Ava Renn – See What I’ve Seen
Pop stars don’t just get onto late-night television without a bit of training. It’s no different from royalty, or the kids expected to one day win Wimbledon. All of them are taught by someone older than them how they should behave and, especially, what they shouldn’t say.
It all makes the pop charts remarkably uneventful and, with the exception of a few rap songs, incredibly polite. One gets the suggestion that a chance meeting with any famous pop star would include a short conversation about the weather and the appropriate wardrobe for it, but little else.
And, while we’ve learned to get by with these crumbs of personality, oh, what a dull time to live through. What about pop stars being themselves? What about pop stars using their creativity and platform to talk about the things that shaped them, regardless of how dark some of that subject matter might be?
Ava Renn sounds like Glenn Danzig and presents herself very much like a modern pop star. But the deep vocal tone and clever alt-rock dynamics of “See What I’ve Seen” are here to accompany atypical, distressing confessions. There’s something sinister in these stories, but at least they’re likely the truth. Renn, in this way, makes listeners want to share a deeper connection and, in this way, allows fans to shed some of the weight that might be on their shoulders.
Bad Tide – Pull Over, I’m Ready
Balanced, attentive, and well-adjusted people make for great business partners, spouses and friends. We should all be lucky to find some of those folks to be part of our lives. We should all be working to find more of them at any stage in our lives.
But these people make for terrible rock musicians. They dress weird, have nothing to write about and, more often than not, try to reduce music to a series of formulas. They try to understand music rather than create it.
Bad Tide is a band, on the other hand, that embraces madness and fun. These are two elements that spell disaster in nearly any other walks of life, except for entertainment. Who wants to listen to a geography teacher talk about their commute to work?
“Pull Over, I’m Ready” is a danceable little rock number about mental illness and harm done to oneself. It’s not exactly the subject matter that would fit a holiday card. But in sound and in spirit, the song, which brings to mind bands like FIDLAR, is the right mix of craziness and fun.
