Bell X1 "Velcro"

The number of songs on my "Going For Adds" iTunes playlist fluctuates from week to week, but is usually in 50 to 100 song range.

That's 50 to 100 recently released songs, in contention for the 2 or 3 new-song slots we have at mvyradio every week.

And while I will often listen to the tracks with the song list up (so I know who I'm listening to at any given moment, or I can jump around to songs I'm really curious to hear), sometimes I don't keep it up.

It's a good test of a song's potency to set the list to "random," minimize the screen and only look at the artist and title information if the song really grabs me.

Did you know The Cars (yes, The Cars!) have a new record? I put a couple of new Cars songs in the playlist, curious to hear what the surviving members are up to. I didn't know when they'd come up on the playlist, but I knew they'd come around at some point.

And when the song on today's post played, I wondered: Is that Ric Ocasek? Well then, The Cars have done a nice job of sounding a bit like themselves, but sounding modern, too.

Sufficiently grabbed, I pulled up the iTunes list, only to find that I was actually listening to Bell X1's new song "Velcro."

Does Bell X1 sound like The Cars? I wouldn't have said so. But listen to this track. Do you hear it?

(And hey! They're Irish! Happy Saint Patrick's Day!)



Here's one of the new Cars songs:

Bell X1 “Ribs Of A Broken Umbrella”

I'm looking for your opinion on this one . . .

We had a great run this past summer with the Bell X1 song "The Great Defector." It's a song that's a little to the left of center of mvyradio's traditional sound, but we always try to include some good, modern tracks in our mix.

The song did well for us, and it did well across the country too, getting airplay on stations similar to mvyradio.

The follow-up single is "Ribs Of A Broken Umbrella." What do you think of this one?

I'm kind of on the fence about it, and it seems like much of America is too. Very few radio stations have put it into their rotation---listeners aren't responding to it, in the way that they did "The Great Defector."

What other radio stations do, isn't how we choose what to play at mvy. But sometimes the broad (national) consensus does confirm something we are already feeling.

What about your feelings? Do you think we should be playing this one in regular rotation?

See this previous post, for details on how a song gets into rotation on mvyradio, then let me know what you think.

Listen to clips of both "Ribs Of A Broken Umbrella" and "The Great Defector."


Hear the WHOLE song and see the very cool, low-budget video for "Ribs Of A Broken Umbrella" and a Live On Letterman performance of "The Great Defector".

Buy the album "Blue Lights On The Runway" on CD.

Bell X1 "Eve The Apple Of My Eye"

From their 2004 record, while the band was still finding their footing . . .

I think about how long it took for me and my wife to decide what to name our baby. My wife literally read aloud every single name in a book of 10,000 suggestions, to see what each would sound like. Months of lists, and secret ballots, and haggling, and the poor little thing came into the bright light, still without a name.

And we don't even have to put her name up on a marquee.

I'm sure Bell X1 spend plenty of time coming up with the right name for them. A band named after the first aircraft to break the sound barrier? Brilliant choice!

But when you pick a band name, it can't just be a cool concept, it's got to work when it's written and when it's read. And Bell X1 is prone to a few gaffes. Some people say "Bell Eleven"---because the X1 looks like Roman numerals. And some pronounce it "Bell Ecks Eye---because the one looks like a capital "i".

There was this local band where I lived in Virginia called "Toast." It didn't take them long to figure out that it looked pretty stupid, and not really clear, on a marquee, if it read "Toast Tonight, $5." They changed their name to "The Toast Band." I'm not sure that helped.

So think about it. That's how we managed to NOT name our daughter Ellie Finn.

Hear Bell X1 "Eve The Apple Of My Eye"