Daft Punk with Panda Bear "Doin' It Right" I have a lot of mixed feelings about Daft Punk's new album , and for the most part I'm not feeling it, but I have no reservations about loving this song. Yes, I do wish it was faster and I'm holding out for a superior remix, but at the same time, I really appreciate the way this song is like this extended, groovy chill out session before moving on to the full-on party stage. (I assume that when the robots promise that everyone will be "coin' [...]
Classixx featuring Nancy Whang "All You're Waiting For" The key word in the title here is "waiting" – it's a song about counting down the seconds to see somebody, and the nervous energy that goes into anticipating that moment. The little nuisances along the way to that moment seem like more of a hassle than they would usually, and the excitement is mixed in with a vague fear of disappointment. But despite this tinge of doubt, "All You're Waiting For" feels like an optimistic, happy song, and it's not just a matter of a dance beat [...]
Majical Cloudz "This Is Magic" I remember a few weeks ago Ian Cohen tweeting something to the effect of how Devon Welsh of Majical Cloudz could've made a killing ghost writing the new Depeche Mode album, and everyone would've been better off for it. This stuck in my head, and it surfaces every time I hear this song, which is basically the best Depeche Mode song since the early 90s by a wide margin. Not to sell Welsh short, though: He's got his own thing going, and so few people are good at this sort of [...]
Laura Mvula "Make Me Lovely" "Make Me Lovely" is one of those rare, special songs that is both marvelously ambitious and seemingly effortless in its construction. There's a lot of things coming together here – mannered neo-soul, nuanced orchestration, a touch of jazz, a melodic sensibility somewhere between '70s Paul McCartney and prime Stevie Wonder. The composition mirrors the epic turmoil of the lyrics, in which Mvula attempts to distance herself from a partner who could not accept her as she is, and tried to make her into something else: "I can't make you love me [...]
R.E.M. "Get Up" (Live in Greensboro, SC, 1989) A lot of songs that implore the listener to “do something” with their lives can seem awfully smug and self-satisfied, but R.E.M.’s “Get Up” side-steps that trap by making it clear from the start that the singer is addressing himself as much as the audience. The lyrics are intentionally vague about what Michael Stipe wants us all to do, but the basic point is abundantly clear: No matter who we are or what we do, we need to resist the empty comforts of apathy and become active members [...]
Vampire Weekend "Don't Lie" "I want to know, does it bother you? / the low click of a ticking clock." Yes, yes it does. Nearly every song on Modern Vampires of the City reckons with the inevitability of time running out, and to be honest with you, it really gets under my skin. Ezra Koenig mentions death a lot, but in some ways, it's hyperbolic – it's not about death, it's about the fear of adulthood, and surrendering the possibilities of youth. Koenig's characters sense doors closing behind them at every turn, and feel [...]
Bibio "You" It's hard to remember what music was like before chipmunked soul vocals. I mean, I lived through that time, but it's a haze – just a slightly more drab version of life without this particular surefire path to immediate joy. Bibio is breaking no new ground in "You" – you're probably familiar with Kanye and Dilla, right? – but the song is glorious all the same, with mellow, slightly out-of-it phases bracketing a sample that just sorta bounces up in the mix. It sounds like a sudden moment of elation after you've sorta forgotten [...]
Chance the Rapper "Good Ass Intro" I have to get this out of the way first: It is so weird to me that this guy goes by "Chance the Rapper" when his actual real name is Chancellor, which would be a perfectly decent rap name, especially in a world where one of the most popular rappers is called Drake and everyone is totally fine with it. Also, I find it really weird that when people write about him, no one ever seems to compare his voice or style to Lyrics Born from Latyrx. The only way [...]
Deerhunter "Dream Captain" Deerhunter usually occupies a very dark and lonely emotional space, but "Dream Captain" is kind of an outlier – it's not a goof or anything, but there's a touch of levity and humor to its tone and lyrics. But still, despite that, it's treading familiar thematic ground – Bradford is giving voice to a passive character who desperately wants this powerful alpha male to come along and pull him out of his life. There's a notable tension between the way he sees himself, and how he imagines this guy, and it all comes [...]
Coco O. "Where the Wind Blows" The soundtrack for Baz Luhrmann's Great Gatsby is overflowing with big name artists and producers, but the best track on it is something of a dark horse. "Where the Wind Blows" is written and produced by veteran R&B songwriter Andrea Martin and sung by Coco O., the vocalist from the Danish R&B group Quadron. It's a deceptively simple song, with Coco singing a neatly linked chain of hooks built around a snippet of jazz age piano. That sample is our tether to the setting of the film, but [...]
