Made In America - BEACH SLANG "Who Would Ever Want Anything So Broken?" EP (2014)

It's not easy to define what an anthem is but you usually know one when you hear it. An anthem reaches down into the pit of your stomach by way of your ear holes, rips out your insides and exposes them for everyone to see. At that point you no longer care who's looking at you, you just belt out the lyrics at the top of your lungs to the point of exhaustion and pray for the song to go on forever.

A few names instantly come to mind when I think of bands that have, in my opinion, perfected the art of writing the anthem. The Replacements, The Gaslight Anthem, and Superchunk have all, at one time or another, gotten me to that point where I'm no longer just listening to the song, I'm now living inside of the song. Eye's closed, mouth open, fist's in the air living inside of the song. Philadelphia's Beach Slang has gotten me to that point with their new EP Who Would Ever Want Anything So Broken?, out now on Dead Broke Rekerds.

Made In America - Bad Sports, "Bras" (2013)

Musica Cronica's Made In America is back from vacation and man was it ever an exciting August for music fans in the States. First let me address "vacation" from an American point of view. Americans don't generally take vacations like Europeans do. We spend a lot of time hoping that a national holiday falls on a Friday or a Monday where we can have three days off instead of two and during that time off we just think about how to work more. Basically, Americans work and then they die.

Now on to the music! August brought us the highly anticipated reunion of The Replacments. Twenty-one years ago after their last gig, Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson reunited on stage at Toronto's Riot Fest. Of course I couldn't go because I had to work. Stereogum has the 22-song audience-recorded set available for your downloading pleasure.