May 17th, 2022 2:09pm
The lyrics of “Girls Against God” were written mid-lockdown, the musings of a woman gone a bit stir-crazy and resenting God for putting her in circumstances where all she could do is dwell on the past without being able to move towards the future. Florence Welch is a singer with a powerful voice that can make anything sound heavy and important, so it’s interesting to hear her sing about feeling pathetic and powerless here. The song opens with her admitting that she never feels comfortable being loved because it makes her feel trapped, and then she’s singing about feeling trapped in her home, and then flashing back to a Tom Vek basement show when she was too young to act on her feelings whether they were positive or negative. The song builds to a declaration of war on God, a symbolic rejection of impotence and passivity, but a lot of what makes the song poignant is her knowing this is just another way of doing nothing in the face of something that feels impossible. It’s just coming from the perspective of someone who knows enough that you have to find a way to claim power, even if it’s all just in the mind.
May 17th, 2022 1:37am
Interpol is a band that has stayed within rather narrow aesthetic boundaries for two decades so “Toni,” a song that prominently features piano, can hit as a bold new direction even if everything else about it sounds like an Interpol song. Daniel Kessler’s piano part here isn’t that different from what he’d play on a guitar but it changes the temperature of the music like a gust of cold wind blowing through the room. The delicate tonality of the piano brings out a wounded quality in Paul Banks’ voice on the verses, and then a more majestic feel once the drums pick up and the vocal harmonies kick in. Interpol have always specialized in austerity and stateliness, but this song pushes beyond that towards a refined elegance. Banks’ lyrics, as enigmatic as ever, suggest the point of view of a worn down person who’s feeling an unexpected optimism, though it seems to be tempered by self-interest. The character comes across as complicated, but the music makes the glimmer of hope in the song feel profound and hard-won.
May 13th, 2022 2:00am
Sabrina Claudio is singing from the perspective of a very exhausted woman in “Protect Her,” a song that’s basically about deciding it’s best not to go out in case she meets someone and falls in love again, which could only end poorly. This song comes at the end of a record that gets into a lot of romantic turmoil, so it makes a lot of thematic sense to close out on an expression of “you know what, I give up.” But as with pretty much everything else on Based On A Feeling, this is a song that sounds extremely romantic and seductive. That central irony is what makes it all click, though – even when she knows better, the pulls towards love and lust is just too strong. The first line of the chorus rings very true – “I fall in love too quickly” – but the concluding line – “girl, just stay home tonight” – just sounds like, at best, a temporary solution. There’s just no protecting a heart that wants connection this much.
May 12th, 2022 3:22pm
“Baby, We’re Ascending” sounds like a rave in a wind tunnel, implying a submission to powerful outside forces in two different but complementary ways. The music feels urgent but Haai’s vocal is very peaceful and grounded, describing an epiphany that makes her feel as though she’s moving towards grace and the sublime. The lyrics are vague enough to mean whatever you need, but it seems to me that she’s talking specifically about music here. She’s experiencing a moment of transcendental beauty through someone else’s music and realizing she has the power to commune with it, or make her own – “I could be the whole symphony.”
May 12th, 2022 2:02am
Alexis Taylor has a nice voice, but it runs a bit cold – a little distant, a little introverted for a guy fronting a dance band. That unlikely fit is a big part of what makes Hot Chip interesting, they’ve certainly cornered the market on making dance music by and for sensitive nerds rather than the sort of sexy extroverted people that a lot of dance music is implicitly for. “Down” contrasts Taylor’s voice with a much bolder vocal sample from an obscure Universal Togetherness Band funk track that was reissued by the Numero Group a while back. That vocal is hot and passionate – “you sure know how to break it all down!” – and it provides a hook and something for Taylor to react against. He’s basically taking the common trope of “working it” and pushing it to a self-aware extreme, of being willfully run ragged by a demanding partner. But it’s no complaint. This is a very subby song, and he’s absolutely loving it.
