GTBP 2015 Playlist

Here are some of my favorite songs and artists from this year.  

After all, the most important, mystifying, beautiful, life giving aspect of the music industry is…the music.

You can go straight to the listening by clicking Apple Music or Spotify for the 10 song play list.

Gabe The Bass Player Playlist:

There was a great band a few years ago with stunning melody and harmony called The Bridges. They broke up, and now one of them started a new electro-pop band called Myzica.  Ready Or Not.

I wrote a short book about SXSW this past spring.  One of the bands who came across that book was Born Cages. Rolling Down The Hill.

Probably my favorite new band of the year is The Struts.  Great songs, live show, voice, aesthetic, the full package.  Good to see these dudes’ popularity is growing.  Could Have Been Me.

Strange Names are a New York band, but the guitar player is from the same 2,500 person town where I grew up in Minnesota.  Props to Francis for not only making music, but making good music.  I Can’t Control Myself.

I got to know Mike Van Soest this past summer and fall.  He’s new to Nashville but has one of the best new songs I’ve heard out of Nashville in a long time. Violet.

Some fellas in my neighborhood are in a band called Coin.  They’ve started having some great traction this year, and for good reason.  Better.

I don’t know anything about PHASES except that this song rules.  I’m In Love With My Life.

One of the things I’m most proud of this year was helping Nick Flora release his record Future Boy.  The power-pop melodies and sunny California production are right up my alley.  It’s feel-good introspective vibes at their finest.  For The Sake Of Conversation.

I wanted to love the entire new Brandon Flowers record.  I didn’t.  But this song is fantastic. Can’t Deny My Love.

The unexpected 6+ minute beauty of a song on Coldplay’s new one. Up & Up.

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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

Hey Strawberry Loving

The Beatles Anthology 1 Disc 2, All My Loving live from Ed Sullivan.

You can actually hear Paul McCartney smiling.  It’s infectious.

Summer after 8th grade is when I heard this for the first time and it blew me away.

But it was earlier in my 8th grade year when my friend Emily Goff let me borrow The Beatles Past Masters Vol. 2 cd that I started down the path. (I don’t think I ever returned it to her. Sorry, Emily)

Hey Jude was on that cd.

I had no idea every single part of a song could be that good.  I had no idea the notes of a melody could be put together in such a beautiful way.  I had no idea that in the key of F you could play an Eb chord before going to a Bb….the 1 7 4 progression in the Na-Na part.

Totally amazed.

And finally the clincher was Strawberry Fields Forever, the first track on “The Blue” album.  That mellotron intro, John’s voice and the drum fill.  So mysterious and inviting.

I love remembering getting into The Beatles because I fell hard.  So many amazing songs, so much evolution, revolution and romance.

Remembering makes me feel like I’m a kid in 8th grade again.

Being able to thumb through Spotify or Apple Music today for and go from one Beatles smash to another brings with it that semblance of discovery all over again.  

It’s good to be a kid again every once and a while, even in two and a half minute increments.

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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

The Beatles On Streaming

The Beatles songs are finally streaming (well, they are in a couple hours here in Nashville, at midnight)

The Beatles used to be the first to do things, now they’re the last.  But it’s still a big deal because they have the best songs.  Your adoption and promotion of streaming probably won’t be as big of an event.  But you should still adopt it and promote it.

The next “first” that we’ll see happen is when a huge artist, like, say, Adele, rather than keeping their music from streaming, will ONLY put it on streaming.  It won’t be for sale.  Anywhere.  

And that is the best thing a big artist like that could do to HELP you.  (Keeping their music off of streaming in the name of “artistic integrity” helps you not)

If the six million people who bought the Adele record subscribed to Spotify or Apple Music instead, because they HAD TO in order to hear the album, that would have increased streaming revenue by almost 10%.  

Obviously all six million wouldn’t have, but you get it.

As if The Beatles needed to make sure they’d make more money for even longer, adding their music to streaming ensures it.  Streaming is a long long time.  

The royalty rate will only go up.  And thanks to the Fab Four, there’s going to be a little more leverage to make that happen.  Even if they’re a couple years late.

It’s happening. It’s already happened.

Go listen (starting at midnight) to any Beatles song you want.  No…go listen to all of them.  Because you can, and it will bring you joy and happiness.

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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

Writing A Hit Song Isn’t Easy

Writing a hit song isn’t easy, but it’s simple.

Hitting a fast ball isn’t easy, but it’s simple.

Making people laugh isn’t easy, but it’s simple.

The thing you do that makes you successful won’t be easy, but it’ll be simple.

In achieving the level of success you desire, you’ll find yourself doing something simple, yet far from easy.

Stop looking for easy. Start looking for simple.

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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

There Are Miracles At Work

Often times miracles don’t happen all at once.

They’re slower.  

They’re in process.

They’re not just in the future or in the past.

They’re unfolding right now, as you’re reading this, as I’m writing this. Be on the look out…but you might have to look a little harder. Miracles are happening, currently.

“There are miracles at work”- A Head Full Of Dreams, Coldplay

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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

Looking For Work

We’ve all done thankless, lonely work.  

The lonely work that no one else notices or cares about, but also often results in the biggest strides forward.

We’ve done it, but we don’t like it.

We’ve done it, but wish someone would notice.

We’ve done it, but wish we didn’t have to.

We’ve done it, and knew in our hearts it was meaningful work.

We’ve done it, and knew that it was important regardless of recognition.

We’ve done it, and knew it mattered.

So why is the hope to not have to do the thankless work?  The hope that one day this kind of work will finally go away, once and for all.  

Or the hope that we could do the thankless, meaningful work and, by some multi dimensional cosmic shift, be thanked for thankless work….by lots of people.

Why do we wish we won’t have to do THAT kind of work again?

What if we looked for the thankless, meaningful work?

What if we sought it out?

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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com