Metallica is on my mind because their current residency at the Sphere in Vegas has flooded my social media. I have serious FOMO about the residency, so I am revisiting the front end of the Metallica catalog (the first five studio albums). I am listening to the remasters on Tidal (24-bit/96 kHz FLAC), which are sonically fantastic.

I first heard the band as an undercard (afternoon set) at the Monsters of Rock tour at the Minneapolis Metrodome in 1988. That tour included headliner Van Halen (Sammy Hagar version), Scorpions, Dokken (who I don’t remember seeing that day), Metallica (just ahead of the release of …And Justice for All), and Kingdom Come (a one-hit-wonder Zeppelin knockoff).

Metallica blew my mind at that show. I had heard of them, but I had never heard them. They weren’t on the radio, yet they were a buzz band playing 2000- to 6,000-capacity rooms. Clad in black, they leaned into their wind machines like they were playing against a straight-line wind. Their fans, in their black Metallica T-shirts, were the first true headbangers I had witnessed. They helped make Metallica’s set the most memorable of the day. And the music? All I remember is that it was loud. How loud? The hairs on my legs were moving in rhythm to the beat, and my chest felt like I was getting CPR.

Although I found their music harsh that day, I was intrigued. The first Metallica album I bought was …And Justice for All when it came out that fall (1988). I loved that album. It was not my typical music, but I liked it: punk intensity, heavy metal vibes, musicality, a dash of prog, and serious lyrics (despair, systemic injustice, and the trauma of childhood). It was impressive.

I consider myself a minor Metallica fan. I have most of their catalog (on CD and vinyl). I saw them twice, the aforementioned Monsters tour and at the apex of their The Black Album era. Yet I don’t have a Metallica T-shirt in my wardrobe (dominated by band and brewery T-shirts), and they might not even be in my top 100 music artists (if I had such a list).

Music critic Steven Hyden has a special artistic honor: The Five-Albums Test. He suggests that true musical greatness isn’t just about having a couple of great records, but managing a streak of five consecutive great studio albums. Few achieve this. Revisiting the first five albums, I now realize Metallica succeeded at the five-album test:

As I revisit their catalog, I am surprised by how accessible it all sounds now. When I first heard it, it seemed so heavy and harsh. I have changed, but Metallica has also normalized thrash through their massive popularity. They have bent music culture toward them. You could argue they dumbed down their sound and sold out with The Black Album, but I see it as a maturation of their sound and an apex they would never repeat.

The next album I picked up was a vinyl version of their 1983 debut, Kill ‘Em All (it was cut out), which didn’t hook me at the time. It subsequently has. Looking back at it now, it is an amazing debut; however, it seems infantile compared to what followed. They had the seed of Metallica, but they had not yet fully found their sound. At the time, it wasn’t enough to get me to backtrack through their catalog.

And then came their commercial breakthrough: The Black Album (1991). That hit me hard. The band slowed things down, added some sugar to it, and made a pop metal masterpiece – including the ubiquitous, radio-friendly hit song: “Enter Sandman.”

My work situation sucked, and I remember spinning a CD of The Black Album at top volume on the way to work. It was cathartic. Nirvana’s Nevermind was part of the soundtrack too. 1991 was a good rock year (specifically that fall):

• Pearl Jam – Ten
• Soundgarden – Badmotorfinger
• Red Hot Chili Peppers – Blood Sugar Sex Magik
• R.E.M. – Out of Time 
• Guns N’ Roses – Use Your Illusion I & II
• Ozzy Osbourne – No More Tears 

All those albums were great. My kids were young, and I listened to a lot of music when hanging out with them.

But after The Black Album, none of their subsequent releases hit me. But the back catalog of Ride the Lightning (1984) and Master of Puppets (1986) provided plenty to explore. The Black Album is the band’s apex, and everything before is excellent (each subsequent album built on the prior). But after The Black Album, not so much.

Master of Puppets was my next album, and though it’s considered one of the greatest metal albums of all time, it didn’t hook me in the early 90s. Now seems so accessible, and I have learned to love it.

Ride the Lightning… was my final installment of the band: Metallica becomes Metallica. This was the hardest of the five for me to get into (pure thrash is not my thing), but now I fully appreciate it. It is a huge step forward from Kill ‘Em All.

Metallica slipped out of my listening rotation for decades (with an occasional return to The Black Album), but now they are back. They sound better than I remember, and the first five are a remarkable run.

