Rockin’ Vibes
Do you know this band Kaleo? They’re from Iceland and now signed to Atlantic and they’ve played SXSW and…they’ve got two tracks with over twenty million plays on Spotify.
I’ve never heard of them.
I started with “Discover Weekly,” and discovered that unsung, never broke through Bob Schneider definitely has the goods, check out his cut “Han Solo.” And my personalized playlist had a Nitty Gritty Dirt Band cover of “You Ain’t Going Nowhere,” a “Basement Tapes” song made famous by the Byrds but still unknown by so many. And there was a great Emmylou Harris song “Bluebird Wine,” but too many of the songs I already knew, even if they were amongst the best of the acts’ output, hell, how did the algorithm know to pick out Arc Angels’ “Sent By Angels”? And I LOVE Aerosmith’s “Seasons Of Wither” and the Cars’ “It’s All I Can Do,” but they’re from the seventies and I want to hear something new.
My “Discover Weekly” playlist did include Courtney Barnett’s “Three Packs A Day,” but even though it was better than the rest of her output I’d been exposed to it didn’t move the needle, it was edgy music for young people, not radically different from what I used to listen to.
But then I discovered “Rockin’ Vibes.”
Spotify keeps changing/improving its interface, on a regular basis there are new features. And now they recommend playlists and tracks based on what you’ve listened to previously, kind of an ongoing “Discover Weekly.” And…it’s all so overwhelming, there’s so much stuff. I was about to default to my usual playlists, the “United States Top 50” and “Hot Country.” But…
Too many of the “Top 50” are tune-outs and too many of the “Hot Country “are repetitious, not groundbreaking, serviceable, but ultimately a waste of time.
So I decided to dig deeper.
Spotify was recommending “This Is: George Harrison.” That’s right, I’d been listening to “All Things Must Pass,” the title track, I had a hard week and I started to write something but…
And there was “This Is: Eagles,” which I perused, but I know all that stuff.
“Classic Acoustic” was interesting, but like I said, I wanted to hear some new stuff, stuff I didn’t know.
And that’s when I stumbled on “Rockin’ Vibes.” Could it have a worse title?
The first track was “Take Me Down,” by the Pretty Reckless, and it was pretty good.
Huh? Isn’t that Taylor Momsen’s band? Aren’t actors supposed to suck at music? “Take Me Down” wasn’t cutting edge, but it was hooky, I most certainly got it.
And then I discovered Kaleo’s “Hot Blood,” with that guitar sound that has you twisting in your seat that I like so much. Once again, not revolutionary, but really good, I got sidetracked, that’s when I went down into the rabbit hole, learning about Kaleo.
And when I went back to “Rockin’ Vibes,” I was stunned, everything was GOOD!
Some of the bands you’ve heard of.
Some of you have not.
But there was nothing I wanted to fast-forward through.
That Band Of Horses track, “Solemn Oath,” I can listen to stuff like this for a very long time.
And Jeff Beck put out a new album which had no impact, he was totally wrong to fire Harvey Goldsmith as his manager, Harvey knew how to raise a ruckus, and I’ve heard this cut, and am somewhat disappointed by the vocalist, but if you’re not wowed by Beck’s guitar work you don’t like the six stringed instrument. When he starts to wail it’s like God has come down from heaven and is converting you just by doing his act, it’s irresistible.
And you can tell what all the buzz is about by listening to St. Paul & The Broken Bones’ “All I Ever Wonder.”
And then there’s the underrated deserving of praise Bob Moses, with “Tearing Me Up.” There’s no place for this on Top Forty radio, no place in our all promotion all the time in-your-face culture, but if you’re human, if you come home and want to relax, this will do it for you.
And then there was that band I’d never heard of, the Quaker City Night Hawks, I played “Beat The Machine” and I couldn’t stop playing it.
Rockin’ Vibes is a REVELATION!
If you’re a rock fan looking for new music who just can’t fathom the Top Forty, if you feel you just weren’t made for these times, you’ll be stunned to find there’s a playlist just for you.
What I’d like is a festival of just these acts, where each played three cuts, maybe four or five, I’d go for that, bands would truly break out of that, that’d be different from the casual clusterf**ks with the same acts playing across this great country of ours.
There’s still too much music to digest. “Rockin’ Vibes” is six hours and fourteen minutes long, it contains a hundred tracks, but it’s definitely worth listening to.
Maybe all of us who are fans of this music can agree this is our playlist and elevate these acts to the tier they deserve.
Or maybe not.
