roadrunner twice 03: watching a fire

some old songs disappear and some get more popular

I’ve been thinking about the lasting or ephemeral nature of media recently. I dug up my old 30 Rock DVDs and have been watching through, including the audio commentary. These are bonuses we used to expect, and it’s fun to listen to the cast and writers talk about making the episode, or paying $40,000 for the rights to use a ZZ Top song for 1 second. I wouldn’t do this with every show, but 30 Rock is my favorite. As series shift between streaming platforms and episodes get removed, it’s nice to have some stability and some access to stuff that falls away.

I could talk about 30 Rock for every column, but this is a blog about music (i guess). With the recent Bandcamp sale and layoffs, people have been suggesting you download your catalog. In the same week, I had a few conversations with people that mentioned albums or songs they liked being taken down from the internet. The artist just decided to move on. It could happen more often if Bandcamp becomes a less reliable place to host and sell music.

The flipside is old music staying online and defining an artist’s catalog even as they make great new music. As soon as someone turns 19 they’re shown 30 Alex G TikToks. I found Alex G from going to a Little Big League show, and then the next wave of 19-year-olds found him on tumblr. Then his name changed to (Sandy) Alex G and then it changed back. Kind of like Teen Suicide/American Pleasure Club/Teen Suicide, who I saw play a show with Alex G once. It’s fascinating to see his top songs get older and older as he keeps putting out new albums. Beach Music was released and people dug into Trick. Rocket was a critical success, and people fell in love with Race. God Save the Animals might be his best, but a 2011 single with Emily Yacina called “Treehouse” is his top song on Spotify. Bedroom pop and Orchid Tapes live on, and you hope that these resurrections help the artists make new music without feeling restrained by their past. Mitski and Radiator Hospital are other good examples, to varying degrees.

Some artists take down their old music to move on; some keep it up, and as they grow, their old music helps introduce people to their new music. This is an interesting phenomena; it’s always been that “i like their old stuff”, but it’s still surprising to see b-sides rocket to the top of the charts. I don’t have a broader point, but I think it’s fun to talk about.

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I’ll highlight a few random songs here:

Gladie - plea from a cat named virtute

Did they misspell the name of the song on bandcamp? Yes. Is it still a great cover of the most popular Weakerthans song? Also yes. I found it this morning so why not include it!

Jeff Rosenstock - HEAD (with Marge Simpson clip)

Jeff Rosenstock runs a donation-based record label, Quote Unquote Records. You can download a lot of music for free and then donate and they’ll spread it around! I just downloaded his latest album HELLMODE and noticed that HEAD has a clip of Marge Simpson at the end. The song is an extra second or two longer than the versions on Spotify or Bandcamp so they fit this in. The more you know.

Sadurn - Radiator (Under the First Floor)

Under the First Floor was a podcast made in a West Philly basement. David Settle would interview bands and they’d play music. He put out a few tapes with a song from each ep, and there’s an early version of Sadurn playing Radiator here, from before their album came out. It’s great.

Radiator Hospital - Sweetness of Yr Vision

Sam made a new EP. It’s a little weird and pretty enjoyable. ‘Sweetness of Yr Vision” is probably the most classically RH. As the world’s biggest RH fan, I love it.

I’ve been going to a lot of shows, and I also made a playlist of 2023 Q3 songs I liked, so I’ll probably have a couple more posts soon.