New Music, New Adventures for 2025 #1

Since we are now more than halfway through the month of January and I finished my Top Ten memoir a couple of weeks ago, I thought it was time to begin a new journey for 2025. I’m calling this New Music, New Adventures as I embark on a search for new tunes that will eventually culminate in a Top Ten for the year – something you probably know I’ve been creating for most of my life.

Usually what makes my Top Ten relates to significant events taking place as I make my way through each year. My plan here is to track my music finds as well as my various adventures and see how they coincide.

I recently started David Rowell’s book, The Endless Refrain: Memory, Nostalgia, and the Threat to New Music. It’s a pretty interesting and insightful read. Rowell discusses how most people get stuck in the past when it comes to their music listening habits. They revert back to what clicked for them back when they were younger, attend tribute band concerts covering artists from that period, and resist most attempts at finding new music. Why? Some of it is time, families, jobs, etc. The rest seems to be that we are more focused on new music when we are in our teens and early twenties as we deal with the challenges of life and love as impressionable young adults. Growing older, many people play the same music they played from that era and, given how the music landscape has changed in the last few decades, don’t even know where to find new music if they wanted to.

I’ve managed to not have that problem. Part of this is due to continuing to make a weekly list of my current favorite new songs, something I’ve done since the summer of 1980! Having a Top Ten group for all of these decades that also loves to rank their favorite songs at the end of the year has also forced all of us to be in search of new tunes.

This isn’t to say that older, familiar artists aren’t capable of creating new music (I had a Melissa Manchester song in my Top Ten of 2024) but that we don’t always know where to find them. Similarly, finding streaming services or radio stations (what are those?!) to introduce to us to new music can be a bit of work.

Here’s what my process typically is like: On Mondays, I check out Discover Weekly on Spotify. During the week I scroll through Instagram to see if any of the artists I follow are touting upcoming releases. On Friday I check out some of the tunes on Spotify’s Release Radar, which uses an algorithm to find songs similar to those I’ve listened to in the past, and New Music Friday, which is basically a playlist of a variety of new releases. Since I ultimately listen to most of my favorite music on Apple Music (why I have both streaming services is a much longer and perhaps not as interesting story) I find its New Music Mix to be the most relevant to my listening habits.

Of course, all of this assumes I/we don’t want to leave our comfort zones. It’s quite amazing how many artists/albums appeared in many of my fellow Substack writers’ Top Tens of 2024 that I never heard of before! Some of them never made it on any of my streaming radars. So, I hope to incorporate more listening from the new music playlists created by writers of newsletters such as New Bands for Old Heads, Matt Bull’s Recent and Decent, and Kevin Alexander’s On Repeat Records.

So, what’s been going on since the holidays ended? Well, I am still avoiding Chicago winters by remaining in Palm Springs, California for a few months. I attended ten film screenings at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, saw many big name actors at its gala red carpet event,

Up close and personal with Ariana Grande

and enjoyed a visit from our Wheaton, IL neighbors Beth and Paul as we ventured off to the Salton Sea, hikes, and some great dinners.

The new music? Well, the beginning of the year is always tough. After listening and re-listening to so much music before compiling my end of the year Top Ten lists in December, January becomes a fresh new time to search out new music that is slowly being released. I’ve listened to Franz Ferdinand’s new album The Human Fear, which has a few good tracks such as Hooked and Everydaydreamer.

I like a couple of songs on Ringo Starr’s new country album Look Up, such as the title track and Never Let Me Go.

Via Substack I’ve been turned on to Freak Slug’s tune Spells and Consumables’ Great Design.

I’m also anticipating The Wombats’s new album Oh! The Ocean and have had their single Blood on the Hospital Floor on regular rotation.

The same is true of Ten Fe’s Any Time Soon from their upcoming Still in Love album.

I also like the new Elton John/Brandi Carlile duet Never Too Late from a new Elton John documentary.

I’m also still loving album tracks that came out in 2024 such as Joe P’s Violet,

the Dream Eaters’ CRUCIFIXXX,

Real Estate’s Haunted World, Lauren Watkins’ Leavers Leave, and a remake of Terri Gibbs’ Somebody’s Knockin’ by Mattiel and Troy Stains.

So that’s where I’m at right now. There will be more to come for sure! I also want to hear from you! How is your 2025 going so far? What is new that you are listening to?