#NewMusicMonday – Seat at the Table & Remember Us to Life

#NewMusicMonday

Solange – Seat at the Table

Solange Knowles dropped a new album.  Like I don’t think I heard this would even be a thing until I saw the tweets about it on Wednesday and the album was released that Friday.  I get that this is the way things are done now and I have accepted it.  Not like I’ve ever been abreast of things Solange does.  I like her enough but I’ve never been a big fan and that’s just the end of it.  But I heard good things and it was on Spotify, so I gave it a listen.

And I liked it.  I liked it a lot.

It’s very Southern.  No, not Southern.  It’s very Louisiana.  Which, like Texas, is it’s own thing.  It’s very Black.  It’s very good.  There’s some interludes with Tina Knowles and Master P.  And they talk about being black and how being pro-black is not being anti-white.  And some times you just have to get out there and get things for yourself.  There’s a song with Lil’ Wayne that discusses when you have the right to be mad, and there’s another song “Don’t Touch My Hair.”  So again, it’s black and that might not be for you, but something doesn’t really have to be for you for you to enjoy it.

It’s lite sounding but the lyrics resonate harder issues.  I want to say her previous two albums are like that but honestly I only ever listened to “I Decided” from the Solangel and the Hadley Street Dreams one. But none of it is a downer and I was able to listen to it most of the week.  My instant favorite were Junie and FUBU and Cranes in the Sky.  The internet tells me that there is a visual component to this and I suppose that means something for a lot of people but I’m only checking for liner notes in CDs so…

Here’s a video:

And it’s streaming on Spotify and Amazon Prime so you can listen there or buy on iTunes or Amazon.  No physical copies until November 18th (Vinyl December 9th).

Regina Spektor – Remember Us to Life

And because October is the best month, Regina Spektor had an album out too.  I knew of this because of the XMU indie channel but I never paid much attention until I was scrolling on Spotify past the Solange release and saw Remember Us to Life was available.

Me and my sister were thrift shopping back in like 2010 when some song was playing and we had to ask the girls what they were listening to and they told us Regina Spektor.  (The song was Edit). Remember Us to Life is her seventh studio album.

You might know Regina as the voice behind the theme song for Orange is the New Black.  She’s Russian.  She plays piano.  It’s wonderful and tragic all at the same time all the time.  But she took a break and had a baby and now she’s back and her music is just as tragic and just a beautiful as it was before.  I’m not sure if she had suffered from postpartum depression or if maybe I was reading a little too much into some of the lyrics but some of the music is just plain sad.  But Begin to Hope (the one album that I bought because of the thrift shop girls) was like that so I wasn’t surprised.

So it was good to alternate between Solange and Regina and that’s basically how I spent my whole week.  My phone battery was not happy and my podcast queue is backlogged.

She has a link to all the music on her website for all your streaming and purchasing needs.  My current favorites are Obsolete and New Year which are extremely depressing so listen with caution.  Or maybe I’m in a mood.  We’ll never know.