If good radio could clean up the nation we’d be making a start here. Sound salvation? It could be, it’s whatever works for you. Today’s crew help out by offering many routes to the same good place.
Jeremy Messersmith’s new LP Fox/Coyote is all about ambience. Take opening cut “Billionaires” as a case in point. Its hypnotic slow-shuffle buffets a sweet-mellow pop vibe. It’s like you’re floating above all those tawdry economic conflicts going on below. “Boomers” is cut from the same stylistic cloth and further develops Messersmith’s populist economic critique. More hummable than Marx’s Capital that’s for sure. “Huckleberry” completes this urban pop triptych. The sonic atmosphere is akin to anything you might hear on the charts but still retains some semblance of melody. “Stallions” also fits into this dreamy pop milieu. From there the album starts to take a turn, back to more familiar Messersmith curio song stylings. “I Don’t Trust That Boy” puts the guitar and a twisted lyrical sense back front and centre. “Spiral Bound” has to resonate with any progressive politically-aware American these days. The album also sees Messersmith auditioning to be somebody’s boyfriend in his trademark droll, sad sack way on tracks like “Rainy Day Boyfriend,” “Lucky Number” and “The View.” And “Nothing At All” has great advice for world-wrecking tech bros everywhere. Favourite cut? It would have to be “Can’t Get Out Of My Own Way” with its Beatles ’67 meets ELO aura. My advice is spend some time with Fox/Coyote – it’s a dose of what’s right in American independent music today.
Imagine if those kids from theatre camp started a band. Now listen to Boys Go to Jupiter. It’s like you’ve been dropped into some manic musical, but without all the dance routines. Second album Now You’re a Circle takes up where the band left off on Meet Me After Practice with more big and bold numbers. Opening cut “Sunshine (Never Trust Anyone Named Jeanette)” has a 1970s Jeff Lynne sense of spectacle, with just a touch of disco strings. Actually I can totally see this as big Broadway staged production. From there the tempo shifts into smooth pop on “Wake Up Layla” and “Do It Over.” Then “Flying Machine” comes out of nowhere with its enticing mix of acoustic instruments and harmony vocals. “Revenge Tour” is like one of those second act songs where the lead’s best friend does some truth telling. Then I imagine “Handstand” is the sweet melancholic summer’s end goodbye from that girl in the Beach Boys’ “Girl Don’t Tell Me” (she really meant to write). The album closer is an emotional powerhouse where “The Rules of You” sees vocalist Jess Kantorowitz channeling a Joni Mitchell-esque tenderness. Trust me, a spin or two of Now You’re a Circle will make you a believer that lasts into the run-out groove.
A master doesn’t have to step on the gas pedal quite so much to get where he’s going. That’s Robert Ellis Orrall – songwriter, performer, producer, hit-maker, and then some. You can hear what I’m talking about all through the title track of his new LP Wonderland. It’s an understated masterpiece, grand and sparely delivered all at the same time. Then with “Brand New Me” and “I’m Coming With You” we steer into a familiar AM radio pop groove. “Carol Ann” departs from the formula, adding an ominous undercurrent to its radio friendly hooks. Orrall’s arranging skills come to fore on this LP. He really knows how to dress a song. Listen to how he drapes both “I Disappear” and “Underground” with alluring guitar lines. It’s easy to hear how both “When Will You Love Me Again” and “Where Do We Go From Here?” could be larger-than-life hits for any number of artists but I like Orrall’s even tempered 1980s treatments. This is really apparent on “I’m Only Me (When I’m With You),” a song that practically begs to be big and dramatic but Orrall keeps it low-key and pretty, only upping the punch slightly in the chorus. The record ends with “End Title Song,” an amusing tip of the hat to all those songs that run out over the movie credits. Wonderland really reminds me how much I’ve been missing this kind of performance.
Imagine your favourite 45 year old band returned with a new album and it sounds as fresh and inspired as their early work. That’s what you’re gonna get with The Krayolas new LP Barbed Wire. Ok, only six tunes here are new but the mix of old and new just makes my point – everything here is quality tune-age. The record rocks in a number of styles: very Stonesy on title track “Barbed Wire Road,” more swamp rock blues a la George Thorogood with “Long Leaf Pine,” and turning to a 12 bar vamp on “Goose Is Cooked (Yakety Song).” But folk styles fill out a great deal of the record too, from the harmonica-laden Dylanesque “Hurtin’ Me Baby” to the more English folk feel of “Bird Don’t Fly Away” and “Does She Know.” “Deceiver” switches gears again, reminding us of the band’s strengths with mid 1960s pop motifs. “Exit Saleda” closes things out with a strong Mexicali flavour, featuring Augie Myers and Flaco Jiminez. What a band! And they’re promising a whole LP of new material sometime in 2027.
