Applesaucer – The Most Beautiful Thing
If managers and record execs were honest with their clients, they’d point to the clock on the wall the moment that the contract had been signed and say, “Hurry up! Your time is running out!”
That’s the natural flow of pop music, and trends that were hot yesterday are always going to seem ridiculous the day after. This makes the fact that some pieces of pop entertainment refuse to go away all the more fascinating.
Applesauce is a band that is proudly indebted to Beatlesque melodic experimentation. But, luckily, much of the world is still sympathetic to these ideas. And while nobody knows exactly why The Fab Four, and a handful of bands of their generation, managed to create such richly complex harmonies, why their chord progressions were so stunning, or how they were able to advance studio production so greatly, everyone wants to know more.
Applesaucer’s “The Most Beautiful Thing” really does sound gorgeous, powered by fantastic melodies and a great knack for classic ’60s pop and early prog-rock arrangements. This is a love song, and the lyrics may veer a little into Spinal Tap territory at times, but the mood is there and the feelings seem sincere. So, close your eyes, relax and be transported to a land of musical hope one more time!
Rocket Bike – Walking Outside
Don’t fall into the trap set by music streaming software and the record companies that supply them. Music isn’t cheap to make, regular people can’t just pick up instruments and deliver great tunes, and not everyone is cut out for this stuff.
Nah, music still means an awful lot to an awful lot of people, precisely, because it requires an incredible amount of skill, coordination and imagination to create. AI songs won’t cut it, and most of the time, local pub bands won’t either.
There’s still something noble about working your butt off to achieve a level of artistic proficiency. And the people who achieve it, and manage to blend it with compelling thoughts about the world, are still worth championing.
The only thing that’s remarkable about Rocket Bike’s “Walking Outside” is just the fact that it sounds remarkably well coming out of a speaker and that there’s an awful lot of records that have these sonic qualities. The singing’s great, the production makes it easy to like and the song as a whole challenges you to pick up, move out and discover more of the world. Never assume that songs like this simply fall out of the sky!
