Songs You May Have Missed #829

Pet Shop Boys: “I Get Along” (2002)

One may speculate that the title of Pet Shop Boys’ 2002 Release album is a reference to letting go of hipness for maturity.

Certainly their electronic disco pop sound–the one that made them seem like trend setters across the two previous decades–is muted here.

And the record’s lyrics generally reflect a more experienced, worldly point of view.

Where their previous album or two had seen them growing a bit stale, Release shows them reinventing themselves a bit for a new decade. And as it turns out, some of their best work was ahead of them.

See also: Songs You May Have Missed #636 | Every Moment Has A Song

See also: Recommended Albums #12 | Every Moment Has A Song

Songs You May Have Missed #828

Ruben Romero: “Fe (Faith)” (1997)

As the title of Ruben Romero’s Flamenco Southwest suggests, the virtuoso flamenco guitarist fuses the genre’s traditional Spanish technique with Native American traditions.

He’s collaborated with the Denver Symphony and the Minnesota Orchestra and accompanied flamenco dancers in competitions.

See also: Songs You May Have Missed #128 | Every Moment Has A Song

Songs You May Have Missed #827

The End of America: “Canyon” (2021)

Philly-area folk pop band The End of America take their name from Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and their three-part harmony, it would seem, from CSN.

No Depression magazine named their Night is Alive Best Alt Country Album of 2021.

Songs You May Have Missed #826

Tenpole Tudor: “Love and Food” (1981)

Eddie, Old Bob, Dick and Gary’s corking “Swords of a Thousand Men” was backed with a catchy B-side in “Love and Food”.

The band sometimes performed in medieval garb, with lead singer Edward Tudor-Pole even donning a full suit of chain mail armour.

Their messy musical mayhem was a welcome rarity: punk music that sounded more like a party than impending fisticuffs.

“Love and Food”, if anything, owes more to the British pub rock movement than the Sex Pistols.

See also: Songs You May Have Missed #721 | Every Moment Has A Song

Songs You May Have Missed #825

Pluto Gang: “Plasmodesmata” (2020)

Having had their first regional tour interrupted by the COVID pandemic, Carolina sextet Pluto Gang convened in a cabin in the Carolina mountains to create their genre-blurred Better Out Here LP,

Their sound is something the band calls “high energy jam soul”. Works for me.

Songs You May Have Missed #824

Humblebums: “Her Father Didn’t Like Me Anyway” (1969)

From the second release by the mostly low-key British folk rockers and the first with Gerry Rafferty.

Rafferty’s addition coincided with an advent of brass and woodwind arrangements which, along with Rafferty’s subdued, reflective songwriting, gave the group an enhanced emotional richness. But it was a short-lived collaboration.

Rafferty and Billy Connolly would embark on solo careers one album later.

See also: https://edcyphers.com/2013/06/29/songs-you-may-have-missed-435/

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