Tag Archives: music

Three New Bands (New to me) in 2021: (3) Fontaines D.C.

For the third band in this series we move from Chicago with Beach Bunny to Dublin in Ireland with Fontaines D.C. Again a band that has been around for slightly longer but only really appeared on my radar this year, I think mainly through BBC Radio 6 Music playing them a lot. One of the songs that made me listen up was this one:

Fontaines D.C. – Liberty Belle (Official Music Video)

An earlier song I quite like is Winter in the Sun:

Fontaines D.C. – Winter In The Sun (Official Music Video)

A popular song is Boys In The Better Land:

Fontaines D.C. – Boys In The Better Land (Darklands Version)

To close one of their several KEXP appearances, this one having been filmed “at home” showcasing their latest album:

Fontaines D.C. – Full Performance (Live on KEXP at Home)

And that’s it for this year’s Three New Bands (New to me) series. I hope you enjoyed at least one the bands I discovered this year, maybe even two or three. And hopefully I’ll discover three new bands (even if they’re only new to me) in 2022, so that I can continue the series.

Three New Bands (New to me) in 2021: (2) Beach Bunny

From the Isle of Wight with Wet Leg to Chicago with Beach Bunny for the second band in this year’s series. Started by Lili Trifilio in 2015 with the debut album Honeymoon released in 2020 Beach Bunny isn’t a new band as such, but I only really took notice this year after kind of vaguely having them on my radar for a while (not sure why it took me so long). Now let’s go with a taster from the Blame Game EP:

Beach Bunny – Good Girls (Don’t Get Used) [Official Music Video]

No real video for this song (Also from the Blame Game EP), but I quite like it:

Beach Bunny – Nice Guys (Official Audio)

Their biggest hit so far (here the remix version with Tegan and Sara as guest vocalists, here is the original):

Beach Bunny – Cloud 9 (feat. Tegan and Sara) [Official Lyric Video]

And to close some session sounds with some history and interview in chapters:

Beach Bunny | Fender Sessions | Fender

I hope you enjoyed Beach Bunny, for the third and last band in this series I’ll take you to Ireland. Aiming to finish this series on Sunday.

Three New Bands (New to me) in 2021: (1) Wet Leg

Last year I wrote a series of posts about bands I discovered that year, they were The Mysterines, Dream Wife and The Big Moon. I quite enjoyed writing that series, so I decided to repeat this for 2021 (and if I discover three good bands again next year I’ll aim to have one in 2022 as well). The first one for this year was new to pretty much everyone, as they had their breakthrough this year: Wet Leg. They burst on the scene this summer with this song with a famous movie quote and more:

Wet Leg – Chaise Longue (Official Video)

This was followed up by another song with a video filmed at the same location and weird lyrics and references:

Wet Leg – Wet Dream (Official Video)

It doesn’t come with a full fledged video (yet?), but I also quite like this recently released song:

Oh No

And finally, they also perform brilliantly live, as shown in this Tiny Desk (Home) Concert for NPR:

Wet Leg: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert

I hope you’ve enjoyed Wet Leg, for the next band we’ll travel across the Atlantic to Chicago and something beach related (kind of). Planning to publish that post on Friday.

What I’ve been listening to recently

Having been moved from Google Play Music (now shut down) to YouTube Music by Google a few months ago I’ve been playing around with playlists a bit. It seems I can share them, so here’s one I’m using a lot at the moment:

My “Bad Mood Blaster” playlist, showing the first song on it. Not ideal but that’s what it does. Open it in YouTube to shuffle, view the full list etc

I’ve called it “Bad Mood Blaster”, partially because it came to my mind first and after that I couldn’t think of anything better, partially because that’s what it helps me with, picking me up and cheering me up both when I need it and just generally. I’ve described it as this:

Loud songs to blast any bad mood away. Guitar, bass and drum focused. Max 2 songs per artist. From the 1980s to the 2020s

That’s about it. It will continue to grow and change as I add artists and in some cases possibly switch out songs (as I want to stick to the max 2 songs per artist “rule”). Some well known songs/hits you will probably know, some lesser known songs you might not know.

Obviously includes six songs from the three bands I discovered for me last year, The Mysterines, Dream Wife and The Big Moon. I wonder which bands new to me I will add this year, if any?

Space & Time x2

Two versions of a song I had on heavy rotation today. First the loud and pounding studio version with the drums driving it on:

Wolf Alice – Space & Time

Second the “unplugged” version with the drummer switching to vocals and Ellie’s beautiful lead vocals:

Wolf Alice – Space & Time (Live on KEXP)

I love both versions.