Songs to chill to

Band: Miike Snow
Song: Animal (listen)
Album: Miike Snow (buy)

I am very snobbish. I pride myself on being quite a liberal, unprejudiced individual, but it’s a lie. For example, as soon as I saw Miike Snow, I thought “Oh I shall listen to this and give it fair judgement.” Then I looked a bit closer and realised that there were two “ii”’s in Mike, for seemingly no reason and then instantly wrote off all of the music as overly pretentious dribble that in no way deserved my attention. To be fair, my thinking was sound, it’s like when you see somebody has dotted an ‘i’ with a smiley face or has written a SeNtEnCe LiKe ThIs. You just develop an irrational dislike for said person. The extra ‘i’ in Miike is totally superfluous as far as I can figure despite being Swedish and them having a penchant for additional vowels, but it has led me to re-evaluate my prejudice. Perhaps if Newton were alive today he would have been StAnDiNg On ThE sHoUlDeRs Of GiAnTs :).

Oh right yeah, the song. It’s good, you probably got that from the fact that I’m writing about it. I think I like it because it’s unashamedly what it is, which is dancey, happy electropop. It’s pleasant and catchy without becoming irritating, somewhere in between the effortless enjoyability of Temper Trap and the nails down a chalkboard Calvin Harris.

Miike Snow have made a habit of making this sort of music. Their eponymous debut album is just full of it, and although Animal is undeniably my favourite, there are some other songs that are well worth a listen. ‘Black & Blue’ having the feel of one of those songs that has been there throughout your life but have only recently bothered to put a name to. ‘Silvia’ being another, has a very tangible quality like a strangely pleasurable ice shower (really not good at analogies).

I think my favourite aspect of the song is it resists the temptation to simply become chintzy, over-produced dance music and instead continues as a perfectly harmonised and multi-layered song. This song is comfortable in so many different scenarios, it could work on a relaxing playlist or could be pumped out (albeit slightly remixed) into clubs and still seem perfectly at home. That in itself is why I love this song, because no matter what mood I’m in, no matter where I am, I can listen to it.

Yours siincerely,
JoewMo