<\/p>\n
Several readers have told me it\u2019d be helpful if the selections in these columns, especially the local picks, were timed to upcoming shows. In a better world, that would always be the case, but balancing my various duties at Racket sometimes makes that impossible. This week, though, three of the five acts I spotlight are playing a show this weekend. A better world is possible?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ditch Pigeon, \u201cSpitball Girl\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n One thing I love is when bands make up their own genres, and among those this experimentally oriented band employs are \u201cgaygaze,\u201d \u201cpopcorn core,\u201d and \u201cmew mew metal.\u201d All three sound relatively applicable enough to me, and who knows, maybe one will stick? If you prefer description to classification, try fuzzed-out guitar, free range violin and cello, and Haley Anne\u2019s wafting vulnerability as she confesses of her object of fascination \u201cMy disguise is thin with her.\u201d Ditch Pigeon will play a full release show at Amsterdam for Chronic Burger Vision <\/em>on August 6,<\/a> but the impatient among are likely to hear some of that forthcoming album\u2019s tracks at Day Block Friday night<\/a> and White Squirrel on Sunday.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n Fiona Hayes, \u201cI\u2019m Losing Again\u201d<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Hayes has been a singles machine in 2026: \u201cI\u2019m Losing Again,\u201d the release of which she\u2019ll celebrate at Amsterdam Friday night,<\/a> is, by my count, her fifth of the year. Like her previous tracks, this features fed-up vocals, lyrics that explain why she\u2019s fed up, and enough brash guitar to get that fedupitude across. And I\u2019m not just being polite in spotlighting the newest of the batch\u2014each new song has been incrementally more realized than the last.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Toussaint Morrison, \u201cDancin\u2019 in the Dark\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n A multitalented multimedia artist who balances acting\/directing<\/a> and music with activism and education, Morrison has an album, SHPSHFTER<\/em>, due out in September. Our first taste of it is a bona fide summer jam, with the singer warning you not to be confused by his polite attire (\u201cvery quickly I can come up out of this cardigan\u201d) while scattering hooks across multiple choruses, pre-choruses, and semi-choruses.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Stress of Her Regard, \u201cRobot Dogs\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Calling all technophilaphobes. Big, booming whip-crack drums, ominous vocals, and a skeletal guitar hook suit a cry against the coming K-9 corps. Like they say, and as so-called progress has proven true repeatedly, \u201cIt\u2019ll be all right till it\u2019s not.\u201d They\u2019ll play a single-release show for this song Saturday night at Cloudland.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n Wolfbabycup. \u201cI Saw Julia Fox\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n This is the kind of song title that makes you ask \u201cDid they really see Julia Fox?\u201d so I can confirm, based on the track notes,<\/a> that Wolfbabycup really did see Julia Fox. \u201cWe were on our way to the pride parade standing on a corner and there she was right next to us in the flesh with a few of her cool friends,\u201d the duo writes. Wendy Sorquist sings \u201cI wanna be your best friend\/I wanna enter your orbit\u201d without being all stalkery about it, summoning the kind of romanticism that only true Midwesterners can feel about New York City over synths both wavy and tinkly.\u00a0<\/p>\n Willi Carlisle, \u201cThe Mason Jar at the Center of the World\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Modernist poetry fans and recovering English majors will recognize the title of the first single from Carlisle\u2019s upcoming album The Universal Bubba<\/em>, produced by Tyler Childers and featuring Childers\u2019s band the Food Stamps, as a Wallace Stevens reference. Musically it\u2019s a loose jam; lyrically its as historical-minded as we\u2019ve learned to expect from Carlisle, as in, \u201cGrandaddy died for this land, he might’ve killed a hundred men\/Nobody ask, nobody say, if we’re better off in this way.\u201d<\/p>\n Miranda Lambert, \u201cTill the Going\u2019s Gone\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n I have slight reservations about Lambert when she\u2019s in lady-drifter mode, but it\u2019s a more attractive pose then fella-drifter, for sure, and she navigates this country disco two-step with \u201cEverybody\u2019s Talkin\u2019\u201d trappings with expected poise. Then again, as I never tire of pointing out, she\u2019s quite easily the most consistent popular musician of the 21st century.\u00a0<\/p>\n Carly Pearce, \u201cYou Can Have Him\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n A country aesthete\u2019s dream as a songwriter, Pearce has an actual hit with Riley Green on the charts too. But she\u2019s at her most winning when she assays classic country. Sample lyric: \u201cIf he asks \u2018Your place or mine?