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Friday, June 11, 2010

"Bang Bang Bang" by Mark Ronson

He seems to just be going for it. Mark Ronson wants to produce huge songs... y'know summer anthem kinda stuff. With "Bang Bang Bang" he succeeds. It it both fresh sounding for a 'Ronson Production' and seems entirely in step with his progression as a producer and where the current scene is England is right now. He's not a businessman... he's a business man and he incorporates just enough synth-lines to make that revival happy, just enough hip hop to sell the record (y'know 'move units'), and just enough of his whit-boy-soul influences to keep that part of his persona in check.


Rock & Roll is currently dead, but people like Mark Ronson who are not "rock & roll" at all are keeping the "anything goes" ideals of it alive by accident; and for that alone that makes him important at the moment. As a songwriter and producer he has the swagger of an updated Noel Gallagher with a little bit of Jay-Z and Phil Spector thrown in for good measure.

This is first single of of the new record out later this summer. Needless to say I am excited.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

"Too Many Walls" by Cathy Dennis



I subscribe to the John Cusack theory of music that, pop music for instance, can indeed make you sad before you should begin experiencing said emotion.

"Too Many Walls" by Cathy Dennis is one of those songs that I played to death when I was 12 and, quite frankly, it probably messed me up. ( Well it didn't help reading " A Bridge to Terabithia" weekly as well.)

The lyrics are sad... no doubt about that. But what makes this song so special to me is the melody. It's like a music box of suburban melancholy. I would hear this song daily on my middle school bus trips and it would haunt me...as I knew that Cathy Dennis had a deeper understanding of life. I still think I was right.

"Wish on a rainbow...it's all I can do."