The Year 2022 in Music

Continuing with our year in review, Matt Lynn Digital invites you to look back at the last year in reviews of books, movies, music and television. We look at these with individual categories, one per day through Saturday. Today we share music reviews offered by Matt Lynn Digital in 2022.

Seeking to offer the reviewed albums from most recently released to the those released longest ago, the album Wasting Light by Foo Fighters offers gems like These Days and Rope in taking us back to the year 2011 for a hard rock, alternative rock and indie feel.

The album 21 by Adele provided us Rumour Has It and Set Fire to the Rain. The album was also released in 2011 with more of a pop and soul sensibility than offered by Foo Fighters.

Home for Christmas by Sheryl Crow was a 2008 release with music for the end of year holidays. Merry Christmas Baby and White Christmas offer a sense of the range of music presented on this album.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra brings us to 2006 with Christmas Eve and Other Stories. Among the more enduring songs to come from the album is Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24, which was originally released by the band Savatage. The raspy blues singing of Ornament has remained a particular favorite of mine as well.

Revelations by Audioslave was a September of 2006. Broken City and Wide Awake from the album take individual looks into Detroit, Michigan and Hurricane Katrina response in what proved to be the final studio album for the band.

The solo album Highway Companion by Tom Petty was released in July of 2006. The overriding message for Petty here feels like a search for peace, as with songs like Saving Grace, Square One and Jack, among others.

April 2006 witnessed P!nk (Alecia Beth Moore, aka Pink) present the album I’m Not Dead. A dance pop sensibility mixed with rhythm and blues greets us breakthrough songs including Stupid Girls, Who Knew and U + Ur Hand.

We jump back nearly a decade to 1996 with the self-titled album Sheryl Crow by Sheryl Crow. The songs A Change Would Do You Good, If It Makes You Happy and Everyday is a Winding Road were notably popular songs coming from this effort.

The band Collective Soul named two albums after themselves in their career. We looked at Collective Soul (1995). The World I Know, December, Where the River Flows and Gel were four songs that really resonated with me when the album originally came out.

Weezer continues our trend of albums named for the bands that released them with the album Weezer, commonly is called the Blue Album for the color of album cover. The songs Buddy Holly, Undone [The Sweater Song] and Say It Ain’t So capture some of the magic of an album first released in May of 1994.

The Def Leppard album Hysteria was released in August of 1987. Animal, Love Bites, Pour Some Sugar on Me, Armageddon It and Hysteria were popular in their time for this big hair band that enjoyed a really good run of popularity in the 1980s.

August of 1986 offered the truly breakthrough album for Bon Jovi named Slippery When Wet. You Give Love a Bad Name, Livin’ on a Prayer and Wanted Dead or Alive were definitive hits with the sentimental Never Say Goodbye and I’d Die for You offering really good album support.

A new era for Van Halen began with their album 5150, a transition from their original singer to Sammy Hagar. Released in March of 1986, Why Can’t This Be Love, Dreams and Love Walks In were three of the stronger songs from the bands catalogue in this period.

The Ray Charles album The Spirit of Christmas was our final foray into holiday albums for 2022. With the release of this music coming in 1985, my favorite tune from the bunch is This Time of Year. A appreciate The Little Drummer Boy for its unique interpretation of this holiday standard.

The self-titled album Heart by Heart was released in July of 1985. The release provided a resurgence of sorts for the band with songs including What About Love, Never, These Dreams and Nothin’ at All.

May of 1985 allowed for the release of the Dire Straits album Brothers in Arms. Included with the hits for this album rock band were So Far Away, Money for Nothing and Walk of Life.

The Don Henley solo album Building the Perfect Beast was released in November of 1984. The success of the album lands in part with songs including The Boys of Summer and All She Wants to Do Is Dance.

The Bryan Adams album Reckless also was released in November of 1984. Run to You, Heaven, Somebody, Summer of ’69 and the duet with Tina Turner, It’s Only Love, were all hits from this album.

A satirical comedy directed by Rob Reiner makes it to our year in music list for 2022. Following the fictional band is fronted by stars Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer, the movie This Is Spinal Tap (1984) has a lot of fun with the music industry overall.

The Prince and the Revolution album Purple Rain was released in June of 1984. Songs that were popular from this effort included Let’s Go Crazy, When Doves Cry, I Would Die 4 U and the song Purple Rain.

The fifth studio album for The Police, released in June of 1983, was titled Synchronicity. The songs Synchronicity II, Every Breath You Take, King of Pain and Wrapped Around Your Finger were hits for the album, with the song Murder by Numbers being included on cassette and CD versions of the released album.

The debut album Bat Out of Hell by Meat Loaf was first released in 1977. Well known songs from the album include You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night), Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad and Paradise by the Dashboard Light. The musician and actor known as Meat Loaf, Marvin Lee Aday, died earlier this year.

Rory Gallagher released the album Against the Grain in October of 1975. The album focuses on blues-rock, British blues and regional blues with sounds that at times get into a country adjacent sound. I enjoyed the Huddie Willian Ledbetter written Out on the Western Plains with a shredded Souped-Up Ford offering quite the juxtaposition to boot.

