Video

Video of The Day: Lande Hekt – Lucky Now

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Lande Hekt’s Lucky Now arrives like a confession scribbled on the back of a tour flyer in the time right before the sun rises after a long, long night of no good, lipstick-smudged, coffee-stained, and vibrating with the kind of nervous honesty that makes you wonder whether pop music still remembers how to bleed. This is not an album that kicks the door in; it slips through the crack, sits on the edge of the bed, and starts telling you uncomfortable truths about wanting, about settling, about the strange arithmetic we do when we decide that this—this life, this love, this version of ourselves—is “enough.” And that, right there, is its quiet miracle.

Hekt has always had a knack for making emotional vulnerability sound like a strength rather than a plea, but Lucky Now sharpens that instinct into something almost surgical. These songs shimmer with indie-pop polish, sure, but beneath the gloss is a constant low-grade anxiety: the fear that happiness is temporary, that luck is borrowed, that joy might evaporate the moment you name it. It’s pop music that knows better than to trust pop music’s old lies.

What makes Lucky Now hum instead of collapse under its own sensitivity is Hekt’s voice—not just the literal instrument, though that’s lovely in a windswept, half-smiling way—but the narrative voice, the persona who sings like she’s talking herself through decisions she’s already made and regrets she hasn’t fully admitted yet. This is adult pop in the truest sense: not about growing up, but about realizing you already did and you’re still not sure you like the furniture.

Musically, the record flirts with brightness while refusing to fully commit. The melodies are catchy in that sneaky way—hooks that don’t announce themselves so much as move into your head and rearrange the place. Synths glimmer, guitars jangle politely, and the production keeps things buoyant enough that the emotional weight doesn’t drag the songs into dour introspection. This is where Hekt is smarter than a lot of her peers: she understands that sadness hits harder when it’s wearing a smile.

There’s something almost punk about that restraint. Not punk as in distortion and safety pins, but punk as in refusal—the refusal to oversell, to dramatize, to scream when a whisper will do more damage. Lucky Now feels like a record made by someone who’s seen the emotional theatrics of pop romance and decided to opt out, replacing grand declarations with small, cutting observations. The result is intimacy without exhibitionism, confession without spectacle.

And yet, don’t mistake this for background music. The cumulative effect of these songs is quietly devastating. By the time you reach the later tracks, you realize you’ve been lured into a meditation on luck itself—how we use it as a shield, how we say “I’m lucky” when what we really mean is “I’m afraid to ask for more.” Hekt isn’t romanticizing compromise; she’s interrogating it, holding it up to the light to see where it cracks.

If Lester Bangs taught us anything, it’s that great pop records are X-rays of their cultural moment, and Lucky Now feels like an X-ray of millennial adulthood: stable but restless, grateful but suspicious, emotionally literate yet still haunted by the suspicion that something essential got lost along the way. This is music for people who have learned the language of self-care and are still figuring out how to live with the self they’ve so carefully curated.

Lucky Now doesn’t shout for your attention. It doesn’t need to. It waits. And then, one day, halfway through the chorus of a song you thought you already understood, it guts you. That’s luck, maybe. Or maybe it’s just honesty, finally landing where it’s supposed to be all along.

Video of The Day: Mike Bankhead – Something That I can’t Explain

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Mike Bankhead’s “Something That I Can’t Explain” doesn’t so much begin as it leaks out of the speakers, a humid, half-remembered confession that carries a feeling from basements, barroom carpets, and the ghost of every rehearsal space Dayton ever forced into existence. You don’t listen to this song so much as you wander into it, like opening the wrong door in a familiar house and finding a room you forgot was there. That’s Bankhead’s trick: he makes the local feel mythic and the mythic feel like it’s leaning against a busted amp, waiting for the others to arrive.

Dayton has always been one of America’s great under-credited noise factories, and yup, I am ready to die on that hill. We gave the world funk, post-punk, industrial weirdness, and enough basement-bred genius to stock a dozen glossy documentaries that will never get made. Mike Bankhead sits right in the middle of that lineage—not as a tourist or a revivalist, but as a lifer. He’s one of those musicians who doesn’t just play in a scene; he is part of its circulatory system, hauling gear, showing up for other people’s gigs, recording, mixing, encouraging, needling, and generally making sure the whole messy organism keeps breathing. Every scene needs someone like Mike, part fan, part musician, part reminder of the reasons people do this.

“Something That I Can’t Explain” sounds like it was written by someone who’s been around long enough to know that the best songs aren’t about clarity; they’re about staying with the confusion. Sometimes the grey area matters more than the easy answers. The melody lurches forward like it’s got something urgent to tell you and then second-guesses itself halfway through the sentence. The vocals don’t demand your attention—they sidle up to it, muttering truths they’re not totally sure they’re allowed to say. This is not stadium rock. This is backroom metaphysics.

What makes Bankhead essential to Dayton isn’t just that he writes songs like this; it’s that he’s helped create the conditions where songs like this can exist at all. Scenes don’t survive on big breaks. They survive on people who show up. Bankhead has been one of those gravitational figures who make it easier for others, strangers, and the less confident artists to take the leap. When someone tells you, “Yeah, Mike’s involved,” you know it means things will actually happen—records will get finished, shows will get booked, weird ideas will be taken seriously instead of laughed out of the room.

There’s a Dayton-specific emotional weather system in “Something That I Can’t Explain.” It’s in the way the song refuses to resolve cleanly, the way it keeps circling a feeling instead of pinning it down. Dayton’s a town that’s been promised a lot and delivered just enough to keep hoping. Bankhead understands that tension, and he doesn’t try to smooth it over. He lets it hum, like feedback you don’t quite know how to kill without losing the song.

Lester Bangs used to say that the best rock and roll made you feel less alone in your own weirdness. Bankhead does that, but he does it with a Dayton accent—gritty, affectionate, slightly suspicious of success, deeply loyal to the people who were there before anyone else cared. “Something That I Can’t Explain” isn’t just a song; it’s a little flare shot up from a city that keeps reinventing itself in basements and back rooms. And Mike Bankhead, bless him, keeps striking the matches.

MTV Signs Off in 2025 With the Song That Started It All

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On December 31, 2025, a landmark moment in music and television history quietly unfolded: MTV’s dedicated 24-hour music video channels ended their broadcast run by playing the very same music video they debuted with 44 years earlier—The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star.”  

This poetic symmetry, beginning and ending with the same song, is more than a nostalgic shrug. It reflects the arc of MTV’s influence on music, media, and popular culture, while offering a symbolic close to the era of television as a primary gateway for music discovery, as I discussed yesterday.

A Revolution Begins: MTV’s 1981 Launch

When MTV (Music Television) went on the air at 12:01 a.m. on August 1, 1981, its format was radical: a channel devoted exclusively to music videos playing around the clock. The first video ever broadcast was “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the British new wave band The Buggles.  

The choice was as fitting as it was prophetic. Released in 1979 under Island Records, the song was itself a commentary on technological change in media—the rise of recorded music, video and digital production threatening the primacy of radio. Written by Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes and Bruce Woolley, and propelled by its synth-pop sound, it topped charts in many countries and became synonymous with the dawn of a new musical era.  

For MTV, the video was more than a catchy tune—it was an emblem. By placing a visual experience at the forefront of music consumption, MTV helped redefine how generations discovered artists, songs and styles.

MTV’s Golden Age: Cultural Force and Industry Shaper

Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, MTV’s influence spread far beyond the small number of U.S. homes that could first receive its signal. Shows like Headbangers Ball, Yo! MTV Raps and 120 Minutes brought genres from indie to heavy metal to hip-hop into living rooms worldwide. Music videos became central to an artist’s identity and success.

The phrase “I want my MTV,” popularized in early marketing campaigns, became shorthand for youthful aspiration and cultural currency. The network propelled personalities such as Daisy Fuentes, Andy Dick and Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds into stardom, and helped launch the careers of artists from Madonna to Nirvana.  

MTV did more than broadcast music; it shaped how music was made. Record labels invested heavily in video production, and artists began approaching videos as art and narrative: from Michael Jackson’s cinematic Thriller to Peter Gabriel’s innovative visuals. These were not mere promotional tools—they were cultural events.

Shifting Tastes and the Digital Era

But the very forces that made MTV as indispensable in the 1980s, technology and shifting media consumption, also contributed to its decline as a music video destination. As cable expanded and then fragmented into dozens of channels, MTV began incorporating non-music programming like The Real World, Jersey Shore, and Ridiculousness as ratings drivers.

By the early 2000s, the rotation of music videos on MTV substantially diminished in the United States. Viewers found new ways to access music videos online through platforms like YouTube, Vevo, and later social media apps, eroding the unique value proposition that MTV once held.  

MTV’s decision to shift toward reality and entertainment formats, while commercially sensible, signaled a transformation of its brand identity. Instead of music television, it became a hub for youth-oriented pop culture broadly defined.

2025: The Last Music Videos Go Dark

The decision in 2025 to discontinue MTV’s 24-hour music video channels (including MTV Music, MTV 80s, MTV 90s, and MTV Live) marks the end of an era. While the core MTV channel remains on the air in some regions, focusing on reality programming, the dedicated music video channels that once defined the brand’s global footprint went dark as of December 31, 2025.  

In the U.K., Ireland, France, Germany, Poland, Australia and Brazil, MTV’s music video stations signed off in a series of final broadcasts that referenced the channel’s own history. Most poignantly, MTV Music’s final transmission featured “Video Killed the Radio Star”—the very track that launched MTV in 1981.  

This choice was deeply symbolic. It acknowledged MTV’s roots while also recognizing a cultural moment in which traditional broadcast television has largely ceded music video discovery to the internet and mobile platforms. The channels’ sign-off was not a quiet disappearance into obscurity but a deliberate nod to the entire arc—from analogue radio and early cable to the digital screens of today.

Why This Matters Beyond Nostalgia

MTV’s lifecycle mirrors broader shifts in media: from centralized broadcasting to decentralized, on-demand digital networks. In its heyday, MTV was both a curator and creator of popular culture; it influenced fashion, language, and musical trends globally. The end of its music video channels underscores how much control over media audiences and creators now wield through algorithms and digital distribution.

Yet, the enduring relevance of “Video Killed the Radio Star” is telling. The song’s narrative, about innovation displacing older forms of media, remains the story of MTV itself. MTV didn’t just broadcast music videos; it embodied a shift in how people engage with music as a multisensory, visual, and social experience.

The song’s symbolic role at both MTV’s inception and sign-off offers a poignant bookend: a reminder that media landscapes evolve, often in ways that creators and audiences could hardly predict.

A Cultural Footprint That Endures

As MTV’s music video channels sign off forever, the network’s legacy lives on. It reshaped the music business, redefined television programming, and helped forge the visual vernacular of contemporary pop culture. Its final act—playing the same iconic music video that introduced the network in 1981—celebrates a remarkable 44-year journey.

In closing with “Video Killed the Radio Star,” MTV did not signal an end to music videos or visual creativity; rather, it acknowledged that the battleground for such creativity has moved. Music videos now thrive on digital platforms, created by artists and audiences alike. Yet the memory of MTV’s rise, and its graceful farewell, reminds us of a time when a single song could announce not just a broadcast, but a cultural revolution.

Finding MTV in College: Staying Up All Night With a New Cultural World

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MTV pulling the plug on music video play feels less like a funeral and more like the end of a long, weird afterparty where the jukebox kept looping the same hits. This moment begs reflection, not because something pure just died, but because the illusion finally did. Music never belonged to the screen—it belonged to the noise, the sweat, the argument, the room. With the videos gone, maybe we’re forced back to the dangerous idea that songs have to stand on their own again. But that also means considering what we gained, what we lost, maybe what we never truly possessed.

For many Americans, like me, who came of age in the early 1980s, MTV was not something that simply arrived in their lives—it was something they discovered. That discovery often depended on geography, access to cable television, and a move away from home. For students who grew up in small towns, MTV could feel less like a TV channel and more like a portal to an entirely different cultural universe.

I graduated from high school in 1983 from a small town in West Central Minnesota, a place where musical discovery still relied heavily on local radio stations, record stores, and whatever happened to make its way into the school gym at dances. Cable television was limited, and MTV—still new, still experimental—was not part of everyday life. Music existed primarily as sound, not spectacle.

For me, that changed in college.

Encountering MTV for the first time was a sensory shock. Here was a channel that played nothing but music—all night, uninterrupted, from artists I had barely heard of to songs that sounded like they came from the future. I remember staying up all night watching it, unable to turn it off, as if sleep had suddenly become optional. Each video flowed into the next, creating a kind of visual mixtape that felt both intimate and overwhelming. It felt so cool.

