Headphones On

Photo by Kane Skennar

I think I have a new goal for the year¹...
I want The SoftLightes to be the biggest band in the world.

OK, maybe shooting for the world is a bit ambitious. Just North America? Should I set a somewhat realistic goal? I want the band to stop being criminally neglected. I want people to know who the hell Ron Fountenberry is. I want the masses to sing along to "The Microwave Song" like they do to "Such Great Heights" by the Postal Service.

Because right now, I don't get it. This is one of the most genius, creative, commercial friendly, incredibly talented, FANTASTIC bands out there at the moment. Why does NO ONE know who they are?

• A quick search of Flickr brings up 51 photos, only half of which might actually be The SoftLightes and those photos were all taken by the same three people.
• Hype Machine brings up a good 30 blog posts, not bad, but in a fickle-music-blog-world not nearly good enough to be a tiny blip on the radar.
• They have less than 3000 fans on MySpace and only 39000 views.
• Their SxSW showcase a month ago had about 12 people at it... but after you remove me, Little Elpees, Celia Hershman, the guy who filmed it and the band's entourage... that leaves about three people. Yay for you three people!

So how am I going to make The SoftLightes the biggest band in the world? Firstly, They've made it easy on me by already being massively talented and writing such catchy songs. Secondly, I'm going to ask you, YES YOU READING THIS, to listen to the SoftLightes. You've got time in your busy, busy schedule² to download this song right here and give it a listen.

Now, I'm going to ask you to spend three minutes listening to absolutely nothing (consider this the cracker during the wine tasting where you must cleanse your palette). Please, after the three minutes is up... replay the song again, LOUDER this time.

Do you pick up the sarcasm?
Did you notice the delectable keyboards just barely there behind the chorus?
Did you hear the double tracked harmonic vocal?
Did you feel the tug at your heart as the high hat crashed the song out?

Now GO BUY THE RECORD. iTunes or Amazon.

Alright, say perhaps you're not quite ready to shell out $9.99³. Why don't you go take a peek at the wonderful video for Heart Made of Sound (as directed by Kris Moye) or perhaps the video for The Robots In My Room Were Playing Arena Rock. If you aren't sold after that, then I'm not going to sell you⁴. But just think... in six months to a year when the world has finally caught up, you will at least be able to say you heard about them ages ago⁵ and give whomever is just now mentioning them your best indie-rock-snob-smirk.

¹ Although, I alone cannot achieve it, I can at least try.
² Don't be one of those schmucks who walked right past greatness because you were too concerned with being two minutes late to work.
³ I have no idea why you might hesitate but for the sake of argument let's pretend you are taking that indecisive pause.
⁴ I was never very good at sales, but at least I've tried.
⁵ I don't know who buys logic like this but hell it's worth a shot.

Buy some: The Softlightes