S2E4 – “What’s the point of praying for the wicked?”

Welcome to Songs That Don’t Suck, with your host Mark Bradbourne.

Welcome to Episode 4 of Season 2. Thank you so much, whether it is your first time listening or you’re a frequent listener. Either way, I appreciate your ears taking in the podcast episode.

Now, the topic that I need to start with is one that I have not mentioned on the podcast before, because quite frankly, it’s a bit taboo, depending on what side of the fence you’re on. There’s two sides, obviously. There’s the Spotify side and the artists side. I was reading this article on Medium. The author’s name is Pavel Marikovic, and he was talking about it from a couple of different points of view, which is really how you have to examine this if you’re going to examine it in a nonbiased way. So Spotify made a change to its royalty structure, and certain milestones have to be met to get royalty payments now. And this really starts to boil down to the number of songs that get released to streaming platforms. Now, I mentioned this a couple of times on the podcast. There are over 100,000 songs that get released to streaming services every day, and it turns out most of them are Ambient Noise, they’re AI-generated, and there’s some low-quality recordings that get dropped on the platform.

One of the problems is that there is no gate in which to approve or deny songs being listed on the platforms, and it’s caused this problem. The glut of music, and I’m going to put that in air quotes, it’s nearly impossible for new or unknown artists to make any kind of noise no matter how much talent they have, and there’s zero chance of them reaching these new milestones unless they get some sort of random break or something goes viral. Because getting a thousand streams continually on your song in that vast sea of music, you’ve got to have something happen so you get noticed.

So there was this report that was referenced in the article from a company called Luminate. They track music streaming data, among other things, and the report stated that there are nearly 160 million tracks that received less than the magical 1,000 streams that is honestly only part of Spotify’s new threshold for royalty payments. It’s the one that they’ve actually told people about. Now of these 160 million tracks, 45 million of those tracks did not get streamed at all. Now as an artist, that could be really disheartening. You’ve worked hard, you’ve put out a record, it’s on Spotify, and nothing. Now for bands, for true artists, you’re going to have friends, family, somebody’s going to stream it. I feel like the 45 million, a lot of it is kind of AI generated garbage, it’s ambient noise, it’s just crap, right? And honestly, AI musicians don’t care if their stuff doesn’t get streamed, they’ll just continue to churn out more shit until something does. Now I mentioned kind of the levers that need to be flipped for Spotify’s royalties aside from the thousand streams. They don’t disclose what these are, but if you kind of think about it, you’ve heard stories from different artists the way they’ve game the system, so it might be unique users listening. You have to have so many unique users, it might be the duration of the streaming sessions, it might be are the listeners paid subscribers or are they on the free tier? All of these potential flags have to be satisfied to make a couple of bucks on a thousand streams. Let’s say that you got four cents a stream on Spotify, which is not the right number, but for the math, just bear with me, a thousand streams would yield you four dollars. It’s just not worth the effort, at least that’s kind of how it feels, right?

So musicians kind of have to choose. Do you play the game? Do you create music to satisfy the algorithm in hopes of being noticed all while suppressing your own creative vision? Or do you carry on as you intend to? And do you create your art, the stuff that you are passionate about, in hopes that someone somewhere listens and that it catches momentum and you can actually make a living as a musician? Either way, for fans, it’s bad news. We will continually be fed the same boring bullshit that I wade through each week to make this podcast, all while true artists that are extremely talented are buried among the shit heap of these millions and millions of tracks just waiting to be accidentally streamed and discovered. You know I’m going to continue to watch this with great interest, and I will continue to bring you the best of what I can find each week. So tell a friend, because true music lovers need to stick together in these dark times.

Alright, this week I have a cover for you. If you are among those who just discovered Paula Cole by watching Stranger Things, I’ve got a cool twist on her classic Running Up That Hill by Placebo. I’ve been a fan of Placebo for a very long time. They hit the scene my freshman year of college, and if you are unaware of them, you should definitely go check them out. Some of their standout tracks include Nancy Boyd, which is kind of one of their first big hits. My favorite song from them is called Pure Morning. They’ve got a couple of great albums that you should definitely check out. They’re still active today, and I really dig this version of Running Up That Hill. It’s much different than Paula’s version. It’s got this really cool smoky feel to it, giving it more of this kind of alternative DNA into it. Placebo, if you’re kind of looking for comparatives, I think like Depeche Mode or Sonic Youth. If you’re familiar with those bands, that’s kind of where Placebo lands as far as genres go. So, if you dig this song, check them out.

Alright, let’s get into some new music. That’s why we’re here, right? If you’re here for the first time, here’s how this works. Each week, I listen to hundreds of songs, and it is painful because most of the songs as I talked about at the beginning of the show, they suck. They’re garbage, and they’re trying to catch fire, be viral, and it’s just awful. And I wade through it each week for you. And honestly for me, because I’m trying to find new music too. But I try to find a handful of songs to share on the podcast each week. This week, I have been successful and I’ve got five new tracks for you, so let’s get into them.

