“Dollar Store” – Ben Kweller featuring Waxahatchee
Katie Crutchfield is starting to show up in as many songs by other people as Phoebe Bridgers. Thank goodness both of them are always great collaborators.
“Bethany” – Craig Finn
Speaking of collaborations, can we just send Finn and The War On Drugs out on tour together and make old guys like me super happy? A perfect melding of their sounds here.
“No Front Teeth” – Perfume Genius with Aldous Harding
Another collab, and another terrific song from PG’s upcoming album.
“Better Half of a Dollar” – Fime
Absolute ripper!
“Bubblegum Nothingness” – Jetstream Pony
Both the song title and band name seem like gibberish selected by flipping through the dictionary and attaching random words together. The members of this group have been in no fewer than eight other acts, so that mishmash of words makes sense.
“More Than Life” – The Horrors
The Horrors might be the ultimate, 21st century, post-punk band. Their first album of new music in eight years stays right in that groove.
“The Slim” – Sugar
Bob Mould’s new album is out today. Brother-in-music Sir David V sent me an article earlier this week in which Mould identified some of his favorite songs. However, he stuck to his solo work. I love a lot of that, but if I had to pick only one Mould-based album to listen to, it would be Sugar’s amazing 1992 disk Copper Blue. It might be as close to a perfect LP as you can make.
“Spaceman In Tulsa” – Counting Crows
I was in college in the 1990s, which meant I owned CC’s debut album August And Everything After. It was the law; you had to own it if you were a white college student. That album still holds up. I also really enjoyed their 1996 follow-up Discovering the Satellites. Like most, though, I lost track of them after. They are still around making new music. I’m not sure how good this song is, but I felt I owed it to my generation to share it.