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Somewhere deep in the beating heart of Michigan magic is created… again… After all there are singles… and then there are seismic events disguised as seven inches of spinning salvation. When Donnie Vie releases new music, you don’t just listen — you brace yourself. You steady the furniture. You check the emotional exits. Look after the pets and make sure the fridge is well -stocked… With “Plain Jane” he hasn’t merely dropped a single… he’s detonated a glitter-bomb of love, hooks, and holy rock ’n’ roll righteousness.

“Plain Jane” is Vie doing what Vie does better than anyone breathing in melodic rock: taking bruised romantic fatalism, wrapping it in sugar-scorched harmonies, and launching it straight into your diaphragm. It’s a skyscraper of a chorus — the kind that makes you want to wind down the car window even if it’s raining sideways and let the world hear it. There’s that voice, still gloriously ragged around the edges, still capable of pivoting from a velvet croon to alleyway confession in half a bar. The guitars shimmer like they’ve been dipped in 1978 acid and left to dry in the California sun, but the ache in the melody? It’s timeless. Absolutely timeless… Did I say timeless enuff?

You can hear the DNA strands of power-pop royalty slicing through it — the ghost of Cheap Trick swagger, the melodic craftsmanship that once made Enuff Z’Nuff cult legends — but this is no nostalgia trip. This is a man who is one of the very greatest writers of his generation, a man who has lived every lyric and come back with a sharper pen. “Plain Jane” doesn’t sneer at the ordinary; it elevates it. It finds the poetry in the overlooked, the beauty in the almost-was, the majesty in the maybe.

And then — because subtlety is for civilians — he flips the vinyl and hands us “Instant Karma.” Yes. That “Instant Karma.”

Vie tackling Instant Karma! is not just a cover; it’s a cosmic alignment. The original by John Lennon was already a thunderclap of urgency, but Vie drags it through a technicolour power-pop prism. The pianos land harder, the guitars glow brighter, and the vocal? It simply pleads. There’s defiance in it, but also vulnerability. As if karma isn’t just coming for the world… it’s coming for him too.

It’s gloriously overcooked in all the right ways. Harmonies stacked like an impossibly high stack of cards, waiting to fall but never falling. The drums feel like they’re kicking open barroom doors. The mix is right there in your face with a wonderful lack of subtlety. If the A-side is heartbreak dressed in sequins and lace, the B-side is rock and roll reckoning dressed in platform boots.

And that’s the magic of Donnie Vie. He’s never been interested in half-measures. He writes like the charts still matter, sings like radio is sacred, and records like someone might never give him another chance. Every note feels necessary. Every hook feels fought for. And all of it is pure magic.

No one I’ve heard does Lennon like Vie, no one comes remotely close. Melody is not dead. Big choruses are not passé. And the idea that rock music should aim for anything less than transcendence is quite frankly laughable.

Spin it loud. Spin it twice. Three times… Then flip it and let karma do the rest.

Donnie Vie doesn’t release singles. He releases lifelines, happiness and music that will outlive us all….

It’s been 6 years since ‘Beautiful Things’ was our album of the year. I can’t wait for the next full length…

I’d dearly love a copy, but when postage to Dowunder hits the pocket at $50 – more than the cost of the cost of the single then I’m glad I got sent a download…