Welcome to My Sunday Song #31. I am back in the driver’s seat after my wife picked the last 10 weeks. For the next 10 weeks we are back to the Christian Artists and songs that have a positive message and have connected with me in some way.
First up we have “Stronger Than We Think” by Danny Gokey off his latest album ‘Rise’. If you want to read the review of that album click on “RISE”. The first song on the album is “Stronger Than We Think” and I loved how timely it felt for everything crazy going on in this country right now. Everything does seem much darker, but there seems to be a fire igniting in all of us and we realize we are all so much stronger than we think we are.
That fire for me is my faith and my family. Without both of those, I would probably be a mess right now. I want everyone to realize they are definitely stronger than they think and there is nothing you can’t do if you set your mind to it.
Take a listen and take the words to heart. Play this song in the morning while you are looking in the mirror and sing the words real loud. I hope they motivate you. I personally haven’t done that as it would wake my whole family as I get up earlier than they do for work. I usually sing it loudly in the car…I don’t want anyone’s ears to start bleeding so that seemed like a safe place. Enjoy!
Happy Friday. What are you in the mood to hear today? You have a lot of variety and can listen to blues, rock, christian worship, classical pop, pop, alternative, metal and movie scores. There are even a couple of 80’s bands back (Depeche Mode and Greg Kihn). Whatever you like, let me know what floats your boat. Mine are highlighted in Blue.
Gary Clark Jr. – Live North America 2016 – (Warner Bros. Records): This is probably the best one on the list. Gary Clark Jr. live doesn’t get much better. If you haven’t heard him before, you are missing out. He is a helluva a guitar player. He is blues, rock, soul, r&b and blends it all nicely together. Listen to the video below and you will be like..DAMN!!! This man is awesome!!.
Elevation Worship – There is a Cloud – (Elevation Church): This church is just down the road from us and they do a great live show every year at the Spectrum Center that always sells out. We have seen them several times at church (when we go) and they are amazing. If you like Worship music, this is one of the better, more talented groups out there.
I have had this coffee table book for at least 7-8 years. My wife knows of my love for music and she got me this book on album covers that mostly covers the 50’s to the 70’s. Thankfully, there aren’t that many words and it is mostly a picture book as that is all I can really handle.
Album artwork was really at its peak in the 70’s and the book commemorates that era with this great collection of album covers. The collection was first released in 1977 and has been updated many times since. This edition from 2008 was the newest edition at the time. They included a Preface by Peter Gabriel and an additional Foreward by John Wetton of King Crimson.
One of the coolest things about the book is it is edited by two of the masters of album artwork. First you have Storm Throgerson, the founder of the company Hipgnosis and they were famous for their album covers for Pink Floyd among others. He also does an additional Foreward.
I’m honored to have been nominated by fellow blogger Jeff Archuleta at Eclectic Music Lover to participate in the ‘My Very First Post’ challenge. I don’t normally do these little things and just stick with my normal schedule, but I figured it is Jeff and one of the first bloggers that followed me, so I owed him that much.
I created my music blog on April 17th of 2016 on the encouragement of my lovely wife. She felt I needed an outlet to talk about my passion for everything music. I love all types of music, but so far my focus has been in the Rock, Pop & Christian genres. I will crossover into other areas if something moves me. I do album reviews, playlists, artist spotlights, song spotlights and talk a lot about my vinyl collection that I started as a result of this blog. A lot of it focuses on my family as well and what they might be listening to and concerts we might see.
Now when I started my blog, I had 10 posts that day and they didn’t pop up in the order I wrote them. The first one I wrote was a Matt Nathanson Artist Profile, but what posted first was my Road Rage Playlist which is what I will repost here as it shows as my first on the site. I hope you enjoy.
Here are the rules for this challenge:
No cheating. (It must be your first post. Not your second post, not one you love…first post only.
Link back to the person who tagged you (thank them if you feel like it or, if not, curse them with a plague of crickets).
Cut and paste your first post into a new post or reblog it. (Either way is fine but NO editing.)
Put the hashtag #MyFirstPostRevisited in your title.
Tag five (5) other bloggers to take up this challenge.
Notify your tags (don’t just hope they notice a pingback somewhere in their spam).
Feel free to cut and paste the badge to use in your post.
Include “the rules” in your post.
Please feel free to participate. Of course, there is no obligation (and I dont’ think they will do it anyway)! I nominate the following bloggers to participate:
Everyone gets Road Rage at some time in their driving life. It is unavoidable. Sitting in Atlanta traffic or even Charlotte traffic now can raise your blood pressure. And how many times have you just wanted to ram your car right into the asshole that just cut you off or rode your bumper. I have too many times to count. When I get that feeling, I have a playlist that I have to put on that will let me just vent my frustration and anger. Maybe you can try it out.
Five Finger Death Punch – “Under And Over It”
Texas Hippie Coalition – “Turn It Up”
Rev Theory – “Justice”
Rob Zombie – “Dead City Radio and the New Gods of Supertown”
Hollywood Undead – “Been to Hell”
Red – “Release the Panic”
Filter – “We Hate It When You Get What You Want”
Adrenaline Mob – “Psychosane”
Disturbed – “Ten Thousand Fists”
Five Finger Death Punch – “Mama Said Knock You Our (featuring Tech N9ne)”
Yes, I have to start and end it with Five Finger Death Punch. Why wouldn’t you??? When this is finished playing, I feel so much better and you will too. What are your Road Rage songs? I am always looking for more.
Through the tragedies (Rhode Island night club fire), the legal battles over the band name, and even the health scares, Jack Russell has persevered. Jack Russell’s Great White delivers a stellar album with ‘He Saw It Comin’.
