Tags
Dazy, Deadlights, Gift Horse, Kurt Baker, Langhorne Slim, Marc Valentine, Mod Lang, Motorists, School Book Depository, silk daisys, Sloan, Tad Overbaugh, The Maureens, The Pozers, The Pretty Flowers, The Rubs, The Sylvia Platters, Together Pangea, Tom Emlyn, Uni Boys, Vegas with Randolph
Sometimes I imagine a large radio tower blasting our choice singles around the planet. It’s definitely what the world needs now. A little bit of the carefree, some heart-fluttering excitement, perhaps even a hint of inspiration. Take some time out from world affairs and your personal troubles to check out this suite of specially curated should-be hits. You’ll be glad you did.
Let’s launch with something that conjures a bit of early Go Go’s but with a breathy male vocal. The Sylvia Platters give us this and more with “Tactical Lunchbox.” There’s even a B52s organ break. Jangle deficiency is a serious ailment, particularly in these dour winter months. Motorists have just the remedy with “Frogman.” Those luscious guitar tones are gonna make anybody feel better. The same critics who can’t say enough good things about bands like The Lemon Twigs pause when a new Uni Boys single comes on. As they should. These renaissance new wave popsters have done it again with “I Don’t Want to Dream Anymore.” Somebody pinch me, it must be 1979 again. Jeff Shelton’s Deadlights take us back to the 1980s with a faithful cover of House of Love on “Destroy the Heart.” Dig the drone. You can practically smell the smoke machine. Brisbane Australia’s Gift Horse get the jump on dad day with “Fathers.” The song has a muscular folk rock sensibility, like the Byrds with a Marshall stack.
Dallas, Texas combo The Pozers step on the 10ccc pedal for their contribution to the International Pop Overthrow compilation album #26. The vocal swoops compete with a relentless poppy keyboard driving things to a cheery place. Langhorne Slim has been hanging around the roots scene for years but his new album The Dreamin’ Kind is something else. I mean, it is rootsy but it is so much more too. Listen to the tight pop articulation of the should-be single “On Fire.” It has the soulful poppy chops of an Aaron Lee Tasjan. It’s dancey, it’s heartfelt, its AM radio playable. Kurt Baker has been offering up Elvis Costello-ish pop-slathered rock for a while. “Undertow Afterglow” amps that influence even further than usual. The B-side cover of the McCartney/Costello composition “My Brave Face” is pretty special too. Detroit’s Mod Lang are building quite the buzz about the near imminent release of their debut long-player Borrowed Time. Early release single “TV Star” blasted some good time 1970s power pop vibes for sure but I’m digging the more Beatlesque “What I Can’t Have.” This is gonna be one hot album drop. silk daisys get the dream pop label but I’m hearing Darling Buds and Primitives. Sure, there’s shimmer all over their recordings but an essential guitar pop goodness emerges with clarity on “It’s a Laugh.”
Things rarely go sideways with Dazy for me. There’s something playful and seriously inventive about how their songs get put together. “Delusions of …” has a Sugar Ray vocal, some La’s guitars, and Beck production sensibility. Dutch outfit The Maureens revive a 1960s group vocals sound with folk and pop inflections and it’s all there again on their new single “Doing Fine.” And that means an album can’t be far behind. The organ opening Marc Valentine’s new single “NY UAP” is just so 1966 it hurts. In a good way. This is retro rock and roll that still sounds fresh today. Punk veterans Together Pangea are still turning it out. “Shattered” offers you grinding guitars and a shuffle beat that dance floors were made for. At first listen you might think Tom Emlyn’s “Starsick” has seen some poet press-ganged onto stage in front of a band playing a bit too fast. But as the song develops the words and music meld together in a frenetic kind of energy that is way cool.
I don’t really know where Växjö is. Somewhere in Sweden I take it. But given the latest single from that country’s School Book Depository I imagine there’s someone belting out their favourite song there. This band ace atmospheric pop singles and the current “Karaoke” is no exception. I love the lead guitar roll-out that launches Tad Overbaugh’s “Rearview.” It’s what pushes this ‘new country’ entry into something broader genre-wise. And that great guitar work continues throughout. Capitol city’s Vegas With Randolph get right back on the new album prep train floating an early effort with “Let’s Fool Around.” It’s a smooth pop rocking number in a manner similar to indie acts like Vanilla and the Zombies of the Stratosphere. And that’s good enough for me. Another Sloan album, another spate of rave reviews. That’s what the release of last year’s Based on a Best Seller produced. I loved it, not that band needed accolades from the likes of me. So I’ll just throw some light on the fab deep cut “Here We Go Again.” Nobody quite knocks it out of the park as reliably as these guys. Chicago’s The Rubs throw up something a bit different with their new song. “Starting All Over” sounds likes it has dropped right out of the 1970s pub rock scene. Only the wobbly guitar sound gives it a modern sheen.
