So, what are you listening to these days?

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Some new music from my last night's listening.

First up, an artist near and dear to the hearts of many, including me and @revjohn. "Weird" Al Yankovic has been putting his unique brand of music for decades. One of his schticks is medleys of popular songs done polka-style. And this week, he released his latest in that vein, "Polkamania". Among the artists getting a few seconds of polka glory are Ed Sheeran, Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish and, perhaps inevitably, Taylor Swift.


And longtime Weird Al fans will probably notice some nice Easter Eggs in the animations, e.g. his Amish butter churner from "Amish Paradise" pops up.
 
On a more serious note, I was delightfully surprised by the release of the first single from an upcoming solo project by American singer Chrissy Costanza. Chrissy has been the lead singer of power trio Against the Current since her teens. I first discovered her and the band through YouTube cover work they did maybe 8 years ago. I love her voice and recently watched the band's set at the Pinkpop festival on a recorded livestream to great delight. So Chrissy going solo has me pumped and the first single is terrific, though not much of a shift tonally from her work in ATC.

 
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Dorothy is an American hard rock singer and also the name of her band. She packs a great "shouter" voice that I fell hard for a couple years back. And there's a new single from the band that is classic Dorothy.

 
Oh my...I just discovered this treasure. Dopamine music fer sure. Addictive. Just TRY to be still.


 
For as long as I have been perusing YouTube Shorts (= Google's answer to TikTok), videos by American rocker Bobby Amaru, current lead singer of the band Saliva, have been coming up. And many of them feature not Bobby, but his daughter Veda, who packs a hell of a voice for someone who looks like she isn't even in high school yet (though I have not found a confirmed age for her so I may be misjudging), is often the real star of his channel. And I recently saw a preview for ... her first single. The video dropped today and I love the song. Veda co-wrote with her dad who got Saliva and some other musician friends to lay down the backing tracks.

 
And listening to performances from Wacken Open Air, the huge metal and rock festival currently happening in Germany and this came up. Talk about an oldie but goodie. The Sweet, live, with their hit "Ballroom Blitz"

 
Usually, I post about Melissa Bonny of Ad Infinitum (and various other bands) in the metal thread. However, her new solo single "Gravitate" leans into more of a pop or even R&B sound, while still retaining some of her metal roots. There's even a bit of growling. Terrific song from this very talented, and very busy, young woman from Switzerland.

 
Okay, this is cool. A Norwegian folk ensemble recorded their latest video in Akershus Castle, which I visited when I was in Oslo in June. Definitely a must-see if you go to Oslo. The room where they shot this is worth the price of admission alone.

 
It amazes me to realize that I was only 2 years old when David Gilmour joined Pink Floyd, beginning a legendary career in music. And he's still at it as a very spry 78-year-old. His voice may be a bit more ragged than in Floyd's heyday, but he still makes his guitar sing like almost no one else. The latest release from his upcoming solo album Luck And Strange dropped today and it is vintage Gilmour.

 
What? A Nightwish post not in the metal thread or the Floor Jansen thread? Well, this song is a bit (okay, more than a bit) of a shift from their usual. Eighties synth riffs and a distinct lack of pretty much anything to mark it as "symphonic" or even "metal" make "The Day Of" as an outlier in the band's long catalogue. It is also a fantastic piece of music, if a bit on the dark side. And the video, like Perfume of the Timeless which was the first video from their upcoming tenth album, is a beautiful piece of work reflecting pretty directly on the ideas in the lyrics. Basically, it looks at humanity's obsession with the idea of the world ending and how we respond to it.


And here is Perfume of the Timeless, which I previously posted in the Floor thread so might have gotten missed by some. The song Perfume of the Timeless is much more in the vein of classic Nightwish, maybe even more grandiose than usual from its orchestral prelude to the fairly heavy main song belted by Floor Jansen to the soft coda sung by English singer-musician Troy Donockley. The theme is how we are the end product of myriad generations and a prologue that plays during the orchestral part in the video illustrates the idea nicely. "We are because of a million loves" in the words of the song. The library/museum in the video is the Natural History Museum in Tring, UK, which was started as the private collection of the 2nd Baron Rothschild but is now administered by the Natural History Museum, London. It features a huge collection of preserved and mounted animals, some of which guest in the video.


It's still a month and a bit until Yesterwynde, the band's tenth studio album, drops on Sept. 20. It is being described by band founder and songwriter Tuomas Holopainen as the conclusion of a trilogy, with the albums Endless Forms Most Beautiful (2015) and Human :||: Nature (2020) being the other parts of the trilogy.
 
