What music are you listening to?

Your Ex-Lover Is Dead - Stars

My earworm du jour, and a song that might hit my favourite songs of 2024 list, is "Something Whispered Follow Me" by Nightwish. It's a smooth, light piece by their standards, with a catchy, melodic chorus. The song could probably find a place on rock radio here with some judicious editing (at 6:40, it's a bit long for radio play except maybe AOR). The centerpiece is a killer vocal performance from the band's marvelous lead singer Floor Jansen but drummer Kai Hahto and guitarist Emppu Vuorinen get their due in this one, too. Not typical Nightwish, but terrific Nighwish.

Two terrific German metal bands team up and rock out. Sounds like fun and, behold, it is. Not only have they released this joint single, but they are touring together for a few German dates next year.

At the dawn of 2024, I don't think anyone except maybe the band themselves had "new Linkin Park LP" on their bingo card. But here it is and it is wonderful. No one is going to ever forget the late Chester Bennington, but new lead singer Emily Armstrong steps up with some magnificent vocal work on the album. This visualizer came out today with the album.

Quote by Mendalla

At the dawn of 2024, I don't think anyone except maybe the band themselves had "new Linkin Park LP" on their bingo card. But here it is and it is wonderful. No one is going to ever forget the late Chester Bennington, but new lead singer Emily Armstrong steps up with some magnificent vocal work on the album. This visualizer came out today with the album.

I absolutely love the new singer Emily's vocals and am glad that she's part of the band now. The new music has been wonderful and touches my heart the way the older music still does. I like to think that Chester Bennington would be proud of all of them for continuing the legacy

Been listening to Bryson Tiller's album 'TRAPSOUL' and trying to navigate this site lol.

Quote by AndyMonroe

Been listening to Bryson Tiller's album 'TRAPSOUL' and trying to navigate this site lol.

Welcome, Andy. You can ask questions in the Site Announcements/Member Feedback forum or pop into the "Inspirations" thread, which is our friendly cafe for casual chat. Just be warned, a bear has been sighted in there. He's mostly friendly, though.

And, yeah, it was love (for her voice) at first listen when I heard Emily on Emptiness Machine. I've been listening to Dead Sara, her own band, recently, too. Different from Linkin Park but also quite enjoyable.

The ost of The Crow (Brandon Lee). The film is okay but I love the music by Graeme Revell.

A recent favourite of mine is Vancouver band Spiritbox. With two Juno awards and two Grammy noms under their belt, they are becoming the face of an eclectic school of metal that pulls in elements from many genres, even from outside metal, to a metalcore base. This is the second single from their upcoming second album, Tsunami Sea.

Here's an interesting musical pair-up. Patty Gurdy (a stage name, obviously) is a German artist who sings and plays hurdy-gurdy. Tavern, released yesterday, is her second full-length studio album (there's also an EP in between). She has a number of guest artists but this is the one that caught my eye when she released an album trailer a while back.

Finn Marko Hietala is best known for his 20 years as bassist/vocalist in Nightwish, but has been in the music scene since his teens (he's getting close to 60). Marko has been solo since leaving Nightwish in 2021 and does a lot of collaborations, as he does here with Patty. One of my favourite songs on the album, even if it is a bit different in tone from the others (most are more folk-y than this).

And Noora Louhimo, another Finn, is best known as the powerful voice of heavy metal band Battle Beast. However, here she sings the blues, and does it quite well.

The return of Linkin Park with new vocalist Emily Armstrong produced a strong album in From Zero and some terrific performances. Here's the live debut of the single "Two-faced", which I much prefer to the video for the song.

Some seasonal tuneage from a concert in Finland. The trio are Johanna Kurkela (vocals), Timo Kurkela (guitar, vocals), and Troy Donockley (pipes and vocals). You have to click through to view. For some reason, the channel blocks embedding.

So, I am going to plug a new, largely unknown Finnish band here. How did I find them? The original lead singer and lyricist is the sister of a friend on another site I hang out on (and I think the friend knows another band founder, too). Said sister has now left the band for other pursuits but her successor is doing a bang up job on vocals and writing. This new song and video are their best yet, I think. The band is EGRES and their debut EP Introspection and the singles they have released since are all on major streamers.

Brazilian alto Violet Orlandi usually hews more to alt-rock and metal in her work, both covers and originals. So hearing her tackle the Billie Holliday classic "Gloomy Sunday" was a pleasant surprise. She does bring some of that alt- sensibility to it, but it also suggests that jazz is another route she could pursue if the mood took her.

Just discovered this young lady on the weekend. Gracie Abrams (daughter of film producer-director J.J. Abrams but I won't hold that against her) is 25 and quite an accomplished pop singer-songwriter. This is her appearance on SNL.

It has been years since American singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles first covered Elton John's hit "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" to great acclaim. IIRC, John himself is a fan. Here she revisits it for a concert at Kennedy Center that is being broadcast on PBS for New Year's Eve.

The program is apparently a career retrospective so I'm hoping she dusts off the orchestral version of her song "Brave" that she did in the same venue a few years back. That song is powerful to start with but with the National Symphony as her backup band? Wow.

Nice song that popped up in my recommendations. I assume that it got recommended because the bass player is Finnish bassist Marko Hietala, of whom I am a fan. Kind of fits with a story I have got on the go. It opens with a boat caught in a storm. Singer is Indian but her band on this track is all Finns.

Taking a break from metal today. Marianne Faithfull died last week and I've been meaning to listen to her. There's a "This Is" playlist for her on Spotify that was recommended for obvious reasons so I'm listening to it.

I thought I had the wrong list at first because it kicked off with ... thrash metal? But no, it was the right list. Marianne actually collaborated with Metallica on a song for their album Reload. And not one of their power ballads either. It's a banger.

The song that pretty much made her career and is, for me, one of the most beautiful songs of the Sixties is "As Tears Go By" written for her by Mick Jagger (her partner for a period) and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. While I have heard a Stones version with Mick singing it, teenaged Marianne (she's 18 here) is just so perfect for this song.

I liked Marianne but the song that really struck me was The Ballad of Lucy Jordan from 1979. It was originally a hit for Dr Hook and the Travelling Medicine Show, who released it as The Ballad of Lucy Jordon in 1974. Marianne totally made it her own.

Quote by AnnaMayZing

I liked Marianne but the song that really struck me was The Ballad of Lucy Jordan from 1979. It was originally a hit for Dr Hook and the Travelling Medicine Show, who released it as The Ballad of Lucy Jordon in 1974. Marianne totally made it her own.

Yeah, I posted her version in the music thread on another site. It's an amazing song that I have heard several versions of over the years but I had not heard Marianne's until today. She nails it.

A rather silly punk pop song I came across last night.

With new music from Ukrainian metal band Jinjer due on Friday, my driving music today was Wallflower, their last album from 2021. This is the title track.

And also from the album.

An old favourite on in the car today. Northward was a one-off collaboration between Floor Jansen (After Forever, Nightwish) and Jorn Viggo Lofstad (Norwegian band Pagan Mind). They wrote the songs in 2007-08 when Floor was on a break from After Forever (the band eventually broke up) but didn't get a chance to actually record them until 2017, by which point she in Nightwish who were on a break between tours at the time. And it's a marvellous album, with Floor in fine form on vocals, some incredible guitar work from Jorn, and some wonderful songs. Floor's sister Irene, also an accomplished rock singer, makes an appearance, too. In terms of the sound, they went for hard rock rather than metal, the usual genre for both in those days. For my money, it's the best album Floor has done outside of her work in Nightwish.

This is the only official video from the project, which never toured and has never released another album (much as fans of Floor might wish). Floor does perform some of the songs in her solo concerts and her song "My Paragon" from her debut solo album Paragon is, at least partly, a response to the song "Paragon" that she and Jorn co-wrote for Northward so the project is certainly not forgotten.

Lots of new music coming through my speakers and earbuds this week, including three new albums today. Roses From The Deep is the second solo album from Finnish bassist/singer Marko Hietala, marking another milestone in his return to form after his mental health break from the industry in 2021. Excellent album, too. A video came down for the title track this morning.

NOAPOLOGY started life doing YouTube covers under the name Sershen & Zaritskaya (the surnames of guitarist Sergey Sershen and vocalist Daria Zaritskaya). They changed their name and started releasing original material two or three years ago. Their debut album of original material, somewhat cheekily called Uncovered, dropped at the end of January and this single came out with the album.

Classic Moody Blues, specifically their 1968 album In Search Of The Lost Chord. This live version of Legend of a Mind is from 2000.

It's funny how music can affect you. When Nightwish's tenth album Yesterwynde came out last year, I would not have pegged Spider Silk as being one of my favourite tracks. Five months on, it's in my top five from the album, maybe even top three on a good day. And they nicely put out a lyric video for it the other day.

Trigger warning: There are spiders. Lots and lots of spiders. (hey, look at the song's title)