When John Davis penned the cocky yet humbling line “Look at me, I can write a melody/ But I can’t expect a soul to care” back in the mid-’90s, he never imagined that the tune in which it appeared would become a song that a lot of people care about.

salvia palth is back.

Camera Obscura owe their reunion to a rock cruise. More specifically, an exceedingly twee indie-rock voyage hosted by fellow Glaswegians Belle & Sebastian. In 2019, Camera Obscura — on extended hiatus since the death of longtime keyboardist Carey Lander — accepted a personal invitation from Stuart Murdoch to join them, Mogwai, Teenage Fanclub, Yo La Tengo, Alvvays, and more, on the Boaty Weekender, a nautical festival around the Mediterranean aboard the Norwegian Pearl.

When Jason Lytle of Grandaddy turns on his Zoom camera, he’s predictably perched outside, a cloudless blue California sky behind him, a palm tree in the distance. I off-handedly comment that it’s very bright. “I can darken things down,” Lytle jokes. “Get in a dark room under the covers and go full goth.”

Ben Kweller has suffered an inconceivable loss. In February of this year, the singer-songwriter’s 16-year-old son, Dorian Zev Kweller, was tragically killed in a car accident. Dorian had been a musician as well — he’d even released several songs under his middle name, ZEV. Kweller had been preparing to take his oldest on a summer tour, marking something of a full-circle moment for father and son. Kweller had been Dorian’s age when multiple record labels started courting him as a budding indie-folk solo artist.

Drop Nineteens are back.

In 2003, Toronto jangle-pop collective The Hidden Cameras invented a new genre: “gay folk church music.” Two decades later, there still is no better way to describe the Hidden Cameras. Fronted by bandleader Joel Gibb, the Hidden Cameras were many things — terribly catchy for one, a Toronto talent incubator for another (early members included Reg Vermue aka Gentleman Reg, Owen Pallett, Laura Barrett, Don Kerr, the Phonemes’ Magali Meagher, Arcade Fire cellist Mike Olsen, and Maggie MacDonald) — but they will always be best known for writing and performing unapologetically queer chamber-pop anthems about male bodies and genitalia, the scent of sweat, saliva, ejaculate, and, perhaps most memorably, erotic peeing.

It’s no secret that guitar-driven pop is back en vogue, between Travis Barker, Machine Gun Kelly, and Avril Lavigne teaming up to form a pop-punk Avengers and Gen Z pop progenitors like Olivia Rodrigo, WILLOW, and GAYLE drawing major influence from edgy ’00s mainstays like Avril, Ashlee Simpson, Paramore, and, of course, Fefe Dobson. Best known for moody pop-punk bangers like “Bye Bye Boyfriend,” “Everything,” and “Take Me Away,” the Ontario native ruled the airwaves when her debut album dropped in 2003. For all of Dobson’s success — Fefe Dobson went platinum in her native Canada — she couldn’t quite get out from under the shadow of the music industry’s narrow-mindedness.

The day Robin Wilson and I are scheduled to chat is a tumultuous one in the music world. As I call the Gin Blossoms lead singer, news has just broken that Rudy Giuliani was unmasked on The Masked Singer, reportedly leading Robin Thicke (one of the show’s judges) to walk out in protest. Apparently this led to Wilson’s girlfriend asking him if he’d ever go on The Masked Singer, to which Wilson sagely replies that he’s not famous enough to ever be asked, though he jokes that he’s enjoyed watching close buddy and former Sugar Ray singer Mark McGrath appear as “Orca.”

“I was sort of scared shitless,” Chris Barron says, “because I’m making a new record, and I made a choice that I was gonna basically do material from the new record. “I played ‘Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong,’ ‘Jimmy Olsen’s Blues’ and ‘Two Princes.’ And then the rest of it is all this new stuff that I have either never played in front of people or barely played in front of people.”

Hawthorne Heights’ debut album, The Silence In Black And White, came out on June 1, 2004. That same month, My Chemical Romance released Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, Underoath dropped They’re Only Chasing Safety, and From First To Last debuted with Dear Diary, My Teenage Angst Has A Bodycount. By summer’s end, new albums by the Used and Senses Fail would also hit the CD shelves of Hot Topic outlets across the country. Every one of those albums would chart on the Billboard 200. Screamo, once the domain of heady, introspective bands like Pg. 99 and City Of Caterpillar, had somehow become pop music.

Starting out in the early-’90s grunge scene, Candlebox lead singer Kevin Martin didn’t feel like a soon-to-be rock star. “I wasn’t living the lifestyle of the other Seattle musicians,” he tells me over Zoom from his home in Los Angeles. “I wasn’t a bike messenger like [Pearl Jam’s] Jeff Ament was, and I didn’t work at a coffee shop like half the other musicians in Seattle did. I worked at a shoe store. Then I went and worked at a really nice shoe store and I had to wear suits and nice shoes and stuff.”

If you were listening to Top 40 radio in the late ’90s to early ’00s, you couldn’t miss Fuel. Founded by guitarist and primary songwriter Carl Bell and drummer Kevin Miller in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Fuel became one of the more prominent rock acts of the post-grunge era, borrowing aesthetic elements from Northwest icons Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and Alice In Chains but imbuing their songs with a slicker, modern twist. With a lineup cemented by then-lead singer Brett Scallions, Fuel enjoyed an incredibly successful run of singles, from the jangly banger “Shimmer” to the howling number one anthem “Hemorrhage (In My Hands).” Come 2004, Fuel even nabbed a Grammy nod for their third album, 2003’s Natural Selection, which memorably housed hits like “Falls On Me” and “Won’t Back Down.”

