Tag: music

Culture reporter shares her best albums of 2022

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In music, 2022 was a year full of stunning releases — in which a pop star showed growth, an icon displayed her roots, a British band felt like home, a folk band went for the dark and the light, and a Puerto Rican star reveled in his global appeal.

The albums to which I gravitated are, I expect, the last remnants of the musical and creative surge artists experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. As people started to come out of isolation, these musicians were ready to greet them.

Here are my seven favorite albums of 2022:

“Harry’s House,” Harry Styles

Following up the success of his sophomore album “Fine Line” could have proven an impossible task for Styles, but “Harry’s House” meets that challenge — and in many instances, the album outpaces the rest of his discography.

On “Harry’s House” we get a bit more lyrical exploration from Styles, backed with stellar production and thoughtful instrumental use. It’s also the best album to showcase his range as a vocalist, with high notes in “Daydreaming” and a lower, equally evocative register in “Love of My Life.” It’s one of those albums where there isn’t a single bad song.

Styles’ self-titled debut album was safe, while “Fine Line” was a step up, a sign of Styles coming into his own. “Harry’s House” launches what I anticipate to be the beginning of a more experimental, free era in his discography.

“Being Funny In A Foreign Language,” The 1975

The British pop band’s fifth album was somewhat of a relief for die-hard 1975 fans, after their last two albums didn’t hit the spot. “Being Funny in a Foreign Language” is a return to some of the crucial elements for which the band is known: Gut-wrenching, emotion-driven lyrics set to a background of catchy, experimental pop.

It’s like coming home, which might be what inspired their home-themed stage set-up on tour. But it also pays homage to the heavier, more melancholic melodies and ideas the band explored in their last two albums. Dolled up with saxophone and other jazz hints, “BFIAFL” is the perfect showcase of a band that exploded onto the scene and now has the freedom to experiment while staying true to its roots.

(Lola & Pani ! Island Records/Interscope) The cover of Dermot Kennedy’s album
“Sonder.”

“Sonder,” Dermot Kennedy

Dermot Kennedy’s second album, “Sonder,” in many ways, is the exact opposite of his debut “Without Fear.” The first album was chock-full of intensity, while “Sonder” feels like its bright, untainted younger sibling. Even the cover is lighter, a gentle, brighter picture compared to the dark, brooding image on “Without Fear.”

“Sonder” is delicate and thoughtful, with Kennedy being reflective and thankful. His knack for empathetic songwriting and killer production shine.

The singles from “Sonder” did well on their own, but the album’s true merit comes from the fact that you must listen top to bottom, just to get the full effect of the stunning closer, “Blossom.”

(Republic Records via AP) This image released by Republic Records shows “Midnights” by Taylor Swift.

“Midnights,” Taylor Swift

I admit to being a bit underwhelmed by Swift’s 10th studio album, but it still charts high on my 2022 list because of its best moments.

“Anti-Hero” is some of her finest lyrical work. The album has other gems, including “Lavender Haze,” “Snow On The Beach” (her duet with Lana Del Rey) and “You’re On Your Own, Kid.” “Midnights” is also a nod to Swift’s roots from all of her past albums. In each track and progression, true Swifties can pinpoint which previous album/era it can fit in with.

(The album also got a midnight listen from Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and his daughter.)

(Dualtone/Decca Records) The cover of The Lumineers’ album, “Brightside.”

“Brightside,” The Lumineers

You know a band is good when you have trouble picking just one of their albums as a favorite. That’s the case for me with The Lumineers, though “Brightside” might just be at the top.

The Americana folk band is known for its penchant of staying true to the genre and also having general popularity. “Ho Hey” from their 2012 self-titled album is what many think of, and for the deeper fans, anything from “Cleopatra.”

“Brightside” is a perfect combination of those two albums, a listen for the bright days and the dark. It’s melancholic and appreciative. It’s proof that the band just keeps getting better.

“Un Verano Sin Ti,” Bad Bunny

At this point in the year, it feels like a monumental task to try and describe why I loved “Un Verano Sin Ti,” what with all its success.

There’s something for everyone on this album, whether you are a native Spanish speaker or not. There are hints of reggae, dance, bomba and bachata. All 23 songs are perfectly crafted, but my favorites are “Moscow Mule,” “Tarot” (featuring Jhayco) and “Un Ratito.”

What’s most remarkable about the album is its ability to achieve mass audience appeal, a testament to the changing face of what’s deemed “world music” and its popularity in general music markets.

“Superache,” Conan Gray

There’s a subset of younger artists coming into the pop music scene that are brimming with talent. (Examples include Olivia Rodrigo, Joshua Bassett and Gracie Abrams.) Conan Gray isn’t necessarily new to the music industry, but “Superache” is the album that put him on the spot for me.

