Heavy Rotation: March 2015

Here’s what we’re listening to this month. Get the full Spotify playlist here.

 

Somebody’s Talking by THE PREATURES — This Aussie five-piece excels at cranking out versatile (but accessible) rock melodies. ‘Somebody’s Talking’ has a hook that’ll follow you around for days, and fans of vintage-era Prince will swoon for the lusty swagger of Is This How You Feel?

Missing You Tonight by STRIKING MATCHES — Falling somewhere between Whiskeytown and Fleetwood Mac, this country-flavored bleeder has just enough twang to touch a nerve. The band’s full-length debut — produced by T-Bone Burnett, no less — is on its way.

Orange Moon by ROYAL BANGS — The Black Keys comparisons are easy to come by — Keys’ drummer Patrick Carney discovered and signed the band before producing their last album, and lead singer Ryan Schaefer’s voice bears a striking resemblance to Dan Auerbach’s — but in many ways, Royal Bangs’ is the more expansive sound. Their melodic brand of noise rock has steadily evolved since the raw menace of 2008’s We Breed Champions. A band to watch.

Napster: The Beginning of the Future of Music

Remember Napster?

It seems so long ago that the music file-sharing service flashed like a supernova, here one minute and gone the next. Its founder, a self-taught, teenaged tech enthusiast named Shawn Fanning, was portrayed for all the world first as a hero, then as pariah, whipping boy, and martyr, before being mostly forgotten altogether when his company was run aground in a legal battle with seemingly the entire music industry.

But the excellent 2013 documentary Downloaded (now streaming on Netflix) is quick to remind us that Napster’s heyday — roughly 1999-2001 — isn’t ancient history at all. In many ways, Napster’s legacy is crucial to understanding more than just how we consume music today. This fledgling, ultimately failed company, also played a role in the social media boom, the first dot-com bubble, and the rise of some of the biggest players in the startup world. Facebook, iTunes, Twitter, MySpace, Google — all were pre-dated by Napster, and many of them share traces of its DNA, too.

In fact, the digital world we now inhabit has descended so quickly and with such ubiquity that it’s hard to remember that just 15 years ago, most of us acquired new music by buying CDs. Watching Downloaded gives a sense of nostalgia, but it’s also a jarring experience — jarring to recognize that not so long ago, we were on the other side of that vast digital divide, unaware of how different the world was about to become, and naive to assume that established multi-billion dollar media conglomerates might have the power to control it.

 

Throwback Thursday: Close to Me

For reasons unknown, the residue left by ’80s glam-rock outfit The Cure tends to center around their goth image more than their music. The most high-profile Cure reference in pop culture’s past decade was Sean Penn’s portrayal of an aging musician — his look based directly on Cure frontman Robert Smith — in the little-seen indie flick This Must Be The Place.

Which is a shame, because The Cure was a damn good band. You’ve forgotten just how good, probably. How prolific. And how, for all their moppishness and mascara, the boys were actually, against all odds, pop songsmiths of the highest order.

Case in point: the bouncy, spaced-out Close to Me, from the breakthrough 1985 album Head on the Door:

See also: Pictures of You, Love Song, and okay, sure, even the late-era sneak attack Friday I’m in Love.

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Listen to This: Caitlin Rose

It’s hard to say whether ‘The Stand In’, Caitlin Rose’s 2013 full-length, is a country record, a pop record, or something else entirely. It seems to have culled its DNA from a variety of genres, and much of its appeal is in the subtle way it surprises you with versatility.

However you classify it, this is an exceptional record.

To be clear, ‘The Stand In’ sounds nothing like the pop-country records of the moment, personified by acts like Lady Antebellum and Carrie Underwood. Instead, it veers more toward torchy standards, toward R&B, toward genuine singer-songwriter rock music. And just when you think you’ve got her pegged, Rose peels off course into new terrain. There’s a soulful wisdom to her voice. Listen with your eyes closed and you’d never guess that she’s still a few years shy of 30.

Whatever the ingredients, what results is an album full of confident, sophisticated melodies and clever lyrics throughout. It is well-produced. Each song sounds a little different than the last, with each managing to be catchy without pandering. I don’t know if it was my absolute favorite record of 2013, but it may be the one I listened to the most. That’s pretty high praise, no?

‘The Stand In’ manages to sound familiar while still defying easy categorization . . . and that’s one of the things I like best about it.

Highly recommended.

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Other links:

Official Caitlin Rose Website

Listen to This: The Maine

Arizona rockers The Maine dropped their fourth record this week. It’s called Forever Halloween, and it’s worth checking out — especially this video for the single ‘Love and Drugs.’

Visually, the video is a marvel of simplicity. In a time of overstimulation, it’s common practice to dazzle viewers with big effects or hyperactive smash cuts. But this one succeeds by doing just the opposite. The voyeuristic nature of watching a girl put on headphones and collapse into bed is weirdly compelling all by itself. Add in the stark, eye-catching set design that doubles as a billboard on which to project the clever lyrics, and almost immediately it’s hard to look away.

Listen to This: Divine Fits

George Carlin once said — and I’m paraphrasing here — that he was a visionary, a man ahead of his time… but only about an hour-and-a-half hour ahead.

It’s a good joke, and one that’s wrapped around a kernel of truth.

Indie rocker Britt Daniel, best known as the front man for Spoon, has always seemed to carry a similar torch. Invariably I rush to purchase every new Spoon album, the anticipation of receiving fresh music from a favorite band building to a crescendo, only to feel underwhelmed. Sure, it sounds okay, but nothing really moves me.

I listen all the way through a few times, then put it aside. Oh well. They can’t all be winners.

But I’ll always drift back to it a few months later, and lo and behold: it’s a masterpiece! It’s always a masterpiece, or nearly so. Something has shifted in the time since its release, and I can never know for sure if what shifted was me, the entire musical landscape, or both. Perhaps their music just requires patience: time for the seeds to take root and develop into something digestible.

Listen to This: The Morning Benders

Berkeley lads The Morning Benders announced a name change this week — they’re now called Pop Etc. — but nevermind all that. Seek out their first three records. Thank us later.

The masterpiece is 2010’s Big Echo, which opens with the anthemic gem ‘Excuses’ and proceeds to shape-shift its way through 10 more exquisite, well-crafted melodies. Ranging from the hooky mid-tempo indie vibe of ‘Promises’ to the punchy ‘Cold War’ to the stuttering rock of ‘All Day Day Light’, it’s a brilliant rock composition that defies easy categorization. Just when you think you have them figured out, they take a hard left turn just to show that you don’t.

Official Website

Official Facebook Page

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Listen to This: Gigolo Aunts

For most of America — or at least those parts with a variable climate and, you know, four seasons — the middle of August represents the homestretch of summer. Temperatures flicker. Schools reconvene. Patio barbecue opportunities begin to wane.

And so too do the playlists begin to turn over. The DNA of a midsummer anthem might include balls-out rock and roll, or sun-baked pleasure pop, or guilty-pleasure party track.

But when the mercury dips back into the 80s and fall can be seen at a distance, the mood mellows — not yet to the laconic singer-songwriter days of autumn or the dreary synthetic chamber pop of winter, but one step removed from carefree summer singalongs. Mid-August calls for something a little more relaxed. Something light without being sleepy. Something that works on the beach, in the car, or with the tang of a cold Mexican beer.