"Everything new is old again," says Provincetown, Mass., DJ Braintree Jim.
“So much of today's new music longs for nostalgia, this quest to regain or relive some semblance of what is believed to be better times from a bygone era. It's quite remarkable. You can hear it in the tunes, a steadfast reverential pastiche for ‘70s and ‘80s music. I think many of today's younger artists realize the staying power of music from that period. The evidence is all around us.
"If you look at the big streaming services it is the back catalog music that is getting all the attention. So it makes sense, therefore, that a lot of the new music I am listening to has this derivative aesthetic attached to it. I suppose each generation has pinched ideas from previous generations. Still, it's fun hearing new material infused with some of the old effects or instruments or even production techniques that were present back then. It's a hybrid mash-up for sure."
He believes that the recent resurgence and renaissance of English musician Kate Bush, now 63, and popular in the 1980s, is further proof.
Her song, "Running Up That Hill," released in 1985 on the “Hounds of Love’’ album, was recently featured on season 4 of the massively watched Netflix series Stranger Things. Ever since the song was featured it has rocketed back to the charts, both in the U.S. and U.K. It reached the top five in a recent Billboard Hot 100 chart in America, and hit no. 1 in the U.K. The recent chart success has broken all sorts of records. And a three-week period in June saw the song streamed a staggering 137 million times on Spotify.
Braintree Jim's radio show Chill & Dream returns to the airwaves on Wednesday, July 6, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on WOMR (92.1 FM) the community radio station in Provincetown that recently celebrated 40 years on the air. It’s simulcast on sister station WMFR (91.3 FM) in Orleans.
Perhaps tellingly, the new show will showcase music from the 1980s. "It's very much a roots show," he says. "You can't escape the roots. And yes, I will be playing Kate Bush." The show can be streamed live on womr.org.
The building that houses WOMR, at 492-494 Commercial St., has a fascinating history. Hit this link to read about it and see photos from its history.
