New Zealand Net Radio plays a song from our #albumoftheweek every hour from 9am to 12pm Monday to Friday. Listen in @tunein at https://tunein.com/radio/New-Zealand-Net-Radio-s305138/
Stalwarts of alternative music for over two decades, these guys consistently keep producing the goods. Although this new release hasn’t received a massive amount of fanfare in many quarters it is a wonderful journey through love, relationships and parenthood, informed by experience. Jon Pareles in the New York Times (which rated the album highly) summed it up well:
For Dave Matthews, “dad rock” isn’t a put-down. “Come Tomorrow,” the ninth studio album by the Dave Matthews Band and its first since 2012, earnestly embraces fatherhood, commitment, lifelong romance and hope for the next generations.
Ben Howard – There’s Your Man
Peter Yorn & Scarlett Johansson – Iguana Bird
Mallrat – Groceries
Maroon 5 – Girl Like You ft Cardi B
Flight Facilities – All Your Love ft. Justin Tebbutt
Passenger – Hell Or High Water
Lowell – No Talk
Liz Lawrence – Circling Numbers
pronoun – run
Mr Geoffrey Arnold Beck was ranked fifth in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. He played with a few bands before being recruited by The Yardbirds, replacing Eric Clapton, on the recommendation of Jimmy Page who joined the band the following year. This was an incredible stamping ground and Beck’s almost two year stint produced some incredible music. Listening to their 1965 album Having A Rave Up is incredible with the blend of solid blues numbers, and the incredible “Heart Full of Soul” which contains Indian influences (the Indian sitar player had trouble producing the sound needed so Beck produced a sitar-like effect on his guitar).
We’ve been looking forward to this album from this Glaswegian band for months since their promising early singles “Miracle” and “My Enemy” were released. Lauren Mayberry’s vocals are incredible, and the band’s synth pop sound continues to evolve. The Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart gave some early inspiration. An interesting influence mentioned in an interview with Matt Waterman of Beats 1 was New Order’s track “Age of Consent”, with its loose, rough feel. They certainly have achieved a raw live feel with this great album. Can’t wait to play it to you!
A wonderful album name, and cover, this is one of the quintessential psychedelic albums, released this day in 1968. The Small Faces had already had some big psychedelic hits the previous year (e.g. Itchycoo Park). This album is filled with pounding beats and crunching guitars, and you’ll spot it on most “Top 500 Albums” lists. The Guardian told its story on its 40th birthday 
Marvin Gaye’s seventh album was released on this day in 1966 (23rd of May). His career was obviously well underway, and the plan was to establish the Motown singer as a strong album artist. He was interested in recording an album of standards but the sessions were unsuccessful. Six songs from this album were released as singles and impressively four reached the Top 40 on the Pop Singles chart. We’ll be playing some tracks from this album as our Classic Gold tracks each hour from 12pm.
Dave Dobbyn is an obvious artist to celebrate in New Zealand Music Month – because its obvious doesn’t mean its the wrong thing to do though. He has such an impressive body of work, and has been a big part of my life since “Slice of Heaven” was a triumphant singalong in the mid 1980s from the Footrot Flats film. Of course that wasn’t the beginning – later I got to sing along to classic party songs from his earlier career in Th’Dudes. Overnight Success was his first best of, released in 1999 and filled with cracking tracks. Wonderfully he has gone on to release further treasures since then. We look forward to listening to some gems this week, including a few lesser known tracks.