2015 in Review: Music

This is the fifth in a series looking back on 2015. Other entries will include books, movies, food, television, and more.

The last time I posted an entry from my 2015 year-in-review series, it was January 30th. At the time, I felt sheepish about the fact that January was coming to an end and I was still recapping the previous year. Then I practically stopped writing blog entries at all. Here it is, touching on mid-April, and I still haven’t completed my year-in-review of 2015. It seems completely absurd to start it up again at this point, I’m sure, and yet I’m going to do so. I had stuff I wanted to say about my musical year of 2015, and I’m going to embrace the whole “better late than never” philosophy when it comes to this. So here we go…

For me, the first standout album in 2015, although an album much older than that, is Men Without Hats’ 1987 release, Pop Goes the World. I got this album from the library in early February and listened to it almost non-stop for weeks. I found it unbelievably catchy, and it coincided with my coming to a point of clarity in my spiritual journey that also left me feeling giddy. The album served as a perfectly upbeat companion to a time in my life when things were changing, when anything seemed possible, and when I was deliriously happy—which is the precise term I used in a blog entry I wrote at that time, wherein I give credit to both Pop Goes the World and my religious revolution. I now think of Pop Goes the World as my conversion album. Many of you will be familiar with the title track “Pop Goes the World,” a decent hit for Men Without Hats back when it came out. If you’re like I was just 14 months ago, you’ve never heard the rest of the album. But, man, it’s fun. Although there are several songs that are certifiable earworms, I’ve chosen to share “Moonbeam” below. Apparently, it was also released as a single in ‘87, but I have no recollection of it. Does it ring a bell with any of my readers? I apologize that the video is of such terrible quality, both visually and creatively speaking. But the audio isn’t bad, and that’s what we’re going for here.




I discovered The John Butler Trio in 2015 thanks to a YouTube video shared on Facebook. I admit, I haven’t listened much to this band since, but I was blown away by the solo acoustic performance of “Ocean,” which I will post below. It’s impressive enough to be worth sharing, no matter how much (or how little) the band has otherwise taken root in my mind. The guitar-playing is mind-blowing.




One of my favorite folksy artists is Canadian singer-songwriter Hayden. Hayden released Hey Love in late March 2015, and while it may be one of the least memorable of his albums, it’s still good. Here’s the video for “Troubled Times”:




One of my favorite punk bands, Stiff Little Fingers, released a new album in 2015 titled No Going Back. Their first three albums, released between 1979 and 1981, will forever remain their best, but they’re in pretty good form considering. I need to spend more time with No Going Back, but here’s a sample for you: “Throwing It All Away,” a rather radio-friendly none-too-raucous ditty if I do say so myself.




Barenaked Ladies also reappeared on the scene in 2015 with the release of Silverball, just in time to spend some time on our car CD player as we drove to Illinois to spend seven weeks living in Nauvoo. Silverball is a marked improvement over 2013’s Grinning Streak, but still near the bottom of the band’s extensive catalog. Multi-instrumentalist Kevin Hearn continues to be one of the group’s greatest assets, if not an under-utilized songwriter. “Tired of Fighting with You” features Hearn’s classic surreal lullaby sound and quirkily poetic lyrics. This track doesn’t showcase the more energetic pop-rock tone that dominates the rest of the album, but it’s a good song.




1980s New Wave superstars Duran Duran are still going strong, having released Paper Gods in September. Perhaps only one album will eclipse Paper Gods as the album that featured more heavily into my life during 2015—and no, I’m not referring to Pop Goes the World. (Oh, the suspense!) Creegan has been an incredibly fun part of my music listening over the last year. He is an avid music listener, and he picks out his favorites from every CD he hears and demands that they be replayed over and over again. The first three tracks of Paper Gods—titled “Paper Gods,” “Last Night in the City” and “You Kill Me With Silence,” respectively—were all exceptionally big hits with Creegan, who loved the album in its entirety. But I’m actually going to share the fourth track from the album, “Pressure Off.” Why? Because it’s catchy as hell. What other reason do you need?




