Dudes, sorry I was gone so long. I think I’m a bit blogrusty, actually. Help me out with this: just understand. And then there’s this: since it’s May, I’ve been listening to happy music. I’ve torn my eyes away from the sawed-off New York skyline and I’ve fixed it on Union Square’s cooing pigeons and frying locals. It’s a charming time of year: it’s after the chills and the curse-dark days, but still right before the city streets start reeking of trash.
In an effort to make up for my lackadaisicality, let me just discuss this album: The Bird of Music by Au Revoir Simone [site][label][myspace]. It came out this week, I believe, and I have been jamming to the song “Stars” like massive quantities. I think it came on while I was having a jog today, actually.
K, the eye candy aside… the charming bits about the song include, but are not limited to:
- Its distinctive lack of non-pop (that is to say its abundant use of pop convention) — this album wholly embraces the fact that it is so fucking poppy indeed;
- That piano line in the intro (3 notes!);
- For that matter, the synthetic clappy sound in the intro (so excellent);
- The way it wastes no time getting to the chorus (a quick 20-second intro, two lines of verse, then, 35 seconds in, the refrain — which itself is only two lines and wholly, gleefully aware of the fact that it uses the word “baby”);
- The Casio;
- The fact that, to really drive the point home, ALL THE INSTRUMENTS DROP OUT to deliver a girly burst of chorus with about thirty seconds left in the song (see bullet #1).
Honestly, the lyrics are so straightforwardly giddy. “Since the day we met / I think I haven’t slept more than an hour at a time” — and right after this, the song launches into the refrain with the same kind of butterfly-inducing, forgivable, single-minded obsessiveness that is characteristic of new love. Yes, many things to love in this song, many. So give it a listen, folks. It’s summertime. You’re allowed to be happy.
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RG
/ May 20, 2007Poppy music is fun and pleasant. I question their hipster dress sense. I like “Stars” but I’d like them to be less Cat Power and more Sophie Ellis.
Jewnowwhaddamean, love?