When Debbie Gibson signs onto Zoom from her residence in Las Vegas, she looks immaculate — hair and makeup fully done, almost as if it’s 8:30PM instead of 12 hours earlier. There’s an array of miscellaneous, career-spanning knick-knacks behind her, everything from the usual framed platinum records to a sprawling grand piano, plus an orange throw pillow with the Nickelodeon logo splashed across the front (she hosted the Kids’ Choice Awards in 1988). I can’t resist asking: Has Gibson seen Hacks? She hasn’t, but it’s on her list. “Delivering this album has kind of prevented me from watching a whole lot of anything lately,” she says.

It would not be a stretch to say that Kreayshawn is traumatized by “Gucci Gucci,” her viral 2011 hit that earned more than three million YouTube hits just weeks after hitting the platform. It looked from the outside like a music industry fairytale — little-known rapper from East Oakland strikes internet gold, signs a million-dollar record contract, is flown all over the world, and gets juicy cover stories in Complex and Nylon. All of these things did happen to Kreayshawn, born Natassia Zolot. It just wasn’t the life she wanted.

Like a lot of other people this past week, Hoobastank lead singer Doug Robb and I are talking about Britney Spears. Unexpectedly, though, Hoobastank guy (to borrow from Eve 6’s Twitter meme-speak) has a Britney anecdote to share: “Britney Spears worked out at the same mom-and-pop gym that I have been going to for a while. She used to pop in a lot. That’s my Britney Spears story,” says Robb, who has been experiencing his own wave of Y2K relevancy lately, via — what else? — TikTok. “There was a full solar eclipse, and I had to share my solar eclipse glasses with her in the parking lot,” he adds.

After Jane Birkin suddenly lost her eldest daughter — photographer Kate Barry, who died of suspected suicide in 2013 — she took comfort in going to the movies. The onscreen tragedies characters would suffer served as something of a reminder that things could, in fact, get worse. It was during this time that Birkin, who rose to prominence in the late 1960s as a singer, actor, and collaborator of French-pop provocateur Serge Gainsbourg, saw Manchester By The Sea, which is about a man (Casey Affleck) who loses his three young children in an accidental house fire and spends the whole movie blaming himself.

There’s no brief way to sum up a sprawling career like José Feliciano’s. One of the most successful crossover acts in music history, the Puerto Rican singer/composer is perhaps best known for his instantly recognizable yuletide hit “Feliz Navidad,” which turns 50 this holiday season and has been reimagined by musicians across generations, genres, and countries. In 1970, Feliciano had recently been dealt a then-serious PR blow, having performed a reimagined rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at a Tigers-Cardinals World Series game in 1968. The moment, as you can imagine in a fractured Vietnam-era America, did not go over well with audiences.

My phone call with Patty Smyth is cut off just as the former Scandal singer starts talking about living on the same East Village street as her name-doppelgänger Patti Smith in the '70s. "I was getting Patti Smith's mail, and I didn't know who that was at that time," she says before the line abruptly switches to conference call muzak. I silently scream and rush to get Smyth back on the phone, because we can’t end it in the middle of an anecdote like that. Fortunately, her publicist connects us again, and Smyth continues, citing the "Smyth On Smith" piece she wrote last year in tribute to the proto-punk icon’s new book release. (The two Patricias have never actually met. "I wasn't into the punk scene at that point," she says. "I was younger.")

At nearly a quarter of a million Twitter followers, ‘80s soft-rock icon Richard Marx’s social following is remarkable to say the least. And he makes good use of it, too. On a typical quarantine day, the “Right Here Waiting” singer has tweeted gifs, memes, and articles that show his extreme displeasure at how Donald Trump is handling -- or not, as the case may be -- the Federal response to COVID-19.

Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.

The last time Dido booked a tour, it was 2003 and the soft-pop singer was riding high on the success of mid-'00s radio megahits "Thank You," "Here With Me," "White Flag," and "Life For Rent." But the singer/songwriter had been touring for nearly a decade, and the relentless on-the-road lifestyle was starting to wear her down. So she did what a lot of musicians won’t — she stopped.

Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.

Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.

Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.

Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.

Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.

Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.

Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.

Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.

Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.

Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.

Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.

Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.

1991 is the year alternative rock went mainstream. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden were about to take over the world; Out Of Time and "Losing My Religion" turned R.E.M. into megastars; and the first Lollapalooza tour brought the underground across the country.

Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.

Jill Cunniff is a lifelong New Yorker, born and raised. But today the Luscious Jackson frontwoman and founding member is in Los Angeles visiting her brother, who, naturally, works in TV. Like many other Brooklynites (Cunniff currently resides in Park Slope), she's openly fascinated with the City Of Angels, specifically its sprawling mid-century architecture and seemingly stuck-in-time road signage. She even admits her relocation fantasies.

Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.

Ed Kowalczyk has just flown from Denver to Austin. Immediately before that, it was back to the States after playing a festival in Europe. But the Live singer doesn't sound tired at all. In fact, Kowalczyk sounds downright refreshed. "We're having a blast," he says. And you know what? I believe him.

Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.

Of all of the acts to spill out of the '90s Bay Area rock scene, adult-alternative troubadours Counting Crows have been one of the most enduring. Right around the time Green Day were rattling the walls of Berkley punk incubator 924 Gilman, Adam Duritz and Counting Crows guitarist David Bryson were on the other side of the Bay kicking around -- well, hangin' around, to be precise -- San Francisco coffee houses performing what would eventually become a spectacular series of angsty folk-pop staples: "Mr. Jones," "Round Here," "Rain King," and so on.

Tracking Down is a newish Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.

Tracking Down is a newish Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.

Tracking Down is a new Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.