One of the best releases in 2015, in my opinion, was Ben Folds’ So There. The album concludes with over 20 minutes of concerto music, spanning three tracks. Preceding that are eight piano-heavy pop tunes, in classic Ben Folds form but with more orchestration than he’s ever done before. My favorite is the opening track, “Capable of Anything,” which I’ll share here:




One musician I continually find myself surprised to enjoy as much as I do is Joe Satriani, guitarist extraordinaire who specializes in instrumental rock. I found his 2015 release, Shockwave Supernova, thoroughly enjoyable. The final track is one of my favorites on the album, the slower, aptly-named “Goodbye Supernova.” I really like the bass in this song. Not that it’s impressive, it just sounds really good to me. I think it reminds me of something else, which might not be what Satriani wants to hear, but regardless, there is a nostalgic quality to this tune that pulls me in and makes me feel like closing my eyes and reflecting. Here it is:




I bought Shockwave Supernova as a birthday present to myself along with a few other albums. I rounded out my Collective Soul collection by nabbing both 2008’s Afterwords, which I had previously neglected, and their new 2015 release, See What You Started by Continuing. Collective Soul is one of those bands that I really enjoyed in the 1990s and then stopped paying much attention to after a couple of their albums were merely so-so. After nearly a decade-and-a-half of pretty much ignoring them, I came by a really cheap copy of their 2009 self-titled album and gave it a listen. I quite liked it. I can understand someone arguing that many of their songs sound quite a bit alike, but such a complaint can be lobbied against many a good band. All I know is, the last few Collective Soul albums have been very enjoyable, and I’m glad to have them back in rotation. Below are the videos for “Hollywood” from Afterwords and “AYTA” from See What You Started by Continuing.






One of my absolute favorite album discoveries of 2015 was one of my birthday CDs, White Hot Peach by Primitive Radio Gods. Choosing one song to showcase from this album is incredibly hard. It’s so damn good. I’m not sure the audio quality is as good in the following video as I wish it were, but the song is awesome. Please enjoy “Fading Out.” After you listen to this, can you honestly say you don’t want to listen to it about 100 more times before doing anything else?




It was late October, or maybe November, when a friend of mine called me up and invited me to go with him to see Shakey Graves in concert. I’d never heard of Shakey Graves, but I went for it and had a very good time. I was amused that, of all the concerts I’ve ever been to, this country-tinged, electrified, singer-songwriter type gave the most rock star performance of any artist I’ve ever seen live. Brassieres thrown onstage? I’d never seen it before, but it happened for Shakey Graves. He had a certain boyish charm and energy about him that kept the crowd enthralled, myself included. He wasn’t shredding up the guitar like you might expect of a heavy metal musician, but man, could he fingerpick the hell out of it. I’ve decided that a video of a live performance is more fitting, since that’s how I experienced Shakey Graves. In this video, he looks very much like he did when I saw him at The Depot in downtown Salt Lake City: black baseball cap, plain white t-shirt, and a thick but short beard. Enjoy this dual performance of “If Not For You” and “The Perfect Parts,” both from the 2014 album And the War Came.




And now for the absolute biggest album of 2015, as far as my family is concerned: Blurryface by Twenty One Pilots. We got this album from the library, and even more so than with Duran Duran’s Paper Gods, my kids could not get enough of it. They knew a couple of songs from the radio—“Tear in My Heart” and “Stressed Out”—but they quickly fell in love with pretty much every track on the CD. I tell you, watching Creegan cock an attitude and sing along with “Stressed Out” is pretty darn entertaining, but even I found myself enjoying the crap out of this album from a purely musical standpoint. For all the many hours of continuous airplay that it received in our car, I never got sick of it. I still don’t feel sick of it, even though it still gets regular airplay. (Santa was wise enough to give us our own official copy for Christmas.) Twenty One Pilots are sometimes classified as an “alternative hip hop” duo. If you know me, you know hip hop is pretty far from my style, but I guess the “alternative” part is doing enough work to keep my ears perked up and happy. Yes, there’s a fair amount of rapping, but there is also plenty of melodic singing and even some edgy screaming now and again. Musically and lyrically, these guys are hella talented. Spoiler alert for when I review 2016, but I’ve since listened to another couple of albums by Twenty One Pilots and they are relentlessly amazing. Each of the three albums I’ve listened to had me instantaneously hooked. Twenty One Pilots are one of the best discoveries I’ve made in the last few years, without question.

