Monday, January 24, 2011

One-Hit Wonderful

Good new songs are coming out all the time. A number of years ago I heard the Lilys' "With Candy" (2006) on Pandora. The song is a loosely organized beautiful mess. The drums during the verses never seen to line up where you think they should, and then the jangly guitars and lilting synth pads and vocals float above the chorus. The hipsters behind the counter mocked me subtly for buying the album, but I was undeterred. It turned out they were right. The album, I am sorry to say, was terrible.

This isn't the first (or last) time this has happened. Remember Peter Bjorn & John's "Young Folks" single? Catchy beat, haunting whistle solo, the song, though overplayed, was a masterpiece. But the album stank. I had a similar disappointing experience after hearing Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's "In This Home on Ice" (2005), and Bear In Heaven's "Lovesick Teenagers" (2009). Why is it that some bands can create a great song, but not a great album?

This past year, two songs stood out to me as dramatically better than the albums they came from: "Pumped Up Kicks" (2010), by Foster The People, and "When I'm With You" (2010), by Best Coast. "Pumped Up Kicks" begins with a simple yet seductive bass line, joined by tin-can vocals and a a chorus that goes:

All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
you'd better run better run
faster than my bullet

Best Coast's 2010 Crazy For You is probably the best album on the list, but overall it pales in comparison to the quality of the single, "When I'm With You." Bethany Cosentino's far away yet emotionally present vocals repeat the lines "When I'm with you, I have fun" almost to the point of insanity, but it works. This song draws you in to its own world of oozing cutesy sentiment with a rock timelessness that could only have been created now. Just don't buy the album before listening to it.

Click here to listen to the tracks mentioned in this article.

-Webb

1 comment:

webb said...

I forgot one of my favorite singles of 2010: Bear In Heaven's "Lovesick Teenagers." Bad album though.