
Dru Cutler – Reason to Cry
Genre: Alternative Rock
Similar artists: Wilco, Phoebe Bridgers, Bright Eyes, My Morning Jacket
A songwriter’s job, if they wish to have any success at all, is to try and make a connection with their audience by any means necessary. This is easier said than done. After all, there are so many prospective audience favorites willing and wishing to serenade them day and night. Getting their attention and holding it is hard.
Ray Davies used to say that writing a good song is a lot like trying to chat somebody up in a nightclub. If you’re lucky, you’ll get one or two lines in before they turn away. You best make those lines count!
In music, as in the world of dating, choosing those lines is of the utmost importance, and because of that, it is something that most people overthink. By doing that, they are never able to let the world know who they really are.
Dru Cutler’s quirky alt-rock Reason to cry is the representation of a writer that has decided against planning his moves too carefully. The result is a song that offers typical instrumental dynamics and strange, surprising lyrical choices. It’s a rock tune built like a Sunday cartoon or a pick-up line that includes a great joke. It’s the sort of tune that can get an audience’s attention and keep it.
Maria Florencia Silva – Musulmana
Genre: Grunge, Latin Rock, Garage Rock
Similar artists: Queens of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jack White, Audioslave, RATM
It’s well established that rock music has long ago lost its crown as the most popular type of music in the world. While rock acts still fill out stadiums and headline festivals, their grip on the charts has been usurped by pop and hip-hop artists.
Still, even those pop and rap stars like to take elements of rock and integrate them within their singles and, especially, within their live shows. Why bow down to an adversary? Because rock music is a really powerful flavor, it comes pre-packaged with a powerful image, and it is bound to get you noticed.
If loud guitars and pounding rhythms are going to get you noticed, the only question left is what the artist plans to do with the newfound attention. Maria Florencia Silva’s Musulmana cavalcade of modern-rock sounds feels like the work of somebody entirely comfortable with having all eyes and ears fixed on them. It’s the kind of tune that challenges modern rock programmers to pay attention. And it is the sort of tune that proves why you oughtn’t to give up on rock music just yet.