Games Without Frontiers On Solsbury Hill
Or how to remain relevant in the later stages of your musical career
Okay, so it is really hard to remain relevant in your music career if you are still active for decades. you really have to have true talent and imagination to do so. Essentially, there are two ways to do that - one, possibly the harder one, to keep holding to your initial musical vision and add the experience you gained to enrich it.
And then, there is the harder one, and that is to diversify your vision, keep on changing, along with the times, moving forward and backward, as you see it, and possibly diversify your involvement in the music scene.
Peter Gabriel is probably an excellent example of the latter, starting out as a full-on prog rocker with Genesis, moving to a truly sophisticated pop of his initial solo career, sitting pretty on his single success of ‘Solsbury Hill,’ and then adapting the vision of the song title of another great song of his ‘Games Without Frontiers’ - he became a champion of world music through WOMAD festival and his Real World Records and then remaining relevant as he only came up with new music when he had something new and relevant to say.
Often, extremely hard to do, but he was able to do it.
Σtella - Girl Supreme
Σtella, or Stella, if you want the right pronunciation of the Greek name is actually a Greek artist is one of those modern electro-pop records that are quite a good summer fit, even when the summer is almost over.
Spoils - Come Closer
Cincinnati’s quartet Spoils is one of those hard-working left-field pop-rock bands that combine something that might seem like ‘usual’ sounds and turn them into something specifically their own. A proof of that here.
Cat Clyde - Papa Took My Totems
This Canadian singer-songwriter is labeled as folk, but here she seems to bring on all the right rock touches with quite a bit of R&B infused to make her sound quite particular.
Carlos Truly - Much 2 Much
Carlos Hernandez or Carlos Truly just might have quite a few James Brown, George Clinton and Prince records in his collection, but he indeed puts them to the right use here.
Holy Wave - Darkest Timeline
Shoegaze and dream pop as closely related genres have developed so well that now they very often intercept in all the right ways. Austin quartet Holy Way shows the right way how t combine the two.
Hannah Georgas - Home
Another Canadian singer-songwriter deserves greater attention with some great songwriting and vocals, showing why she is now on tour with Broken Social Scene,
Albany Down - Same Damn Thing
The title of the song might be used by some listeners to describe the blues and R&B-inflected rock, yet Albany Down does show here that such a label is yet another cliche if you know how to play your stuff well.
Soda Blonde - Bad Machine
There might be a bad machine there somewhere, but nothing bad about this Faye O'Rourke-led quartet and their true modern pop single and album it comes from.
The Umlauts - Dance & Go
If the title sounds like you are ‘confronted’ with a dance track, you would be absolutely right, and, of course, there’s nothing wrong with that if you can actually both dance and listen to it.
Setting - Zoetropics
The Krautrock tag was invented as a joke of sorts, but it stuck and the genre not only stuck around but crossed its initial German borders, still living and breathing (rightfully so), as evidenced here.
Sisters - Feet On The Ground
Jason Blackmore (Molly McGuire) and Mario Quintero (Spotlights) who are the sisters here, prefer their rock on the harder side, coming up with a slower introduction and then going full force on here.
S/J - Love So Fierce
S/J is one Seth Jude Richard who combines his Louisiana roots with some excellent songwriting with a post-punk attitude. Doesn’t always work, but it does here.
Kramer, Britta Phillips - Dream #3
Seasoned hand Kramer doesn’t seem to fail with anything that has to do with psych, and shows it with, the focus on excellent vocals (and joint songwriting) by Phillips here.4Maddie Zahm -
Maddie Zahm - Eightball Girl
Zahm is one of those artists that seem to have gained millions of streams out of nowhere. Yet, ‘out of nowhere’ doesn’t happen without a reason, and Zahm shows why here.
Fieh - Streamline
R&B pop has been around for so long now that it has been a world phenomenon, and this eight-member Norwegian crew does it right here.
Graham Brown - You Are The Stars
Good singer-songwriters don’t go away, and they shouldn’t if their songwriting and delivery can prove it. This Vancouver veteran shows here how it should be done right.
Natalie Price, Jaimee Harris - All We Need
You can call this country pop or just simply pop, which shouldn’t make a difference if it is any good, and this one certainly is.
Haralobos - Flows Obsidian
Combining modern classical chamber music with some sort of heavy metal and then turning it into a single is quite a bold move, but, then, it just might fit the bill - if it is any good, of course.
Juicebumps - Wiggler
B-52s are winding down their career, but these Bay Area post-punks seem quite intent on carrying on their torch. Quite needed, actually, I must say.
Venera - Hologram
Venera is a duo of James Shaeffer and Chris Hunt who like their electro-pop on a bit of a darker side, something entirely suited to play after late-night binging on horror movies.