I am a long-time fan of George Clinton and his various bands (collectively known as P-Funk). One of the greatest live music experiences of my life was witnessing the P-Funk All-Stars at The Cabooze (Minneapolis) in the early 90s. I was even part of a conga line led by Bootsy Collins that night. I recently discovered there is a pretty good-quality soundboard recording of that show on YouTube:

Funkadelic was Clinton’s amalgamation of funk and psychedelic rock – thus a perfectly named band.

I knew there was a new reissue of the classic Funkadelic album Maggot Brain, but I didn’t realize there was an audiophile component: a two-LP 45 RPM edition and a SACD edition. The folks and ORG Music have taken deliberate care in making this the best possible recording. Per the reissue label, ORG Music:

For this definitive 2026 reissue, the album was mastered directly from analog tape, preserving the raw power, depth, and atmosphere of the original recordings with extraordinary detail. A longtime holy grail for collectors, Maggot Brain receives the treatment it has long deserved.

I just ordered the SACD, as I am a fan of DSD and appreciate the analog-sourced warmth it provides without dealing with the surface noise or physical flipping of the 2×45 RPM vinyl variant. Again, per ORG Music:

Hybrid Stereo SACD mastered by Dave Gardner, captured directly from the all analog processing during the cutting of the 2LP 45RPM edition.

Regarding the 2LP 45RPM edition:

• Mastering & Restoration: Dave Gardner, DSG MasteringLacquer cutting: Dave Gardner & Catherine VericolliOriginal
• Master Tape Archival & Restoration: Catherine Vericolli 
• Additional Engineering and Indispensable Assistance: Nick KingVisual Restoration: Henry H. Owings
• All vinyl variants are all analog, mastered direct from tape to lathe
• Pressed at Furnace Record Pressing
• Gatefold packaging featured on all vinyl editions
• 2xLP 45RPM Edition features a case-wrapped gatefold jacket from Stoughton Printing

In the meantime, I am enjoying the high-resolution 24-bit/96kHz FLAC via Tidal. It sounds fantastic. I won’t be able to audition the DSD version on the SACD until I am back in Phoenix, as I don’t have a DSD option in Minneapolis. I will update this post once I have experienced the SACD. But enough of the audiophile bullshshit. Let’s talk about the music.

First and foremost, Maggot Brain is an Eddie Hazel showcase. Hazel was a Jimi Hendrix-level guitar hero. If you have ever witnessed a Prince face-melting guitar solo, he is channeling the spirit of Eddie Hazel. Clinton’s genius was and is recruiting talent and putting that talent in the best situation to shine. And boy does Hazel shine on this album.

For the titular instrumental track, George Clinton is famously reported to have coached Hazel to play “as if your momma had just died, and then found out she was alive.” Clinton recalled that other band members on the session had drifted off or struggled to find the right groove, prompting him to isolate Hazel, surround him with amplifiers, and let him carry the entire track alone: “So I had to make a record out of whatever I got… I faded they ass right the fuck out and just let Eddie play by hisself the whole fuckin’ track.” The result is one of the all-time great guitar solos in history. The track starts with soul-crushing saddness and ends ten minutes later triumphant rejoicing.

“Can You Get to That” is acoustic folk-blues with gospel-infused backing vocals. The song appears to be about a womanizer who has played out his game:

When you base your life on credit and your loving days are done
The checks you signed with love and kisses, later come back signed, “Insufficient funds”
Y’all get to that

“Hit It and Quit It” is classic funk-rock. It has a funky organ riff by Bernie Worrell and ends with a smoking Hazel guitar solo. It appears to be a song about casual sex.

“You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks” has an amazing bass and drum riff and an urgent, soulful vocal from Billy “Bass” Nelson. It is a call for exploited people to come together so they can work together to get to a better place.

“Super Stupid” is Hazel on guitar and vocals doing his Hendrix thing. It is evidently a true story. According to Harvey McGee, a close friend of the band, Funkadelic was performing in Boston. Hazel was in the mood for cocaine. He went out looking for coke, and came back with what he thought was cocaine. He sniffed it in two lines and, according to McGee, “his eyes got wide, and his nose started running.” It was not cocaine but actually heroin, which “scag” is a nickname for.

Super stupid bought a five cent bag
Thought it was coke but it was scag
Super stupid took a one and one
Then his eyes begin to bug, his nose begin to run
Oh, stupid with your ups and downs
Your maggot brain, your grins and frowns
Super stupid you’re here today
You’ve lost the fight and the winner is fear

“Back In Our Minds ” has an amazing bass line, some great Worrell keys and slinky horns. After loosing their minds the group has come to their senses: “We are back in our minds again.”

