Formulars Dance Band “Never Never Let Me Down”

It’s pretty easy to get sucked into the gravitational pull of this song. There’s something about the way that gentle groove, tinny guitar, and softly buzzing keyboard come together that’s slightly off in exactly the right way. The notes seem to shake slightly in the air, the treble sounds like a dim glow. And then there’s this guy’s voice, which is the richest, deepest tone in the mix, and delivers English lyrics with what sounds to me like a Nigerian accent approximating an American accent. He’s singing about this fraught relationship, and though his passion is obvious, there’s also this sorta serene quality to his voice.

There’s one lyric in this song that really gets to me, partly because I know it in another context: “You’re the one good thing that I’ve got.” George Michael sings that in “Freedom ’90,” and it’s something that always stings me. I know that feeling too well, that desperate, sad thing of clinging to something you feel sure of – a talent, an achievement, a person, whatever – because it’s the only thing that keeps you from thinking you’re pathetic. The line feels different here, though. Whereas George Michael sings it with a lot of ego, this guy sounds very humble. He’s holding on to something, but more out of love for someone else than a fear of losing his sense of self.

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Case/Lang/Veirs “Honey and Smoke”

“They don’t love you like I love you” is a poignant phrase to hear in a song because as earnest as it may be, it can only come from a position of insecurity. The one being addressing is obviously not convinced, or perhaps sees the difference in how you love them and how others love them and has decided they prefer the latter. Intensity of feeling is not a guarantee of a stable, healthy relationship. The singer is an unreliable narrator; maybe they’re delusional or in the wrong. Who can say?

K.D. Lang sings “Honey and Smoke” with the suggestion that her character is a bit deluded, but totally respects that perspective. She’s looking on as other people attempt to woo her ex, in awe of how easily they attract suitors while seething with jealousy and desperate to relive the seduction rather than observe it happen for others. She dismisses her rivals’ sentiments as “all honey and smoke,” insisting that there’s no way these others could understand or fully appreciate them. It’s romantic jealousy as aesthetic snobbery – sure, these people can fall in lust, but only she can fall in love. She’s a connoisseur. This is echoed in the sound of the music, as any anger or overt jealousy is buried beneath a slick, sophisticated affect. Lang’s voice conveys a bit of sadness, but the real emotional truth of the song is in Neko Case’s backing vocals, which condense all the bitterness and sorrow in the song to a few plaintive notes.

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Beyoncé “Hold Up”

Beyoncé is singing “they don’t love you like I love you” too, this time directly quoting the chorus of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps.” “Hold Up” is the second track on Lemonade, and it’s the point in the album’s narrative about infidelity in which she’s processing the reality that she’s being cheated on by her husband. Beyoncé has approached this before, notably on “Ring the Alarm,” but unlike that song, which said more or less the same things with an apocalyptic rage, “Hold Up” is serene and composed. She’s furious, yes, and cycling through severe anguish and anxiety, but she’s graceful and confident through sheer force of will. You probably can’t get to where she is on “Hold Up” without having experienced “Ring the Alarm” first – it’s easier to be composed and collected when you’ve been through it before, right?

A good chunk of “Hold Up” is Beyoncé deciding how much of her emotions she should be comfortable sharing with everyone else. “What’s worse, lookin’ jealous or crazy?,” she sings, aware that any honest display is likely to get dismissed by misogynists. She comes down on the side of not giving a fuck, and that opens the floodgates for the rest of the record – one song later she’s approaching “Ring the Alarm” levels of righteous fury with Jack White at her back, and that keeps up through the middle of the album. “Hold Up” is the crux of the album, though, and her mature approach to dealing with emotional catastrophe here is what sets the table for the reconciliation at the end of the record. If there’s a message here, it could be that you should honor your jealous, crazy feelings, but not let them consume you. In this case, the “they don’t love you like I love you” sentiment could actually be the very thing that holds everything together.

