This month, as you know, marks the fifth anniversary of starting this blog, and I am reflecting on some of the music that I had discovered during that time. This week I'd like to feature some of the bands that I've gotten to like, sorely because of the blog. These are in no particular order, but the only criterion is that I had never heard of these artists or bands before I started blogging. Thus, it would disqualify acts like Adele, The Black Keys, and Florence + the Machine, as I had been familiar with at least one of their songs prior to August 2010.
Fitz & the Tantrums
Without taking the time to rank these acts, this is far and away my favorite band of the half-decade gone by. It was December of 2010 when I noticed "Money Grabber" was on Billboard's "Triple-A" airplay chart, so naturally I gave it a try. It has a really retro-soulful vibe to it, perhaps like some R&B bands from the early 1970's ("Westbound No. 9", by the Flaming Ember comes immediately to mind). It jumped to my top spot very easily, holding at the top of my list for four weeks, and kept Adele's equally great "Rolling in the Deep" out of #1 during that time, save for one week.
During the SNS era, they released two albums, with six songs reaching the summit. Twelve songs have made my list from those two efforts, and all of them have reached my top 20. The sixth track that I've featured from their most recent More Than Just a Dream set, "Last Raindrop", advances to #4 this week. Although their retro-ness had been refined a bit on their recent set, there is still a lot of soul to this band. Some friends, such as Karen Barrett Rotunda, Meg Hunsicker and Maria Rittenhouse, have embraced them as well, with the latter two seeing them in concert in Atlantic City back in 2014. They have also found some success, at least in alternative rock circles, as "Out of My League" and "The Walker" bot hit #1 on the alternative chart. Their songs have stuck around forever here as well... Five of the songs from their latest have been on my list for 35 weeks or longer, with "Out of My League" holding the all-time record with 63 weeks. I anxiously await new music from them.
Grace Potter & the Nocturnals
From the moment I heard "Tiny Light", one of the early blog songs, I realized that rock music is far from dead. That song, which reached #16 on my list as well as the Triple-A chart in Billboard, made me flash back to the time with that genre had a freshness and rawness to it. The guitar solo at the end of that song just harkened me back. Although subsequent songs had more of a commercial feel to it (especially the current solo effort, the pop-danceable song "Alive Tonight"), they are still songs of a vintage nature, and although I have not seen her perform live yet, she hosts festivals up in her native Vermont and some friends have indeed seen her play at the Stone Pony a couple years back. Her 2012 album The Lion, The Beast, The Beat, gave me two #1 singles, "Stars" and "Runaway", plus a #2 "Never Go Back". She also made my top 10 (as well as on my annual Top 100 holiday countdown) with "Naughty, Naughty Children", and also made the SNS list in a duet with country star Kenny Chesney.
Foster the People
My friend Brian Sniatkowski regularly posts his "Song of the Week" on his Facebook timeline, which gives me many ideas for songs to purchase and download. One of them was Foster the People's 'Pumped up Kicks" back in 2010, and there was talk about that song being "next year's song of the summer". Well, they were close; it became a #3 pop hit in the fall of 2011, but I jumped on the song much sooner than that and it topped my chart in the early summer of that year, staying on my list for 45 weeks. It was #2 on my year end chart for 2011 as well. It had a quirky catchiness to it, and it was addictive. Three other songs from their debut album Torches reached my top 20 as well, and the band was on its way. Then in early 2014, they released their second effort, Supermodel, and although pop radio wasn't on board this time, "Best Friend" and "Coming of Age" (my #1 song of 2014) combined for eight weeks at #1, with "Are You Want You Want To Be", the third single, reaching #2. They are 7-for-7 in top 20 appearances on SNS.
