What song does this song remind me of?

February 5, 2024 9:59 AM

The Place That Makes Me Happy by The Moss (2023) is currently in heavy rotation on my college radio stations. What does it remind me of?

The style of the verses and especially the melody of the chorus (1:12) remind me of something much older. Maybe they each remind me of two different songs. Maybe a 90s alt rock band in the vein of Dinosaur Junior etc? The blues rock turnaround (1:27) is not the part that reminds me of another song. Or rather, I know a zillion other songs use very similar bits but that's not the part I'm asking about.

It's a fun catchy song; maybe it will remind you of what it reminds me of, or even if not I'm sure the suggestions will be fun too, thanks for any guesses!

posted by SaltySalticid to Media & Arts (8 answers total)

Best answer: Melodically it's a lot like Collective Soul - Let Your Light Shine Down, but there are a lot of songs with the general vocal pattern. I liked the Moss song!
posted by caviar2d2 at 10:13 AM on February 5 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I very much doubt this is what you're after but a couple bars in I started humming Feist's Mushaboom, so that's what it brought to mind for me melodically.
posted by EvaDestruction at 10:22 AM on February 5 [2 favorites]

Also, in a vague way it suggests The Strokes - Barely Legal. Not sure if you are a musician, but I think what's registering is this change that applies to both songs I mentioned plus the Moss one:

(Verse)
(root chord) blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah
(root chord) blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah
(IV chord, but by going *down* from the root) blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah
(IV chord) blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah

(chorus ... no real similarities there)

If you have a piano, you can play an A flat (I think that's the Moss key), then go down to the next D flat and see if that's it. Somebody let me know if this sounds plausible.
posted by caviar2d2 at 11:00 AM on February 5 [1 favorite]

The Collective Soul song is I think what came to my mind even if I couldn't name it right away
posted by TwoWordReview at 11:07 AM on February 5 [1 favorite]

Was Feist for me as well.
posted by dobbs at 3:56 PM on February 5 [1 favorite]

Best answer: You said "much older," so... might be a long shot but my first thought was Spirit in the Sky (more the verse than the chorus, though).
posted by paperback version at 5:48 PM on February 5 [1 favorite]

Best answer: The opening is reminding me of The Struts' Could Have Been Me (scroll through to about 1:25 in this video).
posted by LadyOscar at 9:16 PM on February 5 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Great suggestions all, thanks! I am well familiar with Let Your Light Shine Down and Spirit in the Sky, so those are definitely part of what's triggering my "I've heard something very close to this before" feeling. However, I have to say, Could Have Been Me is also strikingly similar, and is one of those songs that I know I've heard on the radio but didn't know the name or the band (might have guessed in was The Strokes). Mushaboom does have a very similar rhythm and structure to the verses, but you're right, that's not it, as I'm pretty sure I'd never heard it.

Still happy to hear any other suggestions but I think this mostly covers it. caviar2d2 is almost surely right that we're picking up on some fairly common chord patterns, so I will be doing more research along those lines too :)
posted by SaltySalticid at 7:31 AM on February 6