EXCITEMENT IN THE AIR: It seems like we've been getting new releases from Scenes n' Soundwaves' favorite artists and groups over the past month or so. Since last month, we've had new music from Cage The Elephant, the long-awaited Black Keys single, Florence + The Machine (of which, "Moderation", contrary to last week's blog, is actually a new single, not from their recent album), a self-titled new release from Nick Waterhouse (of which, the first single, to be added next week, "I Feel An Urge Coming On", is pure dynamite). Upcoming is the new Tame Impala, Beck and Two Door Cinema Club.
But this week, two of my favorite bands in the blog era, Fitz & the Tantrums and Wild Belle have new records out.
It's no secret to the readers of this blog on how much I enjoy Fitz & the Tantrums' music. Unlike some of my favorite artists had been around prior to starting my blog, this band emerged a few months after I begun my column, and was blown away by their single "MoneyGrabber", which spent five weeks at #1 in early 2011. It was the first of eleven chart toppers on my blog playlist, aka the SNS 100. Their first full-length album that it came from, Pickin' up the Pieces, while not setting the pop world on fire, garnered some alternative airplay (#2 on the Triple-A Billboard chart) and yielded another SNS #1, the title track, plus four more entries onto my top 20. What I loved about the band, aside from its attempt to bring back some classic neo-soul in its music, was the makeup of the band, in particular lead singer Michael Fitzpatrick, and backup singer Noelle Scaggs, playing off each other. It was a band, that I had envisioned, becoming popular and bringing this neo-soul back into the pop mainstream, perhaps in response to the sparse, auto-tuned pop scene which has dominated the 2010's.
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| Fitz and the Tantrums' new single, "123456" keeps the band in a pop direction. |
The follow-up, 2013's More Than Just a Dream, more or less, continued that type of vibe. Three singles were released, two of which, hit #1 on Billboard's alternative chart. One of them, "The Walker" was their first foray onto the Billboard Hot 100, landing at #67. As for my blog, five songs hit my top spot, including the first single, "Out of My League", which debuted in February 2013 and hit the pole position in just three weeks, the second of only three songs to do so in the history of my blog. The only cut of the six I featured that didn't hit the top was "6 AM", which peaked at #3 but stayed on my list for a record 71 weeks. But the best thing about this album was that several of my friends became fans as well, some of them seeing them in concert in Atlantic City's Borgata back in 2014. While perhaps sacrificing some of the sound of their first set, More Than Just A Dream was very much a worthy follow-up and kept to the band's roots.
Some of that album's songs were still on my SNS 100 when the lead single from their third, self-titled album came out in March, 2016. However, the sound was vastly different. "HandClap", that first single was more of a gimmicky pop sounding song, and perhaps, not surprisingly their biggest single on the Hot 100 to date, peaking at #53 there, but not doing as well on the alternative chart (#5). Much of the album was the same way...it was more of a sparser, techno sound. "Complicated" was in the similar poppy vein. "Roll Up" and "Get Right Back" were, at least nods to their more soulful past. Critics who were in their corner after the first two sets, turned against them this time around. Nonetheless, despite the disappointment in the album overall, those four tracks mentioned, still hit #1 on the SNS 100 playlist.
However, during the summer of 2017, the band released a standalone single "Fool" (subsequently added to their third album) which seemed to be a total "dumbing down" of their sound. The song missed all the major charts except for Adult Top 40, and stopped at #3 on my list. It really seemed like the band was whoring all their talents for the sake of a bonafide top 40 pop hit. Critic Joe Hemmerling, in 2016, wrote that the band's most recent work was a "product of contemporary market forces and a depressing relic of an era of the music industry best forgotten".
During the holiday season of 2017, the band toured and promoted their 2010 Christmas single, "Santa Stole My Lady", a fond, bittersweet throwback to their soul days. It peaked here at #11 and when it finally dropped off my list in April 2018, it ended an unprecedented five year-plus run on my playlisting which the band had at least one song on it.
So, it was with cautious optimism when I found out about their new single, "123456", and wondering what direction the band will head. Well, I was a bit disappointed to find out, that they are staying in the mainstream pop vein. Once again, it's a rather rhythmic and gimmicky pop single, auto-tuned and all. Having said that, it's a much better effort that at least "Fool", and perhaps more than "HandClap". The video is a rather cool one, with Fitzpatrick, Scaggs and others dancing in the city streets.
