I didn't become a full-time music journalist until 2008, but it almost happened in 2006 thanks to KT TUNSTALL. Specifically, her breezy folk-pop single "Suddenly I See." As I sat in a diner in downtown Washington, DC on Tuesday, typing the late afternoon away, the guitar strum that opens the song played over the stereo system. I sat up as if struck by a bolt of lightning. The moment crystallized a number of things that I miss about the music industry—even if I've accepted that they've changed. Mainly, I was awed by the fact that back then, newly released or discovered songs didn't feel as though they mysteriously appeared on every streaming playlist I heard and blog I visited, or became instantaneously viral dance memes as I slept. Rather, it felt like songs had multiple hooks of intrigue due to well-contemplated sync placement. In summer 2006, perhaps by some manner of divine intervention, Tunstall's song seemed to be everywhere. Radio, video, and my cell phone's ringtone for starters. But the opening track to the THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA? My six-year-old cousin's DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION game? MTV's THE HILLS? Present and accounted for, in all three places. It felt to me, during my love affair with the song, that it would end up as one of the great hit singles of all time. In 2018, wall-to-wall airplay like that would turn a song into a meme-worthy blockbuster and streaming champion. In 2006? "Suddenly I See" reached #21 on the BILLBOARD HOT 100. An even bigger winner of 2006 was a song that seemed as omnipresent as DRAKE's "IN MY FEELINGS" currently does—GNARLS BARKLEY's "CRAZY." Take a second today while being surrounded by music and maybe you'll re-hear a slice of inspiration, too... Unrelated, an eclectic blend of musical things have soundtracked (and distracted) my curatorial duties this week. They include "SICK," the latest single from DC's DEN-MATE, led by JULES HALE, whose voice is a blend of YEAH YEAH YEAHS' KAREN O in timbre and SANTIGOLD in direct connectivity. Also, this amazingly presented and fantastically costumed 1975 performance by BARRY WHITE AND THE LOVE UNLIMITED ORCHESTRA at the ROYAL ALBERT HALL. And maybe my favorite thing of everything on YOUTUBE, the sensual soul of TEDDY PENDERGRASS on full sensual display, live in Lake Tahoe in 1979. Thank me later.