In all 12 tracks, Gray manages to capture a unique sense of isolation, loneliness and longing. Each song has a sense of rekindled and familiar pain to it. With Dan Nigro’s production, “Superache” is an anthem album that often can be devastating. It’s for those who have experienced heartbreak, unrequited love, or just feel like they’ve been processing certain things for far too long. It comfortably licks old wounds in a crafty way.

The singles

I’d be remiss in not mentioning singles from artists I discovered through the app TikTok that I spinned all year, many on constant repeat: “21″ from Gracie Abrams, “July” from Noah Cyrus & Leon Bridges, “Evergreen (You Didn’t Deserve Me At All)” from Omar Apollo, “Quarter Life Crisis” from Taylor Bickett and “Can I Be Him” from James Arthur.

Through TikTok, too, I discovered (and re-discovered) past releases that I fell in love with all over again, including “For Emma, Forever Ago” by Bon Iver, “Speak Now” by Taylor Swift (arguably one of her best albums) and “Strange Desire” from the Bleachers.

For some Canadian pop artists, Christmas music is the gift that keeps on giving

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Mariah Carey performs to a recording of All I Want for Christmas Is You at Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade in New York.NBC/Getty Images

When Mariah Carey performed to a recording of All I Want for Christmas Is You at Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade in New York last month, the holiday season more or less commenced. The crowd against the commercialization of the holidays cried, “Too soon!” For some musicians, however, it couldn’t come soon enough.

December is a jackpot month for artists with holiday albums in their catalogues, especially in a country where a holiday record (Michael Bublé’s Christmas) won a Juno Award for album of the year. Not only are festive songs evergreen and popular, they are the passports into the lucrative seasonal concert schedule.

“We released Barenaked for the Holidays in 2004, and we’ve toured behind it 12 years now,” said Barenaked Ladies’ drummer Tyler Stewart. “It’s the gift that keeps on giving.”

The band’s Hometown Holidays tour this month covered 14 cities, from Vancouver to Toronto. Not only does their 18-year-old album give them material for an annual show, it allows them to hit markets more frequently. Barenaked Ladies just played a Toronto-area concert in November, at Casino Rama in Orillia, Ont. Less than a month later they were back in the same region with a holiday concert at Toronto’s Massey Hall. This kind of tour routing is only feasible with a completely different show on the return visit.

“Our fans love it,” Stewart said.

The BNL show was just one of the holiday concerts that filled up this month’s calendar at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. The artists booked there, including Molly Johnson, Good Lovelies, the Tenors, Kellylee Evans, and Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy, all have recorded seasonal albums at some point in their careers. Coming off the pandemic, generally ticket sales this year have been sluggish, according to promoters and presenters who spoke to The Globe and Mail. Christmas concerts were the exception.

“There’s a significant appetite,” said Heather Gibson, responsible for non-orchestral music programming at the NAC.

What helps fuel the demand is the family nature of the events. With multi-generations attending, tickets are snapped up quickly. “It’s a holiday experience with kids, parents and grandparents,” said Tim Des Islets. “Where typically fans are buying two or three or four seats, for Christmas shows it’s six, eight and 10.”

Des Islets is the founder of the Canadian artist management company Noisemaker. His clients include the Newfoundland vocal trio the Once and Ontario’s Good Lovelies, both touring mistletoe music this month. Citing the broader audiences who attend Christmas concerts, Des Islets sees the shows as a marketing tool. “It’s an opportunity to introduce a new fan base to the band.”

Comprised of singer-songwriters Caroline Brooks, Kerri Ough, and Susan Passmore, the harmony trio Good Lovelies are a hot ticket on the summer folk festival circuit. But, with three holiday-themed albums and EPs to their credit, they’ve developed a niche as annual Christmas specialists as well.

Barenaked Ladies on the Bravo! Program in December 2006.Geoff George/Handout

“The Good Lovelies are like the Messiahs of pop music,” says the NAC’s Gibson. “Our orchestra has to do Messiah and I have to book the Good Lovelies. I think I would catch a fair bit of flack if I didn’t bring them in.”

Despite the demand for seasonal pop, it’s not as easy as decking the halls with retreads of Jingle Bell Rock and, with all due respect to Bruce Springsteen, Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Both Good Lovelies and Barenaked Ladies mix in their own holiday-themed material with traditional chestnuts and covers. “It was important for us to write original songs,” says BNL’s Stewart. “With the complete saturation of the shopping environment today, by the time Christmas rolls around, you’re kind of done with hearing the same old songs.”