The album ends with “Wars of Armageddon,” featuring drummer Tiki Fulwood. Around his incredible drum performance is a collage of sound effects capturing the social and political anxieties of the early 1970s. And of course, some P-Funk locker-room humor:

More power to the people
More power to the people
More pussy to the power
More pussy to the people
More power to the pussy
More pussy to the power
Pussy to the people
Power to the pussy

More peter to the eater
More power to the pussy
More pussy to the power
Right on, right on
More power to the pussy
More pussy to the power
More power to the peter
More peter to the pussy
Right on

Maggot Brain is a masterpiece in the P- Funk catalog and a must-listen for fans of funk and soul.

Note: Spotify lists this album as Lossless, which means the streaming resolution is 24-bit / 44.1 kHz FLAC (CD quality).

Crossover bluegrass stars have come and gone (David Grisman, Alison Krauss, Béla Fleck, etc.), and new stars have emerged (Molly Tuttle, Sierra Hull, Greensky Bluegrass, etc.). But only Billy Strings fills arenas playing bluegrass and bluegrass-influenced music.

I like bluegrass music, but I am not as drawn to it as other rootsy genres. Billy Strings has really hooked me.

So Much for Goodbyes is not radically different from the rest of his catalog. Sonically, it is a bit more atmospheric. Lyrically, it is more serious. Overall, it has more of a singer-songwriter vibe. Strings’ vocals are the best yet.

Strings has been open about the inspiration for So Much for Goodbyes: grief, generational trauma, and the complex relationship with his mom, who passed away in 2025 due to an accidental drug overdose. Strings’ birth father overdosed when String was very young, and Strings’ mom has struggled with addiction, but Strings was not aware she had relapsed. Strings himself is now completely sober – his sole addictive vice is coffee. Given his family history, I applaud him.

Strings hired producer T Bone Burnett to help him with the album (Strings knew T Bone through other projects). Burnett has a great track record as a producer. Strings specifically sought out Burnett for this album to bring his magic touch to this emotionally raw, grief-filled project.

So Much for Goodbyes is my new favorite Billy Strings’s album. There are no tracks to skip, and there is enough sonic variety to hold my interest. A few tracks even have drums/percussion. If you just want to sample one track, try “Mill Town Flood.”

Streaming vs vinyl: Except for a little surface noise on the end of side one, the vinyl LP is great. Somehow it seems more real and more intimate. The high-resolution stream is 24-bit/96 kHz, and with the right gear it is pretty breathtaking.

I heard all the indie hype around Punisher (Bridgers’ 2020 breakout). I listened that album at the time, but it never resonated with me. However, I loved her in the indie supergroup boygenius. I never really had a sense of who was who (Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus) on their album the record (2023) – I just enjoyed the vibes. Lost Weekend has got me hooked. It takes Bridgers’ folk-rock sound to a more adventurous and ambitious place.

In a recent feature in Nylon magazine, the author writes: “Bridgers has fine-tuned the specific sound of melancholy with a wink. Her pen is sharp and her heart is firmly on her sleeve.” That is an excellent summary of Bridgers.

Although Bridgers has not done traditional press to promote Lost Weekend, she has made it known that the new album is a cathartic work dealing with romantic breakups, her complicated relationship with her father, his death, the ups and downs of fame, and new romance. A lot has happened in Bridgers’ life since her last album: a high-profile romance with Irish actor Paul Mescal, a public breakup with Mescal, her father’s death, fame and fortune, cool friends like Taylor Swift and Maggie Rogers, and a more private romance with American comedian and actor Bo Burnham. All of this is on full display on Lost Weekend and in her college radio track-by-track commentary.

Normally, I would not be drawn into my-life-as-art musings of a sad girl pop star, but Bridgers delivers so successfully that I can’t be cynical (my Mount Rushmore artist, Joni Mitchell, pulled off a similar trick in her career). Bridgers has more in common with Bon Iver than Taylor Swift (who said about Lost Weekend: “Haven’t been able to stop listening. This album is an absolute triumph in every way.“). Her lyrics are deep, and I assume a big attraction for her fans, but what really draws me in is the music (keep in mind I am a Dylan fan who is more into his music than his lyrics). The music is a combination of folk, rock, and electronica – the arrangements are deceptively simple on first blush, but almost symphonic upon a deeper listen. Vocally, Bridgers can go from a whisper to a scream (frequently in the same song). Despite her sad-girl persona, Bridgers is often fun and funny, yet always poignant.

