Category: Music

I’ve been going with three artists on the Fridays I remember to post new music so far, but there are five fresh tracks that I was into this week.

One of my favorite groups, Sylvan Esso, powered by one of my favorite music producers — Nick Sanborn — dropped a new track this week. Sounds trip hoppy to me but someone in the YouTube comments disagreed! Regardless, the meandering drum machine beat and the dreamy Sigur Rós sample is sick.

In Color is a new find for me. They are a Nashville-based band formed in 2024, so they’re kind of a new find for everyone I guess. I will be keeping an ear out because I was impressed by this new track from them. It’s a simple beat, reminiscent of When The Levee Breaks, with repetitive 8th notes from both the bass and guitar parts, but the vocals elevate everything else. Everything comes together in the bridge to give it a kind of epic feel. Is good.

Boy Harsher is my favorite dark wave band and I get excited every time they drop something, so this track I saw come across my feed this week was no different. Like much of their music, it’s a deeply uncomplicated beat with a leather-clad 80s vibe. They are incapable of missing.

Saint Clair is a new-ish guitar band from London that I kind of found by accident. If you guessed that I saw the name and got it mixed up with Saint Vincent, then you are correct. I was pleasantly surprised, though. I am traditionally a fan of whiny vocals arranged in a loud-quiet-loud motif. If you’re into 90’s alternative, this new track should strike a chord with you as well.

Ash Leone has made the rounds in Philly, Nashville, Los Angeles, and is now releasing music from Dallas. Like a lot of the new music I’m finding recently, I just found this track while scrolling through Instagram Reels. It is unfortunately an effective strategy for artists who want to find their way to my ears.

This is the most poppy track on my list of new music this week — upbeat and very danceable. Her voice is reminiscent of Lily Allen, but more sultry, less sassy — though she slides into the high notes with ease when she needs to.

This week, I have three tracks from YouTube. One a track by a brand new band to me named Wishy, a 5 piece band from Indianapolis — a good rec from friend Christian.

The other two are from Slow Joy and Dev Lemons. I’ve been listening to them for awhile so I’m always happy to see a new single drop from either of them.

This is a very fun track and very tight musically. I told Christian that it reminds me of 90’s rock — a mix of Gin Blossoms and The Breeders. Like if you slipped this into the Empire Records soundtrack, it would fit right in.

I love the harmonies in the chorus a lot and they remind me of another band in particular but I think my brain is slowly dying, so I can’t pull it right now. If I remember later, I’ll try to come back and edit it in. Don’t count on it. Pavement? Yeah, I don’t know. That’s going to bother me.

Slow Joy also sounds like a 90’s band to me most of the time (example: Pulling Teeth) but “Forget” sounds like an early 00’s pop-punk banger that leaves you kind of patiently tapping your toes waiting for the chorus to come back around.

There is not a moment in the song where there isn’t a distorted guitar muddying up the mix somewhere, right up until the bridge, which was a great effect. It got so quiet you could hear his voice bouncing off the studio walls back into the mic, then right back into the distorted chorus.

This new track from Dev Lemons is a different direction than I’m used to hearing from her. My favorite track from her is “Guessing Games” which is kind of PC Music adjacent hyper-poppy vibe. Lots of electronic influences.

But “eat the pavement” is something way different. There is a drum machine, or electronic drum pad, but everything else sounds like regular ‘ol instruments mixed by someone who knows what they’re doing.

Not to claim it sounds like the 90’s again, but she’s definitely dipping into the “loud, quiet, loud” thing to great effect. I love the dreamy quality of the quiet parts. I think I like this direction for her in general.

My Instagram Reels algorithm served me up a couple of Nashville singer-songwriters on what I assume is the come up. Who knows in the current music landscape? Both have two very DIY looking videos that have garnered many plays from me over the past few weeks.

A.G. Sully has a trip-hoppy sound straight out of the 90’s. They have a beautifully layered, whispery voice, with simple but effective synths, and a drum loop that keeps the beat while staying out of the way. The production has a soothing ethereal quality that made it easy for me to leave on repeat several times on several days.

Emma Ogier’s track has an incredible hook that was built for Instagram. It feels like the kind of hook that makes a montage hit just right in a movie about angsty Appalachian teenagers doing bored teenager stuff.

