Category: Uncategorized

  • The Unpopular Truth About “Rumours”

    The Unpopular Truth About “Rumours”

    By Kyle J. Hayes

    I know some of you are already sharpening your knives.

    I’ve come ready to fight because Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” is on the list, and I don’t believe it deserves to be. There, I said it. And I stand by it.

    Look, I get it. Rumours is one of those sacred cows of rock and roll. The kind of album people mention in hushed, reverent tones as if saying it’s less than a masterpiece is blasphemy. It has sold millions. It is beloved. It is a soundtrack to breakups and breakdowns, a cornerstone of ’70s rock.

    And yet—

    For an album that is supposed to be so emotionally charged, so soaked in heartbreak and betrayal, why does it feel so safe? Rumours never really cuts deep, never really digs beneath the surface. It’s clean—almost too clean. The music is pleasant, the lyrics are easy to follow, and the message is clear. And maybe that’s precisely the problem.

    Simple music. Simple lyrics. Simple message.

    That doesn’t make it bad. It makes it OK. But great? Top-tier? One of the best albums ever made? That’s where I tap out.

    As a band, Fleetwood Mac has always felt a little overrated to me—better than average, but not by much. And this album, for all its polish, does not move me the way an excellent record should. It does not challenge. It does not provoke. It does not force me to wrestle with something bigger than myself. It is digestible and easy to listen to for people who want the illusion of pain without having to sit in it for too long.

    Before you come for me, let me be clear—I don’t hate this album. It has its moments. Dreams is iconic. Go Your Own Way is an anthem. And sure, The Chain is a solid track with its steady build and brooding intensity. But these are moments, not revelations. This is a good record—maybe even an excellent pop-rock record—but an all-time great album? That’s another level entirely.

    And for me, Rumours, just doesn’t get there.

    People will say, “But it’s about the band’s real-life turmoil! They were falling apart! The emotion is real!” And sure, the context is dramatic. However, context does not always translate into depth. An album isn’t great just because it was born out of chaos—it’s great when it feels like chaos. When it bleeds on the floor. When it forces you into its world, whether you like it or not.

    Rumours never did that for me.

    So yes, it’s OK. It’s catchy. It’s well-produced. But does it belong at the top of rock and roll’s greatest albums?

    Not in my book… You may now bring out the Pitchforks.

  • In Defense of the Lawnmower Beer

    By Kyle J. Hayes

    Beer has become complicated.

    Once, it was simple—just barley, water, hops, and yeast. A drink for the working man, the tired, and the thirsty. But then came the craft beer revolution, and suddenly, it wasn’t enough to drink a cold one after a long day. Now, beer had to be an experience. It had to be aged in whiskey barrels, infused with Madagascar vanilla, brewed with organic, free-range hops cultivated by monks in the Swiss Alps.

    And in this overcomplicated, overanalyzed, overhyped world of artisanal nonsense, one beer remains unchanged.

    The Lawnmower Beer

    You won’t find it on a curated tasting menu, poured into a tulip glass, or discussed in hushed tones by bearded men in flannel debating the merits of IBUs ( International bitterness units). No, the lawnmower beer lives far from that world, tucked away in forgotten gas stations, in the dusty bottom rows of convenience store coolers, in the hands of someone who doesn’t care about hop varieties—they just want something cold, crisp, and earned.

    Because that’s what the lawnmower beer is—a beer that exists for a purpose.

    The Taste of Satisfaction

    A lawnmower beer isn’t a craft brew. It isn’t strong. It doesn’t challenge you. It isn’t brewed to be dissected. It is brewed for relief. For that first sip, after you’ve spent hours cutting grass, sweat sticking to your skin, the smell of earth lingering on your clothes.

    It is light but not flavorless. Cold, but not soulless.

    It is the first thing you reach for when you step back, look at your work—the grass trimmed, the edges clean, the job done—and let out that long, satisfied sigh. Crack the can, take a swig, and everything is just right for a moment.

    The Beer of the People

    The lawnmower beer is not about prestige. It is about community. It is the beer of cookouts, front porches, tailgates, and fishing trips. It is the beer handed to you by your neighbor after you helped him move a couch, the one your uncle always drank while flipping burgers on the grill, the one your father cracked open after finishing the yard on a sweltering Saturday.