The album is a huge surprise as I wasn’t expecting much, but man did Jack and the band exceed all expectations. If you are expecting Great White, this is not that band. Jack Russell has gone his own way.
The album doesn’t have a heavy sound throughout, but takes you on a journey through many different styles that cohesively fit together. Jack raps briefly on “She Moves Me”, they completely rock out on “Spy Vs. Spy” (a throwback to MAD magazine?), have total fun with “Crazy”, and they doo-wop on “Godspeed”.
For My Sunday Song #30, my wife chose “You Raise Me Up” by Josh Groban. This is the final selection of her 10 part series. Hard to believe it has already been 10 weeks. I guess that means I will have to start thinking of songs for the next 10 weeks.
Now back to the song, the song is off his second album ‘Closer’ and was released back in 2003. The song was #1 on the Adult Contemporary Chart and made it as high as #73 on the Billboard Hot 100. It even was nominated for a Grammy but didn’t win.
My wife was unable to write a post this week as she has been so busy preparing for my youngest daughter’s 10th birthday party and then to top it off my daughter got sick with the flu which we had to reschedule the party for another weekend. So I will write up the final song she chose and I am sorry as it won’t be as good as what she would say and it won’t even be about why she chose the song. It will be about her and my girls.
What an amazing and inspirational song. Josh Groban has such an amazing and powerful voice. This version of the song is so moving and when played at the right moment can bring you to tears like if it was played in some sort of video montage. Come to think of it I think I used it in a video I did for my wife for Mother’s Day one year. I am sure it made her cry as it probably did me as I was putting the pictures together for the video.
When I was going through the box of vinyl that inspired my series “Turntables & Vinyl”, there were quite a few 45 singles. One of those singles was from a comedian that released a single about King Tutankhamun (King Tut). That person was Steve Martin. The “Wild & Crazy” guy is quite talented and he can kill it on the banjo. He can also sing (don’t let this song be the judge of that singing though). There is no banjo playing on this version sadly, but on the flip side you will here it.
The song was a satire of how the King Tut artifacts were turned into a traveling museum that went around the world back in the 1970’s for people to see and experience. Apparently, Steve found this funny at how popular the exhibit was and how commercialized it had become. I guess he thought he might as well capitalize on its popularity as well.
The song was released in 1978 and actually did quite well as it sold over one million copies and charted as high as #17 on the Billboard Hot 100. One cool fact is the band backing him were members of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and they called themselves the Toot UnCommons for this project (get it!!).
Happy Friday! I hope there are some new releases here that you might like. There is not a whole lot coming out, but a few will be on my list to listen to during the week. I will highlight those in Blue. You will see something from the Jerry Garcia Band for you Deadheads and if you liked Soft Cell from the 80’s there is a greatest hits package from Marc Almond. There is an album by the great country artist Marty Stuart that actually might be worth a listen, but isn’t first up on my list. I will eventually get to that one.
Chickenfoot – Best + Live – (Chickenfoot LLC & Entertainment One): I am not sure how you have a Best of album after only 2 studio albums, but Chickenfoot seems to think they need one. I am thinking it is a contractual obligation they have to fulfil. I will be glad for the Live songs and the one new single “Divine Termination”. No matter what, when you have Sammy, Joe, Chad & Michael together, you are in for a good time.
Bush – Black and White Rainbows – (Zuma Rock Records): Bush is still going strong. This is the first album for Gavin Rossdale since his well publicized divorce from Gwen Stefani. It will be interesting to see how that impacted his song writing for this album. Can’t wait to hear this one regardless of that fact.
I didn’t know what to listen to the other day, so I hit shuffle on my whole library. An old Maroon 5 song came up and I really loved that song. It wasn’t one of their hits, but it was just as good. It got me thinking about all their songs.
Maroon 5 is more than the songs you hear on the radio. Their albums are usually great all the way through. I love it when a band’s non-singles are just as good as their radio hits, if not even better. As a result of this one song randomly popping up on my shuffle, I decided to dive deep into their albums and put together a playlist of the Deep Cuts. It is what I like to call Deep Dive Playlist.
I have only done two others so far since I started the blog. One for Def Leppard and one for Bon Jovi. I hope you enjoy this one as much as people seem to enjoy the other ones. Here is my Deep Dive Playlist for Maroon 5. They are not being ranked, they are only a playlist. I love them all.
“How” off the album ‘Hands All Over Me’: “How” was the song I mentioned that popped up in my shuffle and the inspiration for this deep dive playlist. It is more of a ballad than a pure dance song and I love Adam’s voice in this song. Come to think of it, I love Adam’s voice. How a man can get that high is beyond me, but his voice is so unique and so recognizable the minute you hear it.
Ed Sheeran’s album came out on Friday and my oldest daughter couldn’t be happier. She has been streaming the album almost non-stop since. I am sure I will have to go out and get her the vinyl real soon which I am okay with because I would listen to it as well.
Sheeran’s new album is called Divide (÷) and is his third album in his young career. Ed isn’t like all the other pop artist on the radio. He actually writes his songs and plays his instruments as well. I would even go as far as saying he is a musician and not just a prop for someone else’s songs.
The album has been breaking Spotify streaming records and is getting a lot of press. As a result, going into this record I had pretty high expectations. His first single, “Shape of You” is outstanding and has been blowing up the charts. It is a pop, dance song about new love and the song currently is still my favorite song on the album, but some others are catching up as I keep hitting repeat on the album myself.
The album opens with “Eraser” and has Ed Sheeran doing a little rapping which comes as no surprise since he has done it before and he is a huge hip hop fan. The song talks about his struggles with fame which he doesn’t expect you to feel sorry for him. I could imagine how hard fame really can be and understand the way he feels. It would be hard to have success so fast and all sense of privacy being stripped away. The song is great start to the album.
2 Loud 2 Old Music 