Episode 79

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 every week, I listen to hundreds and hundreds of newly released songs, just for you, and this week, you owe me one. Because this week was horrible, awful, and not very good, all rolled into a giant suckfest, and I had to endure that suckfest for two days, before I finally managed to find three songs that I thought were worth your ears. And hey, if this is your first time listening, or you listen every week, either way, I love you and I appreciate you for doing that. Till a friend. Now, before we get into the new music, I’ve got something else to share, and it’s about my other favorite thing in the world, data. So buckle up.

Our friends at Luminate have compiled their 2024 mid-year music report. And if you know me, you know how much I love data. And when data and music collide, it makes me really, really happy. So let’s run down some of the more interesting bullet points and see what’s going on. Firstly, streaming, unsurprisingly, continues to grow in popularity and use. All the core genres experienced growth in the U. S. , and then Latin music really led the way in the U. S. But it’s not just a U. S. thing, right? Global on-demand audio streaming was up over 15%, compared to the same time frame last year in 2023. Physical music, however, continues to matter more and more. Your major artists, like your Taylor Swift’s and your Beyonce’s, are moving millions and millions of physical media units. The top 10 albums saw an average of seven variants per title. Now, when I think variant, there’s two flavors of variants, right? There’s the actual type of media, so your vinyl, your CD. And I’ve heard that people are actually pressing cassettes now, which I was really shocked at. But hey, you do you. The other type of variant is, you know, they include different songs or different stores will carry it as an exclusive, that kind of thing. So seven average variants per title, which is crazy. But hey, stack that cash if you can sell them.

And while mainstream artists continue to make big waves, both in streaming and physical media, indie bands continue to make a ton of noise, too, which is awesome. Those artists made up over 60% of artists who accumulated between one in 10 million on demand audio streams in the US. Indie artists who hit the 500 million mark increased by 2% versus the first half of 2023. Across the board, indie artists have seen growth in their streaming numbers. Live music still rocks, of course. It looked at 50 artists and nearly a thousand shows in 129 US markets. And there is a median event yield of a 42% growth in streaming audio during the week of an event. Think of it as concert pre-gaming for your ears, if you will.

Live music also makes up 65% of monthly music spending and Gen Z outspent everyone for the first time in the second quarter of the year by 23%. Gen X came in second place. Now, when we start to dive a little bit deeper, we’re looking at music by genre now, rock leads the way in deep catalog listening. And their definition of deep catalog is music that is 60 months or older, so five years or older. 70% of streaming comes from that quote unquote older music. The other 30% of rock is made up of equal parts, 18 months to five years, and then 18 months back to new releases. Rock still kind of is kind of flagging as far as overall listening, but hey, it’s still there.

Speaking of rock, the last stat to run down here is the use of short form video and TikTok. Now short form video sees more time spent engaged in it than sports, reading, and listening to podcasts. It’s only beaten by listening to music in general. Short form video consumers, though, are nearly 40% more likely to attend a live performance compared to the general population of the US. Now that last stat leads me to some theories. And I think it’s one of the many reasons why I think rock music is suffering as a genre. I don’t think most rock musicians are great content creators. I follow a few and I see their videos, and when I see them, there’s like little to no engagement on them, and I know rock isn’t generally anywhere near as popular as it was during its peak years, which ended in the early 2000s. But if rock artists can’t figure out a way to engage on social platforms, it’ll continue to fall further and further behind. But unless people are actually wanting to listen to rock music, they’re not going to engage on the platform. So it’s a vicious cycle, if you will.

Now the other problem rock is facing, which, again, is just my opinion here, is that it’s expensive to produce if you’re producing it in the traditional way that makes rock music feel good. If you think about pop music, you can make that on an iPad in your basement in an afternoon. To record and produce a rock band, there are really only two methods. If you’re programming drums, I feel like that’s a cop-out, so I don’t include it. This is my personal opinion, so if you don’t like it, fuck you. Even if you’re a drummer and you’re doing the programming, I’m not a fan of it because everything is quantized and it all hits the metronome. And in those methods, there’s no soul, there’s no feel, and that’s why, in my opinion, a lot of the music that is being released as quote-unquote rock music, it sucks because it just doesn’t feel like anything, but I digress. So if I go back to the two methods, right, the first is the DIY method. Now I’ve personally done this a handful of times. I did it once with my band Lost in America. We recorded an album in my basement, and then I did five releases with my band, The Singular. Two of those releases were full-length albums. Now when we talk about DIY, it involves having all your own recording equipment. So like a small, straight-to-media mixing console, or in the case of The Singular, we had a really powerful MacBook. And then you need all of the audio interfaces, the mics, a house that has space in it to record, all the cables, audio snakes, headphones for monitoring, you get the picture. And then you need someone in the band or associated with the band who knows how to A, set it up, B, set it up the right way, and then, you know, capture the recording, right? You got to do that. And this is just for the initial tracks. Then you get into overdubs and vocals and layering and backing vocals. It kind of goes on and on, and it is truly a labor of love. Now, recording drums is the worst. If you have the mics to do it, you can mic every drum, sometimes twice. You got overhead and room mics. There’s all kinds of things you can do. And only the best engineers can really do it and make it sound amazing.

Now on the Singular’s album, Artifacts, we recorded the drums with just a bass drum mic and an overhead mic. The overhead mic captured all of the, you know, snare drum, rack toms, and cymbals. On our second album, the Jahari Window, we had more drum mics. And you can actually hear the difference between those two recordings if you go listen to them as far as the quality of the drums that were captured. I think both were great for DIY recordings. I thought it turned out amazing, James, who mixed it and mastered it, did an amazing job. But the cost of recording those is really our time commitment versus paying for a recording studio. We pooled all our money from gigs to pay for the recording equipment. And if I think back to the last time I was in the studio, which was before COVID, we spent about $1,000 per song to record a four-song EP. It’s a great quality-sounding album, but it’s not cheap.

