Noah Gundersen - Lover (August 23, 2019) Album • Page 19

I discovered Noah through SOA. And honestly other than this site, I probably would never have heard of him or found his music otherwise.

 

Noah could have Dallas Green in Canada style of success.

Dallas has great people handling him (label/management) that know how to increase exposure.

 

His demographic audience is probably people like me and @zmtr. I'm not sure how many of us there are, haha

I do feel like he's the kind of guy who would have done really well in the period where every singer-songwriter was landing songs on TV shows. A lot of his songs have that "end of episode coda song" feel. But that kind of went away, or at least diminished substantially from what it was in the early to mid-2000s.

 

Noah probably would have been a good "you oughta know" VH1 top 20 countdown artist

(I'm kidding but not really)

 

Yeah, The OC, One Tree Hill and a bunch of those shows featured music and bands as part of the show and soundtrack, which really helped promote younger or less popular acts.

There have also been movies like Garden State, which put a lot of emphasis on the soundtrack.

Being in my 30’s I feel older than Noh’s demographic, but he’s really good and is probably harder to pin down demographics with his style changes.

 

Yeah, those, Grey’s Anatomy, Scrubs, Smallville, etc. Really take your pick of any show from that era that used music. A ton of singer-songwriters from that era, if you look at their Wikipedia pages, like half of the information there is the shows/films in which their music was featured. I think that trend essentially kept this type of artist relatively successful and well known even after the radio stopped playing them. That’s gone now, and I think it definitely impacts artists like Noah.

 

Surprised that Netflix hasn't been trying to create series like that. Look what that one placement's done for Lizzo.

 

I guess the closest to that teen show kind of thing was 13 Reasons Why, which did have some music features. But I think the controversy there was bigger than anything else.

 

When I first heard Number One Hit of The Summer, I thought to myself how he should lend that song to baseball promos.

You’re a okay tell right about his songs would be great episode ending songs (lots of choices on lots of different albums).

I’ve never watched The Voice (I have no interest), but I feel like a guy like Noah would do really well and get some good promotion out of the exposure.

 

Yeah, I remember my wife watching One Tree Hill and I’d hear songs like Jimmy Eat World’s 23, or it’d feature guests in stories like Fall Out Boy and Nada Surf (I believe). They even had characters running bars where bands played and I think the one girl was a singer (aspiring musician).

Maybe paying royalties hurt those kinds of shows.

 

Yeah, I haven't seen that show buy my understanding is that it's more in the pop space. Facebook Watch has a similar (though not as controversial) show called Sorry For Your Loss that we're doing some stuff with on the pop side.

Not sure if you've seen Netflix's Sex Education (definitely recommend!) but they had a few good songs in there that introduced me to Ezra Furman. There's this song "Every Feeling" that's in the show but hasn't been released yet that's sooooo good. I look for it monthly.

 

I watched One Tree Hill for awhile, pretty much solely because of the music. They played 6-10 songs every week, in varying levels of prominence. I discovered a ton of great stuff on that show. First place I heard Butch Walker, first place I heard Jack's Mannequin, first place I heard Futures-era Jimmy Eat World, etc. Those were all paradigm-shifting artists for me, so I think it's worthwhile talking about how crucial those types of shows can be for introducing people (predominantly young people) to music that they maybe aren't hearing elsewhere. The OC was so massive and influential in that regard. It might be its biggest legacy.

I think the music was probably a sizable expense, but One Tree Hill ran for 9 or 10 seasons, so it couldn't have hurt that show that much. And while I think they diminished their spending in that area over time, they still closed the show with a goddamn U2 song (because it's named after that U2 song) which could not have been cheap. I think they just made music a priority. Same with The OC, which was absolutely pouring money into its music features every week for the first two years especially. They were breaking artists and songs for awhile there. Really skyrocketed The Killers; premiered a U2 song; premiered a Coldplay song; etc. Those things would never happen on that magnitude today.

That was a special time. I miss it a lot. I wish there was still that kind of place for under-the-radar music to get attention. I think @Deanna has talked about writing a book about those shows and how their music choices shaped the tastes of, like, an entire generation. I would absolutely co-write that book with her.

I only watched the first season of 13 Reasons, so I can't comment much. I remember a few indie/singer-songwriter-ish picks on there though. And I think they played Phoebe on an episode this past season.

I have not watched Sex Education, but I've heard good things. I'll check it out.

 

Re-reading One Tree Hill episode titles is like a walk through AP.net highlights lol.

 

A fun game with One Tree Hill is to go through the episode titles and see how many of the bands you can name.

 

If you are serious about the co-write this is certainly an idea I would still love to revisit! It was one of those ideas that I had with the "I have no idea when I'd actually do this" timeline haha.

 

I would totally be game. I feel like it's something that would interest a lot of people.

 

I’m moving to Colorado this weekend, but let’s totally discuss this more once I’m done with the move.

 

Awesome, sounds good.

 

Well I’m glad I brought up that show. Good luck.

 

I never watched One Tree Hill, so these episode titles have me rolling. I assume they described the episodes in some way, but did the music make appearances too?

 

I remember borrowing a OTH soundtrack on CD from one of the first few seasons from a local library and it had some good jams on it

Feeder - Feeling a Moment
Shout Out Louds - Wish I Was Dead Pt II
Trading Yesterday - One Day

Sounds of 2007

 

Usually, the songs the episodes were named after weren't in the episodes. But they at some point played a lot of the artists whose song titles they used as episode names.

That Feeder track is so great.

 

I play Noah a lot. Usually when people are around. Almost every time, the response is 'I like this', but I have to kind of direct peoples' attention to it in a lul. But the thing with Noah, and a few other artists in this genre, is that you have to be intentional about paying attention. All of the things I love on his new album (and good God, there's a lot) are things you pick up on when you pay attention. And for most people, music is background or, if it's up loud, it's for singalongs or workouts, which would be out of place on the new album (with a few exceptions). I think that the way people generally consume albums, and the way that Noah makes albums, seem to be different. I'd almost compare it to a really good heavy beer. If you're into that sort of thing, there's a lot to love. But it has a hard time making a place in the bud light population.
Not sure what that means for Noah... Maybe he needs to get on more of the playlists on apple music/spotify frequented by people who see music as a focus area, rather than background?

 

Well said.

Noah's songs always sound great on the surface but what puts him over the edge is his lyricism and emotional honesty. Many people "don't care about lyrics" and it's probably harder for those people to truly dive in like some of us here do.

 

Yeah lyrics are huge for singer-songwriters especially, it's usually the differentiating factor IMO