The Van Morrison album Tupelo Honey features so-called blue-eyed soul, AM pop and rhythm and blues. Released in October of 1971, songs to note for me include Wild Night, Old Old Woodstock, Tupelo Honey and Moonshine Whiskey.

Miles Davis Quartet by Miles Davis was released in 1954, having been recorded in two distinct sessions with the trumpet playing Davis the focal point of the album. The hard bop trumpet jazz sound for the album alludes to bop and jazz instrument styles, with the overall sound being one to hear. To offer a sense of the craft here, listen in to When Lights Are Low, Smooch and Blue Haze.

Matt Lynn Digital appreciates your continued interest in the content we offer. Should you have albums that you’d like us to review, or similar work to that mentioned above, please be sure to let us know.

Matt – Thursday, December 29, 2022

Dire Straits and the album ‘Brothers in Arms’

The Dire Straits album Brothers in Arms was originally released this week several years ago, on May 17th, 1985. Resting decidedly in the pop/rock end of the rock & roll musical genre, the band emerged a half-dozen years before during the post-punk musical movement. We look at the introspective mood of this album with this look at the nine songs that are the album Brothers in Arms.

(Brothers in Arms is the fifth studio album by British rock band Dire Straits. The albums was released on Friday, May 17th, 1985).

So Far Away “finds Dire Straits frontman (sic) Mark Knopfler lamenting an itinerant lifestyle that keeps him away from a loved one,” per the Songfacts listing here. While reportedly not autobiographical, Knopfler found the song relevant since “[f]amilies are split up in different parts, all over the place.” The song charted as high as twentieth (20th) in the United Kingdom and nineteenth (19th) in the United States.

(So Far Away was the lead single from Brothers in Arms, the Dire Straits album released in the United Kingdom and Europe on April 8th, 1985).

Money for Nothing “is about rock star excess and the easy life it brings compared with real work,” as quoted here. Writing credits for the song rest with Knopfler and Sting, with the song charting as high as fourth (4th) in the United Kingdom and first (1st) in the United States. Knopfler mentioned that the song was written after “overhearing delivery men in a New York department store complain about their jobs while watching MTV.”

(Money for Nothing was released as the second single from the Dire Straits album Brothers in Arms on May 28th, 1985).

Walk of Life “wrote this song to celebrate the street buskers of London,” as mentioned here. Being from the American Midwest, I’ll admit to having needed a translation of the term street buskers, especially since the “music video shown in America took a different approach: it showed sports bloopers.” The notion can translate, as people playing music outside professional sporting venues in the United States is fairly common, especially when events are in town. The song charting as high as second (2nd) in the United Kingdom and seventh (7th) in the United States.

(Walk of Life was released as a single on November 29th, 1985. The song had first become available as the B-side of the So Far Away single released before the release of the Dire Straits album Brothers in Arms).

Your Latest Trick was not released as a single in the United States. Michael Brecker played the saxophone intro for this song, which charted as high as twenty-sixth (26th) in the United Kingdom. A trumpet solo by Randy Brecker also accompanied the compact disc version of this song.

(Your Latest Trick was released by Dire Straits as the fifth and final single from Brothers in Arms on April 28th, 1986).

Why Worry finds “finds [songwriter Mark Knopfler] comforting a loved one in rather poetic terms,” as mentioned here with a quotation of the song’s lyrics. The song bears out the lullaby sound and lyrics, “as Knopfler turns the cold, cruel world into a place of tranquility.” Tony Levin played on the song.

(Michael Brecker played the saxophone opening to the song Your Latest Trick).

Ride Across the River invokes struggle by crossing a river. The struggle feels existential in finding meaning through having something to fight for, with different views of the precise meaning and means to get there at stake. There’s an interesting sense of musical theatre to this song in particular that makes for a great album song that needs not translate to popular appeal to land well to my ear.

(From left, Mark Knopfler of Scotland, Alan Clark of England, Guy Fletcher of England, John Illsley of England, Omar Hakim of New York, USA and Terry Williams of Wales were the band Dire Straits on the Brothers in Arms album).

The Man’s Too Strong harkens back to some notion of war and the behaviors of the song’s narrator, for which he is seeking to atone. The opportunity for interpretation definitely lies with whom you imagine the narrator to be, with the potential for the narrator’s perspective being someone from the German forces of World War Two, this making “the man” one of the Allied or neutral forces trying the narrator in the narrator’s thoughts.

(Sting, notable for his solo career as well as the lead singer of The Police, co-wrote and sang on the song Money for Nothing by Dire Straits).

One World faces the notion of “the starving artist” perspective of being a musician down on his luck. The questioning of one’s musical playing, song writing creativity and even the basics of living feel beyond reach. The song is guitar driven with drumming besides to complete the sound. Neil Jason played on the song.

(Brothers in Arms was released by Dire Straits as a single in support of the Brothers in Arms album on October 14th, 1985).

Brothers in Arms “was inspired by the Falklands War, which was going on when Dire Straits lead singer Mark Knopfler wrote the song,” as mentioned here. The conflict between Argentina and the United Kingdom broke out in 1982, with 258 British soldiers reportedly dying in the conflict. The message represents “a look at the folly of war and the plight of those who fight them.” Malcom Duncan played on the song, which charted as high as sixteenth (16th) in the United Kingdom.

Matt – Wednesday, May 17, 2022