Alternative Top 10, Week of July 25, 2021

I used to do this a while ago, but now that the pandemic is over (sort of) but I still have tons of free time on my hands, it's probably time once again to check out the week's alternative top 10 songs (I used to cover the Top 5, but let's broaden it a bit, okay?).

According to Billboard, the No. 1 song in the country right now is Permission to Dance, the new single from South Korean boy band, BTS.  The single debuted this week, and displaced the previous No. 1 single, Butter, also by BTS, which is now No. 7. Eighteen-year-old pop star and former Disney kid Olivia Rodrigo, who I had never heard of before she popped up at the Biden White House telling people to get vaccinated, also has two songs in the Top 10 - Good 4 U (No. 2) and Deja Vu (No. 10).  So two artists have four songs in the Top 10, and that probably tells you all you need to know about the state of pop music right now.  

Personally, I stopped listening to Top 40 pop music sometime in the late 1960s.  Whatever we're calling new music these days - indie, alternative, college, or whatever - is more interesting to me.  So instead of the Billboard "Hot 100," let's look at this week's Alternative 40 Chart, as calculated from YouTube and Spotify streams, as well as blogs, shows, and playlists focusing on new alternative and indie music  (source: https://www.youtube.com/c/NewAlternative40Chart).

1. Chvrches - Good Girls
2. Big Red Machine (feat. Taylor Swift) - Renegade
3. Haim - Cherry Flavored Stomach Ache
4. James Blake - Say What You Will
5. The War On Drugs - Living Proof
6. Sufjan Stevens & Angelo De Augustine - Reach Out
7. Soccer Mommy - rom com 2004
8. Big Red Machine (feat. Robin Pecknold & Anaïs Mitchell) - Phoenix
9. Courtney Barnett - Rae Street
10. Tycho & Benjamin Gibbard - Only Love

Like BTS and Olivia Rodrigo in the "Hot 100" top 10, Big Red Machine has two songs in the Alternative 40 top 10.  Not only that, but their Latter Days, featuring Anaïs Mitchell, is No. 24 and their Ghost of Cincinnati (no guest stars) is No. 32.

Big Red Machine is the collaborative project of Aaron Dessner (The National) and Justin Vernon (Bon Iver).  In June 2021, they announced their second album, How Long Do You Think It's Gonna Last?, will be released on August 27, and they dropped the singles that now constitute 10% on the Alternative 40 Chart (20% of its top 10).  I won't post all their new singles here, but here are the two in the top 10, one featuring Taylor Swift and the other featuring Robin Pecknold (Fleet Foxes) and Anaïs Mitchell (writer of the Broadway musical Hadestown):

Sufjan Stevens also has two songs on the Alternative 40 Chart, one, Reach Out, in the top 10 and both collaborations with folk singer Angelo De Augustine. Olympus, their other single, is currently at No. 35.  According to Pitchfork, Stevens and De Augustine worked on the songs at a cabin in upstate New York while watching movies each day, which somehow inspired their new album, A Beginner's Mind.  Here's Reach Out:

As you may have noticed, I've tip-toed past Chvrches and Haim, who have the No. 1 and No. 3 songs, respectively.  Frankly, their sugar-coated songs are too popish for my tastes.  James Blake's No. 4 song,  the melodramatic Say What You Will, is certainly not popish, but it breaks no new ground for him and sounds like archetypical Blake. In fact, if someone was going to record a parody of Blake, Say What You Will is what it may sound like. 

The War on Drugs' acoustic-based Living Proof at No. 5 is far more acoustic-oriented and countryish that I'm used to hearing from this once-driving rock band, but it's still a good song, though.

At No. 7, Soccer Mommy's rom com 2004 is almost by design a pop song, but Sophia Allison at least put some nice splashes of noise into the track.

Rounding out the Alternative 40 top 10, we have Courtney Barnett with a typical Courtney Barnett song, Rae Street, at No. 9.  You can tell it's a Courtney Barnett song based on just the chord changes alone, even before her familiar and distinctive voice kicks in.

And finally, we have the somewhat unexpected collaboration of electronic musician Tycho and Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard at No. 10 with their song Only Love.  Frankly, I'm only posting it because it's easier to post than to come up with a justification for not, but it's really on the bublle.

As is often the case, there are a lot of good songs in the Alternative 40 Chart beneath the top 10, including Thom Yorke's latest remix of Radiohead's classic, Creep (No. 13), Yves Tumor and Kurt Vile at Nos. 14 and 15, respectively, and the debut of The Linda Lindas on the Alternative 40 with Oh! at No. 36.  

That's it for this week.  That's what all the cool, alternative kids are listening to this week, or your big brother or sister off at college.  We'll pick this up again next week. Meanwhile, enjoy!

The War On Drugs

Oh, look,  The nice people over at NYC Taper were at the Hopscotch Festival too, and both recorded and posted The War On Drugs performing I Hear You Calling.  

But wait, there's more!  Here's the entire WOD performance, courtesy again of NYC Taper.

It's nice to revisit this set since we missed The War On Drugs when they played Atlanta two weeks ago and we went instead to see Courtney Barnett and San Fermin.

Also, for those of you keeping score at home, nobody won The War On Drugs tickets, because nobody replied to my giveaway post.

Win Free Ticket To The War On Drugs at The Tabernacle, October 16, 2014!

War On Drugs at Hopscotch Festival, 9/4/2014

I'm pretty sure this post is going to be misunderstood.  I like The War On Drugs, a lot, but due to other commitments, I'm going to give away my ticket to next week's show at The Tabernacle to either the first person to email me or the person who gives me the best reason to give it to them.  My choice.

