Episode 74

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

What’s up, friends? Welcome to Songs That Don’t Suck. My name is Mark, and every week I listen to hundreds and hundreds of newly released songs, most of which suck. And I try to find a handful to share with you, and I like to think that I’m pretty successful each and every week. Now, before we get into the new music, I’ve got a tribute to fathers. Buckle up.

Happy Father’s Day to all those who, whether by biology or by role or by chance, take in that father figure role to someone who needs it. Dads hold a special place in our society, as do moms, but it’s Father’s Day, right? Like, we’re going to celebrate that. And of course, we’re going to talk about it from a musical perspective. And the only way to talk about dads when it comes to music is talking about Dad Rock. I found a survey that was done by Merchoid. com. They did the Dad Rock survey, and they asked 3,000 people, which band truly epitomizes Dad Rock. And here are the results. I’ll go from the bottom of the list to the number one, right? Okay, so Limp Biscuit, Bon Jovi, Coldplay, Guns N’ Roses, Lincoln Park, Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blink 182, Van Halen, and coming in at number one with 26% of the vote was Nickelback. And like, it broke it down by state, and Ohio claimed Nickelback as well, and I’m like, oh, God. But, I mean, there’s really no denying that. I think there’s a good population of dads that will probably, as much as they will bag on Nickelback when How You Remind Me comes on, they’re still going to roll the window down and turn the radio up.

Some things they found in the data, which honestly makes me question the validity of the survey and who they were asking this question of, because it feels like they were asking people much younger than who should be answering about Dad Rock. They found that 57% of people think today’s music is worse than music in the past, which, yes, it’s true. But 40% said that they thought the tunes were just as good as the classics, which you just probably failed a drug test because you’re high. And then 3% said that today’s music is better than music from the past, and those people, they need help. Now, when it comes to the topic of granddad rock, which, God, that’s a word I had not heard before, 86% associate it with groovy sounds from the 60s. Now, 6% pointed to the grunge era, and that 6% of the population needs to be punched in the throat repeatedly, because that’s just rude. I am not a granddad. That was like the 90s. You’re an ass.

Stuff that I’ve heard before, 41% of the people said that people get out of touch with modern music around the ripe old age of 35, which I think might be actually on the older side based on statistics I’ve seen. But 30% did say that you never become out of touch, and it’s really up to you, right? And if you’re listening to this podcast, you’re making an attempt to stay in touch with modern music. So congratulations. Now, interestingly, and honestly, truthfully, almost 90% of the respondents still enjoy listening to dad rock. Now, those tunes are timeless, but they are also attached to a lot of memories, right? If we think about the songs that make up dad rock, your Led Zeppelins, your Bruce Springsteen, your Rolling Stones, your Bob Dylan’s, you know, it might conjure up images of middle-aged men reminiscing about youthful days. But it’s also the soundtrack of the family road trip of summer barbecues and special moments that we have spent with our dads. It’s interesting, right, when we think about those songs and the memories they might be attached to. Now, there are some comical subgenres, my favorite being Divorce Core, which was brought to me by a 2016 podcast by Beyond Yacht Rock, and they took a deep dive into Divorce Core. Now, if you think about artists like Fleetwood Mac, Billy Joel, that’s the Divorce Core like artistry that we’re talking about, you know. It’s not about acknowledging like the sadness or dwelling in the pain. It’s really about the hope and strength to carry on and find love again, rather comically. If you have never heard of Beyond Yacht Rock or that particular episode, I highly recommend you go check it out because it is hysterical.

The other one, obviously, to speaking of Beyond Yacht Rock is Yacht Rock itself. Think laid back, sophisticated, effortless, cool, right? Or late 70s, early 80s, you know, smooth melodies, catchy hooks, perfect soundtrack for escapism, right? You can picture yourself on the luxury yacht with the wind blowing through your thinning hair, sun on your face. Think like Steely Dan, Holla Notes, Christopher Cross and his classic sailing, and even Toto’s Africa probably fall into the Yacht Rock category. Fantastic stuff. Now, again, to all the fathers, whether, again, biologically or just by role and happenstance, I hope you had a great Father’s Day. With that, let’s get into the new music.

First song this week is Perfume by Pale Waves. From the downbeat of this one, I was transported back in time and really got reminded of the cranberries, at least vocally. And when I started listening to the rest of the music, the cure really popped into my head. Pictures of you specifically, the track just has that kind of feel and groove to it for me. Now, the interesting thing is this track is a very strong departure, I think, from the last album, which I was compelled to check out based on how much I like this track. The last album they released was called Unwanted, and it honestly has more of an edge than Perfume. Perfume feels like it’s got a lot more pop sensibility to it, whereas Unwanted gives more of like a Paramore or Avril Lavigne type feel. The lead vocalist, Heather Baron Gracie, has an absolutely beautiful voice. The production of this song is just fantastic. It’s got a great full sound. And honestly, I’m going to be really interested to hear the rest of this album if this is the lead single and this is the direction the band is going. It’s just got a really high listenability quality to it. So check out Perfume from Pale Waves.

The second song this week is Innocence of Youth by the Manatees. I love, love, love, love the rhythm section composition of this track. Great bass line that just kind of holds everything down. And then this really beautifully executed syncopated drum part. A lot of times when I’m listening to music, too many drummers get caught up in trying to fill all the space with rhythm and they don’t realize that the rest, the absence of a note is just as powerful as the note. So this drummer lets some of those beats go by without contributing to the orchestration. And this addition through subtraction causes a very undeniable head bobbing rhythm and groove. Then they layer in some great keyboard work, some great guitars, great vocals, and it really comes together with a really stellar track. There are parts of it that give me kind of this retro vibe, but not really. I can’t put my finger on it. Part of it feels really familiar and comforting, but it’s very fresh. It’s very new. This band only has about 17,000 monthly listeners, so they’re very new to the scene. So congratulations, you are on the ground level if you dig this track from the manatees.

The third song this week is Don’t by Honeyglaze. So what happens when you mix a female delivered spoken word passage with a funky drummer and a primus inspired melody line rife with dissonance? You get this song. Now I love it when I find a track like this. It makes the current music landscape stand up and take notice. This song just rose to its hind legs and it just evolved from what the current music landscape is. It’s different and it’s awesome. I love when I find a song like this. I really appreciate the avant garde approach to this track. And if that is your musical thing that you really get off on, well, this is the new thing that you want to check out. Now I will caveat that point by saying that you won’t go back into their musical catalog, their older releases and find more of the same because it’s just not there. So the big question that I have is this a hard pivot musically for the band or is this just an anomaly? Either way, I’m going to wait and see because I really, really like this track. And if this is the lead single, I’m wondering if more of the same is following. So check out Don’t Buy Honey Glaze.

The fourth song this week is Sexy to Someone by Clairo. I am going to lovingly call the review of this song Take Your Friend to Work Day because my friend Clayton pointed this one out to me and I will tell you why. I had a rough week in regards to prepping for the show. I was traveling on Friday, which is normally when I do all my prep work. And then Saturday when I have more time to prep, I had some Father’s Day festivities happening. So Clayton, we were texting back and forth and he asked if he could help. So I sent him one of the many playlists that I review each week and asked him to find a few gems if he could. Now, this started to get really funny. The best quote that he shared with me was, bro, I’m three songs in and I’m already mad. How do you do this? Which was followed up by, so far the Jeep commercial is firmly in the lead. He really did question how I go through this process every week because it can be really maddening when you’re listening to bad song after bad song. But let’s get into Sexy for Someone by Clairo. So Clayton described this song to me as the perfect example of modern indie. It has a poppy bossa nova vibe with a great groove. And then he continued on to say, while he’s not a fan of female whisper falsettos, it works really well here, which I agree to all these points. He also pointed out that the keyboards and organs in this song are just wonderful treats. I think Clayton really nailed his analysis here. What do you think? Clairo is a fairly popular artist. I think she’s got something like 17 million monthly listeners. But this is probably a new find to my target demographic. So if you’re into kind of the pop indie thing, go check out Sexy to Someone. And you can be cool with the kids this week.

That is it for this week on the shorter side. Four songs. It was a rough week, like I said. As always, please spread the word to your fellow music fans. You can follow us all over social media, all of the big players, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and threads. You can check out the website, songsthatdon’tsuck. net. You can send me music recommendations. You can give me feedback on the show. You can tell me how Clayton did. I think he did great. And then always check out the show notes in the podcast. There are links to all of the songs that I talk about. I’ll even probably include the link to the Divorce Core podcast so you can find it pretty easily. So as always, thank you for listening and go support these artists. Thanks for listening. And until next week, keep searching for and listening to songs that don’t suck.