It's the Supersound

Scout Niblett “Can’t Fool Me Now”

The arrangement for this song is astonishing – you get the intense, sorta uncomfortable intimacy of a typical Scout Niblett song, but the subtle string parts make it feel a lot more epic. It’s not your usual “big bombastic string arrangement” either – for the most part, you get this high, trilling anxious sound that tempers the raw anger of her lyrics with a queasy unease. It’s perfect, because this is pretty much exactly how realizing that you’ve let yourself be fucked over by someone can feel.

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Vår “Begin to Remember”

The first thing that comes to mind whenever I hear this song, or this Vår album in general, is overcast skies. It sounds like music made in a place where there is nothing but overcast skies. The vocals are just pained, yearning moans – powerful feelings dulled down to their lowest ebb. It’s the sound of this song that gets me, particularly the repetition of that kind of shrill high tone. It’s not exactly musical, I’m not sure what the sound is. But it goes from seeming like a broken machine to feeling more like some strange beacon cutting through the fog of everything else in the track.

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Daft Punk with Panda Bear “Doin’ It Right”

I have a lot of mixed feelings about Daft Punk’s new album, and for the most part I’m not feeling it, but I have no reservations about loving this song. Yes, I do wish it was faster and I’m holding out for a superior remix, but at the same time, I really appreciate the way this song is like this extended, groovy chill out session before moving on to the full-on party stage. (I assume that when the robots promise that everyone will be “coin’ it right and everybody will be dancing” they are talking about the point in the evening when someone puts on Discovery.) Panda Bear is amazing on this – he’s not doing anything different from what he’s been up to on Animal Collective albums and his solo work, but in terms of melody, he’s at the top of his game, and his earnest boy voice is nicely complemented by the robot vocoder hook.

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Classixx featuring Nancy Whang “All You’re Waiting For”

The key word in the title here is “waiting” – it’s a song about counting down the seconds to see somebody, and the nervous energy that goes into anticipating that moment. The little nuisances along the way to that moment seem like more of a hassle than they would usually, and the excitement is mixed in with a vague fear of disappointment. But despite this tinge of doubt, “All You’re Waiting For” feels like an optimistic, happy song, and it’s not just a matter of a dance beat and bright keyboard tones. This is the good kind of nervous; the feeling just before something you know is good for you is about to happen.

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Majical Cloudz “This Is Magic”

I remember a few weeks ago Ian Cohen tweeting something to the effect of how Devon Welsh of Majical Cloudz could’ve made a killing ghost writing the new Depeche Mode album, and everyone would’ve been better off for it. This stuck in my head, and it surfaces every time I hear this song, which is basically the best Depeche Mode song since the early 90s by a wide margin. Not to sell Welsh short, though: He’s got his own thing going, and so few people are good at this sort of stylish, melodramatic hyper-masculine balladry that it’s always welcome. This is excellent “brooding guy walking through the city in the rain, thinking about his many regrets” music.

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Laura Mvula “Make Me Lovely”

“Make Me Lovely” is one of those rare, special songs that is both marvelously ambitious and seemingly effortless in its construction. There’s a lot of things coming together here – mannered neo-soul, nuanced orchestration, a touch of jazz, a melodic sensibility somewhere between ’70s Paul McCartney and prime Stevie Wonder. The composition mirrors the epic turmoil of the lyrics, in which Mvula attempts to distance herself from a partner who could not accept her as she is, and tried to make her into something else: “I can’t make you love me / you can’t make me lovely.” The music, with its 20th century glamor, make the declarative lines come across as magical epiphanies, and each time the musical stakes are raised, she sounds closer to a point of being entirely rid of this person who has held her back.

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R.E.M. “Get Up” (Live in Greensboro, SC, 1989)

A lot of songs that implore the listener to “do something” with their lives can seem awfully smug and self-satisfied, but R.E.M.’s “Get Up” side-steps that trap by making it clear from the start that the singer is addressing himself as much as the audience. The lyrics are intentionally vague about what Michael Stipe wants us all to do, but the basic point is abundantly clear: No matter who we are or what we do, we need to resist the empty comforts of apathy and become active members of society. The song is meant to apply to everyone, whether they are a teenager who needs some kind of permission to pursue a life in the arts or sciences, an office worker who needs the extra push to get involved with local politics, or a member of a pop band who needs to do more than just indulge in hedonism.

As noted by Marcus Gray in his book It Crawled From The South, “Get Up” is essentially a “lullaby in reverse.” The song hops in place like an impatient and excited little kid, and its peppy bubblegum hooks place it among the most joyous and immediately ingratiating songs in the band’s repertoire. It also boasts a rather clever arrangement full of interesting details that aren’t exactly subtle, but fit together without distracting the listener from the tune. The chorus features one of the best examples of the band’s contrary approach to writing lyrics for background vocals — as Michael sings “dreams they complicate my life,” Bill Berry counters him with “dreams they complement my life.” It’s not really an argument, though. Even if the song is an exhortation to action, it acknowledges that our dreams supply us with an essential motivation as long as we don’t get lost within them.

Buy it from Amazon. This was originally posted on my old R.E.M. site Pop Songs 07-08 on April 27th 2007.

Vampire Weekend “Don’t Lie”

“I want to know, does it bother you? / the low click of a ticking clock.” Yes, yes it does. Nearly every song on Modern Vampires of the City reckons with the inevitability of time running out, and to be honest with you, it really gets under my skin. Ezra Koenig mentions death a lot, but in some ways, it’s hyperbolic – it’s not about death, it’s about the fear of adulthood, and surrendering the possibilities of youth. Koenig’s characters sense doors closing behind them at every turn, and feel the weight of decisions they might have not considered to be particularly important even just a few years ago. “Don’t Lie” is a love song, really, but the urgency of the romantic feeling is amped up by morbidity – “there’s a headstone right in front of you, and everyone I know.” The feelings are strong, but the character is caught up in the anxious rush to find more experiences, and the fear that making a commitment is a death sentence for their youth.

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Bibio “You”

It’s hard to remember what music was like before chipmunked soul vocals. I mean, I lived through that time, but it’s a haze – just a slightly more drab version of life without this particular surefire path to immediate joy. Bibio is breaking no new ground in “You” – you’re probably familiar with Kanye and Dilla, right? – but the song is glorious all the same, with mellow, slightly out-of-it phases bracketing a sample that just sorta bounces up in the mix. It sounds like a sudden moment of elation after you’ve sorta forgotten what that feels like.

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Chance the Rapper “Good Ass Intro”

I have to get this out of the way first: It is so weird to me that this guy goes by “Chance the Rapper” when his actual real name is Chancellor, which would be a perfectly decent rap name, especially in a world where one of the most popular rappers is called Drake and everyone is totally fine with it. Also, I find it really weird that when people write about him, no one ever seems to compare his voice or style to Lyrics Born from Latyrx. The only way this makes sense is if everyone just wants to pretend Lyrics Born and Latyrx never happened, which is…stupid, c’mon, do you really want to live in a world without “Lady Don’t Tek No”? No. But I really enjoy his voice and flow, and it’s nice to get back to that comfy Kanye-circa-College Dropout vibe, especially since there’s no way in hell Kanye himself is ever going back to that. Maybe it’s just a young sound? A lot of Chance’s mixtape is about reconnecting with an early childhood that was not very long ago, and I guess part of that is capturing this feeling that’s like a very soulful sort of innocence.

Get it for free from Chance’s site.