It seems that I left the lights on on my blog. I had to reset my password to get back in here. It is a bit early for me to talk about song picks for the year, but then again, since I had only posted twice in the last three years, maybe it is really late.
I really only listen to music from female artists these days. Maybe I am just a lonely old man. Or maybe it is because boys as a whole have completely forgotten how to rock, and the ladies are taking over. Let’s go with that one. As it happens, earlier this year, I was almost in a band with a female lead singer, but it did not work out. Anyway, what was I listening to this year?
I actually quite liked that super-massive mega-hit by Taylor Swift. Well, one of them anyway. You know, the good one. The one that has the second most views of all time on YouTube. I do not think Miss Swift really needs my endorsement, as I read somewhere that her album outsold everything from the past twelve years. There was a story a while ago about iTunes mistakenly uploading about 10 seconds of white noise labeled as a Taylor Swift song and it still went to number one. We are not here to talk about pop stars are we? (It turns out that we are.)
Charli XCX – Boom! Clap! / Break the Rules: You may or may not know her as one of the two white girls from last year’s utterly inexplicable hip-hop hit by, well, two white girls. I, for some reason, watched a video of her performance on SNL, and was shocked when she totally kicked ass! So I checked out some of her stuff and… I just was not into it at all. Oh well, I moved on and more or less forgot about it. Then several months later, I happened to run across her name again somewhere and I did a little more research. I came to the conclusion that whoever produced her album did her a huge disservice. Her recordings are just typically forgettable synth-pop, but then she went on tour with a three-piece all-girl punk-ish band, and it is a whole different story. A pop star who is better live than on the record? No, this is a pop star who is only good live. Who knew that was a thing? So skip her official videos, here is her full set from Glastonbury. Now, I am not even going to pretend that anyone is going to read this and watch that whole thing, so I would also just like to point out that on the second song she busts out a comically over-sized inflatable guitar, yet she “plays” it with such conviction that for a brief moment, I questioned whether the damn thing was actually plugged in and making noise somehow. Which is patently absurd, of course, but this girl is legit.
Tove Lo – Talking Body: This is an unwholesome video for an unwholesome song by an unwholesome singer. I do not know if it is because she is Swedish, or because she is a rock star, or a combination of both, but she is far more open about sexuality and nudity than us repressed Americans. As this is still *nominally* a Christian blog, I am not going to provide a link. Just know that this song exists, and that it has been stuck in my head for months. Incidentally, her live band consists of two drummers and keyboardist. Drummers are hard to come by, and here she is flaunting two of them? Scandalous.
Lights – Up We Go: Ugh. This is a straight up peppy, feel good, throw away pop song. There is no reason in the world I should like it at all, but that hook is so dang catchy. The lyrics are actually kind of dark too, when you get right down to it. Now, in the same vein as what I said above, it seems that music videos featuring female singers who aren’t stripped down to their underwear are rather rare. (Presumably because the music industry is run by even lonelier, dirtier old men than I.) This video does feature a couple getting it on, but at least in this case, it is not the singer herself. This is what we call artistic integrity, I suppose. Anyway, if that is a deal breaker for you, have a nice acoustic version instead. [As long as I am being all morality police-y, I maybe should have mentioned that Charli XCX has quite the potty mouth. I don’t care.]
The Like – June Gloom: This is actually a song from 2006 that I discovered the last time that I was on a girl band kick. Unfortunately I found it too late to include in that list, so I am throwing it in here for completeness. Is the song any good? I actually have no idea, but the video is mesmerizing. [SPOILER: the pretty girls are a misdirect! Watch the instruments!]
And the winner is:
Meg Myers – Sorry: Okay, enough with the guilty pleasures and embarrassing confessions. This is real. This girl single handedly got me excited about music again. I would not be talking about any of this otherwise. (BTW, didn’t I used to know a Meg Meyers? Not the same one.) She reminds me of Courtney Love, which might not seem like a compliment as Courtney Love is a train-wreck of a human being. Yet I actually liked Hole. I do not know about you, but I realized that I want my artists to be a little damaged. I feel as though a lot of singers have an “authenticity” problem, but Meg here sounds like she has been through some shit, and she sings like she means it. This song is the title track from her debut album, which was conveniently released in 2015. Although, she actually had a couple of EPs before this, and to be perfectly honest, I feel like her older stuff seemed to have more “teeth”. While this song is decent, also check out Heart Heart Head, Curbstomp, and, well, everything else really. Perhaps “Sorry” is not the best song of the year, but Meg Myers is definitely the most interesting artist that I know of right now.