Tag: indie pop

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“Carhartts & Converse” by Super Whatevr

"Carhartts & Converse" by Super Whatevr

I must admit, the Californian “emo-punk” band Super Whatevr hadn’t even registered on my radar until they unleashed their latest track, “Carhartts & Converse,” featuring the iconic pop-punk figure Mark Hoppus. Surprisingly, the band has been around since 2016 and dropped their second full-length album in February. However, this particular song is a fresh addition that didn’t appear on the album.

“Carhartts & Converse” blends elements of indie pop and punk-rock, creating a captivating hybrid. The song’s optimistic lyrics, centered around self-worth and resilience against others’ negativity, harmonize perfectly with its cheerful rhythm. In these suffocating times, it serves as a refreshing breath of air. Give it a listen below and let it brighten up your weekend.

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Pop
  • Punk-Rock

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Arlo Parks – Creep

Arlo Parks - Creep

Arlo Parks, which is how Anaïs Oluwatoyin Estelle Marinho is professionally known, is a singer and poet from South London with a voice to die for. In a poll of music critics ran by the BBC, Sound of 2020, she was predicted as a breakthrough act for this year. We all know what has really happened in 2020 but Arlo is so talented that she might still prove those critics right even despite the circumstances.

Arlo cannot really be classified into a specific genre, as she could flirt with R&B and soul as easily as she could do the same with indie or bedroom pop; but the song being added today to our mixtapes is definitely indie. And yes, I know this legendary Radiohead song has been covered hundreds of times by plenty of talented artists, yet Arlo Parks‘ version is so breathtaking and unique that it feels like the first time listening to Creep. The truth is that nothing I could say here would make this stunning version any justice. Just judge by yourself, here:

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Folk/Indie

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The Illness – Phrases Redacted

Phrases Redacted

I have to say, Phrases Redacted is a weird song. It is basically Bob Nastanovich (from an old school indie rock band called Pavement) speaking over a stream of groovy sounds. Yet, I really dig it, because the music somehow perfectly complements Bob’s words in a hypnotic way. You can certainly tell that the musicians who form The Illness not only know each other well but also have been making music for a long time.

The band is a UK collective of members from different bands on Sea Records, who had been jamming together at times but procrastinating the formal release of new music until –of all years– 2020, when it finally happened. Phrases Redacted is one of two songs the band has dropped, and it got a similar vibe to “Let Forever Be” from The Chemical Brothers.

You have to listen to this unconventional track by yourself to see what I mean (or watch the video below). Good luck getting it out of your head afterwards.

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Alternative

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Fan Theories – Next Great Holiday

Fan Theories - Next Great Holiday

Next Great Holiday is the debut single of Fan Theories, a band from Helsinki, Finland, founded by two friends who met while they were playing for different bands. Now a 5-piece, the band was lucky to record a few songs just before the world got into lockdown mode due to the pandemic. This allowed them to released their first song this month, which comes accompanied by a very-well-done music video.

Even though they wrote the song last year, its lyrics strike a chord nowadays when we all dream about going on holidays without knowing when we will be able to (proper holidays without that many restrictions). What I really like about this track is its catchy chorus, which really elevates the whole song to another level. If they keep producing songs like Next Great Holiday, Fan Theories is going to be around for a long time.

Listen to this fine piece of Indie rock from Finland here:

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Alternative
  • Folk/Indie

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Linney – Cool

Linney - Cool

Caitlin Linney is an American singer and songwriter who is known simply as Linney. After starting her career in 2011 on Kickstarter, she has consistently written and released multiple songs, collaborated artist such as Gareth Emery, and even won some songwriting awards. Her style revolves mostly around electronic music, but it could go from indie pop all the way to trance music. While I don’t think she has had her big break yet, she’s certainly on the brink of it. She got more than 200,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.

Cool is basically an earworm she released earlier this year that I simply haven’t been able to get out of my mind since I heard it for the first time a few days ago. There is something between the soft electronic background and the ethereal way in which Linney sings this song that keeps me coming back for more. Listen to this magnetic song below at your own risk.

