Smash Any Dreams Of Love

The Big Pink “Dominos”

So here’s the question: Is this song a jerk, or is the singer a jerk? I don’t know a lot about Robbie Furze, so I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he’s written a song about a creep who is just a little too into stringing girls along and callously breaking their hearts. He wouldn’t be the first person to write a song about this sort of thing, and certainly not the first to do it in a bragging sort of way, but there’s something about the phrasing in the lyrics that make this guy seem especially sinister. This seems rather deliberate, especially in the context of an arrangement that sounds like someone thinking that they are the most awesome person that has ever lived. The chorus rises and explodes like fireworks celebrating this guy’s heartless ego, and as much as this can be read as a fantasy, the over-the-top nature of it all points in the direction of bitter irony. Either way, “Dominos” has a killer hook. It’s up to you to decide whether or not that is enough to embrace a rather goony lyrical sentiment.

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HEALTH “Die Slow”

The big problem with My Bloody Valentine as a standard musical influence is that it’s pretty obvious that a lot of musicians don’t really have any idea what made Loveless so effective and evocative. Reducing Kevin Shields’ music to blaring rhythm guitar and murmured vocals cuts out the dynamics and omits the sexuality, resulting in an expression of passive-aggression and shyness rather than blissful sensuality. “Die Slow” is one of the few songs I’ve ever heard that sounds like a best-case scenario of where My Bloody Valentine could have gone if Shields et al had ever bothered to finish another record. The song has a solid groove like “Soon,” but it is a denser and busier piece of music, accented by bursts of concentrated noise that form genuine hooks. The arrangement feels tense and violent, but the vocal performance is pure sweetness, which is turn makes the entire song feel less dangerous and more defensive.

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