But already,  I've gotten ahead of myself.  I saw The War on Drugs last month at the Hopscotch Festival in Raleigh, and they played a great set, playing well past 2 a.m.  The next night in the same theater, I saw anger bear Sun Kil Moon have his by now well publicized breakdown on the same stage, resulting in anti-Moon graffitti on the sidewalks of Raleigh and later attempts by Mark Kozelek to pass it all off as a joke, including selling t-shirts with his tirade printed on them.

Apparently, some people never learn.  According to the usual sources (Pitchfork, Brooklyn Vegan), Kozelek was recently playing at some festival somewhere, and got upset that The War On Drugs were playing too loudly on another stage.  He allegedly told the audience that the band sounded to him like generic beer-ad guitar or some such thing, and said The War On Drugs could "suck my cock."

Now he's apparently back to the "it was all just a joke," denial phase, and to show what a swell guy he really is and how he can even laugh at himself, he's released a song called War On Drugs, Suck My Cock.  

The first verse talks about the War On Drugs feud, while the second recounts the Raleigh incident. For some reason, he identifies the city as Chapel Hill, either because it works into the rhythm scheme better than Raleigh, or because he didn't even know where he was or he doesn't know the difference (tell me what the difference is between Oakland and Berkeley again?).  But other than geography, it is a pretty accurate description of what I saw that night, although I wouldn't go so far as to classify the audience as "hillbillies" and the Lincoln Theater didn't actually smell particularly bad.  

What's most interesting to me is the third verse, where he talks about some "spoiled-bitch rich-kid blogger brat" who got offended and posted pictures of the anti-Moon graffiti.  I'm not so vain that I think that this song is about me, but I did post an account of the incident on Blogspot with pictures of the graffiti, although I'm hardly the only one.  But if that's as harsh as the blow back gets, I can deal with it.  In any event, Pitchfork thinks the reference is to a writer at Raleigh's Indy Week, although I don't know how they could know that from just the song.

  

But anyway (and here's where I'm concerned that I'm going to be misunderstood), none of this has anything to do with why I'm giving away my War On Drugs ticket.  The Sun Kil Moon song hasn't changed my opinion about them (although it does have me reconsidering Sun Kil Moon).  

I've already seen The War On Drugs about three times and each show was great, but I've seen them just last month (at Hopscotch) and while I wouldn't mind seeing them again, that same night Courtney Barnett is playing her first show in Atlanta, with San Fermin opening, and I bought tickets to that show, too.  So rather than see TWOD for a fourth time, I'm going to opt to see Barnett instead and give away my ticket, free, to anyone who wants it.

I'm not convinced I even have any readers here, except possibly my friend Lesley down in Griffin who's also going to the Courtney Barnett show, but if anyone does see this and wants the ticket, just contact me at shokai.atl@gmail.com and I'll email the ticket to you.  As stated earlier, the ticket will probably go to the first (only?) responder, but in the unlikely event that I get multiple requests, the ticket will go to the person who most makes me want to give it to them (hint: humor works better on me than guilt).

Good luck, and enjoy!

Hopscotch - Day One

Drove from Atlanta to Raleigh (the new Portland) yesterday for Day One of the Hopscotch Music Festival.  More details to follow, but here are the bands that I saw and heard:

TOON & THE REAL LAWW

Local, Raleigh hip-hop crew with good lyrical flow and some pretty funny lines, none of which I can remember this morning.

DE LA SOUL

Iconic, hip-hop legends from Long Island performing in Richmond City Plaza.  

SUN CLUB

At the Lincoln Theater, this young, energetic band played party music not dissimilar to Louisiana's Givers.

AMERICAN AQUARIUM

Alt-country from nationally-recognized Raleigh band. 

WHITE LACES

Psychedelic "ambient dream punk" from Richmond, Virginia.  Bonus points for the Boston Celtics t-shirt.

THE WAR ON DRUGS

The pride of Philadelphia played loud and played long, not wrapping up their set until well after 2 am.

White Laces

Hopscotch Festival in Raleigh, the new Portland, holds a lot more potential than Bumbershoot.  Day One of Hopscotch (Thursday, September 4), will include the band White Laces sandwiched somewhere in between hip-hop pioneers De La Soul and Philadelphia stalwarts The War On Drugs (who'll be playing in Atlanta during Rocktober on the same night as Courtney Barnett and San Fermin (who will be playing Bumbershoot at the same time as Pickwick)).

Hobosexual

On Sunday, August 31, near the start of the second day of my last-ever Bumbershoot, the Seattle band Hobosexual will take the Fountain Lawn stage.  I don't know if I'll be there for them or not, but if their live performance is anything like this video, they may be a lot of fun.

Sunday highlights include Kishi Bashi and Craft Spells, and some genius in the scheduling department decided to put Pickwick and San Fermin on at the same time.  I'll probably go with Pickwick, as they rarely tour the American South and as I'll get to see San Fermin open for Courtney Barnett during Rocktober, although some genius in the scheduling department booked that show at The Loft on the same night that The War On Drugs plays The Tabernacle. 

SVE 2014

(That awkward moment when you realize it's been over a year sine you've seen Sharon Van Etten perform.)

In one of those best-of-all-possible-worlds announcements, Sharon Van Etten has revealed that she'll have a new album coming out in May, with more goove-, soul-, and R&B-influenced tracks than before.  Even better, she's said that guest performers on the album include Jonathan Meiburg of Shearwater, Mackenzie Scott of Torres, Jana Hunter of Lower Dens, and Dave Harley and Adam Granduciel of The War on Drugs.

This is worth watching out for, but here's an early version of one of the songs from the new album performed at the ever-blissful Pickathon festival.