Pop Levi’s Medicine Keeps the Garage Party Weird, Loose and Loud
English singer, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and filmmaker Pop Levi returns with his third full-length album, Medicine.
Released through Counter Records in November 2012, the album continues Levi’s love affair with ’60s rock and soul, only this time he pushes it straight into a full-on garage party. Guitars swagger, grooves get dirty and Pop sounds completely uninterested in sanding off any of his stranger edges.
Pop Levi has never been the artist looking for the safest lane. Even his label describes him as a “true cult hero,” and Medicine makes the case without trying too hard. Prince, Marc Bolan-style glam, garage rock, soul and a little electro-funk all get tossed into the same room and told to figure it out.
The result is playful, scruffy and just polished enough. This is Pop doing what Pop does — taking classic influences, shaking them until something slightly crooked falls out, then acting like that was obviously the plan all along.
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Album Spin — Pop Levi: Medicine
Pop Levi’s third album turns glam, garage rock, soul and electro-funk into one gloriously odd little party.
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Below, we present our picks for the standout tunes off Pop Levi’s stellar release for you to tune into.
Tune: Strawberry Shake
Album opener “Strawberry Shake” gets the doors open fast — loose, crunchy and immediately in on the joke.
Tune: Rock Solid
“Rock Solid” leans hard into the album’s strut: glammy, direct and built around the kind of riff that sounds happiest with a little dirt left on it.
Tune: Medicine
The title track lands right in the middle of Levi’s oddball sweet spot, where classic-rock bones meet his anything-goes approach to production and character.
Tune: Records
“Records” keeps the album moving without cleaning up the edges. Pop Levi has always sounded better when things feel just a little unhinged.
Tune: Remember, Remember
And then “Remember, Remember” closes out our Album Spin picks with another reminder that Medicine was never interested in behaving like a tasteful little indie-rock record. Good.
Source: Counter Records / Ninja Tune. This archived 2013 INYIM Album Spin post was restored and lightly reformatted for readability while preserving the original-era framing and INYIM track selections.
