Pop, Lock & Bops: Best of May 2018
Enjoy songs from Great Good Fine OK, Amanda Brown, Gretchen Peters, Kelly Willis, Mat Kearney, Jackie Lee and more!
Welcome to Pop, Lock & Bops, a monthly playlist series documenting our favorite windswept country tunes, heartfelt tearjerkers and down-right intoxicating dirty-pop club bangers.
Amanda Brown is a bird in flight. Her long (x100) awaited debut album Dirty Water dropped last month, and it’s a tour de force of blues-rock, dipped in vigorous vocal acrobatics and slung against a wall of gospel strokes and pop slather. “Take Your Pill” is a hearty, throbbing chest-rocker chronicling her strenuous journey of self and jumpstarts our newest manifestation of best songs ⎯⎯ May was a long, winding month but one which has given wings to some of the best mixes of the year.
Gretchen Peters offers up a sinister story-song about a young girl taking fate into her own hands. “Wichita” is laced with Bobbie Gentry and Johnny Cash, ignited with a deeply-troubling narrative of bloody outrage and murderous pulses. Whatever happened that night in Wichita is locked inside this nearly-four-minute gruesome tale of revenge and death. It’s just a little taste of Peters’ new record, suitably titled Dancing with the Beast, often somber, grimly venomous in nature.
B-Sides & Badlands favorite Erik Dylan makeshifts his second record, called Baseball on the Moon, with more grit of his teeth and dirt of his jangly boots. “Funerals & Football Games” is one of the year’s most gut-wrenching songs, as he recounts the importance of family and living by that commitment at all costs. His vocal is dire, and the arrangement clocks you around the eyes.
The new Pop, Lock & Bops also features OMYO, Cherryade, Jackie Lee, Leland, Mat Kearney, Gregory Ackerman, Sara Diamond, TOMI, BANNERS, The Young Novelists, Lake Street Dive, Callum Beattie, Violet Days, Chasing Abbey, A Great Big World, Heather LaRose, lovelytheband, Great Good Fine OK, 88 Palms, Jason Boland & the Stragglers, July Jones and Kelly Willis, among others.
When all is said and done, we’ve got 69 songs to spring into summer with a bodacious lurch.
Take a spin:
Follow B-Sides & Badlands on our socials: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram
