5 Songs We Can't Stop Listening To is a collection of our newest favorite songs. Every week we ask an artist that we love to tell us about the music they love.
Listen to the whole segment and all the songs below.
1. Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie picks “Future Me Hates Me” by The Beths.
My guest today is Ben Gibbard, lead singer of the band Death Cab For Cutie.
This is usually the time where, in case you don't know who the band is, I add a little context so that you have some background. But, if you are listening to 88Nine and you don't know who Death Cab For Cutie is...I don’t know what’s going on.
So, I'm just gonna assume you know who Death Cab For Cutie is. Their latest album is called “Thank You for Today” and we've been playing the song “Gold Rush.” I caught up with Ben in the green room of The Sylvee where they performed last week.
Justin Barney: The interview is really easy. It is just "what's the last song that you couldn't stop listening to?"
Ben Gibbard: I suppose the last song I haven’t been able to stop listening to is a song by “The Beths” called “Future Me Hates Me.” When that record came out about a month ago, I just totally fell in love with that band. It’s just a great pop song, it’s an incredibly catchy song.
I just love the idea of a song being about you know this “if we get together, if the future me is gonna hate me for all the things that I'm gonna go through in the course of this relationship” is just a really kind of clever and cool kind of a concept for a song and it's just so well written I think it's both very heartfelt and humorous at the same time.
- The Beths are based in Auckland, New Zealand. They self-released “Future Me Hates Me” in August of 2018.
- Listen to if you like: Hinds, Lala Lala, Bleached
2. “Comeback Kid” by Sharon Van Etten
One song that I can’t stop listening to is Sharon Van Etten’s “Comeback Kid.” Sharon Van Etten is back. It has been four years since her last album “Are We There,” and in those four years Sharon Van Etten has done a lot. She started acting, she was in the Netflix series "The OA,"she also had a child, she wrote a movie score, and she got a master's degree in psychology.
So she's been doing all these things and this is “Comeback Kid,” I see it as kind of a comeback to music. You know, here we are four years later and she writes this great song. In the past her songwriting has been kind of quiet and tranquil and this is a big anthemic song; the drums here are big, and then it hits you with the “comeback kid” and it’s like those three notes just hit-you-in-succession and just pull you back into this song.
They’re powerful. This is “Comeback Kid” by Sharon Van Etten.
- “Comeback Kid” is the fourth track from Sharon Van Etten’s album “Remind Me Tomorrow” announced to be released January 18, 2019.
- Listen to if you like: a new anthemic sound from Sharron Van Etten, Angel Olsen, Mitski
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3. Jessica Hopper picks “The Hissing of Summer Lawns” by Joni Mitchell
Our guest this week is Jessica Hopper. Jessica Hopper was an editor for Pitchfork Magazine, also for MTV News, she's written several books including "The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic" which is excellent. Her new memoir, "Night Moves" is equally as excellent. We recorded this after her reading at Boswell Books which is why we are in hushed tones. My guest this week is author Jessica Hopper.
Justin Barney: Jessica, what is one song you can't stop listening to, or one song you want to talk about?
Jessica Hopper: One song that I can't stop listening to is the title track of Joni Mitchell's 1975 album “The Hissing of Summer Lawns.” It is a song that is very much like a departure from the rest of her work though it’s very much in league with the rest of her album. It's very much a portrait of a suburban life but it is really about the story of a woman who, her life is defined by her marriage by her partnership and in some ways illuminates just how invisible she is as a person to her husband but also in the wider world and sort of losing herself in this marriage. But it’s a really interesting song musically, in part, because it's sort of the dawn of, it’s very emblematic of Joni Mitchell’s turn towards jazz.
The arrangement of it is incredible and the people who are playing on it, you know, we hear them again two years later on Steely Dan's “Aja” and by that point people seemingly could be revered for doing sort of jazz fusion but uhh, I guess not if you're Joni Mitchell.
Was that in some it's the hissing of summer lawns by Jenny Mitchell of her 1975 album of the same name.
- "The Hissing of Summer Lawns" was originally released in 1975.
- Listen to if you like: Joni Mitchell’s amazing lyrics, her turn towards jazz, the players on Steely Dan’s “Aja”
4. Lonas – “High School Kids”
Justin Barney: I’m here with our very own Ken Sumka. Ken, what are you listening to?
Ken Sumka: This is literally a song I’ve had on repeat on my computer, in my car, on my phone, on my ipod, on Spotify…it’s a song called “High School Kids” by Lonas.
You get it worse than I, but we get people from record labels inundate us with songs on a regular basis. And there is this guy, Paul Brown, who sends me really good stuff. That song by Amen Dunes that we are playing, he sent me that a month ago. I brought that to a meeting, we added it. His batting average for sending us good stuff is like Ted Williams level.
So he sent me this Lonas song like three weeks ago. I brought it to a meeting where it did okay. I’m still hoping that we add it into regular rotation but I’m doing my part on Spotify to increase the spins cause it’s that good.
We just had my, I won’t mention how many years, high school reunion. A banner one. Let’s just say I graduated from High School before you were born. So I missed it because I went to go see The The in Chicago. So I missed the reunion, but not just because of that, “High School Kids” it’s such a great song. It’s maudlin, it’s minor key, and this song just hits me in the right spots.
- “High School Kids” was released as a single in June.
- Listen if you like: ethereal rock, hints of U2, maudlin minor key
5. Lala Lala – “I Get Cut”
I don’t have a super great reason to love this song, I just love the drums. It comes in CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH, and then her voice is kinda mumble core, just very monotone and I love monotone voices. Then it comes back with the crashing drums.
I’ve got this friend who is a drummer and so he’s been tuning me into the drum patterns of everything we listen to, so I’ve been paying more attention to drums. So I dig the drums on this song. They super crash and her vocals are monotone and I love it.
- Lala Lala’s new album, “The Lamb” came out September 28.
- Listen if you like: drums that crash, Hardly Art, college rock