Episode 78

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

Welcome to Songs That Don’t Suck. I am Mark and every week, I listen to hundreds and hundreds of newly released songs across all the genres you could possibly think of, to find a few songs that I deem not to suck. Yeah, it’s my own personal opinion as an aging Gen Xer, but hopefully you agree, at least on a couple of them, and you get to add some new music to your playlists.

Now, speaking of playlists, it’s how I curate the podcast. I have 15 or 16 playlists that I listen to regularly across all the genres, like I mentioned. And it really got me thinking after I came across an article about Spotify playlists. And it exposed a number to me that it was not a shock or a surprise, but it was still like it gave me pause. So on Spotify alone, there are 8 billion user curated playlists. And in 2024, in the first half of the year, three quarters of a billion of those have been created. So 725 million have been created this year alone, like in the first six months of the year. Now, that’s on top of all of the playlists that Spotify curates and delivers to you that are individualized in a lot of cases, right? So if you Google, or if you Google, if you’re on Spotify and you search the word mix and filter it to playlists, you’ll find all of these weird mixes that Spotify delivers. I talked about this many episodes ago. Things like driving mix and strange mix and goblin core mix and angry sad mix. All of those names are the same, but the track listings are vastly different because they’re based on your personal listening, listening algorithm. So like, it’s got to be well over 10 billion, I would think, but I just don’t know.

Anyway, it’s crazy to think about the number of playlists because 8 billion is basically a playlist for every human on earth, if you really think about it. Now, the next question in my playlist rabbit hole that I went down because I saw the article and I immediately started Googling for more information, the country that leads the way in podcast creation. If you put your money on the United States, I’m sorry, you lost. South Korea holds the number one spot and it ain’t even close. They’ve got 50% more playlists than the next closest country, insane. And obviously, you know, now we’re at the country level, my data analyst hat on, I was like, well, what’s next? What about the average number of playlists per user? Now me personally, I have over 30 playlists that I’ve created that I currently have on my Spotify account. Now I don’t have any idea if I’m on the high end or low end, but I did find a few stats, but I couldn’t find the source of the data. So I don’t know if it’s accurate, if it’s an estimate, whatever. So that’s the caveat here, but 60% of users create at least one playlist, which my question is, what are the other 40% doing? Are they just listening to the Spotify playlists? Maybe they’re just really casual. That’s cool. But a third of your listening hours are spent listening to music from user created playlists. So your own playlists take up a third of your listening.

I did find a couple of different places that talk about the average number of user generated playlists per user, and it drops it somewhere between 100 and 200 playlists. And I was like, really? But in my continued Googling, I did find a thread or two on Reddit. And a lot of people were saying, yeah, I’ve got 100, I’ve got 200 playlists. And they’re talking about, yeah, it’s by artists, and sometimes I’ll do them by genre. If I discover a new genre, I want to kind of focus on it. I was like, okay. But part of me wonders, is it part of your entire lifetime on Spotify? Because I’ve created probably hundreds of playlists, but I’ve deleted them at one point or the other, because maybe it was for a special event or whatever. But anyway, no way to know that, unfortunately.

Needless to say, I think playlists are an important aspect of the Spotify experience. And there are more enhancements coming because Spotify knows that. But those enhancements are the current technological blessing and curse that is artificial intelligence or AI. Now, coming soon will be the ability to describe the playlist that you want, like in natural language, and then the AI will barf out a playlist for you. And then I think you’ll have the ability to adjust it with additional prompts, like make it heavier or make it faster, or my personal hope, less songs that suck. I’m personally hoping for that one, so I can build new music playlists and make the job of curating the podcast slightly easier. But we’ll have to wait and see on that. I’m not sure when it’s launching, it’s being beta tested currently, I believe, somewhere in Europe. But you know when it gets released that I will be talking about it here because I will be playing with it incessantly.

Now, if you’re curious about how good your playlists are, there’s apparently a bunch of websites that will analyze your playlists. I found this one called Chosic. It was the first one I found, so I decided to run last year songs that don’t suck playlists through it. Got a 4.5 star rating, really good marks all around. And so far, this year’s playlist has a 4.6 rating. I’ll drop a link to Chosik in the show notes so you can test your playlists. And one last note on Spotify. This is your public service announcement. This is my good deed for the week. If you’re a premium subscriber, you know that the cost of your subscription went up recently. But were you aware that they actually put out a slightly lower subscription option? If you go to your account, you will find the option for only music that drops your monthly subscription by a buck. You lose the audiobooks. To me, that’s a win-win because honestly, I don’t know a reason to pay for audiobooks. If you download like an app like Libby or Overdrive, you can listen to audiobooks there for free. Just go get a library card. There you go.

All right, let’s get into some playlists. Let’s talk about some new music that came out this week, or at least recently. And let’s hopefully drop some things on your curated playlists.

The first song this week is Tear It All Apart from Michael Marcagi. So if you take Noah Kahn and A Dash of the Lumineers, and in this song in particular, a small sprinkling of you can’t always get what you want from the Rolling Stones, you get Tear It All Apart. When you listen to this song, let me know if you pick up the Rolling Stones reference I’m making. It’s very slight. Anyway, I’m always on the hunt for solid singer-songwriters. It’s one of my favorite genres, whether male or female, it doesn’t matter. You find me a good singer-songwriter and chances are I will get hooked on you. And I feel like I’ve tripped over a good one here. His vocal style is very familiar to me. It feels familiar, but it’s unique enough that I’m not going, oh, he sounds like X and he’s totally copying him. Now, there’s moments where he reminds me a bit of Ryan Adams. You know, there’s some other voices as well that I could say, oh yeah, he’s got this bit and that bit, but a lot of familiar vibes, which makes it really easy to get into if you have similar tastes. My impression honestly, very solid songwriter. He can write a great story inside of his songs. Apparently, he had an enormous hit with a song called Scared to Start. Had over 300 million streams. I’d never heard of the song, so I guess maybe I’m living under a rock. But that aside, Michael’s a local guy. He hails from Cincinnati, Ohio, so he’s a fellow buck guy. Pretty cool. And if you’re into singer-songwriters, that folky vibe, Michael Marcagi is an artist that you need to check out.

