Pop That Goes Crunch!

Seven Decades Of Melodic Rock & Roll

Archive for the tag “radio”

01 Feb 2017

The Most Heard Tracks On Pop That Goes Crunch Radio — January 2017

radio

Pop That Goes Crunch Radio plays the best of seven decades of melodically-based rock ‘n’ roll. You can tune-in by clicking the “Listen Live” headphones wherever you seem them on this site. We can also be heard on the Tunein and StreamLicensing apps.

The tracks that garnered the most listens in January 2017 are a nice snapshot of what we play commercial-free, 24/7:

1.  Andy Reed, “I Love A Long Goodbye” (Relay Vol. 1, 2015)

2.  Aerial, “Japanese Dancer” (Why Don’t They Teach Heartbreak At School?, 2014)

3.  David Brookings And The Average Lookings, “The Basement Room” (S/T, 2016)

4.  Pernice Brothers, “Weakest Shade Of Blue” (Yours, Mine & Ours, 2003)

5.  The Autumn Defense, “Winterlight” (S/T, 2007)

6.  Chris Richards and the Subtractions, “Thirteen” (That Covers That Vol. 1, 2012)

7.  Dave Caruso, “Champion” (Cardboard Vegas Roundabout, 2014)

8.  The Idea, “Private World” (Pop Matters (Various Artists), 1995)

9.  Wondermints, “Out Of Mind” (Mind If We Make Love To You, 2002)

10. And The Professors, “Turn Of The Century Recycling Blues” (Our Postmortem, 2013)

Thanks for listening.

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25 Jan 2016
2 Comments

The “Signature Sound” On Pop That Goes Crunch Radio

51Mo7M-Z1xLAt its new home, Pop That Goes Crunch Radio now has more than 2,600 tracks spinning in regular rotation. We are still adding them as fast as we can.

We have culled that mighty playlist into a 300+ track playblock that we call “The Signature Sound.” This playblock, featuring the hand selected “best of the best” from our library, will run every Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoon from 3 pm Pacific (6 pm Eastern) to 5 pm Pacific (8 pm Eastern).

The playblock features favorites by well-known artists such as Teenage Fanclub, Sloan, The Pernice Brothers, The Go-Betweens, Cotton Mather, The Jam, Blondie, Elvis Costello, Big Star, The Kinks and, of course, The Beatles, but also includes many tracks from artists that made our year-end “best of lists” over the past three years. The 2015 lists can be found here and here. If you have only two hours to devote to the radio in any given week, this is the place to spend them. Guaranteed.

Not convinced? Well, here is one of the finest tracks gracing the “Signature Sound” playblock:

Happy listening!

 

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20 Jun 2015

The Big Show, Season 2, Show 6

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The sixth installment of the second season of The Big Show is a really big show — 30 tracks covering a wide range of sounds and textures.

New music in this episode is supplied by Stereo Tiger, Propeller, Murder Shoes, Vegas With Randolph, Braddock Station Garrison, Palmyra Delran & Bubble Gun, Tommy Sistak, Jay Gonzalez and Shmohawk.

We also hear from perennial favorites, Teenage Fanclub, Grip Weeds, Shoes, and Michael Carpenter.

Timmy Sean checks in with a country-inspired track from his Songs Of The Week extravaganza. With that in mind, we also hear from Lucinda Williams and Dwight Yoakam.  Rounding it all out is Mel Torme doing one of the coolest bits of 60’s swing every put to wax.

The entire 30-song tracklist is below the embed. Crank up the volume, and check out Pop That Goes Crunch radio, streaming the finest in melodic rock n’ roll 24/7.

Tracklist:

1.  Stereo Tiger, “Open Your Eyes”

2.  Murder Shoes, “Under The Sea”

3.  Propeller, “Can’t Fight These Things”

4.  Vegas With Randolph, “Jacob”

5.  Los Breakdowns, “UK Youth”

6.  Braddock Station Garrison, “Forgotten Teenage Dream”

7.  Stephen Lawrenson, “Words To Say”

8.  Mystery Flowers, “Land Of The King”

9.  The Junipers, “And In My Dreams”

10. Southern Boutique, Joanna

11. The Autumn Defense, “Canyon Arrow”

12. Squeeze, “Up The Junction” (Live At The BBC)

13. Love Axe, “Baby To Bed”

14. Palmyra Delran and Bubble Gun, “No Time Like Never”

15. Sloan, “Take It Upon Yourself”

16. The Yetis, “Little Surfer Girl”

17. Splitsville, “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again”

18. Mel Torme, “Comin’ Home Baby”

19. Teenage Fanclub, “Mellow Doubt”

20. Michael Carpenter, “Neil Jung”

21. Grip Weeds, “Down To The Wire”

22. Shoes, “Tomorrow Night”

23. Groovy Uncle, “Barefoot In The Car Park”

24. Tommy Sistak, “Just Like Before”

25. Donny Brown, “Bitter Rival”

26. Jay Gonzalez, “Light Side Of The Leaves”

27. Timmy Sean, “Western Rodeo”

28. Shmohawk, “Grass Is Looking Green”

29. Lucinda Williams, “Metal Firecracker”

30. Dwight Yoakam, “Claudette”

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18 Jan 2015
3 Comments

What’s New At Pop That Goes Crunch Radio

Record Player

Lots of new music has been added at Pop That Goes Crunch radio in recent weeks. Here’s a run down of some finer pieces of new melodic pop blasting over the airwaves 24/7 for your listening pleasure.

