Episode 76

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

What’s up everybody? Welcome to Songs That Don’t Suck. I am your host, Mark, and you know it. Every week I am here, listening to hundreds and hundreds of newly released songs in the naive hope that they won’t suck, but most of them do, to be quite honest. So this is the service I provide. Now if this is your first time listening, thank you so much, appreciate you checking out the podcast. If you’re a long time listener, you know I got nothing but love for you. So before we get into the new music, I’ve got some thoughts. So as always, buckle up.

Now artificial intelligence is not a new topic for this podcast, so consider this merely an update of some news that’s happening that honestly, quite frankly, I’m excited to see. But I’ve got reasons in my head why I don’t think these actions are genuine. So the RIAA have filed lawsuits against AI music generators, Udio and Sun, and they are charging these two AI companies with having indiscriminately pillaged more or less the entire history of recorded music to form their data sets. Now if you don’t know how AI works, you have to have these giant sets of data that you cannot get legally to train your large language models or your LLMs. The amount of data that you need is immense. It’s ridiculous. So just so you kind of understand how these LLMs work, AI does not generate so much as it matches the user’s prompt to patterns from the training and it attempts to complete the pattern. So when you ask for music in this style with this topic, they’re going to go out and search through all of their data and match the pattern and generate, in this case, the song. So what’s really happening in the case of AI music generation is consider it a cover song or a mashup based on decades and decades of recorded music that matches your pattern. Something new is truly ever created from AI. It’s just copies of copies of copies. Now these companies have admitted that the only way to create good music generation models is to ingest large amounts of high quality music, which they haven’t paid for. It’s just a necessary step to create these language models. And they’ve basically admitted to the crime, but it’s in the name of progress. So it’s they’re okay to do it, at least that’s their opinion. And this is honestly where it gets hazy, Udio and Sun are claiming it falls under the fair use doctrine, which feels like it’s going to be really hard to sell in court, honestly. But it’s no doubt going to be really, really interesting because it’s going to impact a lot of people in a lot of different ways. Now it is important to note that the RIAA is spearheading this lawsuit on behalf of some giant music labels, Universal, Warner and Sony. And while you want to think that they are protecting their artists intellectual property, I think there’s more to it than that. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop before I hold RIAA and the major labels up as heroes to, you know, that they’re here to save human generated music. My guess is, and it’s really only a guess, I got no proof of this. My guess is that they want to control the AI models so that they can control what’s coming out of it and they can make money off of it because nobody does nothing for free.

Alright, in other news, Spotify has come out and they are encouraging artists to discourage their fans from inorganic streaming. Now, I know Spotify has taken a beating for their changes in the way that they make royalty payments and the limitations and so on and so forth, but it is my belief that they’re trying to do the right thing here. So many times I’ve heard stories of bands and artists who have gamed the system to make money from streaming, regardless if it was bots or telling their fans to stream music on repeat while they were sleeping, whatever, all of these acts dilute the royalty pool from those who are actually having fans with organic listening habits. I 100% agree with this move. I think that in the long run, it will prove positive for more artists and more artists will see money. And I know Spotify doesn’t get it right all the time, but statements like this make me feel like they’re trying to go in the right direction. Despite what their ass had of a CEO said, and you know, oh, it’s easy to create music. Man, my guess is he probably has a Suno or Udio account and has no musical talent whatsoever, because if you’ve ever created music your own art, you know that shit ain’t easy. Shut up. Alright, hey, before we get into new music this week, how about a quick word from a friend? Hey, big Rick, tell us about your podcast…

what was the last great rock and roll book you read? Or how about a good rock and roll documentary? Well, that’s why I started the Rock Talk Studio podcast, the place to go for previews, reviews and recommendations of rock and roll books and documentaries. Give me 20 minutes and the Rock Talk Studio podcast will get you caught up on the world of rock and roll books and docs from every possible angle and leave you with a no doubt decision on where to spend your time and money. Get an exclusive look into what’s hitting the shelves and the screens and get ready to rock your reading and viewing list. The Rock Talk Studio, the podcast that answers the question, is this rock and roll book or documentary worth your time and money?

Thanks Rick. Hey, if you haven’t checked out Rock Talk Studio, you absolutely should. It’s a fantastic podcast, especially if you love reading about the history of rock through a book and movie documentaries, like it’s it’s fantastic and he does a fantastic job with it. All right. Hey, let’s get into new music, shall we?

