{"id":6286,"date":"2018-01-07T16:54:52","date_gmt":"2018-01-07T21:54:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=6286"},"modified":"2018-01-07T16:54:52","modified_gmt":"2018-01-07T21:54:52","slug":"music-update-december-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2018\/01\/07\/music-update-december-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Music update, December 2017."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I sometimes post a monthly playlist for December after my top 100 songs of the year come out to catch singles that came out after I posted the rankings, but this year there weren&#8217;t quite enough songs for that, so this is more of a salmagundi of singles I missed from earlier in the year, new stuff that didn&#8217;t make the list, a few songs that did but are good enough to mention again, and so on. You can <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/user\/keithlaw1\/playlist\/5Q6SN5yYNil9SaEq2dsSdA\" target=\"_blank\">access the playlist here<\/a> if the widget below doesn&#8217;t work.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/user\/keithlaw1\/playlist\/5Q6SN5yYNil9SaEq2dsSdA\" width=\"300\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Artificial Pleasure \u2013 Wound up Tight.<\/strong> This was #80 on <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/2oMMxBv\" target=\"_blank\">my top 100 songs of 2017<\/a>, the first song I&#8217;d heard from this London electronic-rock group, who have released a few singles but no full-length album yet. I&#8217;d say it&#8217;s like the Human League meet Wild Beasts.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Decemberists \u2013 Ben Franklin&#8217;s Song.<\/strong> A &#8220;Hamildrop&#8221; with lyrics courtesy of Lin-Manuel Miranda, who apparently wrote the words with the Decemberists in mind, then sent them to Colin Meloy, who produced what I think is one of the band&#8217;s best tunes to go with it. Warning: There&#8217;s some choice language within.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kid Astray \u2013 Roads.<\/strong> This was #85 on my best of 2017 list, the third time this Norwegian indie-pop act has made one of my annual top 100s. <\/p>\n<p><strong>The Fratellis \u2013 Stand up Tragedy.<\/strong> I feel like the Fratellis&#8217; lyrics are sort of a poor man&#8217;s version of the wordplay we get from the Wombats&#8217; Matthew Murphy, which may in turn be a reaction to the Fratellis&#8217; biggest hit coming from their 2006 debut. It&#8217;s a bit of a shame that &#8220;Chelsea Dagger,&#8221; a great song in its own right, has overshadowed their later work; they&#8217;ve produced plenty of solid-average tunes like this one even if they haven&#8217;t matched their first song&#8217;s peak.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Wombats \u2013 Turn.<\/strong> Speak of the devils. This is a little more midtempo than my favorite Wombats songs, and didn&#8217;t make my top 100 (although &#8220;Lemon to a Knife Fight&#8221; did at #17. <em>Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life<\/em> drops on February 9th, and their US tour starts this week (with a show in Philly I can&#8217;t make, unfortunately).<\/p>\n<p><strong>HAERTS \u2013 The Way.<\/strong> HAERTS released this single on December 8th, their third of 2017, but there&#8217;s still no word of a new album.  <\/p>\n<p><strong>Van William \u2013 Before I Found You.<\/strong> The WATERS lead singer&#8217;s debut solo album, <em>Countries<\/em>, is due out on January 19th, and includes this single, &#8220;Country&#8221; (#91 on my 2017 top 100), &#8220;Revolution&#8221; (#41 on <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/2gPBItT\" target=\"_blank\">my 2016 top 100<\/a>), and &#8220;Fourth of July (#15 on my 2016 list). So I&#8217;m looking forward to it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Belle &#038; Sebastian \u2013 The Girl Doesn&#8217;t Get It.<\/strong> The Scottish stalwarts are releasing three Eps over three months under the collective title <em>How to Solve Our Human Problems<\/em>, with an expected 15 songs in total. It&#8217;s more of a return to their typical style, if they can even be said to have one, after their outstanding pop\/dance-tinged <em>Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sunflower Bean \u2013 I Was a Fool.<\/strong> &#8220;Wall Watcher&#8221; was #87 on <a href=\"http:\/\/klaw.me\/1NzuUp3\" target=\"_blank\">my 2015 top 100<\/a>; this is the band&#8217;s first new single since their 2016 debut album and their last single, &#8220;Easier Said.&#8221; The indie\/jangle-pop trio should release their second album some time in 2018, but there&#8217;s no date or title yet.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Anteros \u2013 Love.<\/strong> Anteros&#8217; &#8220;Cherry Drop&#8221; was #43 on my top 100 from last year; this December single was my second-favorite track of the four the band released last year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Afghan Whigs with James Hall \u2013 You Want Love.<\/strong> The Afghan Whigs released this song in June, a cover of a 2004 song by Pleasure Club, as a tribute to the Whigs&#8217; late guitarist. Whigs lead singer Greg Dulli is a longtime fan of Hall, who was the founder and lead singer\/guitarist of Pleasure Club and has had a lengthy underground career as a solo artist.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Buffalo Tom \u2013 All Be Gone.<\/strong> I assumed Buffalo Tom were on a permanent hiatus, but this single just appeared a few weeks ago ahead of a promised new album, their first since 2011. This feels like their &#8217;90s peak in the combination of upbeat music and melancholy lyrics, although the production puts Bill Janovitz&#8217;s vocals further out front.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ten F\u00e9 \u2013 Single, No Return.<\/strong> Ten F\u00e9&#8217;s debut album, <em>Hit the Light<\/em>, was <a href=\"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2018\/01\/02\/top-17-albums-of-2017\/\" target=\"_blank\">my #10 album of 2017<\/a>; they&#8217;ve since become (officially) a five-piece band and released this new single in November.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Saxon \u2013 Thunderbolt.<\/strong> Saxon were a major part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, although they didn&#8217;t have as much success in the U.S. as they did in the U.K., never landing a top 100 album over here. They&#8217;ve continued recording and have had a modest comeback over their last few albums, with this the title track from their upcoming 22nd LP.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Legend Of The Seagullmen \u2013 Shipswreck.<\/strong>. The band&#8217;s own site describes them as a &#8220;genre destroying super-group,&#8221; even though they&#8217;re a prog-metal band. Featuring Brent Hinds of Mastodon, Danny Carey of Tool, and the guy who directed <em>Horton Hears a Who!<\/em>, the band played its debut show on New Year&#8217;s Eve as an opener for Primus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I sometimes post a monthly playlist for December after my top 100 songs of the year come out to catch singles that came out after I posted the rankings, but this year there weren&#8217;t quite enough songs for that, so this is more of a salmagundi of singles I missed from earlier in the year, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[913,359,757,852],"class_list":["post-6286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2017-in-music","tag-alternative","tag-metal","tag-music","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6287,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6286\/revisions\/6287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}