There is nothing remotely alternative about his music. "Homewrecker" is a mainstream pop song through and through. Sure, maybe "Back to Friends" or "12 to 12" could be argued of at least having some alternative creed to them, but anything from "Homewrecker" on are mainstream pop that belongs on Hits 1 and PopRocks, not Alt Nation.
Was listening to the Alt 18 today and found myself humming "running down a dream" by Tom Petty while listening to Bug in the Cake. Very similar sounding songs.
My 8 year old and I heard this wed night driving back from baseball on advanced placement.. mind you, my son is a music guru.. has left voice memos for the alt 18 but hasn't been chosen.. ((damn you, "Kevin in Boston" for taking up all the Boston votes!!)) BUT!! This song is EVERYTHING!!!! My roots are 2002ish indie, emo, punk rock and I can't put my finger on where this chorus hits, but it hits all the right boxes. Obsessed. We LOVE it!!!!
You cannot convince me these guys don’t keep making variations of the same fucking song. 😂
Every time a new almost monday track comes on, I’m sitting there waiting for it. Where’s the bouncy bassline? Where’s the bright guitar? Where’s that ridiculously sunny groove that sounds like somebody bottled Southern California and turned it into an indie-pop song?
And there it is.
Every. Fucking. Time.
I’m not even saying this as an insult anymore. Because apparently the problem with calling a band a one-trick pony is that eventually you have to admit the trick is really fucking good.
Does anybody else hear this with almost monday? Like you can identify these dudes within about 10 seconds without even knowing the song?
There. I said it.
I hate festival season on SiriusXM. I hate it almost as much as I hate the random studio sessions where they interrupt the regularly scheduled programming so we can listen to an artist talk for fifteen minutes when I turned on the fucking MUSIC station to hear music.
And they do this shit every year.
They send everybody down to these giant festivals and suddenly half the station becomes, “Hey! We’re here at Austin City Limits! Let’s pull this artist aside and have a conversation!”
Cool. Awesome. Glad you guys are having fun.
Meanwhile, it basically feels like SiriusXM rubbing it in our faces: “Haha, you couldn’t go to the festival, so instead we’re going to interrupt the station you already pay for and tell you all about how much fun we’re having.”
And tonight is a perfect example.
Alt Tub Time Machine would normally be on RIGHT NOW as I’m typing this. I actually look forward to that show.
Guess what’s not fucking on?
Yep. Instead I got served up some bullshit-ass festival segment I could not possibly care less about.
If people want festival coverage, cool. Give it its own channel. Put the interviews somewhere on demand. Make a dedicated festival show. Whatever.
Just stop hijacking the regular programming for it.
Fuck the festival shit.
Play our fucking music.
Mannn I’m obsessed with Split Lip - so excited to hear new stuff from them.
A while back I shared my Flow State Driving playlist here, and a surprising number of you added it. Whether you actually liked the damn thing, I have no idea 😂, but enough of you saved it that I figured I’d share what I’ve been working on next.
This is Soft Shoulder.
It actually started with songs I liked that didn’t quite belong on Flow State Driving. They were alternative, emotional, sometimes raw, sometimes dreamy, but they didn’t have that same constant forward momentum.
Eventually I realized there was a whole playlist hiding in that pile.
The problem was that Alt Nation alone didn’t give me enough material for what I was trying to do. So I started wandering around SiriusXM. I pulled from SiriusXMU, The Spectrum, Life with John Mayer, and elsewhere, while keeping Alt Nation as a big part of the foundation.
What came out of that is about 14 hours of the softer side of alternative although “soft” doesn’t necessarily mean slow or quiet. It drifts, grooves, gets spacey, occasionally gets loud, but I’ve tried to keep the whole thing feeling unhurried.
There’s plenty of Phoebe Bridgers, Holly Humberstone, Death Cab for Cutie, Beach House, Clairo, Noah Kahan, Modest Mouse, The Lumineers, and other familiar stuff, but there are also a bunch of songs and artists I found by digging outside my normal Alt Nation orbit.
It’s a little wistful, a little hopeful, and very much a windows-down, nice-afternoon kind of playlist. Basically, songs that sneak up on you and get better the longer you live with them.
One thing I did intentionally was program the first 10 songs as an opening salvo. That stretch pretty much tells you what Soft Shoulder is, it moves through intimate, dreamy, guitar-driven, spacey, and hopeful without getting stuck in any one sound. If you make it through those first 10 and think, “Yeah, I like where this is going,” you’ll probably like the rest of the playlist.
Anyway, if you liked Flow State Driving, this is sort of its less caffeinated sibling.
**Soft Shoulder: Link Below ⬇**️
Some pretty good shows coming this December to Portland:
Dirty Heads: December 3rd Crystal Ballroom
Buffalo Traffic Jam: December 6th Crystal Ballroom
Cannons: December 7th Crystal Ballroom
Temper City: December 10th Dante's
Young the Giant: December 13th Crystal Ballroom
Almost Monday (with In Color & Edgehill): December 16th Crystal Ballroom