Ever since Billy Bragg came back to folk through punk rock, a succession of scratchy rock and rollers have downed their noisy musical tools for the more sombre, spare delights of an acoustic guitar and a well turned phrase. What emerges is neither traditional folk nor folk 2.0 but something more synthetic: Darren Hanlon calls it urban folk, a great label (whatever it may mean). I stumbled across Hanlon in the “Listeners Also Bought” section below an Ice Cream Hands album on iTunes, which tells you how much the categories have become mixed up, in a good way.
Since 2000 Hanlon has released a number of homemade sounding albums and EPs, chock full of earnest ballads and sometimes hilarious material. “Punk’s Not Dead” from 2002’s Hello Stranger being a classic example of the latter. But with the release of his 2010’s I Will Love You All Hanlon takes his songs and artistry to a new level. So many great songs to choose from, the name-checking references for comparison seemingly endless. The sweet “All These Things” with its charming video conjures up the acoustic side of Feist or the boyish enthusiasm of Jonathan Richman. “Butterfly Bones” is wistful and whimsical, both lyrically and musically. “Modern History” has more of a poprock feel, with a great hook.
The confidence of his 2010 release remained in evidence for his 2015 album, Where Did You Come From? Again, the songs and performances seem perfectly pitched: “Salvation Army” sounds like any number of classic 1960s folk duos, “Awkward Dancer” is built around a great hooky lead line, while “Halley Comet, 1985” evokes the romantic imagery of Don McLean.
Darren Hanlon is a slice of something authentic. Explore what he has to offer on his website or Facebook page.
When Neko Case sang about Tacoma in “Thrice All American” you’d never think the town would serve up a something quite like The Rallies. The band’s debut effort, the cheesily titled Serve, is a soundtrack to a sunny day. The wash of acoustic guitars, jangly lead lines, great vocal harmonies and strong songwriting will put a smile on your face and keep it there. The Rallies claim such stalwart poprockers as Tom Petty and Crowded House as influences and you can hear them on these recordings but the final result is something original. Comparing them to more contemporary artists, there is more than a little kinship with Philadelphia’s acoustic poprock outfit Good Old War to my ears.
Now here is where I usually pick out one or two songs as the album highlights but Serve is a solid ten tracks of poprock goodness, there really isn’t a weak track here. Just buy the whole thing. Single? “Still Gonna Want You” has the hooky development of a radio hit. The opening acoustic guitar and vocal harmonies of “Don’t Give Up” made my hair stand on end – very moving. “So Right” has a super Petty vibe going. Check out the nice trebly guitar on “These are the Words” with its hooky melody. “On My Mind” also sounds like a single to me with its strong guitar lines and vocal harmonies.
In the 1960s the Canadian imprint of Decca, London Records, released a series of The World of … albums: The World of the Zombies, The World of the Rolling Stones, The World of Cat Stevens, etc. Now Poprock Record would like to present The World of Thomas D’Arcy. Why? Because this guy is all over the musical map, in a very good way. From his teenage punky poprock band, the Carnations, to a one album appearance with All Systems Go!, to his one-man, keyboard-based band Small Sins, to a slew a solo material and a recent collaboration with Hawksley Workman in their Tommy Hawkins project, D’Arcy is master of all he turns his talents to. For a host of acts behind the scenes, his studio production credits alone should make him a star. But constant throughout his varied career are the songs: quirky, catchy, usually with a subtle hook that sneaks up and refuses to release its hold.