Although there are some great songs on this album, there isn’t a stand-out single. This is an album that needs to be consumed in its enitrety. If you are not ready to commit to 52 minutes, start with the songs “Bobby” (about falling in love) and “The Governor’s Waltz” (about the perils of success). Those two will give you a good feel for the vibe of Lost Weekend.

Lost Weekend includes several collaborators, including: Alex G, Jack Antonoff, Julien Baker, Bo Burnham, Lucy Dacus, Christian Lee Hutson, Caroline Shaw, Chris Thile, and Cameron Winter (who is credited via an alias: Son-John Johnson). Most songs have multiple songwriting credits, but they’re pure Phoebe Bridgers.

Bridger’s has clearly struck a chord at this moment. She sold out 34 arena shows in minutes (the tour was expanded to 45 shows). It is a top album of the year on Metacritic (91). Lost Weekend is this year’s Getting Killed (Geese 2025), that is, the album that captures the indie rock zeitgeist.

I approached seeing Willie Nelson at his Outlaw Music Festival as the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae that was the other six festival acts. My wife and I had low expectations for Willie – the last time we saw him in 2019 was a poor performance (to Willie’s defense, he was hospitalized a few days later with pneumonia). Recent recordings have displayed that Willie’s vocals are in decline. We considered skipping his set, but stayed out of honor to a truly American musical institution and living legend (and let’s face it, there can’t be many Willie performances left). We were pleasantly surprised by his performance. Granted, he remained seated for the performance; his voice was weak, his guitar playing muted, and he was heavily supported by “the family,” yet the spark was still there: I got goosebumps several times throughout the hour-long performance.

The show opened with Willie singing his classic “Whiskey River,” and it was rough. You could barely hear him. I could not tell whether his sound team had a problem or were intentionally hiding his voice by keeping the volume low. Eventually, Willie’s voice grew stronger and/or the sound was adjusted. We were no longer distracted by this and could enjoy the show.

The playlist (see below) featured Willie classics and some curveballs, like a cover of Pearl Jam’s “Just Breathe,” which really works as a Willie song. It is a song about love, gratitude, and the briefness of life.

Lukas Nelson took the lead on his song “(Forget About) Georgia,” which worked perfectly in the context of this set. Lukas told the background: he had broken up with a lady named Georgia, yet had to perform the standard “Georgia” with Willie. Next, Micah Nelson sang his song “Die When I’m High (Halfway to Heaven),” with Willie delivering the punchline:

Micah: And if I die when I’m high
I’ll be halfway to heaven

Willie: Or I might have a long way to fall

Overall, the setlist was a wink to the audience that Willie understands this is likely the last time you will see him, and he hopes you are ok with that (he seems ready, but not impatient).

Willie doesn’t have much in the tank, but he can leverage what he has to create great drama. For example, on “You Were Always on My Mind,” he used pauses to heighten tension and emphasize the regret in the lyrics.

Willie is an underrated guitar player with a jazzy aesthetic. I assumed that he had lost his ability and that his guitar, Trigger, was merely a prop at this stage of his career. But in the second half of the set he squeezed out some tasty guitar solos. The big screen zoomed in on his hands, and they were remarkably dexterous. When his son Micah took a noisy solo on “Everything Is Bullshit,” and the camera zoomed in on his hands, I was shocked by how similar Willie’s (age 93) and Micah’s (age 36) hands looked (the circle remained unbroken).

My wife and I were deeply moved by Willie’s performance and were grateful we had stayed to witness the set. The cringe of the beginning of the set made the payoff of the rest of the set that much sweeter. The bonus of the performance was that each time Willie finished a song and received an ovation, he would respond with a wry smile we will never forget. A truly magical performance.

Setlist:

1. Whiskey River
2. Stay a Little Longer (Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys cover)
3. Bloody Mary Morning
4. I Never Cared for You
5. (Forget About) Georgia (Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real cover)
6. Die When I’m High (Halfway to Heaven) (Particle Kid, AKA Micah Nelson, cover)
7. Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys
8. Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground
9. On the Road Again
10. You Were Always on My Mind
11. Good Hearted Woman (Waylon Jennings cover)
12. Georgia (on My Mind)
13. Just Breathe (Pearl Jam cover)
14. Help Me Make It Through the Night (Kris Kristofferson cover)
15. Everything Is Bullshit (Particle Kid cover)
16. Last Leaf (Tom Waits cover)
17. Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die
18. Will the Circle Be Unbroken?
19. I’ll Fly Away