concerning moi
a hideous triumph of form and function
1. The Day I Went Up To The Screen And Defeated My Self-Pity Mostly stripped down songs with a bit of casio pop. About life in-between the exciting dramatic bits.
2. Imogen Heap
3. When I Told You ‘We Have To Talk’ Your Blood Ran Cold
4. Going To Kerr Hall
5. Some Time Off
6. And Now, There’s No Sound, And I’m Empty
7. Hey Josephine
8. Going To Kaikoura!
9. Sally Shapiro
10. Baby, I’ll Wait For You (Almost Spirited Away, Pt. 3)
I’ve been diggin’ on Fresno rapper Fashawn’s no frills record from 2009, Boy Meets World. “Why” is a standout track featuring great interplay between the hook and the sample. Old school hip hop heads will go nuts over this kind of old school crate digging.
Fashawn’s the kind of rapper with his heart on his sleeve, but his style is so breezy it’s real easy to understand the hype. His swagger is confident and laidback and “Why” reflects the kind of wisdom you’d expect for someone his age; thoughtful, but full of youthful energy with plenty of room to grow.
key lyric: “I told my momma I’d change but it’s clear I’ll always be the same”
“Marathon” is a joyfully lo-fi pop song by the band Tennis, a husband and wife duo who sailed around in a boat for awhile before deciding to become a buzzband.
A hearty helping of 60s girl group with a glorious addition of surf rock guitars, these ingredients add up to a sublime mix with an organ bassline that recontextualizes its influences to float along happily on life at sea.
I can almost here the waves splashing and the gulls crying.
“we didn’t realize that/we had arrived/at high tide, high tide/barely made it out alive”
Tenderness is an attribute sorely missing from the pop music landscape today. I mean I can dig on the raunchy goofiness of Katy Perry, the slutty but charming Ke$ha and art-porn of Lady Gaga, but back in the early 90s there were several pop artists who were doing things completely different.
Donna Lewis may have only had one real hit with “I Love You Always Forever,” but it’s one of my favorite songs of all time and a great juggernaut of sweet pop song. A chugging guitar, minimal beat and Lewis’s coo, this song celebrates the quiet moments and the awe of being in love. Underneath the song’s gentle exterior is a searing passion that froths and pierces the surface at just the right moments.
“Secret moments shared in the heat of the afternoon”
Like The White Album, the veritable almanac that is Joanna Newsom’s Have One On Me keeps giving and giving. I mean really, who discovered “Cry Baby Cry” on first listen? “Esme” is one of those hidden gems that Newsom buried in the latter half of her triple disc monstrosity to reward the patient and the faithful. Graceful and reflective, it is a lullaby upon waking and reveals a level of tenderness befitting an older and wiser musician and songwriter.
key lyric: “Kindness prevails!”
I’m dropping out of film school and moving back to the best coast, California (of course), in a couple of months. “Bobby Malone Moves Home” by Casiotone For The Painfully Alone is a song of great comfort for me in making this decision, and although the circumstances aren’t nearly as pathetic (I hope not), the sentiment is the same.
The new Teen Daze record, My Bedroom Floor, opens with “Keep The Girls Away” and completely blows away all the competition. Is chillwave dead? Laughter, Sunny synths, group handclaps, disco beat and a classic guitar melody melt the ice, brush away the leaves and toss out all the long coats. Winter is dead too.
key lyrics: just groove alonggggggg
Along the same vein’s as “Christmas Lights,” Casiotone For The Painfully Alone’s Owen Ashworth sings on “Cold White Christmas” about the loneliness of the holiday season and like, Baribeau, the post-college life of twenty-somethings. I apologize for putting up depressing holiday songs, but they’re so good! Here the piano tumbles and fumbles, slightly out of tune, the beat a little too slow, but the melody is sharp and visuals succinct and clear. Not everything is cheerful around the holidays and Ashworth captures the melancholy aspects quite effectively.
key lyric: “second shift as a fry cook that’s your holiday in grease”
If forty-two seconds of filthy exclamations about incest, masturbation and shit jokes is your thing than Blink-182’s, “Happy Holidays, You Bastard,” taken from Take Off Your Pants And Jacket is the perfect holiday treat.
Nothing says Christmas cheer like lonely folkie Paul Baribeau, but “Christmas Lights” off of his second record Grand Ledge contains the poignant wintery refrain, “everything was blue/except the christmas lights.” Just Paul and his voice, he basically sums up every twenty-somethings’ experience during the winter holiday when they go home for a few days or a few weeks and see a few old friends, sleep in their dusty old room that hasn’t change since high school and really take stock at where they are in life. It’s good to have a little perspective before the start of the new year.
key lyric: “even though I’m home now/I feel completely homeless”
