Staff Playlist: Pop Tarts

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Pop music, by definition, can be a lot of things. [mp3com-artist]Frank Sinatra [/mp3com-artist] was the original pop star. [mp3com-artist]Paul McCartney[/mp3com-artist] wrote some of the poppiest ditties in the history of, um, popular music. [mp3com-artist]R.E.M.[/mp3com-artist] claimed in their heyday they were just a “pop band.” For the purpose of this playlist, what we call pop music is […]

Bill Ricchini (aka Summer Fiction)

Pop music, by definition, can be a lot of things. [mp3com-artist]Frank Sinatra [/mp3com-artist] was the original pop star. [mp3com-artist]Paul McCartney[/mp3com-artist] wrote some of the poppiest ditties in the history of, um, popular music. [mp3com-artist]R.E.M.[/mp3com-artist] claimed in their heyday they were just a “pop band.”

For the purpose of this playlist, what we call pop music is kind of like pop tarts: sweet treats that are the perfect way to start the day. And, both the toaster pastry and the music are portable.

If I wax rhapsodic much more about [mp3com-artist]Goldstoned[/mp3com-artist], people are going to think he’s paying me for the hype (or that I, myself, am actually Goldstoned incognito).

I’m not and he isn’t. Goldstoned is West Berlin entertainment writer by day (and [mp3com-artist]Elvis Costello[/mp3com-artist] lookalike by night) Peter Goldstein. He’s a dedicated followed of the [mp3com-artist]Carpenters[/mp3com-artist] and the [mp3com-artist]Beach Boys[/mp3com-artist], he composes and plays all the music he records by himself and everything he does goes straight to your veins (like the chocolate ones with the sprinkles).

[mp3com-download url=”http://freedownloads.last.fm/download/322886847/Where%2Bare%2Byou%2B%2528The%2BAstronaut%2527s%2BWife%2529.mp3″ artist=”Goldstoned” song=”Where are you (The Astronaut’s Wife)” expiration=”01/31/2012″ email=”none”/]

[mp3com-artist]Summer Fiction[/mp3com-artist]’s “Chandeliers” is the perfect chaser to “Where Are You,” a simple “Heart And Soul” piano riff that is so perfectly childlike it makes you forget that, once you pass age 30, those pastries go right to your hips.

Summer Fiction, like Goldstoned, is the work of a single person, Bill Ricchini, a regular guy on the subway by day and a musical master in his bedroom studio at night.

[mp3com-download url=”http://freedownloads.last.fm/download/455150479/Chandeliers.mp3″ artist=”Summer Fiction” song=”Chandeliers” expiration=”01/31/2012″ email=”none”/]

Though we hyped his R&B roots when we originally introduced [mp3com-artist]Marc Vormawah[/mp3com-artist], the end result of his brilliantly boppy “Most Children” is pure pop, what it would feel like if [mp3com-artist]Stephen Bishop[/mp3com-artist] sang, [mp3com-artist]Boz Scaggs[/mp3com-artist] composed and [mp3com-artist]Toto[/mp3com-artist] played on the stage together.

We’d give you more but we don’t want you to crash before your coffee break.

[mp3com-download url=”http://freedownloads.last.fm/download/440785932/Most%2BChildren.mp3″ artist=”Marc Vormawah” song=”Most Children” email=”none”/]