*VIDEO VERSION NOW ON YOUTUBE, features 40 pieces of my artwork as well! Visit the link in my bio or search "Hidin Music" on Youtube...*

To celebrate my 40th birthday, I've selected and sequenced 40 of my favorite recordings I've been involved in over the last 20-ish years. Presenting J RA's "TOP 40." Absolutely free to you, my friends. But any donations are gratefully accepted (and encouraged!).

This kind of thing is inherently flawed. Definitely self-indulgent. And stubbornly specific to the moment in which it was curated.

I know I could pick 40 completely different tracks for it and still feel sort-of-happy / sort-of-unsure of the results. But for the most part, these are the songs from my past that still feel the strongest to me. They make me proud of the time and effort I've put into making music with friends (or on my own, in some cases). And they make me feel like it can be worthwhile to look back at one's past work from time to time, to reflect on what it means and how it holds up. This undertaking has certainly given me a greater appreciation for all of the incredible collaborators and friends I've had in my life.

Like many artists, I often cringe at my past work. Sometimes I just hate all of it, although I'm usually pretty confident while I'm working on it. I try to stay focused on what's in progress, what's ahead, what I can improve upon or leave behind. Some of the songs here are included more because they're loved by friends and fans than because they're absolute favorites of mine, but I also consciously included a lot of my favorite songs that I feel are lesser-known but worthy of more listeners in the future.

There's also a lot of music I've made (even entire bands and albums!) that isn't represented here at all, even though I love it dearly. I'm usually the proudest of my newest material (including hours worth of new and "lost" Everything, Now! demos that will surely come to light some day now that that project is active again), but I tried to keep this one loaded up on older recordings and "side" projects, since representing the range of twenty years worth of material was the whole goal. So hopefully this collection will serve as a good entry point for new listeners (and introduce you to some of my collaborators if you aren't already familiar with them), and as a gateway to other albums and projects you might enjoy. And hopefully it can serve as a wide-ranging but cohesive mixtape of my personal style of almost-pop (I think the phrase "garbage-pop" can even be applied in some cases, ha), and as a "thank you, bless you" to those who have enjoyed and supported my work for all these years. Cheers to you!

On the subject of aging, I feel increasingly compelled to express gratitude. I never expected to make it to this age, and every day is truly a blessing. I have known and worked with some amazing artists, musicians, and supporters over the years, and I hope that anyone who knows me at all will recognize that they are a part of these songs, in the lyrics, in my dreams, in the sounds that I hope occasionally reveal what it means to be human. Artists are all flawed, outcasts, mystics, spiritual visionaries out-of-sync with our own times, using the tools we have to express our hopes, fears, struggles, and desires, trying to connect with others the only way we know how.

So, in other words: thank you for letting me be who I am. Thank you for sharing this precious time with me, and allowing my art to be part of your world. You are a gift in my life, and this music is my gift back to you.

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Dedicated, with love, to my wife Abby, who has been there as my partner and best friend through all of it.
And in loving memory of our dog Wally, who passed away peacefully in May of this year. Wally was frequently listed as a producer or collaborator on my albums since 2013.

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