Gnarls Barkley played a relatively intimate, stripped-down three-man gig at the Soho Apple Store last week, predictably closing the five- or six-song set with “Crazy,” the most arguable contender for song of the summer back in 2006. The under-three-minute-long recorded version of that track, from the duo’s St. Elsewhere album, did absolutely everything right: It took a dramatic, up-tempo Spaghetti Western sample (revitalizing the then-seemingly-barren lyrical pop trope of insanity with a succinct structure that took nothing for granted) with tense verses releasing in a seemingly cathartic chorus that dovetailed uncannily back into itself. But I don’t have to tell you: The song breezily bounced around in your brain for most of that summer; and likely my mere mention of it was the only barrier it had from effortlessly straitjacketing the soundtrack in your head.
The performance last week by frontman Cee-Lo Green, beat bandit Danger Mouse and a supporting guitarist, was a whole other matter entirely. Stretched out and BPMed down, the song, in its altered state, let us know that Gnarls is a different kind of crazy in ’08. Introspecting his way through the lyrics, Cee-Lo seemed to carefully study the padded walls of his soul. It was an eerie rendering, triangulated at the intersection of extroversion and introspection; but had it been originally recorded in such a manner, it would have never achieved the universal appeal that it trumped all comers with—indie kids, casual pop listeners and clubgoers all enthusiastically signed off on it—and that across-all-lifestyles reach is the primary ingredient for any true “Song of
the Summer.”
Grateful as I am that the Barkley boys have so openly relinquished their hard-earned title, signaling a clear path for all comers as the sweltering season fast approaches, seemingly little of the slack has been picked up thus far, and with summer arriving this week, well, things are potentially grim.
Expecting the most mainstream of pop artists to muster the necessary energy for the job is, granted, generally a little naive, but this year we seemingly had, in the form of a mega-star collab, a very plausible shot. Thus hearts broke into even smaller pieces upon hearing the Madonna/Timberlake/Timbaland pile-up “4 Minutes,” a go-nowhere, hook-free, banal piece of half-assery that feels extra disappointing given the spectacular heights its recognizable-on-every-continent participants are capable of. The Timbers Lake and Land, working together or separately, generally earn their star status with quality, sonically inventive pop, and Maddy has somehow actually aged into increased relevancy (listen to her post-2000 singles “Music” or “Hung Up” again if you don’t believe me). So it’s a shame that “4 Minutes” is so awful. I’m actually trying to remember how it goes as I write this, but the track’s blandtastic melody can’t seem to pick itself up off the floor and offer me a re-introduction.
Sidestepping other candidates—most notably Lil’ Wayne’s autotune-drenched “Lollipop,” which tries to glide by solely on its likeably lickable chorus but pulls lower rank for scattershot versus that broadly ignore the cut’s sweet title/metaphor and relies too heavily on sonics—I’d like to offer a dark horse for your consideration: Walter Meego, an up-and-coming Chicago indie-dance outfit just put out Voyager, their debut full-length, and they lead that album off with a blissful piece of love-pop called, simply, “Forever.”
Meego’s “Forever” is an expert mix of synthesized low-end, melodic synths and an occasional, largely unchanging, beautifully simple guitar riff somehow serving as the only chorus. Lyrically, it navigates the often-unspecific world of pop deftly, pleasing all camps. The title’s cliché is as worn as any musical tale of endless love, but the attentive listener will hear it being playfully toyed with in the opening verse: “You know I’d wait forever/ If I had time to/ But I don’t have forever/ To wait for you, yeah/ So when I say I want us to be together/ Just say you want me to/ And I’ll be yours forever.” It’s a stanza that paradoxically implies its narrator’s single-purpose eternity over a sly, indie-funk bass line. Vocalist Justin Sconza sounds gloriously pouty every time the word “forever” melts off his tongue.
It’s a coup of sorts, picking your own summer song, and if you are unable to find one of your own (your best recourse in a season when pop’s mighty have stranded us all on an uncatchy island), you’ll find Walter Meego has crafted a strut-worthy anthem worth repeatedly queuing in the New York summer heat.
The song, one hopes, may last forever, but it doesn’t really need to—’til the end of the season is all I ask.
Greg Burgett plans to blog about music all summer at songsaboutknives.com.
The performance last week by frontman Cee-Lo Green, beat bandit Danger Mouse and a supporting guitarist, was a whole other matter entirely. Stretched out and BPMed down, the song, in its altered state, let us know that Gnarls is a different kind of crazy in ’08. Introspecting his way through the lyrics, Cee-Lo seemed to carefully study the padded walls of his soul. It was an eerie rendering, triangulated at the intersection of extroversion and introspection; but had it been originally recorded in such a manner, it would have never achieved the universal appeal that it trumped all comers with—indie kids, casual pop listeners and clubgoers all enthusiastically signed off on it—and that across-all-lifestyles reach is the primary ingredient for any true “Song of
the Summer.”
Grateful as I am that the Barkley boys have so openly relinquished their hard-earned title, signaling a clear path for all comers as the sweltering season fast approaches, seemingly little of the slack has been picked up thus far, and with summer arriving this week, well, things are potentially grim.
Expecting the most mainstream of pop artists to muster the necessary energy for the job is, granted, generally a little naive, but this year we seemingly had, in the form of a mega-star collab, a very plausible shot. Thus hearts broke into even smaller pieces upon hearing the Madonna/Timberlake/Timbaland pile-up “4 Minutes,” a go-nowhere, hook-free, banal piece of half-assery that feels extra disappointing given the spectacular heights its recognizable-on-every-continent participants are capable of. The Timbers Lake and Land, working together or separately, generally earn their star status with quality, sonically inventive pop, and Maddy has somehow actually aged into increased relevancy (listen to her post-2000 singles “Music” or “Hung Up” again if you don’t believe me). So it’s a shame that “4 Minutes” is so awful. I’m actually trying to remember how it goes as I write this, but the track’s blandtastic melody can’t seem to pick itself up off the floor and offer me a re-introduction.
Sidestepping other candidates—most notably Lil’ Wayne’s autotune-drenched “Lollipop,” which tries to glide by solely on its likeably lickable chorus but pulls lower rank for scattershot versus that broadly ignore the cut’s sweet title/metaphor and relies too heavily on sonics—I’d like to offer a dark horse for your consideration: Walter Meego, an up-and-coming Chicago indie-dance outfit just put out Voyager, their debut full-length, and they lead that album off with a blissful piece of love-pop called, simply, “Forever.”
Meego’s “Forever” is an expert mix of synthesized low-end, melodic synths and an occasional, largely unchanging, beautifully simple guitar riff somehow serving as the only chorus. Lyrically, it navigates the often-unspecific world of pop deftly, pleasing all camps. The title’s cliché is as worn as any musical tale of endless love, but the attentive listener will hear it being playfully toyed with in the opening verse: “You know I’d wait forever/ If I had time to/ But I don’t have forever/ To wait for you, yeah/ So when I say I want us to be together/ Just say you want me to/ And I’ll be yours forever.” It’s a stanza that paradoxically implies its narrator’s single-purpose eternity over a sly, indie-funk bass line. Vocalist Justin Sconza sounds gloriously pouty every time the word “forever” melts off his tongue.
It’s a coup of sorts, picking your own summer song, and if you are unable to find one of your own (your best recourse in a season when pop’s mighty have stranded us all on an uncatchy island), you’ll find Walter Meego has crafted a strut-worthy anthem worth repeatedly queuing in the New York summer heat.
The song, one hopes, may last forever, but it doesn’t really need to—’til the end of the season is all I ask.
Greg Burgett plans to blog about music all summer at songsaboutknives.com.
