Welcome to the BroBible New Music Round-Up, where we think it’s totally cool Billie Eilish has never heard of Van Halen. For more follow me on Twitter:  @ryanoconnell79

This Week’s Playlist

Earlier this week Jay-Z celebrated his 50th birthday by (finally) posting his music on Spotify. In turn, I celebrated Hov’s birthday by listening to his MTV Unplugged performance for the first time in years. Guess what? Still holds up.

I suppose that’s what happens when you get The Roots to be your backing band.

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This Week’s Releases

Khruangbin & Leon Bridges “Texas Sun”

Leon Bridges and Khruangbin toured together about a year ago and apparently got along so well, they decided to record together. They didn’t record a lot together, but they recorded enough that they have a four-song EP coming out in February.

The Texas team-up (Bridges is from Fort Worth and Khruangbin are from Houston,) released the first song from the EP, “Texas Sun,” earlier this week and it’s about exactly what you’d expect. It features Bridges’ smooth, old school vocals on top of Khruangbin’s thought-provoking, spaced out, desert psychedelia.

“We try not to have too much of an intention, because it gets in the way of what the music wants to do,” said Khruangbin bassist Laura Lee in a statement. “If you just let the music do what it’s supposed to do, it will reveal itself. We tried to take that same approach with Leon. For us, it was opening up our world to have another person in it. But all of it feels like Texas to me.”

“Big sky country, that’s what they call Texas. The horizon line goes all the way from one side to another without interruption. There’s something really comforting about that. It all feels like a cross-country Texas drive to me. I hope that people can listen to it while putting themselves in that headspace. Some of my favorite moments listening to music are me by myself in a car—or preferably a truck—driving across Texas.”

Texas Sun comes out on February 7.

Rico Nasty “Hard”

Rico Nasty still has yet to release an album, but that’s not stopping her from dropping kick-the-doors-down bangers like “Hard.” It’s the third song she’s released this year following “Time Flies” and “Fashion Week.”

The Maryland-based rapper also dropped Anger Management with Kenny Beats earlier this year.

As for “Hard,” if you’re wondering what it’s about, let me help courtesy of the song’s hook.

“Bitch, I be goin’ hard!/ I get yo n**** hard!/ This blunt is hittin’ hard!/ And what I’m whippin’ hard!”

It’s obviously a song about the recent Impeachment hearings.

Freddie Gibbs & Amerigo Gazaway A Freddie Christmas Album

You can only listen to traditional Christmas songs so many times. At some point, it’s going to break your brain and quite possibly drive you insane. It’s true. Look it up if you don’t believe me.

This is why we need alternatives.

Mash-up DJ Amerigo Gazaway and rapper Freddie Gibbs have you covered when the time for a break comes. The duo released A Freddie Christmas Album earlier this week. Don’t worry if you feel that by listening to this, you’re somehow breaking the rules by listening to something besides Christmas classics during the Christmas season. Some of those classics are worked into the album’s thirteen tracks.

Gibbs released an excellent album, Bandana, earlier this year with Madlib. The duo appeared on NPR Tiny Desk Concert earlier this week.

As for Amerigo Gazaway, the Nashville native has become known for his inventive mash-ups including releases featuring Notorious B.I.G. and James Brown, Common and Stevie Wonder, Yasiin Bey and Marvin Gaye, De la Soul and Fe La Cuti and Nina Simone and Lauryn Hill.

Pearl Jam 12 Days of Pearl Jam

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On the subject of alternative Christmas music, Pearl Jam are dusting off Christmas tunes they’ve recorded over the years and are releasing them via a Spotify playlist entitled 12 Days of Pearl Jam. The band kicked things off with “Let Me Sleep (Christmas Time,)” which they originally shared back in 1991.

So far, the band has added four tracks to the playlist including their version of “Jingle Bells.”

Pearl Jam recently announced a 2020 summer tour and is reportedly working on a new studio album.

The Who Who

We need to ask ourselves, do we really want a new album from The Who.

I’m not sure I do.

Eh, we’re getting one anyway though. On Friday the band released their first new album in 13 years.

Yet when I say “the band,” I mean Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend, as they are the only ones from the band’s original lineup left. The band’s dynamic rhythm section comprised of Keith Moon on drums and John Entwistle on bass died years ago. On the new album, their roles have been filled by drummer Zak Starkey (Ringo Starr’s son) and legendary bassist Pino Palladino.

Leading up the band’s release, the band wasn’t holding back when it came to hyping the album, with Daltrey saying “I think we’ve made our best album since Quadrophenia in 1973. Pete hasn’t lost it. He’s still a fabulous songwriter, and he’s still got that cutting edge.”

You can check out a review of Who here and then check out my favorite album of theirs, Who’s Next, here.

Elsewhere in Music…

Willie Nelson: Off the Pot

I guess it was bound to happen.

Willie Nelson doesn’t smoke weed anymore.

In a recent interview, Nelson said that “I have abused my lungs quite a bit in the past, so breathing is a little more difficult these days and I have to be careful.” He added that “I don’t smoke anymore — [I] take better care of myself.”

I mean, Willie, there’s edibles bro. You don’t have to straight-up quit anymore. We live in wonderful times where there are now options when it comes to using weed.

Has anyone told Willie about edibles? Does he know what they are? I feel like someone has dropped the ball here. It doesn’t have to end like this.

We need to do better people.

This Week in Yeah, Sounds About Right

And Speaking of Billie Eilish…

Billie Eilish was recently on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and coped to not knowing who Van Halen is. This made sense. She’s 17 years old. It’d actually be more wild if she had heard of them.

As is the way of our world now, Eilish not knowing who Van Halen is became a whole thing on Twitter. There was faux-outrage, regular outrage, genuine outrage, dismissiveness, and a large contingent of people who could honestly care less but felt the need to wade into things because that’s a thing people do now.

Even Van Halen bassist and Eddie Van Halen’s son, Wolf Van Halen, felt the need to comment.

That was actually a pretty good comment.

I liked this one too:

For some reason, even Democratic Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren was asked about it. Warren defended Eilish saying that she knows who Van Halen is, but “you don’t have to know” who the band is. She added that “let’s ease up on Billie.”

I agree.

Let’s just move on.

But wait, this tweet was pretty good.

I am all for making fun of Greta Van Fleet.

The Best Hey-Oh! Songs of 2019

Earlier this week, I ran through my favorite Hey-Oh! songs of the year. A Hey-Oh! song is one that grabbed my attention right away and never really let go.

Here’s a playlist of this year’s songs:

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Check it out and let me know what you think.

This Week in The Best of Late Night Performances

https://youtu.be/ruFt3qNGPE0

 

And We’ll End Here

https://twitter.com/PuccaNoodles/status/1201753814639857664

 

See you next week!