I'm not sure what this says about my musical tastes, but of the 700-or-so songs on my little MP3 player, about 5 of them are named "Go" (sometimes with an exclamation mark, sometimes without). This one is my favorite track from my favorite album of 2017, Wild Cub's "Closer." It sounds like a cross between The Killers and early Arcade Fire, and its thrilling chanted climax makes it perfect for New Year's Eve listening.
Here's a confession: back in the 90s, I liked pretty much anything which put a dance beat to "world music" sounds. Enigma, Deep Forest, Transglobal Underground--you name it, I listened to it. After a while, I soured on some of those groups (especially Enigma, who I started to find cheesy). But now that I'm living in Armenia, whose local folk music has sometimes been sampled in this type of "world beat music," I'm starting to reappreciate groups like Enigma. So this new song by Swedish group The Sound of Arrows, with its 90s world beat vibes, is right up my alley.
I don't think any band this year had a bigger transformation than Eliza and the Bear. As recently as 2016, they were recording Mumford & Sons' style folk rock, But now they're a funky, 80's-inspired pop group. "Hell" is their best single yet, with an irresistible singalong chorus.
This seemed like appropriate music to accompany my 26-hour trip from Yerevan, Armenia back to my former home of Florence, South Carolina. The US has a reputation as a "modern land," whereas Armenia is perceived as an ancient land, sometimes even as a backward one. But as I compare the efficient automated check-in I just went through at Yerevan's airport with the nightmare I'm likely to encounter at JFK later today, I think those reputations might be a little exaggerated.
Now, on to the song: it's a fucking epic. It feels like what would have happened if The Church, Echo & the Bunnymen, and David Bowie had a baby. I've been a fan from Australian band City Calm Down for a while, but this is their best song yet.
As I realized recently when preparing a Communications lecture on changing phone technologies, there were a LOT of songs in the 70s and 80s about telephones. (Just to name a few: ELO's "Telephone Line", Blondie's "Hanging on the Telephone", Pete Shelley's "Telephone Operator", Kraftwerk's "The Telephone Call." And that's not even getting into the "867-5309"s of the world). Most of these songs referenced physical features of the telephones, like the cord, the handset, the keypad to talk about human relationships and romantic frustrations.
You'd think, with the move to haptic technologies--responsive touchscreens in every pocket--there would be a lot of songs about that. We have "You Spin me Round (Like a Record)," so where's "You Swipe Through Me (Like an Instagram Feed)"? Well, this funky little number from LA band VOKES is here to redress that imbalance. Sing along now: "Swipe me/ Give me what you want but never need/ Make you question your society/ Fill your brain with so much controversy."
September and October are traditionally the worst months for new bands to release music, because they get lost in the shuffle amidst the superstars releasing singles in advance of their big 4th quarter releases (timed to rake in the Christmas cash). Occasionally, there are exceptions; Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," for instance, was a September release, and by early January, Nevermind had knocked Michael Jackson's Dangerous off the top of the album charts. But that's pretty rare.
All I'm saying is that I hope that, in 2018, this ultra-radio-friendly anthemic single from Brooklyn band Storm Kid finds an audience somewhere and gets more than the paltry 2,500 YouTube views it's earned in the past 3 months.
Kaskade, "Winter Wonderland" Tom Chaplin, "2000 Miles" Red Empire, "A Dublin Christmas"
To be honest, 2017 hasn't been a great year for Christmas music. (2017 hasn't been a great year for much of anything). But amongst the lumps of coal--like Sia's horrifically-titled "Santa's Coming for Us"--I've picked out a few musical gifts for you.
Kaskade's album of Christmas classics done in EDM-style sounds like an idea that shouldn't work. And mostly it doesn't, because the traditional carols they're covering barely count as songs in the modern sense; all the production tricks in the world won't make "Silent Night" or "Deck the Halls" interesting. But they DO manage to turn "Winter Wonderland" into a moody banger, which is an accomplishment in itself.
Former Keane frontman Tom Chaplin's Christmas album is more traditional, which means that most of it is pretty boring. But the full choir and Chaplin's choirboy voice all really work on his dramatic cover of a modern Christmas classic, the Pretenders' "2000 Miles."
Finally, I've got an original Christmas song from Irish band Red Empire. Don't let those jingling bells at the beginning fool you; this is one of those melancholy Christmas songs, with lyrics like "Though you're suffering now, know that I suffer with you" and a video that's all about a homeless man getting beat up. In other words, the perfect Christmas song for 2017.
