* 'Get Lucky' (Daft Punk) * 'White Noise' (Disclosure) * 'God Made the World' (Cold Cave) * 'Wakin' on a Pretty Day' (Kurt Vile) * 'Ya Hey' (Vampire Weekend) * 'Retrograde' (James Blake) * 'Hang on to Life' (Ariel Pink) * other stuff *
Okay. 2013 isn't over yet. Not even close. There are plenty of releases coming up that I predict to be really really good. But when it comes to songs, it's hard to follow. I myself don't consider critic's lists for songs at the end of the year to be all that accurate. It's hard to tell which songs are going to last a long time. But here are 4 songs (in no particular order) that I have totally loved all year.
DOIN' IT RIGHT -Daft Punk (ft Panda Bear)
"This Daft Punk album would probably be really good to take drugs and listen to on a rainy bridge across the Gulf of Mexico." -Diplo. I have never never done drugs or visited the Gulf of Mexico. But I think this song captures that feeling more than any other. I'm specifically referring to the short, basic keyboard solo in the middle of the song. Panda Bear's voice in this song is basically the sound of magic, echo, overdub and all. There are only a few lyrics to the song. You hear robots saying the same 4 lines over and over again. This is like the song you've heard a million times before you've even heard it once. In an attempt to make an album that sounds like it could've been made 30 years ago, Daft Punk gave us something that just might last 30 years and beyond.
MUTE -Youth Lagoon
I feel stupid trying to explain how Youth Lagoon sounds. I always conclude that it's like MGMT & Mercury Rev covering AC's Merriweather Post Pavilion. And then I actually listen to them and I'm like- nah. Trevor Powers (aka Youth Lagoon) comes from Boise, ID, and I'm glad I can enjoy an artist that lives so close to my hometown. He music has been defined as lo-fi, psychedelic, dream pop. The lyrics on his Wondrous Bughouse album are mostly about death, ghosts, sleep. One of my favorite critics Anthony Fantano, didn't even review the album. He makes a case for artists who make plain melodies behind unnecessary noise. I guess Youth Lagoon goes under that category. If you're lame. This is probably my favorite album opener of the year. Great guitar riff, great playful, mysterious noises in the background. It's the beginning of something weird and epic.
BLURRED LINES -Robin Thicke (ft Pharrell Willians & T.I)
Am I sell-out? I sold out from the very first time I heard this song. IT'S STUPID. There are only a few notes here. It's not exactly the most harmonic thing in the world. The song is about sex. Zero poetic value ("Baby, can you breath? I got this from Jamaica!" ...I don't know what that means) .Anyway, what I love about this song is that Thicke & his crew didn't try too hard. Spoon's Kill the Moonlight has been praised for it's sounding like the perfect "bare bones" rock record. This is the bare bones of generic pop/r&b. We have the lead guy who's only made 1 good song his entire life, we have the sexy black dude, and we have a rap verse in the middle. What more do you need, what more do you want? Each line should be classic, doesn't have to make sense or be intelligent, just has to be quotable (see Janelle Monae's "Tightrope" or Outkast's "Hey Ya!" for further instructions on that one). You want more cowbell, we got plenty of cowbell. Can there be a 100% guaranteed "feel good hit of the summer"? Let's just make this the #1 song in America from June 22-September 7. This song shouldn't be so controversial to the public- it's the perfect example of every generic pop hit from the last 20 years. Get over it.
STEP -Vampire Weekend
I said these songs were in no particular order. The other 3 aren't. This is my favorite. And for the record, Vampire's Weekend album has been my favorite album of the year thus far (it might get beat!), but this song is a golden child. Webster's dictionary defines nostalgia as "a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition." Aren't songs about ex-girlfriends and growing old supposed to be depressing? Ezra Koenig turns these topics into something "wistful." It's both cheeky and tongue-and-cheek. Think Paul Simon's "Kodachrome" or "You Can Call Me Al"... only with church organs, synthesized choirs, a cool harpsichord part, tons of cultural references and hints of hip-hop. It's hard, I know, but think about it. Koenig delivers line-after-line on this song more than any other VW tracks. I have not studied what every single line is about, but if you really want to, there's this: http://rock.rapgenius.com/Vampire-weekend-step-lyrics#note-1593862. For a song about personal memories, it doubles as university-class library of history. Now just because a song has a bunch of personal pronouns in its lyrics, that doesn't make it better than everything else (then again, the Barenaked Ladies were launched to popularity with "One Week" and "If I Had $1,000,000"). But I think the music captures the lyrical concept and turns it into something joyful- and as far as pop music goes- spiritual. Here's a crisp, delicate wine-glass toast to everything stupid you've done in your youth, and everything you've learned as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment