Title

Meghan Trainor's expected-to-be strong album "Title" came out today, and after a listen on Spotify, I have to say I'm quite disappointed. The hits, "All About That Bass" and "Lips Are Movin" are great, which I'm sure is why they were released as singles, but most of the rest of the album was unsatisfactory, unsavory and unusual. Several songs were very hip/hop-oriented, which was strange from a strong pop star. Others were slow, sappy ballads that were often throwback in nature, which made my ears feel sick. Even the pop-like songs on "Title" were blah. The title-track "Title" was very good, but it was honestly the only other song I enjoyed apart from the hits, and I'm usually really easy to please.

My final playoff hope from my preseason picks has officially been eliminated (Broncos) and the Packers stole a win from the Cowboys thanks to Dez Bryant's (non)catch, and I'm not even going to get into that. I will say that my pre-playoff pick in New England is certainly looking better now that Denver is out of the way, and they survived the curse of Baltimore game.

I unfortunately have but one photo from last week thanks to the New Years holiday, and the need to use the majority of the photos from the Royalton/Swanville girls and Upsala/Swanville boys games in the paper. I also had but one half from each to photograph too, which did not help either.

Swanville's Stephanie Koetter goes up for two as Royalton's Haley Olson, front, and Brooke Tschida, right, try to defend her, Jan. 6 in Swanville.