It's Friday

And WILLIE NELSON is 89 years and 364 days old. He was born in 1933, on DUKE ELLINGTON's 34th birthday. ROBERT JOHNSON was 21 and had yet to record a note. FRANK SINATRA was 17 and HANK WILLIAMS was 9. They all live somewhere in the grooves and digital bits of Nelson's 150 albums, and he lives somewhere within the grooves and bits of nearly every artist whose name appears anywhere in this newsletter. Happy birthday Willie and happy birthday all of us. He's celebrating his 90th with a two-day party Saturday and Sunday at the HOLLYWOOD BOWL featuring GEORGE STRAIT, KACEY MUSGRAVES, SNOOP DOGG, NEIL YOUNG, MIRANDA LAMBERT, TYLER CHILDERS and everybody else in America who was smart enough to say yes. This newsletter and all music within is for him.

Sad Songs and Waltzes

According to band lore, every album the NATIONAL has made, stretching back more than 20 years, has been the product of intra-band fighting and has nearly broken the band up. But FIRST TWO PAGES OF FRANKENSTEIN is the first one that’s actually about that, the classic-dad-rock band tells the Washington Post’s Travis M. Andrews, which is why the brooding opening track finds Matt Berninger singing, “This is the closest we’ve ever been / And I have no idea what’s happening / Is this how this whole thing is gonna end?” It’s also the first album the band has made since the National’s Aaron Dessner co-produced Taylor Swift’s two pandemic albums, and she shows up to duet with Berninger on "The Alcott"... This sublime dance song about “these lips” that are “wanted in a hundred countries, maybe more” is from JESSIE WARE’s pleasure-principled fifth album THAT! FEELS! GOOD! Stereogum’s James Rettig praises it as “a celebration of life’s most carnal desires, packaged in sumptuous elegance”—and, like all good pop, unafraid to be goofy and “embrace the absurdities in her dance music.”

PROOF OF LIFE is the fourth album from Nashville singer/songwriter JOY OLADOKUN, who “would like to be the Black Bruce Springsteen” and has a lot of people in her corner thinking she might get there. Or somewhere near there. Her one-time tourmate Jim James of My Morning Jacket suggests John Prine or Bill Withers: “She has a way of talking one-on-one with the listener in this seemingly casual way while delivering the deepest truth you really needed to hear.” And/or maybe she’ll deliver a pop singalong about how “We’re All Gonna Die”... Mexican pop star THALIA covers Soda Estéreo, Aterciopelados and other bands from her teenage mixtapes on THALIA’S MIXTAPE: EL SOUNDTRACK DE ME VIDA. “Those songs that were the soundtrack of my life,” she tells Billboard, “were rock in Spanish.” A companion three-part docuseries is coming next week on Paramount+... JID017 is the great jazz pianist LONNIE SMITH’s first album as a leader in 25 years, recorded for Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad’s Jazz Is Dead series. The Guardian’s Neil Spencer explains the process (the JID team "feeding ideas and motifs to their chosen star alongside a rhythm section and adding more later") and results ("the magic remains in place").

Also today: New music from Jack Harlow, Labrinth, G Herbo, Shordie Shordie, Baby Rose, Mike Dean, Bebe Rexha, Smokey Robinson, Rickie Lee Jones, Yungmorpheus, Tony Shhnow, Jim Legxacy, Summrs, Nines, Nate Smith, Mya Byrne, Kip Moore, Ryan Beatty, Indigo De Souza, Nabihah Iqbal, Enforced, Danava, Arturo O’Farrill, Jonathan Butler, Iranian Female Composers Association, Y La Bamba, Avalon Emerson & the Charm, Illenium, Neggy Gemmy, Matthewdavid, Braids, JFDR, Bill Orcutt, Tommy Emmanuel (duets album), Taj Mahal, Don Letts, the Damned, Glen Matlock, Washer, Crown the Empire, Ryan Hamilton, Neil Gaiman & FourPlay String Quartet (yes, that Neil Gaiman), Diplo (his second country album under his Thomas Wesley moniker), Bernice, Harrison, Joseph, Baba Ali, Ron Morelli, Martyna Bast, Country Westerns, Josh Ritter, Del Barber and this “Slow Beethoven” project.

Always on My Mind

Punk-rock gym rats... Punk-rock restaurateur... Punk-rock wrestling... Punk-rock (and metal) JERRY SPRINGER moments (RIP)... The RAP ACT, which would limit the ability of prosecutors in the US to use lyrics to rap and other songs as criminal evidence, was reintroduced in Congress Thursday. The first attempt at a federal law fell short a year ago, but similar bills have passed in the state of California and are being considered in a handful of other states. “This act is absolutely not just about hip-hop artists,” RECORDING ACADEMY CEO HARVEY MASON JR. said. “Every single artist, no matter the discipline, should be able to express themselves without fear of prosecution”... Posthumous albums are “f***in’ gross” and TYLER, THE CREATOR says his will prohibits anyone from doing that to him... FLUME (Song of the Year) and RÜFÜS DU SOL (Songwriter of the Year) were the top winners at Australia’s APRA AWARDS. MEN AT WORK’s COLIN HAY and late concert promoter COLLEEN IRONSIDE were honored for Outstanding Services to Australian Music... BRETT MORGEN's DAVID BOWIE doc, MOONAGE DAYDREAM, arrives at HBO and HBO MAX Saturday... Also Saturday, THE JUDDS: LOVE IS ALIVE—THE FINAL CONCERT airs on CMT. It features WYNONNA JUDD and friends including BRANDI CARLILE, KELSEA BALLERINI and ASHLEY MCBRYDE recreating the JUDDS' 1991 farewell tour... Sister channel Paramount+ premiered the Wynonna doc BETWEEN HELL AND HALLELUJAH earlier this week.