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Legendary songwriter and performer John Mellencamp says the songs he writes are sent to him. “I’m just a conduit,” he says, “for whatever message is being sent to me.”

When it comes to the songs on Mellencamp’s newest LP, Strictly A One-Eyed Jack, which was released on Friday (January 21), the artist says he knows exactly who sent them. The American actor and director, John Huston. “They gotta be,” Mellencamp says. Huston, he adds, was definitely a “one-eyed Jack.” And while the new LP is not about Huston, per se, the songs, Mellencamp says, are sent from the late auteur (Huston died in 1987). No matter how they got into his creative mind, the songs on Mellencamp’s newest record are largely stunning. They feature his ever-so-gravely voice, as well as his somber tone and nuanced touch.

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Any creative person (or Lego enthusiast) will tell you that not every combination of elements yields positive results. Sometimes even the best towers—proverbial and actual—will tumble given the wrong amalgamation. That’s why the Atlanta-born hard rock band Mastodon is such a remarkable entity. The group is one of those in which the pieces just fit. Since its inception in 2000, the four-piece band has amassed eight studio LPs, including its most recent, the Grammy-nominated Hushed and Grim in 2021. And Mastodon’s album prior, Emperor of Sand (2017), earned the group its first Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance. Today, Mastodon is set to get back out on the road with a co-headline tour in March (followed by one in Europe in the summer). After two-plus-decades together, they’re still building and growing. It’s a testament to the chemistry that bonds the band’s four members.

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Grandson—aka the Los Angeles-based artist, Jordan Benjamin—is an optimist. When the rain pours, that just means more flowers. If one plan has to fold, that must mean another is about to open. If he’s at the end of one road, turn left or right, a new road is right there. That’s the spirit the musician has used throughout his career. And whether fans notice it explicitly or not, it’s present and it resonates in his music. But in order to maintain this sense of optimism, something must hold. Grandson is rooted in an aim to make work that feels honest and engenders self-satisfaction, pride. It’s the result of myriad hours spent and almost as many musical influences. Today, with an acclaimed debut LP in his rearview along with recent collaborations with artists like Kesha, Travis Barker, and Vic Mensa, grandson is slated for a swath of tour dates in 2022.

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For Brent Smith, frontman of the acclaimed Jacksonville, Florida-based rock group Shinedown, honesty is always the best policy. That idea may seem obvious on the face of it. But it can also seem that the more one looks around, the more dishonesty or diversion seems to proliferate the ether. Smith knows this, too. What he also knows is how tricky it can seem to be honest, both with oneself and with others. Honesty is not about consistency or regularity. Sometimes to know the truth about something requires one to be uncomfortable. Smith is aware of this, as well.

These philosophies and vantage points show up in Shinedown’s songs. Their tracks are complex and diverse. The music grabs and shakes as much as it provokes the brain. And this has perhaps never been more evident than on the band’s latest single, “Planet Zero,” which is out today (Jan. 26) and portends a new album of the same name, slated for April 22.

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For Danish artist MØ (born Karen Marie Aagaard Ørsted Andersen), life for a while felt something like a hamster wheel. But it didn’t begin that way—not musically.

As a young person growing up in Denmark, MØ first felt the surge of music at eight years old when she first laid ears on the Spice Girls. Before that, she’d let the songs of her mom and dad essentially wash over her. But when she heard the Spice Girls’ LPs, she lost herself in them and listened repeatedly.

Her family is comprised of academics—except for MØ. She didn’t feel comfortable studying diligently, yet also never knew how to make a music career begin early on. Soon, she discovered punk rock, trading in her ambition to be Sporty Spice to be Kim Gordon. She found like-minded friends. Her interests became layered. In her twenties, MØ’s career took off. So much so, however, that burnout found her. Now, at 33 years old, the artist is back with her best work yet—a 10-track LP born from resilience, Motordrome, out on Friday (January 28).

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Sometimes, it’s really hard to remember. That could be because the subject at hand is so difficult you don’t want to embrace it again. Or it could be because the subject is so far in the past that it’s unclear in its details all these years later. But what if the subject is so important that a people—the world, even—must remember it as it gets more and more distant in the rearview if only to ensure it doesn’t ever pop back up again in real life. For musician Lee Oskar these questions are paramount to both his life and career. Oskar, the son of a Holocaust survivor, is also a co-founding member of the band War (of “Low Rider” fame). Oskar also has a new LP, Never Forget, which is set to release on Friday (January 28). It’s an album born from his mother’s and her sister’s experience as two people who escaped Holocaust death marches.

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There’s a feeling that in order to achieve something—anything—you need to be inspired first. As if some divine light will find your brain and plant the seed of something great that you only need to act on. This of course is silly. One can wait around for a lifetime for such inspiration. A better way, then, is to begin something—anything—and then see if, while already moving, a bit of inspiration finds you to further fuel your push.

Texas-based artist Chrystabell knows this well. She waits around for nothing. Instead, she’s always moving, working, flying to some foreign land to return with more in hand. She creates her own inspiration rooted in what she finds stellar. It’s an alchemy all her own but one she’s always willing to share. She does so on her forthcoming album, Midnight Star, which is set to drop on Friday (January 21), and in her latest music video for “Silent Scream,” which American Songwriter is premiering today.

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British songwriter and performer, Miles Kane, embodies the idea that artists are indeed the sum of all their influences. And Kane’s influences are many. Growing up, the skilled musician was initiated to music from his family—his mother, in particular. He remembers Motown and the Beatles at family gatherings. Kane was born in Birkenhead, England, which is across the river from Liverpool (hence the Mop Tops). Around 12 years old, Kane found the guitar; namely, his cousin’s three-quarter-body Spanish style. He became obsessed, he says.

Soon, he got his own, along with the chord book for Oasis’ (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? With each passing day, Kane absorbed more and more music, especially from his cousins, who would go on to form the popular U.K. band The Coral. And at 18, Kane began to collaborate with famed British rocker Alex Turner of The Arctic Monkeys. Now, all of these elements both comprise and feature expertly on Kane’s newest LP, Change The Show, which is out Friday (January 21).

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There’s an old saying: you can’t go home again. The idea is that once you leave home, there is no real way to return because too much time has passed, too much has changed. You’re not the same person you were when you left. But the 70-year-old blues artist Keb’ Mo’ is living proof that sayings, like rules, are made to be broken. Mo’ was born in Los Angeles, and later in his life moved to Nashville, where he’s enjoyed a residence with his wife now for about a dozen years. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot changed for the artist, both internally and externally. He’s reconsidered what’s most important, down to the very idea of what home is or can be. These changes and the perspectives they brought helped Mo’ to create his latest LP, Good To Be, which is set for release Friday (January 21).

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Mexican-born singer-songwriter Silvana Estrada believes in magic. And why wouldn’t she? Nearly every time she opens her mouth, she sees its spells come to fruition. But the type of magic Estrada subscribes to is not some bag of parlor tricks dependent upon new-age gadgets and slick mirrors. No, the kind she appreciates is timeless, unfettered by anything but itself. It’s the kind of incantation that can bring someone to recall a time and place they never knew they’d longed for. It’s the kind that can summon tears from previously stoic eyes. It’s the kind that moves you, to your core. And it’s sewn deeply into Estrada’s new forthcoming album, Marchita, set for release Friday (January 21).

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