Greetings from...

American radio is a most disconcerting beast, along with the entire American music industry in fact, yet the exact way in which radio seems to work in that most intriguing country remains elusive. We can’t help but find the fact that the main national music charts are so heavily influenced by radio airplay – the prospect that a radio DJ, being a huge fan of a particular artist, could directly influence chart positions continues to baffle – and on our recent vacation to Southern California we struggled to differentiate between different types of stations. For example, most of them were privately owned – we think – but had almost zero advertising. Odd. However, a good few gems were discovered on long drives to the beach/Disneyland/Hollywood (envy ain’t pretty, dolls) and they’ve been persistent in latching themselves to our musical conscious since.

Carole King’s “It’s Too Late” seems to be a standard fixture on adult contemporary radio, having cropped up several times over the two weeks. It’s simple fare, but the confident, teasingly dark piano casts a perfect opposition to the open and honest chorus. The lyrics are sad and desperate, yet manage to speak to most people who find themselves with no reason to stay in a relationship any further. We love Carole from belting out “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?”, albeit the Shirelles version, with mother in the car many a time when we were younger, and of course from Gilmore Girls. Would any recommend we get hold of any of her albums?

For some bizarre reason, we had never heard Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me” before. Apparently one of the greatest songs of all time, we can’t quite remember a time when a song so unlike what we prefer to listen to has moved us quite so powerfully. The song is so simple, with a lilting melody backing soft yet heartbreaking vocals, and was also a permanent fixture on US adult contemporary radio. By pure coincidence, both Bon Iver and Adele (probably the most popular and current peddlers of heart-breaking singer-songwriter material) have covered the track and imbibed it with their own spins on accepting it’s just not going to happen. It’s a shame, perhaps, that the two songs we now associate with such a wonderful vacation in sunny Southern California are both about such despair and sadness but we’ve never said no to letting a little more melancholy into our iTunes.