Let's Talk Music

Every once in a while we are fortunate enough to come across an artist/album/song that has the ability to stop us in our tracks. I had such a moment this week and I just HAVE to share it with you! :) Anyone close to me knows that since my childhood I have had what (at some points) has been a slight obsession with Motown and its earliest era. I have always found it so astounding that music created long before my time can still move me when I hear it today. It was music bred in a time where creativity wasn't as encouraged as it is now, but rather it was necessary in the hopes that it would inspire. Sometimes it inspired people to dance, other times it inspired people not just to dance but to dance right through the racial boundaries that had been placed on them by society. This music had something so special about it. Though socially, it was a hard time to live in for some people, I have always wished that I could have been around back then. I wish that I could hear these songs that would become classics for the first time when music like it was unheard of. I love a lot of the music my generation has produced thus far, but nothing has excited me the way Mayer Hawthorne did when I first heard it. When you hear the first couple tracks on his album A Strange Arrangement your first thought is that he is merely covering old Motown-era songs. Once I researched a little more I learned that every song on his record is completely original...straight from his mind to our ears. He has somehow managed to write brand new songs that sound as though they were new songs back then. He has a love for the music of that era...an era that he didn't belong too. They were 'oldies' when he was a kid but he fell in love the music. He wrote all the songs on the album and plays a lot of the instruments himself in addition to singing beautifully on the whole thing. If you're a fan of Motown and music from that original time I would definitely recommend that you give it a listen. :) It's a little eerie at times how it sounds old but is brand new. It's an 'eerie' that I love! Hope you like it! (In case you hadn't gathered it yet...this is a major 2 thumbs up for me! )

Here is a taste of what you can expect to hear on the album. Enjoy!

**Also John Mayer said (via Twitter) that in his opinion Album of the Year goes to Mayer Hawthorne**