Tag Archives: Metric

Fan Mail for Evan Peterson: Dark Songs With Pretty Words

Evan J PetersenThis is my friend Evan Peterson. Isn’t he handsome? He runs this nifty press in Seattle, and he writes zombie poetry and other things horrific, queer and clever. He has a timid greyhound rescue dog named after a character in an Oscar Wilde story.

This is a mix tape for Evan. So the songs are a little dark or a little queer, or well-stated, just like Evan and the stuff he writes. I’ve also focused on songs that are new wave, electro, or dark wave as I know those are genres Mr. Petersen and I both favor. In honing the list, I’ve favored songs that embrace big topics like God while fearlessly examining our shadow selves, because I know Evan Petersen thinks about the heavy shit.

And this is the part where I explain the choices. Because what fun is a mix if you don’t overthink it? Continue reading Fan Mail for Evan Peterson: Dark Songs With Pretty Words

Great Indie Lyricists #3: Emily Haines of Metric

This is song #3 of a playlist for my LYLAS Kat. The subject is great indie lyricists. Each week I’m focusing on the lyrics of one band and why those lyrics are worth delving into.

Hi Kat,

Since you’ve been obsessed with the Mountain Goats lately, we’ve been talking about who some of our favorite modern lyricists are. This playlist was made specifically to answer that question. Today’s band is Metric.

 

It’s no secret that Metric is one of my favorite bands of the decade. One may compare them to chick-fronted rock bands like Blondie or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. But Metric wins bonus points in having captivating, socially relevant lyrics. I first got hooked on the mysterious “The Police and the Private” and became fanatic with “Patriarch on A Vespa.” I say it’s socially relevant but it’s more poetry than preaching. She’s writing about the world she sees, and as a socially aware person, this is reflected in her writing.

Take the aforementioned “Police and the Private”. She sings:

Didn’t make this up I learned, I learned it from a friend
My friend is coming clean, she told me
Keep one eye on the door, keep one eye on the bed
Never expect to be sure who you’re working for

It’s clear she’s talking about some black market world. Is it drugs? Prostitution? Does it matter which, or does it matter more that the larger point is that “the whole world wants what we’re on…the police and the private, the doctor, the lawyer, the garbage collector“? The tone is desperate and dangerous. Never once does she ask why something the whole world wants is outlawed, as that would be preaching. I liken it to the Talking Heads song “Life During Wartime,” in that capturing the dangers of the lifestyle is more telling and more interesting than a sermon about the morality of those who choose to live in the underworld. The clincher in “Police and the Private” is the last line, Got to get to you the orphanage is closing in an hour. Such a haunting line. Does the character in the song live this dangerous lifestyle in the hopes of making enough money to get her child back? It’s unclear, merely suggestive that criminals lead desperate lives because there are other more innocent lives at stake.

 

Another example is “Gold, Guns, Girls.” The lyrics All the guns, all the gold, in the world…couldn’t get you off seem to be directed at a certain president and his cabinet that were in power when she released the song in 2009. Did she sit down to write a song about a particular politician, or does her pen naturally gravitate to such subjects because they interest her? Would the song be better if she namechecked Bush or Cheney? No, the song is better because it is about a certain type of person that Cheney happens to be an example of.

Download/Listen to Metric – Gold, Guns, Girls

Full Lyrics to Gold, Guns, Girls

 

The lyrics to Patriarch On A Vespa wouldn’t be out of place in the latest urban literary magazine. I’ll print them in full so you can imagine them not in a rock song but within your favorite poetry anthology.

 

Patriarch On A Vespa

Promiscuous makes an entrance
Her mouth is full of questions
Are we all brides to be?
Are we all designed to be confined?
Buy ourselves chastity belts and lock them
Organize our lives and lose the key
Our faces all resemble dying roses
From trying to fix it
When instead we should break it
We’ve got to break it before it breaks us

Fear of pretty houses and their porches
Fear of biological wristwatches
Fear of comparison shopping
Dogs on leashes behind fences barking
Pretty little pillows on floral couches
Until our faces all resemble dying roses
Stop trying to fix it

Patriarch on a Vespa
Runs a red and ends up
Crushed under the wheel

 

I can imagine this getting high marks at the next Berkeley poetry slam, can’t you? But on the contrary, she sings this while playing the keyboard solo and kicking her legs in the air in total bad-ass fashion. The “it” she refers to I presume to be bullshit suburbia and when she shouts “Stop trying to fix it…we should break it” she has created a couplet not matched in the history of rocking out since The Who first shouted  “Meet the new boss! Same as the old boss!” If this song had been popular enough to hit heavy rotation on corporate radio, surely it would have inspired some chair throwing and bra burning.