I saw the Carnations live at the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto in the late 1990s, opening for some band I don’t remember. They were a blast of hooky teen exuberance. I bought their debut CD, Superluminal, at the show, which was a good thing as none of their recordings appear to be available digitally. The seven songs owe a debt to the alienated charm of bands like Weezer but the result is still pretty original, with “Bald Avenger” and “Let Me Be Your Ferris Bueller” as stand out tracks. D’Arcy has posted three Carnations videos on his YouTube page which give you some sense of how the band developed over time, with songs like “Scream and Yell” and “I’ve Got Spies” showcasing a more muscular sound on later records.Let Me Be Your Ferris Bueller
A lot of words have been written about Elvis Costello (the artist himself added a few hundred thousand in his recent autobiography 
Things changed dramatically with album number two, now backed by Costello’s defiant new band, the Attractions. This Year’s Model charges out of the gate, its stripped-down, in your face rock and roll delivered with a crisp ferocity unmatched by any of Costello’s other recordings. This is the critics’ favourite album for a reason. I like it less than the debut but still love it, particularly the catchy lead guitar line on “You Belong to Me.” Elvis dials back some of the attack on his third album, Armed Forces, letting the listener in on some impressive aural landscapes that illustrate his talent for arranging his music. This is captured nicely on the single, “Accidents Will Happen.”You Belong to Me
Get Happy!! and Taking Liberties were both released in 1980, the latter a compilation of B-sides (released as Ten Bloody Marys & Ten How’s Your Fathers in the UK). With each record topping out at 20 songs, together they represented a cornucopia of poprock. What is striking here is the restraint, the subtle hooks of “B Movie,” “New Amsterdam” and “Secondary Modern” on Get Happy!! or “Radio Sweetheart” and “Hoover Factory” on Taking Liberties. One almost gets a sense that the songs were chiseled into shape, worked over until every detail reflected the light just so. Of course, there were also more raucous examples like “Possession” or “Crawling to the U.S.A.”
No, not Lee Major’s late ex-wife. I’m talking about the knock out band from London that put out four albums between 2000 and 2010 and then dropped out of sight. I discovered Farrah in 2007 when a casual listen of “School Reunion” from that year’s Cut Out and Keep turned me into a big fan. I loved the over-the-top sweetness of the sentimentality, cut by just a hint of genuine pathos. The song’s story of a wanna-be musician who takes to the big city but fails could be seen as Farrah’s own story as none of their albums took off in the UK or North America (though, I kid you not, they are actually big in Japan!). Of course, the band’s decision to blaze a trail as a self-distributing independent group probably limited their exposure as they were arguably too far ahead of the social media curve to made it work. Still, the band’s catalogue is a success if creating great poprock is the measure.
Farrah’s debut album, Moustache, has a Fountains of Wayne power pop sound with a number of strong tracks like “Terry,” “Living for the Weekend,” and “Talk about Nothing.” Three years later Me Too seemed to slow things down as the band experimented with slower material like “First and Last,” “Half as Strong,” and their great moody cover of Joe Jackson’s “It’s Different for Girls.” But for me, it all comes together on Cut Out and Keep, an album that has the band in firm control of their own distinctive sound. The album shifts effortlessly between uptempo Squeeze-esque numbers like “No Reason Why” or the more FOW sounding “Fear of Flying” to wonderful acoustic songs like “As Soon as I Get Over You” and “Things We Shouldn’t Say.” They blast the calculation and insincerity of the music business brilliantly on “Dum Dum Ditty.” I could go on – there really isn’t a weak track on the album.
In 2010 the band released another strong record, the self-titled Farrah, and it was also full of would-be hits. The hooky “Swings and Roundabouts” was the obvious single but other uptempo highlights include “Stereotypes” and “If You Were Mine.” The album also has quite a few more languid, Beatlesque acoustic numbers like “DNA,” “Wasting Time,” and the wistful “Sleep Above the Covers.” But my favourite track is banjo-driven story song “Scarborough,” with its spot on rendition of awkward office romance.
Jonathan Coulton is an American musical treasure. His ouvre could be cast somewhere between the goofy bombast of Weird Al Yankovic or Jim Stafford and the more subtle, sardonic touch of Randy Newman or Lyle Lovett. Still, Coulton’s ability to write great tunes means that his work is not merely a series of punch lines. His material is often funny, sometimes in an in-your-face style, but as often as not the humour is delivered in a throw-away line that you might miss if you’re not paying attention. The point is, you might tune in for the jokey title but you hit repeat because the hooks and melodies won’t get out of your head.
