In 2020, the Philadelphia-based musician Peter Gill released Hit To Hit, an extremely catchy and overstuffed collection of indie-pop songs with his band 2nd Grade. Last year, Gill re-recorded 2nd Grade’s debut, Wish You Were Here Tour. And just last week, Friendship — one of the other bands Gill plays in — released a new record, the Album Of The Week-worthy Love The Stranger. Busy man! Today, Gill is announcing a new 2nd Grade album, Easy Listening, which will be out in September. It’s “only” 16 tracks — a step down from Hit To Hit‘s 24 songs — but lead single “Strung Out On You” suggests that Gill will make every one of those count.
“‘Strung Out On You” is a classic rock song about knowing something is bad for you but doing it anyway,” Gill said in a statement. “If Big Star had broken through commercially with Radio City and kept pursuing that accessible strain of power pop, I like to imagine they would’ve eventually written ‘Strung Out On You’ and scored a minor nationwide hit in 1979 or so. Radio DJs would spin it between ‘Caught Up In You’ and ‘Hurts So Good.’ and it would soundtrack countless coming-of-age moments for misfit teens in the 80’s all over the Midwest.”
Watch a video for it below.
TRACKLIST:
01 “Cover Of Rolling Stone”
02 “Strung Out On You”
03 “Hung Up”
04 “Me And My Blue Angels”
05 “Wouldn’t It Be Nice To Let It Be”
06 “Beat Of The Drum”
07 “Poet In Residence”
08 “Kramer In LA”
09 “Teenage Overpopulation”
10 “Hand Of The Brand”
11 “Which Itch Are You Scratching Today”
12 “Keith And Telecaster”
13 “Planetarium”
14 “Controlled Burn”
15 “Hands Down”
16 “Easy Listening”
Easy Listening is out 9/30 via Double Double Whammy. Pre-order it here.
