8 February 2026 (Special Edition) - 3 Doors Down - It's Not My Time

 Yes, I did choose this song ironically. 

Brad Arnold - lead vocalist and drummer - passed away yesterday at age 47 after a relatively short battle with cancer.  The entire music community paid their respects, so I left it was time for us to do the same. 

This 2008 single, from their self-titled fourth album, made it to the top 20 on the US Pop Charts - their last visit to those heights in this country on pop radio (although they continued to garner rock radio airplay consistently), was originally written for the remake of the movie The Poseiden Adventure, but the filmmakers ended up not wanting it. 

The band kept it.  And it ended up being a hit. This song about resilience, written by the band, ended up resonating with people.

The band never stopped touring even after their hitmaking days were behind them.   Here they are performing this song on a cruise in 2024.  They still bring the same energy. 

Brad Arnold will be missed.  Our best wishes go out to him, the band, and his family. 

6 February 2026 - sombr - 12 to 12

I wanted to end this week with another Best New Artist nominee from the Grammys - and I had three choices, really.  

I went with the most glittery one.  

I struggle with liking sombr a little bit - but it may just be because his music doesn't fit into a nice genre-box like I want it to - kinda falling into the same box for me as Tame Impala.  But his album I Barely Know Her (Sombr? But I barely know her!) is excellent.  His voice is huge, and his music is fun and disco-tingled.

So, yeah.  We're doing this. 

And by the way - I chose this song without looking at the YouTube comments.

Yes, that Addison Rae

So, enjoy!

Since I could not find a suitable Grammys performance, I went with his SNL performance of this song....  which, really, had him bringing just as much energy. 

I am personally impressed by his ability to go seamlessly between deep growl and significant falsetto.... live!   

5 February 2026 - Leon Thomas - MUTT

Leon Thomas was nominated for the Best New Artist Grammy and was part of the medley.

So yeah.  Of course I am going to.

Because he is making excellent R&B music.  

And also, because he was nominated for six Grammys and WON two of them..... and one of the nominations he didn't win was Best New Artist, but since he WON a Grammy in the Best R&B Song category in 2024, his was possibly the most baffling nomination in the category.  

His two wins were for Best R&B Album - which was for the album for which this was the title song - and Best Traditional R&B Performance.  He absolutely deserved them for Mutt. 

As an aside, he was one of two Victorious alumni to win Grammys this year - Ariana Grande being the other.  Which is kind of a weird statistic.  No other TV show to my knowledge can claim that this year. 

And "Mutt" is a great song.  Thomas wrote the song (there are other cowriters for the music) while microdosing on psychedelics and watching his dog and cat fight. True story. 

Thomas has released several versions of his hit, including a couple of official remixes.  Here is one of them.

One of these versions was the one he recorded he recorded for the NPR Tiny Desk Concert series. 

This VERSION was specifically nominated for a Grammy (that it did not win - but it's pretty great). 

But you're here for the Grammy performance, right?

Well, goody.  But we can't.  It was an R&B/rock fusion, for sure - and starmaking. And we can't show it to you.

We CAN show you the equally good BET Awards performance, though.   

4 February 2026 - Alex Warren - Ordinary

So, seems like we're talking about Best New Artist nominees this week. I guess.  

I actually didn't like this song until Sunday.  

That's when I heard his Grammy performance as part of the Best New Artist medley.  And, despite his earpiece issues (which are preventing me from finding a suitable video of the performance just yet but I still have a couple of days), he killed it. 

So, I gave the song another chance.  

And, you know what?  I get the criticism of his vocals being bored and/or bland.... but also, I don't think they are.  He CLEARLY enjoys performing this song.   And, being a social media guy - one of the founders of the same Hype House that spawned Addison Rae - he's occupying an interesting spot in music right now.

By the way, this song has been a top 5 hit for almost a year.  As of this writing, it still sits at #5 on the US charts. (Edit: as of publishing, still #7)

And the song is actually pretty sweet lyrically.  

So, OK, I'm a fan now. 

I know I didn't get his Grammy performance in here, but I *did* find a kind of similar one, from The Tonight Show. 

It was a great performance, too.  

3 February 2026 - Lola Young - Messy

I was going to skip posting today.  For reasons.

But I had this free day, and I was watching the Grammys..... and this song won Best Pop Solo Performance.  Lola Young was so charming in her speech, I couldn't skip it.

She had no speech prepared.

I'm very happy for her.  

From her second album This Wasn't Meant for You Anyway, Lola wrote the song just before her ADHD diagnosis..... which makes sense, because this song is, no joke, an anthem to ADHD.  It is a thing of beauty.  It is, indeed, just as messy as its title.   

Lola won a Grammy, but she was nominated for two - the other being Best.... New Artist.  For her second album.  And, by the way, her third album (I'm Only F**king Myself) was released in September.

But, as a nominee, she was part of the fabulous BNA medley.  And she took full advantage of her two minutes!

Unfortunately, the Grammys won't let us use that video.  But we found a way.

This is Lola Young's only US hit song to date - something that I expect to change.  She's still really young - and this Tonight Show performance is a lot of the reason why it was a hit. 

2 February 2026 - Addison Rae - Fame is a Gun

Well, the GRAMMYS were last night.

I mean, not when I'm writing this.  They're weeks away.  I am in fact writing this in mid-January, when this song re-entered the Billboard Hot 100 because, well, it's fantastic.

But I can only assume that GRAMMY nominee Addison Rae won Best New Artist.  She certainly deserved it.  (I will edit this to reflect whether or not she did, don't worry). 

(Edit: she did not win.  She DID perform, though).

This song was her third to hit the Billboard Hot 100 (I told you it was coming) and now, it's done it twice.  Again co-written by the artist and producers Luka Kloser and Elvira Anderfjärd, Addison really sells the hell out of this one.  They set out to write a straight-ahead pop song - inspired by Addison's early and consistent aim for fame - and got something a little unintentionally darker and deeper.

The song is a synth-pop masterpiece, and the video is gold. 

Let's go once again to the New York GRAMMY Museum for an absolutely sublime performance of the song. One of the comments implied that you can tell Addison really wants to dance..... and I agree.   She very much does.

30 January 2026 - Charli XCX - Chains of Love

In two weeks - literally from today - Charli XCX releases the long-anticipated followup to her 2024 breakthrough album brat.  This song, the second single from that album, is to my ears a throwback to her earlier days - when True Romance was a thing - when I was a fan of hers and posted about her all the time.  

Oh, and the album is called Wuthering Heights, which not coincidentally shares the name of a movie released that weekend (since the album is the soundtrack).  The movie is loosely based on the Emily Brontë novel - and Charli, who was inspired by the screenplay after being asked to write a song for the movie, wrote an entire soundtrack instead.  

So why not wait two weeks to post this?  Why post today?

Because, TODAY, Charli herself is in a movie called The Moment, a mockumentary about a musician about to embark on a headlining world tour.  Charli XCX plays a character named (*checks notes*) Charli XCX.  Yeah, it's a fictionalized version of herself.   

So, yeah, here's the trailer for that.  The movie looks amazing.