Best Song Ever: May 2013 (Round 1 Part 2)

The bottom half of the Best Song Ever (May 2013) tournament was even more vexing than the top, and I still haven't reached a verdict on the last batch. But I was determined to get some content up tonight, so I fought my way through what I could. As with last time, we'll be using the video component to take a look at a few of the losing numbers in this one.

Flaming Lips, "Fight Test" vs. Weezer, "Say It Ain't So"

Funny, how the Weezer song is a heavy examination of a son's relationship with his father, and the Flaming Lips song cribs from a Cat Stevens song called "Father and Son." The Lips do an admirable job, creating a dreamy soundscape on which top hang their lyrics, but this Weezer song shows a very particular skill at marrying a catchy, memorable pop tune to a sincere yet still skewed lyric.

Winner: "Say It Ain't So"



Fang Island, "Chompers" vs. Smashing Pumpkins, "Tonight Tonight"

This is more of a tossup than I would think, given the cred behind "Tonight Tonight." There are a lot of arguments against everything Billy Corgan's ever done, and "Chompers" is quite frankly and excellent exercise in Fang Island's transcendent riffage. But I do have a weak spot for the times when I believe Corgan got it right, and his sense of composition, of production, of putting every damn thing in the exact right place is in perfect work here.

Winner: "Tonight Tonight"

Temptations, "Ain't Too Proud To Beg" vs. Locksley, "One More Minute"

The easiest pick of this lot was the Temptations vs. Locksley. And I love Locksley, guys, they're a top-notch power pop band with old school leanings, but I think in future rounds, we will get a lot of opportunities to extol the virtues of this singular masterpiece that is "Ain't Too Proud to Beg."

Winner: "Ain't Too Proud to Beg"

Robbie Williams, "Rock DJ" vs. Cage the Elephant, "Aberdeen"

I really like "Aberdeen," for a 2010s-era alt rock romper, but the gloriously to-the-limit production of this Robbie Williams song kind of reminds me why people listen to pop music to begin with. (Although to listen to it nowadays you'd mainly have to be a weirdo with a 90s obsession. Hi guys!)

Winner: "Rock DJ"



Stars, "Wasted Daylight" vs. No Doubt, "Hey Baby"

Some songs, man. Some songs transport you to a whole different time and place. "Wasted Daylight" brings me back to the very beginning of this blog, in January or February of 2011. I was slogging through the slush on the University campus, doing last-minute readings for English Lit courses between classes and napping at the library and living in the isolating fluorescent light of a train or the isolating mass of a University lecture hall. "Hey Baby," meanwhile, takes me back to Grade 9, and... man, that's just about all you need to know.

Winner: "Wasted Daylight"

Darkness, "I Believe In a Thing Called Love" vs. Hold Steady, "Lord I'm Discouraged"

It's not true that any vaguely sensitive tune will beat out any rock song. I want you to know that. But this is not just any song, honestly, I think "Lord I'm Discouraged" might be the dark horse favourite to win this whole damn thing, it's that good.

Winner: "Lord I'm Discouraged"



White Stripes, "Stop Breaking Down" vs. Deer Tick, "Electric"

Case in point - Deer Tick put up a really great tune that blends a softly-struck electric keyboard with strings, but I've got to give it up for Jack White's soul splintering Robert Johnson cover.

Winner: "Stop Breaking Down"

Stella Ella Ola, "Summerette" vs. Dan Mangan, "Post-War Blues"

While I appreciate what Dan Mangan does, I think there's such pure joy in Stella Ella Ola's music that they should at least pass through to round two.

Winner: "Summerette"



Coral, "Precious Eyes" vs. Sloan, "The Answer Was You"

The Coral's Nightfreak and the Sons of Becker album is definitely something that's bigger than the sum of its parts, a bunch of ragged, hardly-produced, barely-even-written tunes that capture a lonely, haunted mood. Sloan's The Double Cross is also bigger than the sum of its parts, but its parts are so good.

Winner: "The Answer Was You"

Does It Rock? Dan Mangan, "Post War Blues"

It's been about a year since the germ of an idea started forming in my head, exactly what my "philosophy" would be when I started reviewing music. I hadn't even come up with the idea for this blog yet, but when I did, the approach I ended up taking was rooted in something that happened on the way home from a Halloween party in 2010.

I was on my way home the next morning, and I picked up one of Toronto's free hip indie newspapers. NOW, probably. In it, there was an article on Mangan, whose song "Robots," I was really digging. I hadn't had a chance to pick up the album yet. The article's thrust was that Mangan was an up and comer on the indie scene, with a growing fanbase and a couple of award notices: notably, his album Nice Nice Very Nice was a dark horse candidate for that year's Polaris prize. The article wondered whether this attention was warranted, referencing a review by Alan Cross calling the album "Bland, bland, very bland." This... this irked me.

Alan Cross is an extremely noteworthy Canadian music journalist, a self-described "professional music geek." His work with Corus stations like Edge 102 in Toronto makes him pretty much the lead tastemaker. He seems like a nice guy. But he's also got a gig with the chain of stores I work for, regular segments on the official radio station we listen to, introducing current hits with background information or trivia. He never voices his critical opinion there, or if he does, it's only vaguely, non-committally, and always supportive, even when describing generic radio pop, stuff critics don't usually fawn over, like the Black Eyed Peas or Britney Spears.

It seemed so disingenuous to me, that this titan of music journalism should make it his business to kick an up and comer back down the ladder. That he plays the critic card for someone doing his best to create his own sound and carve out his niche, while giving his tacit stamp of approval to the usual ubiquitous pop you hear everywhere anyway.

I mean, I get it: Britney, the Peas, Rihanna, Coldplay, they're all critic-proof. They're going to get radio play and they're going to sell records no matter what I think about them and no matter what Alan Cross thinks about them. That's fine, in fact it's great. I've often said Justin Bieber and Michael Buble are keeping us in business, even though I'd never buy one of their records for myself. Nothing wrong with that. But why discourage Mangan, especially when people, as the article pointed out, are responding to it? As I said with my Oasis write-up, no matter your own thoughts as a critic, if an act provokes a response from its intended audience, it works, and it's part of your job to figure out why, not merely to tell people they're wrong. Maybe to some ears, that first Mangan album was bland. But to a lot, it wasn't. And that write-up scared me away from buying the first album, since I was a lot more skittish about committing to buying music before this blog, and never came back to it since.

Aaaaaanyway, a year has passed and Mangan has a new album, and this is the single off it, which I personally have been enjoying. It begins with that pulsing verse and builds, much like "Robots," below, but with a bit more muscle, and those trilling U2 guitars. I know there are a lot of people who would like this song and probably the whole album, who wouldn't hear about it otherwise. Until I can get around to hearing the whole set, I'll let you decide for yourself whether it rocks. I think it really does, though.