Breaking Up is Hard to Do

The Roots

Jackson Free Press

July 14, 2010

It’s incredibly difficult to be objective about The Roots. It has been one of my favorite groups since I first heard “You Got Me” back in 1999. The song was the first live instrumentation hip-hop I had ever heard and is one of those songs that make you remember exactly where you were when you first heard it. I quickly went and bought every album The Roots had released and continue to do so. Throughout The Roots past few albums, though, a disturbing trend has emerged. Black Thought, the MC, has become a weight on the group.

“Things Fall Apart,” the group’s 1999 classic, struck a perfect balance between band and MC. The beats, while coming from instruments, were nonetheless fairly traditional, matching Black Thought’s brilliant battle and backpack-style rhymes. His became a prominent name in the “greatest living MC” discussion following the release.

The much more musically ambitious “Phrenology” exposed a rift. The band was becoming more experimental and avant-garde, while Black Thought’s lyrics and voice were not making a similar progression. This disparity between band and rapper has only grown since. Over the past decade, the band has surpassed the MC—a fact made even more apparent on their new album, “How I Got Over.”

The beats on the album are some of the best the band has ever done. The early part of the record recalls early 1970s Marvin Gaye. The aptly titled “Walk Alone” is a near perfect atmospheric song, while “Radio Daze” has a distinct 4-o’clock-in-the-morning sound. Essentially, The Roots are back in touch with the brooding mood it delved into on 2008’s brilliant “Game Theory.”

The title track picks up the beat a bit in the middle of the album but still offers a gloomy urban portrait. Subsequent songs offer more head-nodding opportunities, particularly in album highlight “Right On” and the John Legend vehicle “The Fire,” but the overall mood remains dark.

Black Thought’s aforementioned lack of lyrical and vocal variation is noticeable from the get-go. This is not to say he is bad lyrically, but rather that his words don’t mesh with the music as well as they once did. The Roots have forayed into other sounds, pushing the genre’s envelope more than any hip-hop group outside of Outkast. Black Thought’s rhymes, on the other hand, while remaining inarguably impressive, seem stuck in the ’90s.

This is where the problem of Thought’s vocal range comes into play, too. The MC’s voice stays in a one-note range and doesn’t convey much expression beyond stoicism, toughness and anger. He needs a greater variation to keep up with the band’s genre hopping. It’s sad that lesser MCs such as Dice Raw and Blu sound more at home over Roots beats, often just because they are blessed with the virtue of restraint.

“How I Got Over” is another terrific offering from one of the most consistent acts in hip-hop. The band continues to push itself musically and thematically, consistently rewarding the listener. Unfortunately, it does little to quell the notion that band and MC may be better served taking some time apart.

What Would Bruce Do?

The Gaslight Anthem

Jackson Free Press

June 30, 2010

Bruce Springsteen casts a large shadow over New Jersey. Every rock band from the state needs to inevitably face comparisons to the man, no matter how similar or dissimilar their sound. Few musicians are as strongly and intrinsically tied to their home state as Springsteen is to New Jersey.

The Gaslight Anthem is the latest band from the Garden State to step out of their forefather’s shadow. Musically, the band demands your respect. It is a true rock ‘n’ roll band that never skimps on the guitars and demonstrates a genuine care for songwriting. It also doesn’t hurt that lead singer Brian Fallon sounds like a vocal love child of Springsteen and Paul Westerberg, the great Replacements’ vocalist. Unfortunately, the band’s newest album “American Slang,” can’t measure up to the best Replacements or the best Springsteen.

The Gaslight Anthem clearly owes a great deal to Springsteen, demonstrating his trademark energy in abundance on both “Slang” and the band’s debut album, 2008’s “The ’59 Sound.” Springsteen’s inspiration is also present in the lyrics, which have a sharper personal edge injected in them than do most rock lyrics.

Unfortunately, the focus on Springsteen the individual leads The Gaslight Anthem to overlook the importance of The E Street Band, the group that really kept his sound coherent. While Springsteen’s best songs nearly uniformly feature a dominating guitar, they often also have David Sancious’ or Roy Bittan’s keyboards or Clarence Clemons’ saxophone lines coaxing the melody along. This assures a tonal variance to the heavy electric instruments, which are still indisputably the engine of the song. Take these secondary instruments out of many of Springsteen’s songs however, and you’re left with a jumble of noise. This is what the Gaslight Anthem is giving us on too many songs.

Most of the songs on “American Slang” have clearly defined, inventive beginnings and ends, but a mess of muddiness lies in between. Many songs devolve into a wall of heavy guitar and bass as a single, semi-melodic guitar line plays above it. What results is an electric-instrument overload that is just not very appealing. “Stay Lucky” and “Orphans” are two songs that start with promising riffs, only to get swallowed up by a canyon of noise.

The songs that try to change this structure are similarly problematic. Ballads “The Queen of Lower Chelsea” and “We Did it When We Were Young” both struggle to dial down the energy without sacrificing the intensity that makes the rest of the record strong.

On the other hand, “Bring it On” is a song that basks in a catchy melody and gradually escalating vocals, while not getting overwhelmed by the guitars. It provides a glimpse of what the band could be should they add a bit of finesse to their sound. The title track is also a well-constructed song driven by a simple, yet inspired, guitar riff.

The Gaslight Anthem has an ear for pop and punk music. Whether the band can learn how to reconcile and fuse the two will determine its longevity and will show if it is truly the next step in Jersey rock’s evolution.

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The Art of the Rock Show

Drive-By Truckers

Jackson Free Press

June 16, 2010

My first rock show was in sixth grade. I saw the Smashing Pumpkins on their Infinite Sadness Tour. Guitarist James Iha and bassist D’arcy bounced around on the immense stage as they played, while Billy Corgan moaned and wailed into the microphone like he was dictating his suicide note. This was energy and passion. The show instantly became a concert benchmark for me.

As the years went by, though, I realized that maybe what I had seen wasn’t necessarily as good as I thought it had been. The more bands I saw, the more I realized I was watching the same show with different characters. The lead singer always stood at the microphone and sang, eyes closed, passionately pleading and howling. Other band members jumped around, demonstratively whipping the necks of their instruments up and down and side-to-side, in a display, I suppose, of their uncontrollable aggression.

Eventually, it just stopped working for me.

The first time I saw the Drive-By Truckers was 2002, and this concert changed everything. The band alternated between arena rock and country without losing an ounce of urgency—their sound always tinged with musical and mythological Southern influence.

But it wasn’t just the music that made it such a great concert. It was the first time I felt a genuine connection between a band and the crowd. One of the memories that sticks with me was Patterson Hood, the lead singer, and then-guitarist Jason Isbell looking at each other and letting their enthusiasm overwhelm them as they burst into huge smiles. These guys were living every boy’s rock-star fantasy, and they knew it. It was a completely organic moment and so refreshing. The new benchmark had been set.

I saw the Truckers again a few months ago in New Orleans, and while the lineup had shifted slightly, that enthusiasm was still evident. They have long been a band representing the lower middle class, a strata that in recent years has been repeatedly brutalized. These themes are naturally prevalent in the Truckers’ music, and while they are always mentioned in their concerts, they are never the focal point.

The band could easily harness their populist anthems to work the crowd into an anti-establishment frenzy. However, they recognize that these emotions aren’t constructive. While their songs about foreclosures and broken homes aren’t always the happiest stories, they do manage to lace them with humor and hope—two emotions that are considerably harder to evoke than unchecked rage.

That is not to say you leave their concerts with no sense of anger at the government and the entitled. It is impossible not to. But those feelings take a back seat to the feeling of unity and proactiveness the band instills in you. After a Drive-By Truckers concert, the few hundred strangers you entered with won’t quite feel like strangers anymore.

The Drive-By Truckers will be coming to Hal & Mal’s June 26 in support of their newest album, “The Big To-Do.”

Original Article

Reissue Done Right

Exile on Main Street

Jackson Free Press

June 2, 2010

In the movie “Men in Black,” Kay (Tommy Lee Jones) introduces Jay (Will Smith) to the newest in alien audio technology. “Guess I’ll have to buy ‘The White Album’ again,” Kay quips. This joke becomes more and more apt with each passing year as audio technology evolves.

Ideally, reissues should give you further insight into the recording process of the album, giving you a deeper understanding or new perspective on the music. In recent years, The Band, The Clash, and The Velvet Underground have done just this with some of their classic albums.

The Rolling Stones, on the other hand, have traditionally done the opposite, reissuing albums with no added material and still asking their fans to purchase them. The Stones re-released their entire early catalog a few years ago in a new, clearer, “superaudio” format that never really caught on and has since gone the way of the minidisk.

The new reissue of “Exile on Main Street,” originally released in 1972, thankfully bucks this trend.

“Exile,” like “The White Album” by The Beatles, is an album that demands to be owned on any and all mediums. It is an undeniable classic and contains some of the band’s finest songs, as well as capturing the Stones in their most self-destructive phase.

The range of styles on “Exile on Main Street” is as varied as the drugs and vices passing through the storied recording session itself. The album swings with reckless, delightful disjointedness from a classic Stones guitar sound on “Happy” (with Keith Richards singing), to gospel with “Shine a Light,” to country with “Sweet Virginia,” to R&B with “Tumbling Dice.” The mastery the band shows over every genre is impressive, with “Tumbling Dice” in particular ranking among the best R&B crossover songs ever recorded.

It’s the outtakes, though, that make this version of “Exile” worth purchasing. The reissue includes songs that didn’t make the cut on the original album, and they give you a glimpse at the manic level on which the Stones were recording in these sleepless, drug-infused sessions. The record also give us outtakes of two of the album’s classics, “Loving Cup” and “Soul Survivor,” which show the different directions the songs nearly took. The former is a slowed-down, countrified version of the song, with the guitar as the driving instrument as opposed to the piano. The latter features Keith Richards on vocals, sounding every bit as haggard and beaten as legend says he was during the “Exile” sessions. Neither song can quite match the quality of the album cuts, but they still provide illuminating insight into what “Exile on Main Street” could have been.

With a new Rolling Stones release, it is always best to be wary of a money grab. But re-release of “Exile on Main Street,” is a new perspective on a classic album that I recommend you purchase no matter how many formats you already own.

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Don’t Forget the Lyrics

New Pornographers

Jackson Free Press

May 5, 2010

The New Pornographers have long been the pop-music snob’s dream band. It is a guitar pop band, but is also able to seamlessly add layered instrumentation and multipart harmonies when necessary. The band is blessed to have three distinct vocalists in A.C. Newman, Neko Case and Dan Bejar, whose voices mesh strongly. Similarly, all three clearly have an ear for pop music. Because of these traits, letting any New Pornographers’ album wash over you for the first time is a treat. Regretfully, subsequent listens reveal a lyrical shallowness, or denseness, depending on how you look at it, that ultimately dooms the record. Their new album, “Together,” is no exception.

While technically always being a super group, the New Pornographers have become even more super in recent years. That is because the past half-decade has led to the rise of both Neko Case and A.C. Newman as solo artists. Case’s 2006 “Fox Confessor Brings the Flood” and 2009’s “Middle Cyclone” both rank among the best albums released in their respective years. Newman’s solo work, 2004 “The Slow Wonder” and 2009’s “Get Guilty,” similarly have raised him into the upper echelon of contemporary singer-songwriters.

The band has always been largely Newman’s project, as he is the chief songwriter on all New Pornographers records. Indeed, his sound and influence is all over “Moves,” the opening track on “Together.” It is a quality pop song with an orchestral guitar sound and pounding piano chords keeping time. The song typifies the two aforementioned strengths of The New Pornographers: the vocals and the production. Unfortunately, it also captures their lyrical weakness.

The subsequent songs continue to offer little lyrical substance. Good pop music lyrics, almost by definition, provide either instant accessibility or interesting abstraction, things that Case and Newman exhibit in droves on their solo records. “Together” offers uninteresting abstraction. The lyrics of lead single, “Your Hands (Together),” are as unnecessarily dense as the title itself. Neither the music nor repeated listens clarifies references to silver bullets and playing “scientist and vandal sweating either way.” Like reading a contortedly symbolic book or watching an overly plotted movie, you have to truly be invested in it to bring yourself to care. And The New Pornographers, as talented as they are, just aren’t quite good enough to do that.

Granted, some of the songs have a catchy enough chorus or strong enough instrumentation to sink under your skin. The final three songs, “Valkyrie in the Roller Disco,” “A Bite Out of My Bed,” and “We End Up Together,” are all affecting songs that will have you singing along. Unfortunately, you will not have any idea what your words mean.

The New Pornographers have released another solid album in “Together.” It is tight musically and continues to exhibit an assured pop sound. However, it’s not tight enough to overcome its lyrical inaccessibility. This fact sadly assures that while it will gain some kudos in the coming weeks and months, it will ultimately be forgotten in the pop music canon.

Original Article

Inching Toward the Present

Dr. Dog

Jackson Free Press

April 21, 2010

I rolled my eyes upon first hearing Dr. Dog‘s flagrant aping of The Beatles and The Band. Critics’ main disparagement continues to be over its derivative sound, and I was in no position to disagree; however, the more I listened to the music, the more I recognized that there was something going on here deeper than mere imitation. The band’s songs were well structured and the lyrics weighty, yet edgy. Furthermore, the evolution Dr. Dog displayed over its relatively brief career suggested it was only a matter of time until the band broke its own ground and shook the “Beatles clone” label. “Shame, Shame,” their newest album, is the band’s furthest push yet to doing just that.

Dr. Dog is a five-piece band co-founded and co-fronted by vocalist/guitarist Scott McMicken and vocalist/bassist Toby Leaman. McMicken delivers cerebral and nuanced lyrics with a restrained delivery, while Leaman leaves more to the imagination, both lyrically and vocally. Their voices and styles create an interesting complement.

While their excellent first two albums, “Easy Beat” and “We All Belong,” were considerably lo-fi—often exhibiting a synthetic hiss—“Shame, Shame” has followed the track of its predecessor, 2008’s “Fate,” in stepping up the production values. The multi-layered first notes of the record’s opening track, “Stranger,” are some of the fullest sounding the band has ever recorded and the song is all the stronger for it. It is a knockout opener, and from there, Dr. Dog never lets up.

On “Shame, Shame,” the band displays a new reassurance and experiments with a broader musical range than on any of its previous albums. “Later,” Leaman’s strongest song, veers as close to punk rock as the band has ever gotten. Featuring the fastest tempo of any Dr. Dog has ever worked with and doing away with its trademark ethereal harmonies, Leaman rails against a love interest who constantly puts him off. It’s an accessible song, and everyone can relate to Leaman’s palpable frustration.

This album covers various themes, but it’s at its strongest when delving into the topics of desolation, dissatisfaction and uncertainty. It’s a perfect triumvirate for the times we are living in, and the songs capture the emotions dead on.

“Shadow People” begins as an acoustic ballad about listlessness in the city and gradually grows in frustration and urgency until it reaches its foot-stomping climax. The haunting “Someday” is set inside the self-wallowing mind immediately post-breakup, and Leaman’s expressive voice is once again able to efficiently convey the gloom of our protagonist.

The tunes culminate in the album’s high point: “Jackie Wants a Black Eye.” An often-devastating song about loneliness and self-loathing, it strives to find unity within both. It’s poignant, but not maudlin, and its musical arrangement featuring gorgeous background harmonies and hand claps makes it work. By the time “Jackie” wraps up, it has become, oddly, the most life-affirming song on the album.

Getting the confidence to wean yourself from your influences is always encouraging. By stepping out onto its own and beginning to take musical and lyrical chances, Dr. Dog has released its best album to date.

Original Article

Movie Star Moonlighting

Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward

Jackson Free Press

April 7, 2010

There are many reasons for She & Him’s “Volume Two” to be terrible. To begin with, the face of the group is Zooey Deschanel. For those unfamiliar, she is the actress who had lead roles in “(500) Days of Summer” and “Yes Man.” She is the latest actress to be held up as the paradigm of “cool,” supplanting such previous luminaries as Kristen Bell and Scarlett Johannsen. The media increasingly look to these actresses for insight into new-wave offbeat style and Deschanel, apparently drinking her own Kool-aid, has not let them down.

Movie stars taking up music is a well-worn idea that rarely pays off creatively. Their albums are usually either straight-up bad, as was the case with Johannsen’s dreadful Tom Waits’ cover album, or the band is never able to separate itself from their celebrity member. Billy Bob Thornton had a well-documented meltdown on a radio interview when the host mentioned his film career while introducing the band. Deschanel strives to buck these trends with She & Him, and she is overwhelmingly successful.

She & Him is a collaborative between Deschanel and folk musician M. Ward. Putting herself under Ward’s musicianship and tutelage was a smart move. She willingly lets her vocals take a back seat to the music. The instrumentation and production is always foremost on “Volume Two.” Ward presents us with a slightly minimized and countrified Wall of Sound. Deschanel’s voice blends beautifully with the sound, allowing it to become part of the sonic tapestry as opposed to attempting to sail over it.

Aside from the standard country and folk instruments, the production features lush, symphonic instrumentation and beautiful harmonies. One can hear pangs of Dusty Springfield and Michelle Phillips in Deschanel’s voice, while Ward’s harmonies provide a perfect counterbalance. Thematically, the lyrics can bounce between heartbreak and playfulness without missing a beat.

Deschanel’s voice throughout the record exhibits an inherent vulnerability that adds to the poignancy of the songs. What she lacks in vocal range, Deschanel more than makes up for in expressiveness. In “Thieves,” the album’s opener and one of its most inspired songs, her vocal fragility and subtle vibrato inflections sells us on, and invests us in, her emotions.

The duo never let up after this early highpoint. “Don’t Look Back” could easily pass for 1950s girl group pop in both production and vocals, which I am assuming She & Him would take as a great compliment. The Caribbean beat on “Lingering Still” is a great change of pace and offers some of Deschanel’s most assured lyrics. “Gonna Get Along Without You Now” and “Home” both present a playful side to the group. You can almost hear Deschanel smiling as she sings over both these songs.

She & Him’s “Volume 2” is one of the most satisfying pop albums of the year. What it lacks in ingenuity it more than makes up for in inspiration. As someone who has never been a fan of Deschanel the actress, I have left “Volume 2” firmly in support of Deschanel the singer. Perhaps it’s time for her to quit her day job.

Original Article

Gorillaz in the Mist

Jackson Free Press

March 24, 2010

When Gorillaz released its self-titled debut album in 2001, the group had all the makings of a one-and-done band. It was being used as an undoubtedly gimmicky platform for a cartoon group, featuring one of the England’s biggest rock stars. Bands with this sort of makeup don’t last.

Except Gorillaz did. Granted, Dan the Automator (the producer) left after the debut, but Damon Albarn (lead singer of Blur) enlisted the production wizardry of Danger Mouse and released the outstanding follow-up, “Demon Days.” More impressive, rather than trying to cash in by releasing “Clint Eastwood 2,” Gorillaz was expanding its sound beyond the self-titled album’s confines. This evolution continues on its third release, “Plastic Beach.”

Gorillaz albums have always sounded post-apocalyptic. Listening to any of the albums is experiencing a world ravaged and destroyed by humans. It is a world dominated by sorrow and longing, yet occasionally tempered with occasional spouts of jubilation (hear the joyous “19-2000” on the band’s debut to counteract dreary “Clint Eastwood“).

“Plastic Beach” continues this aesthetic and, if anything, amps up the dreariness. The guest appearances are as plentiful as they are eclectic. The cohorts this time around range from the Lebanese National Orchestra for Oriental Arabic Music to Bobby Womack to Snoop Dogg.

It takes about four songs before “Plastic Beach” starts really rolling. Snoop Dogg’s verses on “Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach” by and large miss the mark, and the musical accompaniment is not as imaginative or adventurous as we have come to expect from the group. Once the album hits “Rhinestone Eyes,” though, it becomes clear that we have walked into the next step of Gorillaz’ progression. It is a love song that displays all the twisted, moribund beauty—lyrically and musically—we have come to expect from the group.

From here, the album amps up the intensity as the band delves right into its lead single, “Stylo,” before turning the show over to De La Soul on one of the album’s true emotional highpoints: “Superfast Jellyfish.” De La Soul shows once again on this album why they are the perfect hip-hop counterpart (short of maybe Kool Keith) for Gorillaz. Long aficionados of over-the-top cartoony rhymes and stories, they blend right into Gorillaz’ similarly warped sense of reality.

Lou Reed (“Some Kind of Nature“) and Mick Jones and Paul Simonon from The Clash (“Plastic Beach“) each also throw themselves headfirst into this world, and their respective songs also stand out as the best work they have done in years.

The one thing this otherwise excellent album lacks is a standout single. It misses the type of song that can lure new listeners into this post-apocalyptic wasteland, the way “Dare” and “Feel Good Inc.” did on “Demon Days.” “Stylo,” the lead single, is a good song, but it is far too abstract to get anywhere near the airplay of the group’s preceding singles.

At this point, however, Gorillaz doesn’t care about recruiting new fans. Its wasteland is pretty crowded.

Original Article

Growing Prince’s Sound

Dan Black

Jackson Free Press

March 10, 2010

Prince recently released his newest single, “Cause and Effect,” which is predictably tame and in keeping with the trend of his singles in recent years. It is appearing more and more that Prince’s glory days are behind him. We haven’t gotten a signature catchy, ribald single in the vein of “Little Red Corvette” or “Sexy MF” in years. Luckily, the market for Prince imitators remains ripe. It seems every year an album comes out striving to be the great, lost Prince album.

While these imitators’ albums generally capture the raunchiness of Prince’s lyrics, they rarely venture out of the guitar and synth-based pop sound that made Prince so huge in the early ’80s. What these records are doing is imitating Prince’s sound without trying to grow it. These artists, while offering us fleeting hope that they may represent the next step in this sound’s evolution, inevitably leave us retreating to our copies of “Dirty Mind.”

Dan Black, a British import, is the latest to vie for the “Heir to Prince” title. He demonstrates an ear beyond just the synth-guitar sound on his debut LP “Un.” It is a surprisingly assured and ambitious effort for a debut album. While keeping everything grounded in his electronica/hip-hop comfort zone, Black displays a deft incorporation of R&B, rock and even disco.

The album opens with “Symphonies,” a near flawless pop song. It is a perfectly titled track with lushly orchestrated strings, a choral background and multilayered harmonies. The instantly recognizable “Umbrella” drum sample gives the song its hip-hop edge, and, indeed, rapper Kid Cudi contributes a verse on the reprise at the end of the album. It is the most unique-sounding song on the album and also the best.

This is not to say there is a massive drop-off in song quality, though. Black successfully draws in elements of disco and hip-hop, giving a fresh edge to the record. If he weren’t singing over “Yours,” then any number of rappers would be lined up around the block to take a bite out of the beat. “Pump My Pumps” has a bass line that could have easily been pulled from one of Chic’s hits.

The most interesting development on the album comes in its second half with “Cigarette Pack” and the gorgeous “Life Slash Dreams.” With both these songs, Black crosses into U2/Coldplay territory. The fact that Black’s chameleonic voice is able to smoothly make the transition between hip-hop and rock should not be understated. Music is littered with artists who have tried unconvincingly to make that switch (Coldplay’s own Chris Martin is one); their voices simply don’t translate to the other genre.

Dan Black’s “Un” is as impressive a debut album as you are likely to hear this year. While there is room to grow—specifically in truly finding his own voice—Black demonstrates the chops needed to achieve this growth. Should he find it, he could have a home on the pop charts and critics’ best-of lists for years to come.

Original Article

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Jackson Free Press

February 10, 2010

Too often, the break-up song subgenre is not diverse enough. There are several types of break-up songs, generally falling under one of two tents. The first type is the “I-still-love-you-why-did-you-leave-me?” song. These songs have been the cornerstone of blues, pop and soul for as long as genres have existed. The tone is fairly easy to capture and of course many of the best songs ever written fall into this category.

The second form of break-up song is considerably harder. These songs remove the self-victimization from the break-up. Generally, these songs fall under one of two categories: 1. I just broke up with you and I feel OK; and, 2. You broke up with me, and I’m fine with it now.

The main risk with these songs is confusing stoicism with self-righteousness and frustration with whininess. Ben Folds Five epitomized this pratfall with its 1997 clunker “Song for the Dumped.” After listening to this drivel, the first thing you wonder is what took his girlfriend so long to kick his ass to the curb?

Due to the fear and overbearing self-righteousness, you rarely find men singing these songs. Women are far more prone to write proactive break-up songs, largely because their inherent underdog status often encourages self-empowerment.

Can you imagine Beyonce’s “Irreplaceable” sung by Ne-Yo or Akon? It wouldn’t go over quite as well.

So how does a man walk that fine line between pride and misogyny? The artists who are most able to do it end up with the classic break-up songs. Let’s look at three examples:

“A New England” by Billy Bragg is one of the bluntest break-up songs you will ever hear by either gender. Nothing simmers under the surface of the song, which makes it surprisingly unique. He tells his girlfriend that he loved her and loves her still, but he’s now “looking for another girl.” It’s definitely one of the most unsentimental break-up depictions.

Then we have the much more abstract songs. “The Rabbit, the Bat, and the Reindeer” by Dr. Dog exemplifies this category. The narrator explains his frustrations in a more conceptual, though no less damning, way. He has had all he can take from his girlfriend and has finally decided to stand up to her, to “get it back like it’s four in the morning” and be rid of her.

All this leads to the best break-up song in recent years, The Exploding Hearts‘ “Sleeping Aides & Razorblades.” It is the most convincing and vivid song of the past decade about persevering and overcoming break-up hardships. “I hung new posters on my wall, and the dog don’t remember your name,” our victim sings.

Few songs have ever summed up the idea of having “moved on” from a relationship so succinctly and poignantly.

Being able to capture something other than heartbreak from a break-up is admirable. It is something that is done well so rarely and gives a listener hope that something positive can emerge from the wreckage of a relationship. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Original Article