Plattenbau – Crime / Scène (Remix by Data Animal)
Similar artists: Joy Division, Wire, DAF, Suicide
Getting dark and moody is, almost without fault, the formula that older rock bands use to reinsert themselves into the public’s mind. It’s a way to show that they’re serious now, dangerous even, and that typical rock star concerns are beneath them.
The grunge and industrial rock eras, in particular, created an unholy amount of would-be dark and moody albums by rockers whose careers were long over the hill. Those usually tanked. Nobody could buy, for example, those old hair metal bands were the new Nine Inch Nails or Soundgarden of their day. It takes a certain flair to create music like this, an X factor that few possess.
Luckily for audiences, Plattenbau’s Crime/Scène, in this remixed guise courtesy of Data Animal, sounds like music made by people who live with the shades pulled down. This is music that typically accompanies scenes depicting murderers in thrillers. It’s music that is sexy yet impolite. Hard to fake these elements, so we should be thankful when we receive them in an unadulterated form.
Autos Jaquet – Give Me the Keys
Genre: Lo-fi Rock, Indie Rock, Alternative Rock
Similar artists: The Strokes, Queens of the Stone Age, Nirvana
It’s interesting that the term alternative is often used to describe so many bands that sound identically like other, more famous, better bands. What’s alternative about copying other groups or striving desperately to integrate yourself into the musical mainstream by chasing a trend?
These imitators have become so good, in fact, that it’s hard to call them out. If it sounds good, it can be sold to a large audience, after all. All of this means that the bands that go through the effort of experimenting with these sounds and trends enough to create their own sound and give life to their own vision are the ones that really deserve our praise.
Autos Jaquet’s Give Me The Keys is a song that certainly, owes a good deal of debt to alt-rock bands that you may have heard but is also wholly personal and confidently performed. It’s the kind of music that seems to have been designed with the goal of one day being represented by an impressive, expensive music video. It’s familiar alt-rock with some unpredictable twists that musicians can find only when they strive to become artists.
