Songs to get addicted to

Artist: Rufus Wainwright
Song: Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk (listen)
Album: Poses (buy)

Writing songs that are truly from the heart and that are intrinsic to your being is difficult. Of course it is. If it were easy, the Cheeky Girls would probably have released a beautifully poetic ballad on the struggles of a harsh life in Romania and Lady Gaga would be writing powerfully emotive songs about how difficult it is wear such few clothes and still hide her man parts. The issue is then writing something that means a lot to you but doesn’t come across as too self involved and pretentious. A tough task, especially since having already taken the role of songwriter, you have decided that the rest of the world needs to hear your own personal musings. How do you keep the vanity out?

Here, dear reader, is where I believe Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk comes into its own. I’m not trying to claim that it is unique in the fact that it’s a song which manages to be heartfelt and not-conceited but it does manage to roll so many different lyrical elements into one. It manages to be easily relatable, with you agreeing with each of the small temptations of everyday life, “If I should buy jellybeans, Have to eat them all in just one sitting”.

At the same time it feels so personal as Rufus Wainwright tiptoes gingerly around his own darker periods; when his addictions turned “A little bit deadly”, with the subtle change of key on “And then there’s those other things” throwing a sudden dark veil over what was developing into an uncomplicated ditty about life’s little temptations. So subtle though, that you can listen to it many a time and not even notice the darker more wizened lyrics, causing such complex and tumultuous emotions to appear utterly understandable.

Finally, it doesn’t shroud itself in ambiguity. Sometimes the beauty of a song is embedded in its hidden meanings and the listener’s ability to extrapolate their own understanding, however, this song manages to take the cigarettes and jelly beans and Raggedy Andy’s of everyday existence and weave them into a complex elegy to the vices that are struggled through by each of us.

Yours indulgently,
JoewMo

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

Songs to get funky to

Artist: Red Hot Chili Peppers
Song: Police Helicopter (Listen)
Album: The Red Hot Chili Peppers (1984) (Buy)

I am a huge Chili Peppers fan. They were the first band I saw live, and Under the Bridge might just be my favourite song ever. However, I’ve always known deep down that I wasn’t a true fan: I’d barely listened to any of their earlier and somewhat funkier music. Higher Ground, which is admittedly incredibly funky and incredibly brilliant, was the closest I’d ever come, and that’s already 3 albums into their catalogue, meaning I was still always a long way from their roots. It’s a secret I’ve tried to hide for years, and one I’d refused to acknowledge, but a few weeks back I confronted my inner demons and set about finding me some old school Chili Peppers (thanks Spotify!)

The result of my search was Police Helicopter, one of the first songs they ever wrote. The quickest way to describe this song to you is to show you what Anthony Kiedis (the singer, in case you’re THAT uncultured) thought about the song, and also what their producer at the time thought of it:

Anthony Kiedis: “It embodied the spirit of the band which was the kinetic, stabbing, angular, shocking assault force of sound and energy”

Andy Gill: “Shit”

Suffice to say, Andy Gill was not their producer for long.

Anyway, when I first listened to the song, having already read about it 2 years prior in Anthony Kiedis’ autobiography, it was a case of not really being sure what I thought about it. I knew that a large amount of people would probably agree with Andy Gill; it’s certainly a world away from songs such as Californication. However, for all its simplicity and repetitiveness, there was an undeniably vast amount of energy in the song, and it’s all condensed into a very small amount of time. It’s over before you even know what’s hit you, but once it’s done you know that something big has definitely not just hit you, but rather completely done you in with a baseball bat. It’s a burst of funky energy, and now that I’ve learnt the bass line I can’t stop listening to it and jamming along. I think the best way I can put it is that the song has a bloody infectious groove, and once it sunk in after a few listens in I was hooked.

Also, man can Flea write a great bassline! Simple, but it’s definitely got its hooks in me, and it refuses to let go.