Episode 7 – “If worse comes to worse I’ll be in Heaven of Hell”
February 13, 2023
Welcome to songs that don’t suck, with your host, Mark Bradbourne.
Welcome to episode 7. My name is Mark, your aging GenX guide to Songs That Don’t Suck.
At least to me, obviously, I have biases, of course. I have stuff I like. I have stuff I don’t like. I have stuff that has to work harder to make it into an episode. Obviously, I lean towards more rock, indie, alternative than I do hip hop, more country than I do pop and r&b, more metal than dance, and EDM. Not to say those things won’t show up here, because I do give most things a little bit of a chance.
What I can say is that, for me and my listening habits, the podcast is working. The songs that I have found have made their way onto playlists that I maintain for myself. And I even started a new playlist of songs just from the show. And I find myself listening to that quite a bit. I sincerely hope that you are finding some gems here as well. I have heard from a few of you out there, and you have made that comment to me that you have found new music. And ultimately, that’s why I’m here.
I will say this was not a great week for music. Hell, it wasn’t a great week overall. And I’m sure that affected the way that I was listening to music. And you might hear some of that reflected in the choices this week. Probably some introspection, some sadness, some frustration, and doubt this week. So why don’t we just get into it?
The first song this week comes from Logic. And it features Nora Jones, and it’s called Paradise 2.
That was Logic with Nora Jones. It’s called Paradise 2. I will say that the thing that really hooked me for this was that unlike a lot of rap that is coming out right now, it was actually done over what I believe is described as a chill-hop beat. There’s a whole lo-fi playlist, which I will turn on. And if I just need to focus, that is the soundtrack that I listen to. So that’s kind of the first thing you hear, and then logic comes in, and he’s got great flow, great rhymes, just from someone who is not an avid hip-hop and rap fan, it worked for me. And I hope it worked for you. Add the fact that Nora jones is singing on this track as well. It’s honestly good to hear her voice again. And as far as Logic goes, I’d heard his name before, but honestly, when I started looking into him, I wasn’t aware of the success that he has had as an artist and a producer. It probably won’t make my regular rotation, but it was definitely a cool change of pace for this week.
Now, midweek last week, I hit a milestone and I teased it last episode. And what happened was songs that don’t suck hit 500 listens for the podcast. I thought that was pretty cool, and I want to thank everybody for listening, for giving me feedback, and I want to show my appreciation. Now, I am not Mr. Beast, but I’m going to give away something. The theme of this giveaway is sharing is caring. And to get entered into the giveaway, you just have to share the podcast and tag me in that sharing. So you can do it however you feel makes sense to you. If you’re doing it on social media, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, all valid. You can tag songs that don’t suck on all of those platforms. Please make sure you tag me, otherwise, I might not see it. If you are not on any social media platforms whatsoever and you just want to email your friends, go ahead and do that. And in the bcc line, that blind carbon copy line, use the email address mark@songsthatdontsuck.net. When you share, be sure you share the link to the podcast or the website, which is songsthatdontsuck.net. You can enter once per platform per week. So Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, or email. So you’ve got five platforms that you can use. So what that’s a maximum of 15 entries per week. I’ll enter all the names into a spreadsheet. I will do a random draw and the winner will get three months of Spotify premium. I do have to limit it to us residents only. And while I appreciate the 20% of you who are not in the US, I’m going to have to find something else to do for y’all. Now the giveaway will run until march 5th. And I’ll announce the winner on the show right here on march 6th. So get to sharing.
The second find this week comes from Friday Pilots Club. And this song is called Life Support.
Friday Pilot Club – Life Support
That was Life Support from Friday Pilots Club. Now I’m not sure what it is about this song, to be honest. It could be a bit of the lyrics, maybe the topic itself. Something there related to where my head is honestly right now. Really and stylistically, I got the feeling of like Bastille and Imagine Dragons and that kind of era of bands that came out. Probably more the production than anything else. But the more I listen to this song, the more I actually like the song. So if you just heard it once and you’re kind of like, mark, I don’t know about that one. Give it a second listen. I think it will grow on you the way it grew on me.
