I’ve bought quite a lot of new music recently, although my overriding impression of today was listening to “Running on Empty” and “Your Bright Baby Blues” (original Jackson Browne and cover versions) about fifty times each while I was marking exam papers.

But there are 47 items in the added-in-the-last-4-weeks playlist (I just created), so here are some thoughts.

Our Year – Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis

Having grown used to waiting about 5 years between Kelly Willis albums, I was surprised to see a follow up to Cheater’s Game, which came out just last year. This time, he gets top billing, last time, she did. It’s a similar set, maybe a bit shorter, and without (so far) the kind of standout songs I found on Cheater’s Game (such as “Leavin’” and “Lifeline”). This album’s “9,999,999 Tears” (i.e. 60s/70s country song) is “Harper Valley Pta”, which was released as a single some time ago. I like “Motor City Man”, “Lonely For You”, and “This Will Be Our Year.” Not surprisingly, from my perspective, Kelly takes the lead vocal on those.

So I don’t know about this one, it’s too new.

The Stand-In – Caitlin Rose

Bought this one because I read an article about the songwriters used in the TV series Nashville. I quite like it: it’s not really country, more of a kind of Americana thing, but she has a distinctive voice and writes good songs. Again, too new for me to know any of the songs really well, but I don’t run screaming from the room when they come on.

Platinum – Miranda Lambert

If I’m not really paying attention to any of the above, it’s because this is still the stand-out release of 2014 so far. I wrote about it a while ago, and it’s still getting heavy rotation around here. Download the whole thing, or go for: “Platinum”, “Little Red Wagon,” “Smokin’ and Drinkin’”,  “Priscilla”, “Old Sh!t”, “Babies Makin’ Babies”, “Hard Staying Sober”,  and the earlier single, “Automatic.”

Add all those up, you might as well buy the whole thing.