RedStripeLovedTrax

Ever since Link Wray unleashed “Rumble” on the world, distorted chords were nearly always the means to giving the music some edge or toughness, with the duty of sounding pretty falling to the acoustic guitars. Then shoegaze happened, and all of a sudden, loud distorted electric guitar chords could become beautiful. And so songs like the hazy deep-sleep romantic dream “When You Sleep” came into being, woozy amorphous gorgeousness and all.

“It’s...it’s...IT’S A [gnarly rapidfire instrumental that puts a single guitar through its paces, making it do everything from quick licks to mighty power chords to sounding like a fucking car engine that’s struggling to rev up]!!!” Guitar Hero II played host to this oddity, for which my ears have ever since been thankful. Yet another example of how music rhythm games were--and hopefully will be again in the very near future!--awesome gateways to discovery.

Those glassy Mannheim Steamroller synths lay atop deep bass notes so tightly, the end result is pure nocturnal chill. Is there any surprise that it’s video game level-complete music? Hopefully not, considering Jasper Byrne’s video game composer bona-fides. “Miami” is an especially perfect fit for the role in Hotline Miami, because it’s the one single thing in the whole damn game not antagonizing the player.

The version with Rita Ora is tight, too, but I’m personally biased towards having more Charli in the track. :P

“Runaway” holds closely to the conventions of mid-2010′s EDM--i.e. it too copies “Clarity”--but has one up on most of its peers: actually being sweeping and anthemic using the typical crescendo-towards-the-drop structure where nearly everyone else could only mime it. I think it’s the stylistic choices that make the difference--how restlessness and desperation is ingrained into the instrumentation and singing, how the chorus sounds lifted from a Cults song, how Galantis somehow drops in chipmunked vocals with a straight face and makes it convincing. This is one of the few tracks of its kind that’s made me swell with emotion.

I’ve not heard the whole album as of this post, but matching hi-fi sound with the heavy atmosphere of their earlier lo-fi Crazy For You-plus output has paid off for at least one excellent song. “California Nights” is a GORGEOUS blanket of sound, between the shimmering guitar distortion and Bethany’s rich voice adorned in warm reverb. On a somewhat related sidenote, I really need to hear the rest of the album soon.

This is the promise of Big Room fulfilled. That fucking drop, man, so massive and striking with conviction...it lives up to the Greek god title. What elevates this to greatness, though, is how it avoids big room’s usual pitfalls. It’s propulsive where others are leaden, the build-ups match up nicely with the drops, and more than half of the song has a full proper dance beat--because what a concept, actually wanting to DANCE to our DANCE SONGS!! “Zeus” is a BANGER.

“Through the Fire and Flames” is an epic showcase, that’s for sure, but “Tomorrow’s Kings”--at pop-song length with barely more than 4 minutes!--is an example of what they can do when they don’t feel the need to show off as much. Such DELICIOUS DELICIOUS INSPIRATIONAL CHEESE. It practically begs to soundtrack a shonen battle series AMV. Or be its opening theme. As Sandra once joked, “It even says ‘No Regrets’ right in the lyrics!”

It’s kind of hard to put into words; lately I’ve just been really digging the surreal ambiance this song gives off. A bubbly pop ballad on the surface, except there are multiple things that sound and feel subtly “off”...some Kuma Uta or Tomodachi Life vocoder/autotune voices here, some comically artificial drum machine touches elsewhere, and somehow “tolerate” is part of an insanely earworm-y chorus.

I suppose this is what would happen if Best Coast went prog? In six minutes' time, "March of Progress" channels--in chronological order--the repeated drumrolls intro of "Robot Rock" spliced with Cornelius, asian Pink Floyd (both Syd Barrett-era and beyond, even), and the uptempo jauntiness of multiple Strokes classics, with each part transitioning gracefully into place. It's transfixing.

Break-up songs are plentiful in pop music; the subsection of "it's not you, it's me" is even itself sizable. But this is one of the most affecting songs of its kind that I've heard in a while. What Marina is saying and how she sings it skips the histrionics and tissues, with an air of straight-up existential dread surrounding the whole thing instead. "I'm a Ruin" also, perversely, catchy as fuck; those handclaps in the chorus are especially masterful.

With singing voices pleasant yet so unassuming that they are practically just another instrument in the production, Perfume may quite possibly be the ultimate "producer's group". They could be handed something as anti-conventional (and way out into the electronic music deep end) as pop via hyperactive drum 'n bass...and they would turn out one gem of a song called "Point". This sounds readymade for the soundtrack to Bomberman Hero; listen here for comparison's sake!

There is something utterly weird and often ill-fitting about Coldplay, the band of HUGE and EPIC platitudes, making an "intimate" bedroom-pop album. In this context, "Midnight" especially stands out by being said album's most distinctly (good) Coldplay song ("Sky Full of Stars" makes me queasy) by virtue of being huge via its gently gorgeous brushstrokes--those electric piano plinks made of million-dollar pearls especially, oh my god--and its ridiculousness of concept: "Chris Martin sings through one of those Imogen Heap 'Hide And Seek' auto-harmonizers!!"

This has plentiful shades of ballad-mode Black Keys--they of "Never Gonna Give You Up" and Turn Blue standout "Waiting On Words". It's a natural backdrop for the rich and utterly intoxicating singing of Father John Misty, crooning about some messier and more difficult thoughts about being in love. The guitar lick serving as the instrumental hook is extra gravy.

How to Kick Off an Album 101. One of the things that draws me towards Kendrick's music is the degree of sheer playfulness he incorporates. To Pimp a Butterfly's opener has that in particular abundance. A 200cc-paced fever dream whose purview can contain a hybrid landscape of 90's G-Funk and 00's updated "Cali Iz Active"-style G-Funk, not one but TWO distinctly-Kendrick melodic hooks, Dr. Dre voicemail, and George Clinton (I think) advising you to "look both ways before crossing my mind" with a swooping pan for added effect.

Ahh alright, that displays better. My blogs' April Fools 2015 company names.