    This beer is America’s beer. Not the pretentious America, the Instagram-filtered, small-batch, single-origin IPA America. No, this is the average America built on hard work, small victories, and simple pleasures.

    A lawnmower beer is not trying to be anything other than what it is. It is refreshing, crisp, and damn near perfect in its purpose.

    Not everything in life needs to be complicated.

    Sometimes, a beer just needs to be cold.

    And sometimes, that’s enough.

  • The Wall We Build, The Wall That Breaks Us

    The Wall We Build, The Wall That Breaks Us

    By Kyle J. Hayes

    I first saw The Wall as a teenager. Back then, I didn’t have the ears to truly hear it. I watched it the way you watch something forbidden—half in awe, half in confusion, knowing you were witnessing something profound but not yet possessing the weight of experience to carry its meaning.

    But later—much later—I listened. Truly listened. And something inside me cracked.

    There is a pain in Roger Waters’ voice that is not just sung, not just performed but bled onto the record. A pain so heavy, so relentless, that at times it is too much. There are moments when the music presses down on you like an ocean above your head, where you feel the weight of every note and lyric threatening to pull you under. And sometimes, I have to stop.

    Because The Wall does not let you listen passively. It drags you into the depths of alienation, grief, and self-destruction. It is the sound of a man unraveling, brick by brick, Wall by Wall. And if you have ever known that kind of pain—the kind that isolates, the kind that suffocates—then you know.

    You know.

    And that is why this album is undeniable. That is why it belongs here, among the greatest albums ever made. Because music is not just about sound—it is about truth. And there is truth in these songs. A raw, unfiltered, merciless truth that lays itself bare in “Hey You” and “Comfortably Numb” in the slow descent of a mind consumed by its own darkness.

    There is another Pink Floyd album on this list. It is brilliant. It is genius. But for me—this is the one. The Wall does not just demand to be heard. It demands to be felt.

    And no matter how many times I return to it, no matter how often I have to turn it off before I am swallowed whole, I know this:

    It belongs here. Among the greats. Among the albums that changed everything.

    And once you truly listen, you will know it too.

  • The Quest for the Perfect Cup

    By Kyle J. Hayes

    It started with Café Vienna—that instant, powdered, vaguely European concoction that felt exotic when I knew no better. It was a teaspoon of convenience, a promise of sophistication in a paper packet. It was sweet, creamy, and barely coffee, but it was a start.

    Then came drip coffee—a necessary evolution. The kind is brewed in glass pots at diners, where time moves slower, and waitresses with weary eyes pour refills without asking. The kind made at home with cheap, plastic Mr. Coffee machines, the scent filling the kitchen with something resembling ritual.

    A few machines later, I stared at a Keurig, the great equalizer of modern coffee drinking. Slick, efficient, perfectly mediocre. A coffee pod in, a button pressed, a cup made. It was fine. It was okay. But it was never that cup—the one people tell stories about, the one that lingers on your tongue like an unforgettable conversation.

    And so, I went searching.

    I discovered the French press. It is basic and unassuming yet supposedly the best of the best. There are no buttons or mechanics—just hot water and coffee grounds meeting in a glass chamber, left to steep like a secret waiting to be told. But here’s the thing about simplicity: it demands precision.

    How much coffee grounds to put in? How hot should the water be? How long should I let it sit before pressing, pouring, and taking that first sip?

    Simple, but essential.

    And that is the thing about a great cup of coffee—it is not an accident. It is not a product of shortcuts or convenience. It is the result of choices, patience, and understanding that small details change everything.

    Because coffee is not just coffee. It is morning rituals and quiet moments. It is conversation and contemplation. It is the difference between rushing through life and tasting it.

    So I learned. I adjusted. I measured. I experimented. I obsessed.

    And finally, one day, I took a sip and knew—this was it. The cup I had been chasing. Rich, smooth, layered. A cup worth remembering.

    The quest wasn’t just about coffee. It never is. It was about care, being intentional, and refusing to accept good enough when great is within reach.

    Because the truth is—if you can take the time to make a great cup of coffee, what else are you willing to do right?

