Sunday, July 26, 2015

What I'm Listening To [Summer 2015]

It's been a while, so I thought I'd make a post with a sampling of some tunes I've been jamming to lately.

 First some housekeeping though, I went through all the old posts and replaced playlists that I could remember from different services with Spotify playlists. I figured this probably is better since most people are using Spotify nowadays, and listens actually support the artists, even if it is a minuscule amount.

 Anyways here's the playlist and a little blurb about each artist/track:
 


Jen Wood - Fell In Love
Found this singer/songwriter on Bandcamp sort of randomly. I liked it, so I bought it. Just some nice simple piano based pop with some electronic backing. She kind of reminds me of Vanessa Carlton little bit. Plus some of the electronic bits on her album are played by using Game Boy Chiptunes!

Modern Baseball - Your Graduation
Discovered this band through some other artists I like. Very different sound, but still kind of pop-punk-ish. It's a little strange at first, but the chorus is so catchy it gets a lot better with every listen. Modern Baseball actually split vocal duties between their guitar players, but this song features their drummer in the second verse. These guys are part of the resurgent DIY scene and really starting to gain some traction.

Carly Rae Jepsen - Run Away With Me
I've been known to like a pop song or two, my wife shared this song with me and I instantly fell in love love it. I actually like all of the new Carly Rae Jepsen out. Much like this song, it's very 80's inspired with the electronic bits. Oh yeah, and it's catchy. I'm interested to hear the whole album because the four tracks release so far have been awesome.

The Wonder Years - Cardinals
I've probably got three or four posts in mind for this this band alone since I really dug into them earlier this year. The Wonder Years wrote some really emotionally charge pop-punk, often with very personal and sometimes brutally honest lyrics. This song is no-exception with the chorus "So if you call me back or let me in, I swear I'll never let you down again". It's kind of heavy in that regard. Gives me all the feels. This is from their upcoming album No Closer To Heaven coming out in September.

Queen - Scandal
I've been reading the "Queen Chronology" which is sort of a year by year look at Queen was doing as a band. Since I just finished the 80's I went back and listened to 1989's The Miracle given that Queen recorded a lot of material for this album in 1987 and 1988. I think Scandal is one of the more overlooked tracks on the album and definitely a great deep cut. It's pretty representative of what was going on in the band at the time. What with the rumors about Freddie's illness and Brain and Roger's marital problems, I think this is one of the more personal songs for the entire band as a whole that they've ever written.

Allison Weiss - Nothing Left
One of my new favorite artists,Allison Weiss, is coming to town in few weeks, so I went back through her discography to get myself psyched. This is one of my favorite tracks of hers. It's so catchy and it kind of gets you by surprise. By the time I get to "stand closer, get nervous" I'm hooked. The outro is so great too, just building and build and riding out the tune to it's full effect. great stuff.