Andrew Listens to...A Summer 2025 Needle Drop

Come for the recommendations, stay for the dawning realization that Andrew listens to a lot of Canadians.

I know I know, I already dropped a post in the last week. Reader, you’re a busy person, your time is precious, why should you spend another 10 minutes on my blog? Well, I’ve got some great recommendations for you today. This list isn’t a meditation on a theme or an existential exploration. It’s just a handful of songs that I’ve been obsessively listening to for the past few months. They’re not the songs of the summer, or critical darlings, or probably even very popular outside of the tiny niches in which I found them, but they’re great and I hope after listening to them you agree.

Andrew Listens to… a Summer 2025 Needle Drop (linked to Spotify)

1. Bunky Pop by Sleigh Bells

2. It’s Not Goodbye by Lucky Chops

3. Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits

4. If I Never See London Again by Stars

5. Weary Traveller by Stick and Poke

6. I Came Around by Murder by Death

7. check by bbno$

8. With Love, From A-Z by Counting Crows

The List

I’m kicking off this list with “Bunky Pop” by Sleigh Bells, which is actually a dozen musical ideas wearing an admittedly stylish trench coat. Technically Sleigh Bells is Noise Pop, which, as far as I can tell, is when musicians fill the acoustic air with whatever TETRISing of disparate sounds they can come up with. It shouldn’t work. But I guess a talented musician sees beauty in the chaos and brings that to their audience. Sleigh Bells certainly does. In this song, there’s this incredible juxtaposition of big arena rock guitars, driving metal-esque drums, bubblegum pop vocals, and electronic riffs and sonic memes. And what I think I love about this song is that at first you don’t have any idea what the song is about, then as you sit with it, you realize it’s about a dog’s birthday party, and then even later, realize it’s about the pain of seeing this beloved pet age and know the grief that’ll come when they pass. It’s wrought and heavy in all reality, but then the chorus comes out with “Bunky Becky birthday girl”, and you remember again it’s still sung in the context of a birthday. Just wild. I first came across this song in NYT’s Amplifier newsletter (linked) and have had their album Bunky Becky Birthday Boy on repeat ever since.

The second song is an outlier for me. I don’t generally listen to brass or big band. I tend to stay away from purely instrumental music. But when Alex and I heard “It’s Not Goodbye” by Lucky Chops in a whiskey bar in Louisville, I was immediately hooked. It starts with this big fat tuba line and then releases into this wistful trumpet. But then the rest of the band joins in, building and expanding on the melody, repeating and riffing on the original. I’ve always had a hard time with instrumental music because it just flows together over time and I can’t remember any particular moment. But the brass in Lucky Chops work together like a chorus of voices, full of emotion and pathos. Every song on the album is great, but “It’s Not Goodbye” is by far my favorite. When I’m caught in the doldrums in the morning, I cue it up and by the time the chorus comes in, I’m on my feet and on with my day. When we directed our reading of Much Ado about Nothing with AGYSC (linked), we played Lucky Chops under the pivotal moments. So, for me, listening to this song makes me think about sipping whiskey in Kentucky, leading youth through Shakespeare at the Actor’s Garden, and the joy of being alive.

“Sultans of Swing” by Dire Straits is one of the all-time great songs. It’s practically a perfect song. Knopfler's guitarwork is virtuosic and unlike almost any other guitar player of the 70s, and his vocals balance perfectly between Bob Dylan and Lou Reed, with the gravelly tone and the storytelling clarity. The narrative concerns a bar jazz band, where the guitarist can only afford an old instrument and the trumpet player has a day job. In the back, a pack of cool young Londoners make fun of them. It’d be an almost tragic scene, but in the end it's triumphant. I’ve long been an observer of the transformation that happens in performance. I talked about this a bit in my review of the Enter the Haggis song “Cameos” (linked), but part of the magic of being under those lights is that we no longer are who we were. To reference Billy Shakes, a metal joiner becomes a lion, a tinker a wall. And I think Knopfler has captured this moment so perfectly. On paper, these are dowdy weekend warriors, but under the lights of the stage, they are the Sultans of Swing.

I’ve long been a fan of the Canadian band Stars for a long time, but mostly for their albums Set Yourself on Fire and The North. But in the spring, I became infatuated with The Five Ghosts, and by the time the summer had rolled around, I’d moved on to their most recent album From Capelton Hill. I really enjoy Stars’ music because I find it rewarding at varied levels of attention. Deep intense listening uncovers lyrical diamonds and interesting musical moments. But I also find it great background music while I work. It’s got a driving and consistent quality, where the lyrics are softly spoken and don’t require mental focus to screen out. It’s more interesting than general lo-fi and is softer than House music, and sits perfectly in my brain. But Alex, she hates it. Maybe as much as she hates The Mountain Goats. She says it makes her brain glitch and fills her with anxiety. I think it has that effect for the exact reason I love it so much-- it’s liminal music, existing on the edge of your awareness. Played on repeat for hours, it becomes a drone of “just out of view”. So I get it… but when Alex is out of the apartment, I play “If I Never See London Again”. It’s got this sexy sax part, a dance beat, and a killer chorus, “I need you, I need you, I need you to be strong/ We can't let the past catch up with us for long/ I need you baby to tell me things will be good”. I don’t know what this song is about, but it gets me going every time.

