Episode 73

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

What’s up, friends? Welcome to Songs That Don’t Suck. My name is Mark, and as always, whether it is your first time listening or you are a long time listener of the podcast, I appreciate the hell out of you. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen. Now, for those of you who are not here, you know, repeatedly, I listen to hundreds and hundreds of new songs each week, and most of them suck. I do try and find a handful that I can share with you to improve your playlists, but before we get into the new music, there’s some things happening in the industry that I think I want to talk about.

So, I think I’ve mentioned on earlier episodes this year about the amount of older music that is consumed via streaming platforms versus newer releases. Luminate, who I get all of my, well, not all of it, but a lot of the data that I talk about comes out of Luminate. They reported that album consumption, like 72% comes from older catalogs versus new releases. Music listeners have never stopped listening to music from 70s, 80s, 90s, early 2000s, and newer generations are discovering that those prior decades of music are just superior honestly to what’s coming out. It just doesn’t stand up, and now it’s starting to show up in the music festivals. So there’s a couple of festivals that I would classify as nostalgia festivals. One of them was called Lovers and Friends that happened in Vegas back in May, and it was classic R&B and hip hop. So Janet Jackson, Snoop Dogg, Alicia Keys, Mary J. Blige, Usher, Lil Wayne, you know, and the lineup went on and on and on, there was, I don’t know how many acts, if it was 50, I’d be probably putting it on the low end. And it was a one day event, so there’s no possible way that you’re going to see all of them. They had multiple stages going, but this event sold out super fast. Same thing happened with Just Like Heaven, that was a California based event, Death Cab for Cutie, Postal Service for the Bigger Names that I saw, there was some newer acts sprinkled in, When We Were Young was a Pop-Punk and Emo Festival, My Chemical Romance, Fallout Boy were the big headliners, and again, there was some of those newer bands on the bill.

But when we can kind of compare that to festivals that try and bring newer acts into the fold, they’re starting to see a wane in popularity. So Coachella in 2022, they sold 125,000 tickets in 40 minutes, which is incredible. Now this year, Golden Voice, who are the creators of Coachella, they put it on, they reported that it took 27 days to sell the same amount of tickets. That’s a little frightening if you are Golden Voice, because you’re not sure if you’re going to actually make your investment back, because those are expensive things to do. And right before the festival happened, only 80% of the tickets had been sold. So it’s a 14 to 17% decrease year over year, depending on the numbers that you believe. Now the industry can’t put their finger on what the direct issue is, but the bigger players who used to headline those festivals are now doing their own stadium tours, because they have more creative control, right, and they’re going to make more money. So the promoters are a little bit stuck. So they pull in bands like no doubt and convince them to do a reunion, because they don’t want to take a risk on a newer band, hoping that they can draw a headline. So it’s much easier to trot out musical corpses, knowing that the nostalgia will still sell. Now the truth is, the newer artists in general, and I’m not going to say absolute, but in general, they don’t have the cachet, right, they don’t have it, the gumption to headline these things. These artists are born in the studio or in the basement or in, you know, garage band, and they haven’t put in the time to really build a live show. They don’t know how to hold a crowd’s attention. And without that, they’re not going to have the staying power and they’re not going to have the draw. But here’s the catch 22. If we want things like music festivals to continue, we need to have some of these acts develop into the juggernauts that we have from the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s. And as much as we want these nostalgia acts to kind of keep going forever, father time is undefeated, and eventually the show starts to wane, the voices start to wane, and all of a sudden there’s backing tracks and, you know, band members are dying and it’s just not the same. And there will be no future nostalgia. So 30 years from now, you know, none of these artists that are coming out now are going to even be remembered, much less have the, the draw and the catalog to put on a show where people are going to be like, Oh God, I totally want to see them. So unless we kind of course correct and see some of these newer bands like actually develop into artists, the festival will become the Dodo burden. It’ll be an extinct artifact from a very bygone era. Now, anyway, it’s an interesting thing that’s happening and it’ll be more interesting to see actually what happens over the next couple of years.

But let’s get into the new music and let’s see if we can find one of these artists. Now I will laugh because as I was going through the playlist of new music this week, there was a three artist run where I was like, what year is it? The Pixies, Deep Purple and Bon Jovi all released music this week. And I was like, what the actual fuck is going on? But anyway, let’s get into the new music.

the 1st song this week is The Beginning from Snow Patrol. I was genuinely excited to see new music from Snow Patrol. Their 2004 album Final Straw was awesome and the follow up in 2006 was fantastic as well and it yielded their giant hit Chasing Cars thanks to Grey’s Anatomy, which by the way, make fun of that show all you want. But whoever picked the music for that show season after season after season had amazing taste and they picked absolute bangers. You want a great playlist? Go out on Spotify and search for the Grey’s Anatomy soundtracks. Some of the artists are just freaking amazing. I remember my band, The Singular, we opened for one of the bands who had music featured on there. They were called the Ames Era, fantastic band, fantastic song that was on that soundtrack. But I digress. The Beginning by Snow Patrol. One of the things that I have always appreciated about Snow Patrol was their lyrical content. They are really good musical storytellers and they don’t dumb down their lyrics. They’re not afraid to use multiple syllables in their words and it’s nice to hear. There’s some really introspective stuff that makes you think and if you’re paying attention. Musically it’s a super catchy pop rock track, right? That’s what they do. It’s got a great hook. I love the little string flourishes that are in the arrangement. You know, it’s kind of hip happening in the background behind the main keys and guitar parts. And the vocals as they’ve always been are outstanding. Great new track from Snow Patrol. If you’re a fan of theirs back in the early 2000s, you will enjoy this track because it is right in line with everything they do really, really well.

