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Before it vanishes from the dirty little corner of cyberspace that these legally questionable - but morally laudable - offerings dwell in, you must hear the latest Sissy Wish track on Fluxblog. Usually it takes me so long to realise how much I like a Fluxblog track that it’s gone offline by the time I’m ready to recommend it, but this one’s instantly great. I’d say more, but the truth is I’m still kind of a musical retard.
I don’t have the language to talk meaningfully about what songs are like or what’s good about them, and I frequently have to listen to something ten times or more before I even know if I like it, let alone how much. This is why people like Matthew Perpetua know I’m going to like something even before I do, and why my favourite tracks on a given album are only just now starting to line up with those of the person who recommended it to me five years ago.
I need to know stuff like, what’s the word for the rhythmic structure in the chorus to Yayaya? There’s something in the way she sings that string of nonsense that lets you know she’s just leading into the real line, and something about the systematic structure of the latter half of the couplet that leads logically up to the rhyme, even if you can’t make out the words. It’s logical to the extent that if you’d paused the chorus halfway through the first time I heard it, I’d still be able to hum the next bit for you. And I don’t know how, or why, or what you call that.
This is also why I get confused and scared when people I normally agree with suddenly hate a band like The National, who seem to be a) great and b) just like all the other awesome stuff we both like. I start to think it’s just been coincidence that our tastes line up a lot, and really they’re appreciating this stuff on a higher intellectual level I don’t understand, and I’ve just fallen for some crass commercial knock-off because I’m too stupid to know the difference.
The awful truth is that I only ever liked this artful, worthy stuff by smart, emotionally fractured geniuses because it sounded pretty and didn’t irritate me. And, of course, because not many people had heard of it.
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It doesn't help that 95% of the music journalism I read is by people who have the same problem. Instead of conveying helpful information about an album, they fall back upon referencing obscure bands from the 1970s. Oh? It sounds just like this other thing I haven't heard? That's great.
Also: people disliking bands you thought they'd like? Dude, you are that person. Our musical tastes seem to overlap in several areas, but attempts at recommending songs have seemingly failed thus far. I assumed you were appreciating music on some higher intellectual level and I was just too stupid to know the difference.