It’s hard to deny the bottom-line implications of putting out Christmas music. According to a 2017 report from The Economist, singer Carey, the self-branded Queen of Christmas, had earned more than US$60-million from All I Want for Christmas Is You since its release in 1994. That big number doesn’t reflect touring income from seasonal concerts. With a pair of jingle-belled shows this month at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena and two more at New York’s Madison Square Garden, Carey is laughing all the way to the bank.

Other seasonal ventures are more organic. Hawksley Workman recorded Almost a Full Moon in 2001 as a mediation on his sentiments toward Christianity and as a nostalgic celebration of family. It was also a reaction to 9/11. “The songs were written at a time when the world was rethinking its position on religion and how these things play out globally,” said Workman, whose Almost a Full Moon tour this year hit 14 Ontario markets. “There were zero commercial intentions for the record.”

The album is tuneful and thoughtful, with such nose-nipping gems as First Snow of the Year, Common Cold and Let’s Make Some Soup. Workman tours the record every year now. As well, the songs were adapted by playwright Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman for a stage musical that premiered at the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton this fall. Rather than a one-off holiday lark, Almost a Full Moon endures as one of the Juno-winning musician’s finest works.

“There’s nothing maudlin, which is what Christmas music is turning into,” Workman said. “All the songs came from my gut and my heart, which is why I think the music has fallen into people’s lives in a way that is meaningful enough that it has become an annual tradition. I mean, I’m not singing garbage.”

Do you think you have what it takes to complete The Globe’s giant holiday crossword?

Download the puzzle here. Share your progress with us on social media using the hashtag #GlobeCrossword.

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Country music highlights quiet Waco-area weekend

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Christmas weekend finds a quieter local music scene than previous December weekends, with a Nashville singer-songwriter, a Texas bluegrass trio and a multi-performer night the highlights for country music fans.

The weekend offers local followers of Nashville country singer-songwriter Kristen Kelly another chance to see the Lorena native perform for the home folks.

Kelly, whose sister Kimberly also is a country singer-songwriter, will play a solo show at 8 p.m. Friday at Bull Hide Creek Sports Tavern, 7589 Golinda Drive in Golinda. In addition to the live music, the evening will feature a catered taco bar and full bar service.

“It’s my last hometown show of the year. It’s always fun to come back and play for the hometown,” she said in a phone interview earlier this week.

Kelly returns to Central Texas a month after her latest single release, “Smoke,” which had a double tribute to her parents: Its release date of Nov. 10 fell on her mother Cindy Laughlin’s birthday and the image of a cigarette-filled ashtray that accompanied “Smoke” was the ashtray of her father Danny Kelly, who died last January.

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“Both parents were super, super supportive, encouraging my sister and I both to keep writing and playing shows,” she said.

These days, Kelly finds herself drawing from her early days as a performer with local rock cover band Big Dave and the Freaks and, working with co-writer Bridgette Tatum (“She’s Country”), has been blending rootsy rock with country.

Kelly’s most recent release, her first project in six years, is a two-part EP, “Something Worth Saying,” whose second part arrived early last year. Kelly, tabbed as one of CMT’s Next Women of Country, also has opened for such Nashville stars as Brad Paisley, Montgomery Gentry, Rascal Flatts and Gary Allan.

The year ahead will find Kelly releasing more new music, playing solo gigs and moving into podcasting with “Something Worth Saying,” adapted from the monthly songwriters’ round she’s hosted in Nashville. She’ll take that podcast on the road, in a “Nashville writers’ round-style show coming to a city near you,” she said.

Bluegrass band

Cold may send the music inside at the debut of the McGregor Country Christmas festival Thursday and Friday when bluegrass band the Purple Hulls is scheduled to play.

The Hulls, anchored by twins Katy Lou Clark and Penny Lea Clark Gimble, with bassist Sarah Birkeland rounding out the trio will perform at 6 p.m. Thursday and 7:15 p.m. Friday on the festival’s outdoor stage.

The Clarks grew up in a musical farming family near Kilgore — yes, their name comes from the purple hull peas the family grew — and took their talents to Nashville after graduating from South Plains College in Levelland, where they studied music and played basketball. For five years, they did studio recordings, worked for the Grand Ole Opry and wrote songs for the Sony/ATV music publishing company. They returned to their family farm in Texas about 12 years ago and continue to perform. Penny Lea Clark married McLennan County District Clerk Jon Gimble earlier this year.

Not goodbye

It’s not a goodbye that Axtell country musician Michael Saldana will make with six friends at The Backyard on Friday, but more like a — well, the informal title says it best: “Slow Down Saldana.”

Saldana, a frequent performer at area bars, clubs and other live music venues, is cutting back on performing next year to try and heal his vocal nodes.

“Singing five nights a week, sometimes four hours a night — I pushed it too hard,” he admitted recently. Told by a doctor to slow down or risk permanent damage to his voice, he’s opting for the former after 16 years as a performer.




Waco country performer Michael Saldana will have a half dozen local players join him Friday in a “Slow Down Saldana” show Friday at The Backyard.




He’s got six musical friends lined up to perform at Friday’s “Slow Down” show. In light of the low temperatures forecast for Friday night, the event will be inside rather than on The Backyard’s outdoor stage. “I’m not going to torture my friends,” he laughed.

Planning to play are Chris Low, Larissa Boyd, Lauren January, J.C. Pringle, Towne Adams and Lucas Jones.

Doors open at 6 p.m. with the music starting at around 7 p.m. Each of those performing will have solo time onstage, but it’s more like an open jam, and other musicians are encouraged to show up with their guitars.

“It’s one big blowout with all my friends,” Saldana said. “We’re playing for fun.”

Classical music is proving more popular than ever on the internet

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STOCKHOLM, Dec 20 — Elitist, outdated, old-fashioned. Prejudices about classical music can be deep-rooted. However, it’s a musical genre that keeps on finding ways of renewing itself in the hope of rallying a younger audience. And that, it seems to have found on social media, in particular on YouTube.

So suggests the first annual report from Epidemic Sound, a Swedish company that offers easy access to over 35,000 royalty-free compositions. It shows that the use of classical music on YouTube has increased by 90 per cent in the last 12 months. This would make classical music the genre that has seen the strongest growth among content creators in 2022.

So what’s driving this renewed interest in the compositions of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert? Their timelessness, it seems. Indeed, the expression “classical music” itself evokes the idea of the genre not being tied to a contemporary age. The works belonging to this musical repertoire seem to cross the ages, contrary to certain songs that remain forever associated with a very precise moment in time.

These pieces also have the advantage of conveying a wide range of emotions, and can therefore be used as a soundtrack for a wide range of content. The classical repertoire is used in humorous and educational videos, as well as in news and fashion reports, according to the “Sound of the Internet” report. YouTube artist Cecilia Blomdahl uses classical pieces to introduce her 491,000 followers to her life in the Svalbard archipelago, located halfway between the North Pole and the Norwegian mainland. “Classical music […] can be both melancholic and joyful depending on the footage, so the genre fits really well with the feeling I want to evoke in my videos,” she said.

Bringing classical music to new audiences

Musicians such as Christoffer Moe Ditlevsen and Hampus Naeselius are benefiting particularly from this musical trend. The Swedish pair are the classical music composers whose pieces have been used in the most YouTube videos this year, according to Epidemic Sound. Trevor Kowalski, Megan Wofford and Franz Gordon also make the list.

For Oscar Höglund, CEO of Epidemic Sound, this could serve as inspiration to others. “I expect there will be an even larger movement towards storytellers using classical music in their content, which also creates an opportunity for classical music artists to continue to modernize the genre and appeal to new audiences,” he explains.

This renewed interest in the classical repertoire is not limited to YouTube. It is just as prominent on TikTok, Gen Z’s favourite social network. The #classicalmusic hashtag has over 2.3 billion views on the platform. And classical works feature in videos as diverse as a rehearsal video from the trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf, and a video of someone cutting pumpkin seeds into tiny strips. Here too, classical music proves its versatility.

@ibrahimmaaloufofficiel SOLD OUT #classicalmusic show where I will be playing my Third Symphony !! Thank you to everyone coming to watch the show #symphony #tiktokmusic son original – Ibrahim Maalouf

If these new uses can annoy purists, they have the merit of encouraging TikTok’s young users to discover — and appreciate — a musical genre that’s all too often viewed as stuffy and outdated. Indeed, research suggests that under 35s massively turned to the classical repertoire during the Covid pandemic. In fact, their consumption increased by 17 per cent between April 2019 and April 2020, according to a study produced jointly by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Deezer and the British Phonographic Industry.

And it’s a phenomenon that TikTok is fully aware of. The short-form video platform partnered with Warner Classics to release, in August, a compilation of the most listened-to tracks on the application. Here, all the songs had been reworked by the German Babelsberg Film Orchestra, including orchestral versions of Say So by Doja Cat, No Roots by Alice Merton or Wipe It Down by BMW Kenny. An initiative that’s sure to help bring classical music to new audiences. — ETX Studio

Country artist Riley Green joins lineup for Wildwood’s Barefoot Country Music Fest

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WILDWOOD — Riley Green has joined the roster of artists scheduled to perform at the third annual Barefoot Country Music Fest in June.

