Songs of the Week 09/01/2023

I got tired of the monthly songs thing. I have so much to say. Please let me infodump. please I'm begging you

SOMETHING TO FIND | Jim Noir First off, another short and sweet Patreon-exclusive treat from Jim Noir—a selection from the monthly EPs we've been covering regularly in anticipation of Noir's upcoming album(s?) until relatively recently. Admittedly, when it's clear most of Alan Roberts's effort has recently been sunk into his band Co-Pilot and their debut album Rotate, I've had a hard time keeping up with these EPs—thankful as I am to have them, I've been too busy digesting his more complete goodies on Rotate to dig back into his solo stuff. Tennith, confusingly the eleventh EP of the bunch, hammers home the routine these releases have established—a standout pop song, two more that blend into the bunch, and an instrumental that I forget at first but find stuck in my head many days later. The man is a master of little ditties, and I'm always amazed to witness how many rabbits he has in his hat. Yet, as "Something to Find" laments over watery synth and a twinge of pensive harmonica, "you tell me it's a balancing act / for us to have food on the table / well here's a rabbit in a hat / I'm not that hungry yet," and still, there's "something to find" left behind. Forgive me for always mentioning this, but that sounds a bit like creative burnout—peddling one's talents to tread water, but not forging ahead far enough to find that magical "something" art grasps at. Okay, we're fully into the part of this post where I'm projecting my own creative fears on good ol' Jim (again), so I'll end like I always do: I can't wait to hear what these final songs sound like with polishing, I can't wait to hear what this album(s?) sounds like when songs across EPs start pairing well together ("Cloud" [Reviewed 09/23/2023] from EP 5 comes to mind in this case), and of course, support Jim Noir on Patreon so we can get there together.

Pairs Well With: "Kitty Cat" (Jim Noir), "Dance Floor" (The Apples in Stereo), "Caroline" (Arlo Parks)

WHY DOES THE SUN SHINE? (HERE COMES SCIENCE VERSION) | They Might Be Giants covering Tom Glazer & Dottie Evans When it comes to goated kids' musicians—the sort that write clever and cool songs without a hint of condescension—They Might Be Giants reign undefeated right alongside Dan Zanes (which doesn't totally jive with the concept of "undefeated," but I just couldn't pit two weirdocore girlbosses against each other, why can't we all just be friends, etc.). It's a joke in the TMBG community (knowing the acronym means I'm in the loop) that no one's ever sure which songs are for adults and which are for kids because they're all so genuinely strange. If there ever was an "exhibit A" for this case, my pick would be "Why Does The Sun Shine?"—a sixties kids' song covered on an adult album and then re-covered for a kids' album (and that's not even the full story). Originally from the 1965 album Space Songs, "Why Does The Sun Shine," as performed by Tom Glazer & Dottie Evans, was ripe for a remake. That's not to deny the brilliance of a line like "the sun is a mass of incandescent gas," but there's some latent weirdness here just waiting to get weirder in the right hands. With a toddling tune and awkward, lectured insets that completely halt the music, this discount Schoolhouse Rock! song has all of the ingredients to be picked up for some Legion needle drop, but I can't think of a better band to rework it than They Might Be Giants. Their first stab, from an album of the same name, was fairly faithful to the dopiness of the original, though it passively earns weirdness points just because of the context. Though this is the version that became a classic—the one I and many others were first exposed to—to me, this cover shines far brighter in its second iteration. While so much of TMBG's discography is compatible with all ages, my indie parents first exposed me to their music through the trilogy of educational kids' albums, Here Come The ABCs, Here Come the 123s, and Here Comes Science, three fonts of bizarre bangers that I still find stuck in my head on the regular. Though I'm not sure I realized how funny it was as a kid, one of my first "I understand that reference" moments was when their "Why Does the Sun Shine?" redux abruptly plowed onto the scene midway through Here Comes Science, wearing an electric, Ramones makeover. "Why Does the Sun Shine" take two unironically and unapologetically fucks, pummeling the drums with the fists of ten billion hydrogen bombs and turning even the spoken sections into these sizzling, punk interludes that hype up Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen, and Helium like they're wrestlers. For the ideal clashing sensory experience, check out the accompanying music video, which is the softest, fuzziest, kawaii little thing, for some reason. It's like a marshmallow and nails sandwich.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/3JdWlSF195Y?si=Ez4I2A15rHnmhyWX

