6 cool things in music include Barack Obama's favorite songs, Janis Joplin biography and Jamecia Bennett's holiday single

Greg Burke of TC Club Crawl Report:

1 Favorite songs of 2019. Caamp, "Peach Fuzz"; Durand Jones & the Indications, "Long Way Home"; Tyler Childers, "All Your'n," and Minnesota singer-songwriter J.S. Ondara, "Saying Goodbye."

2 Thoughts on 2020. My biggest hopes are for less expensive arena-concert tickets and the return of advertised-in-advance ticket prices. My biggest fear is that box offices at concert venues will go the way of the dinosaurs.

3 New Year's resolution. To go see more of the plentiful, amazing and inexpensive (sometimes free) classical music concerts in the Twin Cities.

Jon Bream of the Star Tribune:

1 Barack Obama's favorite songs of 2019. He's got good — and eclectic, or, you might say inclusive — taste. Making the list were tunes by Beyoncé, Bruce Springsteen, Lizzo, DaBaby, Rosalia, the National, Lil Nas X, Mavis Staples, the Highwomen, Maggie Rogers, Joe Henry, Sharon Van Etten, Solange and others.

2 Mecie, "Holiday Blues." Under the moniker Mecie, Jamecia Bennett, star of Twin Cities stages and the Sounds of Blackness, dropped this single in late December. It's a slow-burn blues with a little detour to church, bemoaning that she dumped her man last Christmas and how much she misses him this yule season.

3 "Janis: Her Life and Music" by Holly George-Warren. With exhaustive reporting, the veteran music journalist paints a deep and insightful portrait of the complicated 1960s blues-rock queen. We learn not only of Janis Joplin's loves and lovers but of her intelligence (she discussed physics with her engineer father), insecurities (her letters and diaries were profound and revealing) and ambition (she wanted to be a cross between funky Stax Volt soul and brassy Blood, Sweat & Tears rock). It's everything you want to know — and sometimes TMI (she once lusted after her 19-year-old opening act, Bruce Springsteen) — about Miss Ball and Chain.