  • Greatest Albums of All Time

    Greatest Albums of All Time

    Held by the Sound

    By Kyle J. Hayes

    Some albums ask for your attention. Others demand it.

    Tapestry does something different—it holds you. From the first notes pounded out on the piano, there is no question that Carole King means every word she sings. There is no artifice, no polish designed to smooth over the cracks of raw emotion. This is a woman speaking her truth, and you are either coming along for the journey or being left behind.

    And you will come along.

    Because how could you not? The music pulls you in with an intimacy that feels almost too close, too familiar—like sitting across from someone who has stripped themselves of all pretense and is telling you, in no uncertain terms, exactly what they have seen and felt.

    This is not just songwriting. This is testimony.

    Something in the way she sings—earnest, unguarded, vulnerable—makes you trust her. When she says, “You’ve Got a Friend,” you believe it. When she aches through “It’s Too Late,” you feel the weight of everything left unsaid. And when she reaches “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” it is no longer just a song—it is a moment, a reckoning, a realization that this is not just an album but a blueprint for something deeper, something more profound.

    And I must have replayed it too many times to count.

    Because some songs do not just get heard—they settle into you, become a part of you, and shape how you understand love, loss, and longing. And that is what Tapestry does. It is not just one of the greatest albums ever made but one of the most felt.

    When the last note fades, you realize you were never simply listening. You were traveling, feeling, remembering. And for an album to do that—to take you somewhere and leave you changed—that is greatness. That is why it is on this list.

    And that is why it will never leave mine.

  • Greatest Albums of All Time

    Greatest Albums of All Time

    A Song I Somehow Knew

    By Kyle J. Hayes

    I have never watched The Sound of Music, not once, not as a child, not as an adult.

    It wasn’t rebellion. It wasn’t some grand statement. It was instinct. Something in me recoiled at the idea of turning Nazi Germany into a backdrop for a musical, of wrapping history in song and dance, of softening something that should never be softened. And so, I let it pass me by without ever making a conscious decision.

    And yet—when I listened to the soundtrack, something happened.

    The music felt familiar—unsettlingly so—like a half-remembered dream or the echo of a childhood long forgotten. Before I even realized it, the words were forming on my lips, the melodies weaving through my mind, lifting me out of the present and dropping me somewhere else entirely.

    Sunday nights. The television screen glows softly in a dimly lit living room. The Wonderful World of Disney plays, filling the air with magic and nostalgia, with the kind of wonder that only children believe will last forever. I was there again, small, enchanted, held in the arms of a time that no longer exists.

    But how?

    How did these songs belong to me when I had never claimed them? Was it the feelings they carried, the way music holds onto emotion long after the memory fades? Or was it something more straightforward and technical—the fact that these songs had been drilled into us in elementary school, taught to children in music class as if they were as foundational as the alphabet?

    I don’t know, and I may never know. But what I do know is this: The Sound of Music belongs on the list.

    There are albums that change the world and albums that settle into it, shaping the fabric of collective memory so seamlessly that they feel like they have always been there. This one does both. It has found a way to exist beyond the film, beyond the stage, beyond history itself. It is not just music; it is cultural inheritance, passed down through generations and woven into the lives of people who never even sought it out.

    And that is what makes it great.

    So long, farewell,

    Auf Wiederseh’n, goodbye.

  • When Someone Shows You Who They Are: A Lesson from Maya Angelou

    When Someone Shows You Who They Are: A Lesson from Maya Angelou

    The older I get, the more I say it.

    “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

    It is not just a quote. It is a warning, a wisdom, a truth that only deepens with time. And the woman who spoke it, Maya Angelou, was more than a poet, more than an icon—she was a force. A woman who understood the world not just as it was, but as it could be.

    Since it’s Women’s History Month, I could think of no one better to celebrate.

    Maya Angelou did not just write about life—she lived it. She survived it. She bore witness to its struggles, joys, and unbearable weight, and she did it all with a voice that refused to be silenced. She wrote with clarity that stripped the world down to its barest truth. And if you were listening—really listening—she was telling you exactly what you needed to hear.

    “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

    How many times have we ignored that truth? How often have we made excuses for people, choosing to see them as we hope they are instead of who they have proven themselves to be? How much pain have we invited into our lives because we refused to accept what was right in front of us?

