Two New Songs and One Old One

Happy New year and all that – in the spirit of resolutions and kind of being in charge of my destiny AND doing what I love, I’ve decided to make real all the ideas that I’ve had for Dear Music, I love you that float around in my head when I listen to tunes.

The first idea is Two New Songs and One Old One because the beauty (and kind of scary overwhelming thing) about music is that there is just so much of it – but of course every now and then you get stuck with a new song or two that no matter how much you try, you can’t really listen to anything else. Your guilty pleasure repeat offenders.

And then there’s one old one because another thing that’s beautiful about music is that it can take you back to whatever that song means to you in time and also, there’s always new old songs to discover.

So here they are: Two New Songs and One Old One.

The first new song is by FIDLAR , a Los Angeles band  who on this track, “AWWWKAARRRDD” (featuring Kare Nash — whatever happened to her?), manage to sound like Weezer; a mature, not vulgar Bloodhound Gang and Gisli, with the story-adding background noises (if you’ve never heard How About That, I highly recommend it). It’s also pretty universal as a self – deprecating punk song – “I’ll probably end up fucking up and make it super awkward”  is something more than enough of us have to admit happens often. Life is super awkward.

New song number 2 is a little ditty by Dead Times called Feel. The band is also from L.A and the song seems to be popular enough on the web as the band announced on their Facebook page that they had reached the capacity of downloads on Soundcloud (1000) and had to give a new URL for downloads. Dead Times describes themselves as alternative RnB and I guess now that I think about it, you could call Passion Pit alternative RnB too, and there are unavoidable similarities in both the bands that have the elements of RnB and alternative.

The chorus is the most convincing part with the synths as the deal-maker when you wonder whether it’s worth listening to this song again. It’s a blend of old and new – plain piano amid layers of handclaps and raindrop like unnamable percussion. And as a new year song, it’s just good old-fashioned fun to dance to.

The oldie is kind of a newbie for me as iTunes shuffled to this track on Speakerboxx/The Love Below Disc 2. I figured this Outkast collaboration with Norah Jones was appropriate for this year as Big Boi is beginning his with a new album full of great songs and even better collaborations. For Norah Jones 2012 must have been bittersweet – in the beginning she released an oft-repeated album Little Broken Heartsand at the end of it, she lost her father, sitarist Ravi Shankar. So as this first post of the year winds down with a soulful acoustic jam, imagine me in my deep, smooth radio voice telling all you lovers venturing into another one to be brave and just take off your cool.