Older hands reading this might remember Melody Maker, a British weekly paper-printed magazine like a newspaper in the 1970s which offered music news and reviews and also, crucially, gig listings in the days when the internet was still a twinkle in Tim Berners-Lee’s eye.
This year’s ‘Melody Maker’is the fourth album from Steffen Westmark, aka Peppermint B and this is the title track. It’s a cracker.
He’s the front man of the rock band The Blue Van, but here Westmark has ventured into a more introspective and indie-influenced pop sound with this solo project.
And here’s a thing – as a songwriting mentor at a music academy, he has closely observed his students, and their experiences have left a clear imprint on both the lyrics and the sound. The pupil influences the teacher. That’s not what you normally find at a music school, I hear.
We ran the rule over the single ‘Raised by sitcoms’ earlier this year, a track that is also listed on the album, and noted “a ridiculously catchy, hook-filled little number in which from the opening guitar riff it could easily be a sitcom theme tune in its own right… very 1970s/80s East Coast soft rock, with hints of Tom Petty… I’d go so far as to say that it might even have been the B side of ‘American Girl.’
And so with ‘Melody Maker’.
With its jangly guitars, a U2 like beat and riff, powerful hooks, a message (the artist fights for peace and freedom in a chaotic world) and a bright sunny vocal, enhanced by the presence of a former student of his, Stella (Sophie Darum), who has all the hallmarks of Sweden’s Elefant, this song has ‘hit’ plastered all over it.
And I mean in the UK, not Denmark.
The album is mastered by Jan Due and also features contributions from Rishi Dhir (Elephant Stone), the Scottish-Danish Lizzie Nielsen, Linda Marí Josefsen (Marí), Ida Ploug, and Maiken Holmbeck.
https://open.spotify.com/track/1KcwiKHQguF3RnQOoRvTzK?si=6207b03af102417d
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