Playing Dead – Take Me Back
Genre: Pop Punk, Indie Rock, Alternative Rock
Similar artists: Weezer
Yes, yes, you only have one chance to make a first impression. But that’s just as true for music bands, and they know it. Preferably, they’d like to make a strong first impression on you, the public. Or, at the very least, they’d hope to make any impression at all. This is, after all, a heavily overflowing market where artists battle for the attention of listeners.
If you are lucky, some of your first impressions of music that you’d end up loving will be profound ones. Perhaps, if you’ll end up making music yourself, you end up using them as the basis on which to build your oeuvre. This would just make sense.
Weezer is one of those bands that made a deep impact on the psyche of many listeners. It has spurred imitators, and powerful debates online over the validity of some of their recordings over others. While not a Weezerhead, I, too, can understand this. I remember seeing one of their videos on television as a kid and being amazed by their sound. Unfortunately, not having caught their name, it would take years before I could hear them again and confirm that my own affection had been justified.
Playing Dead’s Take Me Back feels a great affection for Weezer and for their first albums. In fact, if you were to ask someone belonging to the Rivers Cuomo fandom, they’d probably tell you that the band is doing the Lord’s work by working within the confines of Weezer’s best sound. It works, though, with the humorous lyrics flowing smoothly and the hooks landing like sugar-coated grunge. Hero worship doesn’t really exist when you’re making your own music, especially one that sounds as good as this.
Flynn Gurry – TopDog
Genre: Blues, Pop Rock, Indie Rock
A look at reality television shows about aspiring pop stars reveals that there are a lot of things that impresarios consider when developing the potential of their representatives. Singing is one of them. Not the top priority, though. This feels rather counterintuitive, considering that most of these people earn their living by holding a microphone in front of their faces.
Pop music doesn’t quite treasure emotional, technical singing as it used to do. Worry not, though. As in all areas of the arts, there are those who long for the virtues of pop music’s glory days. Many of these are young folks who experienced the glory of truly great singers through the magic of the internet or their parent’s record collections. Some have put in the time to develop their own voices.
Flynn Gurry’s TopDog is a playful, blues-influenced indie-pop number that showcases the singer’s abilities. It’s a rich, breathy tone that fans of old-time soul singers will appreciate. It’s also a sound that fans of Paolo Nutini, a man known to trod similar fields, will appreciate. While this is undeniably fun, it will be fascinating to see what Flynn Gurry does going forward now that he has acquired skills denied by fate or lack of hard work to others.