Can’t recall if I’ve shared this before, so forgive me if it’s a repeat. Musically, I’m deeply rooted in the 80s, and I think it might be because I was a Radio Announcer back then. I had the joy of playing those tunes repeatedly for others to enjoy. Even now, whether I’m on my way to work, at home, or anywhere else, I find myself gravitating towards 80s pop music. It’s mostly British and American, with a bit of Canadian thrown in. There’s something comforting and nostalgic about those songs that I just can’t let go of
 
Jae said:
Can’t recall if I’ve shared this before, so forgive me if it’s a repeat. Musically, I’m deeply rooted in the 80s, and I think it might be because I was a Radio Announcer back then. I had the joy of playing those tunes repeatedly for others to enjoy. Even now, whether I’m on my way to work, at home, or anywhere else, I find myself gravitating towards 80s pop music. It’s mostly British and American, with a bit of Canadian thrown in. There’s something comforting and nostalgic about those songs that I just can’t let go of
Click to expand...

Tradition is all in the conditioning impression as it hits you ... some are slammed into not knowing anything else ... perhaps eclectic ... smattering?
 
I discovered Armenian pianist Tigran Hamasyan a while ago. Music YouTuber Nahre Sol had an interview with him that quite intrigued me. He's jazz-trained and that's his core, but he then pulls in Armenian folk music, prog, electronic music (think Vangelis or Kitaro) and even elements from metal, something that Nahre brought up in the interview. His new album, a concept album rooted in Armenian folklore, dropped yesterday along with a website where he gives the story, a game, and other enhancements.

Here's a couple tracks as a sample:


 
I've started following Miriam Margolyes on Facebook.

She is clever and calls s**t s**t.

She also has a broad span of interest.

Heard this today. Great voices

www.facebook.com

Miriam Margolyes

Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman Scandalise my name... #ClassicalMusicNYC #concert #spirituls #operasinger #jessyenorman #kathleenbattle #duet #carnegiehall
www.facebook.com www.facebook.com
 
Quite a bit different is my other morning listen, Molly Whuppie

This seems pertinent for today, but mainly i remind myself of songs to sing with the kids

www.facebook.com

5.1K views · 999 reactions | Only two things that money can’t buy… ♥️ This song is by Guy Clark from 1981 and it might be my theme song. #tomato #homegrown #gardening #nostalgia | Molly Whuppie Music

Only two things that money can’t buy… ♥️ This song is by Guy Clark from 1981 and it might be my theme song. #tomato #homegrown #gardening #nostalgia.
www.facebook.com www.facebook.com
 
I got a pleasant surprise when I woke up this morning to discover a new single from Finnish bassist-singer-songwriter Marko Hietala. Now 58, Marko has been in the music business for over 40 years, beginning his career in Tarot, a heavy metal band he co-founded as a teen with his older brother. He is best known for a 20 year stint in the band Nightwish, which he left in 2021. His first solo album came late in life, released in 2019, and blew me away. It's an incredible album, befitting his long experience. In recent interviews he has talked about releasing a second so this single is presumably part of that journey, though no release date for an album has yet been announced.

The song and video draw on the classic gothic sf-horror Frankenstein. Welcome to the tale of "Frankenstein's Wife".

 
A unique thing about Marko's first solo album is that he released it both in his native Finnish and in English. Here's the same song from both versions.

First in Finnish:


And then in English:

 
One of the real triumphs in Marko's recent career has been his reconciliation/reunion with Tarja Turunen. The Finnish soprano was the lead singer of Nightwish when Marko joined and they worked together in the band until a falling out with Tarja led to her leaving (=being fired from) the band in 2005.

They first reunited at a festival in Switzerland last year, but soon had a joint tour of Latin America booked for this past Spring. And the audiences have been lapping it up as you can hear below. But even better, besides the joint tour and performing some of their old Nightwish songs together for the first time in 19 years, they recorded a new duet, presumably for Marko's upcoming album.

A song they first recorded together in 2001 for the Nightwish album Century Child:


Nightwish actually had to stop performing this classic track (and personal favourite of mine) from their album Once after Marko left in 2021, so it was great to hear it on the Marko-Tarja setlist:


And the new duet:


Next week, the duo set out on another joint tour, this time of Europe.
 
At this point in his career, David Gilmour could retire and be honoured as one of the greats, a masterful composer, guitarist, and singer, just for his work in Pink Floyd and earlier solo work. But instead, he's released Luck And Strange, a wonderful new solo album that came out a week ago. Here's the title track that features former Floyd keyboard wizard Richard Wright joining in. Of the tracks I have heard to date from the album to date, it's probably the most reminiscent of the Pink Floyd days. Much of the album is a family affair, with lyrics (as with most of the album) by his partner Polly Samson and his daughter Romany on backing vocals.

 
And this earlier release from the album is a cover of a song by the band The Mongolfier Brothers. Dave stays on guitar here and lets daughter Romany take lead vocals. She has a lovely voice and I'm hoping we hear more from her down the road. She also plays harp on this and another track.

 
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