The second song this week is Angel Blessings from Sex Week. Now, I’ll be honest, when I saw the name of the band, I did not expect the sound I heard. I was expecting something a little heavier. But from the downbeat, it gave me like nirvana unplugged vibes. Even from a lyrical standpoint, and as I was kind of listening to it, it’s got a little bit of Kurt Cobain’s pace and rhythm as a songwriter, which I found very interesting. Vocally, though, it’s a lot cleaner, but the studio, they took some liberties and the way they’ve applied reverb and some light phasing, which I thought was pretty cool. From the percussive point of view, there’s some really cool finger symbol sounds right at the beginning and right at the ending. You only hear it four times, but for the drum nerds like me, it’s a cool sonic sprinkle that you don’t hear very often. At the end of the song, there is what I can only describe as an ethereal outro where the vocals get really deep into the reverb, where it almost feels like it’s haunted, which is what the lyrics are alluding to at the end of the song, which honestly, it’s a really nice studio touch, really nice production on this track from Sex Week. The third song this week is Frank Gehry from Johnny Swim. I knew the name Frank Gehry, but I could not remember where from. So I had to go to the Googles because the reference truly makes the song. Now Frank Gehry is a world famous architect, and once I looked him up, I knew exactly why. He’s the one that developed the Peter B. Lewis building here at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. He also developed the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, Washington, two of my favorite buildings, honestly. They are visually striking and very unique. He’s also done the Beekman Tower in New York and many, many others. He’s 95 years old. Now this song shares a wonderful lesson about how comparing aspects of one’s life can bring you nothing but disappointment, because we have to be happy with what we have. We have to take pride in what we have. But sometimes it’s hard when you build your house in the shadow of a Frank Gehry, because you’re never going to live up to that. But anyway, if you are a longtime listener to the podcast, you know I’m a fan of Johnnyswim. Ever since my oldest daughter discovered them and convinced me that I need to listen to them, we’ve seen them live a few times, and they are truly fantastic people, truly fantastic singers and songwriters. This is the second single from what I’m going to call their highly anticipated new album, which should drop sometime this year. So I know a few of you I’ve talked to have like really gotten into Johnnyswim through the podcast. So here’s another one for you to check out.

The fourth song this week is Tortuga from Webbed Wing. This is the second appearance for Webbed Wing on the podcast the last time was way back in early 23. This is one of those examples where the song title doesn’t appear in the lyrics directly, but the story and the style of the song mirror the concept. So Tortuga thinks slow, right, chef’s kiss. If you like crunchy guitars with layers and layers of sound, add in a strong rhythm section and get the ebbs and flows around really catchy chorus, boom, you’ve got it here in Tortuga. This song is coming off their newly released album Webbed Wing Volume 3. While this is an alternative rock album, there are moments where it actually reminds me of the wonders or the oneders for those who know. Yes, the fictional band from that thing you do. There is a real classic pop sensibility to their songs that make them super catchy. And the best thing about that thing you do is you heard that song constantly throughout that movie and at no point did you get tired of it. That is like songwriting magic. So check out Webbed Wing. I don’t think you’re going to be disappointed.

The fifth song this week is already on my mind from Odie Leigh. This is the second or third appearance of Odie Leigh on the podcast. I’m going to be honest, I’m addicted to her voice. Every song that she puts out, everyone that falls into my ear, I have to fight really hard to not include them in the podcast. I lost this week. It’s a really good song. Super catchy pop folk song. Reminds me a little bit of Sarah Harmer, who I’m a huge fan of. And Odie is a very creative writer. There are lines in the song that just kind of make you smile and she paints a really great mental image from her lyrics. And while most people don’t seem to care about lyrics anymore, when you look at the top 10 or top 100 on the charts, I still do. And she never disappoints. So for all my folky folks, go check out Odie Leigh if you haven’t already.

All right, that is it for this week. As always, thank you so much for listening, whether it’s your first time or you’re a long time listener. I really appreciate that you take the time to check out the podcast. You can follow us on most social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter, and yeah, fuck you, Elon. It’s still Twitter, Instagram threads, TikTok. You can find the podcast on YouTube, which is not generally a podcast platform, but it’s there. You can check out our website, songsthatdon’tsuck. net. You can send me messages through the website. You can recommend artists to me. You can find show transcripts and all that good stuff. Be sure and check out the notes of each podcast episode. Within it are links to all the songs, and not just links to all the songs, but links to all the songs on all the music platforms, thanks to a platform called Songwhip. So if you’re an Apple Music person, or an Amazon Music person, or Bandcamp, or whatever, if these artists have put it on that platform, it will link to it, and it makes it really convenient for you to check out their music. And that’s what I want you to do. I want you to go check out these artists, because I think they’re great, and I think they’re worth checking out. So until next time. Thanks for listening, and until next week, keep searching for and listening to songs that don’t suck.