 

Download/Listen to Patriarch On A Vespa

 

If you want to see some chill-inspiring rockage, check out the thrills she throws down at 1:40. It will give you a sense of why Emily Haines is one of the goddesses of indie rock:

 

Bonus: If this rocks a little hard for you, check out Emily Haines solo career with her backing band The Soft Skeleton. Or if you just can’t get enough, she’s also a sometimes-singer for Broken Social Scene.

Posted via email from Like Dancing About Architecture

Best of 2010: Best Dance songs of 2010

I moved these songs around quite a bit but the songs that ended up in the top ten stayed pretty consistent (for the rest, see Best of 2010 Dance Songs Top 25). Last year I focused strictly on remixes but this year I mixed it up, presenting my favorite dance tracks, regardless of whether they were remixes, mashups or original songs. I did this because there were some exceptional dance songs which didn’t fit the traditional “remix” that just had to make the list, starting with number one.
1. Fake Blood vs Richard Vission – I Think I Like That (Coda Collins Smash Up) (5:38)Reasons This is the best remix of 2010:

  • The opening line “My body rocks a rhythm. You beat my drum hard.”
  • At exactly one minute there’s this insanely awesome beat drop that chomps down on my body, chews my brain and spits me out as a dancing maniac
  • At exactly one minute and thirty seconds Fake Blood brings out synthesized violins that will make whatever is left of my sanity joyfully explode
  • Fake Blood’s song sounds like a the shattered glass of a disco ball. So disco, so modern.
  • The lyrics sound like a Japanese anime trying to do James Bond “You want a kiss now baby? Oh fucky-fucky you! You’re dressed to kill me-kill-me. And if I die tonight, at least you thrill me-thrill-me.Oooooh!”

Ok, so it’s a little unfair to put a mashup at number one, but it really was my favorite of the year. I suppose if you must, you could put the emphasis on the Fake Blood song. But it’s a fine mash! This mashup combines these two songs seamlessly, producing something much better than either work alone. The beats for the original Richard Vission song are not bad, but they’re no match for Fake Blood. And Fake Blood’s beats, tight as they are, have a cold, clinical quality without any lyrics. Luciana’s vocal styling are as motivational as a Jane Fonda workout video. Finally, it’s a perfect mashup in that there’s such an overlap of themes other DJs must say, “I wish I’d thought of that!” Here’s the two songs separately, to decide for yourself:

Fake Blood – I think I Like It

Richard Vission & Static Revenger Starring Luciana – I Like That

2. Uffie feat. Pharrel Williams – Add Suv (Armand Van Helden Club Remix) (4:44)

I’ve been waiting for a great Uffie remix since I first heard Uffie. When Ke$ha first came on the scene, the blogosphere spat that she was just a copy of Uffie. The problem with this assessment is that though Uffie’s rhymes are solid, her beats are lacking. And along comes Armand Van Helden with what sounds to me like the second best remix of 2010.
If there’s one thing Armand Van Helden knows how to do, it’s a build up. The problem with a long build up is you need something at the end to justify all that fuss. You can always tell the kids on drugs at the club when the relish the build up more than the base drop. For everyone else, the build-up is just a sweet misery that makes the bass hit you that much harder. When those sirens rise, they better have a hell of a beat to land on. There’s bravado in such a buildup. A long tease is only satisfying if the DJ puts out. It’s a ballsy move that Helden makes even ballsier by having the word “banger” announced in that rest before he gives it to you. And he hits it hard.

3. Lemâitre – The Friendly Sound (3:54)

You’re going to think this is the new Royksopp single, but it’s better than any of what Royksopp has put out recently…at least from what I’ve heard. I’m not a huge Royksopp fan. Anyway, it’s a very new group from Oslo, Norway. They don’t even have a Myspace or recording contract yet. “The Friendly Sound” begins with beach noise in the background, then that “Eple”-like melody, then the beat. It’s glitchy with sounds of breaking glass and bleeps and bloops, like 16-bit Mario dropping a deuce. Lovely harmonies round out this oh-so friendly sound. It gets even better around 2:36.
4. Lost Valentinos – “Nightmoves” (Aston Shuffle Remix) (5:54)I like the vocal stylings on the original track. He has a deep booming voice that pitches high in the refrain. But the original track sounds too much like something you might have heard on Sprockets. It’s not bad, but the Aston Shuffle remix keeps what’s great about it and takes it to the level of ultra sickdom. When “Nightmoves” starts with the deep voice and low build up you think it’s going to be a deeply sexy slow jam. Just when you’re pondering how that deep-voiced singer can hit such a high note there’s that same long build up and righteous harmonies, now thick with the Aston Shuffle ambiance. It’s beautiful but not so beautiful that you fail to realize how wrong you were: Aw fuuuck it’s a stomper. There’s always a late addition to the list and this one crept up and up, stomping it’s way past many a fine remix to land at number four. Still not sure if it shouldn’t have been higher on the list.

