Al Holliday – I KNOW THAT WE’RE GNA FIND A WAY
Similar artists: Funky Butt Brass Band, The Mighty Pines, Aaron Kamm and the One Drops, Dinofight!
Genre: Contemporary R&B, Alternative, Indie R&B
Al Holliday goes back to what pop music could be in order to find hope through bleak times.
For decades modern music trends have been obsessed with trying to express the hopelessness of life, the decay of the things around us, and the anger of the people who have to live in this world. And while Nirvana or Nine Inch Nails, 100 Gecs, or Machine Gun Kelly all achieved their targets, there was one thing of the past they couldn’t shake off.
No matter the production, it seems that pop music has to be built on the foundation of the blues. Try to escape this at your own peril, young, hopeful pop hitmakers. The public is simply not prepared to accept songs that do not feature these traits.
Al Holliday’s “I KNOW THAT WE’RE GNA FIND A WAY” is a song built on the retro sound qualities of R&B. The singer knows enough about this style to recognize that hopefulness is also a by-product of this kind of music. With an almost desperate desire to entertain and inspire, Holliday does pop music, really. Things haven’t changed so much, have they?
Otis Shanty – Early Birds
Similar artists: Courtney Barnett, Real Estate, Beach Fossils, Kurt Vile
Genre: Surf Rock, Shoegaze
Otis Shanty sings of freedom and everything wrong with it in the band’s most recent single.
Entire documentaries, books, and folk tales have been fabricated around the stories of young artists choosing to abandon their regular lives and go out searching for themselves. These stories usually occur in exotic places known for their spirituality, and/or natural landscape and/or drugs.
But read through your rock bios more carefully, and you’ll discover that few of these artists ended up sticking around. Maybe this was merely on account of the fact that they found what they were looking for. Or, perhaps, it’s because more lack of discipline wasn’t really what they needed after all.
Otis Shanty’s “Early Birds” is a gentle indie-pop song. The music avoids any shocks like a person whose nerves have remained terribly frazzled. The lyrics talk about not getting out of bed the whole day long, but they also echo the difficulties that come with receiving this much freedom. This is music about finding everything you’ve wanted, but not finding fulfilment.
