Hear all 5 Songs We Can't Stop Listening To:
1. Wild Belle picks Kendrick Lamar – “Alright”
Every week we ask an artist that we love to come on and talk about a song they love. This week we caught up with Wild Belle. (Learn more about the band in our story "You Should Know: Wild Belle.")
Justin Barney: My guest this week is Natalie Bergman of Wild Belle. Natalie, as we were getting set up here, we were kind of talking about Kendrick Lamar and you told me that the song you can’t stop listening to is “Alright.” Why Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright”?
Natalie Bergman: I mean, it has a lot to do with gun violence and it’s very relative to what’s going on in the world now and in history and that’s why it’s such a powerful song. He’s almost making light, he’s saying, “Look, no matter what, you can shoot as many motherf****s you want, but you can’t touch me. You can’t actually kill me. You know? No matter what, a gun doesn’t take somebody’s soul away, that doesn’t take somebody’s heart away, or their life, all of the accomplishments they did here on this earth. It’s just an ugly thing. He’s touching on something that’s a very serious subject today.
Justin: I agree. I saw this video of a bunch of protestors in Ferguson and they just started singing that song. It was like “We gonna be alright” and then, like, everybody on the block was singing that song.
Natalie: It’s a movement and the revolution starts in your head.
- Kendrick Lamar’s album “To Pimp A Butterfly” was released in 2015.
- Listen if you like: the anthem of 2015, a movement, Wild Belle
2. Parquet Courts – “Dust”
I seems like Parquet Courts flipped the script. I’ve always loved Parquet Courts because singer and lyricist Andrew Savage is a rambler. Songs like “Uncast Shadow of a Southern Myth” and “Content Nausea” contain more lyrics in one single song than some artists have on an entire album.
To balance Savage’s wordiness, Parquet Courts instrumentation has been rather lax. Some critics have categorized their ambles as “slacker rock” or “stoner rock.” And combined, I’ve always thought they’ve complemented each other and they’ve made some albums that I’ve truly loved.
With “Dust” everything is turned on its head. On paper, I’ve already said more in this introduction than they do in the song. But now, it’s the instrumentation that tells the story. At one point it just takes over completely. And I think it speaks louder than words.
- Parquet Courts’ new album, “Human Performance,” will be out on April 8.
- Listen if you like: monotone deliveries, Ty Segall, George Orwell
3. The Frights – “Kids”
One of my all-time-favorite bands is The Shangri-Las. Girl group. Late '60s. Sang about teen melodrama. One of my favorite Shangri-Las songs is “I Can Never Go Home Anymore.”
In the song the girl runs away from home with a boy. She realizes she made a mistake, and sings about how much she misses her mom. It’s more of a warning against teen rebellion and a lesson that your parents are right more than anything else.
And I always had thought it was a song only for a specific place and time.
Well, in this song The Frights also run away, only to find they miss mom and dad. And show kids will always be kids, no matter what decade we're living in.
- The Frights’ new album, “You Are Going To Hate This” is out now.
- Listen if you like: SWMRS, The Black Lips, The Shangri-Las
4. Viola Beach – "Swings and Waterslides"
Justin Barney: This is 5 Songs We Can’t Stop Listening To and I’m here with 88Nine's afternoon DJ, Ken Sumka.
Ken Sumka: Hello, Justin.
Justin: Hey, Ken. We had the music meeting on Monday and we had a song that we had a lot of discussion about. Let’s talk about that song. What is that song?
Ken: Well it’s this band called Viola Beach and my wife had played the song for me. In fact she didn’t even play the song for me, she just played it and I heard it and said “Ooh this is really cool.” And we both listened to it and enjoyed it and I kept meaning to bring it to a music meeting and so I said “Alright, I’ll bring it to this Monday’s music meeting.”
We woke up early on Monday and she’s going through her phone and she says, “Oh my God.” And it wasn’t a typical “Oh my God, somebody did something stupid on the internet." It was this band who we both kind of enjoyed perished in a horrific crash. Their bus went off a bridge in Sweden.
All the members of the band and their manager all died instantly. It was just one of those things that hits you. They barely had a chance to become a band. This was their first record and we’ve now learned since that there’s a huge campaign in their native U.K. Liam Gallagher, who’s not known for being the nicest dude in the world – his brother, a little less nice – has spearheaded the campaign to make it the number one on the iTunes U.K. The song “Swings and Waterslides” from Viola Beach.
- Listen if you like: just listen
5. Martin Courtney picks “Blue Buzz” by EZTV
Martin Courtney is the frontman of the band Real Estate. He's now touring in support of his first solo album "Many Moons." Courtney recently stopped at 88Nine for a Studio:Milwaukee session. He's our second guest this week on 5 Songs.
Justin Barney: Martin, what is one song you can’t stop listening to?
Martin Courtney: "Blue Buzz" by Easy TV, who we’ve been touring with so we get to hear them play this song every night.
Justin: What do you like about the band? Did you pick that because they’re touring with you, or how does that work?
Martin: Yeah. Jarvis is the bass player in my band and he produced the record that we’re touring on and he also produced Easy TV’s record, which we all love.
Justin: What do you like about the record?
Martin: The songs are just so packed full of ideas that it’s, like, pretty dense to listen to, but it’s like pop music. It rewards repeated listens. The more you listen to it, the more you get out of it. There’s just a lot of different parts. It’s really seemingly simple on the surface.
- EZTV’s album, “Calling Out” was released in 2015.
- Listen if you like: Martin Courtney, Real Estate, easy going vibes