‘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.
Yesterday’s Edwin McCain post sent me down one of those deliciously evil YouTube rabbit holes that dredged up material for a week’s worth of blog posts.
This week I’ll feature a quintet of live performances at the Bing Lounge, which I guess is where you go to play when the Google Lounge is down.
First up is Sarah McLachlan, with a lovely rendition of her classic sobfest ‘Angel.’
