Heather Porcaro – I Wanna Know
Let’s face it indie has become a marketing buzzword for modern & youthful rock. The original indie bands had labels interested in their products and, usually, their playing was well… let’s just call it charmingly naive.
Heather Porcaro is certainly not naive about her songwriting and the elegant arrangements featured on her songs. She is a pop star in the classic tradition in terms of her performance and songwriting capabilities. She also has a way of adapting her great knowledge of the craft to suit the current musical trends. Indie-pop may not be the ideal way to describe this, but we too are guilty of trying to stick things into a rather narrow definition at times.
Pop with just a hint of 60s nostalgia and jazz finesse, I wanna know is a proper tune, the kind that music teachers might enjoy and take a hand at analysing. The cleverly orchestrated guitar duel launches the song forward, while Mr Porcaro’s dreamy vocals keep the song well on course. Very pleasant and enjoyable. People who don’t like this surely need a stern talking to.
Phaeic – Feeble Man
Nirvana and the Pixies were, like it or not, great pop songwriters, who cleverly disguised all their great, melodic hooks under weirdness, screams, distorted guitars, or misanthropic visions.
It’s only natural that, given how many of those bands’ songs are still being played heavily on rock radio, their approach to music-making would create brand new fans endorsing this approach and anxious to create their own versions. For kids picking up a guitar, they are their generation’s Ramones, an example of how imagination trumps skill in the game of making rock music.
Phaeic’s Feeble Man display that strategy put to good use. You can’t move too far in the particular alt-rock game if your ears are not finely tuned to hooks and dynamics. Fortunately for them Phaeic make it look easy as they stroll through this 90s rock inspired song. Overcomplicating things is usually the refuge of the musicians that tend to overthink their decisions, and this group is anything if not confident.
