Louise Burns – I Don’t Feel it Like I Used To
Similar artists: Caroline Polacheck, Japanese Breakfast, Cocteau Twins
Genre: Indietronica, Dream Pop, Alt Pop
In 2023, I find that taking the time to get lost in a piece of modern music takes as much self-resolve and determination as opting to run a marathon or climb a very high mountain.
This is particularly true when it comes to pop music. I know that this is a style characterized by quick, memorable bits of music. Still, never have pop songs included less content in a shorter space of time.
This begs the question if spending more than 30 seconds on a song is worthwhile. I think so. Frankly, I can’t see anything replacing the blissful feeling of getting one’s imagination tied in with that of a songwriter.
Louise Burns’ I Don’t Feel it Like I Used To is a hypnotic, soothing pop tune about losing one’s edge. The softly spoken chorus hits as precisely and rhythmically. It’s a beautiful anthem of self-resignation that requires your time and your trust.
Mike Hewlett and The Racket – Yesteryear
Similar artists: Drive By Truckers, The Gaslight Anthem, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Lucero
Genre: Garage Rock, Alternative Rock
One of the main problems with getting rock n’ roll to evolve is the fact that this style of music hit it out of the park on the first try. Why mature when, at its most naive it could be so very charming?
It’s the blessing and the curse of this kind of guitar-driven music. There’s always something in line to replace it. Modern musicians always complain about how they cannot work within the tight constraints of the blues scale and power chords.
But just give it enough time, and most popular music seems to return to that old, familiar sound. Maybe, through the rush of the world, through the inevitable march of time, it’s rock n’ roll that tells the story of regular people the very best.
Mike Hewlett and The Racket plays bluesy rock n’ roll on Yesteryear, but there is nothing passe or out of fashion about it. The song, in fact, moves like a healthy, familiar heartbeat with its swampy guitars and lyrics about loss and hope at the core of it. Not bad for music that was invented many, many decades ago.
