Desert Weather – 1992
All you really need to get through life is a good story and a nice way of saying it. The Strokes really got people’s heads messed up. I don’t think there’s any other band that has created more followers than these New Yorkers.
At the time of the release of their debut, Is this it, The Strokes made it feel like they’d chosen the mission to save garage-rock and were doing this in an effortless way, like Lou Reed throwing songs into a hat for the Velvet Underground’s Loaded.
The truth was far different. Mr. Casablancas and co, brilliant as they’ve always been, had the help of an army of people armed with stacks of cash who were determined to make them into the commercially viable Jonathan Fire*Eater.
Desert Weather is enamored with the same sound and aesthetic. They, too, make it look effortless, although such cool must have required a good deal of work. 1992 is a punchy rock single, such neither in the 90s nor in 2001. It benefits from the gloss of modern production and the eternal NYC laissez-faire.
Badluv – Breathe
The very best singles are the ones that creep about you and go boo. This is, perhaps, the reason why the real hitmakers are only a handful and getting fewer every day. The very best of this rare breed understand the importance of writing songs that are surprising and immediately get the listener’s attention.
Badluv’s Breathe carries that kind of tension. It’s the story that reveals only enough for the plotline to keep flowing, but not too much that the public begins knowing the weaknesses, as we well as the strengths of the protagonists.
Musically Breathe is built of the bluesy, danceable bass riffs of groups like Death from Above or Royal Blood. The vocals punctuate the words like rain falling down on an old roof. This is rock made in an era where the groove is king, and everything else is a bonus.