It’s a wrap this time around with “Came Back Kicking” from The Pretty Flowers. This one has the oomph of something big. Like stadium singalong big. It’s the pre-release single from the band’s upcoming album Never Felt Bitter. Can’t wait to hear more.
Does the air seem lighter? I can’t tell I’m so riffed up on these radio-ready singles. And you don’t have to stop now. Click the links to keep the world away for just a little bit longer.
Photo “Union Station” courtesy Thomas Hawk 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.
Great music is breaking out all over this year and it’s a race to get them all in the blog before 2018 expires. Today’s crew has textured popcraft, a bit of blasty rock and roll, and even some dance grooves.
Just one listen to Legs & Luggage and there’s little doubt that Vegas with Randolph’s songwriters are conversant with the major melodic rock and roll motifs of the past few decades. They’re effortlessly combined on this album’s 13 winning tracks with a charm reminiscent of a more rough-hewn Fountains of Wayne. Opening track “You Could Say Yes” charges out of the gate with hooks that say radio-friendly hit single. Another single-ish release would be “The Girl Holding Out for Me” with its pure bliss hooky chorus. The album also sees the band vibing a range of influences, from the Plimsouls’ elan of “Jacob” to the chirpy Ben Kweller jaunt of “I Could be the One” to the Steve Miller touches on “The Weekend’s Coming.” And then there’s the wonderful FOW-meets-Partridge Family peppiness of “Women in Airports” and the veritable blueprint of perfect poprock song, “The Comeback Kid.” Forget buying singles, this one’s an album purchase.
Italy is producing an amazing bunch of melodic rockers of late (we featured stellar releases from 
A new record from Greg Pope is poprock money in the bank, he just doesn’t disappoint. I mean, one of his previous releases was aptly-named Popmonster, to which reviewers heartedly agreed – that gives you some idea what a prolific and reliable creative force he is. Now he’s back with A Few Seconds of Fame, which unfortunately could also double as a commentary on his undeservedly cool reception from top 40 radio. I don’t get it – to my ears, they’re all hits! Check the opening track “Forget About You” with its great driving tempo and solid yet subtlely hooky chorus, or the tightly delivered “Retread” – this is what radio-friendly singles used to sound like. But hey, I could just as easily recommend the wonderful 1970s ELO pop sound of “Hopes and Dreams and Fears” or the great late Beatles pop vibe on “Planet Earth” or the textured, layered sound of “Dreams About You,” particularly on the vocals. I guess nobody’s gonna make me a top 40 radio program director anytime soon but if they did …
Portland’s Hemmit have run the gamut of stadium-sounding rawk (ironically delivered, of course) to ‘punkish powerpop’ (in their words) to the electronic pop of their current release. The new EP, One Ultra, definitely channels some great 1980s synth pop influences, obvious on tracks like “Ultraviolet” and “Power” but subtlely lodged in others like “My Room” too. But consistent across their catalogue is the songwriting quality, evident on the obvious singles: the relentlessly driving “Friends” and the more melodic hooks of “Waves.” This is a band worth spending some time digging through various releases for a load of poprock gems.
The Appleton Post-Crescent described Car City as a “Fox Valley supergroup,” a reference to the fact that while all the musicians were long-standing members of the local live music scene they had really only recently come together to work on this project. Their experience clearly mattered because Car City, the album, sounds like the work of a cohesive band. The resulting sound is like Weezer on anti-depressants, a slightly dissonant, melody rich concoction that delivers on Jason Lemke’s great songs. It’s all there on the opening tracks, “Connecting the Dots” and “Like a Wave” with their earworm-worthy yet subtle melodic turns and twists. Then things get really interesting when “Hopeless” breaks out the Aimee Mann syth to good effect with some inspired full stops and background vocals, while “(Don’t) Give Up on Love” kicks off all Beach Boys vocal harmonizing before dusting off Steve Nieve’s organ. And the songs I haven’t mentioned? Also great. Frankly, I love all the tunes on this record. Car City deserves to be in your collection.
Poprock Record 