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Pop

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The Goo Goo Dolls – Tonight, Together

The Goo Goo Dolls - Tonight, Together

Iris is one of the best alternative rock songs ever written, but The Goo Goo Dolls are much more than that single song. In fact, they have been one of the most consistent bands in the genre, releasing solid-to-great albums every three or four years pretty much since it all started in 1987. I have liked some of them more than others but I can’t recall having disliked any. It can’t get any more consistent than that. In addition to that, they sound really great live.

Just this week, the Goos –who have been pretty active on their social networks during the lockdown– released a deluxe edition of their 2019 album Miracle Pill featuring three previously unreleased songs. Tonight, Together is, in my humble opinion, the best of the bunch and it does sound great, which is why I decided to make an extra entry to the mixtapes today (luckily for me, I got more songs to recommend at the moment than time to write the posts). Do not expect a new Iris (or Slide or Acoustic #3), just enjoy this new track by the band from Buffalo, NY, for what it is: a pretty great rock song!

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Alternative

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Polar States – 2020

Polar States - 2020

Polar States is a four-piece guitar band from Liverpool, UK (seriously, is there something in the water over there? Is it the Mersey?) that in all likelihood will become the next big British band to take the world by storm. The group got already a cult following despite releasing their first EP less than 3 years ago. They describe themselves as a ‘dark pop’ band but I think their genre is spot on alternative rock.

The band released just last week a new single, 2020, which is extremely catchy and already a musical crush of mine. It has huge potential to become a big hit and if you hadn’t listented to it before, this is your opportunity to do so before it does!

I can’t believe it was recorded in their own houses…

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Alternative

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Lizzy & the Fanatics – Les fleurs mortes

Lizzy & the Fanatics

Lizzy & the Fanatics is a dream pop band from Montreal, Canada, that after playing shows around the region for three years, released last month a bilingual EP with 6 indie pop tracks that taste like candy from your childhood. You can sense some 80s and 90s vibe on the record as well with its nostalgic synths and pastel color melodies.

Even though I don’t speak French (I know barely enough to understand that the name of the song featured here means “dead flowers”), I didn’t have to in order to connect with the song being highlighted here: Les fleur mortes. Music is universal, after all. However, rest assured, the EP has also 4 tracks in English that are just as good. Obviously, it is a matter of personal taste, but if you like dreamy 80s flavored indie pop, Lizzy & the Fanatics will be right up your alley.

‘‘I wrote Les fleurs mortes while riding my bike in

the dead of November last year, while missing the

summer. The song is about nostalgia; how it can

simultaneously make you feel the sad feelings of

losing something from the past, at the same time

as feeling content of remembering something

that was good. I find that this ambivalence of

feeling is a bit like drying dead flowers, preserving

the memory of something nice.’’

Lysanne Picard (Lizzy)

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Pop

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flor feat. MisterWives – yellow

flor feat. MisterWives

I love cover tracks that are not just karaoke versions of the original songs. In particular, when the artist manages to bring the song to his/her own style in a way that makes it sound as a brand new track (and even better when the styles are very different). This is exactly what flor accomplished with their cover of Coldplay’s iconic song: Yellow, for which they had a bit of help from Mandy Lee from MisterWives.

flor (they don’t use a capital F) is a pretty well-known band in the indie circuit, but in case you don’t know who they are, they started in 2014 in Oregon, US; and have released two studio albums so far. This cover of Yellow, however, is part of a EP, reimagined, that the band released in February this year, containing new versions of two of their most popular songs plus the song being featured here. All three songs come recommended and deserve a listen, but you can start with Yellow here:

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Indie
  • Pop

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Hazey Eyes feat. Panama – Emotion

Hazey Eyes

I got my lovely wife to thank for this discovery, as it showed up while she was listening to a playlist with recommendations from one streaming platform. Hazey Eyes is the moniker of 22-year-old Philadelphia-based electronic artist Thomas Michel, who released in 2019 his latest EP, Love Lost. For its lead single, Emotion, the classically trained multi-instrumentalist collaborated with Panama, the well-known electronic/Indie project by Australian songwriter/producer Jarrah McCleary, and the result was this emotional blend of electronic and indie music with a catchy yet vulnerable melody.

Emotion got serious potential to become your next musical crush and you can stream it below.

Featured on the following mixtapes: