Flop Eared Mule A Country Music Death Beast and Worker in the Dylan Industrial Complex | Sydney, Australia | Est. 2004

I want to tell you about Mike Stinson. (I strongly disapprove of crappy flash websites which play music at you automatically, which his is but on this occasion you should totally listen before closing the tab in horror.) Telling you about "Mike Stinsons" is basically the entire narcissistic purpose of having a blog.

I'm a late comer, discovering his latest record towards the end of last year. It still made my end of year list but I don't think I conveyed how absolutely, totally, frigging ga-ga I went over the dude.

According to last.fm which basically records every song I listen to Mike Stinson has overtaken Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Johnny Cash and a bunch of others as my most listened to artist ever. (Last.fm says its from 2007 when I signed up but there about 2 years in between then and now when I didn't use it so the results are somewhat skewered by that.)

Oh, I got it bad.

And then when eMusic asked for subscribers to submit "what I'm listening to picks" to go with their regular editorial staff choices, I volunteered, got February (scroll down) and naturally chose Mike Stinson. I think his most recent 2010 album The Jukebox in Your Heart is his best but that's not on eMusic and his previous albums Last Fool at the Bar and Jack of All Heartache are worthy choices too.

I think what I love about him is the serious twang in topic and sound but with a unique songwriting voice amongst the genre pieces; as I said in both my blog best of and eMusic write-up a Dwight Yoakam meets John Prine, which basically combines my favourite streams of twang/traditional country and folk. It won't be for everyone but I reckon a lot more people will love it than have heard it so far.

The second video below is "Square With the World" which is off his newest album, and is completely beautiful. Play it at my funeral, please.