Bobby McFerrin "Everytime"

"More than the sum of its parts" is certainly a cliche.  But sometimes it's true.

We don't really ever play Jack White.

And we don't really ever play Loretta Lynn.

But when they got together for "Portland Oregon" they created the kind of weird alchemy which deserves a home on the station.

It happens every once and a while.  Two artists, with no particular connection to MVY, do something together and the pairing deserves attention.

That's why we added the new Bobby McFerrin tune.

In the 13 years I've been here, I've never heard Bobby McFerrin on the station.  But his new album "SpiritYouAll" is getting rave reviews.

And on the track "Everytime" he sings with Esperanza Spaulding, and though neither of them on their own have done any recent work that suggested they were a good fit for the station, the thing they are doing together totally merits 3 minutes of your ear time.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Esperanza Spalding "Radio Song"

Let's start with 4 sentences of history.

The format mvyradio plays is called Triple AAA, which coalesced as a format in the early nineties. There was a wide swath of great artists who didn't fit in with your local Adult Contemporary station, but weren't hard enough or hip enough or ironic enough or whatever, for your local Alternative station. Adult Album Alternative flourished because it gave a home to harder-to-categorize artists who---like Susan Tedeschi and Lyle Lovett, Jeff Buckley and Chris Isaak---might bridge a couple of genres or be deemed eclectic. It's hard to imagine, but those artists I just named were hard to find on the radio, circa 1994.

Since the early 90s, Triple A has evolved into a home for singer-songwriters and for alternative acts that a hip 40 year old can enjoy.

But it still can be a home for those uncategorizable artists, who are great, but don't really fit in anywhere.

How about Esperanza Spalding?

She is getting rave critical reviews, won a Grammy last year for Best New Artist and was a stunning presence when she performed at the Oscars this year.

But have you heard her on the radio? Anywhere?

Is it incumbent on a station like mvyradio, to give her a platform?

Theoretically, yes.

Check out "Radio Song." If you heard this on the station, would you say "What the hell?" or "Right on!"

(Note that this is the full 6-plus minute version. We would probably play the 3:30 radio edit, which is more concise and to the point.)


Hear the song on Youtube.


Hear Esperanza at The Oscars on Youtube.

Esperanza Spalding "Little Fly"

There's a saying that goes: If you're not angry, you're not paying attention.

That seemed to be in play on Sunday night, when a gasp went up from the crowd at the Grammys, during the announcement of the Best New Artist Award.

The gaspers seemed to fall into two groups.

One group was angry. They were Beliebers, who had felt with dogmatic certainty that Justin Bieber would be crowned Best New Artist.

And the other group had not been paying attention, because the gasp was something along the lines of "Esperanza who?"

(There was a third group, known as People Who Knew About Esperanza Spalding Because They're Into Jazz, but that group contains so few people that it is statistically insignificant. "JK!" As a Bieber kid might say, or text)

The angry folks---like most folks who spend a lot of their time being angry and want to you be angry too---took the constructive path of threatening Grammy voters via Twitter, and changing Spalding's middle name to "Quesadilla" on Wikipedia.

The folks who were not paying attention said (somewhat inaudibly), "I should probably check her out or something . . ." their voice trailing off.

And as usual, the People Into Jazz just felt a little smug about their music taste. Zing! JK. Love you, PIJ's.



For those of you who weren't paying attention but want to catch up, here's some background