In celebration of what would have been Mike Nesmith’s 80th birthday, let’s explore some quite surprising lesser-known songs from the Monkees.

The post-rock gem ‘Everywhen We Go’ by Mike Baggetta, mike watt and Jim Keltner is stimulating because everyone brings their considerable talents to bear on these songs.

‘Trans,’ the weirdest album from Neil Young’s weirdest period, arrived 40 years ago this week. But these five songs prove the ’80s weren’t all bad.

Ward Davis returned to the scene of his crime for ‘Live from an Undisclosed Location in Hays, Kansas,’ and the story is simply priceless.

The Beatles premiered their blatantly weird, critically savaged ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ film 55 years ago today on the BBC.

He departed much too early, but fortunately Donny Hathaway left us with several memorable songs – including this one.

Even now, no one else in jazz compares to Moppa Elliot’s returning Mostly Other People Do the Killing. Audacity with the chops to make it work remains the basic recipe.

‘Contending and Contention’ is a harmonic, vocal and sonic journey, held together by its message – and Evie Asio’s distinct sound.

Dan Weiss’ innate understanding of tradition picked up from key influences made it possible to move forward in the salient, discriminating way that he did for ‘Dedication.’

Preston Frazier’s Best of 2022 list includes studio projects from David Paich, Monkey House, Ben Craven, Adrian Quesada and others.