[Weekly Listening, Week 10 & 11]

It’s been another busy few weeks and for the first time I didn’t discover any new music in Week 11, so I’ve decided to bundle all the songs of two weeks into one post. Week 10 brought some classics, including a strong new contender for song of the year.

Goodie Bag

by Still Woozy (Single) (2017)

34 plays (1:24:26), Song of the Week (Week 10 and 11)

Goodie Bag is the one song that has completely dominated my listening habits over the past fortnight, becoming the first song ever to win Song of the Week twice. Right from the off, this song is a joy to listen to. Apt for the heatwave weather, Goodie Bag is a sweaty, lazy, electro-funk squelch with a host of characteristic guitar sounds and creamy vocals. As is critical with funk, the bass in nailed down in emphatic style; without it the song would have virtually none of its impact. Add the bass with a superb hook, contrasting verse and the occasional delicious patches of vocal harmonies and you have yourself a song that can entertain for hours – literally in my case. All that said, Goodie Bag is not the perfect song, and after the second chorus direction is lost slightly before a blurry outro – a song feature I rarely enjoy generally. However, being short and sweet with a run time of just 2 minutes and 26 seconds, it’s difficult to stop oneself from hitting repeat on Goodie Bag – during one week I’d been listening to it for an average of nearly four times a day. If you’re in need of a summer squelcher (who isn’t?), look no further.

The Overpass

by Panic! At the Disco from Pray for the Wicked (2018)

19 plays (56:18)

Week 10’s listening heavily featured Panic! At the Disco’s long-awaited new album Pray for the Wicked. The album as a whole received decidedly mixed reviews from critics – I too am not in love with it. Brendan Urie (now the soul member of the band), trades musical and lyrical depth for glitzy, in-your-face glamour, and almost every song seems to be plagued by easily fixable errors. Take the strange trap beat that undermines Hey Look Ma, I Made It, the awkward vocal flare on the heartfelt but predictable closer Dying in LA or the jarring, temporary change to sluggish compound time in Roaring 20s, the list of annoyances is a long one. Even one of the album stand-outs, The Overpass, is compromised by a weird, psychedelic middle section that doesn’t really fit for me. Despite its flaws, I have to admit The Overpass is an exceedingly fun, brass filled romp. It opens with some scene-setting brass chords (frustratingly not quite together – shouldn’t they have fixed that?) before the entrance of a fabulous, intricate drum part that wouldn’t sound out of place on a liquid D&B track. Urie gets your pulse racing with a great chorus, but the brass arrangement is a little elementary and boring (though not as much as on High Hopes). Just as you start to get into it, we plunge into the previously mentioned psychedelic interlude. It’s another slip by Urie, but with a chorus that good, I’ll turn a blind eye.

Digital Kids

by Vicktor Taiwò (feat. Solomon) from Juno – EP (2015)

15 plays (54:30)

It seems every week, a song pops up that is completely different from the rest. Digital Kids is one of those songs. Nigerian-born Londoner Vicktor Taiwò is a master of intensely emotive and personal R&B, and Digital Kids is his best song to date. Taiwò instantly sets a dismal, sickeningly dark atmosphere courtesy of hushed synths and an ever-present backbeat click. The opening hums are enough to give you chills, and really set this song apart from the rest. Taiwò’s vocals are remarkable – masterfully toying with loose vocal lines, being lusciously smooth yet devastatingly sinister. Of course, the theme of loss of innocence and some poetic lyrics add to this – Taiwò sings “Kids like you ain’t supposed to know that the world is broken / And the soul is frozen” in chilling style. Guest rapper Solomon continues in this tone with some gripping bars and a final thought that will leave you with plenty to think about.

Song for Leila

by Only Sun (Single) (2018)

15 plays (46:15)

The sixth single from the Wycombe indie rockers seems to perfectly suit the band name. It’s an persistently sunny pop bop with a compound time that keeps the bounce going throughout. The guitar work is exceptional for a band of this style, with some delightful oodleings in the chorus especially. The breakdown – a feature I’ll always love – is well performed with some very tight guitar chords to drop into the final chorus. With all the sunny weather, I’ve been totally in the mood for a song like Song for Leila, and it might just turn out to be my song of the summer.

Roaring 20s

by Panic! At the Disco from Pray for the Wicked (2018)

13 plays (40:25)

Brendan Urie continues the PFTW’s theme of drug use and the difficulties of fame in Roaring 20s, another one of the album highlights. It’s well driven and, unlike The Overpass, will have your foot tapping throughout. That said, it’s far from avoided the album-wide scourge of mistakes. Firstly there’s the poorly written lyrics with repeated lines like “Roll me like a blunt ’cause I wanna go home” that somehow made it to the final cut. To make matters worse, the lyrics don’t fit the melody particularly well in the chorus, with the musical emphasis often being misplaced on the wrong syllables. In terms of songwriting, it’s inexcusable blunder that makes the chorus feel like it was rushed during the writing process. And I still haven’t even got onto the bizarre change in time signature towards the end. Urie thankfully ‘resolves’ the issue by quickly switching back to the regular pulse, but it feels a little like wasted time, and a missed opportunity for a much-needed key change.

Broken Truth and Honesty

by Hydrocele (Single) (2018)

13 plays (28:44)

Broken Truth and Honesty is a euphoric indie rock jam with lyrics enthused with gossipy talk of break-ups and revenge as the title suggests. I’ll admit, the lyrics themselves aren’t great – the line “Are you acute or obtuse?” sounds more like a poorly delivered maths pun than a good song lyric. There is some slightly better wordplay in the second verse, however, repeating the line “I got your last words on repeat.” But in Broken Truth and Honesty the main action is in the chorus. There’s a great sing-along hook and vocals, but it seems to be lacking something. Perhaps it’s the suspended guitar chords or the need for a more exciting drum part, but I can’t help but find the chorus lacking a crucial bit of kick. At last, this ‘kick’ does arrive in the foot-tapping, kick drum driven middle eight, which is the highlight of the whole song. It’s also worth mentioning the eyebrow-raising female soul freestyle vocals that enter out of the blue on the final chorus. It sounds a little out of place on this track, but adds some good contrast to previous choruses.

Come With Me Now

by KONGOS from Lunatic (2014)

7 plays (24:43)

Having featured on countless TV adverts since its release, Come With Me Now is far from an original discovery on my part. KONGOS seem to know how to deliver a hit, delivering the all important hook right from the off. The rest of the song is a fun and enjoyable rock-folk fusion, with heavy guitars one second, and bubbly accordion jig the next. It’s exciting and memorable, and a must-have addition to all your favourite playlists.

And finally…

Please check out the new page “The Top 10” where I’ll release a list of my top 10 most played songs since starting the blog, with links to my original reviews. I’ll be sure to update it each week.