Music Discovery Diary #3: beabadoobee, Steven Spielberg's daughter, Pegboy & more.

These are the new artists I discovered this week.

Hello and welcome back to My Music Diary, where I listen to a new artist I’ve never heard of every day and then send you a Friday roundup.

One of the biggest challenges I’ve been facing in my music discovery JOURNEY™ is figuring out how to best break free from algorithmic recommendations. I’m still relying way too much on Spotify or Youtube to present me with new artists (really just Spotify, but I don’t want to give them too much credit). Keeping the diary has made me more conscious of the other ways in which music recommendations come into my life.

The best tend to come from people that know my musical preferences, who I like because we have some shared crossover in musical taste. I used to steal my brother’s CDs, now he sends me links to songs. My friends tell me what they’re listening to and I’m eager to check it out. Many apps and websites over the years have been attempting to recreate that magic, but none except maybe Myspace have succeeded.

Opportunities for music discovery come from everywhere, though. Sometimes I’ll see an intriguing music video on TV at the gym while I’m listening to something else in my headphones. I hear stuff on the radio or out in public occasionally and Shazam it. Band names come up in conversation. I scroll past songs I’ve never heard before on social media.

I’ve been using Todoist to keep a better record of writing down artist names whenever I encounter them in the wild. Before I started keeping a music discovery diary I’d probably just forget about those names, or write them down on a notes app somewhere that I never read again. The philosophy behind Todoist is you’re supposed to write down whatever it is that you have to do whenever it comes to your mind. So you can focus not on remembering things, but doing them. They have some philosophical spiel about how our brains aren’t designed to store information, they’re designed to process information or something. I don’t know but it works. This isn’t a sponsored post although I wish it was. I just genuinely like Todoist and it’s helped me manage my time more effectively and be more productive. I even have an alert set up to remind me to send these emails to you every Monday and Friday so I must once again apologize if you do not enjoy getting them. You can always unsubscribe.

This week I listened to a lot of great stuff. Are you getting anything out of me sending these emails? Have you discovered a new artist via me spamming you? LEMME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS.

Without further ado, here is this week’s diary. Playlist with all the songs from the year at the bottom.

1.17.25

Pegboy - “Strong Reaction”

Pegboy is one of the bands that comes up a lot when I’m interviewing people who were involved in the early ‘90s Chicago punk scene. I’d never listened to them before. They’re great. The Chicago punk database says that they were significantly responsible for introducing more melody into the post-hardcore scene. I believe it, even though my listening to them comes with the context of hearing everyone they influenced first. So they sound sort of antiquated, and also more pop-punky than anything. I definitely get how Green Day was tangential to / directly involved in the “Midwest Emo” scene. Pegboy doesn’t sound like Green Day, but they sound closer to Green Day than Cap’n Jazz.

The context of Pegboy’s influence works in the other direction, too. A few members of Pegboy cross over into several other legendary bands of the Chicago ‘80s punk scene / Touch and Go Records like Naked Raygun and Big Black. I can hear how they might have been a crucial link between eras, even if at the time everyone just thought they were a cool band.

I listened to the entirety of Pegboy’s debut 1991 LP Strong Reaction—released on Quarterstick, a Touch & Go offshoot—on a long drive through a significantly less smoky but still possibly toxic LA. It got me amped to get to the airport to pick up my wife and kid. We listened to the “Top Toddler Songs” playlist the whole way back.

1.18.25

Rónán Ó Snodaigh & Myles O’Reilly - “Tá’n T’ádh Liom”

My friend John asked me to play guitar in his sketch comedy show. He wrote a parody of the Steve Earle song “The Galway Girl.” Our characters were the Clancy Brothers, a folk duo from Ireland performing on Pete Seeger’s show Rainbow Quest after Bob Dylan. The joke of the song is that it’s about a “bird,” so everyone thinks that means a woman, but then it becomes clear that the lyrics are about having sex with an actual bird.

I was irrationally nervous to perform the guitar part live even though it was a simple set of chords. So I was stressing all day about memorizing the chord structure. I listened to some Steve Earle records on a drive home from the Long Beach Aquarium, then when everyone else in the car passed out I decided to put on some Irish folk tunes to get in the mood for the evening. I found this song on some Spotify playlist. Yes, I failed at avoiding the algorithm. I really liked it, but it almost made me fall asleep at the wheel so eventually I had to switch over to a podcast.

