Episode 8 – “We woke up faded, from the shape of the night”

Welcome to Songs That Don’t Suck, with your host, Mark Bradbourne. Welcome to Episode 8. I am Mark, your GenX musical Yoda, here to guide you to find new music that does not suck.

We are in the middle of the Sharing Is Caring giveaway, if you listened to the last episode, doing a little giveaway via social media or email, and basically all you have to do is share the podcast. If you’re sharing it on social media, go ahead and tag me in the post. If you’re sharing by email, be sure and put me in the BCC line of the email. The email address is mark@SongsThatDontSuck.net, that is Mark with a K. You are entered to win a 3-month Spotify Premium subscription if you do the sharing. U. S. residents only please avoid where prohibited. We only have a handful of entries so far, so your odds are really good. You can enter up to 5 times a week. You can do once on every social media platform that the show exists on, plus you can do email. Confused? Me too! Thanks to those who did share last week, appreciate it. The giveaway will run from now until March 5th, and I will announce the winner right here on March 6th. So get to sharing.

Let’s get into the new music, shall we? So if this is your first time listening, this is the process that I go through to find new music. Each week I dig into a majority of the new music playlists, at least the U. S. -based versions of them. Sometimes I’ll listen to the UK ones as well. But I start with New Music Friday, I go to New Noise, New Rock, New Alt, Fresh Fines. I’ll look at my personal release radar. All of the new music genres are in play. I will listen to a minimum of 30 seconds per track. And I listen to anywhere between 3 and 500 songs depending on my mood. Now the best ones get added to a playlist. That playlist I then go back and review over the course of the weekend, and then I record the podcast on Sunday, and on Monday you find new music that doesn’t suck. Pretty cool, right? So let’s get into it.

The first song this week comes from the Lucas State, and it’s called Two Worlds Apart.

The Luka State – Two Worlds Apart

That was the Luka State with Two Worlds Apart. Now the Luka State is from the UK, a little town between Liverpool and Manchester formed back in 2012. And it’s just a great rock song. Like I’m not even going to argue about genres anymore because things have gotten so dissected into little pockets here and there. This is just a great rock band, no doubt about it. Great song, love the guitar tone, I love his voice, got this just cool gravel to it. And yeah, I can’t put a finger on what it reminds me of, but there’s definitely something feels very familiar about it. And it’s funny.

I try to keep the podcast a reasonable size each week. So I try to do like five songs a week, and I do share songs that I have found that didn’t make the podcast on Facebook and Twitter. The Luka State is a great example of that. Their first single was A Matter of Fact, and it was one of the, I think, first ones that I said didn’t make the show but should have. Hindsight, honestly, I feel like it should have made the list because the more I listen to that song, the more I listen to that song, it’s just that good. So I expect big things from the Luka State. They have things bounce the right way. They could be huge. So and speaking of the songs that I miss, I think I’m going to actually do an episode of the podcast that just talks about songs that I missed. If you’re not following me on social media, you’re not going to get those. And I’m sure there’s bound to be a week there are no songs that are worth sharing, or maybe it’s a holiday weekend, but we’ll see. It’s bound to happen.

The second song this week comes from Theory of a Dead Man, and the track is called Two of Us (Stuck).

Theory of a Deadman – Two of Us (Stuck)

That was Theory of a Dead Man, and the track is called Two of Us (Stuck). Now I love this. There’s like no way around it. I love that they took just the two of us and kind of sang it from the toxic relationship view of things like the yin to the yang of just the two of us. Yeah, it’s just it’s just really good. So Theory of a Dead Man, they’re from Canada. They formed back in 1999. I’ve heard their name over and over again, and never really got into them. Actually, I don’t know if I’ve ever actually listened to anything from them, but this was just, I don’t know, it was in the same way that it’s not creative. It’s super creative because I’ve never seen anybody take a well-established hit and flip it on its head and sing it just from a different perspective. So you have this aspect of it that is very comforting because you know it, but in the same regard, you’re listening very intently to see which direction they’re going to take it in. So really, really cool stuff.

So a little bit of housekeeping. I want you to like, follow, and share the podcast, write a review for it, give me five stars on Spotify if you feel the need. Mondays, the full version comes out that has the music embedded. That’s exclusively available on Spotify. On Wednesdays, I do a Cliff Notes version, which is basically me talking about the songs and in the notes, there’ll be links so you can go find the songs. Either when you listen to, it’s great with me. I appreciate the ears no matter what.

I’ve mentioned social media earlier in the show. I am everywhere. Twitter is the mainstay. If you follow me anywhere, follow me on Twitter, but I do exist on Instagram, on TikTok, and on Facebook. And I post different things throughout the week there, so always some content coming through.

All right, the third song this week I want to share is Heaven by Niall Horan.

