Thursday, March 28, 2024

The New Pornographers - champions of red wine, 2014

“Champions of Red Wine” is uptempo and brilliantly played and produced, with a powerful, anchoring vocal chorus that builds up to the entry of the song’s lead singer, American singer-songwriter Neko Case, and fills spaces between her early lines then revisits later as a kind of tagline for the piece. The song starts with an electric guitar and arpeggiated synthesizer (plus a tambourine), and the melody kicks into gear once the drummer comes in. (Interesting sidebar: in a 2014 interview with the American non-profit National Public Radio, Case and songwriter Newman talk about the album Brill Bruisers and how, during the recording of the song, he was singing lead and Case was backup; in production, he removed his vocal from the mix and felt her singing was much better for the piece). The meaning of “Champions of Red Wine” is unclear."

REM - so central rain, 1984

"i don't think it's about anything so specific...just about feeling guilty for things that were never in your hands to begin with...or not having the foresight to see an opportunity pass until there's no turning back..."

Beirut - at once live, 2015

"This is gonna sound like a romantic story, but when I was in Paris I saw this band of kids that all bought pawn shop instruments like busted up tubas and trumpets and stuff, and they would all wander around Paris, playing. They weren’t great musicians or anything, but it sounded awesome and was a lot of fun. I kind of wanted to mimic that idea. That’s why I’m working with…basically we are all amateurs. No way in hell could I ever revert back to a guitar-bass-drum kind of band. I can’t write for that. I don’t really even like the sound that much."

Father John Misty - god's favorite customer, 2018

"in remaining tight-lipped, this taciturn new aspect to Father John Misty might be his most genuinely sincere, and his most profound"

Muzz - knuckleduster, 2020

"Exclusively discussing “Knuckleduster” for American Songwriter, Josh Kaufman says that the track “was the first track we recorded and the last one to get finished. We re-cut it several different ways only to end up with the first take. This song feels like a flashback of old love, in the middle of a speedy new life adventure. Also, the drumming is exquisite.”

Paul Weller - on sunset, 2020

"an album on which he gamely attempts to meld the competing desires to be the keeper of musical traditions and a modernist in the original sense of the phrase: if you were looking for a spiritual forebear in Weller’s catalogue, you might alight on 1980’s Sound Affects, where the influence of the era’s wilfully jarring post-punk was overlaid with his obsession with mid-60s Beatles."

Slowdive - sugar for the pill, 2017

“Sugar for the Pill” is something entirely different—a disarming heartbreak ballad led by singer Neil Halstead in a surprisingly gentle mood. Sparer than their early, fuzzy compositions, and warmer than the equally minimalistic tracks on Pygmalion, “Sugar for the Pill” is simple and delicate, but never frail. The song’s greatest surprise is a smooth, catchy ‘80s soft-rock chorus—a considerable risk for a band that rarely indulged in straightforward pop. But icy needles of guitar and Rachel Goswell’s ghostly backing vocal balance out any hint of effusiveness. An undulating melody and underlying thrum of steady, persistent bass and drums imbues its sad story of a dissolving relationship with a sense of acceptance. It’s gorgeous, but grounded. In their newest incarnation, Slowdive have traded the abject longing of youth—an emotion that suffused so many shoegaze classics—for the wisdom of maturity. Every great band should age so well."

The National - nobody else will be there live, 2017

"Extremists are going to eat the Republican party alive....They're losing their moderate people."