The New Music Post

Last Saturday I drudged, cleaning the kitchen, slogging around doing dishes, scuffing across the floor I'd just mopped a few days before, and getting increasingly irritated at the radio. I don't know the stations around here well yet, but everything sounds the same. If there's a classical station, it's never playing music when I flip around the dial. If there's an oldies station, I can't find it. I'm weary of the pop songs that all sound the same, and the easy-listening station that has a rotation of the same 100 tired hits, and the greasy alternative whiners with their canned angst. I wanted something fresh that would get into my blood. More than anything, I wanted to sing.

As I pushed junk around the counters, the DJ crooned, "And here's that number by Adele that's been climbing the charts," and I heard this, and it was as if I suddenly woke up.



I was instantly addicted, and I did something I haven't done in years: I bought a CD. For one song.

And finally it arrived, and I popped it in, and how deflatingly right I was: I bought the CD for one song. I'm not so young and impressionable that any ditty of love and longing can hook me in. I won't fault Adele as a singer: her voice continues to resonate with me. I think it's amazing that she can drive a music video by simply sitting in a chair and singing her heart out. But it's not enough. The producers seemed to know they had a good thing on their hands with "Rolling in the Deep" and poured all their creative powers into that one song, leaving nothing for the rest of the album. Everything else was... kind of boring, frankly.

But now I want more. Where is the good new music? Who are the compelling new singers and songwriters? What is interesting and fresh and compelling? And -- this is key -- what is singable?