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Thao and the Get Down Stay Down “Fool Forever”

Merrill Garbus of Tune-Yards produced the new Thao record, and it’s very obvious, as her aesthetic is all over it – the emphasis on bass and percussion, the ever-shifting planes of musical texture, little eruptions of noise, a slightly feral quality to the performances. Thao Nguyen doesn’t totally surrender herself to Garbus’ sound, but she seems very home within it, sharpening her songwriting and moving her vocal performance into more aggressive and nakedly expressive territory. “Fool Forever,” one of the best tracks on the record, is built on a reggae-translated-into-punk groove that reminds me a lot of The Clash’s “Guns of Brixton,” but when the chorus hits, it abruptly shifts into a sound that’s simultaneously much lighter and far more abrasive. Even having heard this song many times in the past couple months, it always feels a bit sudden and exciting, like this sudden cathartic moment from out of nowhere.

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The Scary Jokes “Catabolic Seed”

The Scary Jokes’ Liz Lehman reminds me of a young Kevin Barnes with her seemingly effortless gift for melody, tendency of tying her songs together into long suites, and focus on writing about her emotional state with great precision and a high level of self-awareness. Like Barnes, Lehman’s lyrics have this cutting critical tone, whether she’s writing about herself, or her feelings about someone else. I like the way this contrasts with the girlish timbre of her voice, and suggests that you’re listening to the musical equivalent of an unusually eloquent teenage diary. “Catabolic Seed” is essentially about trying to pull yourself together after getting rejected by a crush, feeling frustrated by chasing fantasies, and just having poor luck in general. But Lehman’s words dig a bit deeper than that, and tip back and forth between self-loathing and reasonably decent self-esteem. You can hear that tension in the music too, as the colorful keyboard tones and the crisp snap of the beat suggest an assertive quality that is at odds with – but does not undermine – the self-crimination in the lyrics.

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Paul Simon “Wristband”

“Wristband” starts off as a joke about a rock musician stepping out for a smoke but getting locked out of a venue, and trying and failing to get back in despite being a headliner. But that’s just the jumping-off point, as Simon’s character reckons with losing his privilege even just for a few minutes, and then snaps back into proper perspective by imagining all the “homeless and the lowly” who will never get that metaphorical wristband granting them access to wealth, success, and comfort. Simon’s voice is relaxed but sardonic, and the groove is funky but a bit busy and vaguely agitated. He gets just the right balance of lightness, aggravation, and introspection, which is pretty key for a song like this – knock it too much in any direction, and I think the sentiment might become ridiculous or kinda douchey.

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Wire “Internal Exile”

Colin Newman’s voice has a cold and emotionally sterile affect, and it makes pretty much every Wire song feel distant and vaguely cruel. Even when he’s expressing empathy, he sounds as though he must keep a distance, as though he’s concerned about becoming infected by your feelings and misfortunes. “Internal Exile” may be an empathetic song, but it’s slightly unclear – it’s just as easy to interpret this as an indictment of people stuck in drab, boring lives as it is an expression of solidarity with everyone crushed and alienated by capitalist institutions. Newman’s sings the song like an inscrutable deity, with each line right on the edge of pity and indifference. The music isn’t much warmer, but there’s a touch of sentimentality in the lead parts, particularly a synth horn part that gestures in the direction of joy and triumph, but is undermined by its obvious artifice.

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PJ Harvey “The Ministry of Social Affairs”

I’ve seen PJ Harvey perform twice in my life. The first was an opening act gig for U2 in 2001, and I barely remember anything about it. The second was a solo performance at the Beacon Theater in 2007, and it was one of the most powerful and impressive shows I’ve ever witnessed. A lot of what made that show so captivating was being confronted with Harvey’s full range as a singer, as she performed songs from all the periods of her career up through White Chalk and approaching them with very different vocal techniques. I had always acknowledged that she had a great voice, but up until that point I thought of her mainly as someone who wrote excellent songs. But from then on, it was clear to me that she had a rare gift as a singer, something like being a chameleonic actor. She writes a song, and fully inhabits it. The songs ask her to be different people, and she obliges.

