Billie And The Bell and ckdndcrckd Reviewed
Billie And The Bell – I’m a Woman
Yeah, you’re not imagining it. Products are getting smaller, services are getting worse, and prices are being hiked up. And while it’s tempting to blame it all on the changing fortunes of the global economy, secretly, we all know that there’s more to the story. The people making and selling all of these things just lack a bit of soul, don’t they?
These people are living right beside us, as well. We can see them. We’re able to study. And we should be stunned by their lack of humanity, their continuously growing greed.
But there are also things that can and will not change. There’s a natural world being governed by a different set of rules. In many ways, this is the world that Billie and the Bell talk about.
Fittingly, “I’m a Woman” benefits from the kind of arrangement and production values, typically, associated with a different, richer time for pop music. The singing is on par and delivers a soulful, confident performance. “I’m a Woman” is a poetic, dreamy song about the things that simply cannot be left behind, nor easily replaced with cheaper variations.
ckdndcrckd – evil (short version)
Professional songwriters have a routine that’s very similar to that of the common man working at the car factory. They get up early in the morning, get some caffeine in them, drive to the office and work until the late afternoon. When the day’s done, it is expected that they have completed a number of songs, or, at least, have some finished musical ideas to work with.
These professionals, one assumes, were started on this career route by passion and by an acknowledgement of their skill. However, keeping things pure is always hard, and made all the more difficult when you write so much material. Need the truth? You might need to hear it from novices with great enthusiasm and even more impressive instincts.
There are moments in ckdndcrckd’s “evil” when things sound like they might be unravelling quickly, when the next melody might get everything to crumble down. But those, as it turns out, are the most exciting bits. Those parts come together to turn “evil” into the strangest kind of pop song, one that is truthful, compelling and feels written on pure instinct.
