Staff Picks
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Music Bytes
Mike Posner: 31 Minutes to Takeoff
I recently read somewhere that Mike Posner’s breakout hit “Cooler Than Me” is today’s “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon; which makes sense. The song makes a point of calling out a girl for her egregious haughtiness (though Posner displays some of his own conceitedness in the lyric “If I could write you a song to make you fall in love/I would already have you up under my arms”) without ever naming her.
Katy Perry: Teenage Dream
“You make me feel like I’m living a teenage dream,” sings Katy Perry on the first track of her new record Teenage Dream. And boy, does the record feel like an eighteen-year-old girl’s life, in a good way. The record is light, fun, and always comes across mildly innocent even with all that Katy Perry swagger.
We Are Scientists: Barbara
Barbara is the perfect soundtrack to a night on the town. There are the tracks needed to start the night (“Break It Up”), the ones about being drunk and happy (“Jack & Ginger”), and ones to wind down at the end (“You Should Learn”).
Shabazz Palaces
Little is known about Seattle’s Shabazz Palaces, but that’s just how they like it. (MC Ishmael “Butterfly” Butler of Digable Planets uses the pseudonym MC Lazaro.) Their goal is to focus on the music, not the people or process that goes into it. This is admirable in a world where more emphasis goes to public reputation than the content.
Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti: Before Today
Before Today is the brilliant new record released by experimental psychedelic rock/pop revivalists, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti. As expected, the new album is hard to pin down, as are many of Pink’s past lo-fi indie projects. There are so many sounds on Before Today and so many styles that it seems only fair to evaluate it is piece by piece, song by song.