Green is the 2020 Academy of Country Music award recipient for New Male Artist of the Year. He performed last summer at the TidalWave Music Festival on the beach in Atlantic City.

He will join country music stars like Blake Shelton, Kid Rock, Darius Rucker and more than 40 other artists on the beach June 15 to 18.

For more information about the festival and to purchase tickets, visit bcmf.com.

Music to match the mood of the book you are reading

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Reading a book can be a monotonous exercise at times. To beat the monotony, some people take to play songs in the background. But the discordant tempo of the music may distract the listener making him/her lose focus.

But what if there was suitable ambient music to go with the mood of the para that one isreading? Researchers at International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIIT-H) have worked on such a thought and developed an algorithm that syncs well with what one is reading in e-book format.

In their demo, the team comprising Makarand Tapaswi, Vinoo Alluri (both faculties) and BTech student Jaidev Shriram took the soundtrack from the Harry Potter movie and aptlyjuxtaposed it with the novel.

Recognition

Their research, pending patent, has won the Brave New Idea Award at the 23rd International Society for Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR 2022) held in Bengaluru early this month.

Vinoo Alluri

Jaidev Shriram

Makarand Tapaswi

In its initial stage, the research is focussed on books that have been adapted for movies. “Harry Potter series was an obvious choice for us as its movie adaptations are big hits,” Shriram said.

The researchers cut the book into parts, with each part reflecting a mood. The soundtrack from the movie too was pruned scene-wise. “We categorised the music based on how homogenous it sounded in terms of emotion,” said Shriram.

While only a part of the book matched with the movie, the researchers filled in gaps with an emotion-based retrieval system. “If a para evokes feelings of anger, gloom or fear, then the algorithm would automatically choose a bit that reflects the mood,” Alluri said.

Elements like these allows the application to play relevant music seamlessly as you scroll down or up the book on your digital device.

She, however, admits that there is a limitation in terms of the length of the music that they could use from the original sound track, factoring in the intellectual property rights.
She, however, says that the use cases can be many. “For one, we can talk to the e-book players who can consider adding another dimension to their subscribers,” she said.



How classical music said thank you to the Queen in 2022

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In classical music, as in all the arts, 2022 was supposed to be a new dawn, a joyous surging back to life after the dismalness of two lockdown years. In the event, it was – but only up to a point. 

Numerous events were curtailed or hampered because of illness, and the Proms lost two headline artists, Jonas Kaufmann and Freddie De Tommaso, to bouts of Covid. And the return of audiences to live events has been tentative. Only for the biggest names have venues been able to fill every seat, and most orchestras report audiences are still about 15 per cent down on pre-pandemic figures. 

Brexit continues to exert a huge drag, imposing maddening bureaucratic delays and costs on anyone who wants to travel to the EU to perform – and vice versa. The ­Russian invasion of Ukraine was another blow, as organisations rushed to disinvite Russian soloists, give back tainted Russian money, and cancel concerts with Russian music (though there was also an upside, in the rush to programme fine Ukrainian composers we’d never heard of).

These headwinds were expected. What was not expected, and came as a nasty shock, was the sharp dec­line in listeners to the BBC’s classical music station, Radio 3, which lost one in six of its listeners in the third quarter of 2022. Commercial stations Classic FM and Scala Radio were also sharply down, by 6.5 per cent and 9.5 per cent respectively. There was much anxious speculation that just as listeners were losing the habit of going to concerts, they were also losing the habit of turning on the radio, as well.

Underneath the temporary choppy seas of rising costs and falling revenues run deeper, less vis­ible currents of social and cultural change, to which musicians and organisations must adapt. Classic FM now offers playlists organised by “mood”. In a nod to younger listeners’ preference for spiritually “immersive” music, Radio 3, once the home of strenuous high-mindedness, has invited Icelandic musician Ólafur Arnalds to curate his own series, Ultimate Calm, which explores “how classical, contemporary and ambient music can soothe the soul”. The fact that some musicians still talk in terms of musical experience as a effortful “going on a journey”, whereas others now see it as a lucid, thoroughly wide-awake process of following the unfolding logic of a piece, shows that there are competing visions of what classical music is or should be.

MARTIN: Willie Nelson and ZZ Top tix on sale this week; a chat with Aaron Watson | Community Alert

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Whitewater Amphitheater had a fantastic season this year, and the venue is hard at work planning for an exciting one in 2023.

They are off to a great start, with their first announcement of a co-headlining show with Willie Nelson and ZZ Top on April 14 and 15.

Both acts will perform full sets and receive equal billing. Tickets go on sale Friday, Dec. 16, at 10 a.m. at WhiteWaterRocks.com.