A lot has been written about Coulton and his connection to geek culture or how he has eschewed conventional models in the music business and yet still succeeded. The latter is particularly interesting given the challenges that musicians are facing today in making a living doing music. Coulton basically releases all his music himself, sans record company contract, and works the geek scene with careful attention to his fan base via social media and themed boat cruises. Somehow he is making money, but check out Clive Thompson’s 
Imagine the Tardis landed and dumped out this guy direct from 1976. It would not be a stretch for a Dr. Who plotline or from what appears on Dan Rico’s debut solo album Endless Love. The record channels an early DIY punk esthetic through that 1970s mash-up of 1950s nostalgia, breathy emotive R&B male vocals (that Prince would use to great effect in the 1980s), and crunchy rock and roll guitars. Having said that, what marks the record is the coherency of its sound, even as it showcases multiple styles in songwriting and production. That’s saying something as Rico has produced a lot of recorded material with other bands that is great fun but lacks this album’s poise and restraint, qualities that allow the strength of his material and performance to really come to the fore.
Here we can see the creative tension at work on the record, as the material straddles the shift in 1970s sounds from 1950s revival influences apparent in “On a Tear” (the song structure is so 1950s, with great trebly guitar) to the emerging new wave sound of the late 1970s on tracks like “Casual Feeling.” But far and away my favourite track (other than the delightful “Soft Feeling”) is “Dangerous.” From the wonderful organ opener with its perfectly arranged juxtaposition of sounds, the rest of the song is an R&B-ish rock and roll grind at its best. One could easily hear the Rolling Stones doing this one.
All popular music is synthesis, really. Everyone is influenced and the best somehow take their influences and combust them into something that sounds very different from where they started – so different that people mistake it for something totally new. Bosco Rogers is that perfect distillation of influences that breaks out into a new sound. It would be easy to pick out the various familiar musical motifs from the 1950s through to the 1980s on their debut album Post Exotic – the fifties Chuck Berry swinging guitar lines, the psychedelic meets glam meets garage rhythm section, the great textured vocal effects – but that wouldn’t do it justice. These guys are masters of the produced sound: each element of any song is placed into the mix ‘just so’ for maximum impact and effect. Is it surprising that the band’s two members run their own separate recording studios in the south of England and France? Not really.
Yet this would be of fleeting effect if the material itself was not strong. And it is. It is hard to pick out just a few highlights from this album as each song contains its own special bit of ear candy, some great original sound, a distinctive instrumental choice, a hook that won’t let go. If pressed, I’d have to steer listeners to the super folk blues sound of “Anvers” with its catchy psych pop middle section, or the hypnotic whistle motif of “The Middle.” Then again title track “Post Exotic” has a seductive guitar swing, “Beach! Beach! Beach!” is an alternative universe beach party staple, “Drinking for Two” recreates the sunshine pop sound using classic 1960s vocal arrangements, “Roses” oozes 1980s synth pop, and so on. In a world of individual song downloads, Post Exotic rewards the listener with the complete album experience: all player, no filler.
I’ll admit, my first pass through the catalogue was selective, just four songs: “Wonder About Me” from their 2007 debut Suburban Sprawl, “Solitary Hotel” from the 2007 EP of the same name, “Die a Little Every Day” from 2010’s Peter Block, and “Long Gone” from this year’s Hard to See Beautiful. At first listen, I thought they were nice, bordering on pretty good. But after a week on replay their subtle hooks had gotten under my skin – pretty good became pretty great. So I went back for more. There’s too much to share here but there are a few songs you’ve just got to hear, like the hilarious “Lars,” the folk/country “Blackberry Girl,” two stellar vocal performances from Gowanis Yatch Club, and the John Waite “Missing You” period sound of “True Enough” and “Second Wind.”LarsBlackberry GirlMorning Finds YouMoving Around the SunTrue EnoughSecond Wind
When I first heard “Baby Ran” from their 1986 album 5440 (aka the green album) I was hooked. There was something so simple and catchy about the chorus, I couldn’t get it out of my head. Over the years, I kept buying their albums and CDs but reviewing them now I’m surprised how much of their material has always been folky and acoustic as well as jangly alt rock. The contrast is brought together on their latest release, La Difference, subtitled A History Unplugged. Some might complain that an ‘unplugged’ album is the last refuge of the musical scoundrel, where artists go when they have run out of ideas. But this effort really is a creative reinvention of the band’s singles catalogue. The most stark example is probably “Baby Ran,” which shifts from rock to country in this iteration without losing any of its hooky charm. Both new and old version appear below for easy comparison. The whole record is strong but for me the highlights include “One Day in your Life,” “I Go Blind,” and “Casual Viewin’.”
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