Episode 80

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 in the hopes and prayers that I will find a few gems that I can share with you right here each week. Now if this is your first time listening, or you’re a long time listener, regardless, thank you so much for checking out the episode. Before we get into this week’s new music, I have a very exciting update.

This week I spent close to 20 hours in the car. The first part was a work trip, and then I was on vacation, and I drove from Cleveland to North Carolina and back, solo. Now when I’m alone in the car on these long road trips, I alternate between playlists of music and podcasts about music. On the way home, I binged a series of older episodes from Alan Cross’s The Ongoing History of New Music podcast. If you don’t listen to his podcast, you should. Alan is fantastic. He has a wealth of knowledge around music and all aspects of music. He knows more about music than I could ever hope to, and his podcast, as you listen to it, it includes snippets of songs that he uses as examples of what he’s talking about. Now I assumed that he being involved with the music industry for so long, he had some sort of magical clearance and licensing that allowed him basically to put music in his podcast. Now he doesn’t put the whole song, it’s just a snippet. And I was just kind of like, man, I wish I was Alan. And at the end of each podcast, he mentions an email address, and you can send him questions. So he honestly seems like a very genuine, nice guy. After all, he’s Canadian. So I decided to email him and ask my question so I could know one way or the other how his podcast works, how he does what he does. I got home on a Friday evening this week from the trip, and I was like, you know what, I’m just going to email Alan and let’s see what happens. I did not expect to get an answer from him until next week, right? You know, he’s not me, he’s busy. So I woke up Saturday and I had a response from Alan, and here is what Alan told me after I asked my question about how he deals with copyright and including music in his podcast.

He says, “good question. And no, there isn’t any licensing mechanism in place anywhere in the world. We are operating on the assumption of fair dealing in that we are not using the full songs and only using them for illustrative purposes.”

That’s all I want to do. And he has easily several hundred, if not well over a thousand episodes of his podcast. So guess what? I’ve decided I’m going to risk it. And as of this episode, episode 80 of songs that don’t suck, I will be including small snippets of each song, 20 to 30 seconds. And if I get slapped, I’ll stop and I’ll go back to the way things were. So all I’m trying to do is expose these artists to new audience, to raise awareness and spread the joy of their music. All the links will still be in the show notes so that you can find the full songs with ease. But now you’re going to get a little sneak peek regardless of platform you’re on. And we’re going to see where the chips fall. Hopefully everything is cool and the podcast continues to go on and be cool. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m excited. I’m really excited about what this means.

And it got me thinking because one of the episodes that I listened to from Alan on my trip home, he was talking about how humans and technology kind of clash in the name of progress as new technology comes around, humans don’t like change. And there’s this battle that ensues and usually tech wins. One of the portions he was talking about was when radio came to be and how they wanted to play music on the radio. The recording industry railed against it and said that it would decimate their sales and it would just, you know, destroy the industry. But what happened is they actually noticed that sales went up the more they got radio play. There was still a lot to figure out as far as, you know, how things were licensed and how artists got paid and all that good stuff, but tech won. And it’s in that spirit that we usher in a new era of songs that don’t suck. So with that in mind, let’s get into the four tracks that I found for you this week.

The first song is called Call Me by Icarus Phoenix. A couple of episodes ago, I had a track that reminded me of the band Fountains of Wayne and Call Me by Icarus Phoenix honestly is deeper in that vein of influence than the previous track that I mentioned. This one really reminded me of their last album, which was Welcome Interstate Managers, the one that had Stacey’s mom on it as the hit. So it’s very poppy, but it’s still very much Fountains of Wayne. So if you’re a Fountains of Wayne fan, Icarus Phoenix is probably a band that you should check out. This single came out in April. I’m not sure how I found it this month or this week, but turns out they’ve actually released seven singles this year so far. And I went back and was listening to them and they are all fantastic indie alternative pop rock goodness. So you absolutely need to give Call Me by Icarus Phoenix a try. So here’s a little bit of it.

