Christopher Jack – Watch You Cry
Pop songs don’t work the same way as any other of the serious art forms. When will people ever learn? When will record labels stop spending all their money on getting professional songwriters to write their hits, and will universities ban the programs meant to help people learn how to write songs?
While some people spend their whole time doing complicated maths in their head, trying to figure out just what note fits over a particular song progression, there are some for whom songs just pour out. Is it some supernatural gift? Is it the result of listening to the right records or of soaking in good vibes for long enough?
Christopher Jack’s “Watch You Cry” sounds like music made on the spot. It’s, however, so pretty-sounding, innocent and pleasing that, if you’re a songwriter and don’t have songs falling out of your mouth like this, you might as well give up. Jack writes about embracing your vulnerability in order to remind yourself that you’re human and, in doing that, possibly reveals the source of his talent.
Pushwagnergruppen – Café Tzara feat. Jesse Hughes
The Revolution, if there’s ever going to be another one that actually organically happens, will be televised and will be pretty loud, too. That’s because, I’m sad to tell you, few great changes have been affected by polite, mostly silent dreamers.
There’s a reason why it was mouthy John Lennon who was the leader of The Beatles and not the better musicians in the band. There’s a reason why great generals are people who can bark out orders the whole way through.
And, there’s a pretty good reason why Tristan Tzara became the face of surrealism despite, let’s be honest, a limited capacity for writing in a conventional form. Tzara’s methods were loud, abrasive and attractive.
It only makes sense that Norwegian psych-rock tormentors Pushwagnergruppen would feel such a pull toward Dadaism and Tzara. “Café Tzara” itself is attention-grabbing, loud, and quite attractive. And, since rock n’ roll’s failed us, it’s time to chop everything back down, put it together and see if it spells “Dada.”