Alabama Shakes
Blues-oriented rock goes way back to its early beginnings, and you can hear it in bands like Led Zeppelin, the Allman Brothers Band, Janis Joplin, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and many others. Then along comes this band, fronted by the equally soulful Brittany Howard. The band has released two albums in the SNS era: Boys & Girls, and Sound & Color. "Hold On" introduced us to this fresh, yet retro sound, and although that song only reached #50 on my list, it paved the way for other gems from their first album, like "Heartbreaker", "I Ain't The Same", and "Hang Loose". Sound & Color has produced two #1 songs on SNS: "Don't Wanna Fight" and "Gimme All Your Love", with "Future People" just cracking my top 20 this week. Their performance earlier this year on Saturday Night Live is still etched in my mind.
Golden Void
Unlike the others on this list, this band has yet to find success, but back in 2012 when I stumbled on "The Curve", which was a mish-mash of things you loved from the past...a bit Kiss, a bit Black Sabbath, throw in some psychedelica from the 1960's in for good measure, and you have this San Francisco band. Their eponymous 2012 debut yielded another top 10, "Shady Grove", as well as a stand-alone single in 2013, "Rise to the Out of Reach". Incidentally, they are back again with a new album and the top debut (see below).
Foxygen
Similar to the band mentioned above, this is another throw-back band that knows where it's roots come from. The California group has released three albums, all with a single reaching #1 or #2 on my SNS chart. I first got to know them from "Make It Known", from their debut Take the Kids off Broadway, which reached #2 in 2012, which had a Neil Diamond-ish introspective vibe to it, albeit with a rock flair. 2013's sophomore effort, We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic, produced "San Francisco" which topped my list for two weeks. Finally, their recent ...And Star Power had the Todd Rundgren-like "How Can You Really?" which ruled for four weeks at the turn of this year.
Avi Buffalo
About a week or so after I published my first blog, I found out about this band, again featured as Brian Sniatkowski's "Song of the Week". But it wasn't until I saw this cool, awesome video, that I was blown away by it. Comparisons to bands such as The Shins, sure, but as psychedelic as some of the bands I listed above are, this one takes the cake, although in a more pop vein. "What's In It For" had a five week run at #1 in the fall of 2010, and perhaps better things would be expected of them. Their debut, self-titled record did generate buzz, if not chart success. A stand-alone single in mid-2011, the much rawer "How Come" reached my top 5, but it wouldn't be until 2014 when they would release their follow-up At Best, Cuckloid, which generated two more SNS top 20 singles. Sadly, they disbanded a few months back, but there is plenty of room for bands like this in the future. A spin-off band, Pageants also has had some success on my blog, and I am still awaiting that band's debut album.
You might notice that Rachel Allyn, a local artist who has had much success here on my blog, is not on this list; to come is a blog on some of my favorite local and developing artists.
RESPECTING ARTISTRY: Beck claims the top spot this week, as the very catchy "Dreams" jumps to the top spot, dropping Courtney Barnett down to #3. Elle King's "Ex's and Oh's" remains at number two. It should be noted that King and Beck's songs are #3 and #2 on Billboard's alternative chart as well. The number one song there, for the tenth week is "Renegades" by X Ambassadors, which has been slowly climbing my list, at #39 this week. New to the top 20 this week is the second single from Mumford & Sons' Wilder Mind, "The Wolf", and the third song from Alabama Shakes' Sound & Color, "Future People".
GIVE IT A WHIRL: As mentioned above, I was ecstatic to see a promo for the upcoming new single by San Francisco rockers Golden Void, called "Dervishing", from their new sophomore album Berkana. The band has yet to hit any chart here, but perhaps this one will change all that. "The Curve" (#1) and "Shady Grove" (#9) were just awesome forays in to retro-psychedelia and happened at a time which people were recovering from Superstorm Sandy. "Rise to the Out of Reach" (#7), their 2013 stand-alone single was another appealing song, but I was thirsty for more, thus I also added the B-side "Smiling Raven" (#38).
Well, the wait is over with their new single and album forthcoming. "Dervishing" debuts at #58. So how does it sound? Some have remarked that it's a cross between Cream and King Crimson. My take on it? Well, it's certainly rock and roll, something that is sorely needed these days. I'll say it right now, I didn't get the vibe that I got from "The Curve". But now that I got that out of the way, this is a throwback sound that can and should grow on you with each listen. It's still a trippy excursion into the unknown and it cooks throughout. There is even a prog-rockish flair to it as well, listening to the jam towards the end, give me Nektar-like vibes. The song definitely has a sound that could at least make some kind of rock chart, perhaps Triple-A. They are touring in California next month; no word on whether they'll be traveling east as of yet.
