Come and Share This Jam with Me

Long time no see! I apologize for my absence it was as if the universe did not want me to contribute to the blog anymore. Finals came around and turned me into a zombie, my laptop suddenly stopped working, which took about two weeks to fix, but the icing on the cake was the concussion I suffered over the holiday season when a puck struck me in the head during practice. So, to make up for lost time, I thought do a post that is just fun for the whole family; a barrel of monkeys if you will. I decided to cover the ten undercover best songs of 2017 that you may have overlooked or had just gone unnoticed due to that damn top 40. You may also notice that most of these entries I had not even posted about, which is not to say that the songs I have been discussing have been bad, but they may been released prior to my blog's inception (and I try to keep these songs as recent as possible) or have slipped under my radar.  10. Ruru - There You Go           ...

I am not entirely certain if this counts as a song, but there is singing and a consistent beat so, I'm just going to say, yes. Yes because this song/skit performed by the Saturday Night Live (SNL) cast is pretty freaking poignant and important. "Welcome to Hell" is a commentary and parody, on the recent exposition of sexual predators within the entertainment community. Through clever satire and equally smart and ironic representation of women throughout the skit, SNL creates one of their best skits in years. The scenery and blatant emphasis on the notion of "girly" is made apparent to represent the stereotype of women, that they are amenable, and focused on commodities provided to them by presumably a man. In this female world, we are also exposed to the very real, and commonly discussed stereotype, that women are constantly on the defense and looking over their shoulder for any possible unwanted sexual advances. The introduction in to the female world for...

One of my favorite groups entrenched in the dream pop genre, and steadily growing in quiet popularity (even with their year-long hiatus), No Vacation, has just released their latest five-song album, Intermission , on November 17th, 2017,   and is another impressive effort by the chill group. The second single from Intermission, " You're Not With Me," is a calmer No Vacation song with less influence of guitar riffs for what I believe is to emphasize the theme of loneliness and isolation, as the guitar has been softened and replaced by a wavering synthesizer. My first experience with No Vacation was with their single in 2015, " Draem Girl ," which had ultimately put them on the map as it has grossed to almost 1.5 million views on YouTube, through my most endeared channel, The Lazylazyme . "Draem Girl," is a guitar-driven track that takes the listener on a journey through romance and longing, with its genius transition from quick riffs to meticulous ...

"Television Romance" is a single from Pale Waves upcoming, and not often mentioned, debut album, who's title has yet to be disclosed. By merely looking at the band you may be inclined to assume that they must be a mess and completely unsynchronized: Heather Baron-Gracie (rhythm guitar, vocals) has a very goth-like look, Ciara Doran (drums) looks like she's in the transition to a post-hardcore stage, and Hugo Silvani (lead guitar) and Charlie Wood (bass) look like two impressionable, conventional British lads. I don't mean to comment on their look in a superficial or chastising manner, because music is not contingent on the appearance of the artists, but I want to emphasize the disparity in the each of the member's looks to reiterate the commonly used idiom, y ou can't judge a book by its cover.  Because these guys are prettaaay prettaaay pretty good .  So what does this apparent mixed bag sound like? Considering it was produced by frontman Matty H...

"I Love LA" is a single off Starcrawler's upcoming titular debut album, Starcrawler, and if "I Love LA" is any indication of how Starcrawler shapes up, then I'm going to be the first to download it when it drops on January 19th of next year. From an aesthetic and visual perspective, based on this music video, I can see that these guys are wild, in your face, ebullient and must be a fun-ass time to see live, so I will also be hoping to see them live. "I Love LA" is an ode-of some sort-to LA but not like Randy Newman's fantasy of Los Angeles in his, I Love L.A.  Starcrawler takes a more grounded and satirical approach to the city, as if to say 'this place is shitty, but I love that it's shitty,' sort of deal. Although the lyrics to this song aren't anywhere to be found, I can still make out the verses, and the obvious "I Love LA" reprise. "Talking to a friend/who never want to come back again," or ...

There must be some sort of 70's revival thing going on, because this is the fourth artist, apart from Angel Olsen , Jadu Heart , and Feng Suave , that I have discussed using a similar 70's motif. "Mary" would be defined as a Dream Pop song but it definitely shows the influence the Major Murphy has taken from cool 70's jams. To more easily describe what I mean, I would say that "Mary," sounds like a mix of an  Eagles  ( even though I fuckin' hate The Eagles! ) and a  Dinosaur Jr  track (even though they are a 90's deal). Not only in the way lead singer, Jacob Bullard serenades, but the smooth, high pitch plucks on the guitar that (Dinosaur Jr-like) and simple, head-nodding beat on the drums (The Eagles-like).  To me, "Mary" is a very diverse track, in it's thematic approach, but Major Murphy makes the narrative pretty consistent. The titular Mary is becoming a success, but unlike songs that see a character fall from grace (l...

November has come . "Garage Palace" is a track coming from Gorillaz's  Super Deluxe Vinyl Boxset of their most recent album, and one of my favorites of this year,  Humanz . Humanz, is another new approach that Damon Albarn and the rest of the Gorillaz have taken, this time, in the vein of R&B and Soul. It was an impressive feat with obvious enthusiasm and care in producing due to the album's 26 tracks and seven bangin' singles " Andromeda ," " The Apprentice ," " Ascension ," " Let Me Out ," " Saturn Barz ," " Strobelite ," and " We Got The Power ." Unfortunately, Humanz was  a little of a mess with so much content, and not enough consistency in theme with each track, which may be due to the volume of songs. It's not to say the songs aren't dope, because I think they're all pretty much stand-alone, but together I think a thematic or evocative approach becomes misconstrued. ...

Now this is some crazy nonsense, I think for the sake of crazy nonsense. "Bad" is a track off of The Bug's upcoming album Bad / Get Out The Way   to be released on November 17, 2017, and is a reggae-house endeavor that is just...well...it's strange. I came across "Bad" on bandcamp's  "new and notable" section, which was next to Angel Olsen 's Phases , a must-listen-to album, and I was just more or less intrigued with the cover art for Bad / Get Out The Way with no clue what the hell I was going to get into.  As I mentioned in my entry for Jawn Rice's " Messages of the Tribe ," I am not a huge fan of EDM or any house variation so I did not know who The Bug was prior to listening to this song, but I dig this. The song is literally called "Bad" and the track does a good job to communicate that theme, like "Messages of the Tribe," which is something that really is not too common in this genre. Usually ...