Straight forward pop music can either be incredibly good, incredibly bad, or somewhere in the middle. It all depends on how formulaic the tune is and how good the lyric is. There are no problems on any level for Caitlin Rose and Only A Clown from her March 2013 long-player, The Stand In. Caitlin combines a country-esque sensibility to her tunes, with a touche of jazz lounge singer and a whole lot of pop chops. If you haven’t heard of Caitlin Rose,…
Read MoreDown Like Hip Hop is rock-solid pop from Fiction 20 Down’s (2013) long-player Where’s The Levity?. Yes, there is hip-hop here, there’s also a very deep understanding for melody and music. Hip Hop is flavor, it’s rhythm, and it can be flipping awesome, which is exactly what Fiction 20 Down proves. Along with the pop sensibility and hip hop flavor, there’s just a touch of reggae and a bit of rock for good measure. This is music,…
Read MoreJust the right touches of swing and rhythm and blues makes Kassy Key and The Rain Dogs a compelling listening experience. Kassy Key has a great vocal for this style-a sassy, full on alto, dripping with bluesy greatness. The Raindogs provide excellent backup horns, bass and rhythms, sometimes popping up front for the limelight-and not in a bad way. Here on Sleight Of Hand, from the band’s latest EP (available via i-Tunes) you can hear all of those…
Read MoreFocus on Courtney Barnett If you’ve been following along on A Little More Vodka, A Little Less Milk for awhile, you know that Australian singer/songwriter/garage rocker, Courtney Barnett has been a favorite. She’s appeared on the blog twice in video, in December 2012 and about 3 months ago. In addition, she made the cut for the 40 best tracks of 2012 with History Eraser and just released (March 2013) another single, Avant Gardener, originally a studio demo instrumental, that she added lyrics to. There’s something about the garage sensibility of the music, borrowing from many pop, rock and blues sub-genres to get this…
Read MoreVocally bordering on the operatic, My Woshin Mashin’s single Twenty One, released January 2013, is a electro-pop masterpiece. The video is an otherworldly adventure in black and white, which is artistic in its own right. My Woshin Mashin is made up of three friends from Russia and Gernany. They have found a way to create engaging music in a genre that is often lame and simplistic. Unlike many electronically focused pop groups, they understand that it’s the music that must speak,…
Read More