Bloggerhythms

New Year's fireworks courtesy of Pixabay. For the third year in a row Bloggerhythms is gathering  a handful of "best of" posts published by some of the music blogs I read regularly, so just as the calendar gets ready to flip to 2026 this year's edition has arrived for your reading pleasure and musical education. Similarly to the two previous editions, some of the bloggers mentioned below have national or international followings with large readerships. Others were posted by independent, personal blogs like mine with smaller followings. They're listed here in no particular order.  Not all of the lists are specifically related to 2025. Highway Queens , the excellent blog published by Michelle Lindsay in Scotland, offers readers two lists that highlight...

Lexxi Raine is a young, talented, pop-rock, singer-songwriter originally from Buffalo, NY who now resides in Manchester, England. Raine is currently engaged to a man who proposed to her even though he's aware the love of his life wrote an entire EP about the breakup of an earlier relationship that includes a song about murdering her ex-boyfriend. Despite that, she promised the entire staff here at Bloggerhythms (me) that the ex is perfectly fine and he doesn't have to worry about taking his last breath any time soon. Here's how Raine describes her recently released EP, The Grief Case , on her Bandcamp page :  " Grieving the end of a relationship is messy and never a straight line. Some days you’re angry, other days you’re numb, and sometimes you still convince yourself he’s coming back. My new EP, The Grief Case , lives inside that turbulence. Each song is its own chapter in the 6 stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargain...

It's conceivable that many people are sick of Brenda Lee's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" because it's played incessantly every holiday season. While it's not my favorite Christmas song I've actually grown to like it more as I got older. I guess it's because this now mature classic rock fan has mellowed. Even though few young people today know Lee outside of her Christmas classic she's among the more popular American recording artists of all time, having sold over one hundred million records around the world. Billboard named her the Top Female Artist of the 1960s. With her song "I'm Sorry" (1960) she became only the second woman to ever hit #1 on the Hot 100. (Connie Francis was first with "Everybody's Somebody's Fool" in 1960.) Her perennial Christmas chestnut is the lead track on Lee's first album of seasonal tunes, simply titled Merry Christmas . The star recorded "Rocki...

The sad, recent passing of Raul Malo encouraged me to pull out all of my Mavericks CDs. I own several of them, but not their Christmas album. I didn't even know they recorded one until a few days ago. Shame on me for not knowing that. I just burned it to CD after downloading it from iTunes. Both the title of the album and it's front and back covers tell you everything you need to know about The Mavericks' foray into Christmas music. You didn't really believe this ten-song set was going to give listeners anything but a chance to party hardy during the holidays, did you?  Hey! Merry Christmas!  may not be   intellectually stimulating but it's not supposed to be. Play it to have some fun in memory of Malo. Hey! Merry Christmas! was recorded by The Mavericks' most recent lineup featuring Malo on vocals and guitar along with axman Eddie Perez who's been with the quartet since 2012. Jerry Dale McFadden also became their permanent keyboard pla...

Sadly, Raul Malo, the leader of The Mavericks, has passed away from cancer at age 60. I knew of his ongoing battle with the disease, but I heard stories that he was doing well. Apparently not. Ten years ago, I saw him perform a solo acoustic show in New Hope, PA five days before Christmas where he played a couple of tunes from his Christmas album. Years later, he also released a holiday record with The Mavericks. I also saw the full band play a concert at Cooper River Park in New Jersey quite a few years earlier. As a tribute, I'm rerunning my review of his acoustic concert because it occurred during the holiday season.    In an almost two hour show at New Hope Winery Raul Malo proved he is a superb singer and that statement should not come as a surprise. As always, The Mavericks' leader and frontman sounded like a graduate of the Roy Orbison school of vocals and all he needed as accompaniment was the solo acoustic guitar he played quite well all evening long. Malo showe...

"What's Up" is one of my all-time favorite one-hit wonders. In March 1993 it was pulled as a single in an abridged version for radio from 4 Non Blondes' only album, Bigger, Better, Faster, More  that was released the previous October. The single climbed to #14 on the Hot 100 and finished the year at #50 on Billboard's year-end chart. It was composed by the quartet's controversial lead singer, the full-throated Linda Perry, and completely overwhelmed every other track on the loud, eleven-song set. The album hit #13 on Billboard's top 200 album chart. Like most people, I thought the song was called "What's Going On?" because that line was sung repeatedly throughout the record. Its actual title is never mentioned. "What's Up?" has been called a "massive neo-hippie anthem" by AllMusic 's Tom Demalon. It appears to be about Perry's search for meaning in life as the opening lines...

Even with all the knowledge I've acquired about pop and rock music over many decades of listening to it, and I do mean many - I still remember watching The Beatles' American debut live on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 - there are still genres and artists that I never had much exposure to. Both British pub rock and Graham Parker are among them. I only enrolled in my Parker 101 course recently, and I hope to pass the final exam. On the other hand, author Jay Nachman has been a huge Parker fan since his college days living in the dormitories at Philadelphia's Temple University in the 1970s, and his fandom of the British star has never wavered. His love inspired him to write this uncommon biography. It's unique because it doesn't tell Parker's complete story. Instead, the book begins with his childhood, education and family. It moves through his adolescence and teen years, his journeys to Guernsey and Morocco for self-discovery, and...

Despite their obscurity Seth Swirsky and Mike Ruekberg have a good reputation within the music industry. Swirsky has written songs for Rufus Wainwright, Al Green, Tina Turner, and Taylor Dayne. Ruekberg composed the soundtrack for the independent film Dummy and in 2007, they released their first of three albums together as The Red Button. The Red Button blend all of the major components that the best power-pop has to offer: melody, harmony and hooks. It's the British Invasion sound for the new millennium. She's About To Cross My Mind is for music fans who cherish the sound of the early Beatles, The Hollies and The Searchers and a few more groups that flew to America from England during the swinging 60s. The album's first single and lead track, "Cruel Girl," is something the mean side of John Lennon could have written in 1963. "Floating By" is a dead ringer for a post-touring years Paul McCartney track. It's got a little "Penny Lane"...