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A new year is new world. This past year has been one of rediscovering my excitement at finding new music. I’ve been to more concerts this past year alone than in the previous decade. I’ve also bought and listened to more music than previous years, some of which I’ve posted here. But there is much more out there to find. Poprock Record got off the ground four months ago and posting once a week has proven a challenge but not for a lack of material. I’ve posted on some of my favourite new artists like the Vaccines, Good Old War, Daveit Ferris, Gregory Pepper, Ezra Furman, Family of Year, Tally Hall, Ike Reilly, and Together Pangea but there were so many other discoveries that I haven’t had time to write about like Bleachers, Sunday Sun, Farrah, Dylan Gardner, Summer Fiction, Titus Andronicus, Salim Nourallah, Faded Paper Tigers, and so many more. What I find striking is how out of sync my list of discoveries is with both commercial and indie end-of-the-year ‘best of’ lists. So I think I’m on to something here, a niche that is going largely uncovered by other sources. Tell your friends!
Instead of rehashing stuff that has already appeared here, let’s start off the new year with some new music: Quiet Company. An apropos discovery for the kind of new year’s eve we were having here at Poprock Record headquarters. Kids were in bed, husband was on the phone with relatives, Game of Thrones episode was cued for later consumption and I was working my way through the PopMatters blog’s “Best Songs of 2015” playlist when I stumbled across this band. A needledrop tour through their five albums worth of material reveals an amazing cache of great creative poprock songs. 
We’ll return to give the band a fuller treatment in future but for now here is a song from their most recent release, Trangressor, and one from the previous year’s release, the EP Other People’s Hits. “Understand the Problem” kicks off with a great fun-fair-esque organ fill that is just the first of a number of great hooks in the song, while their cover of Pedro the Lion’s “When They Get to Know You They Will Run” shows up the rockier side of the band’s sound.
I discovered Ike Reilly just this last year, a week after he had appeared at the Drake Hotel in Toronto in support of his latest album Born on Fire. What an opportunity missed! But Reilly is not new on the scene, with recordings as far back as 2001, and performing career stretching back to the late 1980s. Imagine Bruce Springsteen meets hip hop, but by someone who could really pull it off. That guy is Ike Reilly. His material has all the great rock and roll vibes accompanied by an effortless alternating talk/singing style. Like Springsteen, Reilly gives voice to the sense of hopelessness and desolation facing working class communities in the face of catastrophic job losses and a general lack of political leadership. And like Bruce, he manages to capture the vignettes that make a life: the broken promises, the failed adventures, the unfulfilled potential.
From the three albums attributed to just Ike Reilly (there are three more with his backing band The Ike Reilly Assassination) I count at least nine must-listen tracks, though I feature a few less here. From his most recent Born on Fire “Am I Still the One For You” and “Underneath the Moon” are both great songs, but “Two Weeks-a-Work – One Night-a-Love” has a great groove and carries on Reilly’s strong career focus on work and the lack thereof.
2009’s Hard Luck Stories showcases the struggle for meaningful work on a host of songs but “Good Work” nicely captures the dilemma facing today’s youth who, despite partying together, will see some move effortlessly from privilege to opportunity while others struggle for whatever they can get. From the same record, “Girls in the Backroom” has a raucus sing-a-long quality masking some pretty desperate behaviour.
Winding back to 2001 and what can only be considered a minor masterpiece, Reilly’s Salesmen and Racists is a no-holds-barred critique of America’s class society but remains a remarkably tuneful indictment. “My Wasted Friends,” “Duty Free” and “Hip Hop Thighs” have hooks galore and a lot for the thoughtful listener to consider after the melodies fade.
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