This week's Listening To This Week Playlist will be delayed until later tonight due to my idiocy.
It was compiled yesterday, but I forgot to email it back to base. Have done so now, but with no access to Bandcamp, Soundcloud, You Tube or Spotify here, it will have to be completed when back at base tonight.
I will remove this post when the playlist is ready to go live.
I really love what the Playlist has brought to IDHAS. It has added a much wider audience. However we need your help with potential submissions. More and more time is spent gathering song information. Every submission seems to include a Spotify link and we include selections on the Spotify version of the Playlist.
However as door openers and being a long time established without Spotify, most of our success for artists comes from other links. The main playlist features an embed on either Bandcamp, Soundcloud or You Tube. These are places that don't require listeners to join and we feel that easy access is vital to the artist.
We always require an additional link one of those three places is vital, but too often, we have to either root this out ourselves or go chasing for it. We remind submitters to include that additional link as we cannot include a song that is only on Spotify.
Secondly, a big part of getting an artist heard is via social media tagging. The majority of our time on the Playlist is spent hunting out social media links for the individual performers. Prep for this Monday's Playlist has been the worst for time spent for a long while.
It would be really helpful if submissions included any Social Media links, the tagging is done specifically for the artist's benefit. From next week, any submission accepted will also ask for Social Media links. If they are not provided, we will promote without tagging the artist.
There is no frustration or angst in these two requests. We simply want to leave as much spare time as possible to review albums and promote artists. With I Do Hear A Single starting around August time, social media link providing will be vital and sp good habits now will allow that place to be as successful and beneficial for artists as we wish it to be.
Thanks as always.
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I've been with Joe Giddings from the very beginning. I was introduced to the Star Collector debut album, Songs For The Whole Family, just after its 1999 release. It was beloved in Bucketful Of Brains circles. Just one album from them and then Giddings resurfaced on Not Lame (who else?) in 2002 with The JTG Implosion's All The People Some Of The Time.
Both are still played regularly at IDHAS Towers. I also gathered the 4 volumes of the self released download only All Themes Considered between 2012 - 2014. IDHAS started in 2016 after the release of his solo album, Better From Here, earlier in the year.
Joe Giddings made his debut here with the Kool Kat Reissue of Better From Here in 2020. You can read that review here. Keith Klingensmith's Futureman Records label has also done a fine job of keeping all things Giddings alive download wise.
So to 2025 and the excellent Stories With Guitars. All the trademark Giddings strengths are here and more. Often slotted into Power Pop, a genre that doesn't naturally fit as it doesn't with the likes of Cheap Trick, who Rock far more. Giddings strength as a Guitarist allows meatier fayre as well as an ability tread into AOR at times.
Buth there are traits of Jellyfishe her, particularly on You Are The Star and Song At The End Of The World. He also gets instrumentally into the territory of The Darkness on both My Riviera and Adrenalin. But vocal wise, there is ease with fast and slow and there is a real strength in the vocal harmonies.
Songs are written as stories at times and the strength of those vocal harmonies and the instrumentals overshadow how lyrically adept the man is. These 11 songs may be melodic overload, but they are never heads down.
Then there is David Stepanski, as good a Jangle Pop song that you will hear all year. The stand out for me is Pandora's Brand New Box, a Glam Rock gem, a genre that Giddings has also excelled at, that turns into a surprise jaunty Pop Rock sing along. Stories With Guitars is essential listening.
You can listen to and buy the album here. The CD is available on the Kool Kat label here.
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We don't normally cover compilations. There is no antipathy towards them in any way, some are really good. Others great and this double CD falls into the great. Our reasons are that with limited space, you can't acknowledge everyone and always feel guilty for those that you leave out.
We also traditionally embed three songs and so that makes the rest seem less important, when you review a one artist album, that applies less so. But Pop Aid 2 is so much like an advert for what I Don't Hear A Single. We have reviewed and / or played so many of the artists present.
If you want an introduction to Pop Rock and Power Pop etc (and I see many who ask), there is no finer place to start than here. Kool Kat and Thrift Star Halo's Frank Gradishar have gathered together a splendid line up in support of those affected by Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
All 23 songs could make up an I Don't Hear A Single Playlist and cover around 80% of what we do genre wise. All the pre-requisites of Melodic Guitar Pop are present from Jangle Pop to Psych Pop, Power Pop to the crunchierangles. Big Riffs and big Choruses are everywhere.
So my 3 choices to embed could have taken on many paths, different styles, fast and slow, but I decided be a bit selfish and concentrate on three artists that have a long association with us. Psych Pop as my favourite genre ever is obviously well represented.
This relies on you to listen to the rest and discover the joy of what Pop Rock brings. Then, hopefully, you will do the right thing and but the CD or download to aid the victims and bag yourself a collection that can be listened to over and over, particularly with Summer here, a season that ideally suits this type of material.
You can listen to and buy the download here. You can by the CD from Kool Kat here.
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You can listen to and buy the album here. It is available on Vinyl, CD or as a download.
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After the slightly embarassing self congratulatory 2 million celebrations, it is back to catching up on the backlog of album reviews that we want you to hear about. Who better to start the avalanche than the wonderful M Ross Perkins.
Perkins has the knack of hiding lyrically dept self confessions into great Pop songs. This is his third outing and he is calmly asserting one of the great Pop Singer Songwriters around. Very 60s in vine and Jngling wherever possible.
His last album, E Pluribus M Ross was and still is sensational. It hit our Best 100 albums of 2022, you can read my review here. His third outing feels a little more mellow than the second, but it is stacked high with great great Guitar Pop.
There are also four interupting interludes that break up the album. Recorded old outside segments enquiring What's The Matter With? All unrelated to Perkins, sort of like Frontier Psychiatrist. They should Hittite, but instead drag you in.
These are in complete contrast that the 60s Melodic Pop that surround them. There are diversions of course across the15 tracks. A Date For One is Acoustic and a little Simon and Garfunkel. That's Fine is very West Coast, almost Country, Rock.
Bouquet is a splendidly put together affair, edging into Psych Pop, but covering multi genres, all in just over two minutes. But it the Pop that enthrals most. The jangling Merseybeat of Hey Man/Hey Self, The Beatles 1964 vibe of Gone (In The Morning).
The Byrds like, Crying In My Sleep even gets a little Jeff Lynne. The UK Beat of Spiritual Kick with its Lennon like vocal and there is even an almost Bossa Nova easy listening smoothness to I Feel So Numb. The whole album has the feel of a musician who knows what he wants to achieve and M Ross Perkins does that and more.
You can listen to and buy the album here. It is available on Vinyl, CD and as a download.
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It is gobsmacking to get to 2 million hits as IDHAS approaches its 9th birthday. The second million took just two and a half years. Thanks are to the artists who are covered. There are those who say that there is no great new music. IDHAS is proof that if you find the right artists, there is an engaged audience out there who want to hear and read about it. Thanks to the musicians. This place is about them.
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