Episode 12 – “Life has knocked me down I’ve been knocked down before”

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

Welcome to Episode 12 of Songs That Don’t Suck. My name is Mark and I am your GenX Moses, parting the Red Sea of crappy music and leading you to the promised land of songs that don’t suck.

I’ve got to start by telling you about an album that is currently number one on the Emerging Artist chart, dated March 18th. It’s number four on the Vinyl Albums charts and the Americana Folk Albums charts and it is number ten on the Top Album Sales chart.

The problem I have with this album, the band doesn’t exist.

The album is called Aurora and it is in essence the soundtrack for Daisy Jones and The Six. The problem that I have with that, the album is phenomenal. The songs are fantastic and Jenna got me watching the show and it’s really, really good. She read the book a couple of years ago and was very excited that it was being turned into a series on Amazon Prime. I said I’d watch the couple of episodes with her and check it out. Turns out it’s really good to the point where I went and checked the book out of the library and I power read that over the course of a week, which is not my style generally, but I did it.

So the album is called Aurora. It was created by Grammy Award winning producer Blake Mills, who is part owner of Sound City, if I remember correctly. He co-wrote and produced the album and the supplemental songs that you hear on Daisy Jones and The Six. He collaborated with Phoebe Bridgers, with Mark Mumford, Jackson Browne, Taylor Goldsmith from Dawes, and they wrote eleven songs for Aurora as well as fourteen non-album originals that you hear throughout the series.

The vocals are performed by the two stars of the show, Riley Keough and Sam Claflin. Riley is the granddaughter of Elvis Presley. Didn’t really do anything musically except sing in the shower prior to this, but good Lord, the genetics of the vocal talent is there. The story itself is very, very loosely kind of shadowing Fleetwood Mac and the relationships within that band, but I don’t know, I find this way more engaging honestly than the whole Fleetwood Mac story. I don’t know, it’s weird, but like I said, the songs and the album are fantastic, so I felt compelled to share a song off of Aurora with you and maybe turn you on to it. If you’re into the music, I would definitely check out the show. It’s on Amazon Prime, the final two episodes are coming out March 24th, so you’ll be able to binge all ten of them. And with that, here is The River from Daisy Jones and The Six.

It’s weird that I’m conflicted about a band that doesn’t exist putting out a phenomenal album. It’s in essence a soundtrack, but it’s so good that I want to see the band live and I feel a little bit cheated that that will probably never happen. So if you feel the same way, please let me know, because I feel a little bit silly, but I don’t know, that’s just how I feel about music. If I hear it and I hear a good album and I hear a good song, I want to see it live. I feel like that’s part of the game.

Anyway, I digress. Let’s get into some other new music, shall we? So if this is your first time listening, this is how I discover new music and ultimately bring it to you as part of this podcast. Each week, Spotify puts out hundreds of new songs into playlists. These playlists include things like New Music Friday, New Noise, New Rock, New Alt. There’s probably a dozen different fresh finds, playlists that come out, as well as a personal release radar based on things that I’ve listened to in the past. Now I listen to a minimum of about 30 seconds per song, and I probably listen to anywhere between four and 500 songs a week. It’s a bit of a painful process at times, and I have to do it in chunks, because if I hit a very long stream of really bad music, I just have to pause and go do something else. But the ones that are listenable, I put them on a review playlist, I review that playlist over the weekend, and then I bring to you generally five songs that I think are decent, that are listenable. But the ones that I found over the last 11 episodes are in a big playlist that I listen to very regularly.

The first song that I found this week comes from a band called The Wands, and it’s called Magical Touch. That was The Wans with Magical Touch. The Wans are from Nashville. They recorded their first album back in 2014, and this is the first album they’ve released since then. So Magical Touch is the title track of their soon to be released album. They’re also planning a tour, which will be called Magical Touch Tour. When I first heard this song, the first thing that I referenced was Black Keys. It’s kind of got that kind of blues rock, raw feel to it. Now it’s not as raw as kind of the early Black Keys albums, granted those were recorded in the basement of a house in Akron, but there’s definitely some of that quality there. And it’s just a little bit more refined, it’s a little bit more produced. And I just found it to be a very listenable track. I think it was honestly the first track that I listened to this week, which I was like, oh, it’s going to be a good week. It wasn’t. I mean, it was good. I found five or six songs, but no, it was just a nice way to start the review process this week.

All right, the second find this week comes from the Revivalists, and this is called the Long Con. That was the Revivalists with the Long Con. The Revivalists are from New Orleans, Louisiana, and it’s probably a band you’re aware of. They released their first album back in 2010. Their big hit was I Wish I Knew You off their 2015 record, which was Men Against Mountains. I think it’s double platinum. This song isn’t the first single off their coming album. It’s the second one. The first single was called Kid. Great song. But this one, like this one pumped me up. Like this is the song that you need to set as your alarm in the morning on Mondays. And it will get you off on the right foot. It’s got kind of that anthem feel. It’s got a really crunchy guitar part, which is not something I’ve heard them do before. But it’s just got a good sing along chorus and I don’t know. It’s just kind of one of those pump you up songs and I dig it. So I hope you did too.

I got to tell a story before I get to the third track. I was insulted this week by artificial intelligence and I’m probably insulted probably isn’t the right word. Offended. Let’s say that I was offended by artificial intelligence this week. I was driving and I was listening to Spotify and I was using their new AI DJ, which is a beta kind of test that they’re doing. And the AI basically will pick five songs from a genre or an idea and play those. And then the AI comes back on and changes it up. The AI voice came on and said, we’re going to go back a couple of decades and play some rock. It’s going to be so cool like Led Zeppelin, that kind of stuff. I can totally, I’m in the mood for that. That’s good. Good job. AI DJ. And then in the moment that, or kind of in the split second that I had that thought, the AI voice continued and said, here’s rock from the 90s. This is Pearl Jam. And I said, oh, and I had that moment of, oh God, it is 2023. And that was 20 years ago when Pearl Jam was coming out and they were huge. And it actually wasn’t even then. Like he was wrong. I mean, probably meant to go three decades back to 30 years. But even then, I just feel more and more old. So I had one of those moments where I realized how much time has passed musically and it made me sad. I was mad. I was mad at artificial intelligence for making me feel that way. But that set of music was good from the AI DJ too. It was just a shame that I felt that way.

All right, let’s look at something completely brand new. This next song, the third find this week comes from the Lags and it’s called Get a Grip. That was Get a Grip from the Lags. The Lags are from Liverpool and they’ve just recently kind of come onto the scene. Their first single they released back in 2022. This one just came out obviously in 2023. Their Spotify profile is blank. So as I’m trying to find things out about this band, I’ve had to do a bit of Googling to figure out some things about them. They’re doing support roles for different shows, for different bands. They’re supporting Cheap Thrills at O2 Academy over in the UK. And I don’t know, when this came on, I was like, this has got a really cool feel to it. I don’t know what I could really compare it to. It’s just got a really kind of cool bop to it and it’s fun and like I’m picturing them and I saw some photos of them playing live and I’m like, this looks like a band that I could kind of get into. They’ve got like 200 followers on Facebook from what I found. So very early days for this band, for them to actually make a Spotify playlist with that few kind of followers, kind of impressive. So either they’ve got some backing or something happening behind the scenes or they just got recognized for some talent that they’ve got. Nothing like getting a break early. But I don’t know, I really liked it so can’t really say much about it.

All right, time for the tiniest little bit of housekeeping as always in every episode. This is your reminder to please like, follow, share, review the podcast. All of those things help me expose new listeners to the podcast. There are podcast charts and I actually show up on them, which is kind of cool. So I appreciate that kind of support. On Mondays, there’s a full version of the podcast that comes out. It’s got the music embedded inside it. Wednesdays, I put out the Cliff Note version, which does not have music embedded in it. That allows it to show up on all the different podcast platforms because of licensing of music. Website, songsthatdontsuck.net. Be sure and check out the website. You can send me artist recommendations. You can just send me messages. You can send me songs that fit our monthly theme. The monthly theme this week is songs that mention color or have color in the title. From those submissions, I produce a top five. I’ve been saying send me your top five. It’s really, we’re creating the top five together. So send me songs. I give you up to five to send me. I put them in a big list. I do some data things. I pick out whatever the top five are based on those data things. And then I talk about it in the first episode of the month. So please go do that. Website again, songsthatdontsuck.net. Lastly, social media. It’s around us. It’s everywhere. I’m on there. You can follow me on Twitter, on Facebook, and on Instagram. I highly recommend Twitter. It’s where I’m most active.

With that, let’s talk about the fourth find this week, Tyler Bryant and The Shakedown. This is Sho Been Worse. That was Tyler Bryant and The Shakedown with Sho Been Worse. Based out of Nashville, Tyler actually is from Texas and he is one of those monster Texas guitar players. When I was in Austin a few months back, almost a year ago now, I joked that you could fall into any bar along that strip, that main drag in Austin and find amazing guitar players. That night, I’m pretty sure I saw three or four. And I don’t know what it is in Austin, but good Lord the talent. And Tyler Bryant, obviously that he’s been playing guitar since he was like six. He moved to Nashville his senior year of high school and never really looked back, put together a kick-ass band, and they’ve been just crushing it ever since. They toured with a ton of folks. Most notably, they supported Guns N’ Roses in 2017 on their comeback tour. Not much to say about this song, other than the fact that it is a roll the windows down, turn it up loud, and drive as fast as you can kind of song. It’s at least the feeling that I got as I was listening to it. Just really enjoyed, you know, obviously the structure of it. It’s just great blues rock, tasty, tasty guitar work. And what else could you really ask for? Good stuff all around. So definitely going to have to check out more from them. They’ve got quite a catalog. And you know, if blues rock, kind of heavy guitar rock is your thing. That might be one of your new favorites.

All right, fifth find this week, the featured track comes from Joy Oladokun and Noah Kahan. And this is We’re All Gonna Die. That was We’re All Gonna Die from Joy Oladokun and Noah Kahan. Now I found a song from Joy a couple of episodes ago called Changes. And while I didn’t put it in the podcast that week, I did share it out on social media as a song that I missed. It was a good week, if I remember correctly, but No Slight to Changes, which was the song because that song was fantastic. But I got to say, I like this one better. It is the happiest depressing lyric that I’ve heard in quite a while. And you add in Noah Kahn and I think you’ve got a hit. If this hits the right kind of playlist or right radio, this could be huge. The cool thing is that they are touring together right now. So you’ll get a set of Noah Kahn, you’ll get a set of Joy Oladokun, and they’ll probably play this song together, which will be fantastic. Really like the song. It’s, you know, sometimes the best songs are really about truth. And the fact that we’re all gonna die while we’re figuring it out is such the allegory for what life is. Nobody knows what they’re doing, but we’re gonna figure it out and we’re gonna die trying. So it’s a great way to kind of end the episode. That’s all I can say about that. So with that, I will thank you for listening. I appreciate it as always and until next time.

Thanks for listening. And until next week, keep searching for and listening to songs that don’t suck.