http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32udqal_lyQ
Something about this song hits me like a ton of bricks. In content, it's a break-up song, about the end of a relationship and the inability to reconcile the gap between people; in tone, it's an anthem, a heart-pounding electronica dance mix; in context, I used it heavily in my own life as a love song, ironic and bittersweet and decontextualized; the song, already all but bereft of emotional content, gained only more. And Robert Smith, emerging from semi-retirement to perform guest vocals on a weird Canadian electronica track, he lends context too; suddenly this track is tied irrevocably to the entire catalogs of The Cure, and all the emotional weight that carries. And the song pounds on and on, and he's not in love, he's fallen out, and there's no rhyme or reason to why; it's part of his life, he'll carry on, but he doesn't have to be happy about it.
Showing posts with label robert smith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label robert smith. Show all posts
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Monday, March 4, 2013
Counting Crows — St. Robinson In His Cadillac Dream
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6SEVMhwShQ
Whenever I talk about music with anyone over the age of about thirty, the idea of tonal shift always comes up: most music today has a great divide between the tone of its music and the tone of its lyrics. Modern music can be poppy and upbeat, and discuss sadness and loss. Often it's slow and sad but has hopeful and uplifting lyrics. The theory is that this is a new development, and I'm inclined to agree — it's hard to picture Ella Fitzgerald pulling this trick, (although not as hard to picture Sinatra); but Opera, Soul, Blues, R+B, modern Musicals, Rock 'n' Roll, not even Rap ever has real cognitive dissonance Yet modern Rock, and especially Alternative (call it Indie, whatever) does this a lot.
St. Robinson in His Cadillac Dream is the button song on the Counting Crows' 1999 album This Desert Life; a wonderful, flawed, expert rendition of Americana pop mixed with shoegaze. Yet it's a prime example: a sad, melancholy song put to poppy, heightened banjo, organ, and guitar. It leaves echoes of... uncertainty?
A wonderful example is The Cure, although I'm not sure that they began the trend — Plainsong is Robert Smith going off to write a secret love letter to his wife, shrouded in the timbre of the previously dark stuff The Cure had done earlier in the 80s. It became massively popular, an all-consuming emotional statement, as Pitchfork so puts it.
It sounds sad, but it's deeply happy. St. Robinson pulls the same trick. Most modern indie music pulls the same trick.
But why?
Whenever I talk about music with anyone over the age of about thirty, the idea of tonal shift always comes up: most music today has a great divide between the tone of its music and the tone of its lyrics. Modern music can be poppy and upbeat, and discuss sadness and loss. Often it's slow and sad but has hopeful and uplifting lyrics. The theory is that this is a new development, and I'm inclined to agree — it's hard to picture Ella Fitzgerald pulling this trick, (although not as hard to picture Sinatra); but Opera, Soul, Blues, R+B, modern Musicals, Rock 'n' Roll, not even Rap ever has real cognitive dissonance Yet modern Rock, and especially Alternative (call it Indie, whatever) does this a lot.
St. Robinson in His Cadillac Dream is the button song on the Counting Crows' 1999 album This Desert Life; a wonderful, flawed, expert rendition of Americana pop mixed with shoegaze. Yet it's a prime example: a sad, melancholy song put to poppy, heightened banjo, organ, and guitar. It leaves echoes of... uncertainty?
A wonderful example is The Cure, although I'm not sure that they began the trend — Plainsong is Robert Smith going off to write a secret love letter to his wife, shrouded in the timbre of the previously dark stuff The Cure had done earlier in the 80s. It became massively popular, an all-consuming emotional statement, as Pitchfork so puts it.
It sounds sad, but it's deeply happy. St. Robinson pulls the same trick. Most modern indie music pulls the same trick.
But why?
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