A few people have been asking what kind of music I listen to these days. Some even seem to think I may be stuck in the 80s!! Hmm? That is definitely not the case. Here is a clue as to what is currently pumping on my stereo.

This chart features the songs – mainly brand-new tracks, or at least recent releases, that have caught my well-worn ear and are now streaming merrily into my home. There are also tunes that have been missed by my musical radar over the last couple of years but have finally been stumbled upon. Plus, lookout for a couple of ‘golden oldies’ that you may be surprised I like.

Dig deep enough and you can find excellent new music being produced by some innovative and talented young musicians. Some of our old favorites are also still hanging around and unleashing some mighty fine music upon us.

You will not be finding any of those Most Streamed Songs from the music platform of your choice on my chart. Or the same old retreads most commercial radio stations play ad nauseam. So NO new Bruno Mars, Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran, or The Weeknd singles. Sorry for you, but these kinds of folk are just not for me.

I try to avoid speaking in genres… but … we will be covering all my usual suspects …

Indie music in all its many forms … Americana, some electronica, a smattering of straight-up rock ‘n’ roll, psychedelia, a touch of country; and of course plenty of stuff that is 80s influenced. Plus any interesting earworms in-between that catch my fancy.

Unfortunately NO hip-hop, rap, heavy metal, Celine Dion, or boy-bands either … sorry Albin Wagner and Jimmy Barr, maybe next time.🤪

As this “episode” is called the “Chart Show,” songs will be listed from 20 – 1. The full chart of 40 songs is available for your listening pleasure on an Apple Music playlist called … “The Chart Show.”

So, without further ado, let’s dive into my own personal, and current “hit-parade” …

Bubbling under …

21.

15.

Remember Sports is an American indie rock band from Philadelphia. Formed in 2102 in Gambier, Ohio, and was originally just named Sports. They play a loose, jangly indie-type pop, fused with ’90s lo-fi, and pop-punk influences that suit singer Carmen Perry’s rankled conversational lyrical style.

Like a Stone is the group’s fourth album (counting the two LPs as Sports) and it ratchets up the tension in the group’s balance of bittersweet guitar pop and more urgent fare.

The single “Out Loud” is my favorite off the record.

“I could tell you in the morning
But you’re not around
I could reach for you in my dreams
And pray to the sound
Of you coming over with your hair grown out
Awake from the daytime, chocolate on your mouth …. “

14.

Ryan (not Bryan) Adams

Big Colors is the eighteenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Ryan Adams. Originally slated for release on April 19, 2019, it was delayed following abuse allegations against Adams. It was eventually released on June 11, 2021, through Adams’s label PAX AM. Co-produced by Adams and Beatriz Artola, the album features guest spots from Don Was, Benmont Tench, and Hüsker Dü’s Bob Mould.

“Fuck the Rain” was the first single released off the record. It welcomes a guest spot from John Mayer, who provides a guitar solo on the reverb-drenched, moody cut.

And no, that is not Ryan Adams in the homemade YouTube video below. He looks like this …

It’s a pretty dodgy video but the song will hopefully make up for it.

13.

St. Lucia is the project of Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Jean-Philip Grobler. They make shimmery ’80s influenced, synth-driven pop. Yes, and if you’re wondering about that surname, Grobler … well …

Jean-Philip was born in 1983 in Johannesburg, South Africa. When he was ten years old he began singing with the Drakensberg Boys Choir. He spent much of his childhood with the famous choir which traveled and performed internationally. Jean-Phillip began making his own music when he was 12, inspired by Michael Jackson, Phil Collins, and Sting. Grobler left the choir and South Africa a few years later, moving to England aged 19. He then studied music at the Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts for three years. There he met Patti Beranek, who became his collaborator, and eventually his wife.

Following his graduation, the couple moved to New York City, where Grobler became a jingle writer and formed St. Lucia as an outlet for his own songs. Combining the influence of his childhood favorites with groups like Radiohead and Mew he began releasing his own music in 2012.

“Bigger,” is the opening track off their 2018 album called Hyperion. It is a buoyant anthem, rife with fizzy synth and piano riffs, stadium-sized programmed drum beats, and outsized melodies that stick in your head for days.

From AllMusic … ‘Without ever straying too far from originality, they seem to be repurposing specific grooves from old songs. Like mashing up Genesis’ “Invisible Touch” with Wham’s “Everything She Wants” to create their own catchy “Gun.” Elsewhere, “Last Dance” pleasantly brings to mind Songs from the Big Chair-era Tears for Fears, while “Brighter Love” sounds improbably like Jody Watley’s “Looking for a New Love” if produced by Human League. What’s particularly compelling about St. Lucia’s vintage approach to pop on Hyperion is just how fresh it continues to sound.’

Sounds good? Then check out a live performance of the track below.

