NEW MUSIC FOR OLDS #37
Fascinating and almost unbearably intimate
Lovely to see you on this balmy Summer afternoon. You caught me in between my first and second shower of the day.
First things first: New Music for Olds is taking the rest of August off. There’s a bunch of real-life crap I’ve been putting off and everyone’s on vacation, so now’s as good a time as any for a wee hiatus. This means NMFO #38 won’t arrive until Wednesday 9/6. That is, unless I get terribly lonely and need a good one-sided conversation.
The good news is, I’ve compiled five very fine songs to tide you over until Labor Day.
“Wait…FIVE songs? B-b-but that’s, like, a 66% increase over the standard three! Have you gone mad??”
Yes, internal monologue. I’ve gone mad. Madly in love with bringing you quality new music at discount prices (i.e. free)! Look at what awaits you:
The best kind of earworm
Pop saavy vapor
Harmony! Harmony? Harmony.
Art school drama
Middle age resignation
And, me reading way too much into a 1979 YouTube clip
Aaaaaaaand, let’s begin.
GOOD STUFF
Ask not for whom the Glossary of Terms links. (Hint: It links for thee!)
Charly Bliss, “You Don’t Even Know Me Anymore”
Listen on Apple Music // Listen on Amazon Music
Album: You Don’t Even Know Me (single)
Nutshell: Pure pop
Voltage: 6
Thoughts: I’m relatively certain that Charly Bliss’ Young Enough (2019) is my favorite album of the past five years. It’s a remarkably consistent “no skip” rock/pop album. So I was thrilled to hear about “You Don’t Even Know Me Anymore”, the band’s first single in years. I’d hesitated to include it in GOOD STUFF because I wanted to wait for the full album, which I assume(?) is forthcoming. But I haven’t seen news regarding a release date, so screw it. This tune is a bit overproduced, in my humblest of opinions, but boyohboy is it an earworm. Actually, it’s better than that: it’s a Gummi earworm.
Pairing Suggestion: Chaining yourself to a Haribo factory
Warning: When a 3rd Charly Bliss album finally does comes out, another song will likely find its way into this space.
George Clanton, “Justify Your Life”
Listen on Apple Music // Listen on Amazon Music
Album: Ooh Rap I Ya
Nutshell: Vaporwave
Voltage: 6
Thoughts: This prolific artist records under various names, including Mirror Kisses and ESPRIT 空想, but based on my one week of non-extensive research, his best stuff can be found under his own name—which, for the record, is apparently not a play on the legendary Parliament Funkadelic bandleader. I’m sure he gets sick of being asked that, but hey, it got me to click play. What I got instead is really pop-saavy electronica that pulls from trip hop and new wave. I read some interview where Clanton says that his goal is to evoke nostalgia and, well, mission accomplished. “Justify Your Life” has a big time Tears for Fears-y chorus, which should be enticement enough.
Pairing Suggestion: Cranking the volume high enough that the car windows vibrate just a little bit
Darlingside, “How Long Again”
Listen on Apple Music // Listen on Amazon Music
Album: Everything is Alive
Nutshell: A capella folk
Voltage: 3
Thoughts: Yeah, I got yer tight vocal harmonies…RIGHT HERE! I’ve been a Darlingside fan for a number of years now, despite my initial fear that they were late arrivals to a micro-genre I once labelled “Povertyface”. Think Mumford & Sons, Lumineers and all the suspendered folkies who spent the early 2010’s presenting themselves as Dustbowl carnies. Even though Darlingside plays twee acoustic music, they’re not a schtick band. And neither are they they completely trapped in the past, tastefully implementing tape loops and electronics, where appropriate. But it’s them vocal harmonies that’ll get ya.
Pairing Suggestion: The sun poking out after an interment.
Art School Girlfriend, “A Place to Lie”
Listen on Apple Music // Listen on Amazon Music
Album: Soft Landing
Nutshell: Indie electronica
Voltage: 4
Thoughts: As someone who attended a school for the arts and whose first real relationship was with a brooding poet/self-cutter, I’m not not going to click on an artist called Art School Girlfriend. Honestly, I was expecting the name to be ironic—most likely, Brit dudes playing tongue-in-cheek post punk. But nope, this is exactly the kind of smoky, slightly unsettling synth music my high school girlfriend would have blasted while huddled in a darkened dorm room closet. Let’s hear it for truth in advertising!
