Lav's Music Corner

Lonesome Drifter  - Charley Crockett  Charley Crockett has long been a bubbling up figure in a country music scene that exists outside of the tightly controlled Nashville country mainstream. His prolific output has resulted in a pretty dedicated fanbase in love with his throwback country sentiments and dusty vintage outlaw cadence. I've covered his music twice now, but heard several more or his albums and I pretty much always come away with the same impression, mixed. While every record he releases has its high points, they also tend to repeat themselves and occasionally slip into even too obvious country cliches. More importantly, the “character” of Charley Crockett as The Man From Waco , The $10 Cowboy , or in this case, the Lonesome Wanderer , can start to feel a little routine.  I think Lonesome Wanderer starts off strong with its title track and the dejected “Game I Can't Win.” But from there it slips directly into the first song that feels like pure parody, the sau...

5.  BACK ON  - SBTRKT SBTRKT has kinda been on one recently, that's something I bet you didn't expect to hear in 2024. Despite what I thought was a huge miss with THE RAT ROAD  last year I've enjoyed a number of the singles that have followed in the wake of it. This is another pretty direct embrace of sunny summery house music but it's consistently delightful throughout.  Listen 4.  Lies Lies Lies  - Morgan Wallen "Lies lies lies, eyes eyes eyes" is a lyric that's below Morgan Wallen's pay grade, let's start with that. While he can be one of the most obnoxious artists in music when he's coming with ego, but he's still an earnest conceptualizer of songs. This is a vulnerable cut where he gives in to the numerous lies he tells himself and others about having moved on from a woman no longer in his life.  Listen 3.  kms  - Los Campesinos! The first single from their new record might be the best Los Campesinos song I've heard in 15 years, bu...

For my work outside of blogging, I have to listen to and pay a lot of attention to the Billboard Hot 100. For that reason, there are some albums I haven't properly reviewed that I've heard the entire tracklist of countless times through. So for this week's rapid-fire reviews we're covering some of those.  One Thing At A Time  - Morgan Wallen Yes, Morgan Wallen. In the before times he was actually a really compelling up-and-coming voice in country music that I was pretty interested in. He had some more stripped-down heartfelt songs of angst and heartbreak that really clicked with me, especially 7 Summers  which ended up on some of my year-end lists. He released a massive record that was inconsistent despite having its moments but I was banking on him being somebody whose music I enjoyed for a while. And then. Not only did he face one of the biggest controversies in all of music in recent years when he got caught saying numerous racial slurs on camera. Since then, I also ...