Well we’ve filled out a few more inches on the reel-to-reel. Take your pick and tune in more closely to whatever sounds like salvation to you with the hyperlinks provided.
Photo courtesy Joe Haupt Flikr collection.
I’m not really an album guy. Particularly now in our ‘download-any-song-you-want-era’. I grew up on compilation albums and AM radio. It was all singles, singles singles: a new sound every three minutes. A whole album is just a vinyl horizon for my needle dropping. But I have to say this year I got hooked on more than a few long players. What grabbed me? I could say it was the songwriting, a coherent sonic palette, the performative ingenuity, etc. But hey, who am I kidding? It was mostly the hooks. Fair warning: there is considerable overlap of artists here with my should-be hit singles list (duh) but not entirely. Bottom line: you won’t go wrong putting your cash down on these LPs in toto.
Edging out Daisy House’s fantastic Bon Voyage by a hair, my number one album for 2018 is Aaron Lee Tasjan’s Karma for Cheap. The more I listened to this record, the more I loved the songs and the performances. There is something extraordinary in just how Tasjan combines his elements. He’s got rumbly guitar, he’s got jangly guitar. His vocals run the gamut from Tom Petty-solid to Roy Orbison-aching tenderness. There’s not a weak cut here, but pay special attention to subtle hooky vocal interplay on “Heart Slows Down,” or the driving guitar hook behind “End of the Day,” or the touching “Dream Dreamer.” You won’t steer wrong with his back catalogue either, particularly 2016’s Silver Tears! There is so much I could say about all 20 albums but frankly the music speaks for itself. Click the links to go directly to the band’s bandcamp, Facebook or webpages.
One final word: I had to single out Super 8’s stupendous triple album accomplishment this year for special attention. After a two-decade career in rock and roll that can only be described as cinematic in its litany of seeming breakthroughs, bad luck, record company shenanigans and some bandmate’s bad faith, these albums are a vindication of his resolve to stick with music. Each record is finely crafted portrait of late 1960s summertime sunshine poprock. Your time machine back to 1968 is ready for boarding! Just hit play.
2018 was a freakin’ fantastic year for poprock! How do I know? Every year-end I put together a playlist of tunes released that year. In 2016 it consisted of 58 songs clocking in at just over 3 hours. By 2017 that list expanded to 98 songs running over 5 hours. This year the list exploded to 175 songs going on for over 9 hours! My list of should-be hit singles had to expand to a top 50 just to accommodate all this talent. Hit the links below to find each artist as featured in my original blog post this past year or to go to their bandcamp or Facebook page if I didn’t write them up.
This edition of Breaking News is all about new albums by artists with a strong track record. Hopes are high and possible disappointment is being held at bay. From Minnesota to Scotland to California to Italy, the poprock news is good. No, cancel that – great!
I can’t get enough of Jeremy Messersmith. I only just discovered last year’s ukulele masterpiece and then his back catalogue and now he has a new record out and it’s fantastic too. Late Stage Capitalism is the latest installment in Messersmith’s enigmatic, intellectual poprock quest. Any casual listen reveals this man has a way with a tune. What seem like deceptively simple songs at first reveal melodic depth on repeated plays. Listen to how “Purple Hearts” ebbs and flows, softly sneaking up on our melodic sensibilities and then letting the hooks spill out everywhere. This is sing-along, fist-pumping, feel-good masterpiece. But Messersmith’s lyrics are something else too: tender, bittersweet, droll, sometimes biting. This guy is a less acerbic Morrissey or Stephen Merritt, an intelligent guy’s intelligent guy but with plenty of heart. Check out the sad yet sympathetic portrait exhibited in “Fast Times in Minnesota” or the sweet, Cyrcle-esque bounce of “Monday, You’re Not So Bad” with its Fountains of Wayne wordplay. I don’t know whether capitalism really is in its late stage or not but I do know one thing – this record is a winner.
The new Dropkick album is out and the Teenage Fanclub and Jayhawk vibes are striking, particularly on radio-friendly “It’s Still Raining.” Longwave is the band’s fourteenth album since 2001 and it continues in the vein of low key acoustic guitar-based tunes that mark the group’s style. BBC Radio Scotland called them “Scotland’s finest alt-country power-pop band” but I think of them more as strummy, melodic poprock, in a low gear. Exhibit A: “All I Understand” is a sweetly swinging song, with subtle hooks. Oh there is country, sure. “Blue Skies” is a lovely slow country crawl. But there is so much more: the uptempo feel of “Fed Up Thinking of You,” the Byrdsian jangle of “Even When You’re Gone,” and the lovely spare acoustic treatment on “Turning of the Tide.” Altogether, this may be my favourite Dropkick album.
