Science has a lot to say about our musical tastes, namely that as we age, we aren’t nearly as likely to explore new music. What science says though isn’t that we’re just ‘old,’ it says that our hearing has changed.
Mick Haupt wrote for ‘The Conversation’ earlier this year that researchers “point to age-related changes to hearing acuity – specifically a lowering tolerance for loud and high-frequency sound – as one cause for a reduced interest in new music for some people.”
Luckily for me, I blew out my eardrums in my 30s after many years of playing in bands. I’m a lifelong musician and songwriter and music producer, and my hearing is jacked up. I have tinnitus that would wake the dead, and my favorite question is, “What did you say?”
However, my love for discovering new music is as fresh as it was in my teens when I listened to 92.1 KELI in Tulsa, Okla. They were the only pop station playing non-mainstream pop tracks, stuff that was ‘bubbling under’ the Billboard Top 40.
Instead of discovering new music from the radio, these days it’s from TikTok or TV shows or movies or, as was the case last night, a high school dance performance. This summer though, it was about a song I stumbled onto through something I Shazam’d: “The Bottom” by a band called MICHELLE.
From Wikipedia:
Michelle (stylized in all caps as MICHELLE) is a six-piece indie-pop collective based in New York City. The group consists of Sofia D’Angelo, Julian Kaufman, Charlie Kilgore, Layla Ku, Emma Lee, and Jamee Lockard.[1]
Wikipedia
My love of this track and especially its lyrics led me down the musical rabbit hole, a process of discovery that led to an epiphany one day at the gym when I heard this song that I just had to Shazam right that second lest I lose it forever. Because I had just gotten out of the sauna, I didn’t want to make it weird, so I committed to some instant memorization.
“Talking to myself. I need your conversation…”
MICHELLE
Got to the car and told my wife, “Damnit, it’s this ‘MICHELLE’ band again!” And how are they not world famous yet? Because of course, anything I love is worth global admiration. Kidding aside, I was just growing as a fan, as I had of the brother-sister duo Lawrence two years before.
One note of music specificity from “Talking To Myself” is that while the acoustic version above is super solid and shows off their musicianship, it’s better to listen to the track. The turnaround from pre-hook to the chorus is so delicious, the chord progression, bass line and vocal working together.
Regardless of the decade, whether it be the 80s, 90s, or today, it’s what really captures me musically, an artist or band that ‘gets it.’ And boy, does MICHELLE get it.
Other songs from them on my radar include “Syncopate,” “50/50” and the very naughty and catchy “The Peach.” But my God, who doesn’t listen to this and not think Prince would have recorded it in 1985. It’s fantastic music, and I’m absolutely dedicated to it. #iykyk
One more from the fruit cart before I get on with my weekend, check out this video for a song MICHELLE did during quarantine called “Mango.” Listen to the two chord progressions they’re working through. It’s like Basia and Level 42 had kids.
The younger generation that looks at folks in their 40s and 50s and thinks that they’re incapable of loving new music — and the older generations that look at young people in their teens and 20s and think they’re incapable of making great new music … I’m hear to tell you: MICHELLE brings us together.
So, so good.