May 10th, 2022 5:39pm
I’ve been fascinated with how Stuart Murdoch integrates Christianity into his lyrics for a long time now, particularly as he’s become emboldened to do this quite overtly as his career progresses. Murdoch’s version of Christianity focuses on the most kind-hearted and optimistic elements of the faith and jettisons pretty much everything else, mostly just extrapolating the good ideas into the praxis of being a decent and empathetic person in the world. “Working Boy in New York City” is a great example of this. This is a light and groovy number in which Murdoch addresses a gay guy who hasn’t been open about his sexuality with some people and basically offers generous words of support and affirmation. It’s a sweet little pep talk of a song with a chorus that zooms out from this particular person’s issues to speak to a wider audience – “everybody gets an even shot at making heaven, wide is the gate.” It’s such a sweet sentiment for a song, and all the more so given that it’s set to one of Murdoch’s prettiest melodies in years.
May 6th, 2022 1:12am
Most of Cuco’s vocal parts in “Caution” are very sing-song in that very ambiguous genre-agnostic Gen Z way where there’s some familiar elements of rap, R&B, indie rock, and latin pop but it’s not really any of those things. Those parts of the song express exactly the sort of sentiments you’d expect of this sort of thing – he’s neurotic about a relationship and battling his issues, and just trying to play it cool. The song would be very good if it just stuck to this part, but then it goes sublime with this gorgeous wordless harmonized vocal refrain that’s punctuated by blunt rhythmic utterances of “hold up” and “stop.” That last bit adds a bit of friction but doesn’t really get in the way of the raw beauty of that vocal part, which brings a blissful grace to a song that would otherwise be lost in an angsty spiral.
May 5th, 2022 3:00am
This sweet little song is a bit of curveball from Sorry, a band that up to this point has been on the icy and unsentimental side. But that inclination is part of what makes this vulnerable and open-hearted song about wanting to love and be loved so poignant. Asha Lorenz sounds reluctant to be saying any of this, and in the first verse she’s grounding the sentiment in a situation where she’s annoyed with the person she’s addressing. Once the song gets going she focuses her attention on what matters – a genuine empathy for all the lonely people in the world, but especially for the ones who are truly open to love. She feels like she is, but you get the sense she knows she can be self-sabotaging and is trying to stop herself from being that way. The core feeling here isn’t love, it’s frustration – in getting in your own way, of how difficult it can be to find something so simple and good, and in knowing that so many of these people who want to be loved are not going to get what they want or what they need.
May 3rd, 2022 2:25pm
Miranda Lambert is a genius and force for good in this world because she wrote this song, had the somewhat improbable but totally correct thought “this could use some Fred Schneider,” and then actually got The B-52’s in the studio to make it happen. “Music City Queen” is a sunny, campy country rock tune in tribute to “flashy and trashy” nobodies living it up in spite of not making it in proper show biz. Lambert, an arena-filling star for nearly two decades, isn’t condescending here though she is funny – if anything she sounds jealous of all the no-frills fun and absolute shamelessness. The song doesn’t sound like The B-52’s but the band’s three vocalists are so perfectly suited to the sentiment and feel of it. Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson add their signature sugary harmonies spiked with a little attitude, while Schneider does some ad-libs and call-and-response with Lambert that makes him seem like a beloved eccentric bar regular in the context of the song. Can they get John Waters to make a video for this and really complete the bit?
April 30th, 2022 2:20pm
The lyrical conceit of “Ain’t No Thief” is that Sebastian Murphy is a guy getting accused of stealing someone’s stuff, but it’s just a coincidence of owning the same things. But Murphy plays it as comedy by making the supposedly stolen items extremely specific and his explanations totally absurd, so he ends up sounding like a flagrant liar. But given the sheer force of the music, Murphy’s raw charisma, and the boldness of his claims, you end up siding with him. It’s just like, if this guy is this clever and shameless, maybe he earned this weird commemorative lighter? It’s like the fun version of gaslighting.