12.

Nation of Language are an American indie pop band that formed in Brooklyn in 2016. The group consists of Ian Richard Devaney (vocals, guitar, percussion), Aidan Noell (synth, vocals) and Michael Sue-Poi (bass).

I had heard nothing of these guys before stumbling across them on an Apple Music playlist, and was immediately attracted to their icy, post-punk-inspired synth pop. I soon discovered Nation of Language is the creation of one Ian Devaney, who was it seems inspired by the early work of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. Crikey! No wonder I paid attention.

His father played OMD’s “Electricity,” a song Devaney was familiar with, but hadn’t heard since he was a schoolkid, in the car one day. Hearing it inspired him to try to write something similar, as an exercise. The resulting track was “Laudanum,” which ended up on Nation of Language’s eponymous debut EP in 2015.

“Across That Fine Line” is first of two tracks from Nation of Language featured in my “Chart Show.” Both are off the upcoming album titled A Way Forward which is due for release later this year.

It is clear that the children of us old fogies from the 80s are now beginning to make some fabulous music. No doubt inspired and influenced, from hearing Mom or Dad’s music bubbling away in the background, as they grew up.

11.

Faye Webster is an American indie-folk musician, singer, and photographer based in Atlanta, Georgia. She self-released her debut album Run and Tell in 2013. Webster has released three albums since: Faye Webster (2017) on Awful Records, Atlanta Millionaires Club (2019) on Secretly Canadian, and her most recent, I Know I’m Funny Haha, was released on June 25, 2021.

The title track, “I Know I’m Funny Haha,” is a delightful lovelorn ballad, with almost enough heart to counterbalance the innate sense of irony that is her trademark. It has a drowsy country-tinged feel to it, delivered with a sweet wink over a breezy soft pop bed.

Fans of Stella Donnelly, Laura Veirs, and Natalie Prass should enjoy this.

I recently finished reading Record Play Pause by Stephen Morris. This is part memoir, part scrapbook, and part aural history. Stephen Morris’ innate sense of rhythm and verve pulses through the book. Before he was responsible for some of the most iconic drumming in popular music, Stephen grew up in the 1960s and ’70s industrial Macclesfield, on a quiet road that led seemingly to nowhere. Far removed from the bright lights and manic energy of nearby Manchester, he felt stifled by suburbia and feared he might never escape.

It is a brilliant read – interesting, funny, and of course also touched with tragedy, although it is many miles from being maudlin. His dry sense of humor keeps it buoyant throughout. I chuckled often, and even ‘laughed out loud,’ on more than one occasion. What is clear from the book is that Joy Division was as far from being miserable sad bastards and serious musicians as you can possibly get. No, they were pretty normal lads, who liked a laugh, a fag, gallons of booze, tinkering with narcotics, and of course the girls. Sounds quite familiar actually.

He also has volume two out which deals with the “adventures” of his second band New Order – the first book ending with the three ex-Joy Division lads arriving in New York City for the first time.

At the end of the book, Stephen slipped in a playlist of his 77 favorite songs. It is quite an eclectic mix – from Kraftwerk to Duke Ellington to Marianne Faithfull to the Ramones, amongst 73 others. It’s not for everyone I know … but … the full playlist called ‘Record Play Pause’ is also available on my Apple Music profile.

One tune that did come as a bit of surprise is this long-forgotten classic by the late Kenny Rogers. I haven’t heard this probably since the early 70s … but, it’s really great … so I thought … why not?

Kenny before he was … well … Kenny Rogers

Kenny Rogers and the First Edition, until 1969 billed as The First Edition, were an American rock band that fused rock and roll, R&B, folk, and country. Its core members were Kenny Rogers (lead vocals and bass guitar), Mickey Jones (drums and percussion) and Terry Williams (guitar and vocals). The band formed in 1967, with folk musician Mike Settle (guitar and backing vocals) and the operatically-trained Thelma Camacho (lead vocals) completing the lineup.

The band had a top ten hit in 1969 with the topical “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town” (US No. 6, UK No.2).

For the next six years, the First Edition moved between country rock, pop and psychedelic rock, enjoying worldwide success. By the mid-1970s, frontman Kenny Rogers had embarked on a solo music career, becoming one of the top-selling country artists of all time.

The video below features some of the worst lip-synching I have ever seen in a music video.😂 The honey in the white boots (Thelma??), bashing the tambourines (those round jingly jangly things … Stop it! Not those round jingly jangly things 🤣) is the business though 😍😍😅😂… this is from a 1972 performance of the tune. Hands up who knew Kenny was such a dab hand on the old bass guitar. Quite the stud back then to!

10.

