Great Park Avenue – New Fandango
Similar artists: Babyshambles, Dirty Pretty Things, The Libertines, The Coral, shame
Genre: Indie Rock, Indie Pop
It’s not a great time for poets with earnest intentions and a soul that can easily be damaged. Sure, there are plenty of things to care about, to get hurt over, and to report on. In that sense, a poet will have plenty to say about 2023. The uncertainty of the times seems to have been born out of a Byronesque fever dream.
Still, it can be a wonderful time for a poet willing to shake hands with the devil and attempt to rob the tailed beast blind. The world won’t listen unless you make it! And, you can’t make it listen unless you deliver the news with the kind of presentation that it’ll understand.
Indie-rock poets are not many, but the ones that exist have managed to find their way in the world. Great Park Avenue’s “New Fandango” sounds like the work of a clever young man who figured out that putting an electric guitar and a nice haircut to work will help their cause much more than self-publishing a book of rhymes.
And it’s not all a trick. There’s a bitterness to “New Fandango,” but also the tense rock sound of someone that knows they need to get somewhere fast.
Amelie Patterson – The War
Similar artists: Brandi Carlile, Soccer Mommy, Laura Marling
Genre: Indie Folk, Indie Pop
Pop music doesn’t believe in good intentions. If these were true, the musicians who never picked a band with their bandmates, always paid their debts, and gave back to the community would be the richest in the world. They are not.
Pop music doesn’t believe in karma, either. It cannot afford to believe in it. After all, reading popstar autobiographies peppered with salacious stories involving all kinds of terrible behavior directed at others as well as themselves, it’s to think that karma is merely a myth meant to scare off kids from trying to get to the riches pop stars accumulate.
Still, there are some pop stars concerned with those around them, hit by the tragedies of the world and unable to hide that. Amelie Patterson’s “The War” is a tune about the tragedies that affect the lives of millions but rarely find their way onto pop songs.
The song is led by the familiar and warm-sounding voice of the pop-folk singer. And, just like the music video suggests, while good intentions are not enough to stop tragedies from occurring, a little love can go a long way.
