Discover Your Fortune!

Aries - Your dog’s sad howls will never make him much of a crooner, but you already told him that when he left your metal band. 

Taurus - The only reason nobody’s interested in your homemade cure for dermatitis, is that you keep showing them your grisly armpit.

Gemini - What you used to think of as inner dialogue will turn out to be more like talk radio with a lot of guest callers.

Cancer - The picnic was a romantic idea but you should’ve put some food in the basket.

Leo - It ain't so bad to drink from the bottom of the barrel; that’s where all the nutrients are. 

Virgo - As the villagers kindly saw you to the gates with all your luggage you couldn’t help but ask again about that $11.

Libra - They say gravity pulls us down but does it not pull us up? Does a cold rain burn? What is the meaning of these things? 

Scorpio - “Incompetence” and “Horror” are two words used to describe your handling of the whistling garbage disposal. 

Sagittarius - Sure, you’ll return to work, as long as you get to wear a bathrobe and helmet. 

Capricorn - You will inherit a great fortune. Wait, the stars messed that one up. A great misfortune. 

Aquarius - Thankfully you got a five-minute window to fix your tourniquet while the wolf packs fight each other. 

Pisces - People have recently started saying you look like Simon Cowell, but you’re not sure that’s a good thing.

At the end of February I was listening to a podcast in which they discussed a quote out of a 1991 book from a songwriter who came to fame in the 1960s and has remained an American icon ever since. The gist of the show was about how popular music has changed over the years and the quote from Paul Simon was on the evolving displacement in that space of melody by rhythm: ""We're long out of the age of melody. Long out of there and we probably won't be going back into it."" No less an expert than someone whose songwriting transformed from gems like ""The Sound of Silence"" and ""Bridge Over Troubled Water"" to the other side of the coin on ""Can't Help But"" over the course of less than three decades, it's hard to disagree with the prickly diminutive tunesmith. The takeaway of the pod was that top 40 radio (or however it's measured in the age of Spotify and TikTok) seems to agree.

In the middle of February I was listening to the latest from Young Fathers and couldn't get over the beauty and joy of their fourth album, one that effortlessly intertwines rhythm and melody without placing a premium on the former at the expense of the latter. The Scots won the esteemed Mercury Prize back in 2014 for their debut Dead and now seem bent on making their career run in the opposite direction of Mr. Simon's assertion of pop's progression. Over four albums, Young Fathers' approach has ever so slightly shifted from one driven by beats to what has landed as Heavy Heavy's melodic calm. Neo soul? Art pop? A little hip hop? Tribal cadence? Labels be damned, Heavy Heavy is perhaps the most enjoyable set of music to my ears this young year thus far.