According to the venue’s Facebook announcement, your tickets will not be emailed to you until 72 hours prior to the event.

Though pairing an iconic country artist with a classic rock band might seem strange at first glance, it does make perfect sense.

After all, both Willie Nelson and ZZ Top are true Texas icons. and what better place to join forces than right in the heart of the Lone Star State.

Whenever I think of Texas country or Texas rock and roll, Nelson and ZZ Top are the first two names that come to mind.

I would be willing to bet that most Texas music fans will be super excited seeing these legendary acts on the same stage on the same night.

Who knows, maybe they will even team up on a few songs. Willie actually recorded a version of ZZ Top’s song “I Love My Automobile” for a tribute album many years ago.

I bet ZZ Top could do a blistering version of “Whiskey River,” too. I once saw them play a rock version of Johnny Cash’s hit “Folsom Prison Blues,” so anything is possible.

Obviously this show will sell out instantly, so be ready to jump online at 10 a.m. Friday morning.

While we are talking about ZZ Top, they just announced another co-headlining tour this summer featuring Lynyrd Skynyrd.

They are calling it the Sharp Dressed Simple Man Tour, and they will make two stops in Texas. The first will be at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth on July 29 and another on July 30 at the Cynthia Woods Pavilion in the Woodlands. Tickets for this tour can be purchased at Ticketmaster.com.

Aaron Watson to play Gruene Hall shows

Texas country artist Aaron Watson returns to Gruene Hall this weekend for two shows.

His Saturday night show with Kemberly Kelly as the opening act is sold out.

On Sunday night, his special guest will be Hayden Baker, and at press time, there were still tickets available at GrueneHall.com.

I had the chance to speak with Aaron a few weeks ago to discuss the upcoming shows and to talk about his year. Just as he was ready to release his latest album, “Unwanted Man,” he had a rare vocal cord flare up that put him on complete vocal rest for months.

He had just survived being off the road during the pandemic, so this setback was tough.

“I owe it all to the Texas music scene,” Aaron explained. “It’s given me the chance to do what I love for a living. I just love Gruene Hall, we’ve been playing there for forever now. Over the past 20 years I’m not sure how many shows I’ve played there, but it’s a bunch. I like doing the back-to-back nights, it’s so much fun. The band and I get to relax a bit, kind of our own staycation.”

Aaron and his wife have three children, and if you follow him on social media, you can tell he is a great dad.

“I love being a dad,” Aaron said. “I think that’s one of the reasons I’ve remained an independent artist. It gives me more freedom to do what I want to do. I can make decisions based on my family and what’s best for them.

“It has been a fun job to have with my kids. They enjoy getting to go to work with dad. That means the world to me. I tell people that we are a small-town business and our business is country music. When you come out to Gruene Hall and buy a ticket and buy merchandise, you are helping me pay for my band and helping me keep the lights on at home.”

When I asked Aaron how he survived the pandemic and then vocal issues, he admitted it was tough times.

“It was definitely a double whammy,” he said. “But life is full of double whammys. If you live long enough you are going to face challenges. I am still seeing a throat specialist in Birmingham, Alabama. It’s hard to feel sorry for yourself when you walk through the office and see all the cancer patients fighting for their lives.

“You have to put things in perspective. I think sometimes we live our life like we are going to be young and healthy forever, and that’s just not the case. One of my vocal cords got inflamed from over working and over singing.

“It is bound to happen when you play as many shows as we do. Every now and then you have to stop and put on new tires.”

One positive outcome of having so much down time is the fact that he has three finished albums that he still hasn’t released.

Aaron assured me that he has big plans for next year, and as a huge fan, I can hardly wait to see what he has in store for us.

A Very Bibulous Christmas at Devil’s Backbone

The Devil’s Backbone Tavern is one of the most historic venues in the Texas Hill Country.

What was once a stagecoach stop for the early settlers has become a regular stop for some of the best artists in the music business.

Owned and operated by musicians Robyn and John Ludwick, they continue to book the best that Texas music has to offer.

This Friday, they will have a talented group of artists joining forces for a show called “A Very Bibulous Christmas.”

It will be hosted by Mike Harmeier and will feature special guests Matt Hillyer, Django Walker, Jonathan Terrell and Cody Braun. Get your tickets now at DevilsBackBoneTavern.com.

Comal Country Music Show scheduled for Dec. 20

Last month, I dropped the ball and failed to mention the anniversary of the Comal Country Music Show.

Hopefully their die-hard fans went and enjoyed some great country music. Next Tuesday, Dec. 20, they will host their December show at the Columbus Club Hall on Landa Street.

