"There's a time in life for Hoagy Carmichael. There's a time in life for Claude Debussy. There's a time in life for Jerry Lee Lewis. There's a time in life for Destiny's Child. All these things have their moment." ~Elvis Costello
6-time Juno Award-winning Canadians Sam Roberts and company just keep making earnest, honest pop rock records.
Although the theme of their latest album is, for Roberts, one of reinvention, a do-over, and breaking from one’s past, fortunately the music has their familiar ring of well-crafted, ear-friendly pop.
Ok with me if you keep doing what you’re doing, guys.
Bruce Melodie & Shaggy: “When She’s Around (Funga Macho)” (2023)
It can take just one artist to break down barriers of taste. It can take just one song to stretch a listener’s music appreciation by the breadth of a continent.
Rwandan singer Itahiwacu Bruce is that type of singer. And “When She’s Around” is that type of song.
Over the years artists like Juan Luis Guerra (Dominican merengue and bachata), Trio Mandili (Eastern European folk music), and Julieta Venegas (Latin pop) have helped this writer overcome any limitations a classic rock/American pop upbringing would impose and embrace whole new worlds of sounds.
Artists such as the Proclaimers, Brave Combo and the Latvian Women’s Choir didn’t hurt, either.
Just as one ought to have playlists on hand for every mood and occasion, a true lover of music should endeavor to live in a wide, disparate world of sounds and musical parlance.
And I’m not saying “When She’s Around” is exotic or any great stretch for an American ear.
But that’s the point. The song is sung mostly in English and has a tasty hook. And Jamaican reggae singer Shaggy plays an ambassador, adding a note of familiarity.
But songs like this can bridge us to the exotic. The fresh. The new sounds that can be the antidote to four more minutes of your life spent listening to Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” for the 2,316th time.
Sorry, Bruce–not sorry.
My only hope, as always with artists making a bid for international notoriety, is that they don’t become international by sounding international; that is, compromising what makes the sounds distinctive and representative of their corner of the world.
There are already signs that Bruce Melodie may be going in that direction. Let’s hope as some of us are encouraged to discover his roots he doesn’t forget them.
The power-pop magic of the Tripwire’s 2007 debut (spotlighted here) is no less potent on its follow-up.
It was difficult to select which of John Ramberg’s sticky melodic delicacies to pull from the House to House LP, but Johnny Sangster’s Keith Richards-style rhythm guitar stabs in the chorus of this smash-up of a car song put it over the top.
And that’s the thing about good power-pop. It owes more to the Stones, Badfinger, Nick Lowe and the Raspberries than the innocuous decaf version that sounds like the musical equivalent of an inflatable life raft lowered from the side of yacht rock.
The Tripwires are survivors of the 90’s Seattle rock explosion who continue doing it their way, making irresistible tunes that call back more riff-centric eras of rock and pop.
Every one of their releases is highly recommended–it’s just a shame we have to try to narrow it down here.
The beautiful and heartbreaking 2014 Studio Ghibli film When Marnie Was There ends with the beautifully heartbreaking “Fine On the Outside”, which seems to sum up its main character and protagonist.
I can’t recommend the film more earnestly. If it’s not one of the more “magical” of the Ghibli films, it is the finest work the studio has ever produced in this writer’s opinion and boasts gorgeous animation and a poignant story about a girl and…well, spoilers.
Priscilla Ahn plays a remarkably faithful version of the end credit song in the below video.
“What is a revolution without a song?”, pondered Jenelle Monae after she was asked to provide one for the documentary All In: The Fight for Democracy.
The film deals with Georgia’s 2018 gubernatorial race in which Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s actions–incompetence or outright voter suppression, or a combination thereof–resulted in 300,000 Georgians being incorrectly deemed ineligible to vote.
When the film was in production, and co-producer Stacey Abrams asked Monae for a song, it roused her from an uninspired period, creatively speaking, at the height of Covid.
“Turntables” was just the anthem the film required. And (unfortunately) it feels no less required in the present moment.
The power pop/punk sound Vermont’s Kyle Thomas (aka King Tuff) formerly embraced has given way of late to a quieter, more reflective style, and never more so than on 2023’s Smalltown Stardust.
Thanks to the songwriting and production touches contributed by Sasami Ashworth, gentle keys and strings bring perfectly suited ornamentation to tender, emotive tunes on a record that explores nostalgic themes of youth and new love.
Sasami’s harmony vocals also add immeasurably to the album as a whole, though not this particular track.
“Pebbles in a Stream” is a sentimental standout, and reflects a glint of warm sunlight.
Every Moment Has A Song 