Hanemoon – Why Don’t You Walk Away
Similar artists: The Boys With The Perpetual Nervousness, Guided By Voices, Teenage Fanclub, The Lemonheads, Ducks Ltd.
Genre: Jangle Pop, Indie Rock
There are now a few university courses on how to write and play rock music. Boy, that must be an easy subject to pass. You’d imagine that after the first few 2-3 lessons, the rest of the semester can just be spent drinking black cofee and listening to music on your headphones. At least, that’s what most of the people being studied in those classes did, when they weren’t pouring something harder into their glass.
Nah, understanding how to write rock songs is easy. It usually takes a few chords played in 4/4. But writing gloriously beautiful ones, something that happens once in a while, is a magic trick, a blessing, or an unexplainable trick of chance. The ones who eventually do it, those like the folks in Hanemoon, remember how they felt that magic entering their lives.
The great power-pop bands, especially, seem to have gained access to this wonderful world. Most power-pop bands only have a few truly great songs. It’s a matter of getting all of the elements in perfect balance. The guitars have to have a real warmth to them, the melodies have to enchant the listener, and the rhythm section has to play a groove that sounds like it could go on together. They don’t teach that in class. Despite this, Hanemoon’s “Why Don’t You Walk Away” has got all of those elements.
Lala Salama – Aurinko sulattaa mun pään
Similar artists: Wet Leg, Wolf Alice, Alvvays, Soccer Mommy, Snail Mail
Genre: Shoegaze, Indie Rock
Many music listeners are voluntarily stuck with whatever kind of commercial pop music that the country of their birth produces. That’s not a bad thing in itself, but how can it be wholly satisfying? Sure, your neighbours will always share the same kind of musical taste as you. But listening only to your native pop music is a lot like buying groceries from the same cornerstore your entire life.
Sure, it’s enough to keep you going. But think about all of the tasty treats that you might be missing out on? Think of how you’ll look when you go out into the world and somebody mentions some of those tasty snacks and you have no idea about it. That’s what foreign pop music can be like. And, when the foreign pop songs also happen to be really good, it’s a lot like entering into another world.
Except for a small group of Nordic people, Finnish is as foreign as it gets. Only the Hungarians have any hope of choosing it as a second language. But that works in Lala Salama’s “Aurinko sulattaa mun pään” favor. This is a supremely well-crafted pop tune that seems to have arrived out of a strange, foreign world. It’s hard to know if to focus on the great chorus first, or just how alien the vocals sound. Either way, for my money, Finland could focus more on excellent indie-pop like this and less on military spending and atrocious operatic power-metal.