Pairing Suggestion: Breaking up with me for the third time this month
Lori McKenna, “The Tunnel”
Listen on Apple Music // Listen on Amazon Music
Album: 1988
Nutshell: Alt Country
Voltage: 5
Thoughts: Paid subscribers may remember that, back in NMFO #15A I wrote about Lori McKenna’s 2004 gem “Stealing Kisses”. Twenty years later, she’s still putting out great albums—rock solid songwriting, absent the boots-and-trucks cosplay that makes contemporary Country music such a fucking bummer. Think Jason Isbell, but more tired than angry. Or a future Kacey Musgraves, once she’s done being a pop star. Her songs feel lived-in and unpretentious, which stops you from appreciating how much craft is involved. “The Tunnel” won’t change your life, but it could make your Sunday morning.
Pairing Suggestion: Taking a break from washing dishes to stare out at the horizon.
FIVE-WAY-POLL! FIVE-WAY-POLL!
Leave a comment that makes me regret giving you the option. Make it truly awful.
SOME BULLSHIT
Obscure historical anecdote time!
I recently finished reading Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye by David Ritz. Gaye is easily one of my top ten favorite singers of all time. It’s not that he had a powerhouse instrument, a la Stevie or Aretha. But for my money, no one has ever matched his phrasing—the way he floats around a beat, sometimes lagging behind, sometimes getting out in front. It’s like watching a moth flitter around a lightblub.
I knew the basic outline of Gaye’s bio already, but it was fascinating (and kinda sad) to get all the details. I’ll always admire his artistry, but my guy was a big league fuckup.
Biographies have been enhanced in the age of YouTube, because you can so often find contemporaneous footage of the moments you’re reading about. Score one for modernity, I guess? One such moment involved a mostly forgotten performance of the Star Spangled Banner.
“Oh, I’ve seen that,” you may thinking. But I doubt it. You’re likely thinking of Gaye’s famous appearance at the 1983 NBA all-star game, which I rank as the greatest national anthem of all time (sorry, Whitney). This lesser-known version took place four years earlier, at a particularly low point in his career. Honestly, Marvin Gaye’s final years were a series of failures, both personal and professional, interrupted by one massive comeback hit. It’s shocking to me that no one has a made a movie of the man’s life.
In 1979, Gaye owed the IRS millions. He’d stopped paying child support to his first wife and was on again/off again with his child bride second. His latest album was a fiasco (absolutely a story unto itself) and he refused to tour. Money was…a problem. Luckily, Gaye had a side hustle: boxing promotion. He was positioning himself to be the next Don King. The crown jewel in Gaye’s stable of fighters, and his best hope for positive income, was a guy named Andy Price. Oh, you’ve never heard of Andy Price? That’s strange, given that he was a highly respected contender who, on this particular night, was vying for his first title. First of many, certainly! This was going to be a big night for Marvin Gaye and a major step towards financial solvency. Price’s opponent? Some chump named Sugar Ray Leonard.
Yeah, you see where this is going.
Andy Price got rocked like a hurricane in the very first round. In less than four minutes, Gaye’s future earnings went up in smoke and his reputation as a promoter had taken an uppercut straight to the ballbag. But wait, it gets better: Price vs Leonard was the undercard that night and Marvin had agreed to perform the national anthem prior to the main event.
Moments after watching his cash cow turn into ground beef, Gaye had to pull it together and stumble through the twilight’s last gleaming. The wonky collar, the sheen of sweat, the exhausted eyes—The first 35 seconds of this clip feels like a prisoner awaiting execution. Wanna see a guy whose every fibre of being screams “I am so, so fucked”? Today’s your lucky day!
But then, he sings. Almost immediately, Gaye’s face transforms. By the time he gets to “By the dawn…”, a weight has been lifted and his mind is soaring towards the heavens. This rendition is not a masterpiece like the 1983 NBA All Star version, but the backstory makes it fascinating and almost unbearably intimate. It seems as if Gaye is intentionally dragging the song out, as if to disappear into the music and never come out.
No word on why this clip resonates with the writer of this newsletter and what that might say about his emotional state. I guess we’ll never know!
Okay, that’s all for today. Your end-of-the-newsletter question:
While acknowledging that most of them stink, name an artist who genuinely deserves a biopic? I’ll be sure to tell you why you’re right or wrong.
That’s all, folks! Enjoy your dog days. See you on Weds 9/6!
A bio pic of Patti Smith, the G-d Mother of Punk.
I usually don't read about the songs you give us before I'm listening to them, but this time I did and I thought for sure I was going to vote for George Clanton. But I just voted for Lori McKenna? What have you done to me, Finnegan? Also, do you have a thing for final songs on albums? Don't make me go back and figure out the actual numbers, but seems like that's been a tendency.
This doesn't really feel mean enough. Or even mean at all. That Charly Bliss song kind of sucks?
I don't even mean that. Well, maybe a little. Anyway.
Jobriath is the obvious biopic hole we have right now. There was a documentary somewhat recently that I haven't seen though and maybe that was all we needed.
Fuck off, Finnegan!