What made MTV so powerful in that moment was not just the music, but the sense of connection. For students arriving on campus from rural or small-town America, MTV offered a crash course in youth culture, fashion, politics, and identity. British new wave bands, ska-influenced neo-soul, the sly, stylish new romantics, and later West Coast hip-hop artists and glam-metal performers all shared the same screen, collapsing distance and difference in ways that radio never could. You didn’t just hear the music—you saw how artists dressed, moved, and imagined themselves. The possibilities for musical identity felt endless, a perspective that now feels far too ‘pie in the sky Pollyannaesque’ optimism.

Those late-night viewing sessions were also communal. Dorm rooms became gathering spaces where people argued over favorite videos, discovered new bands together, and learned the visual language of a generation. MTV didn’t just reflect youth culture—it actively taught it, especially to those of us encountering it for the first time after leaving home.

Looking back, it is striking how formative those nights were. MTV functioned as an informal education in popular culture, one that filled gaps left by geography and access. For students from places like small-town Minnesota, it was a reminder that culture was bigger, louder, and more visually expressive than anything we had previously experienced.

That sense of discovery—of staying up all night because you couldn’t stop watching—is difficult to replicate in today’s algorithm-driven media environment. But for a generation that found MTV in college, those nights remain a vivid memory of what it felt like to stumble into a shared cultural moment and realize that the world was far larger than you had imagined.

Video of The Day: The Tisburys – A Still Life Revisited Album Release Show (Live at Milkboy 6/7/25)

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A Still Life Revisited arrived not just as an album, but as a shared moment. Presented by WXPN, the release show felt patient, generous, and deeply communal—songs given room to breathe and collaborators invited fully into the frame. Recorded live by Secret House Recording, beautifully mixed by Kevin Marcoux, and captured on video by Tom Whaley, every detail reflected care rather than spectacle. Danielle Ciampaglia’s cover photo set the tone, intimate and unforced.

Across the set, voices and instruments wove together in ways that felt organic and earned. Katie Hackett’s vocals brought quiet power to “Second Sign,” while Kyle Swartzwelder’s pedal steel threaded nearly every song with warmth and restraint. An MJ Lenderman cover, “She’s Leaving You,” and a Tom Petty take on “Walls” sat easily alongside originals, reimagined rather than replicated. The Tisburwives Singers added depth and lift, the Schuylkill River Orchestra expanded the emotional palette, and each collaboration felt less like a feature than a conversation.

By the end, it was clear this wasn’t just a release show, it was a reflection of a musical community showing up for one another. No flash, no rush, just careful listening, shared attention, and songs presented with trust. A Still Life Revisited landed exactly as it should have: thoughtful, collective, and quietly unforgettable.

Video of The Day: The Beths – Mother, Pray For Me

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“Mother, Pray for Me” finds The Beths doing what they do best: wrapping emotional unease in bright, tensile power-pop. It’s a song that feels instantly familiar if you know their catalog—those interlocking guitar lines, the melodic immediacy, Liz Stokes’ unmistakable vocal clarity—but it also pushes toward something rawer and more pleading than their usual wry self-interrogations.

From its opening measures, the song pulses with a kind of restless confession. Stokes delivers the title phrase not as a dramatic flourish but as a weary admission, a reaching-out from someone who’s been holding it together for too long. The Beths specialize in songs about the gap between who we want to be and who we are on our worst days; here, that gap takes on a spiritual edge. There’s a sense of hitting bottom—not catastrophically, but in the quieter, more believable ways people actually unravel.

The arrangement mirrors that emotional arc. The guitars shimmer and dart; the rhythm section plays with an almost anxious tightness, as if trying to keep the song from slipping out of its own grip. Harmonies, one of The Beths’ signature strengths, arrive like little reinforcements—friends showing up, steadying a shoulder. When the chorus lands, it’s both a release and a recognition: the pop sheen doesn’t lighten the weight of the plea so much as hold it with tenderness.

Lyrically, the song walks that Beths tightrope between self-reproach and self-awareness. The narrator isn’t blaming the world or asking for absolution; they’re simply acknowledging the moments when coping feels like an act of faith. The invocation of a mother’s prayer is less religious than relational—an admission that sometimes we need someone else’s hope to borrow.

“Mother, Pray for Me” ultimately stands out because it expands the band’s emotional vocabulary without abandoning their sonic DNA. It’s catchy, it’s cutting, and it lingers, an anthem for anyone who’s ever felt a little lost and dared to ask for help, even quietly.

Video of The Day: Third of Never – Damage The Pearl

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“Damage the Pearl,” the standout title track from Third of Never’s latest record, is one of those songs that feels instantly lived-in—emotionally weathered, musically tight, and lyrically honest in ways that reward repeat listens. What Third of Never does so well across their catalog, melding melodic rock with angular edges, reflective lyricism, and a sense of drama that never tips into excess, comes into sharper focus here. The song is as much about mood as it is about narrative, and it invites the listener into a world where beauty and fracture sit side-by-side.

From the opening seconds, the track establishes a sonic landscape marked by contrast. Guitars shimmer and bite, building a foundation that feels both urgent and dreamlike. That duality mirrors the song’s thematic tension: “damage” and “pearl” aren’t just opposing concepts; they’re the twin poles around which the emotional arc revolves. The metaphor is simple but resonant—the “pearl” as something precious, hard-won, and vulnerable to harm; the “damage” as both external force and self-inflicted consequence.

Doug McMillen’s vocal performance lends the song much of its emotional depth. His delivery is unhurried but charged, as though he’s carefully excavating each phrase. There’s a rasp at the edges that suggests long nights, regrets, and resilience. He doesn’t dramatize the lyrics so much as inhabit them, giving the impression that the story being told has been carried quietly for a long time before finally being voiced.

Musically, the band strikes an impressive balance between tight arrangement and spacious atmosphere. Steve Potak’s keyboard textures ripple through the mix, adding color without overwhelming the guitars. His playing brings a sense of uplift to the darker corners of the track, hinting that even in the midst of damage, there’s clarity or even transcendence to be found. The rhythm section keeps the song grounded, propulsive without being forceful, allowing the emotional tension to breathe.

Lyrically, “Damage the Pearl” explores the fragile points in relationships—the places where trust is tested, where mistakes leave marks, where people confront the limits of what can be repaired. But the song resists cynicism. Instead, it seems to inhabit that complicated emotional terrain where hope and regret coexist. When the chorus opens up, the sense of release is less cathartic triumph and more a weary, honest exhalation. The band understands that complexity is sometimes more powerful than resolution.

The production enhances this emotional palette. Clean, spacious, and unafraid of subtle imperfections, it allows each instrument to carry its own weight. There’s no sense of overpolishing; the track feels human, textured, and lived-in. That sense of authenticity shapes the listening experience: the song sounds like a confession whispered and then amplified into the open air.

“Damage the Pearl” ultimately succeeds because it serves as both a strong standalone track and a thematic touchstone for the album bearing its name. It captures Third of Never’s ability to marry craft and feeling—to write rock music that is polished but soulful, introspective but accessible. It lingers after it ends, like a bruise you only notice when you press on it, and like a pearl that gleams all the more for having survived pressure.

Video of The Day: Tamar Berk – Chicago

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“CHICAGO” OR: HOW TAMAR BERK FOUND A MIRAGE IN THE MIDDLE OF A DYING DREAM

So there I was, chin-deep in a bowl of Frosted Flakes, when “Chicago” dropped through the ceiling like a sigh you forgot you were holding for thirty years. I was reviewing music and videos for YTAA when Tamar Berk, that sparkle-voiced assassin of suburban malaise, spins up something here that’s not quite a love letter, not quite a breakup note, sort of a tear stained note to her hometown. Or perhaps it is something more like a sonic postcard from the corner of hope and loss.

The song opens with this gauzy, aching shimmer—guitars jangling like they’re trying to remember what joy used to feel like. And Berk’s voice—wow, that voice—it floats in like an old Polaroid burned around the edges. It’s part Liz Phair, part Aimee Mann, and all that unnamable ache you get when you realize your childhood bedroom is now a guestroom with beige walls.

“Chicago” is about the place, sure, but also not. It’s about your Chicago—whatever town you left and keep returning to in your heart. Tamar doesn’t sing to the city as much as she sings through it, like she’s tunneling under Wicker Park and digging up old mixtapes and unread diaries. There’s a part where she sings, “It’s not that bad, it’s just sometimes I get so sad,” and if that doesn’t make you want to cry into your last CTA transfer, you’re probably already lost to us.

