Episode 64

Welcome to Songs That Don’t Suck, with your host, Mark Bradbourne. Welcome to Songs That Don’t Suck, I am your host, Mark, and as always, every week I listen to hundreds of new songs so that you don’t have to. And this week, like every week, it was a slog, but I’m happy to bring you the best of what I found as always right here on Songs That Don’t Suck. But before we get into that, I’ve got a reflection.

So this week marked the 30th anniversary of what a lot of folks and journalists will refer to as the death of grunge when Kurt Cobain’s body was discovered after a suicide, well, not an attempt, he succeeded. I remember the moment I was in college, it was my freshman year, I was sitting in my living room in my apartment watching MTV at the time, obviously either skipping class or I didn’t have class at that moment. But Kurt Loder came on with an MTV News special report and told the viewing audience that Kurt’s body had been discovered. It was a little stunning, honestly, it’s not one of those things you expect. You knew he was troubled, you know, between the drug addiction and, you know, the trappings of fame and all that stuff. And it was just, it was a little crazy. And while the grunge era was relatively short-lived, it was extremely impactful in that moment, to me and to the music world as a whole, I think.

The Seattle sound or grunge was really the yin to Sunset Strips glam metal yang, and it really was the death knell of hair metal. Because I remember when I was in high school, the first time seeing these bands, and I will refer to them as the Holy Trinity, right? It’s Nirvana, it’s Pearl Jam, Soundgarden. Those were kind of the big three that really invaded MTV as grunge started to become a thing. Now, I was very much a metalhead in high school, and for those that know, Headbanger’s Ball was basically church for us. So every Saturday night, you know, I think if it started at midnight, if I remember correctly, and it was two hours, and we would sit there and we would watch all these great metal bands and their videos, and you started to see some of these Seattle bands come in. I think the first one I saw was actually Soundgarden, probably Jesus Christ Pose if I remember correctly, but then you saw, you know, Smells Like Teen Spirit, you saw Alive from Pearl Jam, and it was like, you know, it was like, this is really interesting, it’s not what I normally listen to, but there’s something about it that at that point in my life, which was, you know, 1991, so I was a sophomore or junior, depending on what point in the year, and Headbanger’s Ball was the way that I would find new music. I lived in a very small farming community, very conservative area, so there was a handful of us that were kind of metalheads, and we stuck together and Headbanger’s Ball was the thing that we would talk about, but I remember those first videos, and then I remember Ricky Rackman, who was then of the host of Headbanger’s Ball, starting to interview the bands. I distinctly remember Kurt Cobain and Nirvana being interviewed, because Kurt Cobain came on basically in drag, like he was wearing this giant yellow prom dress, and it was shortly after that, where Smells Like Team Spirit really hit the mainstream, and they were all over MTV and radio, but the kids that watched shows like 120 Minutes in Headbanger’s Ball, we got those earliest tastes. These bands led me to others, like Screaming Trees, Alice in Chains, Mudhoney, Stone Temple Pilots, L7, and a bunch more, honestly. A few episodes ago, I mentioned the movie Singles and the amazing soundtrack. That’s where I learned about Mother Love Bone, among other bands, and this meteoric rise that Grunge had was so short-lived, I mean, for maybe five years, and then it kind of faded into post-Grunge, but Kurt’s death, along with Shannon Hoon, who was the singer for Blind Mellon, Lane Staley, who sang for Alice in Chains, and then much later, Scott Weiland’s death and Chris Cornell’s death. All of those touched me in a very different way, and I’m sure it’s a very similar thing to those who grew up in the 60s, when John Lennon was assassinated, and Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison and Janice Joplin joined the 27 Club. They’re icons of an era, and when we are children watching them, they feel invincible to us, but we quickly learn that the shine that is the brightest sometimes burns out the fastest, and between the demons and the constant struggle and drugs and what have you, it’s tough to be an artist at times, especially if you don’t have a great kind of support system around you.

Sadly, I never got to see Nirvana live. I never actually have seen Pearl Jam live or Soundgarden. None of those Grunge bands I’ve gotten the chance to see live, which is probably due to the timing of my age and the availability for me to get to a show. I was not close to a big city, and it sucks, but there have been a ton of bootlegs, both official and unofficial ones, and it got me thinking about the last show that Nirvana played. It was a show that they did in Germany, and it was very much an unofficial bootleg, and I have not heard it, but apparently if you can get your hands on it, you should consider yourself very lucky because it was a very historic show, it wasn’t their greatest show, but obviously it marked a very important moment in the history of Nirvana as it was the last time they played live. So it’s really weird to think about honestly, and I don’t think we’ll ever see another ground-shaking era like we saw with Grunge ever again. I think today the music world is much too fragmented, the local scenes don’t exist the way they used to, like the sunset strip, the glam era, all those bands were centered in that area, and then you had others in other cities emulating and mirroring that. And then you’ve got Seattle, where all of this antithesis to the sunset strip landed, and this whole musical ecosystem popped up. You just don’t have that anymore. I don’t think there are scenes that are like that because that music world is so fragmented. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am, and like for music’s sake, honestly I truly hope I’m wrong.