The second song this week is Mercy from the Glass Hearts. These guys, fairly new to the music scene. The first single came out in 2023 and they currently just have like 300 monthly listeners on Spotify. So very, very new, very underexposed. This track is off their debut EP called Coupe de Ville. And as I’ve been listening to this track, I’ve kind of struggled to come up with how to describe their sound. There’s very much a retro feel to the way they have constructed things like their backing vocals. But like their lead guitar parts and the rhythm changes that happen in the chorus feel very reminiscent of some Motown songs, stuff like the Temptations and the Supremes really came to mind as I was listening to it. But with that said, it’s rock. I mean, it’s probably leans more towards pop rock, but it’s definitely rock all the same. I checked out a couple of the tracks from the EP. It’s very consistent in its feel so they know how their sound is. They know how they want to be presented as artists. So if what I have described sounds intriguing, go check out The Glass Hearts.

The third song this week is Ladies of the Fight by Slutface. Now I’m not going to lie, this one’s a touch odd, but it was interesting enough to land on the pod this week. Slutface is a Norwegian band. They are in their second iteration originally. It sounded like there was four women made up the band. They kind of came to an amicable ending and the lead singer kind of put together this second iteration of the band and have continued to go forward. But there’s some, this track is aggressive, but it’s poppy at the same time. There’s definitely a strong grunge, maybe post-grunge influence as you’re listening to it. And if you’re listening with headphones, you will notice one of my favorite production elements and that is when the engineer pans left and right, you know, the instruments, so pushes them to the side of the ears rather than stereo. And it sounds like you have amps on either side of your head and they’re isolated, which is really cool. It used to happen a lot back in the day, but it’s rarer in today’s releases. This one you really have to listen to and judge for yourself, honestly. You’re either going to really like it or really hate it, but I’m really curious, honestly, to know what you think of it. So if you listen to it and you have an opinion, please drop me a message on social media or through the website at songsatdontsuck. net.

The fourth song this week is Wish I Was a Robot from Lolo. So I was playing this for Jenna and she described this as depressed girl, autumn music. I was like, fair. And honestly, as I’m thinking about it, this marks the fourth fairly poppy track this week, which honestly is way out of character for what I usually pick. So I must have been in some sort of mood as I was reviewing music this weekend. Definitely a rock edge to this, but there’s very much a strong pop influence based on the vocal style. Lyrically, there’s some really fun moments in here. I always enjoy an interesting idea when it comes to lyrics of a song and the idea of, you know, instead of being a human being a robot, you know, you don’t feel right. So you call a mechanic. They’ll come fix you. You have no feelings. You have no emotions. It saves you a lot of pain and heartache. I listened to the rest of this album. The album is called Falling for Robots and Wishing I Was One. It’s a way out of my normal wheelhouse. If pop is your thing, I think you will really like Lolo. So you’ll probably love this track and you’ll love the entire album.

The fifth song this week is Sanctuary from The Wild Feathers. Now if you are a long time listener to songs that don’t suck, you may recognize The Wild Feathers. I’ve talked about them at least once before. They released an acoustic version of their debut album when it hit its 10 year anniversary and I remember bringing it up and sharing it. Anyway, super, super excited to hear new music from The Wild Feathers. Their last album, Alvarado, came out in 2021 and it had honestly been pretty quiet from them other than that acoustic release. So I was really wondering if there was a new album coming or if they were taking a break. Thankfully the new album is scheduled to release in October, which is fantastic news. Hopefully they will tour. For me, The Wild Feathers are an equivalent kind of modern day Eagles. It’s a group of singer-songwriters who all had kind of solo bands and solo artists things going on and they joined forces. They put their individual egos aside and they became this songwriting powerhouse. Americana-based Rocket is fine, honestly. Very rich harmonies. This song feels great and their sound continues to evolve and mature, which is awesome in all the right ways. So if you dig artists like the Eagles or Tom Petty, The Wild Feathers should be on your radar and in your playlists.

That’s it for this week. As always, spread the word to your fellow music fans, follow the show on social media. We’re on Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, X and threads. Check out the website, songsthatdon’tsuck. net. You can send me feedback. You can find transcripts of the show and be sure and check the show notes on all the podcast platforms. I think the links come through. I provide a link to every song that I talk about and it goes to a aggregator called Songwhip, which gives you a link to all the platforms. So whether you listen on Tidal or Spotify or Apple Music or Amazon Music or whatever, you’ll find the link. So by all means, please go check out all of these artists, support these artists and… Thanks for listening and until next week, keep searching for and listening to songs that don’t suck.