The always entertaining Bowling For Soup are kicking off what promises to be another successful year with a cover tune. Teaming up with able machines (featuring power pop cult hero Linus of Hollywood), they’ve reworked a 90s classic, Elastica’s ‘Connection’, and created something even more indebted to new wave than the original cut.
Tag Archives: power pop
KURT BAKER – Undertow Afterglow / My Brave Face
Despite being a prolific artist, singer songwriter Kurt Baker experienced a creative lull in 2025. Due to a change in personal circumstances – spearheaded by a massive change of location and a divorce – over the course of the year, he only released one digital single, before bowing out with a contribution to Wicked Cool Records’ Xmas compilation. Eventually buoyed by new writing partnership, his big return with ‘Undertow Afterglow’ puts the Kurt Baker stamp on a new year – and effectively a new beginning – in record time, appearing barely a week into 2026.
THE REAL GONE SINGLES BAR #138
With January now underway, this visit to the Singles Bar offers a great and varied selection of new and recent sounds. We’ve got a pair of power pop bangers, the return of some industrial legends, some alternative electronica from a band making their debut in 2026, and more besides. There should be more than enough here to remind people that Real Gone is so much more than “a metal site”, setting us off with best foot forward for the coming year! As always, we hope you find something new to enjoy…
*
THE REAL GONE SINGLES BAR: A NEW YEAR’S EVE LOCK IN 2025
We’ve reached the end of another year, and the Real Gone Singles Bar has gone from strength to strength. As is always the case, we’ve received far more submissions over the past six months than we could possibly hope to cover, and ended up with a lot of great tracks that just didn’t find a home in the original weekly columns. Some things are too good to pass by, though, so as is traditional, we’ve rounded up twenty of the best tracks that didn’t get covered upon release and created the Singles Bar New Year’s Eve Lock In! We’ve got a great new wave inspired track, a couple of absolute bangers from the metal world, a little Americana, some jazzy yacht rock, funk, power pop and goth. With the help of a couple of singer-songwriters along the way, we hope there’s something in this selection for almost everyone as we count down to midnight…
*
VARIOUS ARTISTS – It’s A Wicked Cool Christmas!
Love it or hate it, Christmas music is big business – especially in the US, where it seems that almost every great artist has recorded something festive for posterity. Apparently, if you’re a country artist, recording a Christmas album is the law. The amount of time and money invested in festive tunes is huge, and that becomes rather bewildering when you consider that the music basically has a shelf life of four or five weeks a year.