Indie-pop singer-songwriter Rebecca Taylor (aka Self Esteem) uses the refined songwriting ability she picked up in her previous band Slow Club, and garnishes it with electronic pop trappings. As part of Slow Club, Taylor’s music leaned more toward indie and folk, but as Self Esteem, she borrows heavily from R&B and bombastic pop. This is possibly the most commercial artist in my countdown and yes, the cover art-work brought me here to begin with.

The new single is Rebecca Taylor’s first material since the release of her debut album under the moniker, 2019s Compliments Please.

Speaking of the new track and more new material that will follow, Taylor said:

“All my upcoming work is exploring how complicated it is to just be a human. I’m wonderful and I’m terrible. I hurt people and people hurt me. I feel everything and nothing. It’s a shit laugh but then it can be quite jolly can’t it. The video is the first chance to spot one of the many Easter eggs for Self Esteem purists as well as the rather on the nose metaphor of me hugging myself – much like Elton John in the movie Rocket Man does. Enjoy!”

9.

Deafheaven is a San Francisco band that melds second-generation black metal and rhapsodic indie shoegaze, but don’t let that put you off! Their new song “The Gnashing,” the second single from the band’s upcoming LP Infinite Granite is featured here in my top ten. This banger of a tune showcases a stylistic shift for the California metal act, with frontman George Clarke’s vocal approach more melodic and decipherable than the black metal howling’s that feature on previous Deafheaven albums.

Thank goodness for that, I say. A band definitely heading in the right direction, and one to look out for.

8.

80s and 90s heroes still going strong …

James is an English rock band from Manchester, which was formed in 1982. Most of us know them well 😆 They enjoyed popularity throughout the 1990s, with four top 10s on the UK Singles Chart and nine top 10s on the UK Albums Chart. The band’s best-known singles include “Come Home“, “Sit Down“, “She’s a Star” and “Laid.”

Following the departure of lead singer Tim Booth in 2001, the band became inactive, but reunited in January 2007 and has gone on to produce a further seven albums. Live performance has continually remained a central part of the band’s output. Their gig at the Pretoria Botanical Gardens a couple of years ago was excellent. I had no idea how small Tim Booth actually is! My old Mom would probably tower over him, and she’s tiny. 🤣 I think I’m also correct in saying it was my last live show before all this shit hit the fan at the beginning of 2020.

As of 2010, the band had sold more than 25 million albums worldwide.

“Isabella” my tune at number eight is off All the Colours of You – their 16th studio album. It was released on 4 June 2021.

7.

Wild Pink is an American indie rock band from the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens in New York City. Possibly also one of my favourite groups around at the moment. Their warm, reflective, Americana infused indie rock tunes follow the soft-spoken lead of singer and songwriter John Ross. Awash in ruminative, synth-laden ambiance and amicable classic rock melodicism, Billion Little Lights, their third LP, is Wild Pink’s most fully realized outing to date.

[AllMusic … Comparisons to the open-road FM emissions of the War on Drugs and Sam’s Town-era Killers are apt, but Ross and company aren’t necessarily aiming for the nosebleed seats. Finding the sweet spot between intimacy and grandiosity is the aim here, and for the most part, Billion Little Lights succeeds, especially when it stretches its pop legs, as it does on the breezy Magnetic Fields-esque opener “The Wind Like a Train” and the unapologetically Fleetwood Mac-inspired” You Can Have It Back.”]

6.

Second entry in my chart by Nation of Language. I’m looking forward to the album coming out soon.

5.

Australian electronic project Panama spans the dance-oriented spectrum, from the funk of Hot Chip to the indie dance-rock of Bastille. One of the oldest songs on my chart – Always is the second extended play by Australian musician Panama, released in October 2013. Yet another tune in my TOP 15 which has a distinct 80s vibe. “Destroyer” has also been described as “a restrained dance/house track that sounds like it’s from outer space.” For me it’s instant ear-candy – give the live version a listen below.

4.

I’ve been enjoying this Liverpool band since their self-titled debut way back in 2002. Their own take on psychedelic and mod rock is both sincere and totally 21st century. Here in 2021 they have just released their 9th LP called Coral Island. It’s one of my favourite album releases of the year. Below are some comments on the band, their new record and my song at NUMBER 4 …

The Coral just keep on doing their own thing, they don’t get the recognition they deserve

Quality effort lads. 30 seconds in and I’m buying this album

The most consistent British band currently making music. Coral Island is simply stunning

Lover Undiscovered is the sort of song that would have stormed the singles charts a few years ago, but these days its full of nonsense

This is feckin’ wonderful! Proper early 70s Laurel Canyon vibes.

Great song! For me it sounds a bit like Heroes by David Bowie

I’m on about my 15th listen to this album. I’m gonna put it up there with their best for sure … but they have NEVER done a bad album! Disgustingly underrated group.