\u2019\/You should say yours\/\u2019Cause his is still mine.\u201d Is there a key change in the final chorus? Oh you know it, pal.<\/p>\n Margo Price, \u201cOval Room\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Price\u2019s timely new \u201cprotest mixtape\u201d Days of Unrest<\/em> joins inexhaustible titles like \u201cDeportee\u201d (with a nicely weathered Joan Baez joining in) and \u201cMaggie\u2019s Farm\u201d to pointedly Spanish-language jams both new and traditional. But this anti-presidential Blaze Foley cover is the one that gets me. Yeah, it was written about Reagan, but when Price rips into the chorus, you\u2019ll care as little as she does.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Jess WIlliamson, \u201cGoodbye to All That\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n The album Williamson recorded with Katie Crutchfield as Plains in 2022 really toned up her songwriting, and she\u2019s been on a streak ever since. The lead single from her upcoming album, A Mile South of Heaven<\/em>, has a title inspired by Joan Didion and this very Williamsonian lyric: \u201cI love you and I\u2019m leaving.\u201d She sure seems to leave what she loves a lot, a good habit in a country singer.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Jason Aldean, \u201cDon\u2019t Tell on Me\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n My non-local picks inadvertently shaped up into an all-country and, excepting one queer man, all-female roundup here. So it\u2019d only be fair to call out a twangy gal in this space. But while I\u2019d love to shoot down \u201cBoston,\u201d from Stella Lefty <\/a>(n\u00e9e \u00a0Lefkofsky), the Groupon scion currently Gracie Abramsing her way to country stardom via a most certainly legit TikTok virality, the song is pleasant enough, and lord knows the children of billionaires could do worse damage to our culture. And speaking of the 1%, ain\u2019t it just like America\u2019s most famous newlywed to \u201creturn to her roots\u201d with a Pixar tune? \u201cI Knew It. I Knew You\u201d<\/a> is as good as a professional obligation needs to be and no more.\u00a0<\/p>\n So I guess it\u2019s time to blast the guys again. But there are so many fish and there\u2019s so little barrel. Setting aside true stars like bad guy Morgan Wallen and good guy Luke Combs, the charts are full of gone-tomorrow\u2019s like Josh Ross and \u201cHate How You Look\u201d (after she dumps him), Tucker Wetmore and \u201cBrunette\u201d (about wanting to fuck one), and Cody Johnson and \u201cThe Fall\u201d (Jelly Rollin\u2019 addict-core with added homiletics), none of which earn more than the parenthetical allotted them here.\u00a0<\/p>\n Which leaves us Jason Aldean. Possibly goaded on by his nitwit MAGA wife, he dipped his toes in the froth of culture war in 2023 with “Try That in a Small Town,” an anthem for tough guys everywhere who are afraid to visit those terrifying cities that effete wimps like me somehow effortlessly live complete unmurdered lives in. But Aldean’s music is typically mud-standard arena-country like this. The country greats sing about heartbreak with a sense of transcendent doom, placing themselves beyond the reaches of our sympathy. But Aldean whines like if he makes you feel bad enough you’ll buy him another round, call him a Lyft, or suck his dick.<\/p>\n Wanna get a local song considered for the playlist? To make things easy on both of us, email keith@racketmn.com with MONDAY PLAYLIST in the subject header. (Don\u2019t, as in do NOT, DM or text: If I\u2019m in a good mood, I\u2019ll just ask you to send an email; if I\u2019m in a bad mood I\u2019ll just ignore it.)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source racketmn.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Several readers have told me it\u2019d be helpful if the selections in these columns, especially the local picks, were timed to upcoming shows. In a better world, that would always be the case, but balancing my various duties at Racket sometimes makes that impossible. This week, though, three of the five acts I spotlight are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2516248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2516247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Theres-No-Better-Day-to-Listen-to-New-Music-Than.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2516247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2516247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2516247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2516249,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2516247\/revisions\/2516249"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2516248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2516247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2516247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2516247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}NON-LOCAL PICKS<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Full playlist here<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n
Worst New Song<\/strong><\/h2>\n