Every Wednesday or Thursday I compile a list of all the albums coming out that week that seem worth knowing about (caveat A: subjective, obviously, but I try to cast as wide a net as possible) (caveat B: wait, albums? In 2019? Seriously, dude?) and I listen to a song or two from (almost) all of them. On Friday, I add as many as time allows into a SONOS playlist, hit shuffle and go about my business. This week, my pre-release-day ritual led me for the first time to the title track from LUKAS NELSON & PROMISE OF THE REAL's TURN OFF THE NEWS (BUILD A GARDEN). Good title (unnecessary parenthetical tag). Good song, too. With a familiar country-rock melody. Naggingly familiar. But I couldn't place it. I racked my brain for a few minutes trying to figure out the long ago source, walked away for a couple minutes, and then it hit me that Nelson's melody was of rather recent vintage. As in "HELLO SUNSHINE," the lead single from another album of some note that comes out today, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN's WESTERN STARS. They're pretty much the same song, musically speaking. In the same key, even. The chance that either is in some way ripping off the other is almost nil, and I doubt I'd care if one of them was. It is, rather, a coincidence of influence, of instincts, of guitarists writing in D major, of the collective conscience from which all music is pulled in one way or another. Doesn't matter if you're a 69-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Famer from New Jersey, the 30-year-old son of a Country Music Hall of Famer from Texas or, hell, a 20-year-old hip-hop striver from Atlanta. You're all jumping into the same cosmic pool of musical possibility. The connections aren't always so obvious but they're always there. And what we share with each other has much to do with who we are as what we don't share. That's my takeaway from music this week. Happy Friday. Turn off the news for 72 hours if you want... Oh, and there's a new MADONNA album, too. Every one one of her 21st century albums, even HARD CANDY, is better than you think it is. This week was created, I believe, with me in mind... The BLUE NOTE documentary BEYOND THE NOTES opens today in New York, and MARTIN SCORSESE's ROLLING THUNDER REVUE: A BOB DYLAN STORY is in limited release in theaters and unlimited release on NETFLIX. The latter chronicles one of the strangest and most compelling chapters in Bob Dylan's strange and compelling career. We take a look at how it felt in real time circa 1975, and how it's remembered today, in MusicSET: "When Bob Dylan's Thunder Rolled"... DRAKE is releasing two songs today to celebrate the TORONTO RAPTORS' first NBA championship... And yes it's FRIDAY and besides BRUCE and MADGE and LUKAS, that means new music from BARONESS, CRUMB, JOHN LUTHER ADAMS, JULIA SHAPIRO, BILL CALLAHAN, JEAN DEAUX, YOUR OLD DROOG, CHRIS SHIFLETT, KATE TEMPEST, BASTILLE, IRON & WINE/CALEXICO, BLOCBOY JB, MATTIEL, ANTHONY NAPLES, ANAT COHEN TENTET, EDMAR CASTAÑEDA & GRÉGOIRE MARET, MEERNAA, PERSONAL BEST, WILL YOUNG, NOAH KAHAN, NOEL GALLAGHER, X AMBASSADORS, TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB, ZHAVIA WARD, ANATOLIAN WEAPONS, CHRIS ROBINSON BROTHERHOOD, SWEET OBLIVION, KEB' MO', JORDAN RAKEI and ROGER DALTREY... RIP ANDY GILL (the rock critic, not the GANG OF FOUR guitarist) and PAUL J. PELKONEN.