The first song this week is Last Night by John Veronezes. Now, I’m probably slaughtering John’s name. He is not from the United States, from what I can tell he’s somewhere in Latin America. This is his second release on Spotify, and the first one in English. I’m honestly struggling to find anything about him. I get the impression that he’s very young, and as much as I’m struggling to find out anything about him, I’m struggling to compare his sound to anything. There are aspects of it that remind me of certain tracks from The Revivalists, but it’s literally just bits and pieces. There’s maybe a little Arctic Monkeys, like Do You Want to Know, like that kind of thing where it’s very laid back and sultry. Whatever it is, it really resonated with me this week. I really dig this song. I like the layered orchestration. The keys add a really nice texture to the guitar and drums. I’m going to watch to see what else John releases, because I really dig this track, and we’ll see if he does the sometimes Spanish, sometimes English thing, or if he’s kind of moved to be more, quote unquote, US mainstream. Either way, I dug Last Night. It was a good song.

The second song this week is In the Meantime by the Crooks. I was never a huge fan of Oasis. I listened to their singles, but I don’t think I ever bought any of their releases. Now, with that said, I know an Oasis-influenced band when I hear it, and honestly, the Crooks fit the bill. Oasis wrote really catchy songs. They were huge. You could not escape them. So if you’re going to be influenced by someone, they’re a great choice. And now, with that said, the Crooks have their own thing going on for sure. It’s easy to copy a style or a sound, but it’s very difficult to build on it successfully and kind of push your creative influence into that in the hopes of creating something new. I think the Crooks do that very successfully here with In the Meantime.

The third song this week is Vampire Disco from Friday Pilots Club. If you are a longtime listener of the podcast, you will remember Friday Pilots Club from very early in season one. They had a track that I really fell in love with called Life Support. I still listen to it to this day, so I was honestly very excited to see a new release from them. This song is very different from Life Support. It’s more in the vein of Neon Trees and the Killers. Compared to Life Support, it’s much poppier, and it’s practically danceable, to be quite honest, which with the title of Vampire Disco, it makes sense, right? That’s kind of what you’re going for. The vocals a little more processed, the drums are as well, and you kind of get that pop rock, although it’s probably more indie pop, I don’t know. Anyway, the guitar riff is super funky, and the whole thing really comes together nicely, and it’s just another solid track from Friday Pilots Club.

The fourth song this week is No Doubt by Odie Lee. Another former songs that don’t suck alumni, Odie is back with No Doubt. Her voice is just so distinctive among all of the other female singer-songwriters that I listen to on a weekly basis. So when this showed up on my release radar, I was thrilled. These female singer-songwriters just have flooded the landscape, and there’s one of two things. They’re either like this really breathy, boring vocal, or it just sounds like everybody else. Odie Lee doesn’t do either of those. This song, compared to the last one, has much more of a rock edge, reminds me a little bit of Sarah Harmer. These are, you have no idea who that is, very obscure, I think she was Canadian artist. But fun fact, her song Open Window was my wife and I’s wedding song. So there you go. I love the addition of the horns in this song. It’s a really nice feature on what is honestly a very simple instrument arrangement, just kind of your basic guitar, drums, bass, vocal, which honestly, that’s all she needs. She’s just super talented. I missed her show when she rolled through Cleveland last year, and I was so bummed. Next time I will not make that mistake. Now granted, I’m probably not her target demographic, and quite frankly it won’t be the first time nor the last time that I am the odd man out at a live show.

The fifth song this week is Price You Pay from Bend Sinister. From the first notes, I immediately drew a line to classic rockers, the Doobie Brothers. But the more I listen to it, I realize that they fall in with bands like Dirty Honey and The Rival Sons, basically those bands that are working really hard to bring back good old fashioned guitar rock, but all the while doing it with a modern mentality. Great gritty vocals, a fun arrangement with what can only be described as like vocal scat akin to jazz singers about two thirds of the way through the song was something that really caught me off guard, something you do not hear all that often in rock music. It was just different, and it was a nice change of pace. Now to be fully transparent, this song was released last summer, missed it somehow, you know, a hundred thousand songs a day, can’t imagine why, but it happened to fall on my radar thanks to the Spotify AIDJ. Every now and then, it does drop a gem on my ear, so I was thankful for that algorithm this week.

Alright, that is it for this week. As always, spread the word to your fellow music fans. Follow the show on social media, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, threads. You can actually catch the podcast on YouTube now as well wherever you want to listen to us. I don’t care. Check out the website, songsthatdon’tsuck. net, if you’ve got an artist or song that you think I need to listen to you, there’s a form there you can fill out. You can just tell me what you think of the show, good or bad, you know, whatever you say, say it with your chest. With that, I will catch you next week. Thanks for listening, and until next week, keep searching for and listening to songs that don’t suck.