The doors open at 6 p.m. and the music begins at 7:30 p.m., with the low price of just $7 at the door.

As always, all profits are donated to the Meals on Wheels program at the Comal County Senior Center. The guests this month are two amazing singers, Loren Woods and Yesenia McNett.

Austin City Limits announces 2023 season

Austin City Limits, the longest-running show of its kind in history, just announced their 2023 season. The new season will start with an ACL Hall of Fame induction of Sheryl Crow on Jan. 7.

The season will continue with Nathaniel Rateliff and Adia Victoria on Jan. 14, Adrian Quesada on Jan. 21, War on Drugs on Jan. 28, Pavement on Feb. 4, Maren Morris on Feb. 11, and Spoon on Feb. 18. The season will conclude on Feb. 25 with another ACL Hall of Fame induction of Joe Ely. The Austin City Limits TV show is broadcast locally on KLRN, the PBS station in San Antonio.

Random notes from the music scene

Hope Hospice and Village Venue will be hosting a Winterzeit Christmas Show on Friday, Dec. 16, at 7:30 p.m. Live music will be provided by Zack Walther and Matt Briggs. It will be a CD release party for their new Christmas album.

There is a $25 entry fee with 50% of ticket sales going to the Hope Hospice Grief Center. This family-friendly event will be held at the Silos at Freiheit, located at 2032 Central Plaza.

Gruene Hall just announced some new shows that include Dale Watson, Los Texmaniacs, Micky & the Motorcars, Roger Creager and a second show by the reformed Uncle Lucius. Tickets for all the shows go on-sale Friday at 10 a.m. at GrueneHall.com.

Rock band Blue October will play the Tech Port Arena in San Antonio on Saturday, Dec. 17.

Riley’s Tavern recently held a toy drive that collected 75 toys and $2,000. Well done guys, this will help a lot of local kids have a better Christmas.

Redbird Listening Room welcomes Bryon White on Sunday at 4 p.m. He’s the lead singer of The Damn Quails. Next Wednesday at the Redbird is the sold-out show by William Beckmann.

The rock band Kansas celebrated 50 years with the 3-CD set of hits titled “Another Fork In The Road.” According to their press release, they are releasing an American version and a European version. As Christmas gets closer, more venues will be hosting special holiday shows. A quick look at the concert calendar and you will see that the Brauntex Theatre, Devil’s Backbone Tavern, Gruene Hall, Luckenbach Dance Hall, Our Lady Bar & Grill, Rudy’s BBQ, and Villa at Gruene all have special shows this week.

The amount of classical music in YouTube videos is up 90% year-over-year

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Not all digital creators prefer contemporary beats in the background of their content. An increasing number of them are dusting off old tracks for their new videos. The soundtracker’s end-of-year data reveals that its classical music library has now been streamed more than 200 million times, and those pieces appeared in 90% more YouTube videos than in the previous year.

Those figures are two of the headlines from Epidemic Sound’s report, which pulled out yearly trends from among the 20 million video views that featured its music. One year after raising a $450 million funding round, the Stockholm-based company brought its library of licensed tracks to 14 million videos, which earned 1.5 billion views per day on YouTube. On TikTok, videos with Epidemic Sound audio averaged 11.5 billion monthly views in 2022.

Though electronica, pop, hip hop, and alternative are still the most-common genres chosen by Epidemic Sound users, one of the oldest forms of music on record made a huge comeback in 2022. Classical music downloads rose 64% year-over-year on the Epidemic Sound platform, and those tracks appeared in videos around the world. In 13 of the 15 content categories tracked by Epidemic Sound, classical was the fastest-growing soundtrack choice of 2022.

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Cecilia Blomdahl, who uses classical music in her videos, said that the genre is going because it is timeless enough to outlast any contemporary music trends. “The right song is vital in setting the scene,” Bloomdahl said. “Classical music provides a great range of emotions. It can be both melancholic and joyful depending on the footage, so the genre fits really well with the feeling I want to evoke in my videos.”

By releasing an end-of-year statistical breakdown, Epidemic Sound is mirroring the platforms that feature its library of tracks. The 13-year-old company has increased its profile as a production company, and it has released videos that highlight the artists who work with it. The most-used Epidemic Sound artist of 2022, Ooy, appeared in a 2019 short film from YouTuber Peter McKinnon. That collab was put together by the music licenser.

For more information, check out the infographic available on the Epidemic Sound website.



What is nightcore, the musical subgenre that is all about accelerated time?

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NEW YORK, Dec 11 — Without being a dedicated listening platform like Spotify, YouTube or Apple Music, TikTok has managed to establish itself as a booster of music trends. For the latest proof, one need only look at nightcore, a subgenre that first appeared in the early 2000s. It has recently made a mark on the social network as the soundtrack of a generation that lives life at a hundred miles an hour.

