Musical acts you love that you figure hardly anyone knows about

I was just curious if you've listened to any more off their new disc. If so, what you thought.

 

I am having an absolute love affair with Sabaton, a Swedish metal band that sings (in English) songs about military history. I've listened to their most recent album, The Last Stand, about a dozen times in the past few weeks.

This is the song Lost Battalion, about some U.S. soldiers surrounded by Germans in the Argonne Forest during WWI:

 

I'm not a metal fan, but that is some pretty interesting stuff.

 

There's a good chance you at least recognize Anna Nalick, since her one hit, "Breathe," was a pretty big hit. But she should be a lot bigger than a one-hit wonder.

Springsteen himself called her one of the great songwriters of her generation.

 

On our way to Nashville yesterday, my wife pulled out a CD of a guy I had completely forgotten about that fits this category: Michael Franti & Spearhead. If he ever comes to play a show near you, run, don't walk, to see this guy perform. One of the most entertaining shows you will ever see.

 

I'll second the recommendation for Franti. A little rock, a little reggae, a lot of fun.

Plus tons of 30- and 40-something women dancing!

 

He was on Bill Maher a couple of weeks back and seemed like a super interesting guy.

 

Especially if you're at a festival setting outdoors on a warm afternoon/evening!

 

The Modern Lovers and Treat Her Right.

Jonathan Richman was The Modern Lovers pretty much, but the drummer ended up in The Cars and the keyboardist was part of The Talking Heads.

Treat Her Right was pretty much an earlier version of Morphine. There are two or three Treat Her Right songs Mark Sandman just slightly rewrote into Morphine songs.

 

Jerry Harrison was in that band and later the Talking Heads.
And I love one of his solos tracks - 'Rev It Up'.

 

Three years ago today exactly, the last Arcade Fire album dropped in the U.S.

 

And here in Rhode Island, after platinum albums and a Grammy, Arcade Fire is still a band nobody knows about.

We just had a remains-of-Morphine show about six months ago at a small club in eastern Connecticut where a friend of mine runs an open mike night. Killed me to have to work that night.