The past few PJ Harvey records have leaned mostly on the high register of her voice, which has been interesting and suitable for the material, but vaguely disappointing in that I think she’s at her best when she’s more connected to the blues and early rock traditions. She’s come back around to that on The Hope Six Demolition Project, and it invests the songs with a level of passion and sense of high stakes that the more fragile or academic songs of Let England Shake and White Chalk lacked. The songs on this record are about desperate people and desperate situations, and so she sings like there’s something to lose. “The Ministry of Social Affairs” is a rock ballad literally built around an old blues song by Jerry McCain, and shambles along while she belts out lyrics about the people who knowingly profit off other people’s suffering. The whole record is about the oppressive institutions that crush the lives of the poor, and this song is essentially the climax of it all, and she just sounds defeated and exasperated. The music isn’t devoid of hope, but it’s bitter and frustrated in acknowledging that the house always wins.

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Pinegrove “Old Friends”

Is the most self-absorbed thing you can do to dwell endlessly on hating that you’re self-absorbed? That’s where this song is coming from. This guy is sulking through his life, obsessing on failed relationships and grief and missed opportunities and not being good enough to the people he loves, but it’s just spinning around in circles. “Old Friends” fits in a weird no man’s land between country rock and emo, but it totally works and melds the best elements of two genres of rock that seem disparate on paper but have a lot in common when it comes to addressing male emotional vulnerability, details about ordinary life, and bitter little jokes at the singer’s own expense. Frankly, this song is better for this guy’s twang, even if it’s a put-on. (Which is pretty likely, given that this band is from northern New Jersey, not too far from New York City.)

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Margo Price “Hurtin’ (On the Bottle)”

Margo Price is, to put it very mildly, working within a tradition. She’s aiming for Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton, and for the most part, she nails it. And that, of course, is a success in and of itself – Lynn and Parton are both exceptional singers with big personalities, and their songcraft is immaculate. Price’s songs, particularly this single, are immediately catchy and charming in that sort of casual, low-key funny way that American country music does better than any other genre. Price’s fundamentals are unimpeachable, but it’s harder to get a read on what makes her distinct, and not just the contemporary iteration of a long-established brand. This is a bit like franchise movies – everyone is going to be on board with a competent version of, say, Star Wars or Batman or James Bond, but you always hope that in addition to giving you the core elements you’ve come to expect from those characters, there’s some fresh take on it. I’m not saying Price isn’t bringing that to the table, but I haven’t been able to figure out what that x factor could be just yet. Seriously great song, though!

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Bibio “Town & Country”

“Town & Country” is sung entirely in the second person – “you’re tired of working in the city, you fight for life…,” and so on – and it makes me wonder whether we’re meant to interpret it as Bibio singing to someone else, or to some version of himself. I tend to hear it more as the latter even if it’s not strictly autobiographical because it comes out sounding like a litany of complaints being used in a campaign to change your own mind and break bad habits.

The angst and negative vibes in the lyrics are at odds with the sound of the music, which feels extremely relaxed and lovely in this very ‘70s soft rock sort of way. Maybe it’s the fantasy of being somewhere else, and having an entirely different life. Or it could be like visiting some other place, and realizing how much better you feel, and that positive experience forcing you to reckon with problems you’ve put on the back burner for a long time because you’re too busy to take them seriously for long otherwise. I’ve never personally related to the sentiment of this song, but I know a lot of people who have struggled with this “gotta get out of the city” anxiety, and the way Bibio expresses it in this song sounds very authentic to me.

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Andrew Bird “Truth Lies Low”

I ignored Andrew Bird for over a decade, and I’m not sure why. Maybe I just thought he was another Sufjan Stevens, and I’ve always had negative vibes about that guy? Perhaps I heard the wrong random tracks along the way? I probably just associated him too closely with NPR and shrugged him off, just as I do with a lot of other artists in that cultural niche. It’s so easy to be dismissive of pleasant, introverted soft rock, even when you like pleasant, introverted soft rock.

