Fluxblog Weekly #212: Verdigirls, Charly Bliss, Carly Rae Jepsen, The National + Barry / X-Men
Some non-Fluxblog bits of writing that may be of interest:
• I wrote about Sarah Goldberg's outstanding performance as Sally Reed on Barry, which is one of the best shows currently running on television. I love this character so much.
• I've started a new site called House of X where I will be writing about each issue of Jonathan Hickman's forthcoming run on X-Men. The Hickman issues won't start coming out until late July, but in the meantime I will be setting the tone by writing about old X-Men stories. So far I've written about Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's "Riot at Xavier's" and Chris Claremont and Marc Silvestri's "Fever Dream."
May 19th, 2019
Nothing Really Remarkable
Verdigirls “Women In Fiction”
“Women In Fiction” is like a critical essay in song form, in which Catherine and Anna Wolk examine the often shallow and idealized depictions of women in stories created by men. There’s a lot of nuance in this critique, as well as humor and a strong yearning to connect with something on a page or a screen as a way of validating one’s own existence. The arrangement of the song is gorgeous in its balance of graceful synth pop and delicate chamber strings. Wolk sings with a lovely but prim voice that reminds me a lot of a young Natalie Merchant. It’s a similar mix of unapologetic overt femininity, introverted thoughtfulness, and low-key erudition. It’s just the right tone for the lyrics too – serious and incisive, but coming more from a place of idealism and empathy than spite or rage.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
May 21st, 2019
The Fate Of A Crush
Charly Bliss “Young Enough”
“Young Enough” is essentially Charly Bliss rewriting LCD Soundsystem’s “All My Friends” into a yearning love song, the sort of thing it’s not hard to imagine playing during a particularly sappy moment in a modern rom-com. This is not faint praise. “Young Enough” is a slow burn that steadily builds to a well-earned climax while side-stepping obvious moves and sentimentality. It’s nostalgic, sure, but it’s not about overly romanticizing a failed relationship or punishing yourself for making a mistake. It’s remarkable how much compassion this song has for both sides of the situation. There is a significant musical debt to LCD here – and to New Order before them – but the most important thing Eva Hendricks takes from “All My Friends” is from the song’s most important statement: “I wouldn’t trade one stupid decision for another five years of life.”
Buy it from Amazon.
May 22nd, 2019
Those Lips Can Wear Me Out
Carly Rae Jepsen “Everything He Needs”
Carly Rae Jepsen has made “having a crush” her brand through rigorous determination – she’s barely ever off-message. Even the darker and more complicated feelings that bubble up in her songs are part of a fantasy of romance – it’s the way rom-coms always need a bit of drama and tension in the lead-up to make the sappy parts work the way they ought to. This makes some sense of why her modest but intensely devoted audience tends to be young adults rather than teens – the idealized melodramatic love she sells is a regressive notion, it’s about being an adult who is fully aware of how disappointing this stuff gets IRL and wishing it could all have the supposed simplicity of teenage infatuation. (Revisionist history, nearly always.) Actual teens are usually in a hurry to feel older and more mature and gravitate to more “adult” experiences, or whatever they perceive that to be with their frame of reference. Hence the current popularity of Billie Eilish.
“Everything He Needs” is light and blissful even in terms of the CRJ discography. Just hearing it will make your body feel a bit lighter – it’s like the whole thing is floating on a light breeze on a sunny day. Something about it just screams “listen to me on a boat, or by a pool.” The main hook is lifted from a song Harry Nilsson wrote for Popeye, which strikes me as a rather inspired place to lift, but the most appealing structural elements of the song are original – the chords, Jepsen’s relaxed and gentle phrasing on the verses, and the pitch-shifted countermelody in the chorus. It’s all so incredibly sweet that you can just sorta gloss over how much the lyrics sound like someone convincing themselves that the person they’re into is more into them than they probably are.
Buy it from Amazon.
May 23rd, 2019
A Popular Culture
The National “Rylan”
I have no investment in The National, and have only liked scattered songs through their discography, mainly because their music tends to be so drab and monotonous. So it’s interesting to find that “Rylan,” one of the brightest and most dynamic songs they’ve ever released, is one that they had written many years ago but only recently completed. The work in tinkering with this song paid off. The beat is crisp and vital rather than plodding, the chords seem move rather than linger. As my friend Emily put it in her review of this record, the addition of other voices makes Matt Berninger’s deep, sad voice seem less dreary – as she puts it, it’s like adding a bit of salt to a chocolate chip cookie to make all the other flavors pop. The relatively light tone suits the subject matter well. He’s singing about a precocious child and observing their charms and challenges, and honoring the complexity of their character in a way that’s somewhat rare in songs about kids. This feels significantly warmer than a typical National song, and also a little more optimistic. They’re not sugar-coating anything, but hoping for the best.
Buy it from Amazon.