Little Mix - Eeyeah, this kind of breakup song is not really my thing. There is an angle about where it's about broken people, because the singer is clearly NOT over her ex if she's still obsessing over him like this, but... this doesn't really go that far imo, it just comes off as spiteful more than anything. Not a pleasant theme. Not much going on for the musical side either, just a pretty stock guitar anthem. It is stock because it works, but that's it.
Diabvlvs in Mvsica - Good solid metal to rock out to. Above average composition imo, good instruments and clear writing. Songwriting, that is. Lyrics and vocals, not so much. The delivery's pretty flat and emotionless. If this was billed as Vocaloid singing, I'd believe it and say it was just average for vocaloid tuning, so for human singers it's disappointing. So, track comes out to average on the whole.
Clean Bandit - There are some unfortunate implications here with the juxaposition of apparently sincere mother-son love and strip club pole dancing. Was that the intention? I'm not sure. Anyway, I dug neither the lyrics nor the male vocals. I can see liking them but I just don't and am spending way too long trying to come up with justifications to make it sound like I am being objective and polite.
Ibranovski & Carta - This on the other hand is extremely my jam. It's restrained, there isn't a unique sound to rely on, all the elements here are stock stuff, but the execution and arrangement are just superb. Great use of dynamics and ranges, just the right level of presence to actively take a headspace position but not be distracting. Amazingly put together, I could listen to this for hours and pick it apart and hear something new every time. Uh... that said, I dunno about picking this for the column, because it's pretty far on the technical appreciation "you have to know and like this kind of music already to get why this is particularly good" angle. Grefter's clinical pan over it points that way. On the other hand, it's up here in a strong week, so I have to assume MC liked it...
anyway here's the Tiesto track this is referencing so folks can compare:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXTgtFnY0Lw The main line from Traffic is cut down and dynamic'd into a neat four minute package, instead of just being a somewhat plodding (for Tiesto) trance driver.
Nicole Sabouné - "in memory of Virginia Woolfe" oh dear what have I gotten into here. It should have said "in memory of White Wolf's World of Darkness" though. Also that is not a good way to drown yourself. Love the dissonance and the atmosphere. Lyrics are pretty incomprehensible, which fits. The spoken word stuff is cool, I think it sort of outlives its welcome but also maybe not because being dissatisfied with that is what they're going for? Ahh, it's so brutally good, almost unfair to aim this at me. This is the sort of broken song I can get behind and say yeah I empathize with this entire dimension, not completely, but good enough.
Macklemore - This one's a little too on the nose for me. Again, there's very little to say on the musical side. Macklemore does sneak in some really nice delivery on his parts, but he's still more speaking or doing beat poetry than singing or rapping. So... the lyrics. I started wanting to say "a good message" but actually I'm not sure that's true, except inasmuch as any mainstream messaging about addiction and social problems is good by raising awareness. Which is good! But.
I'm not entirely sure what the message *is* here. It's presented more like "here's a thing that happened in this dude's life" and then a couple of talking points. "Drug addiction is bad" I guess is a message, sssssure? "Big pharma is, somehow, making doctors turn into drug dealers and burying us all in pills, don't trust your doctor when he says you should take something" is another message, but I dunno that I agree with it. The presentation seems confused (or at least, I was confused) about whether this is about general drug overprescription, or about doctors going full Breaking Bad and abusing their position to sell opiates. "AA/12 step is a beacon of hope leading out of addiction" is another message, and that one I am sure that I don't agree with. That would have been a dealbreaker for me regardless of anything else, although I was already firmly in the "didn't enjoy this" camp.
Quite the week. Some controversial stuff. I was super hype to keep gushing over Ibranovski & Carta, but then Nicole Saboune is super cheating. Those two wayyyyy above the others for my taste.
Nicole Saboune > Ibranovski & Carta >>> Diabvlvs in Mvsica > Clean Bandit > Little Mix > Macklemore