I’ll be sharing a few videos to orient you to Twenty One Pilots. The first video is the official video for “Stressed Out,” which is on the radio almost constantly, it seems. On the off chance you haven’t heard it, now you can. The next video is one of Creegan listening to “Stressed Out” while in the car. I discreetly filmed him with my cell phone so he wouldn’t know what I was doing and stop behaving however he was. Sadly, despite seriously belting his heart out numerous times up to this point, it seems my filming had the cosmic effect of cramping his style. In the video, he starts off singing in a silly, non-serious way (not as he had been up to that point), makes an observation about the lyrics, mimics a drumbeat, and eventually just lip-syncs and dances a bit. It’s still cute, and you still get a feel for how he sometimes acts when he’s singing along, but it’s not what I hoped it would be. To make matters worse, the picture goes blurry for most of the video. But it’s the best I can offer. The third and final video below is merely the audio track of my favorite song on the album, “Hometown.” It’s amazing.







The end!

Happy, But Sorta Crappy, New Year

The whole week leading up to 2016, Melanie, the boys, and I have had the house to ourselves. Melanie’s parents and brother Tom went to visit her brother Brent in Seattle. With Melanie and the boys out of school, it felt like a vacation to us. We could do whatever, whenever, and didn’t ever feel like we were stepping on anyone else’s toes. Melanie and I could watch our favorite vulgar and profane TV shows in the living room at 1 AM and it didn’t matter. That sort of thing. Unfortunately, much of the fun has been ruined by persistent illness. I mentioned the roller coaster of health we’ve all been riding in my previous post, but since then, I’ve gone back downhill. Yet again. It’s unbelievable. I feel like crap. I don’t know if the Utah climate is to blame or not, but I feel like I’m giving serious reconsideration to living here. The winter sucks. It hasn’t been that snowy this year, which is great, but the cold, dry air wreaks plenty of havoc. My skin dries out and cracks. Even if it doesn’t snow, you have to get up 30 minutes early to go stand in the cold and scrape the frost off of your windshield. Melanie has developed asthma since returning to this elevation. Creegan gets nosebleeds all the time, which used to be a very common problem for me living in Utah. And now this never-ending carousel of sickness. I don’t think we spent so much time sick in Florida. Maybe I’m glorifying the past, because I know I wrote blog posts in Florida about being sick all the time. But I don’t know if it was such long stretches. I’m hacking my lungs out. I feel like my insides are being torn apart, and like I have a blister on the back of my throat. Even when I did get sick in Florida, I don’t think it was this vicious. (The voice inside my head says, “Um, did you forget all the trips to the hospital?” Okay, okay. Fair point.)

December 2015 saw me canceling many plans due to illness. It happened again on New Year’s Eve. My family had been invited to a friend’s house, and we were looking forward to it. My health kept swinging around, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I thought I was on the mend, but Creegan and I were both feeling pretty crappy once New Year’s Eve arrived. Canceling plans is one of my least favorite things, so I always hold out until the last minute in case something can work out after all. As a result, I canceled on my friends rather last minute. I wasn’t the only person invited to their house, so it’s not like I completely ruined their evening. And I don’t pretend I’m so special that my not being around would ruin their evening. But you get the point. I think it was the right decision. I seemed to feel worse and worse as the night went on, and I tossed and turned all night, grunting and wheezing in that pre-cough dance that your throat often does when you have a really bad cold. I feel like poo balls today. I’m getting really tired of it.

