Redemption, thy name is Florence. After two extraordinarily bad promo singles, Florence + The Machine drop a proper song in the form of “My Love”.
Listen, I personally am not a massive fan of it. If it came on in the car I would not change the station, but I also will not be adding this to my regular playlist. The chorus is slightly middling and there’s no solid instrumental hook. But it is concise, it is well-produced and most importantly it has ambition. I cannot stress that part enough. This is Florence Welch wanting to be played on the radio, in commercials, and on patio playlists. She focuses her operatic vigour and merges her classical style with a modern dance beat. This is an objectively good pop song. That cannot be argued.
It’s always fun to play “spot the influence” when it comes to new artists. Tracing the lineage of fresh-faced acts is a good indicator of the tone the bands want to set and also tells you what kind of person they are.
Let’s talk about poptropicaslutz!, a newer two-piece band whose influence is so micro-focused that it’s hard to get more niche.
Their entire oeuvre thus far is based not on late-2000s mall-emo.
It’s not based on the discography of Panic! At The Disco.
It’s not based on Panic! At The Disco’s album A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out.
It’s based on the first half of Panic! At The Disco’s album A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out.
Every song they’ve released sounds like one of 3 or 4 tracks from one band in 2005. It’s uncanny how they’ve managed to do this, but it’s all there. The frantic, desperate lyrics, the crunchy guitars, the wailing synths, the auto-tune, the uptempo beats – not to mention the names of the songs. Is there any doubt these guys worship Brendon Urie with song titles like “in this world of mona lisa’s, you’re my jackson pollock” or “A Cinderella Story Based in Reality” ?
The question I have though, is how old these two fellows are.
If they were old enough to be heavily influenced by P!atD in the year – let’s say 2007, judging by the name of the song “I Miss 2007” – that means they were at the very youngest 12 years old.
And I’m stretching with that guess. They were likely a bit older.
But let’s say they were somewhere around 12. It’s 2022. That means they are (at the youngest) 27 years old and they are just starting out as an emo band influenced by a 2005 album. That is slightly concerning. That means they’re either shamelessly jumping on the emo-rap bandwagon despite being too old to fit in, or they are both very sad guys.
While we’re on the topics of age and bands with long names, let’s talk about the guy who plays Dexter in the show Dexter. Michael C. Hall is in a band called Princess Goes to the Butterfly Museum.
It’s an interesting band, because at the age of 50 it’s surprising for an actor who wasn’t previously known to play music to suddenly show up with a relatively modern sounding act. Hollywood actors tend to lean heavily into bluesy music, singer-songwriter jams or country-folk tunes. Of course there’s Jared Leto’s 30 Seconds to Mars but that was formed in his youth. Hall is 50 years old and he’s just now starting a band that sounds like Nine Inch Nails attempting to be U2. And it’s pretty decent – it’s just surprising is all.
If there was ever an artist that was engineered to be 100% Not For Me it would be Rex Orange County. Planted firmly in the “smooth vibes” genre that’s enveloped alternative music over the past two years, this guy just absolutely cannot write one solid hook. He reminds me of 2000s twee superstar Sondre Lerche to an even more bland degree. Everything about his music is designed to be more about the mood than the craft, and the mood is obnoxious laid-back zoomer.
