Keep Your Heart Locked Tight

Haim “The Wire”

This is one of the best constructed pop songs I have heard in a while. I was hesitant about this band and was thoroughly on board for this song within 20 seconds. This is just an extraordinarily efficient and meticulously crafted piece of pop machinery, but it doesn’t feel cold, clinical, or over-eager to bludgeon you hooks. Everything is balanced, and the emphasis is always firmly placed on the melody and the emotion of the vocals. When a record company asks a band to please go back and write a single, this is the platonic ideal they have in mind. It’s like Shania Twain, but if she was backed by Damn the Torpedoes-era Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and produced by Lindsey Buckingham, and sung by three different women who all have a fantastic gift for phrasing. I could listen to this song forever, and probably will.

Buy it from Amazon.