Juveniles "Strangers" Here's an interesting one: A jubilant yet slightly dour, Tears for Fears-like synth pop song about reconnecting with an old friend after a terrible falling out. This is a pretty good reason to feel jubilant, sure, but I don't feel like I've heard many pop songs specifically about this, and the few that come to mind have a different mood. I quite like how clear-eyed and rational this sounds too – any trace of ill will is long gone, but very much acknowledged and taken seriously. Great guitar solo too – maybe a little [...]
Jai Paul "Str8 Outta Mumbai" I wish I could tell whether or not Jai Paul intends for this song to be so lo-fi, or if the tracks on his leaked album sound the way they do because they're unmastered demos. We'll see? I certainly hope it's just an unfinished thing because this song has one of the most imaginative and interesting arrangements of anything I've heard in the past year or so, and I just don't think a vocal take that sounds like it was recorded on a cell phone off of a speaker phone in [...]
Lorde "The Love Club" Lorde is a teenager who sings about being a teenager like an adult. This isn't just about her voice, it's about perspective – in a song like "The Love Club," she's talking very specifically about the emotional politics of high school cliques, but with some nuance and distance, and perhaps the realization that while you eventually graduate school, these social dynamics are pretty hard to escape in life. Part of the perspective thing has to do with tone – the song feels light and fun, but also emotionally charged. There's a sense [...]
G-Dragon "MichiGO" The funny thing about K-Pop's tendency to mash up Korean and English lyrics is that the result feels a little more strange and alien to me than if they were only singing and rapping in Korean, a language I cannot understand. The style exaggerates the hyperactive quality of G-Dragon's music in particular, amping up the "a million things coming at you at once, can you possibly process this?" quality of his best songs. I have very little context for anything happening in this song or its astonishingly weird video, but the part of me [...]
!!! "Even When the Water's Cold" This is a song about someone else's self-destructive impulses, and looking on as she gets involved with some horrible guy that everyone warns her against seeing at all. There's no real judgment on her, which is nice. If anything, it's a song about observing this sort of thing, and realizing that few of us ever have the self-awareness to really know when we're throwing ourselves into some dumb situation. It's always super obvious from a distance, though, and it's part of how other people's idea of us can be wildly [...]
Stephen Malkmus "One More Night" Can, particularly the version of the band fronted by Damo Suzuki, is one of the best rock acts of all time, but their music almost completely resists being covered. Damo's voice and cadence is too specific; any attempt to even just sing his parts straight just sounds like you're doing an impression of him. Also, the music isn't exactly for beginners. But I'm really impressed by Stephen Malkmus' cover of Ege Bamyasi in its entirety – it's extraordinarily faithful, but retains his character as a musician. I remember reading [...]
Phoenix "S.O.S. In Bel Air" Thomas Mars once wrote very clear and obvious lyrics, but now his words are an odd, oblique code – there's a suggestion of context, and some perspective on a conflict, the gist of an emotion. He's basically telling the listener to give up on trying to connect with exactly what he's thinking, and to project whatever you need on to the songs. I appreciate this, and that's certainly what I've done with "S.O.S. In Bel Air." The thing that got me right away was the repetition of "you can't cross the [...]
Clinic @ Le Poisson Rouge 4/20/2013 Dissolution: The Dream of Bartholomew / Children of Kellogg / Miss You / Tusk / King Kong / IPC Subeditors Dictate Our Youth / Lion Tamer / Porno / Seamless Boogie Woogie, BBC2 10pm (rpt) / Orangutan / See Saw / You / The Return of Evil Bill / 2/4 // Walking With Thee / T.K. / Cement Mixer Clinic "Porno" Clinic is one of those bands who are, even by a lot of the people who like them and have [...]
The Loud Family - Exponential Existential Horror Show Scott Miller, the singer and songwriter of Loud Family and Game Theory, as well as the author of an excellent book of music criticism called Music: What Happened? , has died . He was a huge talent, and incredibly intelligent and kind. You can get a sense of who he was and what he accomplished in this interview I conducted with him about his book back in 2011. If you've never heard his music, you can start [...]
Basement Jaxx "Back 2 the Wild" Miss Emma Lee and Baby Chay's vocals on "Back 2 the Wild" are gleeful, childish and silly to the point of being almost an aggressive provocation, like they're just trying to get an uptight listener to be like "ugh, so annoying!" And that's perfect for this song – vibrant as a day-glo rainbow, bouncy and playful as a million hyperactive puppies. The song is inviting you to a party, basically – or more literally, a wild and guileless state of existence – and tugging on you and begging until you [...]
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