Episode 45 – “Come take a walk with me down billionaire’s row”

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

Welcome to Episode 45 of Songs That Don’t Suck. As always, thanks for checking out this week’s episode.

Alright, first thoughts. The Beatles dropped a new song. And if you remember, I mentioned this a few months back, I guess. Paul got a demo cassette from Yoko Ono back in the 90s, but they really couldn’t do anything with now and then. But apparently they did try. This turns out was the same cassette that they got Blackbird from, which they released many, many years ago at this point. So the cool thing is, the new song does feature guitar and vocals from George Harrison, because they were working on this back when they were doing Blackbird. So that made me feel even better about this track coming out. Rick Beato did a video talking about this and talked about the AI process that was used, which is really cool. He actually demoed it. And this program will actually isolate the audio track. So it pulled off two tracks. It pulled off John’s Vocal, as well as John’s piano playing. So just really cool use of technology. I’ve kind of been battling against AI and in the same regards, there are areas where I think it makes a lot of sense to do some really cool things. But anyway, the long and short is, is this the greatest Beatles song ever written. No, not even close. In many ways, you can kind of see why it never went past the demo phase. Was it a cool use of technology as a way to kind of resurrect an old recording and make it releasable? Absolutely. The techie nerd in me loves what they were able to do. I mean, will it be likely the last Beatles song? Probably. I can’t see much more happening, honestly. And as a Beatles fan, I can appreciate it, but it probably won’t reach my regular rotation of Beatles songs in any way, shape, or form.

All right, I also watched the Rock Hall Induction, which was interesting. Some quick random thoughts, right? Bernie Talpin should have been inducted back in 1994 when Elton John was. It’s honestly a travesty that it took 29 years for him to get in. Cheryl Crowe is just amazing. She’s an amazing human being. And I’ve always been a fan of her since Tuesday Night Music Club came out. And it was really nice to see her get inducted. It was really cool to see Jimmy Page perform live for the first time in almost 10 years. He was playing Link Ray’s Rumble. And you might not know the song by me just saying the title, but if you heard the first three chords, you’d know exactly what song I’m talking about. Billy Nelson still rocks at 90, really glad to see him get inducted. He sounded great. Tom Morello remains one of the most intelligent artists I’ve ever heard speak. And honestly, he went to Harvard, so it’s probably to be expected. I was a little bummed that Rage Against the Machine was kind of mixed on being inducted, but I honestly get it. But Tom represented the band well. Overall, the class of 23 was fairly mid-level for me personally. And I still see so many bands that have not been inducted that it’s honestly just disgusting. And especially considering some of the bands that have gotten in like on their first year of eligibility. So it just, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth at times. But I always look forward to see who is getting inducted in the next year. I will never make the same mistake I made last year by not attending the induction when it was here in Cleveland. So the next time it is in Cleveland, I will be there watching in person. And I had a kind of a closing thought on the whole rock hall thing. It should never have been called the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It should be the Music Hall of Fame, because I think where people get hung up on the whole idea of the rock hall is that artists who are not classified as quote unquote rock artists are getting inducted. But if you actually look at a family tree of music, everything kind of comes from the same musical Adam and Eve, if you will, right? Like all music, at least kind of in the rock category came from gospel and the blues and there’s jazz influences and it’s all tied together no matter how we really think about it. And rock is more of an attitude sometimes than a genre, but it would have probably saved us a lot of consternation had we just called it the Music Hall of Fame and then had very specialized halls for the different tighter genres, if you will.

Okay. This week’s brain bending cover is Waterfalls from Blues Traveler, featuring Trayn and Daisha McBride. I honestly think this landed on my radar after I had Blues Traveler’s new song in a recent episode and leave it to Blues Traveler to do an amazing cover of Waterfalls from TLC. And it was so funny because I laugh anytime I see Trayn listed as an artist because the first time I saw Trayn live was back in 1999. This was just after their first album came out and they were the worst live band I had ever seen. Pat Monaghan has a great voice, but those early days as a live band were so rough. I don’t know how they sound now live and honestly Pat is the only guy that’s left. So it doesn’t really matter anyway. Daisha McBride does this really great rap section and it provided a really nice update to this classic hip-hop song. So yeah, overall I dug this one and I hope you dig it too.

All right, let’s get into the new music. If this is your first time listening, welcome. I appreciate you checking out the show. Tell all your friends. The way this works is each week I listen to anywhere from two to five hundred songs. Most of them suck. Just honestly, they suck. I try and find a handful, usually no more than five on a very rare episode. I’ll go over five. Lately it’s been four for some reason. Maybe it’s just because we’re getting towards the end of 2023, but who knows?

Anyway, before I actually get into the new music though, I do need to mention a couple of new albums that came out from people and artists that I will refer to as songs that don’t suck alumni. The first one that came out is from Dirty Honey and it’s called Can’t Find the Brakes. Dirty Honey is one of those bands that I discovered back in the early days of the pandemic, so probably early 2020, if I remember correctly. And they have kind of remained on my musical radar thanks to just this kind of no-nonsense blues rock goodness that they bring with literally every song they release. The album is more of the same to make a long story very short. I know as a musical society, we’ve kind of moved away from albums in favor of singles and EPs. But I will tell you it is absolutely worth it to listen to this album from start to finish. There’s a couple of nice ballads on here and the last track, Rebel Sun, is an absolute banger. So check out Dirty Honey’s Can’t Find the Brakes.

The second album that came out this week was, well, the way I will describe it is their long-awaited fourth album called Pretty Vicious by The Struts. The Struts could just continue what I see as their musical mission, which is just to keep rock alive. Some of the songs feel like they’ve got some new influences. The title track I mentioned in a prior episode felt a little bit like In Excess, which I’ve never kind of drawn that before. Maybe some of the producer’s influences here, but I love every new track. The whole album is solid and this is another one. Listen from beginning to end. Let’s bring back Album Rock because these two are just doing that. They are bringing back Album Rock.

Okay, the first song this week is Mother Nature from MGMT. I remember MGMT from their hits like in the mid-2000s, Electric Feel and Kids, but it honestly wasn’t something that I really got into. Like I heard the songs and they were okay, but it just wasn’t something that really resonated with me. When I saw this song in the new music playlist, I was honestly expecting a little more of the same kind of those early albums and even their most recent albums still had that kind of synthy, more Indie experimental type stuff going on. I was really, honestly, pleasantly surprised. The synths are gone and there’s honestly a lot more vocal harmonies. Maybe having heard the new Beatles song this week, I feel like there’s some structural things that MGMT are kind of borrowing on this track where you could absolutely draw some parallels. It’s probably closer to Sergeant Pepper versus the new track, but I can definitely kind of feel it. Around the midway point of this song, it gets a little more edgy. By that, it’s kind of more of the, maybe it’s like a psychedelic guitar feel, just kind of the way the guitars are kind of transitioning into that second half of the song. Another nature, really, really catchy tune from MGMT.

The second song this week is Lean Into It from Wayside. The first thing that hit me with Lean Into It was the little hat tip to grunge with the guitar and what I like to describe as a lazy vocal, similar in delivery to kind of what Kurt Cobain would do in certain songs and then kind of that low energy and then when the chorus hits, the energy would kind of kick in. Same things happening here with Lean Into It, except when you kind of get into that more energy, you get more of an emo feel and it’s got a much cleaner vocal delivery, more harmony, which, you know, obviously those are things that I dig. They have a really nice transition after the three-minute mark in the song where they move into this kind of musical bridge slash guitar solo, which they jam on until the song kind of fades out. And that’s honestly one of those things you don’t hear a lot today. So it was kind of a nice musical nugget that Wayside dropped into this song.

The third song this week is You’re the One from The Thing. You’re the One feels a bit of a throwback in a few ways. It’s not overproduced to the point it almost feels like a raw demo, just kind of in the way that it’s mixed. Musically, it’s not blowing anybody’s doors off, but it’s solid. It’s just basic feel-good rock, which I dig. Almost kind of feels similar vein to Ray Davies and the Kinks. And it’s so funny. My only complaint comes from their sad lack of search engine optimization. As I was kind of putting the show together, I tried Googling to try and find more information about them. And the website they list in their Spotify bio goes to this smart building website. And then when you try and Google New York City, The Thing, you get all kinds of things as you would imagine. So great song, better SEO, and I think we’ve got something.

The 4th song this week is Looking Good from Jamie Webster. Do you remember the movie The Commitments? When I heard this song, I felt like it could be music from the sequel to that movie. The sequel would basically be the bands had kids now, and the kids have a band who are doing it kind of their own way. It’s not so dated, bluesy, big band stuff. It’s more updated. And the horns immediately gave me that really bluesy feel and the vocal with that little bit of a UK accent just really kind of sets that tone that immediately threw the commitments into my brain. The song Looking Good is just, it’s unique, honestly, among all the other songs that I found that I can remember. Jamie’s got a great voice. The composition and the orchestration just feels really good. And Looking Good is sounding good to me.

All right, that is it for this episode. As always, spread the word to your fellow music fans, you can follow us on social media, Twitter or X, Facebook, threads. We’re on Blue Sky and Instagram. We’re all over the place. You can check out our website, songsthatdontsuck.net. And as we move into the end of 2023, I think I’ve got five episodes left. And then I’m going to do a wrap up episode and then I’m going to take a few weeks off and I’ll be back in 2024. But I’ve got something special set up for the end of the year, so stay tuned for that. So as always, I appreciate you letting me have your ears for a little bit and thanks for listening. Until next week, keep searching for and listening to songs that don’t suck.