New Countdown!: August 2019!

SHAED

We're back on track for what I hope to be a regular release schedule which will have us current by the end of March! I hope you enjoy this one. There are lots of great songs on the countdown for this month. Plus! Results of the Songs of Summer chart I kept last year!


Countdown #408

***Featuring***
AJR
Bastille
Billie Eilish
Cage the Elephant
Dominic Fike
The Head and the Heart
Lana Del Rey
The Lumineers
Matt Maeson
Of Monsters and Men
Panic! At the Disco
Reel Big Fish
SHAED
Yellowcard

Special Countdown: 12 Years of Last.fm (Part 2) (#40-#31)

Lagwagon

In lieu of the last episode for May, here's another part of the countdown of my most listened-to artists according to Last.fm for the period of 2/14/06-2/14/18. 12 Years and I'm counting them down.


12 Years of Last.fm (Part 2)

***Featuring***
The Ataris
Ben Folds Five
Death Cab For Cutie
Foo Fighters
Jimmy Eat World
Lagwagon
Paramore
Rocky Votolato
Taking Back Sunday
Weezer
Yellowcard

New Countdown: Polkugal. The Man

How many plays on that band's name do you think I can use for titles for this countdown before they're off the Top Ten? I bet this isn't the last time by a longshot. :)

It's a good episode this week. A little punky, a little polka-y. So, get stoked about that! And enjoy ;-)


Countdown #374

***Featuring***
AJR featuring Rivers Cuomo
Alice Merton
Foster the People
Imagine Dragons
The Killers
lovelytheband
Muse
Pennywise
Portugal. The Man
Rancid
Walk the Moon
Yellowcard

New Countdown: Bastion of Manners

Beck

I think one of the things that herald the downfall of a blog is when the author continually starts posts with "Sorry I'm late on this!" or "It's been a long time since I've posted, but I'm excited to get back into it!" or whatever. So I'm not going to do that.

This is a fun one. High energy!


Countdown #260

***Featuring***
Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness
AWOLNATION
Beck
Cold War Kids
Elle King
Florence + The Machine
Janis Joplin
Mumford & Sons
The Struts
twenty one pilots
X Ambassadors
Yellowcard

Throwback Thursday: 2012

10. Yellowcard - Southern Air

   
     1. Awakening
     2. Surface of the Sun
     3. Surface of the Sun
     4. Here I Am Alive
     5. Sleep in the Snow
     6. A Vicious Kind
     7. Telescope
     8. Rivertown Blues
     9. Ten
   10. Southern Air

For the purposes of records for posterity, I probably should have done the Adele album or the Maroon 5 album, but I love Yellowcard and the very end of summer is the best time to listen to Yellowcard. And I hadn't heard anything from this album. And I liked the songs I heard in researching for this post. So basically everyone wins!

Here's my favorite video that I watched. I love the concept. The girl is the singer from the band We Are The In Crowd

9. Zac Brown Band - Uncaged
8. Adele - 21
7. One Direction - Up All Night
6. Justin Bieber - Believe
5. Maroon 5 - Overexposed
4. Insane Clown Posse - Mighty Death Pop
3. Rick Ross - God Forgives, I Don't
2. NOW 43
1. 2 Chainz - Based on a T.R.U. Story

One Year, 100 Albums: #22 Yellowcard "Ocean Avenue"

Yellowcard Ocean Avenue, 2003

A pop-punk band with a fiddler. Who does backflips off speaker stacks. Yellowcard must seem like such a novelty act and I'm sure everyone is as surprised and pleased as I was when I first saw them on the 2003 Warped Tour.

It was my first full summer after my family had moved to Virginia Beach and so this was pretty much the perfect album to commemorate that atmosphere at that time of my life (just after Sophomore Year (of College) (SYoC, for people who have been reading these posts from the beginning). I didn't really know a lot of people in the area, but the weather sure was...well, hot. But sometimes that's ok. The weather was hot and I did a lot of driving. And I was missing a girl in Northern Virginia.

All of that meant that this album really connected with me. There's something about the driving pace of the pop-punk with the smooth lilt of the fiddle. It's the vulnerability of the singer's voice, the heartfelt lyrics, the regret and heartbreak and hope and pride and love. This is a very important record to me.

In honor of the 10th anniversary, they released an all acoustic version of the album, but I don't believe I will be picking it up. I need the loud to make the quiet mean more. A fiddle in an acoustic song doesn't seem so out of place. In a song where it's drifting over the electric guitars, it entrances you like a siren song.

This video is for the song that starts the album. You could say it starts with a bang.

Yellowcard - Empty Apartment
Yellowcard - View From Heaven

You can buy Ocean Avenue at Amazon, Amazon MP3, and iTunes

New Countdown: 50% MORE CONTENT!

It's the longest episode in 3 months. It has 5 bonus songs. And I loved every minute of it. I feel like we're in the midst of hearing "the sound of 2013 in alternative music," but it won't become evident what exactly that sound consists of for a while yet. I'm happy to just sit back and enjoy the tunes.

I hope you'll join me.

On a related note, 1/5 of the podcast is dedicated to Father's Day, so I just wanted to wish all the Dads out there a happy one and I hope you celebrate it in a way that makes you happy and that you know how valuable a good Dad is in a kid's life.

Countdown #155

***Featuring***
alt-J
Arcade Fire
Beastie Boys
Capital Cities
Fall Out Boy
Imagine Dragons
The Lumineers
Muse
The Neighbourhood
New Politics
Of Monsters and Men
Paul Simon
The Soggy Bottom Boys
Thirty Seconds to Mars
Yellowcard