Artist Spotlight
John Smyths delivers reflection and growth with “Now I’M Wiser”
In his new single “Now I’M Wiser,” John Smyths manages to encapsulate a lifetime of learning painful lessons into one extremely personal yet completely universal song. Exposed to music from an early age by his parents & older brother, it was inevitable that Smyths would take the path of sound, but his real musical awakening lay years ahead.
Bred on the incendiary grooves of Kiss, Van Halen, Iron Maiden, and AC/DC, Smyths never had to see precisely where rock’s raw muscle intersected its emerging philosophy. But as time rounded out the ragged edges of his young life, he found new kinds of truth in the stories and feelings drawn from the songs his country icons told and sang.
“Now I’M Wiser” is a song that packs the grit of classic rock but hums with the reflective storytelling spirit of country. The song doesn’t need to be anything more in the hands of someone who can communicate strange sorrow so directly. With only its title, you know that it is conveying the introspection of a man who’s walked through mistakes, lived passionately, and emerged stronger on the other side.
This track connects eras and genres, feeling like the culmination of Smyths’ musical journey, a celebration of experience and growth, and further proof that the fire burning within an artist refuses to go out. This is a dispatch from someone who has lived, learned, and found peace.
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Artist Spotlight
“Subterranean Homesick Blues” finds a new direction through Ghost of Panama
Rearranging a song that carries six decades of cultural weight is a creative challenge, but Ghost of Panama approaches “Subterranean Homesick Blues” with clear purpose. The rock band radically reworks Bob Dylan’s counter-culture hit, reshaping its identity while keeping its rebellious spirit. It’s a tribute to musical heritage and a statement of artistic independence all in one.
This new interpretation is very much shaped by the production, made at Ghost of Panama’s home studio in West London. The setting allows an intimate approach to reinterpreting a familiar song and lets the group engage directly with the material, taking it in a new artistic direction.
“Subterranean Homesick Blues” centers on the tension between conservation and transformation. Ghost of Panama is true to the song’s rebellious spirit without adding to its legacy, and this approach gives the release an adventurous feel, grounded in countercultural energy but driven by a desire to see what the composition can become in a different musical context.
Their version of this 60-year-old classic shows that respecting a song’s history can also mean breaking the rules and finding new ways to express its spirit. Fundamentally, “Subterranean Homesick Blues” presents Ghost of Panama as artists who want to engage with the past without being tied to it. The release’s strongest identity is a familiar heritage reimagined through a singularly forward-looking creative vision.
Artist Spotlight
“NO MORE” by Amanda Holley connects healing, awakening, and survival
“NO MORE“ carries that kind of emotional weight, and some songs feel like they come from lived experience but reach for something bigger. Amanda Holley blends R&B and soul, turning a lifetime of survival into a vision of healing, awakening, and the determination to move beyond what caused the pain.
“NO MORE“ is a healing anthem for people who have gone through bad experiences and reached a place of higher awareness, but it’s also an emotionally charged protest. The duality is introspective and outward-looking at the same time, turning personal survival into a broader declaration that some experiences, conditions, or cycles should end.
Holley had a premonition of the song six months before the world went into global shutdown. In the vocal booth, working out melodies with her collaborators, she pictured people in the streets. Those images were hard to imagine at the time, but subsequent events would make them painfully familiar.
“NO MORE“ is given a particularly contemplative underpinning by the context. The identity of R&B and soul leaves room for emotion. The song’s themes link survival, awakening, resistance, and the need for change. Amanda Holley is an artist using music to process personal endurance and a broader sense of social awakening. It’s got a complicated significance, and its release feels like a glimpse of a moment when personal intuition and public reality collided in an unexpected way.
Photo Credit: Yulia Shusharina
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