Oh, and you thought it was over? No-no, little boy. Ever the stewards of scientific accuracy, They Might Be Giants immediately follow "Why Does The Sun Shine?" with a redaction/apology/diss track of the original entitled "Why Does The Sun Really Shine? (The Sun is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma)" that more accurately depicts the inner workings of our star in (semi-)accessible pop lyrics. Rhyming words like "plasma" and "quagmire" in this song should kill or at least grievously maim the funk, but here I am talking about how great it is, right? In a way, this might feel like a double-whammy dunk on the original—like, not only did they ignite nuclear life within a decades-dead song (twice), they then revised the song with smarter scientific lyricism and it still rocks. Even so, these covers and commentaries are so filled with heart that I can't see them as anything but a love letter—without Tom Glazer and Dottie Evans, without a doubt, there'd be none of these iterations to begin with.

Pairs Well With: "Why Does the Sun Really Shine? (The Sun is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma)" (They Might Be Giants) "Spud Infinity" (Big Thief) [Reviewed 08/25/2023], "Verb: That's What's Happening" (Schoolhouse Rock!)

CAROLINE | Arlo Parks A pick from my sister's Sunday Song reviews (Madeline! Todd! Dot! Com!), I was too swept off my feet by Arlo Parks's "Caroline" not to talk about it. For the amount I feature bedroom pop on Max Todd Dot Com (Max! Todd! Dot! Com! There, I did both, thank you goodnight), it might be surprising to know it's sort of adjacent to my usual music taste. In fact, I thought to myself while transcending to the tune of "Caroline" that in any other context, I'd probably roll my eyes at a lo-fi vignette of a train station breakup—I even wrote a story about why that sort of fiction doesn't always sit right with me—but Arlo Parks wrung every last emotion out of this observation, like a full-blown indie movie scene. Having collaborated with the likes of Phoebe Bridgers, Parks clearly isn't want for indie street cred, but there's a faded, floaty quality here that counterbalances the genre's coffee-stained melancholy that might normally turn me away. There's something very Morcheeba in the mix of "Caroline"—maybe in Parks's Skye Edwards-esque voice, or maybe in the soft beat that makes "Caroline"'s cloudiness catchy. Either way, "Caroline" is kinetic beneath its sopping, fuzzy feelings, which may be what makes it so exciting to a still-sensitive person like me. I've spoken many times on the overwhelm of pure-sadness songs, but the fact that "Caroline" has the creativity to bridge the likes of "Save Me" [Reviewed 11/11/2022] and "The Bug Collector" [Reviewed 01/20/2023] with something like Love & Rockets' "So Alive" keeps it safely afloat on replay. In fact, I may have opted for more technically accurate pairings this week, but "Caroline" links "Something to Find" and "Nature Boy" super well across genres. This versatility is begging for visuals, too—imagine this song's story portrayed in a jittery flipbook of sepia polaroids collaged with train tickets and mementos. Hopefully, the rest of Parks's discography is this cool—I'm sure I'll be hearing more from her soon, which means you all will, too.

Pairs Well With: "Save Me" (Aimee Mann) [Reviewed 11/11/2022], "So Alive" (Love & Rockets), "The Bug Collector" (Hailey Heynderickx) [Reviewed 01/20/2023]

NATURE BOY | David Bowie & Massive Attack covering Nat King Cole Serendipitously, we've actually got another remix of a cover this week, and much as he's fallen out of favor with me ("he's hwhhite?"), I should be thanking Baz Luhrmann every day for convincing Massive Attack to collaborate with David Bowie on a cover of Nat King Cole's "Nature Boy" for his film, Moulin Rouge! Unfortunately, I haven't seen Moulin Rouge!, and I don't think I plan to see Moulin Rouge!, which might be a disservice on my part. Much as a cabaret outside of Schitt's Creek isn't my style, when it comes to a mixed-media auteur like Luhrmann, this cover's intended experience may be inseparable from its context, and this might end up being one of those reviews where I'm like "this song is so cool and fun" and it's actually about a character dying (not that I've ever done that before). Luckily, after doing some reading, I don't think that'll be a problem this time—while David Bowie's solo, orchestral take flits in and out of the film at several points, Luhrmann cut the Massive Attack version from the end credits of Moulin Rouge! because it was too spooky for an already sad ending, I guess. Spoilers, by the way. Moulin Rouge! has an exclamation point in the title, but it's a nihilistic exclamation point. Luhrmann was so ahead of his time.

