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Who cannot resist the stomping bluegrass melodies of Hayseed Dixie? Well even now, many years on, I am still unsure whether they are a mere novelty act or not, their irresistible mix of banjo, mandolin, guitar, bass and the odd fiddle re-interpreting such great songs as Highway to Hell is simply delicious. Who doesn’t want to hear Scissor Sisters super-camp I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’ as a rollicking ‘popgrass’ monolith?
I love Hayseed Dixie so much simply because they are so adaptable. Their material ranges from indie covers, such as their fantastic cover of This Fire by Franz Ferdinand, to rock classics like War Pigs and Paint It Black, to their own charming bluegrass numbers. However, I really don’t see why they must wreck great covers of songs by adding, among other things, pig sounds and burping. I’m not very familiar with the bluegrass genre, but surely it isn’t common practice to imitate animals while trying to play damn good music?
There certainly isn’t anything more refreshing than hearing a bunch of great rock songs without any drums though. I love what drums add to songs, it’s just really interesting how much more of a spotlight other elements of the music get when there are no drums present. Back In Black, another AC/DC favourite of mine, sounds so different and yet so right without pounding drums. I’m sure the lack of drums wouldn’t work in rock covers of rock songs, it’s just great to see a new perspective on songs that have been hanging around for years.
Tegan and Sara, identical twins and a Canadian singer-songwriter duo have been in the music business since at least 1999 yet have only recently come to my attention. Dark Come Soon is a song off their latest album, The Con.
It’s certainly my favourite, mixing great vocal harmonies with lyrical quirks such as “Everyone I love, I need you now” with the other twin responding “So What?“.
It’s a song with multiple layers, a relationship ballad within a quirky pop song. The uplifting tones contrasting with the ominous lyrics, “Dark, you can’t come soon enough for me”. It’s one of those songs that doesn’t start slow but is always building up to a glorious crescendo, you’re constantly reminded of the coming darkness, then just like that, it’s come. End.
Except…it’s not the end. Imagine it’s a hot summers day and you’re really thirsty, so you buy a drink. You drink the drink but are still just a little bit more thirsty, not enough to warrant buying another drink but enough to bother you. The darkness mentioned throughout the song conjures that same feeling for me, I have heard quite enough of Tegan and Sara’s various problems, but for some reason, I still want that little bit more.
Themes and lyrics aside, this song doesn’t do anything spectacular, doesn’t do anything innovative, it’s just nice. I know nice is a terrible word, but it’s a song that, despite its dark tones, floats along airily; a helium balloon drifting into the sky, a feather wavering in the wind. It should make me feel a negative emotion, why doesn’t it? Am I inhuman?
Darkness is often related to bad feelings, and conventional wisdom states that a whining, pleading song such as this will make you feel bad. Yet the more I listen to the songs lovely guitar twangs and relaxed beats, I feel better and better. It’s pop of the kind that will lift you out of a bad mood, like The Last Polka by Ben Folds Five, it’s not a song with a great, uplifting message; but it is a song that, ignoring the lyrics, will raise your spirit and make you smile.
A quick anecdote. Relatives come up to visit, we decide to take them on a big trip to the big city. Relatives join us in our car. Over-confident, tired and emotional brother decides to provide directions. Get to a roundabout, over-confident, tired and emotional brother shouts “LEFT! LEFT! LEFT!” and so we go left. Aforementioned brother shouts “WRONG WAY! LISTEN TO ME! YOU SHOULD HAVE GONE LEFT!” So back to the roundabout, back down the same left.
5 minutes later…
“You meant right, didn’t you?” Over-confident, tired and emotional brother replies “No- this is left, if only you’d listened to me!” Families and directions clearly don’t mix.
One song I’m really loving at the moment is Hunting for Witches by Bloc Party. It is of course, off the second album ‘A Weekend in the City’ which was released back in February and that I have incredibly still not listened to, despite being a great fan of the first album.
I have indeed been afraid to listen to the album, with warnings from my friends of it not being a nearly as good an album as the first. However, it’s inevitable that I will hear a few songs from it. Indeed, I haven’t managed to avoid hearing the singles I Still Remember, The Prayer and Hunting for Witches.
For some reason I find Hunting for Witches a much more enjoyable listen than the other two. It may be the great, catchy riff. It could be the disjointed jittering soundscape at the start. It could even be Kele Okereke’s infectious tones. Most likely though, it’s the sublime joining together of all the disparate elements signified at the start into a cohesive whole.
That cohesive whole is so powerful, so magnificent, that I just can’t escape from it. “I was an ordinary man with ordinary desire” sings Kele with such conviction that you just can’t help notice how far from the truth that now is.
Indeed, this song is far from ordinary. Sharp electronic guitars clash with sharp synthesizer tones as Kele’s elegant voice pierces through the very foundations of the song. When all seems to be approaching order and rock familiarity, the disparate tones from the start burst back into life.
Bloc Party is definitely far from ordinary, yet this song somehow manages to blend ordinary with extraordinary to achieve an anthem for modern life, something Bloc Party always seems to be particularly adept at.
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