A new Linus of Hollywood album is something to savor. The songs are always tightly packed musical gems with strong hooks, sparkling instrumental performances, and surprising arrangements. Cabin Life is no exception, a lush-sounding assortment of hooky AM radio-friendly should-be hits. Title-track and opening cut “Cabin Life” makes my point. LOH lulls us with a spare opener and then adds successive melodic and musical elements to build up the song, constantly shifting the listener’s attention – in a good way! Other songs put their poprock blast up front, like “At All.” This is a tune whose lyrical bitterness acts as counterpoint to its buoyant pop melody. “Wasted and in Love” sounds like the hit single to me with distinctive guitars that sound like they’re popping out of the speakers and strong melodic hooks. And this album’s ‘sounds most like Glen Tillbrook’ award goes to very Squeeze-like “Won’t Let it Get Me Down.” Excuse me while I hit repeat on this super new album.
The new record completes the shift to a more poprock sound under the expert production of The Posies’ Ken Stringfellow. “How to be Your Friend” kicks things off with an edgy guitar teaser before settling into more melodic vein with some nice vocal arrangements. The killer riff that opens “Frustrated” harkens back to their mid-period rock sound but the chorus is pure poprock. “Milk and Honey” is the pick for single for me, with a very smooth AM radio-friendly set of hooks. The band digs out the organ for the swinging “Sweet as Punch” and caps off the record with the title track “Someplace Better,” a jaunty instrumental. The Sick Rose were always great but, given my tastes, I think they’re getting better with age.
I get by with a little help from my friends. Because I can’t possibly keep up with all the great new music coming out every day, other blogs are a reliable source of new material. And I’m proud to say that I think my blogroll is a finely curated list of sites that really deliver on content. In fact, they’re so good I can’t visit them too much or I’ll just want to write about all the things they’ve already posted! But sometimes cruising through the blogs reminds me of hitting the record shops when I was younger. Vancouver in the early 1980s had a plethora of new and used record stores: Kelly’s, A&A Records, Track Records, Neptune Records, and, of course, the main new records shop, A&B Sound. A&B focused mostly on selling stereo components (I bought my first tape deck there on layaway!) but used albums as a loss leader to get people into the store. Their signature ‘featured bargain’ bins (where they stacked records flat on top of each other) crowded the front of the store and usually sold for $4:99 when the going price for an album was typically anywhere from $6:99 to $10:99. I would buy records I had no clue about, just because they looked cool and were cheap. Such bargains included New Order’s Power Corruption and Lies, Men at Work’s Business as Usual, and OMD’s Dazzle Ships. Well, the record stores, like the book stores of my youth, are largely gone. But the excitement of finding new music lingers on, now re-platformed to the blogosphere!
Absolute Powerpop may not generate the volume of blog posts he once did, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t paying attention. His best of lists for 2017 were colossal: a top 100 singles, top 20 EPs, top 10 Americana and top 100 albums list. I snagged eight new artists that really caught my ear. But I want to draw your attention to 
Powerpopaholic is the godfather of power pop blogs. Given the range and depth of his coverage and sheer volume of posts, if a band or song is somewhere on the power pop spectrum it will eventually appear here. I snagged five new bands from his Top 30 list this year but have chosen to showcase 
I only picked one new artist from I Don’t Hear a Single’s many ‘best of’ lists but that’s because I’ve been nicking great stuff from him all year! Berwanger, Mothboxer, Daisy House and many, many more. IDHAS is an early finder – bands show up here that inevitably show up everywhere else, but a few months later. And he has a particularly good handle on the British and European scene. Having said that, my find from IDHAS is 
Powerpopulist seems like a machine that scours the internet for freely offered up tunes from great indie bands you’ve yet to hear of. I am constantly blown away by his industry – so many bands! So many tunes! His tastes typically run a bit harder than mine but he does love his jangle. His ‘best of’ list ran to 109 songs, from which I scored five acts that are real keepers. 
We need to start 2018 off on the right foot. Why not chase the blues away with ukulele-fueled songs of love, solidarity, and kittens? Yes, kittens. And snowflakes. And a bit of magic. It may look and sound like a hokey project at first glance but Jeremy Messersmith’s amazing 2017 release, 11 Obscenely Optimistic Songs for Ukulele: A Micro Folk Record for the Twenty First Century, delivers the goods. 10 songs performed in just under 16 minutes with an intense but laid back delivery that oozes authenticity. Some are sweetly charming (like “Everybody Gets a Kitten”) while others are just touchingly sweet (like “Everything is Magical” or “I’m a Snowflake Baby”). In anyone else’s hands these songs would quickly turn to mush but Messersmith manages to wring out every last drop of authentic feeling. It helps that the songwriting is so strong, careening from simple three chord wonders (“Everything is Magical”) to more saucy and complicated pre-WWII era jazz structures (“Love Sweet Love”). There isn’t a bum track on this all too brief album, which fittingly ends with the beautiful, delightful, and inspiring “We Can Make Our Dreams Come True.” Buy it. Play it. Again. I feel better already!
Poprock Record 