Alphabet Soup Week 51: Artists Filed Under Z

With the holiday season upon us, we finally arrive at the last letter of the year. Step inside and get some Zzzzz’s!!

Welcome to week 51 of Alphabet Soup and to the heart of the holiday season! Whatever you're celebrating, be it Solstice, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, or just a day or two off work, I wish you and yours a safe and happy season! It's almost unfathomable to me that there are less than two weeks left in 2024. The second half of the year really did seem to be passing by so slowly, until suddenly it wasn’t! Looking back now, it feels like the last six months have flown by.

The cupboards are pretty bare when it comes to pulling together a playlist for the artists beginning with Z. With only 11 artists and 22 albums in my CD library to choose from, I've once again decided to go with the workaround I used back in week 33 when we hit the Q Artists. Every track in this week's playlist is from an artist with the letter Z in their name, including one that actually starts with the letter! With the tracks for next week already selected, and the playlist awaiting sequencing, I can confidently confirm that there will be no more workarounds required!

As I look back on the last year of Joy in The Journey I'm proud of what I've accomplished. For someone who's always been a great starter, but quite often a poor finisher, the fact that I'll actually complete the whole Alphabet Soup series (I think I can confidently say that now), and that I've managed to stick to the weekly posting schedule, is a huge accomplishment for me. It's been a joy to compile the playlists each week and to research and write blurbs for each of the individual tracks (over 500 now!). Most importantly, this project has required me to continue to write and publish consistently, a habit that will hopefully serve me well as we move into 2025.

As always, please jump into the comments to let me know which tracks you loved (or didn't) and what Z artists would have been on your list.

Until next week, wishing you peace, serenity, and many healthy servings of JOY!

Happy listening!!

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ALPHABET SOUP WEEK 51: Artists Filed Under Z

This week’s selections:

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ARTIST: Lee Hazlewood

TRACK: "After Six" from These Boots Were Made for Walk-in' (The Complete MGM Recordings) (2002)

A short song, as is typical of Lee Hazlewood, After Six is one of my favorites from this collection of his MGM recordings. Despite being delivered with his trademark devil-may-care drawl, the subject matter is a serious one, chronicling Hazlewood's cheeky suggestions to a bartender about trading possessions for booze. As the song progresses, the available trades reduce as the possessions decline—a watch for a fifth of scotch becomes a stickpin (with a broken diamond) for a pint of gin becomes a pair of (stinky) shoes for a glass of booze. As a recovering addict, this one hits close to home - I've been in the position of having to sell my (or others') possessions to feed my habit and it's a dark and desperate place to be. It's a genius piece of songwriting that can make such moral depredation appear so blasé.

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ARTIST: William Fitzsimmons

TRACK: "I Kissed a Girl" from Derivatives (2010)

By the time William Fitzsimmons released his 2010 EP Derivatives, I was beginning to lose interest in his music. This was the last release of his that I physically owned and it was my least favorite. It didn't help that most of the songs were remixes of tracks from his prior album, with only one new track and one cover song. But the cover was a great one as I really enjoyed Fitzsimmons' reimagining of Katy Perry's I Kissed a Girl from her 2008 album One Of The Boys. He completely strips the song back to a low key acoustic folk interpretation and it's lovely.

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ARTIST: Mazzy Star

TRACK: "Into Dust" from So Tonight That I Might See (1993)

So Tonight That I Might See, the second studio album from the American alternative band Mazzy Star was the first album of theirs I heard via the breakout single Fade Into You. This is an incredible album, filled with gorgeous dream pop ballads beautifully delivered by vocalist Hope Sandoval. Surprisingly, Into Dust was never released as a single; it's one of my favorite tracks of theirs, a close third to Halah (from debut album She Hangs Brightly) and Fade Into You.

The 2020 album Mother by the LA-based rock band In This Moment included a stunning cover of the song. While it's a fairly faithful interpretation, in the closing two minutes lead singer Maria Brink adds some soaring vocal flourishes that take the song to another level. It's certainly worth a listen and can be found here.

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As you make your way through this week’s playlist, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Do any of these tracks really stand out for you? What do you like? What don’t you like?

Please click the button below to leave a comment.

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ARTIST: Lenny Kravitz

TRACK: "More Than Anything In This World" from Mama Said (1991)

The 1991-92 academic year, my third year at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, was a dark one for me. It was my first year living off campus and I found myself staying in a one room flat with shared kitchen and bathroom facilities. I absolutely hated the place and spent as little time there as possible. I'd hang out in one of the residence halls with my buddies every night, smoking dope until 3 or 4 in the morning, before jogging the one mile back to my shithole of an apartment.

During the second semester I found myself shacking up with a flight attendant across the bridge in Dartmouth for the better part of a month (the idea of attending classes was a distant memory by this point). That brief escape from reality was almost entirely soundtracked by Lenny Kravitz's second album Mama Said. While Lenny was trying to win Lisa Bonet back, I was trying to woo Nicki into a romantic relationship. "More than anything in the world, I just want you to be my woman" didn't work for Lenny and it didn't work for me. But I did find myself with a comfortable place to stay, food to eat, and a platonic partner and friend with whom I could hide from reality for a short time.

