New music including Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Etta Marcus, Goat Girl and Underworld and Kettama on this week’s West Of The Fields podcast

I continued delving into recent releases from Yard Act, Omni, Sleater-Kinney, Mannequin Pussy, Faye Webster, Future Islands, Lime Garden, The Last Dinner Party and NewDad on the show this week, while the retro alternative set served as a sort of sequel to last week’s ’70s power pop block, with an extended look at the ’90s heirs to the power pop sound, inspired by the recent Pitchfork Sunday Review of the Gin Blossoms’ classic “New Miserable Experience” album. I also included a couple tribute sets to some notable musicians we lost in the last couple weeks, Karl Wallinger, former Waterboys member and founder of the underrated turn-of-the-’90s psych rock band World Party, and Eric Carmen, a big solo hitmaker in the late ’70s and ’80s but whose best work came as frontman for power pop gods The Raspberries.

New music including St. Vincent, Chanel Beads, Omni and Lime Garden on this week’s West Of The Fields podcast

I continued exploring recent releases from Mannequin Pussy, The Smile, Yard Act, Faye Webster, Kim Gordon, Sleater-Kinney, NewDad and Helado Negro on the show this week, while the retro alternative set featured tons of classic power pop from the ’70s (and into the early ’80s), inspired by my first viewing recently of the excellent Big Star documentary “Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me” and the release of a fantastic 3-disc compilation from the Cherry Red label, “Looking For The Magic: American Power Pop in the ’70s.”

New music including Bat For Lashes, Kings Of Leon, Pearl Jam and Nia Archives on this week’s West Of The Fields podcast

I continued delving into recent releases from Sleater-Kinney, The Smile, The Last Dinner Party, NewDad, Future Islands and Helado Negro on the show this week, while the retro alternative set featured a bunch of off-kilter pop from the early ’80s, inspired by listening to the sole album from the brilliant Belgian electro-samba band Antena, “Camino del Sol,” from 1982. We’ve got gems from Japan (YMO, Taeko Onuki, Miharu Koshi) and Italy (Alice, Nada, Loredana Berte), as well as from trailblazers like Kate Bush and John Cale, plus music from icons like Talking Heads, New Order and The Cure.

New music including DIIV, Vampire Weekend, Warpaint and Friko on this week’s West Of The Fields podcast

I continued exploring recent releases from ML Buch, Sleater-Kinney, NewDad, Helado Negro, The Smile, The Last Dinner Party and Caroline Polachek on the show this week, while the retro alternative set looked back to the extremely fruitful musical year of 1991, in honor of Pitchfork’s recent Sunday Review of Mercury Rev’s still-impressive debut album “Yerself Is Steam.” There’s a heavy dose of classic ’91 shoegaze (My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Chapterhouse) as well as grunge legends (Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins), hidden gems from Japan (Mishio Ogawa, Flipper’s Guitar) and the unclassifiable brilliance of Talk Talk’s swansong, “Laughing Stock.”

New music including Beth Gibbons, Amen Dunes, Camera Obscura and Justice on this week’s West Of The Fields podcast

I returned from a two-week vacation with a bevy of new tunes to play, while also exploring more from recent releases by The Smile, The Last Dinner Party, NewDad, Future Islands, Sleater-Kinney and Wishy on the show this week. The retro alternative block was split into a quartet of mini-sets, as I paid tribute to lost musical greats Mojo Nixon, Wayne Kramer (MC5) and Damo Suzuki (Can) while also taking a look at some of this year’s new nominees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

New music including Boeckner, The Libertines, Kim Gordon and Waxahatchee on this week’s West Of The Fields podcast

I continued exploring recent releases from The Smile, Bar Italia, NewDad, Sleater-Kinney and Wishy on the show this week, while the retro alternative set featured great tunes from the year 1983, in honor of the Pitchfork Sunday Review of Cocteau Twins’ classic sophomore album “Head Over Heels.” I’ve got a pair of tracks from that album, as well as pre-Everything But The Girl material from Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn (Marine Girls) and music from Singapore (Zircon Lounge), Iceland (Tappi Tikarrass), Japan (YMO, Tomoko Aran), France (Isabelle Adjani) and Italy (Giuni Russo, Loredana Berte).

New music including The Black Keys, Erika de Casier, Ride and Jayson Green and The Jerk on this week’s West Of The Fields podcast

I continued delving into recent releases from Sofia Kourtesis, ML Buch, Sleater-Kinney and Wishy on the show this week, while the retro alternative set headed back to the turn of the millennium for a block of great tunes from 1999, with alt-rock classics from Beck and Pavement, dance bangers from Everything But The Girl, Underworld and The Chemical Brothers and international gems from Japan (Ringo Sheena, Miki Nakatani), China (Faye Wong) and Italy (Scisma).

New music including Wishy, April June, ML Buch and Liam Gallagher and John Squire on this week’s West Of The Fields podcast

I continued exploring recent releases from Sleater-Kinney, Bar Italia, Health, The Kills and Peter Gabriel on the show this week, while the retro alternative set focused on great tunes from 2014 as we roll into another new year and those songs become “eligible” for the retro set (according to my own made-up rules!). I also threw in a couple bonus “mini retro sets” of ’80s Japanese city pop/New Wave tunes and songs that reemerged as hits after appearing in movies, TV shows or commercials (in honor of Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder on the Dancefloor” becoming a belated U.S. hit 20 years after its release thanks to “Saltburn”.)

The West Of The Fields Top 50 Discoveries Of 2023 Countdown

In 2021, I kicked off a new tradition for the show: a countdown of my favorite older songs that I discovered for the first time that year, as I began doing deep dives into ’80s Japanese city pop and Italo disco, coming across tons of fantastic tunes I had never heard before. I continued the “top discoveries” countdown for 2022 and now into 2023. This year’s list features more city pop (Yukako Hayase) and Italo (Sylvi Foster, The Voyagers), but also ventures into new areas like China (Faye Wong) and Brazil (May East), along with classic pop from France’s ’60s yé-yé era (Jacqueline Taieb), forgotten shoegaze bangers (Swallow) and a whole bunch of Serge Gainsbourg and Franco Battiato. I hope you find some buried gems here that inspire you to investigate many of these artists further!