“Truth Lies Low” reminds me a lot of Grizzly Bear in good ways – there’s a gentle grace to the melody, and even if there’s a bit of fussiness to the arrangement, it’s not so neat and tidy that all character is lost. Bird, like the Grizzly Bear guys and the full-band incarnation of Iron & Wine, puts his songs together like a hip interior decorator. A low organ riff gently rumbles through the track, and it sits in the center of it like a handsome table made from “reclaimed wood.” The bright metallic pizzicato notes plucked on Bird’s violin and all those soft snare taps are like bits of intriguing ornamentation that draw your attention without being too distracting. The song feels like a shabby place turned into something quite fancy, or perhaps vice versa. I listen to it and feel like I’m about to pay too much for a cocktail. But it’s going to be a good cocktail, and I’m going to enjoy being in the room even if I’m not certain I belong there.

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Nap Eyes “Mixer”

“Mixer” has a distinct rainy day vibe, evoking the specific feeling of the sort of dreary, chilly, dark days that seem to move verrry sloooowly and sap the energy of pretty much everyone. It’s a feeling that can be quite pleasant under the right circumstances, just the same way sadness can feel comforting and pleasing sometimes. The song lingers in that space, with Nigel Chapman’s doleful Dean Wareham-ish voice describing what it’s like to drift along without a job or any particular motivation, and feeling trapped by inertia and resentful of people who condescend to you about your situation. There’s a bit of bite to the way he sings the chorus, but not a lot. The mood is exceedingly lackadaisical, and just after he pushes back against the notion that it’d be easy to fix his problems, the song just kinda slunks back down into a relaxed, resigned state of depression.

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Sales “Ivy”

The sound of “Ivy” is fragile and tentative, conveying the feeling of attempting to communicate someone without disrupting some delicate emotional equilibrium. Lauren Morgan’s words sketch out a vague narrative – she’s concerned about Ivy’s insecurity, there’s some indication of submissive sexuality, a desire to subsume all her needs, and a breakdown in communication. She leaves you wanting more details, but immediately recognizing the feeling of wanting to repair something that was probably never actually working. The one time Morgan sounds totally certain in this song is when she sings “the distance between us, the size of a planet.” It’s a very intimate song, but that’s a bit ironic as it’s really about yearning for a deeper intimacy or lamenting an intimacy that’s gradually disappeared.

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Xenia Rubinos “Lonely Lover”

There’s barely anything in this track aside from Xenia Rubino’s voice, her bass, and Marco Buccelli’s percussion, but the song feels so robust that I barely noticed that at first. Rubino’s bass playing is dynamic and nimble, elegantly gliding from groove to groove without overwhelming the negative space or getting in the way of her own voice. I love the way her bass part will suddenly climb up or double back around Buccelli’s incredibly crisp snare hits, and how just a few perfect piano chords enter the arrangement for the chorus. Rubino and Buccelli make everything feel loose and improvised even when it’s clear that they’ve carefully thought out every bit of the song, and that carries over to her vocal, which is highly expressive and soulful, but also sorta low-key and conversational. It’s a gorgeous piece of music, and it pulls off the rare trick of seeming warm and familiar yet very distinctive and unusual.

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Zayn “Truth”

It’s funny that although I’m pretty familiar with One Direction, I don’t think I had any sense of Zayn Malik as a singer until he released his first solo singles. One Direction songs are built so the five guys all sorta blur together, to the point that most of them sound like there’s only one lead singer, and the backup vocals have more or less the same timbre. Left to his own devices, Malik strays from the high-gloss rock of 1D and gravitates towards a very Frank Ocean-ish brand of R&B. It suits him well, particularly when he moves towards the extremes of his voice – the deliberately sexy early morning rasp he slips into on “Truth;” the stunning falsetto he uses on the chorus of “It’s You.” Those two songs are not coincidentally the best on his debut record, which suggests that he should probably lean into those strengths later on. “Truth” is particularly well-written, and though it has some of the best hooks on the album, it’s decidedly mellow and low-key. A lot of Zayn’s brand is projecting a very potent yet chill hyper-masculinity, and “Truth” conveys that better than anything else he’s recorded. It’s a sound he can grow into, for sure.

