The emotions in these tracks are just so beautifully expressed. It is no wonder that I find myself coming back to Lisa Ritchie’s music again and again. I am impressed and blown away over and over again. I don’t think I need to preface my oft crazy and scattered thoughts anymore, I am not looking to decipher anything merely relaying what thoughts came to mind as I studied each track.

I was introduced to the music of Laur Elle about a month ago and I have been listening to her music daily ever since. I especially connected with the Deluxe Edition of her sophomore album Delayed Reaction. I was blown away by the fact this it was only the second album she had released as it contains such a brilliant, unique and grounded sound as if she has spent many years perfecting it.

Over the past three years or so I have covered nearly every track released by Lisa Ritchie as well as a few unreleased tracks. My goal is discuss all the original tracks that have been released in some form or fashion. So this post adds a few more tracks to my list. I find myself so drawn to her tracks as her songwriting is so very honest and unadulterated; its so relatable. Lisa has become one of my all time favorite songwriters.

Having too much music that I want to discuss is not a bad problem to have. It does mean that I am always playing catch up. Recently Melissa Lamm has collaborated on a few tracks, one of which I completely spaced a few months ago and a second that just released this past weekend. They are both superbly crafted tracks which got me to go check out the other artists involved as soon as I was done listening. All the aspects of these tracks really come together to create something truly amazing.

It has been quite a few years since I thought out what my top 40 albums were and I felt that enough had changed since then that it was time to do it again. The last time around I was crazy enough to write about each and every album on the list. I know that nobody wants to read all that so this time I focused on ten stand out albums that have left a lasting impression.

Perhaps you are sick of me saying this but I will say it anyway. Melissa always kills it and this track is certainly no exception. I love everything about this track and though I am not particularly enamored with astrology the branding and the story that Melissa created surrounding this track was well done. I found it quite entertaining. I cannot say that I have anything incredibly insightful to divulge but I really enjoyed this track so I wanted to talk about regardless.

…on the spectrum of Swifties I am actually pretty far from the top. I don’t bother following relationship drama or really any drama in the media. So as always there are definitely references in this album that I will not discuss at all. I don’t so much care which tracks are about what person. I just want to discuss what I gleaned from a few of the tracks as I listened. This album does contain a substantial amount of magnificent poetry and that is what I am focusing on.

I have written quite a few posts about Alanna’s music over the past few years and have tried many times to state why I find it so moving and I don’t know that I have ever done a very good job at that. I would that it is beautifully tragic, in the most cathartic and uplifting kind of way. Sometimes you need to feel emotions in your life be it sadness, pain, anger or any number of other emotions in order to work through your life experiences. Alanna’s music has a unique way of getting me to feel things.

Recently within the Twitch Music community we were given another dose of Twitch Goes Emo which is certainly a favorite event of mine which cause me to rely on a few hours of sleep as I don’t want to miss any performances. The Twitch streamers who participate always put in a great deal of effort and it is obvious that are passionate about the music they are performing. These events always get me to ponder on about my own Emo music journey

I have enjoyed Luke’s music since I was first introduced to it, there is a very unique feel to his live performances on Twitch and I am always anxious to hear what new spun he will put on a track to make it feel completely different. Luke puts out an impressive amount of new music and what is equally impressive is the amount of collaboration that has been present with his music lately. You can see plainly on his face the amount of joy that’s experienced by working with other artists and I love it. The latest release 2506 Ocean Ave is no exception.

I have been on a folk music kick lately and I thought I would talk about a few of the bands that I have been enjoying the most. There is something so remarkably captivating about well executed harmonies. A song could sound beautiful sung solo but it is exquisitely so when sung by multiple artists whose voices compliment each other. This isn’t something exclusive to folk music of course but I have come across many folk bands that have this but I consider The Wailin’ Jennys & Roswell to be the best of the new discoveries while I have been on this folk journey.

Some time ago I realized that during my initial write up on this track I missed a great deal of the depth and meaning this track contains; it's like an iceberg of lyrical splendor and the first time through I only scratched the surface. I was inspired to do an additional write up when I heard an exquisite cover of “Graveyard” performed by the illustrious Tall and Small, a magnificent duo that I wrote about in length here. I don't know what it was about exactly about this performance that made things click for me but they did.

As I have previously established I do not know much about the creation of music. So I am exceptionally enamored by individuals who can create these impressive song loops by seamlessly weaving all these different parts from various instruments together into fantastic song performances. An artist that consistently surprises and amazes me away with such impressive creations is Kendra Lyssa.

So my specific narrative that I always feel a need to conjure up and flesh out aside what the essence of this track is to me is this. Sometimes in a relationship you may be the one that just isn’t feeling it or doesn’t know exactly how to express yourself etc. You just have to keep going and trying both when it comes to love and relationships but also just when it comes to existing as a human being. Ultimately you’ve got to be true to yourself and I know it sounds cliché but I believe it, nobody is better off trying to be someone they are not regardless of the reasoning.

My perspective on this track is likely to change as I continue to listen but what won’t change is the fact that these are meticulously crafted lyrics that are part of a truly exceptional piece of music.

I feel there is a depth to this album but nothing is hidden it's all there for you to discover you simply have to take the time to do so. I'm certain I still have more insights to glean as I continue to listen but here is what I've come up with thus far after spending the weekend diving into it.

I have been a big fan of The Killers and Brandon Flowers since Hot Fuss; though I have to admit I didn’t know who they were when I saw them for the first time. It was back in 2004, I was nearly 15 years old and was stoked to see one of my favorite bands Jimmy Eat World who were currently touring for their fifth studio album Futures (which I still maintain is one of the best albums they’ve released but that is a discussion for another time perhaps). I remember seeing the opening act was a band called The Killers; which judging only by the name didn’t strike me as a band that would fit with the sort of alternative emo sound that Jimmy Eat World were delivering especially with the Futures which is an emotional climb for sure. So it didn’t really know what to expect and didn’t have high expectations. But by the time this opening act had finished I remember wishing they had gone on longer.

Preparing this post has taught me a number of things. The first being that I didn’t blog nearly enough this past year and it has motivated me to be better going forward. As I was going through my posts for this past year there were songs I swore I had written about and then instead located them in my google docs just sitting there mostly finished…(I am quite angry with myself about this) Secondly I have a tendency to fixate on things. Out of the artists on this list that I wrote about last year I wrote about half of them more than once. I cannot promise I won’t continue to do that so I need to write more to balance out my craziness.

This was my favorite album of Taylor’s for quite awhile because of just how new and unique it was; any country roots that were still present within the previous album “Red” essentially disappeared. What we got was something so different in the best way possible. So needless to say I was very excited to get this re-release nearly a decade after I was initially blown away by this album.

This weeks post was brought about by a number of times over the past few weeks where I found myself; as Cerian would say “on the wrong side of the morning.” During particularly restless nights my go to is music. As I listen through various tracks I will make recordings about anything that makes an impression on me.

As I was going through tracks from this past year there were a number of them which struck me in an especially powerful way. This is just the first group of the aforementioned tracks.

This is a tremendous album with so much to unpack and discover. I am in awe. The writing is so poetic in a classical, traditional sort of way that I don’t come across very often. As I was digging through the tracks it really felt so much like analyzing poetry even more so than usual. There are occasionally moments when I come across a song that truly causes me to think deeply, look at my past and to even take a look inside myself. As I went through this album I had more of those moments than I was expecting. It was an awe-inspiring experience.