From looking up Rónán Ó Snodaigh, apparently he popularized playing the Bodhrán, a single head drum. He seems like an awesome artist. I can’t find much info on Myles O’Reilly but he seems cool, too. From the video it looks like he twists knobs on synthesizers while Ó Snodaigh plucks an acoustic guitar. It leads to a nice lil atmosphere. I’m one of those American schmucks who glorifies Irish poeticism and music. But there’s something special about the spirit of the Irish and how it comes out in their folklore, which they value more than American culture does.

According to Google translate this song title means “I’m lucky.” That’s how I feel to have heard it.

1.19.25

Sunday’s Best - “Indian Summer”

Sunday’s Best is another band that comes up when talking to people about “Midwest Emo.” But they’re from Los Angeles, so I don’t feel compelled to write about them. Another band that comes up often in interviews is “Indian Summer.” So I listened to “Indian Summer” by Sunday’s Best on a Sunday night drive home from dinner at my brother’s. It’s incredible and I can definitely hear how they fit into the scene I’m writing about. They formed in 1997 at the tail end of the era I’m focusing on, but they sound right on time to usher in the next era kinda like Pegboy but in a completely different way.

Apparently they all went to college at LMU. Both of their LPs came out on Polyvinyl, which is also cool since that label released a bunch of undisputed classic albums that I’m writing about for my book. I’ll probably listen to them again sometime when the mood strikes.

1.20.25

Buzzy Lee - “Girls Just Want To Have Fun”

This is another algorithmic recommendation from my wife’s Spotify DJ. It’s a cover of what I thought was a Cyndi Lauper song, which apparently was actually written by a MAN, Robert Hazard. Buzzy Lee is Steven Spielberg’s daughter. This rendition is almost an acapella, slowed down and made much stranger than the more popular version. It feels like Buzzy Lee sucked all the fun out of Cyndi Lauper’s version, but I also kinda liked the unnerving tone.

1.21.25

Rafiq Bhatia - “Breaking English”

Wow. I received word of Rafiq Bhatia’s forthcoming album from a PR email. Because I’ve written about music for various outlets over the years, I’m still on the spam lists of several PR companies. Usually I ignore them, but now that I’m making a conscious effort to discover new artists now I sometimes engage with them. This is not from Rafiq Bhatia’s new album, which isn’t out yet, but this is an amazing song. Really cool video filmed in Ghent, Belgium, too. I don’t typically like such smooth guitar, but I do appreciate when people are able to put together innovative groove music like this. Rafiq does seem to have good control over his instrument. I’ll keep an eye out for more of his work.

1.22.25

The Jive Bombers - “Bad Boy”

I solicited a group chat of friends who have some musical taste crossover (despite a predilection for Fred Again type slop) and one of them sent me this song from 1957. I immediately wondered if it was some sort of AI prank. I remember hearing another AI song that sounded realistic from around this era. Unless they also created a fake Wikipedia page for The Jive Bombers, I don’t think that this is an AI song. The singer does something really unusual with his voice on this and every other Jive Bombers track. He punctuates lines with weird tongue movement. I know it’s my job as a music writer to describe what it sounds like, but I think you just have to listen. Even Wikipedia calls it “indescribable.”

1.23.25

beabadoobee - “Glue Song’

While trying to do more research for my Midwest Emo book I listened to a recent podcast where Mike Kinsella was the guest. He brings up that he took his daughter to a beadaboobee concert. The hosts of the podcasts mentioned that beadaboobee claimed Elliott Smith was one of her biggest influences. Even though she has millions of views on her songs and is essentially a pop star, I can hear how that melancholy indie style makes its way into her work. I’ve also heard her song “Coffee” in the wild before, I realized. She has a funny name. I like it even if some people probably hate it. I hope she becomes the biggest star in the world, if she hasn’t already and I’m irrelevant.

Speaking of podcasts, I’m going to write a list of the top No-Nos that turn me off when I hear them on podcasts. Look out for that next week.

Below is the much anticipated Spotify playlist. Thanks for reading, have a good weekend, and I apologize again for invading your inbox.