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Hundred Waters featuring Chance the Rapper, Moses Sumney and Robin Hannibal “Show Me Love (Skrillex remix)”

Even just a year ago you’d see “Skrillex remix” attached to a song title and reasonably expect it’d be really fast and aggro. He’s a bit more subtle these days, and so this track is allowed to retain its gentle warmth even as he layers in dynamic beats and very sparkly synth notes. Instead of amping up the energy, he amps of the sentiment, and so the song feels like a big, teary hug. Chance the Rapper and the stylistically similar Moses Sumney are perfectly suited to this sound – it flatters their melodic rhymes, and nicely frames the kind-hearted humanity at the core of their aesthetic. Chance’s verse is brief, but it’s a super-concentrated dose of his seemingly effortless charisma and relentless Chicago boosterism that makes me even hungrier for a full album from him than even his SNL appearance or album-stealing verse on Kanye’s “Ultralight Beam.” That record can’t come quickly enough.

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This is the sixth in my series of 1980s survey mixes, which are moving backwards in time from 1989 to the start of the decade. These compilations are designed to give more context to the music of the ‘80s, and give a sense of how various niches and trends overlapped in this cultural moment.

1984 is a pretty huge year for music, with a lot of major releases that changed the course of pop, rock, and rap history. It’s also a transitional year that bridges the gap between the more artsy new wave of the early ’80s and the sort of schlock pop that ends up dominating the next few years. As with 1985 and 1986, there’s a major aesthetic divide between mainstream and underground aesthetics, to the point that it’s surprising to realize that, say, Minor Threat was happening at the same time as Foreigner and REO Speedwagon. But that’s kinda the point of these surveys, right?

Thanks to Paul Cox and Chris Conroy for their help in compiling this survey. All of the previous 1980s surveys are still available: 1989, 1988, 1987, 1986, 1985. The 1983 survey should be ready at the end of April.

DOWNLOAD DISC 1

Prince and the Revolution “When Doves Cry” / Madonna “Material Girl” / Pointer Sisters “Jump (For My Love)” / Van Halen “Jump” / Wham! “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” / Huey Lewis and the News “If This Is It” / Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band “Dancing in the Dark” / Kenny Loggins “Footloose” / Billy Ocean “Carribean Queen” / Chaka Khan “I Feel For You” / Tina Turner “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” / Bananarama “Cruel Summer” / Deniece Williams “Let’s Hear It For The Boy” / New Edition “Cool It Now” / Cristina “What’s A Girl To Do?” / Sheena Easton “Strut” / ZZ Top “Legs” / Don Henley “All She Wants To Do Is Dance” / Dan Hartman “I Can Dream About You” / Cyndi Lauper “Time After Time” / Pat Benetar “We Belong”

DOWNLOAD DISC 2

U2 “Pride (In the Name of Love)” / The Smiths “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” / The Replacements “I Will Dare” / Game Theory “Shark Pretty” / R.E.M. “So. Central Rain” / Echo and the Bunnymen “The Killing Moon” / Billy Idol “Eyes Without A Face” / Thompson Twins “Hold Me Now” / Wang Chung “Dance Hall Days” / The Go-Go’s “Head Over Heels” / The Cars “You Might Think” / Michael Jackson “Thriller” / Metallica “Creeping Death” / Killing Joke “Eighties” / Paul Oakley and Giorgio Moroder “Together in Electric Dreams” / Nena “99 Luftballons” / Aztec Camera “Still On Fire” / Shannon “Let the Music Play” / Queen “Radio Ga Ga” / Steve Perry “Oh Sherrie” / Phil Collins “Against All Odds”