I heard this in a shop in Japantown and new tracking it down would be a top priority when I got home. I was pleased that Black Eyed Peas had taken the time to rerecord the vocals from the original Dirty Dancing hit, rather then just sampling them. But to my surprise the version I’d heard in Japantown wasn’t the original but a remix. Such a shame because now is as good a time as any to get a retro treatment of everyone’s favorite Swayze flick. Unfortunately, the original Black Eyed Peas version is, well, awful. Guetta’s mix is scratchy and glitchy in all the right places: the echo on her voice before that sweet beat drop, the occasional sick vocal distortion of her voice—you can just see this blowing up the greatest summer beach party of your life.

6. Katy B – Louder (4:36)

Rumor has it Katy B is going to be the one to bring dubstep to the mainstream. Let’s hope so, as dubstep is a genre that is delivering way too many trite remixes lately. Here layered vocals and 8-bit inspired trills open up the song til a subtle loop of her British accent saying “louder” teases the beat drop. What’s unusual to me about this one is the way the the deepest, bassiest part of the song is the melody. It’s as if the bass taking over what the melody usually does, driving the song forward. It’s a fresh take on an overplayed style that has me turning the nob to the max.

7. Kid Cudi – Pursuit Of Happiness – Steve Aoki Dance Remix Intro – Dirty (6:14)

This Cudi mix doesn’t start out too exciting but at around the one minute mark you get a taste of the beast Aoki has birthed: Fuzzy rising sirens that introduce fuzzy heavy beats. The vocal sections are lovely and melodic, a nice respite from the assault of Aoki’s monster beats. It’s an onslaught of sick banging bass tempered by Cudi’s soft and friendly stoner rap. Within this there are small tweaks, like the trill that reintroduces the melody at 1:17, the delicious quarter rest at 1:39, and the laser at 2:51 that give this remix a polish that sets it apart from the other bangers 0f 2010.

Technically, this track is both too old and too new for this list. I first discovered it on AWMusic where it was posted on the last day of 2009 (worse release date ever). Which should, unfairly, make it a song of 2009. As this was before Lady Gaga was huge and Brittany was still the name on everyone’s lips, I could see this chick was going to blow up. And she did, to gargantuan sizes that have us all cowering in fear that a giant-sized Ke$ha is going to rampage Los Angeles Godzilla-style, shedding hail-sized pieces of glitter in her wake.
I kept waiting to hear this one on the radio, appropriately bleeped. Or at least in the clubs. Because it’s so mega hot and what DJ wouldn’t want to play this song? I like “Tik-Tok” but this one is waaaaay better. And I think we can all agree that the rest of Ke$ha’s hits have been no match for “Tik-Tok.” So I did my homework to make sure the song was indeed released in 2010 and I couldn’t find it on Amazon, iTunes or the album itself. What gives?
Yeah, so it’s an unreleased track by Ke$ha. An unreleased track that’s twice as hot as anything from her you’ve ever heard. Even if you don’t like Ke$ha, give this one a listen. It has the mighty power to turn your party into a filming of Girls Gone Wild (hopefully without the nasty anti-feminist camera guys!).

Often a great remix will surpass the original to the extent that the song it is based on can sound hollow in comparison. That happened to me when listening to “Night By Night” recently. Where  was the epic synth? Where was the back-and-forth vocals after the climax (“she says I’m—I say she’s—She says I’m”)? They perfectly capture the drama of an argument in a way the original never did. Chromeo is best known as one among many 80s revisionist bands, and this remix keeps that spirit while creating a darker, fuller sound that is unmistakably 21st century.

10. Metric-Twilight-Galaxy-Death-to-the-Throne-Remix (5:37)

I’m a sucker for Metric and this is hands down Death to the Throne’s finest mix to date. Frankly his mixes can be too sick for my taste but here he adds lasers and synth to take Twilight Galaxy to a positively astral dimension. He shows off his skills without demolishintg too much of Emily Haine’s lyrics. The original song is not even remotely a dance number, DttT essentially produced entirely new music to back up the song. As a Metric fan, I hate to say it but the remix is a much better song than the original. True to Death-to-the-Throne form, there is a very sick section to the song, as well there should be leading into the climax of a great remix.