And the video! God. It’s a melancholic fever dream dipped in filters, grainy and glorious. We see Tamar playing the song, but the video also wanders through neighborhoods, streets, and venues that used to be the places she played in the past. Those places have a hold on us, a feverish dream of what was and isn’t where we are now, but has become inescapably a part of our identity. She doesn’t posture, doesn’t play cute—she just exists, like a memory you can’t delete, even though the file’s corrupted. There’s a stoic poetry to it all, like she’s auditioning for a role in the past and already knows she’s gonna get the part.

What Berk manages to do here—somehow, miraculously—is take nostalgia, which is usually just a cheap phony thought, and make it ache honest. “Chicago” is not some gimmick about going home; it’s a reckoning. It’s the realization that going back doesn’t fix anything, but you keep doing it anyway because sometimes ghosts are better company than strangers.

In the end, this song isn’t about Chicago. It’s about you. Me. All of us who traded in magic for rent payments, who look at our hometown skylines and see a mausoleum instead of a monument. Tamar Berk nailed that feeling to the wall like a love letter returned unopened. And for that, I thank her.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go cry in a parking lot outside a now-defunct Denny’s.

Video of The Day: The Mayflies USA – Calling The Bad Ones Home

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Oh, my God, The Mayflies USA have just unleashed the kind of song that makes you wonder if the world is still spinning in the right direction or if it’s just about to fly off its axis in a blaze of glorious emotion. “Calling All the Bad Ones Home” isn’t just a song, it’s a revelation. It rips through you like a storm, charging through every lyric, every chord, like a pent-up burst of energy and chaos.

Right from the first strum, you feel the pulse of a band finally arriving at the perfect intersection of rock’n’roll and unrepentant heartache. It’s jangly, it’s rebellious, it doesn’t ask for permission, and it’s absolutely alive. The guitars are so sharp they could cut through steel, and when the drums kick in, it’s like they’re the rhythm of life, the very foundation of reality into something new and thrilling. You shimmy and shake from the start. The vocals are perfect, a cathartic yet accessible call that makes you want to sing along, even if you don’t know the words. And handclaps… come on, we need more claps in songs.

This isn’t a song. It’s a lifeline for the outcasts, the dreamers, the ones who’ve been lost in the noise and are just now realizing they belong somewhere. It’s a melody of redemption wrapped in one glorious, impossibly perfect track. The Mayflies USA are here, and you’re not gonna forget them.

Video of The Day: The Laughing Chimes – High Beams

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“The Laughing Chimes” song “High Beams” is a rich, atmospheric piece that blends wistful nostalgia with electrifying, almost cinematic soundscapes. As with much of The Laughing Chimes’ writing, this track has a sense of profound intimacy—a delicate balance between the personal and the universal. “High Beams” is a meditation on the tension between light and shadow, love and loss, the known and the unknown. The song pulses with a kind of nervous energy, like the flicker of headlights on a quiet street, beckoning toward a horizon that feels both alluring and frightening. (WARNING: This video may potentially trigger seizures for people with photosensitive epilepsy. Viewer discretion is advised.)

When talking about The Laughing Chimes you often focus on the emotional undercurrents of a song, examining the way music captures moments of quiet yet potent self-reflection. “High Beams” encapsulates this sensibility in its jangly yet lush, layered production. The track doesn’t rely on grandiose gestures but instead leans into subtle, almost fleeting melodies that stir something deep within the listener. Its lyrics, steeped in metaphor and imagery, invite listeners to interpret the meaning for themselves, to fold themselves into the spaces between the words, much like the way a soft beam of light might slip through the cracks of an old window, revealing glimpses of a life just out of reach.

The song’s lyrical content, rich in symbolism, evokes feelings of longing and unspoken connection, themes that many musicians explore. In “High Beams,” there is an almost cinematic quality to the way the story unfolds, similar to a film where a character is on the cusp of something important but hesitates, unsure whether to step forward or stay in the shadows. The metaphor of high beams is both literal and figurative, suggesting not only a physical presence but also the feeling of being observed, of vulnerability in the midst of something bigger and uncontrollable.

Sonically, “High Beams” leans heavily into a blend of jangly indie rock, synth, and dream-pop, not unlike the work of other artists who explore the liminal space between genres. The track swells with a bouncy reverb and compelling arrangements that create an almost enveloping atmosphere. Yet, there’s a grounding quality in the rhythm section that pulls the song back to earth, like the steady heartbeat that underlies all of our most intense emotional experiences.

