where pop and country meet

in the neko-case-and-not-toby-kieth sort of way...

thanks to seth's month-past induction into emusicing, i've been granted another 50 free tracks. i decided to clear out some of my saved-for-laters and got two hem albums: funnel cloud and no word from tom. i also decided to take some risks and picked up two from the bottom of the main page, where the editors of the site put up albums they've been listening to at work...: the scanners' violence is golden and karen dalton's in my own time.





the hem albums are where pop and country meet in the neko-case-and-not-toby-kieth sort of way. i think i first heard about them on cbc 3's podcast, but that might be coming straight outta my ass... regardless, the track "not california" from funnel cloud is what initially caught my attention and got me to plop them down in my saved for later list. i'm sooooooo glad. go get 'em.



the scanners are a completely blind choice for me. i didn't even read the review (was there one?). i liked the cover art and figured, "what the fuck... i've got 50 free tracks... take a fucking chance, you pussy," and clicked download all. i hope they're at least entertaining.



and karen dalton, apparently, is the owner of bob dylan's favorite voice. as i am anything but a dylan fan this is pretty faint praise... but still, dylan has managed to stick around and even remain relevant for what, 40 years? maybe he's on to something. so yeah, i'll be checking her out soon, as well.

as a side note, a friend of mine recently told me of a thing another friend of her's does: a song a day blog. he picks a song each day and lets his readers know about it. sometimes he'll write about the song or artist or album or something else related, sometimes he'll write about how he's feeling that day (and maybe allude to the song's relevance) and sometimes it'll have nothing to do with the song at all, as far as anyone but him can tell... this sounds like a fruitful writing exercise, and directly in line with my intent for this blog. i invite you all to do this with me.

starting tomorrow.