A half-dozen cool things in music, from two points of view:

Anna Morgan of Plymouth:

1 NFL and music. Music has a new role in the NFL as Swifties spike ratings and jersey sales. Total plot twist from confining music to halftimes and the national anthem. On that note, I am saying "Yeah!" with the Usher 2024 Super Bowl halftime announcement.

2 Spotify and artificial intelligence. Spotify confirmed this week that it won't completely ban AI content. Computer-generated music has been around for years, but AI creating content with the likeness of existing artists has not. Buckle up. This is bigger than MP3's taking down the compact disc.

3 Maren Morris. She is leaving the country genre because she didn't want to be on the playground with rednecks. She has always been more R&B than country, but somehow this feels more like a bad breakup vs. the natural career progression, as it should be.

Jon Bream, Star Tribune critic:

1 "Stop Making Sense" 2023 version. Watching David Byrne get lost in his jittery, nerdy funkiness on a huge Imax screen is mega-ly magnetic and magical. Augmented by kinetic backup singers Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holt, space-age keyboardist Bernie Worrell and others, Talking Heads were determinedly groovy in an unselfconscious but egghead-y way in late 1983. Props to the camera work and Byrne's ingenious staging in what, four decades later, remains arguably the best concert film ever.

2 Teddy Swims, Palace Theatre. Part WWE, part empath, part fountain overflowing with emotion, the Georgia emo soul man kicked off his tour with a therapeutically powerful performance filled with country-soul balladry, crowd-pleasing covers ("You're Still the One," "Don't Stop Believin'"), emotive vocals and a few for-real tears.

3 The Mavericks, State Theatre. With singer Raul Malo now playing bass and his son Dino Malo subbing on drums (Paul Deakin had heart surgery), the refreshingly retro yet forward- thinking group was as swingin' as ever. Not only did they play an array of remarkable originals, evoking a pre-Beatles era, but Raul did three solo acoustic numbers including his slow, lonely version of Jimmy Buffett's "misinterpreted" "Margaritaville." Suddenly, there was pin-drop silence in a roomful of temporarily seated baby-boomer dancers.

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