Lorde I don't have the full context for this song, but this is probably my favourite because I like Lorde, I like her songwriting, I like aggressive tracks and I really like Lorde writing a song about revenge. It feels like she is singing a really beautiful song as she lights a fuse. This is just all around solid. There is better written songs this week, but nothing else is as strong in its entirety here.
Jingle PunksThis would be the better written song because Aha wrote a fucking masterpiece back in the day. Take On Me is a really strong song and it carries these guys pretty far. I think they should have kept the vocal track though instead of just palming it off to first Violin. Like get some gravelly old lounge dude to do it for dat hipster factor. Also it is weird hearing the electronic drum track direct in tho the mix with all the other recorded instruments. It is solid in the way a pretty straight cover of a really great track is.
ScooterI kind of want to hear what you have to say about these guys because I literally have no fucking idea what is going on here. Like it is an old school techno band with some of that delicious oppressive bass line and mega synthetic chords like they haven't changed how they make music since the mid 90s. Which is to say they are fucking awesome and I hope they never change. On the other hand it is a band like that with a 50 year old lead singer who has like 3 sampled lines that dominates the video and it is of them rolling up to a concert with all their shit setup living the high life playing a packed stage with fuck loads of pyro and shit everywhere as if they were Guns and Roses in 1989 and not a techno band in 2014. I literally have no fucking idea what the hell is going on here.
Taylor SwiftHoooooboy I have a lot to say about this and it is going to come off as hate and it is really just like me saying it isn't for me?
On one part it is musically super generic pop. She is sticking with the current trends with it which is a bit of a problem because the trend she is following is Lorde (clearly contrasting with the delivery in Yellow Flicker Beat this week), but instead of using it to deliver a rough edged track talking about something deeply personal she uses it to cleanly deliver a pop track.
The other side of what I dislike is going to seem a bit hypocritical of me, but I don't like the content of the track. Now that is coming from me who has been talking about wanting more aggressive female vocalists. It is a song about a character being admittedly unstable and having perpetual unhealthy relationship cycles. Two of the artists I consistently post about listening to in the Music thread both write about that a fuck load. Amy Winehouse had many songs about short pointless sex when she wanted more out of a relationship. Staying togethr with someone because she loves them but knows they are bad for each other and reinforce each others drug/alcohol dependencies. Like 100% literally the things that lead to her death were right there on the cover of what she sang about. She was a mess and told everyone about it beautifully. The Long Blondes on the other hand is all a character much like Taylor Swift's here, they have tracks about sleeping with the female POV character instead of your boring girlfriend because she won't take you very far and will keep you at arms lenght being "proper". They have another track about how she pities the girl he left her for, because the shit he does is terrible and he is unhealthy to be with. Hell one of my favourite Divinyls songs is about staying together just because the sex is good. The key difference that all of these tracks have is that they tell a story with significantly more depth. They are stories of broken people and they tell you WHY they are broken. Taylor Swift just presents a situation with no context. I don't know if you are supposed to identify with the POV character or what, but there is just no texture it is just "I be so cray yo" and doesn't have much going on. These other tracks say way more in less time and with more variation in the track (because they are telling more of a story than "I started a relationship and told you I was crazy, watch me end up crazy". The closest Long Blondes track to that is Once and Never Again which is similar in that it is a short repeated chorus that slowly changes over time, but it drastically twists the message of "I remember what it is like to be a young girl" to "I remember what it is like to have sex with a young girl, we should do that". The slight shift in phrase moves things a whoooooole lot further in that case.
So. Shock. Awe. I still don't like Taylor Swift because she is waaaaaaaaaay to clean pop for me. The same as every other time. I don't aggressively hate her as an artist, she is just really popular and ubiquitous and is not for me >_> Mad props for those album sales though. She might not be for me but she is clearly for a fuck load more people than the bands I talk about above were (though Divinyls pulled okay numbers, like I don't think they have to work regular jobs).
PentatonixI am glad to see Pentatonix going back to their more usual stuff, just the vocals carrying the majority of the track with the cello and drum to prop things up. Back in form doing a song I care nothing for and care nothing about. At least it isn't Drummer boy! I can see linking it since it is a bit more in your target audience's wheel house than mine, but might be a bit early for a Christmas track? It is only the middle of November... that said I need to do my Christmas shopping.
Calvin HarrisI don't have a great deal to say about the track. It is okay. These two have collaborated before on okay tracks if I remember correctly? The film clip is fucking weird though. I don't quite understand why anyone thought it was a good idea to mix a domestic argument, existentitial crisis and sweet dirtbike wheelies together. Like pick any of those two together and you are fine, but all three? It just doesn't work out.
And I haven't given it enough listens to really vouch for it, but a friend of mine who I also talk a lot of music with passed this along so I thought I should give it a mention.
Hollie Stephenson - Broken Heart StringsWhiiiiich now that I have given it a good listen actually ties back into my circle jerk about Taylor Swift. This is a good song about broken people. It doesn't quite have the degree of damage that Amy Winehouse does (because very few people are that damaged and capable of music like that), but it is pretty similar delivery. Somewhere between Amy Winehouse and Adelle? Like no where near as dirty as Amy was but not even remotely close to the melodrama of Adelle.
9PM edit - AC/DC have a new track? Oy vey. Not the best timing with young Malcolm thing happening... OH well, for all that Malcolm done fucked up Angus still shreds like a beast. Edit edit - Ignore this. I was mixing up my members. Malcolm left because he was suffering dementia. Nothing at all wrong there. Malcolm left on top. He is sill aces.
It was Phil Rudd the drummer that has the unfortunate things going on at the moment.
9:15 edit - SO like. I think maybe you shouldn't link to that AC/DC track but should just link to a bunch of random AC/DC tracks because I have been clicking Related Videos for the last quarter of an hour and reliving all the love I have ever had for Angus Young all over again. Man AC/DC fucking rule so much it is ridiculous. They don't even need to do anything different. Just put out random variations of the same basic track for half a decade. It doesn't matter they literally perfected rock and roll in one track.
