Spencer Griffin's New Music Mondays

 here they are: "Ain't Nobody Making Me High" by Bartees Strange:  Thanks to musicians like Jimi Hendrix and Lenny Kravitz, we have seen Black performers who enjoy hard rock music. A more recent and rarer phenomenon are Black performers who enjoy indie music. TV on the Radio are such a group, and in the 2020's, Bartees Strange seems to have taken on this mantle. But on Bartees' latest song, "Ain't Nobody Making Me High," he shifts his gears from indie to more of a blues-y, gritty funk/soul flavor! It's the type of soulful song Lenny Kravitz himself might have done back in the day, and a lot of it brings about '70s funk vibes a la Funkadelic or Rufus ("Tell Me Something Good" especially comes to mind here!) Even the lyrics to the song are minimalist and blues-y, and the photo on the album's single showing a black and white photo of Bartees with a serious, somewhat contemplative expression and his hair in cornrows sets the tone fo...

 here they are: "After the Setting Sun" by The Head and The Heart:  "After the Setting Sun" finds The Head and The Heart drifting away from alt/indie-pop and going back to their folk-rock roots. A lot of sweet acoustic guitar instrumentation in this one, and about two minutes of the song have little or no percussion, and even after that, the percussion is light. The yearning sound of this song is also winsome to me and makes me like it more than their previous single, "Arrow" (though that one was good too). "After the Setting Sun"'s pensive sound is not without reason. The lyrics of the song ponder what happens after all is said and done. What if we really are "all we've got," as the song asks?! Then music will live on long after we do! "Backseat Banton" by Bartees Strange:  Bartees Strange's songs are often reflective and moody, which makes "Backseat Banton" stand out among them! The song is surprisingly...

 here they are: "Arrow" by The Head and The Heart:  Although the sound of this song suggests the more synthetic (yet still authentically bittersweet) sound that The Head and The Heart went for on their later albums, the lyrics of their latest song, "Arrow," are sweet and sincere enough to win me back into their fanbase (not that I ever left it, but I digress...) For a group who have been around almost 15 years (believe it or not), there were bound to be bumps along the way for The Head and The Heart, but somehow, they've managed to muddle through, and that's what "Arrow" seems to be about. That is to say, it's about the band trying to find a clear sense of direction in an ever more confusing world of music and media. When Josiah Johnson sings he is "(his) own arrow," he means that he thinks he'll be the one to guide himself in a better direction in life. "Crying in the Night" by Andrew Bird and Madison Cunningham:  Andre...