September 10th, 2008 1:40pm

Kneeling By The Pool

Obi Best “What It’s Not” – There is a crispness to this track that suggests a focused, clear-headed state of mind, but that’s not quite where the song is coming from. The singer is trying to make sense of her life after a break-up, but she’s having a rough time transitioning to being on her own. She mostly comes across as sober, composed, and mostly ambivalent about the split, but she’s breaking into some defeatist, melodramatic language too: “I always lose without you!” The tone of the piece is just right — even if she’s wrong, or she gets over it before too long, this is is a song that captures a particular kind of emotional certainty built upon deep-seated insecurities that can feel like hard facts at a low moment. (Click here to buy it from Obi Best.)

Elsewhere: At long last, I have completed my R.E.M. project. In other words, I have written about every song on every R.E.M. album except for Accelerate, which I will come around to sometime late next year. I realize that not everyone had an interest in reading so much about R.E.M., but I do think that some of my best writing in the past two years has appeared on the site. I made a list of my favorite entries, so if you’re at all interested, I believe that’s a good place to start.