a dozen or so years before he did. That’s it. That’s all I got. I really cannot overstate how absolutely I do not connect with this music at all. 

CURSED: Nah. She would go on to win another Grammy⁶, sell out a squillion shows, and make lists and such basically up until the present day, so I’m going to say that she’s done fine. 

⁶ for a duet with Dr. John on “Makin’ Whoopee” in 1990, which is a thing I did not know and could not possibly have made up. Amazing. 

Christopher Cross
WHO IS HE: For years, I got Christopher Cross and Eric Carmen confused for each other, so here’s a handy device for not doing that: Christopher Cross is a better guitar player, Eric Carmen is a better singer. There, isn’t that helpful? Just remember CCIABGP,ECIABS and you’ll never confuse them again. 

WHO DID HE BEAT: The Pretenders, the lady that sang “Fame”, the lady that sang “How Do I Survive” and someone named Robbie Dupree, who Wikipedia insists had hits. So it’s a wash, is what I’m saying. 

WAS HE NEW: Yes

AND…?: Before I had to answer “was he new?” I thought “of course not, he was in the Raspberries,” and then I remembered CCIABGP,ECIABS, and realized that he was new. See? It works every time!

CURSED: On the one hand, he would go on to also win an Oscar the next year⁷, on the other hand that about wraps it up for Christopher Cross. I’m going to say “not cursed, just badly dated” and move on. 

⁷ for the execrable theme from Arthur

Sheena Easton
WHO IS SHE: She is (eventually, some time after this), the only woman to have a top 5 hit on each primary Billboard singles chart (Pop, Adult Contemporary, Country, Dance, R&B), which sort of explains why I can never remember what kind of music I associate her with. Her biggest hit (“Sugar Walls,” which did not make the country charts)  was written by Prince. Also, she’s Scottish. I had no idea, but, furthermore, I also don’t know why I didn’t know that. 

WHO DID SHE BEAT: The Go-Go’s, which is a shame. Also Luther Vandross.

WAS SHE NEW: Nope. By this time she had, in fact, already been the subject of a documentary tv series about her attempts to be a pop star. This is the beginning of Act II. 

AND…?: “Sugar Walls” is fine, if you want a second-rate Prince song with super-dated production. 

CURSED: Nope. see above about all the chart success and whatnot. 

Men at Work
WHO ARE THEY: The only band to win a Best New Artist Grammy that also had a member appear Scrubs. So there. 

WHO DID THEY BEAT: The Human League who, by 1983 were not only not new, but were officially done releasing music worth hearing (and even then were two years past “Don’t You Want Me”), and so shouldn’t have won⁸. 

⁸ 1979’s Reproduction (see? Not remotely new!) is legitimately great, and it looks like the version on Spotify (which was also the CD version) has “Being Boiled” as a bonus track, so you can get all the good Human League songs in one place. Damn I’m writing a lot about the Human League for a blurblet on Men at Work.

WERE THEY NEW: Unfortunately no. They were two-thirds of the way through their entire discography at this point, and “Who Can it Be Now” had come out long before. 

AND…?: Colin Hay, in addition to being on Scrubs, is also reliably great on podcasts. I’m inclined to like him well enough, and, by extension, the band he’s famous for, but that’s about it. 

CURSED: In a roundabout way, sort of: they broke up shortly after this win. 

Somebody Make My Movie (Eight Request)

In the third millennium, the Judges of Mega-Denmark have already usurped power. Judges have started dying in short order, and the new people in charge have seen very little interest in restoring the balance. But in order to keep this kind of power going, you need a frame up. After all, words are all we have to go on. 

It was one thing to try to make someone look crazy, or at least like they had a heart unfortified, a mind un-patient and an understanding simple and unschooled. It was another thing entirely to try to remove someone from consideration, but, of course, there’s always the Scotland Penal Colony. It was a convenient place to keep people from thinking about what it was they were doing. And, after all, there must have been a moment in the beginning where they could have said no, but they missed it. 

They were shipped off without their little friend’s say-so, but of course the little shit found his way out there. They didn’t ask for the pirates, after all – pirates could happen to anyone – but these were pirates, murderers, savages and, of course, scumbags. Their little friend got there and saved them from the pirates, a mirror held up to nature himself, mad in no direction, hawks and hacksaws neatly sorted. It’s said he was, in fact, stark raving sane. The Angel Gang never stood a chance.

And they knew you’d say that. 

Having escaped the attack, our men make it back to Mega-Denmark, and they want the truth. Someone has been pouring poison into the ears of the people long enough. 

So out they came, bloodied and squalling, with the knowledge that for all the points of the compass, there’s only one direction. And time is its only measure. It was time for the judges to know the ultimate negative.

They never broke the law, they are the law

This summer, go out to see the slings and arrows that flesh is heir to. Cross your bridges when you come to them and burn them behind you and, through the presumption that your eyes watered, enjoy:

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dredd

The Best Records of May 2023

Colin Stetson – when we were that what wept for the sea (more properly thought of as some sort of outburst than the usual more-carefully-constructed Stetson, this one really pours out a whole bunch of deeply-felt, emotional playing)

Billy Woods & Kenny Segal – Maps (it is always gratifying to see an increase in public attention coincide with a hot streak, and that’s what we have here)

Khanate – To Be Cruel (no one could have expected this at all, but I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that it’s this great)

Helen Money & Will Thomas – Trace (in addition to more instruments, Will Thomas is clearly adding some sort of drive to the proceedings here – a lot of this is more direct than the usual Helen Money experience, to its benefit)

Midwife & Vyva Melinkolya – Orbweaving (good month for collaborative records, I guess. You probably already know about this one)