Here we are slap in the middle of La Rentrée and with the chaos and confusion it triggers subsiding somewhat and the rain lashing down like a cow pissing on a rock outside to signify that summer is well and truly in the rearview, it feels like it’s finally time to crack my knuckles, blow the proverbial dust off my keyboard and get back to this and talk about what’s been filling my ears.

It’s certainly been a while. In many ways it’s been the Summer of Springsteen* with both the release of Tracks II: The Lost Albums, the promise of Tracks III and the approaching drop of Nebraska ’82. But we’ll get to that later. I spent, as is often the case, a large part of my summer in France. Booked before the results of a DNA test revealed a large part of ‘me’ heralds from the exact region we visited, I spent a pleasurable couple of weeks driving around Brittany and Normandy with the occasional stop for a bit of record shopping thrown in amongst sampling the local cider and IPA. I’m gonna start the ball rolling with a track from Beach House – a band that I’d been listening to increasingly on that streaming service beginning with S for some time so when I found Once Twice Melody on sale for €15 I wasn’t going to say ‘non, merci.’

Beach House – New Romance

Mew – Am I Wry? No

Beach House sit in that category ‘dream pop’ category that serves as a catch all for those songs with pop melodies wrapped in atmosphere and sonic textures and feels like a lush, blanketed bridge to shoegaze. Mew are one of those bands who, like Beach House, appear so often in such playlists.

MC Solaar – Caroline

I had the pleasure of catching up with Geoff Stephen over at The 1002nd Album Club recently and, while discussing something that’ll appear soon, he mentioned that MC Solaar’s debut – Qui sème le vent récolte le tempo – was listed in ‘1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.’ It’s a brilliant album and MC Solaar, with his ridiculously smooth flow and delivery, combination of hip-hop, acid jazz and soul proved that French music wasn’t all derivative Johnny Halliday slop.

George Harrison / The Beatles – All Things Must Pass (Demo)

In amongst the hype about the upcoming reissues of the first three Anthology volumes and the ‘new’ fourth instalment, I was flicking through Anthology 3 and stumbled on this little gem. Having spent time with Dylan and the Band at the end of ’68, Harrison found is interest in the guitar and his approach to songwriting revitalised – only for songs like this, and others, to receive little interest from Lennon and McCartney. This early demo – from Feb ’69 – and included on Anthology 3 (hence the dual artist attribution) is a beautiful sign of just what a magnificent songwriter he’d become.

Chappell Roan – Good Luck, Babe!

Eddie Vedder – Room at the Top

Listening to the radio while driving through France has become something of a tradition over the last few years that we’ve been doing so. Unfortunately, I think it’s time to find a new station as RTL2 seem to have gotten stuck with only a handful of songs that get played on each DJ’s show. So, in amongst daily blasts of the new Indochine song and uncensored versions of Nirvana’s ‘Rape Me’ it became clear that the French are currently obsessed with Lola Young’s – admittedly brilliant – ‘Messy’ and Chappel Roan’s also brilliant ‘Good Luck, Babe!’ It’s a gloriously well-crafted song and, as Graham over at Aphoristic pointed out, she’s got Dan Nigro in her songwriting corner and they’re just pushing out gold. Makes me think of that glorious period of Madonna’s collaboration with Patrick Leonard.

I mentioned a while back how I’d been enjoying ‘Bad Monkey’ and its soundtrack of Tom Petty covers. Eddie Vedder’s take on Room at the Top (accompanied by his Earthlings band rather than his previous solo acoustic take) is an absolute blast of the great stuff.

And, finally….

Bruce Springsteen – Born In The USA (Electric Nebraska)

Strap yourself in, here we go: it’s Springsteen time. I mean: holy fuck. Aside from having given us SEVEN previously unreleased albums earlier this year (although really you can only apply that to two of the discs properly), Bruce recently dropped the bombshell we thought we’d never get: Electric Nebraska. Long rumoured and shrouded in myth – Springsteen, fresh from writing and recording with a home four (or eight) track, took said songs to the studio to, as always intended, work up with the E Street Band. Some of them worked, some didn’t, some evolved down the line and ten of them simply sounded perfect they way they were on that beat-up cassette in his back pocket and were released on the stark, beautiful Nebraska. Now, as we near release of ‘Deliver Me From Nowhere’ – the film of the book documenting that period – the fabled Electric Nebraska has been found in the vault, presumably right at the back along with the material coming on Tracks III, and will be released as part of a larger package next month.

To whet our appetite we get the Electric Nebraska version of Born In The USA. It’s rare that a song floors me but this, along with the news of the box, did that. Of the three versions we now have of the song – the other two being the famed Rambo Bruce version the ’82 demo, acoustic blues take on Tracks (and revisited on the reunion tour documenting Live in New York City – this is easily the best take on it. Like the Boss says in the video trailer, it sounds nothing like any of this other electric songs.

That’s it, for now. As I finish working my way through the Tracks II: The Lost Albums to restart the ‘Least and Most’ series, I’ll leave you with another Springsteen song and a highlight from that mammoth collection that shares the same vintage.

*fuck Oasis.