A review of the single, by Noah Estes, in the Examiner-enterprise (www.examiner-enterprise.com) , pretty much agrees:
"The song is a fun song that is more of a dance song than anything. The instrumentation is more "indie" than that on their self-titled release, but their overall mainstream appeal remains. Ultimately, the song is good, but does not want to appeal to the group's longtime fans, and can even be isolating to the fans that came in during the 'More Than Just a Dream' phase."
This is definitely pop, although more intelligent pop. It debuts at a lofty #41 on my list this week. I found myself grooving to it, and although I long for their soulful days, I am still mesmerized by Fitzpatrick's voice, if perhaps only as a reminder of their (in my opinion) better days. Will it be their 12th number one on my list? Yes, it does have a shot, although it's not guaranteed, especially with the plethora of new releases by favorite artists and bands this spring.
I realize that artists sometimes have to change genres to attempt to conform with the pop styles of the day. As I mentioned last week, 60's pop legend Tommy James did it on his new single which debuted last week. This decade alone, favorite artists like Adele, The Raveonettes, Leon Bridges, just to name three, have modified their original retro sound to attempt pop success. Perhaps, they were tired of trying to change the course of pop and employed a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" attitude, although I do admit they, Bridges especially, still puts out quality product.
Of course, that is really nothing new. I am reminded of some of the "jazz" and "prog" rock bands of the early 1970's, such as early Chicago, Genesis and Journey, all which turned into mainstream pop/rock bands in the 1980's.
I guess it's whatever puts food on the table.
STILL WILD: Fitz & the Tantrums had my #1 song of 2013 with "Out of My League". The number 2 song of that year was "Keep You", by the reggae-oriented brother-and-sister duo Wild Belle, who have the second highest debut this week with "Mockingbird" coming in at #43. "Keep You" was perhaps my "best-kept secret" on my blog, as it took 26 weeks to hit my top spot and stayed there for six weeks, and on the SNS 100 for 54 weeks. Their 2013 debut album Aisles, also yielded another number one fave, "Backslider" and the #8 "It's Too Late". But neither the album nor any of the songs made any noise.
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| Wild Belle's third album keeps their reggae-inspired sound intact. |
Their second effort, 2016's Dreamland, did yield the duo's first alternative hit, "Giving Up On You", but for me it was another attempt to dilute their unique sound of their first set. The song reached #18 here, and around the same position on Billboard's Alternative list. "Throw Down Your Guns" was a little better, going to #10 here, but the third single, "Our Love Will Survive", a ballad, while not charting anywhere, was another favorite of mine, going to #4.
Wild Belle's third album, Everybody One of a Kind, came out March 22, and already there have been three singles from it. (Side note: Personally, I'm not sure why bands release singles every couple of weeks, especially in advance of an album, which seems to be a recent practice. Perhaps it's trying to "get it right" for radio airplay, but if the bands can't make up their mind what song to release, how will radio try and do the same thing?).
I'm not too happy with "Have You Both" (the 'second' single release), so I am going with "Mockingbird", their first (a third single, "Rocksteady" is also out). The video does remind me a lot of "Keep You" and is in much of the reggae-oriented vein of that breakout song. It also reminds me a bit of The Big Takeover as well. It seems to be a good-timey song, one to hear while you're at some sort of outdoor event, right down to the saxophone portions, and while it doesn't sound exactly like "Keep You", it does have the same infectious sound that can grow on you.
The band will be on tour this summer to support the album, and will open for Beck and Cage the Elephant. I am quite sure the Bergman siblings will find success with the album, I just hope it's with the right songs.
TO THE SNS 100: The Revivalists' "Change" returns to the top spot for a fifth, non-consecutive week, sending "Baby Outlaw" by Elle King back to the runner up spot. However, it appears the race for next week will be between The Kooks' excellent "Chicken Bone", and The Black Keys' "Lo/Hi". Although I love "Chicken Bone", it's not on any chart, while The Keys' are fast moving up the alternative chart (#5 currently) and took a big jump here (14 to 4) this week. If the Keys' make #1 next week, it would leave The Kooks' as a runner up for the third time without a #1 song on my list. The popular "Junk of the Heart (Happy)" and "Is It Me" both hit #2 in 2011 and 2012, respectively. We shall see.