She delivers lyrics with a subdued Southern twang that I can’t tell if she’s trying to hide, slowly fading from childhood, or she’s reaching for on purpose. Either way, it’s very effective. The dreary and damp back yard in the video, complete with an orphaned car door and fent-folding trees, might as well be from one of my own memories. I’m reminded of happier times when I was the saddest I’ve ever been.

Then there is Jessie Mazin. I have actually heard of her before because I listen to her father’s podcast Scriptnotes, and at the end of one of the episodes about a year ago, he said his daughter did a song that went semi-viral. Always one to go down the rabbit hole, I quickly found and loved it. The song was called the simulation is failing.

And that’s why I knew she had pipes before Instagram fed me her absolutely incredible performance of The Precipice on Medium Sized Backyard, which is now up to 250k views in the past month on YouTube and 60k likes on IG. It’s honestly one of the most impressive live performances that I’ve ever seen. Not only is her voice insane but her guitar playing is also crisp.

There is a a rocket strapped to her back so go ahead and watch that whole video so you can say you were early on Jessie Mazin. I’ll also link to her cover of How Deep Is Your Love by Calvin Harris & Disciples because you should listen to that, too.

I am in my 40’s now and I’ve not only been on the Internet since 1995, but chronically online for the entire time. The Internet is at the center of nearly everything in my life, including music, but I have been obsessed with music for much longer than the Internet was available to me.

The first song that I can remember hearing was Sara by Starship and I think I may have been in a crib at the time. I was in some sort of napping situation because I remember hearing it before falling asleep.

I love music from the mid to late 80’s, but I know the most about the music from the 90’s and early 2000’s, with the sweet spot landing somewhere in the late 2000’s. Around that time, YouTube was springing up and enveloping the Internet and I was especially obsessed with the relatively unknown musicians I could find posting their stuff on YouTube.

I catch myself revisiting some of them from time to time and that’s what gave me the idea for this post. I just want to post some older YouTube music that you may have never heard before, but also I just selfishly want a list of my favorite stuff from (relatively) back in the day.

The first entry on my list will be, for me, the quintessential early YouTube cover of “Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Susanna and the Magical Orchestra. It’s probably my favorite cover of all time and it’s also the oldest video on the list.

When I first listened to it, there were less than 2,000 views and I felt as if though I stumbled upon a buried treasure. I can’t believe that it only ever made it up to 1.3 million views (as of right now) and that it is one of five videos on her channel, which has 1.5k subscribers.

I’ll never forget stumbling across this next video because it was under 1,000 views at the time and I just kind of sat there with my mouth wide open listening to an incredible acoustic cover of “Africa” by Toto being belted out perfectly by a couple of Dad-looking nerds in a very empty bar. My wife and I watched all of their other videos, which were also insane, and talked about going to Denver just to be two of the five people in there witnessing greatness. Nowadays this video has 19M views and that makes a lot more sense.

I love Mighty Mike’s mashup of M83’s “Midnight City” and Men at Work’s “Down Under” so much. It’s the song I revisit the most on YouTube by a mile, other than Danny Carey’s live drumming for Pneuma by Tool. It is an inescapable ear worm with bad enough quality to qualify it for this list. I will watch and listen to this over, and over, and over, and over again.

Then there is Obadiah Parker’s “Hey Ya” which is a cover of Outkast’s hit that goes by the same name. We love a nerdy looking dude with a big ‘ol neck beard, an angel’s voice, and a gift for a-pickin’-and-a-singin’ — not to mention the very original arrangement that suits the song nearly better than the original.

Or maybe you need to have your heart broken? Visit the comment section of José González’ cover of “Heartbeats” by The Knife. It probably has the most views of anything else on this list, but I didn’t want to leave it off. It’s a banger.

From there, we’ll get back to a cover with a relatively small number of views. It’s Iron & Wine’s cover of “Such Great Heights” by The Postal Service. I just like it when a couple of people sing badly mixed harmonies into a shitty computer mic and one of them is playing an acoustic guitar way too slow.

What is a list like this without a tribute to Radiohead? What about from a beautiful choir? The cover of “Creep” by Scala & Kolacny Brothers hits the spot. If you’re a fan of The Social Network, you may recognize it from its trailer.

The last one I’ll leave you with the only original music on the list, which wasn’t planned. Turns out I just really love covers. Anyway, this is “Beat the Horse” by Pomplamoose. My wife and I were on the Pomplamoose train very early but I don’t remember why. I think I just happened across it near its release date. You may recognize Jack Conte on the left because he is now the CEO of Patreon.