DOWNLOAD DISC 3

Frankie Goes to Hollywood “Relax” / INXS “Original Sin” / Run-D.M.C. “It’s Like That” / Six Sed Red “Beat ‘em Right” / Eurythmics “Sex Crime (1984)” / Art of Noise “Close (To the Edit)” / Bronski Beat “Smalltown Boy” / T-La Rock featuring Jazzy Jay “It’s Yours” / Whodini “Freaks Come Out At Night” / Egyptian Lover “I Cry (Night After Night)” / Depeche Mode “People Are People” / The Human League “The Lebanon” / Sonic Youth “Brother James” / The Minutemen “Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing” / Minor Threat “Straight Edge” / G.G. Allin “Drink, Fight, and Fuck” / Frightwig “My Crotch Does Not Say Go” / Yellowman “Nobody Move Nobody Get Hurt” / Stevie Wonder “I Just Called to Say I Love You” / King Crimson “Three of a Perfect Pair” / The Pretenders “Thin Line Between Love and Hate” / Leonard Cohen “Hallelujah”

DOWNLOAD DISC 4

Duran Duran “The Reflex” / Phillip Bailey & Phil Collins “Easy Lover” / Rod Stewart “Some Guys Have All the Luck” / The Fall “C.R.E.E.P.” / New Order “Thieves Like Us” / Man Parrish “Boogie Down Bronx” / Doug E Fresh “The Original Human Beat Box” / Davy DMX “One for the Treble” / Jah Screechy “Walk and Skank” / Special AKA “Free Nelson Mandela” / Konk “Your Life” / Grandmaster Flash, The Furious Five & Grandmaster Melle Mel “Step Off” / Herbie Hancock “Mega-Mix” / Missing Brazillians “Gentle Killers” / Skinny Puppy “Glass Houses” / Laurie Anderson “Sharkey’s Day” / Talking Heads “Burning Down the House (Stop Making Sense live version)”

DOWNLOAD DISC 5

Glenn Frey “The Heat Is On” / Hank Williams Jr. “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight” / Dolly Parton “Tennessee Homesick Blues” / Los Lobos “A Matter of Time” / Miracle Legion “The Backyard” / The Dream Syndicate “The Medicine Show” / The Del Fuegos “Longest Day” / The Nails “88 Lines About 44 Women” / Talk Talk “It’s My Life” / The Psychedelic Furs “The Ghost in You” / Elton John “Sad Songs (Say So Much)” / Spandeau Ballet “Only When You Leave” / Chicago “Hard Habit to Break” / Paul McCartney “No More Lonely Nights” / Night Ranger “Sister Christian” / The Jacksons featuring Mick Jagger “State of Shock” / The Jesus and Mary Chain “Upside Down” / Malcolm McLaren “Madam Butterfly” / Madness “Michael Caine” / Lee Greenwood “God Bless the U.S.A.” / Felt “The Stagnant Pool”

DOWNLOAD DISC 6

Hüsker Dü “Something I Learned Today” / The Gun Club “Moonlight Model” / The Bangles “Going Down to Liverpool” / Barrington Levy “Under Me Sensi” / Sade “Your Love Is King” / George Michael “Careless Whisper” / Lindsey Buckingham “Go Insane” / Let’s Active “Blue Line” / Cocteau Twins “Lorelei” / The Cure “The Caterpillar” / Linton Kwesi Johnson “Making History” / LL Cool J “I Need A Beat” / The Fat Boys “Can You Feel It?” / Ray Parker Jr. “Ghostbusters” / Daryl Hall & John Oates “Out of Touch” / Rush “Distant Early Warning” / Black Flag “Can’t Decide” / Comsat Angels “Day One” / Meat Puppets “Plateau” / Yngwie Malmsteen “Black Star” / Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds “From Her to Eternity”

DOWNLOAD DISC 7

Corey Hart “Sunglasses At Night” / Twisted Sister “We’re Not Gonna Take It” / David Bowie “Blue Jean” / Billy Joel “The Longest Time” / Wynton Marsalis “Lazy Afternoon” / Miles Davis “Code M.D.” / Jandek “Ha Ha” / Siouxsie and the Banshees “Swimming Horses” / Laura Branigan “Self-Control” / Sheila E. “The Glamorous Life” / Krootchey “Qu’Est-Ce Qu’Il A (D’Plus Que Moi Ce Négro Là?)” / JYL “Positions” / Billy Squire “Rock Me Tonight” / Rockwell “Somebody’s Watching Me” / Janet Jackson “Don’t Stand Another Chance” / Captain Rock “Cosmic Blast” / Dhuo “Walkin’” / Marillion “Assassing” / XTC “All You Pretty Girls” / Midnight Oil “When the Generals Talk” / Ultravox “Dancing with Tears in My Eyes” / The Honeydrippers “Sea of Love”

