One of my favorite things is that magical moment when I hear someone's music for the first time. You put on a track by some musical artist you've never listened to and suddenly, you're blown away by what you hear. You start looking around to see what else they've recorded, you spend time buried on Google trying to see what else you can learn about them.

In the case of Parker Polhill, the discovery came through a publicist. I get a lot of music pitches and I take them with a grain of salt because at the end of the day, they are getting paid to get some attention for their client. But I always end up listening to the track they're pushing because you just never know. There are thousands of tracks being released every year and I couldn't keep track of them all even if all I wrote about was music. So I listen, and in the case of Parker Polhill's "International," I'm glad I did.

Polhill was born and raised in Atlanta and has apparently been making music since he was a kid. After a brief stint as an actor (He costarred in the 2016 pilot "Makin' It"), he moved to Nashville to focus on music. He posted tracks on Soundcloud and released his first single early in 2017.

"International" is his latest single and it is a sweet slice of pop/R&B. The track has that vague acoustic calypso-esque feel and a smooth and silky vocal that would sound ideal coming from a speaker on some remote beach. Listen to it below and enjoy:

When a well-known musician dies, the sales of their music tends to increase substantially. So no one was surprised when Sony Musical Entertainment scrambled to quickly release 2010's posthumous album "Michael." 

But not long after the album's release, longtime Jackson fan Vera Servoa began claiming that at least three of the album's tracks were likely recorded by a Michael Jackson sound-alike performer and released as if they had been recorded by the late singer.

Servoa eventually filed a civil suit, accusing Jackson’s longtime friends Eddie Cascio, James Victor Porte, and his production company, Angelikson Productions LLC of creating and selling music through Sony and the Jackson estate.

Both Cascio and Porte claim the songs were recorded in Cascio’s New Jersey basement in 2007. However, Serova and the entire Jackson family contested these claims. They say that despite the recordings bearing a similar sound to that of the pop legend, Michael Jackson never recorded those songs. 

In court documents obtained by Karen Civil, Sony Music admitted on Wednesday to releasing the fake Michael Jackson music. The fake songs include "Monster," "Keep Your Head Up," and "Breaking News."

What is still unclear is how the album will be labeled in the future and whether people who have purchased the 2010 album will be entitled to some sort of refund.

As music genres go, the term "Alt-Pop" is mushier than most. Exactly what kind of music can be described as "Alt-Pop?" For me, it includes any song with a great hook, some vague pop feel to it and more soul/R&B than hip-hop. I lean towards those songs that sound simple at first listen and then drill into your brain so deep you can't shake them.

This Spotify list includes the best Alt-Pop songs that have been released so far in 2018. I suspect there will be a lot of artists here you're not familiar with or genres you might not normally check out. There's all variations of pop, alt-country, a sprinkling of Spanish-language tunes and some things that can't really be defined. But my goal is to create a playlist you can listen to and have it all hang together like you're listening to some radio station with an unfamiliar but really fun format.

Let me know what you think at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and I hope you'll subscribe to the playlist. It's updated on a regular basis, at least a few times a week.