Vote, Vote, Vote.

Over at Americana UK we have just completed the official, as voted for by the "experts" best Americana albums ever. So now we are asking the audience, better known as the real experts. 

Vote for your 3 favourite albums HERE, and if you don't know what is classed as Americana then have a read round the site while you are there.  

The good new stuff playlist #2

 So last month it was mostly about 80s influenced synth pop. This time we have drifted away both in musical styles and geography. There's Hillary Anne from Côte d'Ivoire, with a distinctively African take on current pop, and Turhan James from Karachi Pakistan. Adeline's Whsiper My Name opens with a sublime guitar lick, and is as good apiece of retro soul as you will find. Another great playlist, if I do say so myself, enjoy...

Find all the artists featured at their Socials and follow them on Spotify... 

Hillary Anne   Low Girl   Rosehip   Lucy Dreams  Pushpin   Adeline  Turhan James   Four Nights  

Express Office Portico   Roderic H   Naytiive   Beks   Olivia Rose   Vissia    Katie Kittermaster

A late addition to the playlist is Lucy James 'Cloudy Vision'  a dream pop ballad that recalls people like Judie Tzuke.

 

Heaven - Olivia Rose

 

A cracking new video from a Bristol girl. Olivia Rose filmed her video in a couple of local locations, and it's as good a piece of modern R&B influenced pop as you will hear. My 22 year old daughter has been playing this on repeat since I showed it to her. Better than most of the charts... 

Find her other music on Soundcloud

We love a list...

 Over at Americana UK the search for the top 10 best Americana albums ever is reaching its climax. All the writers have submitted their opinions, and now the final list is being counted down. Some interesting albums have emerged from the lists, and the top 10 as published so far has at least two that I wouldn't have seen coming. 

Find all the top 10s here, as I write this we are at number 7 so check back over the next few days to see who makes the top slots...

In case you care my list, which may turn out to be a bit of a minority report, is here. 

And here's a soundtrack for your reading, Alan Freeman's chart rundown music...

 

 

The good new stuff playlist #1

Having spent the week listening the artists who have submitted songs to Musosoup, I've learnt something I knew already, that there is so much fab new music about that we can safely live without the harsher end of the music biz. I also discovered something I didn't know; that 80s style synth pop, synthwave or whatever you want to call it is back with a bang. 

I'm not sure what I expected to find by way of genres but this is music you can make in your bedroom so it makes sense that as bands struggle to get together that this would be the music of lockdown. 

Find all the artists featured at their Socials and follow them on Spotify...

 Mantis State  Chris D'lima Karianne Jean Ben Xylo  Nocturnal's The Shop Window  The Woods
Zipten Zelha  Waxworks. Youth Antics Hypheria

Lindsay Ruth Young is the first addition to the playlist, cracking little song called 'Still'. Some Massive Attack stuff going on here...

One song that I selected isn't on Spotify, but as the video for Johnny Cleveland's Order of Courage live beats encapsulates the DIY ethos of much of this fab playlist that I've included it below.

Musosoup - stirring up artist support.

 

So, time has come to put my metaphorical money where my keyboard is, so to speak. Having spent a lot of time complaining about the iniquities of the music biz and its treatment of artists I've found something practical to do to fight back.

I've been talking to Chris Sharpe, founder of Musosoup this week. His plan is to level the playing field for artists, and in a new twist in the plot for those who for the most part write and promote them for free. The truth is that most music writing is done without payment, including magazines you can buy on the shelves at W.H. Smiths.  I've talked about Fireworks Magazine in the past, all volunteer run. It's main competitor, Powerplay - the work of Mark Hoaksey. If you look at the bottom of Americana UK website you will find a button asking for support, that pays for the hosting costs, our editor, Mark Whitfield, works at a University in the daytime and commits huge amounts of time to making a success of the website. Most bloggers, including me, spend their lives with nose applied to grindstone in other parts of the forest. Chris Sharpe was a PR and ran a music venue before the C***d, and like all of us had to find a way to keep the lights on.

What is Musosoup? It's a portal that aims to connect artists with those who canget their music noticed without being taken to the cleaners. £3 for a 48-hour window for bloggers, radio, podcasts to find you is not huge, Submithub. Musosoup's about page says: "Unlike other submission platforms that ask for a payment per submission to each individual curator, we ask for a one-off payment, and just one submission will put your music in front of the right people. No more spending hours researching who to submit to, our curators will come to you if your music suits." What's more the Curator, which is how they are describing the content providers, radio, writing, podcasting, can ask for a little towards the cost of marketing and their time. £5 or so is the average. This is not going to make us give up the day jobs, but it does make it possible to broadcast the world of independent artists to a much bigger audience.

The independent PR stands to gain from this as well. I will certainly be steering the artists I work with at Marketing4Music towards it. There are some committed people, like Katie at From The White House PR, and Continental Record Services in Holland who are not making vast sums of money off the back of their artists and doing great work for them, but if we can slow down the rise of Submithub leaching off the hopes and dreams of singers and bands then so much the better.

Learn about Musosoup HERE, and after a little rejigging of the blog pages there will be an affiliate link that artists can use up by the weekend. My first playlist of new music I've heard will be up at the weekend. yes, it will be on Spotify for all the same reasons I use a Google driven platform for this blog and Facebook for My Musix, everyone else is there and this is about the oxygen of publicity. Don't worry I will be posting links for the places where you can support the artist in a more practical fashion.

Pennan Brae 'Lit' - literally the best album this year so far...

 
The press for Pennan Brae’s 8^th studio album says that it is “influenced by rock & roll of the 1970s & 80s”. And certainly, the opening of lead song ‘Won’t You Come My Way’ has a very Rolling Stones guitar riff, a theme that repeats throughout the record. Following hard on this start is the album’s best song ‘El Camino’ which adds Raspberries style pop to the mix.

You might think that in 2021 the possibilities of the guitar bass drums format had been played out. In fact, there is something highly refreshing about it. In an age where even the simplest album is pro tooled to death, Brae’s clear unadorned guitar sound is the more powerful for simply being simple. There is as much 60s garage in this music as later influence, most of the songs on Lit would have fitted in just fine on ‘Nuggets’. 70s style Power Pop is another good reference point. Ten years ago, Brae would have been snapped up by Bruce Brodeen’s Not Lame label for sure.

Other album highlights are the mid-tempo ‘Sashay’, the only place where Alison Jenkins’ backing vocals have much impact, and singles ‘Passing Fad’ and ‘Tearing my Heart in 2’. And there’s the clue. The best songs are the singles, the album is ten tracks long and under 40 minutes long. In other words, a good old-fashioned album. You know where to buy it by now.

Pennan Brae is also a screenwriter and film maker. His ‘The Astronot’ is on Amazon Prime now, and well worth a watch.

There are changes coming to 160gigblog. More content and different content.  Watch out over the next few weeks. In the meantime, here’s Pennan Brae’s latest video while you wait.