Freed from the restrictions of required viewing, this song stands on its own as an exceptionally eerie cover of an already-enchanting song. I love Nat King Cole's original on delicate piano and bass, but it's an entirely different sort of eerie—the empty space between phrases is more hypnotic, like an alley cat slinking through a quiet, nighttime cityscape. Perhaps it's the context of his death, but Bowie's beautifully-aged vocals to me take on a more mournful quality past the turn of the century, which gives this song's latent mystery a more tragic tinge. In the hands of Massive Attack, experts at conducting sinister and sublime atmospheres alike, this tinge fragments into another emotion entirely—something almost like witnessing fate. The looping sounds of Bowie's shattered orchestra almost conjure the image of a tesseract folding and unfolding four-dimensional narratives. That might be a little too high-concept, but as the intended closer to a farce that itself creates a loop, it makes a lot of sense to me. Whether or not that's your jam, the music itself might be—it certainly gives me goosebumps every time.

Pairs Well With: "Take it There" (Massive Attack, Tricky, and 3D), "Rachel's Song" (Vangelis) [Reviewed 05/26/2023], "The Abyss" (Chelsea Wolfe)

(I AM TAKING OUT MY EUROTRASH) I STILL GET ROCKS OFF | Blonde Redhead Though I like so few of Blonde Redhead's songs at present, I like those few so much that I'm always on the lookout for more—enough to afford them a listen every time they drift into my recommended. That's how I came across some of their earliest work, La Mia Vita Violenta, which I was surprised to find sounded so different while maintaining their style from the start. While I'm used to off-kilter indie songs like "In Particular" and "Loved Despite of Great Faults" in the same weirdo vein as Lemon Twigs, La Mia Vita Violenta sits squarely in Blonde Redhead's Sonic Youth-inspired beginnings, grimy and harsh from the very first track. It turns out, many elements I considered uniquely Blonde Redhead started as a collage of noise-rock quirks—in this setting, the squeaky, straining vocals of Kazu Makino and Amedeo Pace mirror Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore's own alternating voices, and their affinity for November-foreboding tones harkens back to the fringe cynicism in the no-wave community ("no-wave" being a genre I only just figured out about, by the way, only to realize it's just punk punking themselves again. And this is pre-"grunge," too, as if that's not just the same cycle. Like, we get it punk, you're trying to be unlikable on purpose. You're doing great). After marination in shoegaze and dream pop influences, these traits became staples of a uniquely Blonde Redhead sound, but even before this synthesis, songs like "(I Am Taking Out My Eurotrash) I Still Get Rocks Off" are still a blast to listen to (if you weren't already sold by that title). Spitting and greasy, "I Still Get Rocks Off" is an artfully messy piece where no note hits a bullseye but the thrashing emotions are spot-on—in other words, punk done right, and a fiery starting point for more complex explorations.

Pairs Well With: "Jacqueline" (Franz Ferdinand), "You Made Me Realize" (My Bloody Valentine), "Dirty Boots" (Sonic Youth)

CAVE OF THE HEART | Phyllis Hutchinson MontroseYou all know I've been on a Kirkland Kick, and that's because I always forget how many wonderful artists fly under the radar. It's nice to know some of the big names on more of a local level, especially as static art's biggest names become less and less well known. Allegedly, Montrose is a Colorado hotshot, which I find quite reassuring considering the sort of smoldering, snow-dusted cowboys and tie-dye mountain mammals my hometown produces (those are the only two genres. Actually, there was a long period of time where a local bagel shop was basically displaying photorealistic furry art of these, like, musclebound, anthropomorphic mountain lions appropriating indigenous garb, but I don't think it was as mainstream at that point, so it kind of crept under the radar. Otherwise... yea, just the first two). The stark desert in this piece, surveyed by a too-clean, isosceles cloud, instills the same, dreamlike anxiety in me as Dalí's empty landscapes, and I'm a real sucker for that stuff. Glad to see some surrealist rep in my home state.