The second song this week is Sick Sweet by Wishy. You know, in my quest for new music, it shouldn’t be so hard to find great pop rock. But it is, week after week, I really struggle to find bands like this. And it makes me really happy when I do find a band like Wishy. Their latest single, Sick Sweet, is fantastic. As I was listening back for the review for this episode, there is a certain familiarity that I have with this song. I hear it, but I cannot put my finger on quite who it reminds me of. And I want you to do yourself a favor. A lot of times we just listen on the speaker on our phones. You really need to throw some headphones on for this one because there’s some really cool elements playing in the mix. There’s some really nice keyboard work that kind of fades in and out and it fills the sound really nicely, adds a really nice musical texture. And overall, the production comes through with this really high quality wall of sound. It just, it’s not overdone, but it is done right up to the point where you couldn’t take any more audio input. And for that, I really, really appreciate it. Check out a little bit of Sick Sweet.

The third song this week is Matches by Jonah Kagan. When I found this track, the first thing that I noticed about it was that the vocal, I don’t know, I couldn’t tell if it had been recorded too hot as far as like how much the mic picked up to it, where it actually kind of clips a little bit and distorts a little bit, or if it was just a studio effect. Honestly, I’m assuming it’s the latter. Fans of classic Stomp Holler should probably check this one out for sure. His voice, really deep, really rich on this track. The overall feel of this song is very dark and moody. I went into his catalog a little bit and it’s all really good. He’s had a few songs that have been probably considered streaming hits. There was one that was over six million streams. I saw one, I think there was over 30 million, maybe one that was over 50 million. So he’s not an unknown entity by any stretch of the imagination. Which makes sense. He’s a very solid songwriter and he doesn’t overproduce his more recent recordings. Now some of his earlier stuff, it felt just my personal opinion, right? Just a little bit overproduced. Overall though, his newer stuff very much speaks for itself. It’s not overdone at all. If you need some sort of musical comparison, best I could probably come up with is kind of a dark side Sith Lord, Noah Khan, at least this track, right? Noah’s a little bit happier. I feel like Jonah has got a little bit more of a dark cloud. But hey, that’s just my impression. Check it out and let me know.

The fourth song this week is Don’t Wait by the Wild Feathers. This is the second single from their upcoming album, which I personally can’t wait for. This track feels a bit of a departure from some of their other stuff. Definitely a slightly harder edge. I won’t call it heavy because it’s not heavy, but it’s definitely more rocky. There’s a very beatlesque bass line. Like it reminded me of Day Tripper and it’s probably more the guitar line that I’m hearing in Day Tripper than the bass line, but you get the idea. There’s of course signature Wild Feathers elements here. Some really nice slide guitar work. Obviously, they’ve got their very consistent, rich harmonies being all kind of singer-songwriters that have come together to build this supergroup that has been going over 10 years now. And as I’m listening to this single and kind of listening to the first one, I don’t know what direction this album is going to go in, but either way, I’m excited to hear what it is and it’s just one more reason to look forward to fall. If I think back through their catalog to their first album, through the most recent one, there’s definitely been a musical evolution. So I’m really, really excited to know where the Wild Feathers are headed now. So here’s a little taste of Don’t Wait.

And that’s it for this week. I’m really excited to know how you feel about the little bits of music. I know how I feel about it. I’m extremely excited. I’m really hoping I don’t get sued because I don’t really have money for that. If you are an artist and I’ve put your music in here and you’re not happy about it, let me know. I will re-edit the episode. I will take your music out, but I hope you see the good in it. I hope you know that my heart is in the right places. I share this music with my small but faithful following. Speaking of following, you can do that on social media. Website is songsthatdon’tsuck. net. We’re on all the social platforms. All of the links to all the songs on all the platforms are available in the show notes. So thank you as always for listening. Go out and support these artists.

One note of correction from the Accuracy Department, I said that Welcome Interstate Managers was Fountains of Wayne’s last album, but I forgot about three of their albums, Out of State Plates, Traffic and Weather, and Sky Full of Holes.

Thanks for listening and until next week, keep searching for and listening to songs that don’tsuck.