Jonathan Rundman, Look Up: Rundman’s long-player, released last week, is equal parts rockin’ pop and acoustic folk. The brightly colored uptempo tracks are foot-tapping, sing-along exercises driven by Rundman’s fine sense of melody. “The Science Of Rockets” gets my nod for best in class:

Gretchen’s Wheel, Fragile State: Nashville-based artist Lindsay Murray got the attention of Ken Stringfellow with her cover of a Posies track. She snagged Stringfellow to produce her debut long-player released under a moniker that pays homage to a classic Schubert song. Fragile State is at once assured and, well, quite fragile, with its atmospheric production enhancing the spaces in Murray’s compelling compositions. There is a whole lot going on here, with elements of jazz, Americana, and a dashes of electronics here and there, each complimenting Murray’s gorgeous vocals:

Mothboxer, We’re All Out Of Our Minds: Mothboxer made the Top 10 on my lists of the best albums and best songs of 2014, so word of three new songs by the band — the other track also appears on the Sand The Rain long-player — was a big deal hereabouts. And they do not disappoint, delivering yet another stellar collection of 60’s-based pop with psych undertones that never sounds anything other than thoroughly contemporary. The entire EP, along with oodles of other tracks by the band, will be spinning in regular rotation for quite some time:

The next three long-players came out a bit too late in 2014 for adequate consideration on my “Best Of” list, but each were worthy competitors and are nevertheless in the mix for 2015.

The Hangabouts, Illustrated Bird: Peaceful easy feelings abound on this collection of thirteen slices of flawlessly executed melodic pop that will soothe the savage soul, or at least tame the savage commute. If Illustrated Bird feels unassuming and breezy on its first listen, hit the repeat button and take notice of the thoughtful, often clever, songwriting and sharp playing that runs throughout the album from start to finish. Oh, and try to get this one out of your head:

The Yorktown Lads, Songs About Girls And Other Disasters: What to make of an album sporting a song called “Cool Shoes, Bro”? How about that it is so much fun that you’ll find yourself bopping along happily to three-minutes of self-doubt called “Sick Of Me”? Or that you’ll wish you could find yourself flummoxed by the kind of writer’s block that results in the creation of a song as unrelentingly catchy as “Something To Write About”:

If the long-player doesn’t serve up quite enough fun with melody, also check out the four songs on the Lads’ recently released $200 EP. This one — about a busy and undoubtedly multi-tasking record label owner/jewelry maker/law school employee — will rattle around your head for quite some time, as well:

The Sharp Things, Adventurer’s Inn: This marks the third studio release by these Brooklyn-based purveyors of fine symphonic pop in less than two years. The elements that made the prior two long-players so compelling are present here in big servings, as well — soaring string arrangements, sophisticated, ornate 60’s pop stylings, Perry Serpa’s soulful lead vocals, perfect time-keeping by the late Steven Gonzalez, and big group harmonies. Put the three releases — Green Is Good and The Truth Is Like The Sun being the other two — into one big playlist, press play and drink in a singular musical achievement created over a short time period:

So, that’s just a peek at some of the fine new music spinning in regular rotation at Pop That Goes Crunch radio. Tune in frequently. You may hear you next favorite song.

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24 Sep 2014
1 Comment

63 Rockin’ Pop Songs For Free? You Bet!

Ice Cream Man Power Pop & More DownloadPop That Goes Crunch Radio is proud to run The Ice Cream Man Power Pop & More show three times a week. Each week, The Ice Cream Man spins 20 or so of the best Power Pop, New Wave, Mod, British Invasion. Garage Rock, Ska and Northern Soul tunes on the planet.

You can hear it every Thursday at 7 PM Pacific, 10 PM Eastern; every Friday at 1 PM Pacific, 4 PM Eastern; and every Saturday at 8 AM Pacific, 11 AM Eastern, right here.

To celebrate one year of rockin’ the world from his perch in Sweeden, The Ice Cream Man got more than 60 of today’s best indie rockin’ pop artists to contribute a track to a free download compilation that you can find right here on Bandcamp. That’s right, 63 tracks for free! You won’t find a better compilation anywhere this year than A Taste Of . . ., let alone will you come upon nearly three hours of some of the best tunes of the past few years for absolutely no money.

