March 11, 2008

Your Eyes Say Yes But You Don't Say Yes
 
In Flagranti "Grand Central Shuttle" - If you're not familiar, the Grand Central shuttle goes back and forth between Grand Central terminal and Times Square all day. (Well, actually, it doesn't run late night, but you get the idea.) It looks and feels like a regular subway train, but it's just hitting those same two stations over and over. It's a fitting title for this song, which seems trapped in a similar loop of movement. More so, it seems to indicate an emotional snag that keeps a person from progressing beyond two points -- a dull, eternal present, and a vaguely traumatic recent past. Every time we seem to get to some sort of resolution, we're right back to the start. (Click here to buy it from Turntablelab.)

Trabant "I Love You Why?" - Outside of a particular strain of pop music, does anyone on earth actually pronounce "c'mon" as "sh'mon"? Maybe we should, and it ought to have a slightly different meaning. "Sh'mon" is more desperate, and considerably less assertive than a simple "c'mon." It's very appropriate for this song, which lingers in a lurching, incomplete groove that hovers around the general territory of sexiness, but can't quite make contact. It's all about the frustration of being sooooooooooo close, but not being able to make it happen, and not knowing who to blame. Maybe it's her, maybe it's you, maybe it's everything. You're definitely clueless, you don't know how to read the signs, and you're just stuck in a holding pattern. Why? (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)