Anyway, I’ll stop complaining and focus on the fun we had last night. Because we did manage to have some fun as a family. We ended up ordering Chinese takeout and picking up a movie (a family-friendly drama called Max, about a military dog) from Redbox. We also had some snacks on hand. After eating Chinese food and watching the movie, we played TENZI, a game that Melanie’s parents had given me for Christmas. In the game, up to four people are given 10 dice. Everybody starts at the same time, rolling their dice, putting to the side any dice that they wish, and then rerolling whatever’s left. The winner is whichever player first gets all 10 of his/her dice to be the same number. There are also several variations you can play, such as one where you not only have to get all 10 dice to the same number, but you then have to stack them up in a tower in order to win. It’s more fun, and less grueling, than I thought it would be. I think Eddie and Peter liked it. Creegan played a couple of rounds but then lost interest.

After game time, Eddie wanted to watch another movie. Even thought I doubt we’ve ever watched more than three movies on a New Year’s Eve during Eddie’s lifetime, the boy had it in his head that we were supposed to watch four or five. He found something on Netflix and started it, before anyone else really gave any input. I was fine with that. I hardly watched any of this second movie, the title of which I don’t even know. I did a little bit of reading. Creegan came up to me around this time and said he was going to go to sleep in Melanie’s and my bed. And he did just that. Peter and Eddie, however, remained alert and attentive all the way until midnight. As did Melanie—I think. She might have dozed off a little bit during the second movie, I’m not sure. Regardless, all of us except for Creegan were conscious as midnight approached. We turned over to ABC and watched the pre-recorded excitement of all those thousands of people crammed into New York’s Times Square as they welcomed 2016. When the ball dropped, or at least when it was broadcast to us here in the Mountain Time Zone, Eddie was the first to grab a pot and a wooden spoon and head bravely into the cold, making all the clatter he could. I had no interest in going outside. Melanie and Peter did. I was the party pooper, but I stand behind my decision.

And that’s pretty much that. We got Eddie and Peter to bed soon after, then Melanie and I went and watched a show on the living room couch. I fell asleep before the episode was over, benefiting no doubt from being in an upright position. Once the show ended and I officially went to bed, I was wheezing and hacking away. Thankfully, I eventually was getting more sleep than not, and I stayed in bed until nearly 11:30 AM.

I haven’t wanted to do much today. I’ve watched some TV, I’ve eaten. I’m proud to say I did a fair amount of cleaning in preparation for the return of Melanie’s parents. Melanie, the boys, and I played another game tonight—Gubs, which Peter received in his stocking. I honestly don’t think there’s anything else to say about the day. It’s been a non-eventful 2016 thus far, which is probably what I would’ve hoped for on New Year’s Day, but in this case I wish it had been on better terms. I’ve coughed up more snot and boogers than I care to admit, but not nearly as much as I wish. I bet you’re glad you didn’t stop reading before you learned that.

And now, some photos from our New Year’s Eve. Enjoy.

My dinner plate.  Yum.

Creegan's eyes look slightly demonic here, all because he's sick.  His eyes were quite pink and cloudy.

Looks like somebody got TENZI!

This one should probably be filed under "photos that should never see the light of day," but I'll bravely share it with you.  Peter thought my pajama joke was pretty funny and wanted to copy me.  You know what they say, imitation is the highest form of flattery.

Christmas 2015

It will be much easier to recap the holiday season via photos than trying to explain everything in detail. It’s been a good few weeks, except for the fact that illness has been a persistent presence in our home. Melanie got strep, I got strep, I got bitten by a bug of some sort that made my head swell up quite a bit behind my ear and gave me very itchy extremities, and now we’re all back to having terrible colds. So, health wise, December has been a crappy month. But we’re trying to have some fun anyway. Below are some of the things we’ve been up to.