Another significant song in the top 20 is "Shallow" by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, the stats of the recent remake of A Star Is Born, which did very well at the recent Oscars. The duo performed the song on the show, and as a result jumped to the #1 spot on the Hot 100 for a week. It is a song that grows on you, and it moves 31-20 on my chart this week in its 15th week. It's Gaga's fifth song to make my top 20, but the first since "Marry the Night" way back in 2012.
SON OF THE 'BEACHES': One of my favorite songs of the decade was the haunting, weird instrumental "Elizabeth's Theme" by Dirty Beaches, which hit the top spot in the wake of Superstorm Sandy. The song recently returned to my SNS 100 list, after I selected it as the background music for a tribute video to a dear Roselle Park friend, Armand Cistaro who passed away earlier this year. Listening to the song got me thinking what ever happened to Dirty Beaches, which is actually Alex Zhang Hunglai..
Doing research indicates that Hunglai retired the name Dirty Beaches, but has been involved in several projects, much of it using his real name. I came up with this recent song called "Pierrot" which has the same, strange instrumentation, if not sounding like, "Elizabeth's Theme". It's definitely in the "avant-garde" vein, and haunting, like his former song.
ALSO ENTERING, BRIEFLY: Ridgewood, NJ band, Real Estate whose most recent album I dove into late, I've pulled out another song, "Stained Glass', which was actually the second single from their 2017 set In Mind. It's more of what you'd expect from them......ditto yet another single from Foster the People, "Style", and they have kept their indie-pop sound as well, which I had been concerned that they go more over to the mainstream pop side.....The Jonas Brothers are back together, if anyone cares. I really didn't, to be honest, and was going to add their reunion single, "Sucker" as a goof (and because a friend posted it). The song debuted at #1 on the Hot 100, but quickly vacated that position. Upon listening to it, however, it was halfway decent, a more pop/rock-inspired effort, which perhaps shouldn't surprise me when I remembered Joe Jonas' band DNCE which had a cool pop-rock effort with "Cake By the Ocean" which reached #2 here three years ago....finally, I add Billie Elish's "Bury A Friend", an artist who I've been hearing a lot about and apparently has had more success that I had originally figured. Still, "Bury a Friend" like her last, "You Should See Me In A Crown" is more sparse-pop/alternative, and that she seems to just scratch the surface of her talents with these songs. If "Bury....", like its predecessor, gets buried on my list, I may add "Idontwannabeyouanymore", a cool, bluesy ballad, from a prior album.
Scenes ‘n’ Soundwaves 100
April 1,
2019
| This Week | Last Week | ARTIST-Title | Weeks on List |
| 1 | 2 |
NUMBER ONE:
Album: Take Good Care
(5 weeks at #1)
|
9 |
| 2 | 1 | Elle King - Baby Outlaw | 10 |
| 3 | 5 | The Kooks - Chicken Bone | 7 |
| 4 | 14 | The Black Keys - Lo/Hi | 3 |
| 5 | 4 | Tennis- I Miss That Feelin' | 10 |
| 6 | 8 | Cage the Elephant - Ready to Let Go | 7 |
| 7 | 7 | STRFKR - In the End | 8 |
| 8 | 3 | The Cranberries - All Over Now | 9 |
| 9 | 9 | Kungs f Ritual - You Remain | 7 |
| 10 | 6 | Panic at the Disco - High Hopes● | 22 |
| 11 | 13 | Greta Van Fleet - You're the One | 10 |
| 12 | 16 | Mark Ronson f. Miley Cyrus - Nothing Breaks Like A Heart | 8 |
| 13 | 12 | The Big Takeover - Girlie Girlie | 11 |
| 14 | 10 | Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats - Hey Mama | 10 |
| 15 | 11 | San Cisco - When I Dream | 9 |
| 16 | 21 |
TOP 20 IMPACT OF THE WEEK:
Album: Remind Me Tomorrow
|
6 |
| 17 | 20 | Lauren Daigle - You Say | 8 |
| 18 | 23 | Death Cab for Cutie - Northern Lights | 10 |
| 19 | 30 | Slothrust - Rotten Pumpkin | 5 |
| 20 | 31 | Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper - Shallow | 15 |
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.
The “Scenes ‘n’ Soundwaves 100” is a list
of current and recent song playlist which I am listening to.
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