YouTube People

Here’s another track from Stephen Morris’ PLAYLIST … put on those dancing shoes boys and girls 💃🕺 … this … is … a … stone … cold … CLASSIC 💖

Produced and co-written by Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, it was recorded for Summer’s fifth studio album, I Remember Yesterday (1977). The album concept was to have each track evoke a different musical decade; for “I Feel Love“, the team aimed to create a futuristic mood, employing a Moog synthesizer.

The single was a number one hit in Australia, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, number three in Germany and Italy, number six on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, and also topped the charts in many other countries.

It became popular during the disco era, influencing artists and bands such as David Bowie, Brian Eno, The Human League and Blondie. The Financial Times credited it as “one of the most influential records ever made”, laying the foundations for electronic dance music.

“I Feel Love,” still sounds like the future, 44 years later, and is mind-blowing with 🎧 on.

3.

Quite easily my favourite new band and possibly the ALBUM of 2021. I just can’t get enough of these guys. Here’s a review from the Guardian …

Dry Cleaning: New Long Leg review – terrific post-punk poets of the everyday

The easy thing to do with Dry Cleaning is to concentrate on Florence Shaw and her laconic, subdued, spoken delivery of lyrics that are almost surreal in their quotidian blankness. But that does a disservice to the other three members of the band, because New Long Leg is the work of a terrifically focused group, whose version of post-punk is far more varied than it might at first appear. Tom Dowse has a knack for insinuating guitar lines – the cascading riff of “Unsmart Lady“; the simple pattern that underpins “Strong Feelings” – and sometimes the hooks come from the basslines of Lewis Maynard. There’s not a revolution here: the rulebook of the four-piece indie band is not being rewritten, but even with a conventional singer, singing conventional lyrics, Dry Cleaning would be a superior example of the kind.

All that said, Shaw is the magic ingredient. Her lyrics – snippets of found text, but mostly her own writing – leap out, and have more impact from being delivered conversationally, freed from the rhythms and meter of the music. “Got my shorts on in preparation for the hot, these idiots in trousers, they don’t know what they’re doing,” she intones in “Her Hippo,” a single line that opens up a dozen possibilities. It’s a shame, then, that her best lyric – the long, dense, allusive “Every Day Carry,” a succession of seething, lacerating lines – is married to the least interesting music of the record, seven-and-a-half minutes that one suspects are meant to be hypnotic and probably are – live. On record, though? Not so much. Still, this is a debut to be excited about.

Michael Hamm (The Guardian)

“I’ve been thinking about eating that hot dog for hours“

Dry Cleanings debut album New Long Leg out now on vinyl, CD and yes, cassette.

2.

My friend in Sydney, Mark Humphrey, has been banging on about this group for a while now. The few half-listens I gave to them to date had not convinced me of them. Recently though, my mate in the Cape, Trevor Pape, sent me a YouTube link of their recently released single on video. One spin of “The Angel of 8th Avenue” I realised I was hearing something special.

Gang of Youths are an Australian indie rock group from Sydney. The band consists of principal songwriter David Le’aupepe (lead vocals, guitar), Max Dunn (bass guitar), Jung Kim (lead guitar, keyboards), Donnie Borzestowski (drums), and Tom Hobden (violin, keyboards, guitar). Kim is Korean-American, Dunn is from New Zealand, Borzestowski is Polish-Australian, Hobden is British, while Le’aupepe is of Samoan and Austrian-Jewish descent. They are mostly known for their 2017 single “Let Me Down Easy” which became their first top 50 single in Australia.

Their influences include Sonic Youth, the Replacements, early U2, and Leonard Cohen. I can also hear plenty of Bruce Springsteen’s E-Street Band in their overall sound from earlier listens. I’m not sure what the album is going to sound like when it is eventually released, but, if it’s anything like this track, it should be a goodie.

1.

This band ISLAND, methinks, could be quite big, if enough people get to hear them that is. As the music festival season in the UK approaches this may happen sooner rather than later. I know almost nothing of them, and having a name like Island, makes them almost un-Google-able (is that a word?)

John Dagley, my long-time musical “brother,” ironically alerted me to them a few weeks back. Their latest (and second) album is called Yesterday Park, which granted, took a few listens to sink in. Eventually, their little ear-worms burrowed their way into my brain, and the album became a favourite listen for a while in mid-2021.

I loved the song “My Brother” from the first moment I heard it. It’s a gorgeous slice of pop melancholia – fans of recent albums by Coldplay and Kings of Leon take note. The video’s pretty darn good. If you have (or even had 😥) a brother ,then I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t at least bring a wee tear … as we all trundle on towards old-age.

This one’s for John Dagley, and of course my two brothers. ❤❤❤

That’s the “show” for today folks. If even one song made an impression on one person reading this I’ll be happy. I had fun compiling the list anyway. Maybe there will be another one of these … or maybe not 😅🤣

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