So making quality rock recordings has cost, either you’re buying your equipment and doing it yourself or you’re sitting in a studio hoping that you’re getting it right because every minute spent is a dollar spent kind of thing. So the next time you go see a band live and they’re selling merch, and it doesn’t matter the level, right? They’re a local band or regional band, buy their music, buy a t-shirt because it supports that love, and all of their blood, sweat, and tears are going into their art. So you absolutely need to help them out and support them.

Alright, let’s get into the new music. Like I said, at the top of the podcast, this was truly a shit week. I found two songs from the playlists that I generally haunt, and I got one directly submitted to me by an artist. And before I get into the new music, I do want to let all of the artists know who do submit me stuff, and I get quite a few submissions each week. I do listen to all of them. I don’t just like delete it. I give everybody a chance. You are all equal in my eyes until I press play, and then, well, you either suck or you don’t. Anyway, onwards to the new music.

The first song this week is The Warmth by Paris Paloma. Paris Paloma falls into the group of artists that is generally larger than I like to spotlight on the podcast. She has over 3.6 million monthly listeners. But I think most of her listeners are outside the US, so she’s new to me. Vocally, she’s got that airy female vocal thing that is very popular and very prevalent right now. But there’s a quality and style to her voice that I feel more familiar with than most. If you are familiar with Enya, that is kind of where I’m feeling. There are moments during The Warmth that I’m really reminded of Enya’s artistry. Musically, there’s a ton of layers that you can unpack. Rhythmically, it’s tom drums, it’s cymbals, there’s rim clicks, there’s a tambourine, there’s hand claps. And I can really appreciate all the different rhythmic voices that she’s bringing in in the production. There’s even a point where breath enters as a percussion instrument. It’s really interesting. The rest of it is like synths and keys, and there’s some acoustic guitar for good measure, and there’s a lot of voices. It’s really cool, it’s really atmospheric, and I think you’ll enjoy it, especially if you’re an Enya fan. I think you might really enjoy this track. So check out Paris Paloma’s most recent release, The Warmth.

The second song this week is Hey Kekule by Font. It’s not very often I get the chance to say, this band reminds me of the Talking Heads, so today I’m taking my chance. Heiku Kulei from Font reminds me of the stop-making-sense era of Talking Heads. It’s a little avant-garde in its feel, vocally. It even feels a bit like David Byrne, and I had to Google this because I didn’t know the name Kekule, so it’s time for a songs that don’t suck history lesson. Frederick August Kekule was a German chemist who made a groundbreaking discovery in the field of chemistry during the mid-19th century. At that time, the structure of benzene, a fundamental organic compound puzzled scientists. Kekule, inspired by a daydream, had a moment of creative insight that would revolutionize the understanding of benzene’s structure. Legend has it that in 1865, while half-dosing by the fireplace, he envisioned a snake seizing its own tail. This feels very Talking Heads, like high-intellect things to write songs about, and it’s even, I mean, it’s referenced in the lyrics as you’re listening to the song, because I was like, that’s what really caused me to go Google this, because I was like, what are they talking about? So I am a fan of the Talking Heads, so I was kind of curious, like, is this song an anomaly for the band, or is this the sound? And it’s the sound. I can safely say that it is a very updated Talking Heads feel. All the experimentation, there’s creativity, really thought-provoking sounds and structures that are going on. So if you are a fan of the Talking Heads, I think you’ll eat this up. So check out Font, and the song is called Hey, Kekule.

The third song this week is 23 by Pseudopomp. Pseudopomp sent me their music directly. But as most bands proclaim, when they send me their music, they usually say something to the effect of, we don’t think it sucks. Pseudopomp followed that up with, hey, we’re open to being disabused of that notion. So I gave it an initial listen, and I followed up and I said, hey, I like this. This is good. I think vocally, you remind me a bit of an artist named Poe, even musically, and they thought that was a really good comparison, because they had gotten things like No Doubt, which they just didn’t feel. Like, every now and then, female vocal sounds a bit like Gwen Stefani, but musically, no way. This is like Straight Ahead Pop Rock. They’re a male-female duo out of London, and this is their first and only release so far. There are things that I really like about it. Musically there’s some really interesting chord progressions that are happening. It kept me really engaged as a listener. The first listen, if you’re a musician or you’ve listened to a lot of music, mentally you start to try and figure out the pattern that the chords are going to go. And as you’re listening, you’ll try and anticipate it, and it’s going to go in a different direction. You might have that moment of you’re like, whoa, that was not what I expected. And you get some really interesting things musically in the vocal harmonies as well. Like generally, a harmony vocal, you might get like a third or a fourth or a fifth, because those are the ones that sound really good, kind of above or below the lead note. But that’s not always what they’re doing. There’s some really interesting things going on. And they both have excellent voices, which is cool. I am curious though, since this is their first release, I’m curious if they’re going to leave the female vocalist more in the lead and put him in the background, or if they’ll pass it back and forth. It’ll be interesting. Regardless though, I’m looking forward to hearing more from PseudoPomp. So definitely go check out their debut track 23. I think it’s worth a listen.

And that’s it. Three songs from this shit fest. As always, thanks for listening. You can follow us on the socials. You know what they are. I don’t have to list them out. Website, songsthatdontsuck.net. You can find show transcripts. You can send me messages. You can suggest artists and songs to me. I always love that. And like I said, I listen to everyone that gets sent to me. So with that, as always, go out and support these artists. Thanks for listening, and until next week, keep searching for and listening to songs that don’t suck.