The term brings together “night” with “-core,” the suffix currently being attached to all the micro-trends of the moment. Nightcore refers to remixing any song to a tempo of 160 beats per minute, like that of most techno tracks these days. TikTok users are having fun speeding up disparate hits like Tears for Fears’ Everybody Wants to Rule the World, Sam Smith’s “I’m Not the Only One, Lady Gaga’s Just Dance and Brandy and Monica’s The Boy Is Mine.

The more unexpected the song choice, the more successful it seems to be. Jarred Jermaine has made this his specialty. On TikTok, the American producer shares with his 4.3 million subscribers accelerated versions of hits such as No by Meghan Trainor and Miss You by Oliver Tree and Robin Schulz, but also of movie scenes. There’s something for everyone, as long as you like to hear nasal vocals over a super-fast tempo.

@jarredjermaine Viral sped up song edit from the Wednesday dance scene with Jenna Ortega vs. the original version Lady Gaga “Bloody Mary” & actual song they used in the scene from the TV show The Cramps “Goo Goo Muck” #viraltiktok #tiktoksound #wednesday #jennaortega #dance #ladygaga #bloodymary #thecramps #googoomuck #tvshow #tvshows #netflix #spedup #spedupsounds #spedupaudios #spedupsongss #spedupsongs #slowed #music Goo Goo Muck – The Cramps

But Jarred Jermaine isn’t the only one riding the sped-up trend. The hashtag associated with this trend, #spedupsounds, has over 9 million views on TikTok. It has also helped to bring some older songs back to the forefront such as Cool for the Summer by Demi Lovato. The song, from the American singer’s fifth album, is the fourth most popular track on the social network this year, despite having been released in 2015.

A 20-year-old subgenre

This promise of going viral is inspiring young artists, like Steve Lacy, to release accelerated versions of some of their hits. The aim is to make them as “TikTok-friendly” as possible and, thus, to increase their number of listens on music-streaming platforms. A perfect example is the remix of Roses that Kazakh producer Imanbek released in 2019. This version of Saint Jhn’s track on steroids became a commercial success after finding its audience on TikTok, allowing it to stay 23 weeks at the top of Billboard’s “Hot Dance/Electronic Songs” chart in 2020. Enough to make musician Jaime Brooks wonder on Twitter if Imanbek had inadvertently given birth to the “first nightcore hit.”

While the recent rise in popularity of fast-paced songs seems to prove him right, this musical subgenre actually dates back to 2002. It was dreamed up by Norwegians Thomas S. Nilsen and Steffen Ojala Soderholm. The two men were still in high school when they were asked to create their own song, according to the New York Times. They drew inspiration from German band Scooter’s Nessaja and the happy hardcore repertoire, a genre of electronic music that emerged in the early 1990s. The result: a track with an infectious beat that Thomas S. Nilsen and Steffen Ojala Soderholm created using eJay Dance 3 software.

Their teacher, however, wasn’t convinced as the duo received a “C+” grade for their composition, as revealed by the Times. But this prompted them to compose an entire record of equally sped-up tracks, which they gave copies of to their friends and relatives. And as luck would have it, their tracks found their way online and helped create the “nightcore” movement.

Combining the new and the nostalgic

But what accounts for the resurgence of this musical subgenre two decades after its inception? For Emma Winston, an ethnomusicologist who studied “nightcore” in 2017, the appeal lies in the subculture’s playfulness and deep community aspect. “It was almost as if the idea of good music was replaced with valuing participation in and of itself,” she told the Times.

Indeed, anyone is free to contribute to the “nightcore” movement by remixing, more or less skillfully, the track of their choice. This DIY spirit works wonderfully on TikTok, a platform where anyone can become a content creator. However, as a good alternative subgenre, “nightcore” raises questions in terms of copyright issues. Questions that the proponents of this subculture brush aside. They are above all driven by a will to listen to tracks they have sometimes known for years with a new spin. Once remixed in a “nightcore” style, these same tracks have the feel of something new, like they did the first time they heard them, but at the same time seem strangely familiar.

And it’s on this arc of nostalgia that “nightcore” works, not unlike the rest of the music industry, according to Simon Reynolds. The English music critic has devoted a long essay, entitled “Retromania” (2010), to this phenomenon that is driving the cultural sector. He refers to the first decade of the 21st century as the “re-decade,” characterised by “revivals, reissues, remakes and re-enactments,” he explains there. Nightcore is one of the manifestations of this nostalgia boosted by the art of revisiting. But at high speed. — ETX Studio