Anyway, let’s get into the new music this week, shall we? Some good stuff this week, so let’s get right into it. The first song this week is Alpharetta from Local Natives. I know I’ve heard of this band before, but I went through their catalog to try and figure out what song I’d heard from them, and I honestly didn’t hear anything that was familiar. So maybe I just heard the name, but anyway, I digress. This was a really nice find this week. It was a very stressful week, and it was really nice to hear this kind of simple arrangement, some great vocal harmonies. There’s a cool effect on the guitar. It’s almost like it’s playing through water, it wavers a little bit, and it makes things feel very ethereal, but it was just a nice little production note in the totality of the song. There’s a very short but appropriate guitar solo that doubles down on this. It’s got a kind of a muffled sound, which is really cool. Just fits perfectly in the overall context of the song. And then as this song progresses, the sound kind of fills in, they add more instruments, more layers, which is a really nice effect to kind of take you on this melodic journey as you’re listening to it. And overall, it’s just a very chill track to listen to. It’s definitely headphones-worthy, because there are some elements that pan left and right, and you don’t get that a lot in modern productions. Like you don’t have engineers who think about people listening with headphones and the effect that that can have mentally as sound moves from left to right or right to left. So definitely throw on some headphones and check that one out.

The second song this week is from the Coltons, and it’s called The Borderline. And speaking of panning left and right, this track actually opens with that lovely little production trick to the point where you feel like the right headphone had gone completely dead. When this song gets into the chorus, you are going to hear a very heavy oasis influence. But I feel like bands that are from Manchester in the United Kingdom have something in their DNA. I don’t know if it’s the accent or the water, but this idea of oasis just magically appears and it’s not like it’s a bad thing, but it’s very much recognizable. Overall this is a great straight-ahead rock track, great sing-along chorus, great pre-chorus that leads into the hook, love the guitar tone, love what the rhythm section is doing. Overall this is just a great well-written song. These guys seem to be on the newer side. I think I saw they started in 2001, but I think the lineup just solidified recently. So if you dig this track, this might be a band that you want to keep an eye on.

The third song this week is Fingernail from Porno for Pyros. Now my initial listening of this song, I was not feeling it. Like I think it was probably just my mental state, but as I chatted with the boys from Rock and Roll Autops, I shared it with them and they threw it into a different perspective for me and I went back and listened to it and it grew on me. Now I’m a huge Jane’s Addiction fan. I absolutely love Jane’s Addiction and because of that I dabble in Porno for Pyros. This is Perry Ferrell’s post-Jane’s Addiction Band. And this song is just very trippy, both from a musical standpoint and a lyrical content point of view. Sometimes the simplest ideas and concepts can take a really deep meaning and as I was kind of diving into the lyrics of this, it became very apparent. The idea of comparing life to the speed of a fingernail growing, I mean, only really in tune talented artists I feel can come up with kind of metaphor like that. And it hits you when you start thinking about it. It’s something that we don’t think about as kind of everyday humans until we chip a nail or they get too long and they need to be cut. We don’t think about the time between the current process of cutting our nails and the last time we did it. We couldn’t even tell you probably when it happened because it’s just one of those mundane things that happens and I think that’s kind of how some people go through life. So very, very well done, Perry, I approve.

The fourth song this week is Take Me to the Moon by lovelytheband. I discovered lovelytheband when they had their hit, I guess we can classify it as that, it was Broken. It was a while back, I don’t even know what year it was, but it was very cool to hear new music from them this week. I still love Broken. Every time it comes on one of my playlists, I absolutely turn it up. This one, however, has a much different feel than Broken. I love the groove that the drummer and the bassist are laying down in this song and Lovely the Band from everything I’ve heard always has great kind of vocal melodies and harmonies within their songs. Absolutely present and accounted for in this song as well, so way to stay with your trademarks. This song has a great hook in the pre-chorus and chorus. Not much else to say on this one other than it’s fantastic and go check it out.

The fifth song this week is In Montreal from Chaya Catter and it’s featuring Allison Russell. Fuck, this song is so cool. By far my favorite thing I found this week and I don’t even know where to start, honestly, when I think about this song, it starts with this really cool banjo lick and she is apparently a banjo folk singer, lived in Canada, lived in West Virginia for a while, currently resides in Toronto and honestly we need more banjo in places we don’t expect it. I did not expect to hear banjo this week and I love it, it’s fantastic. The entire instrumentation on this track, that’s a very amazing sonic landscape for what you’re about to hear lyrically, the banjo mixed with strings, the percussion is really cool and this song is so trippy in the way that it is delivered between the rhythm that is set up with the banjo and the percussion and then the way that the vocal is delivered. It’s like jamban-esque almost, but it’s so smooth in other ways, Chaya’s vocals are effortless, they’re airy, they’re sultry, they’re awesome, love it. And there is some fantastic poetry posing as lyrics in this song as well, it’s so good. This might be my favorite song that I found this year, it is Flawless, I have no notes, 10 out of 10.

And that’s it, it was a good week. As always, spread the word to your fellow music fans, follow the show on social media, all the typical platforms, check out the website, songsthatdon’tsuck. net, check the show notes for links to every song that I talked about, you can find them on whatever platform you listen to, go support these artists. Thank you so much for listening, every week I really, really appreciate your time. So until next week.