December 21st, 2009 9:44am
Smash Any Dreams Of Love
The Big Pink “Dominos”
So here’s the question: Is this song a jerk, or is the singer a jerk? I don’t know a lot about Robbie Furze, so I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he’s written a song about a creep who is just a little too into stringing girls along and callously breaking their hearts. He wouldn’t be the first person to write a song about this sort of thing, and certainly not the first to do it in a bragging sort of way, but there’s something about the phrasing in the lyrics that make this guy seem especially sinister. This seems rather deliberate, especially in the context of an arrangement that sounds like someone thinking that they are the most awesome person that has ever lived. The chorus rises and explodes like fireworks celebrating this guy’s heartless ego, and as much as this can be read as a fantasy, the over-the-top nature of it all points in the direction of bitter irony. Either way, “Dominos” has a killer hook. It’s up to you to decide whether or not that is enough to embrace a rather goony lyrical sentiment.
Buy it from Amazon.
HEALTH “Die Slow”
The big problem with My Bloody Valentine as a standard musical influence is that it’s pretty obvious that a lot of musicians don’t really have any idea what made Loveless so effective and evocative. Reducing Kevin Shields’ music to blaring rhythm guitar and murmured vocals cuts out the dynamics and omits the sexuality, resulting in an expression of passive-aggression and shyness rather than blissful sensuality. “Die Slow” is one of the few songs I’ve ever heard that sounds like a best-case scenario of where My Bloody Valentine could have gone if Shields et al had ever bothered to finish another record. The song has a solid groove like “Soon,” but it is a denser and busier piece of music, accented by bursts of concentrated noise that form genuine hooks. The arrangement feels tense and violent, but the vocal performance is pure sweetness, which is turn makes the entire song feel less dangerous and more defensive.
Buy it from Amazon.
12/21/09 11:40 am
The other thing MBV imitators overlook is that the band wrote songs: obviously, the arrangements and production have much to do with their appeal, but if you ever just played them on an acoustic with one singer, there’s still a song there (and usually, a very good one). It’s not all just atmosphere and noise, important as those are.
12/21/09 3:26 pm
Yeah, that is very much the case for Animal Collective too. A lot of their best songs are essentially simple folk tunes done in their distinctive style.
12/21/09 7:40 pm
I don’t know man, I’m aware it’s a matter of opinion but there’s just nothing about that Big Pink song or album that makes me think he’s self-aware enough to be anything but sincere here. Part of it is context (like I said, there doesn’t appear to be any real role-playing on the album, and in general I’m less skeptical of claims that misogyny in music is just a calculated pose when it’s not all the artist has done), but part of it is just the vibe the band gives off. Like Oasis, say, or BRMC or a horde of other British bands, they’re so obsessed with a particular throwback notion of rock cool that I think they might think a little misogyny is just part of what you do as a rock band.
12/22/09 10:22 am
I’m going back and forth on this song. On the one hand, I think that when you listen to the album, it bears out Ian’s theory that they’re just going through the motions of what British rock bands are supposed to do. They’re certainly going through the motions of what British rock bands are supposed to sound like–Dominos’ hook is inarguable but everything else sounds like your vague idea of what other bands sound like. On the other hand, can anyone really be that much of an un-self-aware asshole? It’s just hard to credit. On a third, Total Recall mutant hand, my wife would say that even if this song is a portrayal of a character, don’t we have enough misogynists in the world, both real and fictional? Do we really need to hear their viewpoint articulated again? On the fourth, DAMN THAT SONG SOUNDS SO HUUUUUUGE
12/22/09 10:44 am
I thought that Dominoes song was really dumb the first time I heard it and I still think it is really dumb.
I don’t think you can make a case that it’s really terribly different from anything on a Kid Rock record, in terms of lyrical content, is-he-kidding-or-serious tone, the way it’s nostalgic for BIG radio rock (just a different kind of radio rock), and the way it screams, “Please play me in strip clubs!”. In fact, personally, I think Kid Rock has several songs that are better than this one.