DOWNLOAD DISC 8

Band Aid “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” / John Waite “Missing You” / Howard Jones “New Song” / REO Speedwagon “I Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore” / The Go-Betweens “Bachelor Kisses” / Cabaret Voltaire “Blue Heat” / Alphaville “Big In Japan” / Anne Murray “Just Another Woman In Love” / Alabama “Roll On (Eighteen Wheeler)” / Bryan Adams “Heaven” / Spinal Tap “Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight” / Split Enz “I Walk Away” / Lloyd Cole and the Comotions “Rattlesnakes” / Newcleus “Jam On It” / Broken Glass “Style of the Street” / Blancmange “Don’t Tell Me” / The Stranglers “No Mercy” / UB40 “Cherry Oh Baby” / The Pogues “Dark Streets of London” / The Alarm “Sixty Eight Guns” / X “Wild Thing” / Foreigner “I Want To Know What Love Is”

The Range “Superimpose”

James Hinton pulled all the vocals on The Range’s new album Potential from videos of amateur performers on YouTube. It’s a great conceptual hook, and certainly gives a writer plenty of room to riff on, like, technology maaaan and we’re all connected all the time now and social mediiiiiiaaaa and what it’s DOING TO US ALLLLLLLLL. But I do not care about any of that. The most interesting thing about Potential is Hinton’s craft in building these scraps of audio into fully realized pop songs. “Superimpose” is particularly beautiful, with this earnest R&B vocal echoing in the space between clicking beats and looping piano notes. It doesn’t feel like the result of a high concept art project. The vocal is all raw emotion and Hinton just frames it.

In a way, this is like the reverse of Disclosure’s second album, in which all the collaborations seem mandated by corporate synergy. It’s also a record that feels very sociable, like two young guys eager to interact with all these singers. On the other hand, Potential sounds very much like something made in solitude, and the vocal parts always retain a lo-fi quality that reminds us that it’s all just pulled from a video. He’s using these strangers as emotional proxies in the songs, but that’s what we’re always doing as listeners, right?

Buy it from Amazon.

Jessy Lanza “It Means I Love You”

There’s only three major elements to this arrangement – drum machine, keyboard, vocal – and while they’re all in sync, they vary quite a bit in urgency. Jessy Lanza’s vocal part is the most relaxed thing in the mix, with her sounding light and conversational, and only partly tethered to the tempo. The beat is considerably more busy and intense, and it’s the main structural element of the song in the way the guitar would provide the primary structure in a standard rock song. The keyboard parts bridge the gap between the two, roughly keeping with the tempo while complementing the loose, slightly detached vibe of the vocal. I like the way this all comes together in the context of Lanza’s lyrics – she’s singing about the earliest stages falling in love and while her tone is casual and playful, the percussion implies a nervous energy that’s driving the feeling but is tactfully being kept under the surface.

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Basia Bulat “Long Goodbye”

“Long Goodbye” is a song about coming out of a relationship that you know wasn’t very good and still being angry about how it ended. How could they be so careless with your heart? How could they string you along for so long? How did you fall for any of it? You blame yourself for being blinded by love, and maybe that’s it. Basia Bulat sings this song with a steely, bitter tone, and the words are rather cutting. But as much as the lyrics are a string of recriminations ostensibly directed towards the ex, it’s clear that this isn’t for them at all. This isn’t for their ears; it’s all directed inward. It’s the story you need to tell yourself over and over so a narrative sticks, and you can write off a bit of the past and move on.

Buy it from Amazon.