    But Maya Angelou knew.

    She knew that wisdom was not just in books but in lived experience. That some lessons had to be felt before they could be learned. She also knew that to survive in this world—to thrive in it—you had to recognize the truth in people, in systems, in history itself.

    She knew women, in particular, have been told to be patient, to give the benefit of the doubt, to soften themselves to make others more comfortable. But also that survival requires something stronger. It requires discernment. It requires the ability to see the truth and to act on it.

    Which is why we celebrate her.

    Not just for her words, but for the life behind them. For the way she carried herself, the way she refused to be broken, the way she taught an entire generation—generations after her—what it means to walk in your own truth, unapologetically.

    So this month, as we celebrate the women who have shaped history, let us also remember the wisdom they left behind. Let us remember Maya’s lesson. Let us see people for who they are—not for who we wish they were.

  • Chasing the Sound

    I am not a musician. Never have been. Never will be.

    There is no hidden talent waiting to be discovered, no secret virtuosity buried in my bones. My fingers do not dance over keys, my voice does not soar, my hands have never bent an instrument to my will. If music is a language, I am a listener—nothing more, nothing less.

    But if there is one thing I do have, it is love. Deep, abiding, obsessive love. A love that has shaped the way I see the world, that has scored the highest and lowest moments of my life. Music is not just sound—it is memory, it is history, it is an entire world condensed into three minutes and forty-two seconds of melody and truth.

    And yet, I have been starving.

    Somewhere along the way, I built a cage out of my own taste. I found the artists I trusted, the ones who never missed, the ones who spoke in a language I already understood. And I stayed there. I convinced myself that good music was a known quantity, that the search was over, that I had already found the best and could close the door behind me.

    But art is not meant to be safe. It is not meant to be comfortable. And in my hunger for the familiar, I had stopped listening. Really listening.

    So I am making a choice.

    I am stepping outside of the walls I built for myself and working my way through Billboard’s Top 100 Albums of All Time. One by one. No skipping. No excuses. Just me, the music, and my unfiltered thoughts.

    This is not about agreement. It is not about validation. It is about discovery, about stretching myself past what I think I know. Maybe I will find something that changes me. Maybe I will confirm my suspicions that some albums just aren’t for me. But either way, I will be listening.

    Because music is bigger than taste. Bigger than opinion. It is history and culture and revolution. It is joy and pain and longing. It is the closest thing we have to time travel, a way to reach back and touch something real, something that once was.

    So I will listen. And I will write. Not as an expert, not as a musician, but as a man searching for something he didn’t even realize he had lost.

    Let’s see where this takes me. K.H

  • Why I Write, Why I Blog

    Why I Write, Why I Blog

    There is a weight to silence. A gravity that presses against the ribs, tightens around the throat, settles like dust on the tongue until you forget what it was you even meant to say.

    For years, I carried that silence like a burden, not because I had nothing to say, but because I wasn’t sure the world was listening. Or maybe worse—I feared that it was, and that it would twist my words into something unrecognizable, something that no longer belonged to me.

    But I am writing now. I am blogging now. Not because the fear has passed, but because it has become irrelevant.

    The truth is, silence has never saved us. Not me, not my people. It has never been a refuge, only a cage. There is a reason the elders told stories, why our history survived in whispers and songs long before it was ever put to paper. There is a reason Baldwin wrote like he was setting fire to the page, why Morrison sculpted language like it was the only thing that could make sense of the madness. Words have always been how we fought against the erasure, how we held onto ourselves when the world tried to rip us apart.

    So I write. I blog. I carve out a space where my voice is unfiltered, unpolished, unafraid. A space where I do not need permission to exist.

    I do it because I have spent my life watching people take shortcuts, choosing ease over integrity, convenience over conscience. Because I have seen how this world rewards silence and punishes those who dare to speak. I write because I refuse to be complicit in my own invisibility.

    Blogging is not just a platform—it is a declaration. It is a refusal to be erased. It is a way to make sense of the pain, to document the struggle, to build something that will outlive me. I do not believe in permanence, but I do believe in impact. And I am here to make one.

    This is about legacy. About bearing witness. About looking into the abyss and refusing to be swallowed by it.

    This is about telling the truth, even when it hurts. K.H