April 29th, 2022 4:12pm
The previous two released arrangements of “Kind Of” play the song as a low key country song, but this orchestral version has a melodramatic old Hollywood sensibility that is well suited to the delicately fluttering melody in the bridge and chorus. Faye Webster keeps her vocal phrasing mostly the same rather than going big, keeping to her sweet spot of casual, somewhat self-effacing vulnerability. This particular song really demands that approach to – she’s singing about falling in love with someone and having that stir up anxieties and emotional impulses that make you feel like someone else. There’s an unrestrained neediness in this song, a powerful tug towards codependence that she’s reasonably wary of, but she’s also not afraid of giving in to it.
April 28th, 2022 8:35pm
You can feel the big fuzz alt-rock chorus coming in the first verse of “BWFW,” and not just in terms of genre convention expectations. The song starts pretty clean, like it could definitely go in some other musical direction, but there’s just this menacing thing looming in the background that finally makes its way to the foreground to crush everything in sight. Caitlin Woelfle-O’Brien is singing about having a bad time with someone she’s barely even in a relationship with, and while the lyrics are addressed to someone else it’s pretty clear that they’re not listening and wouldn’t care. That tension really works for the song, where it seems like the real point is her realizing she’s stuck in a dead end.
April 28th, 2022 2:01am
Michael Cavanagh drums on “Kepler-22b” like a man extremely eager to get sampled. He’s dialed into tight pocket groove but he sounds relaxed, so the beat never feels stiff and the fills just tumble out with ease. You’ve definitely heard versions of this beat before and the familiarity is part of the charm here – there’s something so satisfying about the way Cavanagh hits the marks, like an itch getting scratch. It’s possible that the rest of the music was written before the drums were worked but it sounds very much like the King Gizzard crew are following the rhythm’s lead into jazz/R&B territory. It’s still in their spacey comfort zone and that’s actually literal when it comes to the lyrics, in which Stu Mackenzie sings about a kid obsessed with a distant planet that’s theoretically capable of sustaining human life.
April 26th, 2022 2:38pm
Theravada and Rbchmbrs pull off one of my favorite sample production moves, in which a tiny sliver of another song is manipulated so the bits of notes and chords become an entirely new and different piece of music that feels totally natural but also is something very unlikely to be composed by someone actually playing piano and bass guitar. When it’s done as gracefully as it is done here it just feels like magic to me. Earl Sweatshirt and the members of Armand Hammer take the late night melancholy tone of the track as a prompt to get introspective – ELUCID pondering authenticity and people who “talk like they never got punched in the face,” Billy Woods delivering a densely written verse that’s mostly morbid, and Earl searching for balance and peace.
Fly Anakin raps with some worry and hurry in his voice, as though he’s trying to spill it all out while under duress. This is a sharp contrast with Evidence’s track for “Sean Price” which seems to move in slow motion, but they fit together as two different ways of feeling very present in a moment. It also gives this character study some dimension – he’s stressed out, sure, but also seeing things very clearly.
April 25th, 2022 12:38am
Good for Pusha T for managing to get a bouncy classic 00s style track from Kanye West in the 2020s – doesn’t seem easy these days? Or cheap, given that this one is built around a sample of Donny Hathaway singing a John Lennon song. Pusha T is definitely not going to surprise anyone with lyrical subject matter at this stage but there’s a few particularly clever lines here – I like “Kevlar in his Balenciaga jacket lining” and “on the bikes like Amblin.” West shows up for a brief verse near the end though his voice sounds a little off, I actually just thought it was someone else until I looked it up. I should’ve known, though – the line about almost buying the Fresh Prince of Bel Air mansion but hating the kitchen design is so very him.
Here’s another presumably pricey sample, I’ll let you figure it out or look it up. But maybe I’m just “looking at expensive shit with the cheap face,” as Tha God Fahim says in the chorus. The sound of the track is lush and gentle, you could put the instrumental on a chillout mix. I like the cranky tone of the vocals though, particularly in the second half when Your Old Droog comes through and sounds like he’s casually shit talking in an assured but peevish tone.
April 22nd, 2022 1:55am
I’ll admit that it took me a while to get that this isn’t a regular love song, but rather Vince Staples doing his own take on Nas’ “I Gave You Power” – the lyrics are from the perspective of a personified gun, and this time around it’s a romance. Staples is clever enough to make this work perfectly well as a single entendre but his lyricism really shines in the double meanings, particularly in the extended protection/glove metaphor midway through the first verse. Frano’s track is all atmospheric sensuality and sex though, so I wonder if Staples felt a little too self-conscious about writing a straight-up love song. It’s more interesting and certainly more macho as the gun thing, but I feel like the song is actually more resonant without that layer of ironic distance.
April 21st, 2022 3:10pm
“I Still Love You” is a song that explores the cognitive dissonance that comes from when you go from extreme intimacy with someone to becoming total strangers. She’s yearning to reconnect with them but seems mainly interested in the small details – what’s their current favorite song, do they still smoke weed, do they have any bruises on their body right now? Banks sings in a fragile tone at the top of her register, sounding as though she could break into tears at any moment. But she’s more nostalgic than sad here, and the piano figure at the center of the piece signals a touch of brightness and optimism. She’s just looking for a similar level of connection and this relationship is simply the last time she felt something she craves. She acknowledges the “issues” with this other person, and I think that’s her way of reminding herself that she might be better seeking out what she actually needs with someone else. The song sort of knows that it’s a momentary indulgence.
April 19th, 2022 10:53pm
Tom Misch’s debut as Supershy is a lush disco track that superficially resembles The Avalanches’ classic “Since I Left You,” at least in as much as both song expertly evoke the idea of some glamorous 20th century party you can imagine but never attend. The song bangs and thumps in all the ways you’d want it to but the main attraction is definitely in the more delicate aspects of Misch’s arrangement, particularly in his deftly harmonic use of vocal samples. This works as a straightforward piece of…well, happy music… but there’s just enough melancholy lingering in the atmosphere of the mix to emphasize that this is, for most of us, an impossible nostalgia.
April 19th, 2022 12:25am
The lyrics of “Sidelines” make some direct references to life in the early phase of the pandemic but even if Bruce Hornsby’s words stayed focused on the opening images of a judge heading to Salem it would sound very much like a quarantine song. It’s in the odd stillness, the cautious twitch in the rhythms, a stunned and dazed feeling that permeates the track. Hornsby’s lyrics are a scatter of images and ideas that suggest a mind trying to piece together a situation through stress and distraction, and then through some filter of vague paranoia. Hornsby and Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig find some grace and beauty in this odd moment, singing a slightly jagged melody that pushes upward like a prayer at the end of the chorus. We’re far enough away from this moment in time to recognize what this grace and beauty actually is – it’s the sudden authentic humility of truly having no idea what’s about to happen and allowing yourself to feel that scary but sort of freeing feeling.
April 15th, 2022 1:38am
The first third of “Limbo” is a delicate and meditative sequence in which Keshi sings wordlessly in a gorgeous falsetto over very gentle acoustic guitar and piano. It opens the song in a very placid sort of melancholy before the beat comes in and his vocal switches into a semi-rapped cadence, and he starts laying out exactly why he’s so upset. It’s a little like spotting a guy brooding on his own, and then going up to him like “hey, you want to talk about it?” Keshi really lets it all out here – mostly he’s wrestling with competing feelings of hyper-confidence and self-loathing, and struggling with a drinking problem that he doesn’t seem to have fully treated just yet. The best part of the song is when he switches back to pure singing for a post-chorus hook where he admits “this is all that I am, I only show you the best of me.” But of course, in writing and singing this song he’s allowing himself to show the mess in his life while still holding on to grace and beauty.
