Episode 60 – “Wanna disappear in the atmosphere for a million years…”

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

Welcome to Songs That Don’t Suck, my name is Mark and each week I subject myself to hundreds of newly released songs to find a handful of songs that just don’t suck. This week I’ve got five songs for you, but before we get into it, I want to thank you for listening and I’ve got a story to share.

Growing up, I had a record player and I had a bunch of records, mostly from my parents, a few from my older brother, and I would just listen to music on that thing all the time. I would slip on these gigantic RCA branded headphones, you know, the old school over the ear ones that had like the pigtailed curled cord, plug that in and I would just lay on the floor and listen and I would just zone out. I was in my happy place and recently I saw a turntable on sale and it was less than a hundred bucks. It was Bluetooth enabled and I could plug it into my Sonos speaker that I have in my office and I was like this is perfect. It’s meant to be. Now the downside is that all that vinyl that I had as a kid was gone. So I decided that I was going to start rebuilding a small but mighty collection of classic albums that held a lot of nostalgia for me and that I felt warranted being owned as physical media that is vinyl. So I mean, who’s to say I might buy some newer stuff, but for now I’m sticking with kind of the classic stuff that I would listen to end to end. So over the weekend I was down in the Fairlawn area of Ohio and I purchased the first four members of this new collection and I had a moment that I just I have to share here.

So I walk in and I’m perusing the stacks of music and I start to find some gems like the first two albums I picked up were from Iron Maiden. I picked up their debut record as well as Powerslave. I remember listening to these when I would visit my cousin in the UK. He’s the one that was a huge Iron Maiden fan introduced me to them and I have great memories of him sharing that vinyl music with me and it was really pivotal in my fandom. There’s a few more Iron Maiden albums that I want to get that these two were a great start. I moved down the racks and the next thing I found that I absolutely knew that I wanted to buy was Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. This was a 50th anniversary pressing and that was in the pile, right? Now when I say that this is one of the finest examples of something that you have to listen to start to finish to truly appreciate, yeah, it’s the gold standard for me. So I had to get Dark Side of the Moon. The last one I picked up I was at the end of the rack and it was kind of the miscellaneous section and I found the soundtrack for the movie Singles, which is probably one of the greatest soundtracks ever in my opinion.

So I continued to look around and I was looking up at the counter and I realized the guy behind the counter is younger than me. He’s probably a millennial. And I was like, oh, is he going to judge me for like buying old guy music? Like, am I going to get judged? But it didn’t last too long. Eventually the album that was playing ended and he put on this classic ACDC album. So I was like, oh man, never mind. I forgot that record store people are generally really cool and they don’t judge people’s music. So I went and checked out, had a wonderful conversation. So if you are in the area, go to Hollowbone Records. It’s in Fairlawn, Ohio. I highly recommend it if you’re looking for vinyl. It had a great selection.

Now, last episode, I was fantasizing about the new Traveling Willburys group that I was dreaming up thinking how cool it would be to have the Traveling Willburys back inspired by Billy Joel’s interview on the Howard Stern Show. And I guess that I inspired Slash because he’s a listener of the podcast. He doesn’t know that, but he is. He listens and he dropped information this week and the new track for his new blues album that is coming out. It’s called Orgy of the Damned, great album title. And in looking at the information around the album, he has got a star studded roster that are going to basically crush this album. Very fantastic. He’s got Gary Clark Jr. He’s got Billy Gibbons, Chris Stapleton, Dorothy, Iggy Pop, Paul Rogers, Demi Lovato, Tash Neal, Chris Robinson, and Beth Hart all guesting on the album on different tracks. The album is going to be released May of 24. And the first track off of it kicks off the new music this week.

The first song this week is a cover of Howling Wolf’s Killing Floor by Slash. It features Brian Johnson of AC DC on vocals and Stephen Tyler of Aerosmith on harmonica. Now, first and foremost, I am not a huge Blues fan. I love listening to the Blues, and I’ve seen plenty of Blues legends in concert. But I was not familiar with Killing Floor, so I had to go and listen to the original to get a reference point to understand what Slash was doing with his take of it. As expected, Slash’s version, little more edge to it, but it does retain the structure and the feel of the original. I think it’s got a slightly quicker tempo from the original. And considering the decades between the recordings, obviously the production is far superior. Let’s get into Brian Johnson’s vocals, because holy shit, he sounds phenomenal. I feel like he missed his calling as a more bluesy singer. I’m not saying that I don’t like what he does with AC DC. I love it. But there is a soulfulness to his voice that I was just unaware of. And he just sounds comfortable singing in this lower range. The first time I listened to it, I joked that it sound like Tom Jones. And in a good way. I sounded amazing. So that was just a pleasant surprise. It was amazing. The band really enhances the groove that Howling Wolf established in the original and the up tempo pace of it. It turns it into a real toe tapper of a song. The second surprise of this track was Steven Tyler. I knew he played harmonica. A train kept a roll in. But the harmonica solo that he dropped on this track was hot. And it set the table for Slash to do what he does best, which is play epic guitar solos. Overall, awesome. Really excited to hear the rest of this album once it’s released. Looking through the track listing. Demi Lovato is going to do vocals for a Temptations song. Papa was a Rolling Stone. One of my favorite songs. I love that song. And then Tash Neil is going to do Living in the City from Stevie Wonder. So really good stuff that has a lot of promise.

The second song this week, keeping with the bluesy theme that we’ve started already, is the new track from The Black Keys, which is called This is Nowhere. When I tell you that I kick myself regularly for being very, very late to The Black Keys party, it is true. I went to school at the University of Akron. I graduated in 97. I started playing in local bands around that time. And you would think that I would have picked up on what The Black Keys were doing. We would have played a show together. Something. But it just never happened. I never got into their music until, I don’t know, maybe 10 years ago, which I just felt so late to the party. Just felt dumb. But anyway, this is just another fantastic track from the Rubber City duo. I know they don’t live in Akron anymore, but we still claim them as ours. The production on the track is fantastic. I’m assuming that Dan and Patrick did the production work, or at least, you know, with somebody else. They’ve got such a signature sound when it comes to the production of their songs. It’s fantastic. There’s some really cool keyboard stuff that’s happening in this song. I like the little synth sweeps that happen that kind of mimic the higher background vocals that happen. The whole thing starts out with this really fuzzy toned guitar, or sorry, not guitar, bass, and it just sets the feel for the whole song. And it’s just more high quality Black Keys songs, which is just amazing that they continue after all these years just continually putting out great music. So bravo to them.

Third find this week is Please Advise from Sapphire Sun. These guys describe themselves as sunken yacht rock. I have no idea what that means. This is the second episode in a row where a band has this genre in mind, and it does not reflect what I hear. Maybe it’s just my old ears. But anyway, I don’t hear sunken yacht rock, whatever that is. And honestly, I hear Grunge having a baby with something that’s more poppy, you know, more mainstream vocal styling. It’s really easy to compare to Elaine Staley of Alice in Chains. It’s got that kind of, you know, signature thing that that Lane did. But the band shifts back and forth between that grungy sound and feel to something that is more clean, and then they do a really nice job pivoting between the two. I really, really like this song, so I was curious and I started to sample the rest of the album that this song came off of. The album is called Dream Boat to Nowhere, and these guys really have their sound dialed in. They know who they are. They pull from some different influences throughout, though, so it’s not like they’re one note. There’s some really funky guitar work on the second track, which is called I Hear Your Call. Further into the album, there’s a song called Velvetile, which it’s more shades of Alice in Chains, but it’s actually like their unplugged performance. So it starts with an acoustic guitar and kind of builds from there, which is really, it’s really good track. The whole album is great, so I encourage you to go check out Sapphire Sun if you dig, please advise.

Fourth song this week comes from the Avett Brothers, and it’s called Love of a Girl. When I first listened to this song, I thought of Bob Dylan’s song Subterranean Homesick Blues. It’s got a very similar feel, but the Avett Brothers have more edge. Not that the Avett Brothers are edgy, but you’re comparing it to Dylan, so you kind of get what I’m saying. But it’s really odd, right? It’s got this punkish swing vibe to it. It’s poppy, it’s rootsy, it’s Americana, it’s folk punk. That’s the best description that I can muster, folk punk. When you have songs like this that have that kind of punk swing, you know, energy to them, it’s really good when bands change the tempo and they do that between the verses and the hook. It does a nice job of breaking it up. Otherwise, I think it would be just a little bit repetitive. And, you know, this is different from the other stuff that I’ve heard from the Avett Brothers. I’m not super versed in their catalog. There’s probably a handful of songs that I know from them. But this one’s definitely the anomaly, right? So I’m definitely going to want to check out this entire album once this drops, because I’m curious to see if it’s the anomaly or if that’s kind of the feel of the record. Either way, it’s going to be worth listening to.

The fifth song this week is Pretender from Bennett Coast. In listening to this one, it reminded me of Coldplay a little bit, especially early Coldplay. There’s a lead guitar melody that is very reminiscent of their big hit Yellow that really kind of establishes that Coldplay feel for me. Bennett Coast has an amazing voice. I think he’s got a great tone to it. He moves really effortlessly. He’s got a really good control of his voice between his high and low register. The songwriting is fantastic for me. It’s a nice roller coaster ride between the composition and the lyrics. It takes you on a journey, right? And it’s nice to get that start-to-finish journey in a song. It’s a rare thing these days. That’s why I’m doing the podcast to try to find music that doesn’t suck. This one doesn’t suck. But with that said, I went and sampled some of the other tunes, and this one for me right now is an anomaly. I really like the production on this track, but listening to some of the other stuff, it just has a different feel. And I don’t know if he’s just experimenting with different things or what, but don’t let my opinion stop you here. I think the guy’s talented, so go check out some of the other stuff if you dig Pretender, and you can be the judge for yourself.

Alright, that is it for this week. As always, please spread the word to your fellow music fans. Thank you so much for listening. I do appreciate that you spend this 15 minutes with me each week. Please follow the show on social media, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and X. Go to the website, songsthatdon’tsuck. net. We’ve got show transcripts there. You can send me feedback as well as musical recommendations. In the notes of each podcast episode, there is links to all of the songs that I talk about. Your podcast host does not support HTML in the notes. I’m sorry. Check it out on a different platform if you can, because that way you can go, you can support these artists. You can listen to their songs wherever you listen to them. You can buy them through different stores. The links are fantastic because it basically sends you everywhere that they are. So go please support these artists and… Thanks for listening and until next week, keep searching for and listening to songs that don’t suck.