December 8, 2015 – Rudolph Pancakes

December 9, 2015 – Ugly Sweater Sugar Cookie Decorating

December 19, 2015 – Christmas Program at Church

Creegan as a wise man.

Peter as Caesar Augustus.  Needless to say, the costumes available at church were not of ancient Hebrew fashion.

Eddie as the angel.

Acting is hard work.

Eddie as an angel, announcing to Mary that she is going to have a baby.  He really captured the "wowzers!" factor.

December 20, 2015 – Snowmen Pizza

December 24, 2015 – Christmas Eve

The Christmas Eve tradition of opening one present from Mom and Dad continued this year.  This year's gift: body pillows.

Creegan wasn't entirely sure how to use a body pillow.

We also continued our Christmas Eve tradition of driving around looking at Christmas lights just before bed.  Eddie and Creegan could scarcely tolerate the flash of the camera.  And don't worry, the kids had hot chocolate, not coffee.  Melanie and I had the coffee: our first caramel macchiatos.  I added some half and half to mine, as well as a couple of pumps of Irish Creme.  It was muy bueno.

December 25, 2015 – Christmas Day

Where we currently live, we had one Christmas tree upstairs and another one downstairs.  Like last year, Eddie left a note for Santa to leave all of his gifts downstairs.  The upstairs tree was used primarily for gifts from family members, although I think Santa left some gifts that were NOT for Eddie, Peter, and Creegan upstairs.  This is the upstairs tree, and so only about half of the Christmas booty.

Checking to see that Santa ate his cookies.  This year, we also left out baby carrots for the reindeer and some cookies for Bernadette.  Melanie was determined to teach our kids that Mrs. Claus has a first name and does more than sit at home on Christmas Eve.  She comes along to help.

Let the unwrapping begin.

Nerf guns were a very popular item.  All three boys asked for some, and all three received more than one as a gift.

These cups are called Snackeez Duos.  Apparently, the boys have wanted one very much ever since seeing them in use early in the school year.  There is a compartment for snacks at the top, and the beverage goes in the area beneath.  A straw then extends through the snack section and into the drink.  You can then pop open the top and snack on whatever.

As Christmas approached, Creegan suddenly took a strong interest in the one and only Perplexus game that we own.  He started asking if there were other Perplexus games and what were they called, etc.  It was clear that getting a new Perplexus for Creegan was a must.  Here, he examines his newly opened Perplexus Twist.

Peter and Creegan each received a "Chubby Puppy" from Melanie's parents.  They found them quite adorable.

The last few years, the boys have each received a card game with their stocking.  This year, Eddie received Guillotine.

Eddie brought up last minute that he hoped to receive Diet Coke in his stocking.  It was so last minute that I'm sure Santa must have already planned that.  What a coincidence.  Usually, our kids aren't permitted caffeinated beverages.

One of several packages of nuts I received for Christmas.  In addition to the toasted coconut cashews you see here, I also received pumpkin spice almonds, regular cashews, macadamia nuts, and others.

Christmas Part II: The Downstairs Tree

Creegan finds one of several unwrapped movies mixed in with the gifts.  Santa often leaves a few unwrapped items that are meant for the whole family.

This CD received near constant play in our family car while we had it checked out from the library.  All three boys absolutely love it.  Since Santa brought us our own copy, it has again gone into permanent play on our car stereo.

When Peter sent his letter to Santa, he asked for only five things.  One of those things was a purse.  Santa delivered this peppermint purse, which Peter dons proudly.

A ghost-shooting game courtesy of Uncle Tom.

I’ll conclude with some photos of Peter enjoying his new keyboard. It took a couple of days for him to open it and actually start using it, but since then, he’s been quite enthusiastic about it. He loves playing the demos and dancing along, as you’ll see below, but he also likes experimenting with his own playing. It’s been very fun for a music fanatic such as myself to behold.

See you next year!