Indeed, A Taste Of . . . is chock full of awesome, including tracks by artists discussed many times previously on this site, including The Legal Matters, Chris Richards and The Subtractions, Nick Piunti, phonograph, Proepller, The Above, Bryan Estepa, Grant Lindberg and Glenn Robinson.

Make sure, though, to check out some of the other particularly noteworthy tracks on A Taste Of . . . , including, the subtle psychedelia of The Bopp, the irresistible earworm served up by The Bottle Kids, the latin-tinged 60’s pop of Paz Antiguana, the sophisticated pop stylings of Dave Caruso and The Newds, the pounding pop of The Lost Boys, the soulful rhythms of The Lovers Key and the 60’s guitar rockin’ pop supplied by The Click Beetles and The Forz.

A Facebook commenter called A Taste Of . . . “the Nuggets of the 10’s.” That is a rather apt description. Like that classic box set of 60’s “garage” rock, A Taste Of . . . offers a similarly diverse and wide-ranging selection of quality songs that come from a similar place and sensibility. May they prove to be as equally influential in the years to come.

Run, don’t walk, over to Bandcamp and get it immediately.

UPDATE: Phenomenal Cat added their excellent song, “Letters Home From Nazi-Occupied France,” to the collection, so it is now 64 Rockin’ Pop Songs For Free!

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06 Apr 2014

Some More New Music Treats For Sunday

Nick PiuntiIts Sunday. That means its time for a round-up of some of the recently-added tracks streaming 24/7 at Pop  That Goes Crunch radio. This week features a bevy of great new music.

Nick Piunti, “Believe It”: This is one of two bonus songs on the forthcoming vinyl release of 13 In My Head, the title track of which captured the number three slot on my “best of 2013.” “Believe It” is a classic mid-tempo guitar rocker anchored by Piunti’s distinctive vocals. If there is a better rock singer around today, I have yet to hear him or her:

Grant Lindberg, “Whatever”: Lindberg is a prolific “one-man band recording rock music in the vein of Superdrag, Brendan Benson, Cheap Trick, Jason Falkner, Nirvana and Ash.” I’ve added three songs from his new long-player, Artificial Inspiration, to the station. “Whatever” does quite a good job of pounding its way relentlessly into your mind for a couple of minutes. Before you know it, you’ll be singing to yourself “whatever you want, whatever you want, whatever you need, whatever you need” over-and-over again:

The New Mendicants, “Cruel Annette”: The New Mendicants feature Joe Pernice and Norman Blake. They take turns singing lead on “Cruel Annette,” and they also create absolutely gorgeous harmonies together. “Cruel Annette” is that rare song that manages to be both relaxed and rather rocking at the same time:

Evil Arrows, “Gods of Light”: Bryan Scary is on a roll with Evil Arrows. I featured the very cool “Jennifer Kills The Giant (Once A Week)” in a recent post. “Gods of Light” has a similar slightly off-kilter mid-80’s English new wave pop and 70’s glam feel to it. In my book, that makes it rather brilliant:

Greg Ieronimo, “Roller Coaster Ride”: Ieronimo recently released a seven-track kind-of long-player of fairly elaborate and lushly produced Power Pop. The entire album is recommended, and can be downloaded here. “Roller Coaster Ride” kicks off the set perfectly by throwing what seems like a couple of dozen hooks your way in the first twenty seconds:

Wait, there’s more:

I’ve added both of the Nick Piunti bonus tracks to the station. The other track, “Quicksand” is an acoustic piece featuring more of those great vocals, and one of the most inviting choruses you’ll likely hear this year:

* * * * *

Each of these songs, along with nine-hundred others, are spinning 24/7 on Pop That Goes Crunch radio. Support the artists, buy their music and check out the station while you are at it.

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01 Mar 2014
1 Comment

5 More Songs You Will Hear On Pop That Goes Crunch Radio

RadioMore then 500 hours of music was heard in the first month at Pop That Goes Crunch radio. More than 1,200 individual streams were launched, and the station page itself was visited more than 1,000 times. Its the third most popular “Power Pop” station on Live365 — not bad for the first month.

Here are five more tracks spinning in rotation that proved to be among the most popular songs in the first month. This is music that should be heard. You can hear it in this post — full tracks are embedded below — and you certainly can hear it on the station.

