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Friday afternoon music post
Sep. 26th, 2008 02:47 pmSo, there's two songs that I just can't stop thrashing at the moment...
Deerhunter - "Fluorescent Grey"
Deerhunter are an American indie-rock band with very heavy shoegaze overtones. I really enjoyed their album Cryptograms, even if it was a bit of a muddled affair. The best moments on that album were the times when Deerhunter kept all the haziness and drone that makes them interesting, but then tempered it with tight, concise songwriting (the album had perhaps a few too many directionless noise detours). "Fluorescent Grey" is the first track on the EP of the same name (which came out last year), and it's basically the best thing they've ever done. It starts out very melodic (catchy, even), and there's some very provocative lyrics going on ("Why do I dream so often of his body, when his body will decay? His flesh will be fluorescent grey"). However, the best thing is the song's second half, when an immense wash of dense guitar-drone flows in and carries it all the way to its conclusion.
Ringo Shiina - "Gips"
I love a really good pop song. Unfortunately they can be hard to come by, with pop music being the domain of more pre-fab, watered-down, faux-sentimental crud than pretty much any other genre. Ringo Shiina (who went on to form the awesome jazz-rock-pop collective Tokyo Jihen) is awesome in a way that young singers like Avril Lavigne desperately wish they were - extremely emotive, vulnerable, moving, powerful and full of personality and genuine songwriting talent. She's also got a truly amazing voice, able to shift from delicate to speaker-busting in the blink of an eye. "Gips" is her big, heart-on-the-sleeve, crowd-pleasing ballad (to stay with the Avril comparison, think "I'm With You" only, you know, awesome), and it's simply one of the most uplifting things I've heard in ages. The chorus absolutely soars.
Deerhunter - "Fluorescent Grey"
Deerhunter are an American indie-rock band with very heavy shoegaze overtones. I really enjoyed their album Cryptograms, even if it was a bit of a muddled affair. The best moments on that album were the times when Deerhunter kept all the haziness and drone that makes them interesting, but then tempered it with tight, concise songwriting (the album had perhaps a few too many directionless noise detours). "Fluorescent Grey" is the first track on the EP of the same name (which came out last year), and it's basically the best thing they've ever done. It starts out very melodic (catchy, even), and there's some very provocative lyrics going on ("Why do I dream so often of his body, when his body will decay? His flesh will be fluorescent grey"). However, the best thing is the song's second half, when an immense wash of dense guitar-drone flows in and carries it all the way to its conclusion.
Ringo Shiina - "Gips"
I love a really good pop song. Unfortunately they can be hard to come by, with pop music being the domain of more pre-fab, watered-down, faux-sentimental crud than pretty much any other genre. Ringo Shiina (who went on to form the awesome jazz-rock-pop collective Tokyo Jihen) is awesome in a way that young singers like Avril Lavigne desperately wish they were - extremely emotive, vulnerable, moving, powerful and full of personality and genuine songwriting talent. She's also got a truly amazing voice, able to shift from delicate to speaker-busting in the blink of an eye. "Gips" is her big, heart-on-the-sleeve, crowd-pleasing ballad (to stay with the Avril comparison, think "I'm With You" only, you know, awesome), and it's simply one of the most uplifting things I've heard in ages. The chorus absolutely soars.
