Dylan Fox – Got a Taste For It
There’s going to be a lot of music made during your lifetime that you’re going to hate, and a fair deal of it that you’re not going to understand. But, while I don’t go on to suggest that you need to appreciate every single song ever created, I do hope that you’re going to be one of those people who find reasons to enjoy the songs that they were initially suspicious about.
Van Halen’s guitar will end up sampled and distorted beyond recognition. The John Bonham kit may never be assembled again. And those pop-punk hooks, if someone like Dylan Fox gets his way, will be chopped up, processed and used to accompany lyrics about growing up in a world that’s ever more confusing. Music changes, and whenever it does, it makes little sense.
Dylan Fox’s “Got a Taste For It” is messy, ultra-produced lo-fi pop-punk. What makes the song very interesting, I think, beyond the revealing lyrics, is how the artist takes a sound that’s found a lot of internet traction recently, strips it to its core and reassembles it in a bizarre, unique way. Effects are layered onto the vocals, the groove is nearly erased, and the lyrics come in and out of the track like some mid-afternoon dream. It’s daring, and you might not understand it at first. But, maybe, that’s the whole point.
Certain Things – Holiday
There’s always something up the road somewhere. Or, at least, we all need to convince ourselves that there is. The alternative is simply to accept that things will stay the way that they are forever, that we’ll just do the same kind of work until we die, listen to the same songs, and never meet anybody new.
Rock’ n’ roll, at its finest, is the soundtrack to that hopeful illusion. It’s a sound that accompanies our dreams, plans for the future, and the occasional rebellious outburst where you quit your job, buy a camper and try to live off the grid.
For all of the people still dreaming of an escape to warm, welcoming places, even in these winter months, the music of new power-pop kids on the block, Certain Things, may just be what is needed.
What do these musicians even know about great escapes? Well, for one thing, the band comes from Sweden’s Gothenburg. Without hopes for a better day, you simply don’t make it alive out of the Nordic winter. Besides, their ability to translate big dreams into large, sun-drenched, hook-filled sound is undeniable. There must be something better up the road, and we’ve got a soundtrack for our trip up there.