The first song this week is National Treasure from Barnes Courtney. You know, it’s funny. I have a habit of having artists like I’ll be really standoffish and it took me forever to get into Barnes Courtney. I’ve been seeing his songs for probably a couple of years and it’s only recently and actually I guess it was last year when I had his song Young in America on the podcast where I really got into him and I really started getting into his catalog and I really, really dig what he’s doing and I’m really looking forward to seeing him live because he’s opening for the struts this summer and I have tickets. This song National Treasure has got a really strong stomp and holler vibe to it, but honestly a lot of his stuff does. It’s got this great raw acoustic sound. It’s got nice heavy drums and his voice has just become very, very distinctive to me and it moves from this introspective sound to a growl in a heartbeat. The more and more I listen and see his release patterns, I feel like there is a new album coming out this year, no announcements that I’ve heard yet. His last full album came out in 2019. He had an EP come out in 2020 and since then it’s just been a smattering of singles. Maybe personally I’m just wired for album releases, but I feel like it’s overdue. The last time I said he was on the podcast, it was with Young in America and if you liked that track, you will absolutely like National Treasure and if these two songs are kind of the forebearers for an album that is to come, I think that album is going to be epic. So keep your eye on Barnes Courtney and check out National Treasure.

The second song this week is Thunder Lights on the Greatest Sky from Black Rainbows. There are moments when I am listening to this song where it feels like it could be Black Sabbath, heavy guitars, Ozzy-esque vocals, crushing rhythm section. These guys describe themselves as heavy psych-stoner space music. Now honestly, that description fits Black Sabbath in a lot of ways too, at least to me. I never really considered Black Sabbath a heavy metal band in the sense of heavy metal, but elements of what they did absolutely went into what would become metal. What Black Sabbath really did was heavy psychedelic rock, at least that’s more accurate to me the way that I listen to it. And Black Rainbows falls into that same category. Even the bridge of this song is very reminiscent of the way that Sabbath would break up a song with a bridge. And as I’m listening to this, it’s truly inspiration, like it’s not a copy and paste of what Sabbath was doing, it’s updated sounds and it really hits your ears in a fresh way. So I encourage you to go check out Thunder Lights on the Greatest Sky from Black Rainbows.

The third song this week is Solid Gold from Nuns of the Tundra. First off, great band name, Nuns of the Tundra. It’s so funny, I see all these band names, some of them you won’t be able to pronounce, they’re replacing numbers and letters and it’s a guessing game. But when you see the quality and creativity of a band like Nuns of the Tundra, mmm, give me some. Now these guys mix stone and rock with alternative and grunge and they end up with this really, really interesting sound. There are moments where it is musically very technical. So for my musicians in the audience, you are going to dig this. It goes from very technical syncopated odd time signature to straight ahead headbanging fist pumping. The intro, the drummer is playing, like I said, this lovely syncopated rhythm under a very melodic set of guitar lines and solid bass part. And this idea keeps resurfacing throughout the song. It’s only interrupted by a really super catchy chorus. And then coming out of the chorus, they move into this really funky odd time signature, which I’m still trying to honestly figure out what it is. And then they go back into 4.4. The casual music listener won’t pick up on it. I mean, they will, because I’ll know it’s not 4.4, but for those who are more musically inclined who are, you know, practitioners, you’re going to really, really dig what they’re doing here. This was honestly probably my favorite find of the week in hearing solid gold from Nuns of the Tundra.

The fourth song this week is what you want to hear from the messenger birds. The messenger birds are one of those duos, guitar and drums. And it just has a great groove. Think early black keys. It’s raw, but it’s not bluesy the way the black keys are. These guys are coming out of Detroit, so you could probably make a white stripes reference, but it doesn’t really sound like the white stripes at all. And to get just to be completely transparent, this song is actually four years old came out on their 2020 album, which was called everything has to fall apart eventually. The good news is their latest album, tragic comedy came out in 2022. So they’re, I think they’re still active and it’s just as solid like in listening to the newer album, it’s good stuff. This just happened to be the first song that I found from them. I was really, really going down rabbit holes for music and this showed up. So you’re welcome. There’s no rules, right? It’s new to me. It’s new to you. It’s a song that doesn’t suck. So there you go. Go listen to the messenger birds. You won’t regret it.

The fifth and sixth song this week are tax on death by middle class rut and bad blood from Zach Lopez and the cartel. Let me explain. Tax on Death is another 2020 release. Sue me. There’s no rules. I told you that. But the bad news is that middle class rut broke up, but the singer songwriter Zach Lopez continues with his new band, Zach Lopez and the cartel. His latest track, bad blood, which came out recently continues middle class rut sound, which honestly revolves around Zach’s voice. Both of these songs are great straight ahead rock songs, raw guitars, great grooves. And Zach has a very, very distinctive vocal style. And even though the band doesn’t exist anymore, it honestly shouldn’t stop you from checking out them. So go check out middle class rut. They’ve got a decent catalog. And thanks to me finding middle class rut, I found Zach Lopez and the cartel. So for me, it’s a win-win.

All right, that is it for this week. As always, spread the word to your fellow music fans, follow the show on social media, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and threads. Follow us on your podcast platform of choice, give us a review, follow us on Spotify, all of those things. I haven’t asked you to do that in a while. Give us a review. All that stuff does help. You can check out the website, songsthatdon’tsuck. net. You can check the show notes of each and every episode of the podcast for links to all of the songs. You can do a service called Songwhip, and you can hit the music on your music listening platform of choice. So do that, go out, support these artists, and thanks for listening. And until next week, keep searching for and listening to songs that don’t suck.