PBNSOTW

Time For The People has been accused of being too slick to be a protest song, but the Temps have spent 60 years being classy and can't help but smooth out the rough edges. They sound great. Melvin Davis is the sensational bassist driving this anthem.

Freedom Fry makes their second appearance on PBNSOTW. Great chorus. Needs more bass in the mix.

You is a perfect pop song. If you're not into Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard you need to be. They're going to be huge. There's a clear distinction between eater and eaten.

"There ain't no love like a phony love." Mason Jennings isn't my usual cup of tea--he's a little precious: accordion, cornet, one of those Rueben Cox-style acoustic guitar sounds, but jeez he's a good lyricist. Listen to this on cans--the bridge bonus is a completely gratuitous immersive whooshy pan section.

Erin Rae is just trying to tell you the truth about the Modern Woman. And for that I am grateful. Fun simple 12-stringish guitar solo. Strong song construction.

Let's talk about Echo for Ingrid. Thyla makes amazing drum sounds, prominent bass, and guitars bursting in nicely on the B section of the verse. But singer Millie Duthie should be the star here (think Debbie Harry at her very best) and she's buried. They really needed to listen to this in the car before committing to the amount of effects on the vocal and the general balance.

I'm including two covers this week you absolutely have to hear. Alma Naidu brings a completely different stress to Billy Joel's lyrics while at the same time preserving all of the harmonic shifts and inversions that make And So it Goes so great. Never heard of Punch Brothers before, but their rendition of The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald has a little chills-up-the-spine vibe hiding in what seems to be a version of Gordon's opus you might hear in a traditional Irish pub.