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ARTIST: Zero 7

TRACK: "In The Waiting Line" from Simple Things (2001)

Simple Things, Zero 7's debut studio album is an absolute work of art and currently takes pride of place as one of my eight Desert Island Discs. While not quite a trip hop record (my opinion; others disagree), this downtempo classic certainly draws on the influences of the Bristol sound while taking it in a jazzier and more ethereal direction with hints of vintage soul. The voices of the guest vocalists - Mozez, Sia Furler and Sophie Barker - are perfectly suited to the beats and soundscapes created by Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker. In the Waiting Line, featuring vocals by Barker, was the fourth single released from the album.

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ARTIST: Gorillaz

TRACK: "Feel Good Inc." from Demon Days (2005)

I'm not sure anyone listening to Damon Albarn's work with Blur back in the early 90s would have predicted that he'd go on to record more than two dozen studio albums. Fast forward thirty years and the versatility and longevity of Albarn's career, and his musical legacy, is beyond debate. While I'm a little surprised that I haven't previously featured Blur on Alphabet Soup (I had a handful of their albums in my CD collection), we did see Albarn back in week 33 with History Song from the debut album of his supergroup collaboration The Good, The Bad & The Queen. He's back again this week in a different guise, this time as the lead singer of the "virtual band" The Gorrilaz. Feel Good Inc., featuring the legendary American hip-hop group De La Soul, was the lead single from the band's second album, 2005's Demon Days. The track would hit the top ten in over a dozen countries, reaching number 2 in the UK and number 14 in the US and topping the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart for eight consecutive weeks.

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ARTIST: Fila Brazillia

TRACK: "Sidearms and Parsnips" from Dicks (2004)

Although the Yorkshire-based electronic duo Fila Brazillia did release a surprise EP in 2023 with two brand new tracks, most of their musical output took place in the 1990s (7 studio albums) and the 2000s (3 studio albums). While I wasn't a huge fan of their original work, rather preferring their fantastic remix collections, I did own one of their studio albums on CD, 2004's Dicks. I found the album to be quite spotty, with Sidearms & Parsnips being the standout track.

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ARTIST: Franz Ferdinand

TRACK: "Take Me Out" from Franz Ferdinand (2001)

It turned out that Franz Ferdinand's critically acclaimed 2004 debut studio album really wasn't my bag. After purchasing the album on the back of this, their second single, I found much of it to be "just okay". Not bad by any stretch, but just not that appealing to me. Clearly, given the critical and commercial success of the album, my opinion wasn’t shared by the musical cognoscenti. The album won the 2004 Mercury Music Prize, was nominated for Best Alternative Album at the 47th Grammy Awards (losing to Wilco's A Ghost Is Born) and made the top 40 in more than a dozen countries. Take Me Out peaked at number three on the UK Singles chart, reached number seven in Canada and hit number three on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart.

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ARTIST: Weezer

TRACK: "The World Has Turned And Left Me Here" from Weezer (Blue Album) (1994)

After getting sober in 1994 I found myself truly reconnecting with music as I slowly began to rebuild a CD library after having sold much of my collection over the preceding couple years. This album, Weezer's self titled debut (the Blue Album) was one of the early additions to my growing collection. Although I've chilled on the band considerably over the last thirty years, their debut was one of my favorite albums of 1994 and arguably one of the best albums of the entire decade.

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ARTIST: Sister Hazel

TRACK: "All For You" from ...Somewhere More Familiar (1997)

We end this week's installment with yet another band that has continued to release music long after I stopped listening to them (what a surprise!). Time and time again, over the course of this series, I've come across artists that I listened to for one to three albums and then completely lost touch with. Sister Hazel turned out to be a one-CD relationship for me with their second studio album, 1997's ...Somewhere More Familiar. The single All For You, a version of which appeared on their 1994 eponymous debut, was a huge success for the band and is by far their most well-known track. The single peaked in the top 40 on six of the Billboard charts, including the top spot on the Adult Pop Airplay and number 11 on the Hot 100, and peaked at number 2 in Canada. The band has continued to release music, with their catalog now comprising ten studio albums and four EPs.

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Here’s the link to the running playlist which is updated on a weekly basis as each new installment is published:

ALPHABET SOUP RUNNING PLAYLIST

Tracks missing from the Spotify playlist:

• Allegory by Murray Attaway (Week 02)

• Face Me and Smile by The Lover Speaks (Week 12)

• From Your Mouth by God Lives Underwater (Week 13)

• This Can’t Go On! by The Lover Speaks (Week 23)

• Two for the Show by Trooper (Week 40)

• Twenty One by Marry Me Jane (Week 40)

• Slow by 13 Engines (Week 47)

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Thank you for reading Joy in the Journey, I appreciate you being here! If there’s someone in your life you think may enjoy this post, feel free to share it.