All right, a little bit of housekeeping. I mentioned all the social media platforms, so I’m not going to mention those again. But please like, follow, and share the podcast. Mondays is the full version. That’s the one you’re listening to right now. Wednesdays is the cliff note version that does not have any music embedded. If you’re listening to both, you’re awesome. If you’re just picking one, that’s awesome too. I love you all the same. Don’t forget the website. That is where you can submit your top five. You can send music recommendations, et cetera, et cetera. That is songsthatdontsuck.net.
The third song that I want to share this week is called Bozo, and it’s from White Reaper.
That was Bozo from White Reaper. Now, since I’ve started the podcast, I’ve seen White Reaper a few times pushing singles off of their new album, and I’ve listened to the other ones, and nothing really resonated with me. I guess with this one, they finally got me. For me, there’s parts of it that feel like it’s very punk-like, and when I look at the album in totality, there’s 10 songs and the album clocks at 29 minutes, so at least from a length of song, it’s very punk. But stylistically, there’s a lot of different things happening here. There’s a lot of genres represented, but definitely, something to check out. Like I said, I don’t know what really resonated with this track. It was just one that I was kind of like, I can listen to this, and I don’t want to throw myself off a bridge. And I know that’s probably the worst compliment I could possibly pay to an artist, but it is good. Again, this is one of those other ones that the more I’ve listened to it, the more I’ve liked it, so definitely give this one a chance as well.
All right, I mentioned top 5 list before the last song, and I want to thank everybody for submitting their top 5 drinking songs for this month. I much appreciate it. We’ve actually got quite a contest between a few of those songs, and since we’re a little light on new music that didn’t suck this week, I thought that I would play one of the songs that I’ve put on my top 5 drinking song list to act as inspiration. So after you hear this, if you are so inspired, go to songsthatdontsuck.net, submit your top 5 drinking songs. At the end of the month, we’re going to count down the top 5 that we came with, and it’ll be a good time. And we’ll also have a great playlist for St. Patrick’s day in the process. So this song is from a band called Enter the Haggis, and the song is called One Last Drink. And I remember that this song came to me through a music service called Slacker. Probably in the late 2000s, like 2008 to 2010, like in that era, I was subscribed to slacker, and it had a great feature where you could create stations of music that you liked, and then you could configure it to how much or how little new music you would hear for artists that you didn’t listen that were related that somebody else was listening to. And I remember hearing the bagpipes and this Celtic rock thing happening, and I was like, yes, this song is amazing. And it stuck with me. Like, I love this song. And if you’re involved in any way for what will be known as my after-party when I shuffle off my mortal coil, this is a song that you will absolutely hear. This is Enter the Haggis with One Last Drink.
Enter the Haggis – One Last Drink
That was Enter the Haggis with One Last Drink, fantastic drinking song. Again, be sure and send in those top five drinking songs. Go to songsthatdontsuck.net and send those in today.
The feature track this week comes from Robyn Ottolini, and this song is called Five Years.
That song is one that just hit me right in the gut. That was Robyn Ottolini, and the song is called Five Years. And when I tell you that the last month at work has sucked and the future is not clear, that’s why this song just kind of hit me, because if I think about where I see myself in the next five years, I just don’t know. And when I listen to this song, I can hear the pain in her voice, and it’s the ability to put emotion into a song when you are performing it that is such a gift, and she has it in spades on this song. The ticking clock that keeps kind of showing up in the background, it’s a really lovely production accent, and I’m definitely going to have to hear more of her stuff, just really good and quite frankly just sums up my emotions over the past few weeks.
So that is it for this week, like I said, it’s a light music week, it wasn’t a great music week, but I think there’s a couple of great ones here. Thank you again for listening, thanks for pushing me over 500 listens. Go ahead and start sharing away. Let’s give away that three months of premium access to Spotify, I’ll be happy to share that with you, and until next time, we’ll catch you right here. Have a great week. Thanks for listening, and until next week, keep searching for and listening to songs that don’t suck.
