Welcome everyone to another edition of Top Five Fridays! Right off the bat, let me apologize for the lack of Top Five Fridays the last few weeks. Don’t worry, you’ll be getting one every week during 2018 as that is my New Year’s resolution to you!
This was one I had planned to publish last week, but decided to push it to the first top five of 2018. Why not start a new year with a look back at the year that was in music.
5. All on My Mind by Anderson East
When this idea was first formulated, I had the first single off of the upcoming album titled Encore a lot higher on the list. However, after some re-listens to the other tracks on the list, it dropped down to number five.
The song has that old-school blues feel to it with his soulful sound during the verses and really breaks out in the chorus. I loved hearing this song live at Jefferson Street Pub because he brought the same kind of energy as he did in the recording. Also, there’s a pretty wicked acoustic version that he recently released that I hope is a bonus track on the new album (fingers crossed).
4. Safari Song by Greta Van Fleet
When I first heard this song, I was convinced that this was a Led Zeppelin song that I hadn’t heard before. However, Greta Van Fleet crushed it on this track along with the rest of the songs off of Black Smoke Rising.
They remind me a lot of Wolfmother back in 2006 in that they’re so different from everything else that’s playing on the mainstream rock channels and it works. The vocals on this track sound so much like Robert Plant, it’s ridiculous and I loved the song for that.
3. Feel It Still by Portugal, The Man
I’ll say it right now; Woodstock was my favorite album of the last year. Feel It Still was that catchy song of the summer and from the second that intro played, I was hooked.
Simply put, this got me into finding out more awesome songs from Portugal, the Man with their pretty solid library of songs that had been largely hidden from the mainstream world. Again, Woodstock was the album I enjoyed the most in 2017 and there was really no contender close to it.
2. The Man by The Killers
This was the best song of the year for me until like the last month. It has an old-school disco feel in the right way. I could easily see myself strutting down the sidewalk downtown a la John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever with this playing in the background.
I hadn’t been a fan of the Killers recent stuff, but from the second the chorus came on, it was all over and I fell back in love with the group. Also, the whole album is fantastic.
1. Today I Saw the Whole World by Pierce the Veil
Last month, I randomly heard this song pop up on my radio while on the road. As a person who loved pop punk as a teenager and still enjoys it from time to time, hearing this band for the first time floored me.
With all the music that we have here on 106.3 Radio Lafayette, I haven’t kept up with the punk scene nearly as much as I used to, but this got me right back into it.
-Clint Domingue