
Fair Weather Son – 38 Years
Similar artists: Wilco, Ben Kweller, Elvis Costello, Paul McCartney
Genre: Americana, Alt-Country, Indie Pop
Artists, just like politicians, can get away with a lot by pretending to be something other than what they truly are. Take, for example, your typical jazz guitarist. A solo played by one of them might confuse or cause a regular listener to lose interest. Ask them why that is, and they’ll just tell you that the audience is unfamiliar with the complexities of Phrygian mode.
It’s always the audience’s fault. That’s quite convenient. Pablo Picasso and Joan Miro started out by painting houses and portraits. They played it straight. It wasn’t until they started making art that it couldn’t be explained that they became successful.
The point of this all is that it’s hard to play the right notes, the ones that make everyone feel good. It’s hard to sing or paint them too. Fair Weather Son’s “38 Years” owes its tremendous gift to picking the right melodies from fellas like Paul McCartney and Elvis Costello. And it owes its melancholy, as well as the clever choices, to the author. Is he singing just the right notes? Yes, he is.
Sydney Sleadd & The Swarm – That Fire I Touched
Similar artists: Alabama Shakes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Sarah Shook & the Disarmers, Hole, Brandi Carlile
Genre: Americana, Surf Rock, Indie Rock
Nearly every musician wants the bread to go out and buy expensive instruments, fancy gear, and insurance. It’s one of the reasons why legacy guitar companies, for example, get to stay in business. And, while for the look they help shape up, those are mighty nice accessories, those guitars and drums are worthless until the right person lays their paws on them.
Singing rock or pop music functions in much the same way. Of course, your karaoke television shows have greatly increased the popularity of singing lessons. Sure, everybody wants to sing in key and reach the kind of high notes that only Whitney Houston and stray dogs could appreciate. But it’s the human touch that makes listening to those kinds of singers worthwhile.
Sydney Sleadd & The Swarm’s “That Fire I Touched” is a tune that benefits from an extremely confident and attention-grabbing vocal performance. There are no fireworks raised to the sky in this one. No, what you get is just a voice that has that “rock tone” quality. Meanwhile, the band sounds like a group of late 19th Century cowboys who have formed a tribe and are singing under an open sky. It’s all pretty wild, especially with that kind of singing behind it.