Niall Horan – Heaven

That is Niall Horan with Heaven, and after I decided that I’m going to put this song in a podcast that I really like, and I started doing the research, and I didn’t realize this, but he was part of One Direction with Harry Styles and the like. I had no idea when I heard this song. This is not what I would have expected, probably because Harry Styles does Harry Styles things. And that’s kind of what I would expect a boy band to do. Like, if you look at all of the other boy bands who, like, they’ve had members go do solo things, they all kind of sound the same because they’re kind of drawn to that bubblegum poppy thing. But this is just a really cool song. I love the chorus. There’s something rhythmically about it that I really like, and it’s the combination of the drums, the guitar, and the way that the vocal is delivered that just, it feels really cool. And I’ve listened to it several times, and it’s just, I don’t know, just a great song. It makes me wonder. So One Direction formed on the X Factor, and it was a Simon, what’s his name? Damn, I don’t remember his name. Anyway, it was his kind of Frankenstein creation to take five of these kids and put them into a single group. And it makes you wonder, like, had he not done that? Would Niall Horan have gone in a completely different direction a little bit earlier, but then you can argue, well, would he have had the fame? Because honestly, probably the fact that he was in One Direction has led him to be able to do something a little bit different. So interesting kind of debate to have with yourself, I guess.

Before we get to the fourth song, I want to remind you to send in your top five drinking songs. You can do that in a couple of ways. I’ve decided to kind of change things up a little bit. If you go to songsthatdon’tsuck. net, there is a link to submit your monthly top five, and you can do it through that medium, no problem. That’s honestly my preferred way, because it’s just easier for me to gather and collate. But I’ve had a few people start responding on social media, like with songs when I post the reminders. So do that. If it’s easier, if you’ve got just one or two songs that you want to share, and you’ve got just a couple seconds to do it, by all means, reply to that tweet, reply to that Facebook post, whatever, and tell me the songs that you want included in the countdown. Either way, we’re going to have a fantastic playlist for St. Patty’s Day. At the end, we’ve got a three-way tie for first right now and a two-way tie for second. So every vote counts. So get your votes in, and we’ll see what the top five drinking songs are among the audience. Thanks in advance for your submissions, and thanks again to those who have already submitted. Y’all rock.

All right. The fourth song I want to share this week is from a band called Inhaler, and the song is called If You’re Gonna Break My Heart.

Inhaler – If You’re Gonna Break My Heart

That is Inhaler with If You’re Gonna Break My Heart. They are from Dublin, and it gives me pause, because so far, three of the four artists this week are from the UK or Ireland, and the trend continues. They were formed back in 2012. So the first thing that I noticed was vocally sounds very Bono-esque, like Rattle and Hum-era U2, and it might be the fact that they’re both from Ireland, but regardless, it was the first thing that I picked up on. There’s also, while it does have kind of a U2-inspired sound, there’s a little bit of folk rock, alt-country, that kind of floats in and out of it at the beginning, so a band like Dawes maybe could have influenced them, but Dawes is a newer band. I don’t know if they’ve influenced the kids that way. Anyway, really cool track. I just, it’s one of those things. It’s like I’m listening to it, and there’s nothing that’s really like, oh, this totally reminds me of X, but there’s something that I’m like, I can listen to this and not feel like I need to put knitting needles inside my ears, which is always the goal. So yeah, that was Inhaler.

Alright, I do my best, and I will always do my best to keep politics in the like, honestly, far away from this podcast, but the featured track this week has inspired me to dedicate it to some special folks, basically because I keep seeing this stuff in the news and it just infuriates me that we aren’t better as a human race. So if you think books are dangerous and should be banned from schools, or if you think your moral compass gives you the right to dictate other people’s choices, or if you don’t think Black Lives Matter, well this featured track is dedicated to you. This song is from The Used and it’s called People are Vomit.

The Used – People are Vomit

That was The Used with People are Vomit, and they are from Utah. Finally, we got a US band. They were formed back in 2001, and I’d heard of them before, and as I was doing research, it seems that they were lumped into the group of bands that were classed as emo, and that whole period of music, I just didn’t even bother with, just was not interested in emo bands at all, so they flew completely under my radar. But I’d always heard their name. Honestly in kind of listening to them now, they are definitely just a straight ahead rock band, because they do a lot of different things, and it’s a lot of different good things. So it was just bad labeling. People are Vomit, honestly just a great song. Like when I was going through the lists, I saw the title of it, and I was like this just won’t be good. And as I’m listening to it, I’m just like, yes, this is exactly how I feel in this very moment.

If what I said before the song offended you, this podcast probably isn’t for you. So just bear that in mind, and you’ll be just fine. But just like I said, a great song, just so good to just find a good, angry rock song every now and then. Anyway, let’s go ahead and wrap this episode up. I will wrap it up with kind of something funny that happened, Travis, who follows me on Twitter, he responded to a tweet, and he said that he was in awe, that I managed to listen to all of this music and then produce the podcast between the point where the music comes out on Friday and Monday morning when the show comes out. And I replied and I joked, and I said, well, I don’t really have much of a social life. Which is kind of true. The truth hurts a little bit. Maybe I should work on making some friends as an adult, which is so hard.

Anyway, hey, if any of you local Cleveland folks who like the same kind of music that I do want to go to a show sometime, hit me up. I’m probably up for it. With that, I wish you all the best, and I hope you have a great week. And until next time.

Thanks for listening, and until next week, keep searching for and listening to songs that don’t suck.