In true rock and roll fashion, “High Beams” is both a journey and a destination, a portrait of the tender, precarious act of living fully in the present moment while gazing forward with both hope and trepidation. This is a song that demands repeated listening, each time uncovering a new layer, a new emotional note to be explored.

Video of the Day: The Pinkerton Raid – A Long December

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All too often critics apply a sharp, snarky perspective on music, and approach covers with a detached cold perspective. And sometimes that separation would truly miss the point. The Pinkerton Raid’s cover of Counting Crows’ A Long December needs recognition of both the emotional core and the transformation of the song. A good review would highlight the poignant ways in which the cover reimagines the original, focusing on the evolving resonance of the song in the hands of a different band, and the way the passage of time deepens its meaning.

The original A Long December, with its aching melancholy and sense of yearning for resolution, comes from Counting Crows’ Recovering the Satellites, a record defined by its bittersweet reflection on personal pain and recovery. Adam Duritz’s vocal performance, simultaneously raw and hopeful, narrates a painful yet comforting nostalgia. However, when the Pinkerton Raid takes on this track, they strip it down, peeling back the layers of polished production, leaving space for vulnerability in their own rendition.

A critic would likely notice how the Pinkerton Raid, often associated with a more stripped-down Americana sound, injects new textures into the song. Their version transforms the hopeful melancholy of the original into something a little more haunting, a little more restrained, while the song is given room to breathe the emotional release feels suffocating — it is literally breathtaking. The arrangement, grounded in folk instrumentation, slows the pace, allowing the lyrics to move, perhaps breathe, and resonate in a way that invites even deeper introspection than the original, and that is saying something. The spaciousness of the arrangement highlights the sense of emotional isolation, with each guitar strum and piano/organ note echoing a quiet sense of longing.

How covers interact with their originals is a common discussion among critics. These critics would also note how this version of A Long December recontextualizes the meaning of the song for listeners in the 2020s, giving the track a new sense of grief. In a time when shared emotional experience is often overshadowed by fragmentation, the Pinkerton Raid’s version of A Long December offers a gentle, bittersweet reminder that despite everything, we still carry the weight of our pasts with us. You can pre-save or pre-add the studio version on APPLE, SPOTIFY or DEEZER, download it on BANDCAMP, or order the physical CD or vinyl.

Video of The Day: Librarians With Hickeys – Hello Operator

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Librarians with Hickeys — what a name. You hear it and you immediately start constructing the image in your head: a tangle of smudged glasses, bookish rebellion, a zine-spun ethos slashing through the overcast skies of suburban ennui. Their track “Hello Operator” is nothing short of a jangle pop-fueled call to arms for the underachiever, the bored teenager, the disillusioned adult trapped in a system that runs on decibels of monotonous corporate soul-sucking. But instead of screaming bloody murder or railing against the system, they just slap it in the face with a smirk and soaring ringing guitars. The song is the lead track from their excellent — and one of our favorites of 2024 — record, How To Make Friends By Telephone (out on Big Stir Records).

The song’s pulse is a sweet relentless stomp, feeling like the clock ticking down to something important, but what? Who knows. There’s this sense of the need for connection and the futility of that need, an operator on the other side who may or may not be listening, a technological abyss where human connections dissolve into nothing. The song sweeps forward, like an old jukebox with a bad needle sharing thoughts and desires from one jump thought to the next. And isn’t that just the way? We’re all dialing up, trying to make a connection with something—another person, a higher power, ourselves—and getting lost in the static.

The lyrics, always a strength of this band, are power-pop blissful clarity in the deeply felt reaching out: “Hello operator, can you tell me one more time, what do people say when they talk to you? Hello operator, I really hope you don’t mind. I would like to talk to you. Yes, I would like to talk to you. I think I would like to talk to you.” It’s not just a plea for communication, but a brutal statement about how we’re all caged in by our own methods of connection. Forget the pleasant humdrum of politeness versus the insanity of the world around us, this is the telephone line, frayed and half-spliced, where any answer you get is an accident.

The kicker is the sound. At times driving power-pop cascading, ringing, jangling, like a late-night jam session fueled by too many cans of cheap beer and a pile of too many bad ideas that we took to heart instead of ignoring them. Yet somehow, in this pop gem chaos, there’s a profound sense of liberation. The cry of “hello” is the message.