By Alan Haber – Pure Pop Radio

Marc Jonson and Compañía de Sueños Ilimitada
“My Girlfriend Doesn’t Like the Ramones” b/w
“I Don’t Want to Go to School Today”
(Munster, 2019)

Pure Pop Radio favorite Marc Jonson (a guest last year on Pure Pop Radio: In Conversation) joins up with Spanish band Compañía de Sueños Ilimitada for a double-dose of deceptively simple electrified pop tunes on the Munster label.

The upbeat, driving, straight-ahead rocker “My Girlfriend Doesn’t Like the Ramones” layers a catchy melody and harmony vocals over cranking guitar and pounding drums. It’s a sad story, but these things happen (“My girlfriend really hates the Ramones/I have to sneak around the house and wear my headphones”).

“I Don’t Want to Go to School Today” echoes a familiar refrain heard ’round the world and features, like this single’s companion track, harmony vocals and a particularly catchy melody. The narrator doesn’t want to get to learning, but there might be an alternative plan for the day: “Well I might get out of bed and I might make something to eat/Or I just might stay in bed and go on back to sleep/Why count the minutes ’till eight/When I can count me some sheep.” In any case, he intros some solo guitar by shouting “Hey! Study this!”

Marc’s much-anticipated new album, When, is coming later this year. Good–no, great–news. Meanwhile, this seven-inch will do just fine.

Where to Get It: Munster Records, Amazon, iTunes

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Brad Marino | “Broken Record” (Rum Bar, 2019)

A powerhouse single from the Connection’s Brad Marino, off his upcoming solo long-player, Extra Credit, is an upbeat pop-rocker with teeth, very catchy and singalongable and played with gusto in toto by the artist, save for a background organ part essayed by Kris Rodgers.

“Broken Record” is kind of a once bitten, twice shy, three strikes you’re out tale, about a girl who just doesn’t get the whole treating records like your firstborn child thing. She doesn’t know how to put records away (“She leaves them on the couch/And she doesn’t use the sleeves/There is no alphabetical order/Nothing chronologically”) and the records are toast (“She’s my broken record baby/She scratched up half the tracks/Clicks and pops and skips and jumps/She’s gone and ruined all my wax”).

A sad tale, for sure, but what a record! “Broken Record,” an insanely clever pop and roll number, makes it tough to wait for Extra Credit to arrive. But wait, we shall.

Where to Get It: Amazon, iTunes (Extra Credit releases April 19)

Alan Haber’s Pure Pop Radio is the premiere website covering the melodic pop scene with in-depth reviews of new and reissued recordings, and a wide variety of features. We’ve been around since the first weekly Pure Pop Radio shows, which began broadcasting in 1995, and the 24-hour Pure Pop Radio station, which ended last August.

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