The other big debut, at #62 is "Coming Home" by Leon Bridges. I've seen this song creeping into the top 10 on the Triple-A radio station airplay chart. For the heck of it, I played the video. Let's put it this way, bands like St. Paul & the Broken Bones, who I love, step aside! This is vintage retro-soul-blues-R&B, call it whatever you'd like. I love this song on all levels. This is the way this genre is done. I can see this song played at some after-hours blues club, and great slow dance song, for sure. Bridges is twenty-six years old, and hails from Ft. Worth Texas. The song is the title track from his debut effort, released last month. October is the month to catch this artist as he plays The Apollo Theater and Webster Hall in New York City that month.
Finally, there is the new single by Calvin Harris, "How Deep Is Your Love". It's no relation to the Bee Gees' classic, nor The Rapture's big SNS hit from 2012. It's a new single from a forthcoming album, and if it's anything like the last one, it should be a good set. Three singles, 'Summer", "Blame" and "Outside", all reached my top 10. As for this one, this is a departure from the formula of the prior singles. Disciples is a dance-music group from London which provides the vocals, and as such, this is a more club-mix feel to it than the more poppiness of the prior efforts. There's no techo break like those efforts as such, but the song still has appeal and is worthy of many more spins.
SIDE OUT?: Finally, this week, I lost one of my good sources for new music, as "The Alternate Side", a radio show broadcast on station WFUV, calls it quits; they've been on the air since 2008. Although I rarely listened, many friends have, and the "Alternate Side Top 20" has been a good source of new music. Among bands I found out from there included Django Django, Mac DeMarco, Palma Violets, The Antlers, and Grizzly Bear, along with many others. Thus it joins the defunct "rcrdlbl.com" and the death (twice) of commercial New York station WRXP as good sources. TAS will definitely be missed.
Scenes ‘n’ Soundwaves 100
August 16,
2015
| This Week | Last Week | ARTIST-Title | Weeks on List |
| 1 | 3 | NUMBER ONE:
"Dreams"
(Single only)
|
9 |
| 2 | 2 | Elle King - Ex's and Oh's | 14 |
| 3 | 1 | Courtney Barnett - Dead Fox | 8 |
| 4 | 6 | Fitz and the Tantrums - Last Raindrop | 7 |
| 5 | 4 | Ed Sheeran - Thinking Out Loud● | 24 |
| 6 | 7 | Coin - Run | 12 |
| 7 | 10 | Phases - I'm In Love With My Life | 6 |
| 8 | 9 | The Arcs - Outta My Mind | 8 |
| 9 | 5 | Tame Impala - Let It Happen | 19 |
| 10 | 11 | Django Django - Reflections | 8 |
| 11 | 8 | The Decemberists - Calvary Captain● | 19 |
| 12 | 13 | Circa Waves - T-Shirt Weather | 10 |
| 13 | 16 | Borns - Electric Love | 8 |
| 14 | 18 | Maroon 5 - This Summer's Gonna Hurt | 9 |
| 15 | 12 | Allison Iraheta & Halo Circus - Gone | 10 |
| 16 | 17 | Ting Tings - Wrong Club | 14 |
| 17 | 14 | Florence + the Machine - Ship to Wreck | 15 |
| 18 | 24 | TOP 20 IMPACT OF THE WEEK:
"The
Wolf"
Album: Wilder Mind
|
6 |
| 19 | 20 | Fall Out Boy - Uma Thurman | 12 |
| 20 | 27 | Alabama Shakes - Future People | 4 |
Tremors:
| 101 | Halsey - New Americana |
|
|
Songs
with the greatest increase in favorite points over the prior week.
● Songs
with 25 or more plays on my iPod.
▲ Songs with 50 or more plays on my iPod. 