Now Hear Alina Baraz
Growing up in a first generation Russian-Ukrainian family, American born Alina Baraz could be the poster child for one of today's biggest international issues. But let's leave all of the contemporary political discussions aside, and focus on her music, ok?
This is a music blog, after all — if you want to vent on politics, you can go to "I-hate-everything-and-everyone-and-want-to-spew-anger-and-vitriol-at-everyone.blogspot.com"
Alina's mellow material is a mashup of Contemporary R&B and downtempo electronica. Hard to get too riled up listening to her Adele and church-choir gospel influenced sound.
After moving to L.A., she worked with well-known producer Galimatias for her debut 'Urban Flora', which reached #2 on the dance/electronic chart in 2015. She later collaborated with Khalid on her 2017 hit 'Electric", and then again for her 2020 album "It Was Divine"
All Alina Baraz albums here
Now Hear A Classic: The J. Geils Band
Wait. What? The MTV-era mega hits Centerfold and Freeze Frame came from .....a blues band???
Yes, it's true! The J. Geils Band was already a hugely popular touring band in the 70's, with a muscular, bluesy 'bar band' sound that had evolved from their mid 60's blues trio origins.
A hard-touring band that had a hard time translating the energy of their live shows to the studio, it was only fitting that they first achieved success with their live album "Full House'.
From there, they continued putting out albums with their original flavour, with 'Bloodshot' and 'Sanctuary' each briefly hitting the top 10. But it was not until they skewed their sound heavily into pop territory with the 1980 'Love Stinks' and 1981's 'Freeze Frame' that they hit the Number 1 spot.
1982's 'Showtime' also hit gold — and then the band promptly fell apart. The almost obligatory 'creative differences' between the members of a hugely successful band led to them completely calling it quits in 1985.
While everyone knows their huge early 80's hits, there are also plenty of people who fondly remember their blues roots. Where do you fall on the spectrum?
