Music
The Songs We Can't Escape
5ingles
COLBIE CAILLAT
"Bubbly"
Unlike "Tattoo" (see below), this effervescent, folk-pop flavor-of-the-moment comes with psychic glue, burrowing/snuggling into memory from jump. The video's a total American Apparel ad and Caillat's acting career—if it ever happens—won't extend beyond limited cameos, but the coy ambiguity at the tail end of the chorus is...slightly ace.
THAO NGUYEN
"Bag of Hammers"A Hawaiian hail of picked, glancing guitar notes is disturbed by blunt, lithe low end, as indie-rock's oughta-be new It girl insists that we give the love we share just one more chance. Won't you give her the chance?
JORDAN SPARKS
"Tattoo"
Let's try a little experiment, okay? Listen to this song once a day, every day, for a week; on the eighth day, try to remember something—anything—about it beyond the puerile video. I can safely predict, right now, that you will draw a gaping blank, because A) I have extraordinary mental abilities and because B) "Tattoo" is a half-assed pop single. Rest easy, Kelly Clarkson.
THESE NEW PURITANS
"Navigate, Navigate" (Tim Goldsworthy's Loving Hand Remix)
You've gotta admire what DJ/remixer/DFA impresario Goldsworthy's done with this U.K. group's first, unbounded single. Before: shouty, cluttered dance-rock mess. After: boiled down to just rubber-ducky bass, frisky drums, and layered yelps—with acid synths periodically incorporated—the track becomes tolerable at the very least (not to mention digestible).
THEE SILVER MT. ZION MEMORIAL ORCHESTRA AND TRA-LA-LA BAND
"1,000,000 Died to Make This Sound"
Hey, remember back when these co-ed Canadian commune-dwellers were merely an unbearably quiet Godspeed You Black Emperor side project? And now they're a prolific, orchestral-if-loud concern pursuing underground activism by exploding the parameters of what post-rock can be. Nicely gnarled, this.