The Bye Bye Blackbirds — “All In Light” — This Bay Area band had the Number 10 song on my Best of 2013 list. “All In Light” opens their We Need The Rain long-player in a pounding, fist-pumping fashion before settling into three-plus minutes of hooks and harmonies:

And The Professors — “Our Postmortem” — This collective led by Adam Levy of The Honeydogs snagged the Number 8 song on my Best of 2013 list. The title track of their 2013 release closes that effort with a bit of Wilco-meets-ELO string-based rock:

Toxic Melons — “Diffidence” — Paul Fairbairn and friends mix West Coast Pop, strings and some tasty 70s-style lead guitar into an epic piece of melancholy:

The Shivvers — “Teen Line” — Now we’re shifting gears radically. This piece of stripped down old school Power Pop from 1980 becomes increasingly brilliant each time its heard. I could have embedded a simple audio track. Here, however, is the band kicking out the song sometime in the distant past on WMTV in Madison, Wisconsin:

The Loud Family — “Chicago And Miss Jovan’s Land-O-Mat”: Scott Miller’s original band, Game Theory, is a favorite and is well-represented on Pop That Goes Crunch radio. Although there is not necessarily anything “Midwestern” about this track that appears on Volume 4 of the Yellow Pills collection, this perfect piece of AM pop rock somehow transports me to Chicago whenever I hear it:

So, there’s another five rather popular tracks getting some serious airplay over at the radio station. Why not take a few minute and check it out?

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11 Feb 2014
3 Comments

5 Reasons To Listen To Pop That Goes Crunch Radio

Records, Records, RecordsPop That Goes Crunch radio is streaming seven decades of melodically-driven rock and roll twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. You can check it out through the link posted just above.

I now have some data on the “most” popular and the “least” popular tracks spinning in rotation based on listener retention. Here’s five of the most popular songs in the current playlist. A couple were released within the past year, a couple were released in the 1990s. Complete tracks are embedded to give you an idea of what is currently “hot” on Pop That Goes Crunch Radio:

Wyatt Funderburk, “Summer”:  Funderburk mixes the bitter and the sweet as well as anyone on the scene today. He also pens great couplets like: “Time and love are conflicted and unpredicted but who can complain?/Happiness and contentment are nothing but sentiment without heartache and pain”

Evil Arrows, “Jennifer Kills The Giant (Once A Week)”: Bryan Scary plans to release up to 60 songs this year under the Evil Arrows moniker. The five-song EP 1 is available right here. “Jennifer” is proof positive that “simple,” when done right, has an elegance all its own:

The Sun Sawed in 1/2, “Janet Greene”: This relentlessly pounding ode to a woman “slightly greater” than Bardot, Monroe and Farrah will ring in your ears for days on end:

Wilco, Nothing’severgonnastandinmyway (Again): Jeff Tweedy occasionally takes himself too seriously, but not on this slightly off-kilter, slightly satirical piece of pop brilliance. Its one of my favorite songs on my favorite Wilco album:

Spacemaid, “Baby Come On”: Insubstantial. Sickly sweet. Cotton candy. Bubblegum. And, of course, just perfect:

What are you waiting for? Run, don’t walk, over to Pop That Goes Crunch radio, where you can hear these cool five songs, along with more than 800 others spinning non-stop around-the-clock.

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02 Feb 2014

Now Streaming — Pop The Goes Crunch Radio

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As a compliment to this blog, I launched my own on-line streaming radio station at Live365. It streams 24-7, and plays the music discussed on this blog, and a whole lot more.

The station profile says in summary form that it spins a lot of different types of melodically-driven rock ‘n roll — “Power Pop, New Wave, Indie rock, lo-fi, British Invasion, Garage Rock, Psychedelic, West Coast Pop, Baroque Pop, Chamber Pop, Brit Pop.”

More specifically, you will hear today’s best indie pop artists, particularly those that placed a track on my  Top 20 of 2013 — Eric Barao, The Sharp Things, Nick Piunti, An American Underdog, Stephen Lawrenson, Wyatt Funderburk, Lisa Mychols, And The Professors, Vegas With Randolph, Bye Bye Blackbirds, etc. The artists featured in my recent Indie Pop Playlist post feature prominently, as do those in my earlier two posts on playlists I created and uploaded. Those can be found here and here.

You also will hear Power Pop dating to its inception in the 1970s, both well-known (The Raspberries, Big Star, The Plimsouls), and somewhat obscure (The Pranks, The Secrets*, Gary Charlson, The Shivvers).

Early New Wave and Punk Rock is prominently featured, and represented by the likes of Elvis Costello, The Clash, Blondie, The Jam, and Joe Jackson.

The alternative rock scene starting in the early-1980s checks in with R.E.M., The Replacements, Husker Du, The Pixies, Guided By Voices, and others.

There are also doses of 60s rock from The Beatles, The Kinks, The Small Faces, Manfred Mann, The Beach Boys, The Zombies, Love, The Move, The Creation, The Pretty Things, etc.

For good measure, you’ll also hear earlier trailblazing pioneers of melodically-driven rock — Buddy Holly and The Everly Brothers.

So, stop by frequently. I plan to rotate tracks into the playlist — more than 44 hours long — from my personal library on a weekly basis. Just follow this link.

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