Songs you know by heart, artists you don't
There are some bands that just don’t stick in your mind, even though they should. The songs are great, the sound is what you love, but for some reason they don’t find that elusive purchase in your mind.
Sometimes they are slippery because they are new to you. Tim Wasem recommended New Orleans-now-Asheville-based Julie O’Dell on the Erasable podcast. Every time one of her songs comes on, I think, “man, this rocks, who is this?” It’s always O’Dell. My mind hasn’t caught up to my heart and my ears. I suspect that the more I choose her music rather than just stumble on it via my seasonal catch-all Spotify playlist, the stronger the connection.
But other artists never stick. Something about the name or the sound or the presentation coats it in Teflon.
Houndmouth. Their songs are top notch, right in that Americana-rock wheelhouse that I’ve loved for years, with a little twang to soften their big hooks. The Lumineers may be the poster child of the genre. Houndmouth match them song for song. With the exception of Sedona, which has graced playlists of mine for years now, I couldn’t tell you a band member, album name, or track if you tied me up and pushed me down a gorgeous Arizona canyon stream.
There must be artists in every creative genre that tick this box for you. You know the cut of their aesthetic jib but when feet are put to flame, you could sooner name the platoon third baseman for the ‘97 Astros (Bill Spiers. What a swing he had from the left side of the plate!). You cringe in shame when the name won’t come to mind. Your friends shake their heads and wonder what happened to such a promising compadre. A quick Google salves the hurt for the moment, but the next time that artist comes up you’ll go through the same thing again.
The technology surely plays a role. Spotify (my exploitative music purveyor of choice) serves up artists from the world over with a click of the radio option. The algorithm will serve up repeat listens whether I pick them or not. In days of yore, it was a longer path to random listens: the radio, a handmade mix tape, the tape deck of your friend’s babysitter in the old Volvo in which he carted y’all down to the pond on hot days.
Perhaps note-taking is the path. The next time Houndmouth comes on and I act out, once again, my little Memento sequence, and look them and realize that it’s happened again, I should freeze in that moment of guilt and shame, pull out my Field Notes, and write in my pocket notebook: THE BAND YOU LIKE IS HOUNDMOUTH. I could add a picture of a dog next to a mouth. Maybe some musical notes. The act of notetaking itself — hand to paper, hound to mouth — would lay down new neurons like railroad tracks, saving a few of Google’s valuable electrons along the way.
