I'll try and do this every week (nothing resembling a guarantee about that). I'll briefly highlight a new (or maybe not-so-new) song that is currently infesting my brain. More often than not, it'll be something that caught my ear via Sirius. I want feedback, but I'll probably ignore it if it's not positive. Feel free to turn me on (dead man) to some other good Jams of Your Indeterminate Time Period.My first entry is the Black Kids awesomely titled "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You".
I'm not going to sit here cross-legged and tell you that this is the most original, genre-shattering, era-defining masterpiece. It's not. It's basically Robert Smith fronting The Go! Team (the lead singer may even be Smith's illegitimate mixed-race son). You could do a lot worse Frankensteining bands together, though. It has a great flow and is catchy as hell (likely to be a recurring theme).
The lyrics depict a story as old as time. Guy loves girl. Girl has jerk boyfriend. Guy employs sympathetic female backup singers to count to 4 in between his complaints. Guy won't teach jerk boyfriend to dance because "He's got two left feet and he bites my moves." Guy gets girl, but wonders how he compares to the jerk boyfriend. Just like in West Side Story.
I do deduct points for yet another "Black Plural Objects"/"Descriptive Phrase Kids" approach to band-naming. With a modicum of searching my brain and the Internets, here are a *lot* of other new-ish bands that follow this hackneyed pattern:
- Black Lips
- Black Keys
- Black Dice
- Black Ghosts
- Black Diamond Heavies
- Black Hollies
- Cold War Kids
- Cool Kids
- No Kids
I'm willing to be the bigger man, and sublimate my loathing for their unorigiinal name in exchange for singing along to the chorus. Also, I think liking a band named "Black Kids" makes you less racist.
N-Joi yourself.
While you're listening, check out this article from The Morning News where the author listened to 1 song by 763 SXSW bands and wrote a 6-word review for each.
The official video (eh):
A live version:
Cline
