Monday, January 29, 2018

Good Things You Might Not Have Listened To

Hey, it's me, your favourite music author since Pitchfork got bought by Conde Nast! Just remember, I'm still a garbage writer and I'm not above publishing a shitty listicle.

And that's what I've done here- I'm generously providing a brief write-up of three things that are good that I suspect you may not have heard of! Please know that this is coming from a "nobody has ever talked about this music to me" place, not a "I'm a snob who knows all these cool underground musicians" place. Even tho I am and I do*
*or did, when I was younger and didn't spend 90% of my spare time being abused by adult men in Overwatch

Presenting, THREE GOOD THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE LISTENED TO:

1. HOLY GHOST!

In the mid naughties this whole dance-punk thing was taking off, due in part largely to the success of The Rapture and their six hundred billion contemporaries. However, that's also when skinny jeans were just coming back in to fashion and people dyed their hair black and were too cool to dance in public? Is that trend dead yet? ANYWAY It's a shame/blessing that Holy Ghost!'s first album came after that wave- in 2011. Much like The Rapture by that point, they threw off the punky shrieking and went in for straight-up New Order style pop. But, it's all really good. Their self-titled debut is especially good- stand out tracks include "Jam for Jerry", "Do it Again" and "It's Not Over."

Here's a good taster, the song "Wait and See", dive on in:



2. REBECCA FERGUSON

If you are from the UK this may be a surprise inclusion because I think she was a runner-up on X Factor or something over there so maybe she's not that unknown? I don't know and I don't care- her first album Heaven is really, really good. She's a "soul" pop singer in the vein of Adele, so if you're interesting in giving your life a Bridget Jones rom-com style soundtrack, get on to it. Here's the anthemic album closer, "You're Too Good To Lose:"


3. JUNIOR BOYS, sort of

Okay, most people know the Junior Boys because of their ripper album "So This is Goodbye." But, that came out FOURTEEN YEARS AGO. They released an album in 2016 called Big Black Coat which is so grouse it hurts. It's pretty moody so they've obviously embraced Canadian #gothlife- for egg the song "Over It" includes the happy phrase "it's better if you have a single bed." I just really love that futuristic "cyberpunk anime" synth sound that they've perfected over the years. Listen to Junior Boys BIG BLACK COAT go go go the outro in this song "C'mon Baby" is THE BEST



The end see you in another ___ months!