Eh, this format is kinda fun, so why not run with it for another week? I’ve only got one song this week though, but to make up for it I’ve got a shameless plug for my own work at the end.

The 1975 – “Love It If We Made It”

I don’t really have the time or desire to sum up the discourse surrounding the 1975 in its entirety, so I’ll leave it at this: 

The 1975 are a contemporary British rock band with a penchant for the ridiculous, the pretentious, the “meh”, and the sublime, often all at once. They released an album called A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships last year.

“Love It If We Made It” got a lot of attention during the pre-release cycle, whether it was for the straight-from-the-headlines verses, or just, you know, the fact that people really liked the song. I was curious about what all the hubbub was, but not enough to actually check it out myself with any urgency.

And then I saw this video:

And, uh, wow. There’s a lot that I like about this, and a lot of it comes back to “dude shouts about how things are terrible with wild abandon, and proceeds to bust out frantic dance moves”.

It really hits the spot.

SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION

Yeah, so I guess here is as good a place as any to mention that I have a SoundCloud now. I’ve got five songs up there at the moment, and I’ll probably have more in the future. So hey, if droning, ambient soundscapes are your thing (or simple synth-heavy instrumentals, or sludgy, vaguely-country, noisy synth-rock), maybe head on over and check it out. You might like it, ideally. 

You also might not. Only one way to find out though.

Well, I’m gonna just cop out and do another “Songs of the Week” post this week because that’s really the only thing on my mind. So here we go:

Vampire Weekend – “Unbearably White”

Because of course the best song Vampire Weekend have released from Father of the Bride so far is called “Unbearably White”. That’s just the kind of band these guys are. 

In contrast with just about every other song they’ve released in this current album cycle, “Unbearably White” forgoes a lot of the sunnier, “indie”-adjacent pop characteristics for something much more sparsely arranged and moody. If anything, it reminds me more of the Vampire Weekend from 2013’s Modern Vampires of the City, which is always welcome. The arrangements on that album often went in strange new directions, sometimes mid-song, and there’s a bit of that going on here. The strings creep in rather unexpectedly on the chorus, and while in earlier songs they might have engaged in some baroque acrobatics thanks to the arrangements of former member Rostam Batmanglij, here they simmer just below the surface with a high tremolo, merely adding to the tension. There’s an eerie, almost breathy synth that appears throughout, which is easily another highlight. 

There’s just a lot of subtle, neat things going on here, and suddenly I’m a lot more excited for Father of the Bride.

Orange Juice – “Three Cheers for Our Side”

Sometimes you just love an album or song by a band a lot, and you listen to it a lot, yet for some reason you still don’t know anything about that band. Names of band members, where the band is from, nothing. You could easily look this information, but you don’t because you either appreciate the rare mystery in your media-consuming life, or are (far more likely) just too lazy to remedy the situation.

Alright, maybe that’s just me.

Anyways, that’s pretty much the extent of my relationship with Orange Juice’s You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever. My brother found out about it somehow, listened to it a lot, told me about it at some point, and then I listened to it at lot. Now I’m not arguing for consuming art entirely without context, because that’s hardly a responsible impulse in our current day and age, but sometimes something just hits all the right pleasure centres in your brain that you simply don’t think to ask any further questions. “Three Cheers for Our Side” is one of those songs for me. There isn’t a single thing about it that I don’t like. That guitar tone, the backup vocals, the jarring tempo changes, every single thing just works for me. It’s an incredibly well-executed piece of guitar pop, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

There isn’t much on my mind this week, so I’m just going to write about some songs I’ve been listening to a lot recently.

The Beths- “Little Death”

The Beths are a New Zealand band whose first full-length album, Future Me Hates Me, came out last year to a generally positive reception, at least to my knowledge. They weren’t really on my radar until late last year, and despite the non-stop praise from a friend of mine I didn’t even check out the album until this past week. And wouldn’t you know it, the album is really, really good. Each song is incredibly well-crafted with memorable melodies, exhilarating arrangements, and all-around impressive musicianship. “Little Death” is probably my favourite song on the album, but it’s pretty hard to pick one reason why. There’s the way singer Elizabeth Stokes’ voice cracks singing the titular line, the way her bandmates come in with counter-melodies later in the song, or generally the way the band builds the song’s energy over the 5-minute runtime. It’s great stuff, and I can’t wait to see what they do next.

Vampire Weekend- “Sunflower”

Six years is a long time for a band to be away, and the inevitable return is bound to be a little rocky. Things only get tougher when one of the founding members of the band, who also had arguably the largest influence over the band’s sound and arrangements, leaves (amicably, to be fair) to instead focus on his solo career. That’s the situation Vampire Weekend currently find themselves in with their upcoming album Father of the Bride. Since the album’s not out yet, I obviously can’t pass judgement on whether or not they succeed, and even with the four songs already released I’m still not sure what to think. I kind of hated “Sunflower” the first time I heard it, but then it kept getting stuck in my head and eventually grew on me. So, well, I don’t know.

Well, here’s the first problem I’ve encountered with having a music-related blog: I’ve barely been listening to music recently.

I mean, obviously in a sense that’s not true. It’s very difficult to not listen to music at all during the day, but I’ve found myself listening to it much less often, generally. Intentional, focused music listening seems to have disappeared from my routine for the time being, as nothing seems to be able to hold my attention.

This is of course no one’s “fault” but my own, if it’s any one thing’s fault at all. It’s not like there’s a shortage of fantastic music out there to discover, new or old, so it’s not even worth trying to pretend like that’s the problem. Likewise, I doubt it’s the problem of there being too much music to choose from either. 

To be honest, I’m not sure what the reason is.

It’s no big deal, though. These things happen from time to time. I’ve always thought of it as something of a cool-down period between phases of intense engagement. Some last longer than others, but they always pass.

Admittedly, it has been a while since an album by an artist has sort of taken over my life for a period of time, but the exciting thing is that you never know what will. In fact, some of my favourite albums of recent years have done just that. When that happens, it’s always special, and suddenly all those seemingly lost habits return to you in no time.

I suppose my point here is that there’s not necessarily any need to fret about any of this. Everything will work out just fine, like it always seems to.

Also, all my worries are for naught, as Carly Rae Jepsen has a new album coming out this year.

All hail The Queen.

– Jordan