I first came across the Canadian folk duo Stick and Poke in 2022 when I first heard “Poison” on my Discovery Weekly. I was immediately enamored with their harmonies, the combination of half sized guitar and fiddle, and lyrics that told the story of being an emotionally vulnerable 20something artist. I’ve written about the band’s song “Teeth on a String” here (linked). I’ve continued to return to these artists over the years, but I can specifically pinpoint the current obsession to May, where I was giving a first over listen to the anti-folk/folk punk band Apes of the State and realized that Apes of the State and Stick and Poke were perfect reflections of each other: anti-folk and folk, American and Canadian, and then I spent the next three months obsessively running through their (tragically) two albums. (No band do I grieve not being able to see live more than Stick and Poke, after the duo broke up and moved to separate coasts of Canada). I specifically like “Weary Traveller” for all of the weird little moments that give it so much character. Like the way they pronounce “weary” as “wary” and then later rhyme it with “wary”. Or how they pronounce “traveler” as “travelier”. Or the way they split the lyric in the chorus between “I'm cautious and I'm wary, you're reckless and you're fairly” and “Impulsive and unruly” in a way that makes the line incomprehensible at first. I love it. It’s precious. It’s just a really catchy song!

This next week I’m seeing Murder by Death in concert for the first time. Alex and I have tried for years, but they always come at a time when we’re out of town. Well it’s a good thing that we’re making it happen this week because this is the last time we’ll see them; they’re retiring from the road. My old friend Kacey Mott introduced me to the band years ago, and I’ve been deep diving on their discography this summer in anticipation of their concert. But the song I love the most is “I Came Around”. I don’t know why, but I love songs about drinking at funerals (see my review of One Last Drink by Enter the Haggis (linked)). And in this song, our protagonist attends the funeral of a local ne'er do well, thief, and his personal enemy, but in drinking and singing with the community that grieves this thief until “Now I sit weeping by your coffin/ Clutching a bottle in my fist”. I like the idea that if you live a life in community, that reverberates out into the world even after you’ve passed.

Maybe I take myself too seriously. Maybe life would be better if I were a deeply silly rapper slash cosplayer slash parasocial celebrity like the TikTok star bbno$ (pronounced, Baby No Money). Dear god, this is the THIRD Canadian act on this list. bbno$, also known as Alexander Leon Gumuchian, was on track to be a professional swimmer, when a back injury forced him to give up his dream. In his recovery, he and his friends were goofing off on GarageBand and he started uploading his songs to SoundCloud, where he caught the eye of a popular Chinese dance crew and gained millions of streams and followers. Now he tops the charts in Canada (lower in the US), and millions and millions of followers on various platforms. Hilariously, bbno$ himself has described his own music as "oxymoronic rap" that is "ignorant but melodic". But I cannot deny that every single track of his that I hear on Tiktok makes me want to dance, and none more so than “Check”. The song is built around the endlessly identifiable riff from “Low Rider” by War and features lyrics like:

Holy guacamole, yeah, she ridin' my little pony

Got me bricked up, Al Capone

Smooth and cold, last name Zamboni

She said I taste sweet like soba

Taking my big-ass bag from Sony

I'm designer, my shit Adobe

Sail the Seven Seas, got dick like Moby

It's so very stupid, and yet it brings me such joy. Also bbno$ loudly and proudly says to “protect the dolls”, so I’m gonna let him get away with deeply stupid lyrics. So next time you’re feeling angsty and serious, remind yourself that you too could cosplay as a gender swapped Sonic.

The last song on this list brings me a lot of joy. Y’all know I love Counting Crows. And this summer Adam and crew have gifted us with the second half of their Butter Miracle Suite. It’s some classic CC folk rock, full of David Immergluck’s impeccable steel pedal guitar work and the tinkling keys of Adam’s piano. It’s rootsy and big and romantic. I like all of the album, but I picked out “With Love from A-Z” because I think it stands out the best on its own. It’s reminiscent of the jangling rock of the Rolling Stones. In the lyrics Adam chews through the scenery of a tour bus in the American west as he tells his lover that, “I may leave you a lot/ But I won't leave you alone/ If I could be who I wanted to be/ I'd send it with love, from A to Z” But really, I’m reminded of a profile on Adam that I read in GQ (linked) where it seems like Adam, after years of struggle with borderline personality disorder, addiction, and depression, has finally ended up feeling happy. Sure, my heart will always lie with the euphoric heights and crashing lows of Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings, but I’ll take the even keel Americana if it means that Adam is happy. It bodes well for us all.

Thank you for going on this journey with me.

Next: Andrew Listens to…. Podcasts?!? (feat Katie Alrutz)