Danielia Cotton "Lighthouse Keeper"

When I'm not overscheduled, I can spend nice chunk of time listening to new music on the weekend.

Though we still get piles of CDs sent to the radio station, this exercise of reviewing the anywhere from 50 to 150 singles that are being pitched to me on any given week, happens on my laptop.

For financial and environmental reasons, many music labels have stopped sending promotional singles, and now just send MP3s.  Many other labels do both.

So it's pretty standard, as the week goes by, for me to a) click on a link that I get from a label, via email, and download a song, and b) dig into the mailbox and grab a stack of CDs that I should check out, and put those songs on my laptop.

In both cases, I may not even listen to the song while I'm doing this.

I had a fleeting thought when I was absently downloading this Danielia Cotton song, while on the phone with the label person who was telling me to check it out:  "I wonder if this is 'Lighthouse Keeper'?  Naaah, probably just a song with the same name."

When I do music listening, many times, I'll minimize the iTunes window, so I don't know what song and artist is next.  Not knowing what song is starting, is an effective way to really judge if the song sounds like an mvyradio song and if it grabs attention quickly, without interference from my prejudice (if I think I already do or do not like the artist).

When the opening riff of this track started, my jaw literally dropped open.

I couldn't believe that someone had plucked this awesome, forgotten about, 15 year old nugget from obscurity, to give it another shot.  I was so excited.

(I've since learned that the producer of Cotton's new album is none other than Kevin Salem---so it all makes sense)

I'm not sure if Danielia Cotton's voice is right for mvyradio, but I bet she is a helluva live performer.  Mostly, I'm just glad that people will get another chance to hear this song, and maybe even check out the original.

My Morning Jacket "When The Bells Start Ringing"

After wowing folks/freaking people out with their most adventurous album yet, My Morning Jacket ends the year by going in the other direction: Traditional.

They are putting out a 7 song, iTunes-only EP of Christmas songs, recorded during a 14-hour studio session between tour dates in Europe.

This track is one of two that features collaboration with The Head & The Heart, and you can get it for free right now at iTunes!

Get the download.

And here's the other song the two bands collaborate on . . .


Hear it on Youtube.

Bell X1 "Velcro"

The number of songs on my "Going For Adds" iTunes playlist fluctuates from week to week, but is usually in 50 to 100 song range.

That's 50 to 100 recently released songs, in contention for the 2 or 3 new-song slots we have at mvyradio every week.

And while I will often listen to the tracks with the song list up (so I know who I'm listening to at any given moment, or I can jump around to songs I'm really curious to hear), sometimes I don't keep it up.

It's a good test of a song's potency to set the list to "random," minimize the screen and only look at the artist and title information if the song really grabs me.

Did you know The Cars (yes, The Cars!) have a new record? I put a couple of new Cars songs in the playlist, curious to hear what the surviving members are up to. I didn't know when they'd come up on the playlist, but I knew they'd come around at some point.

And when the song on today's post played, I wondered: Is that Ric Ocasek? Well then, The Cars have done a nice job of sounding a bit like themselves, but sounding modern, too.

Sufficiently grabbed, I pulled up the iTunes list, only to find that I was actually listening to Bell X1's new song "Velcro."

Does Bell X1 sound like The Cars? I wouldn't have said so. But listen to this track. Do you hear it?

(And hey! They're Irish! Happy Saint Patrick's Day!)



Here's one of the new Cars songs: