9 June 2026 - R.E.M. - Pretty Persuasion

This song was one of R.E.M.'s earliest, being performed at shows as early as 1980, and a live version was recorded for their 1983 debut album Murmur, but it was left off.   So, when it came time to record the follow-up album Reckoning, producer Mitch Easter wanted the band to record it.

Except, at that point, Michael Stipe had grown to hate the song.  

Well, compromises were made, and the song was recorded in a multi-track version with Stipe and Mike Mills providing fresh harmonies.

Despite Stipe's feelings at the time, it remains one of my favorite songs of theirs.

This is one of their earlier performances of the song.  Yes, the harmonies are there, but you can see it sounds a lot more raw.

This is a song that disappeared from R.E.M.'s live sets for a good spell, but it came back.  Here they are in 2007 performing it once again.

The band was still performing the hell out of the song.

R.E.M. broke up in 2011.  

HOWEVER, in February 2025 - LAST YEAR - they reunited for ONE SONG ONLY at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, GA.

What was the song?

This one, of course. 

Now, a little explanation - Michael Shannon, Jason Narducy & Friends were touring and performing a cover of the entire Fables of the Reconstruction album.  This song wasn't on that album, so clearly, they needed help...

They didn't, actually.  They perform the song pretty frequently as part of their R.E.M. cover band project.

Anyway, this was fun. 

8 June 2026 - R.E.M. - So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)

I'm sorry.

That's what a lot of people think the name of this song is.  

It's not.  It's "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)".  The "So." is short for "South". However, it is listed as "Southern Central Rain (I'm Sorry)" on the inner sleeve of the Reckoning album.  I usually myself refer to it as "South Central Rain" without the parenthetical title.

What does it mean? I'm not sure, but Michael Stipe seems to be singing a narration happening during a particularly rough rainstorm, so that's probably part of it.

But it's a passionate, great song - one of my favorites by the band even though it ended up being a relatively well-known song.  

The video - and this is a band that LOVED exploring the video medium, but more on that throughout the week - was fake playing by the band but real singing by Michael Stipe, who hated lipsyncing.

You might notice the Hall of Fame label on this week.  It's R.E.M. week, folks.  They're our newest Hall of Fame entry. 

Throughout their career, R.E.M. consistently played this song.  Here is one of the last times they played it, on Austin City Limits. 

My sister saw R.E.M. in 1995 in Buffalo, on the Monster tour - R.E.M. is her favorite band - and this song was one of typical encore songs.  It was a little more torch-songy, but also passionate.  This is a recording from the Milan, Italy show on that tour.

I personally saw R.E.M. live on September 13, 1989 in Hartford, CT - and it was my first concert ever.  I saw them with my very good friend Mark Whittier, who passed away in 1995.  Great show. Again, it was somewhat torch-songy, but less so than 1995.

Anyway, this is the performance from September 12, 1989, in Buffalo, NY.  This is exactly how I remember it.

 

For the last live performance, I go back to 1983, and the band's first national television appearance on Late Night With David Letterman.  Yes, this is a year before the song was released, and yet they performed it anyway.... even before the song had a title. By the way, if you go back up to the ACL video earlier in this post - that's my source for that little fact.

Michael Stipe had a reputation for being a little mumbly early in his career.  This performance is a lot of the reason why. 

5 June 2026 - Snocaps - Coast

One of those musical acts that I am supposed to like as an aging hipster is Waxahatchee.  

And I have TRIED really hard to like the Katie Crutchfield project.  And, well..... I just don't like Waxahatchee all that much.  But, I still felt like I had to listen to her projects... in a desperate attempt to like her music.

But when Katie got together with her twin sister Allison (and MJ Lenderman and Brad Cook) and formed Snocaps - a great indie power-pop band - THAT I could get on board with.  It's earnest, lo-fi fun!

The whole Snocaps album was one of my favorites of 2025, and although it missed the Wicked25, I feel like you still need to go listen to it. 

I hope there are more Snocaps albums, because, as this Tonight Show performance illustrates, these sisters can HARMONIZE!

4 June 2026 - Soccer Mommy - Abigail

I know I didn't make a 2024 list - but if I had, Evergreen by Soccer Mommy would have been one of the top 2 albums on it (Romance by Fontaines D.C. would have been the other) and probably #1. 

However, Soccer Mommy released an EP in 2025 - Evergreen (stripped) that had stripped down versions of a lot of those songs. THAT was good enough to earn an honorable mention on my Wicked25 last year.  I did an online listening party with Soccer Mommy the day before its release, where we listened to Evergreen and Evergreen (stripped) and I gotta say, that was a musical highlight of the year. 

For contrast, this is the original Evergreen version of "Abigail".....

.... and this is the Evergreen (stripped) version. 

There are a LOT of available live versions of this song, so I chose the easiest to hear - the one she did for Triple J. 

No word on whether or not she's doing any stripped shows. 

3 June 2026 - Blondshell - T&A

I had the entry for If You Asked For A Picture by Blondshell WRITTEN for my Wicked25. 

WRITTEN!

That's how close it was to making the list.  It was ON the list. 

Ultimately, it got pushed out because there was 25 albums that, on that day, I found more worthy.  

I have felt really guilty about this since that day.  The album deserved to be there - to the point where I have almost edited it back in. I still might do that.

Anyway, here's a single for you. This is pretty indicative of the songwriting that Sabrina Teitelbaum (who goes by Blondshell because it's a lot less wordy, I guess) brings to the table.  

Yes, the song is about tits and ass. 

While I love her KEXP performance......

.... the bluntness of this introduction during a live performance in the wild is a little more endearing.

2 June 2026 - Housewife - Work Song

 There used to be a great button on Youtube that allowed me to just make a post directly from there to this blog. 

They took it away in March. So doing this has gotten harder. 

Housewife is not an artist that has released a full album yet - but she did release a great EP in 2025 called Girl Of The Hour that was filled with so much 2000s goodness that it was absolutely worthy of its honourable mention. I say artist - it was a band, but Brighid Fry is the only member left.  They've been doing this for a decade but only the last few years solo.

Anyway, it's a great EP and you should go listen to it now. 

1 June 2026 - Ariane Roy - Âmes soeurs

You might remember my #Wicked25.  For the very first time last year, I listed my 25 favorite albums of a year.  I have been known to do one or two favorites, but never 25.

I also had a list of 25 runners up - honourable mentions, as you will.  Some of those, I felt very guilty about excluding.  I'm going to highlight those this week - because if I made the list today, these albums would be ON the list, not just honourably mentioned.  

I'm not going to highlight the albums that would have been bumped in most cases - because they were on the list because they were deserving, excellent albums. And no, you can't just guess it's 21-25, because that's not the case.  At all.   

This is the more egregious omission.  Because, if you look back at the list, you'll now see 26 honourable mentions.  I didn't listen to Dogue by Ariane Roy until January.  It was a terrible oversight on my part, because it not only would have made the list, it would have been a top 10 album.  This is EASILY the second best francophone album of 2025. 

Ariane release Dogue de Luxe in February of this year - probably because Dogue was so well-received - and used the extra space to make new versions of some of her songs with her friends.

If you didn't know this was coming, you aren't paying attention. 

Anyway, Alexandre Martel and Lou-Adriane Cassidy joined her on the new version.