Song of the day: Matt Ryd – "Nobody But Me"

Some time ago I posted some songs by a pleasant young man called Matt Ryd. Back then I was notified about Matt’s pleasantness by the magnificently named August Forte. (I love that name.)

Well, August recently sent me another message:

Peter,

Matt Ryd’s last CD, 2010’s Looking For Home, received positive reviews on pop/power pop blogs and the single “Healed” was featured on the popular TV series Scrubs.

Now, three years later, Matt has released Ryd ‘Em Cowboy, a 3-song EP that finds the Chicago-based singer/songwriter gravitating toward a more alt-country sound.

You’re not wrong there, August.

Now that I’ve heard the EP, I reckon you could take away the “alt” from that “alt-country” and it’d be a more accurate description (especially track 1):

Matt Ryd – Ryd ‘Em Cowboy (2013)

I enjoyed those songs, but I must admit that I had to repeatedly restrain myself. All the time I was listening to “Nobody But Me” I had a huge urge to shout “Yee-ha!”. Sorry about my gaucheness, Matt.

By the way, August told me that the second track, “Long, Long Time”, “features very special guest Mike Mentzer (ex-I Fight Dragons)”. Unfortunately, that meant nothing to me, because I have absolutely no idea who Mike Mentzer is, or what I Fight Dragons is. I feel compelled to apologise to people I’ve never met. Sorry, folks, for not knowing who you are.

Update: I’ve just discovered there’s a band called I Fight Dragons.

And as for this “Mike Mentzer” character, there’s a bodybuilder called Mike Menzter…

Mike Mentzer

…but he died in 2001. So I’m fairly sure the Mike Menzter that August talked about in his email probably isn’t the Mike Mentzer who had been a bodybuilder.

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Song of the day: Matt Ryd – "For So Long"

I received an email from an individual called August (Hi, August!) who, judging by the name, may or may not be male (it’s hard to tell with people’s names nowadays). Anyway, August exhorted me to have a listen to some music by an American chap called Matt Ryd. (I’m pretty sure Matt is male.)

Matt’s released an album called Looking For Home (2010), and August was rather keen on letting people know about. (I’m hoping that Matt is rather keen on letting people know about it, too – unless he’s one of those “tortured artist” types who couldn’t bear to have other people listen to his music because he’s an artist, and people are so common and wouldn’t understand the higher plane that he operates on, so how dare they listen to his music! etc.)

I had a listen to Matt’s songs and thought they were all rather pleasant.

Here’s one of them:

Matt Ryd – “For So Long” (2010)

Link

I liked the toy piano.

And here’s another track from the album. Incidentally, this song has some background vocals that I found weird: in the left channel there’s a (possibly) female voice that sounds to me like a robot. (Maybe it’s just me.) Do you hear a robot voice in this song?:

Matt Ryd – “Pieces” (2010)

Link

I’ll play you one more track. It’s called “Healed”, and it was mentioned (Hi, August!) that the song (well, some of it anyway) appeared in an episode of Scrubs:

Matt Ryd – “Healed” (2010)

Link

Thanks, YouTube, for showing me the bit of Scrubs where Matt’s song appeared.

And thanks, August, for letting me know about Matt’s pleasant music.

Buy the CD of Looking For Home ($10 which includes a digital download as well. Bargain.)
Buy the digital download (No idea how much it is – I don’t go anywhere near iTunes.)
Matt Ryd official website
Matt Ryd on Facebook
Matt Ryd on MySpace
Matt Ryd on YouTube