Funny coincidence as today’s random iTunes selection is a song my family was jamming to during a drive to the mall just hours earlier.
‘Steven’s Last Night in Town’ is a standout song on an album full of standout songs, Ben Folds Five’s sophomore release Whatever and Ever Amen. It’s about record producer Stephen Short, a friend of Ben Folds who came to visit and never left. As Folds recalls, “we must have thrown five or six going-away parties for him.”
‘Automatic Systemaitc Habit’ is the lead track on Garbage’s 2012 album Not Your Kind of People, their first record after a seven-year hiatus.
Garbage is very much a late 90s band, with their first three (and best three) albums coming out between 1995 and 2001. 2005’s Bleed Like Me was a misstep and for a while seemed like the end of the band. But this album showed a renewed spirit and a sound very much like the one they mastered back in the day.
I’m not sure why Vance Joy dodn’t come to mind when I wrote about future one-hit wonders a few weeks back. His ‘Riptide’ didn’t make a huge splash in the U.S. (it peaked at #30 on the Hot 100) but it got a lot of airplay and struck the same indie-pop nerve as ‘Somebody That You Used To Know’ and ‘Take Me To Church.’
Our next Bing Lounge performance comes courtesy of the Los Angeles-based Haim sisters: Este, Danielle and Alana.
I don’t love everything Haim does but I really like their style (musically and otherwise) and the whole Southern California art school vibe they exude.
These intimate live shows are often an effective showcase of stripped-down instrumentation and un-processed vocals. A real coffee house vibe; music at its most authentic.
Today’s clip doesn’t do any of that, and it’s all the more fascinating for it. Here, British New Wave artist Thomas Dolby performs his biggest hit, ‘She Blinded Me With Science,’ on a keyboard and sequencer, pressing buttons in perfect rhythm to add the drums and spoken-word interjections.
Meet Me In Montauk 