Jaewon – Carbon Dating
It’s a story as old as time, or, certainly, as old as the 1950s. It’s simple, and the characters are nearly always the same. There’s the talented songwriter and potential rockstar eager to fall in love, and then there’s the source of the affection who’s just waiting to brag about their beauty and many other qualities in the form of a pop song.
What happens then when the pop song ends? Well, just as in other aspects of real life, various unpleasant things can befall the previously happy couple. Will you get to hear those stories in song as well? Usually, you will not. Jaewon, however, takes a stab at tradition with “Carbon Dating.”
The sound is made to resemble 2010s indie rock by way of 50’s pop ballads. The melodies are glued in place tightly, and the production creates a shimmering, bittersweet song. This is a tune about falling madly in love and then desperately, and aggressively, out of love with someone. It’s the rise, the fall and the boredom of knowing the truth about someone all in a short pop song.
Puerto – Quit Dreaming
If the U.S. has truly given the world anything important, it’s rock n’ roll and happy endings to mass-produced films. Once upon a time, locating cheerful American entertainment was as easy as picking sand pebbles off the beach.
But the times they have a-changed and, nowadays, it seems that every song, movie or news report coming out of the U.S. feels pessimistic, hopeless, defeatist. It’s arrived so suddenly and in such a huge number that it kind of makes you yearn for some smiling faces and cheerful tunes all over again. If that’s what you’re aiming for, Puerto is happy to play along, although some twists are guaranteed.
“Quit Dreaming” is a song pushed forward by brilliant, enthusiastic and bright surf-rock guitars. The melodies are cheerful, too. You can almost hear the seagulls wail in the background. But this isn’t just a song about how good things are. It’s a song about people telling you to stop dreaming, to join the angry protesters. But what good’s a protest without any hope? Puerto seems to be trying to remind us of that here.
