Welcome to the BroBible New Music Round-Up, where we think Phish opening their Dick’s Sporting Goods Park run with “Down With Disease” would be just a little bit too predictable. For more follow me on Twitter:  @ryanoconnell79

This Week’s Playlist

With the news coming out that Kanye West might be finally releasing new music in September, here is my playlist of my 40 favorite Kanye tracks.

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Neil Young With Crazy Horse “Milky Way”

It’s been seven years since old Neil and the boys released a new album, but they’re back with Colorado, set to be released on October 25th. “Milky Way” is the first release from the new album. The nearly six minute long track is slow and plodding, yet at the same time wide open in a way that reflects the state that the album was named for.

In a post on Neil Young Archives back in April, Young said that “we believe we have a great Crazy Horse album, one to stand alongside Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Rust Never Sleeps, Sleeps With Angels, Psychedelic Pill and all the others.”

Way to manage expectations, Neil.

It’s the crew’s first release with guitarist Nils Lofgren back in the mix. Lofgren was in the band back in the early 70’s, but has spent most of him time since 1984 playing with Bruce Springstreen and the E Street Band. He rejoined Crazy Horse in 2018.

Fun fact about me is that I saw Neil Young and Crazy Horse in the late 90’s and it was a damn near religious experience. At one point, two aging hippie dudes got in the faces of me and my buddy and yelled “IT’S NEIL FUCKING YOUNG MAN!”

It was. And it was awesome.

The Shelters “Down The Line”

The Shelters caught my attention back in 2016 when I heard the song “Rebel Heart” off of their self-titled debut album. I felt that they had a Tom Petty vibe to them and I like both Tom Petty and Tom Petty vibes. Kind of a win/win there.

Turns out the reason behind that vibe was Petty himself, who got hip to the band in 2014. Petty ended up giving the young band the keys to his studio, had a couple of the dudes in the band play on his 2014 album, Hypnotic Eye, and ended up producing their debut EP, which was released in 2015.

Now the band is set to release their follow-up album, Jupiter Sidecar, on September 20. Based on their latest single, they are still keeping things close when it comes to that 60’s garage rock aesthetic of theirs.

Let’s go boys.

Pinegrove “Moment”

Heading into 2017, the New Jersey band Pinegrove was riding something of a hot streak. Their 2016 album Cardinal was creating a pretty legit groundswell of critical adoration and was being received positively by the historically hard to please indie crowd. Things were good for Pinegrove.

Then things weren’t.

The band abruptly went on hiatus in 2017 when the band’s frontman Evan Stephens Hall felt the need to step away following an allegation of sexual coercion. A little over a year passed and they released Skylight, which had been shelved when they went on hiatus. They self-released that album, but have since signed with Rough Trade, who has released this latest track from them.

Pinegrove heads out on tour next week.

Local Natives “When Am I Gonna Lose You (Nick Waterhouse Dub Remix)”

Hey, it’s like my gram always said, when in doubt, drop a dub remix.

That’s what Local Natives have done, teaming up for a dub remix of this track from the band’s most recent album, Violet Street, with Nick Waterhouse, who I’m assuming is the same Nick Waterhouse who is an old school, R&B man.

I have a couple questions.

Are Local Natives and Nick Waterhouse friends? Do they hang out? Has Nick Waterhouse done other dub remixes? Is he into both dub and old school soul music? That’s a weird mix.

Eh, oh well. Summer’s not over yet, so bring on the dub remixes!

The Alchemist Yacht Rock 2

From the jump, I would say that Yacht Rock 2 is not a collection of The Alchemist’s favorite yacht rock tracks. I’m sure that like the rest of us, he loves some yacht rock and all, but also like the rest of us, he probably has a yacht rock playlist. Maybe he even has two.

Yacht Rock 2 is actually the sequel to Yacht Rock, which came out seven years ago. On the new album, the producer teams up with Action Bronson, Roc Marciano, Benny the Butcher and Willie The Kid among others.

The music is great, but the visuals for the album are straight up vacation porn and I AM HERE FOR IT.

Elsewhere in Music…

VMAs? More Like VMHey! No One’s Watching!

The MTV Video Music Awards aired this past Monday night and if you knew that, well, it’s probably not because you were watching the damn thing. I know this because apparently no one was watching. The show had it’s lowest ratings ever, with only 1.93 million viewers. This is down from the 2.5 million who watched last year.

Even with performances from Taylor Swift, Lil Nas X, Lizzo, Miley Cyrus and Missy Elliot, they couldn’t get people to tune in. Maybe part of the problem is that for someone like me, I did watch all of those performances.

However, did I watch the show? No. It’s called Twitter. It’s dope.

Lizzo’s performance alone has been viewed over 3 million times on YouTube.

It’s at this time, I’ll ask the obligatory old man question: does MTV even play videos anymore?

Yo, What’s Up Lizzo?

What’s Kanye Up To?

Last week in this section, we talked about Kanye’s problems building houses and lamented the fact that homeboy doesn’t really make music anymore.

Well, THE JOKE’S ON US.

Kim Kardashian-West recently shared a photograph of what looks a track listing and a title (Jesus is King.) Now unless Kim is getting into the music game, it’s then makes sense to assume the track listing is for a new Kanye album.

It should also be noted that the album isn’t Yandhi, which was supposed to be coming out at the end of last year and then the beginning of this year and then ah, fuck it. It’s never coming out.

It looks like Jesus is King is coming out though. Also included in Kim’s picture was “September 27th.”

Call me jaded, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Or hear it. Either way, I’m skeptical.

This Week in Anniversaries

Twenty-five years ago on August 29, 1994, Oasis released their amazing debut album, Definitely Maybe. They were called the next Beatles, although to be fair, they were the ones who called themselves that more than anyone else. Again, not great at setting expectations.

Oasis obviously never reached the heights The Beatles did, but they were still damn good and their first few albums are about as good as run as a band could have. And it all started with Definitely Maybe, anchored by “Live Forever” and catapulted forward by tracks like “Supersonic” and “Rock ‘n Roll Star.”

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To celebrate, the band released a remastered version of the album and a new podcast was launched, “released as an eye-witness account of all that led to and followed the album.”

No commemorative book, though. Kind of bush league guys.

And Speaking of Oasis

The Foo Fighters recently headlined the Reading Festival and while they were over in England, talked about Oasis and specifically, talked about trying to get them back together. Drummer Taylor Hawkins told the crowd that “one of these days we’ll get Oasis back. One of these days.”

Dave Grohl went even further.

“We’re trying,” frontman Dave Grohl told the crowd. “We’re trying. Let’s sign a petition. Everyone here, okay?” Hawkins added. Grohl then asked the audience, “How many people wanna see Oasis f**king play a show?”

I mean, I do, but I’m also a realist and know that it’s probably never going to happen.

Never one to mince words, Noel Gallagher responded at a show in San Diego, saying “I’d like to start a petition to get Foo Fighters to split up.”

To which The New Music Round-Up responded:

And We’ll End Here

See you next week!